Chapter Twenty-one
Shannon charged for the tree line. She’d promised to go home. Maybe she should she pop away to her alternate dimension.
No. It was a crapshoot she’d end up somewhere familiar and then be able to travel back to South Carolina. With her luck, she’d end up in another country when she returned.
She’d already made up her mind not to allow Merck to face whatever came with Owen Campbell and his necromancer fiancée alone. The druids would help. That meant getting across the creek or… She plucked her cell phone out of the pocket in her dress, halting next to an ancient oak tree in order to text Eli.
Something flew by her ear and hit the tree. Black and purples swirled in the air, heralding an evil aura nearby. Texting could wait.
She ran flat-out in the direction of the creek and then along its edge, searching for where it looked shallow. Her lungs burned, and her legs ached from stumbling on uneven ground and tripping over branches, but she didn’t stop. She batted sweat out of her eyes and off her forehead. The canopy overhead darkened as the forest became dense with old trees. And maybe not just from canopy but whatever approached from behind.
Something slammed into her back, thrusting her forward and to the ground. She landed hard. The world around her settled until there was only the sound of the creek, the narrows within sight about a hundred yards ahead. Over the creek’s roar came footsteps crunching leaves and sticks. She struggled to breathe through the pain ripping through her. Another knife? A gunshot? Something worse?
She got to her knees and stood slowly while rotating to face whatever was coming. Alone and trapped—bad odds. Time to pop away. She closed her eyes to concentrate, willing herself back to the Hawaiian beach. Nothing happened. She willed harder.
Whatever she’d been hit with must dull her magic or prevent interdimensional travel.
A medium-height man with stringy brown hair sauntered her way. His aura swirled with the worst colors possible. Dangerous evil.
“Perfect shot, wasn’t it? Hot damn. You’re coming with me.” He laughed out a low, raspy sound filled with arrogance. Power buzzed off him. Not godlike abilities, nor anything on the right side of nice, but something slithery.
She glanced up at the trees her mother always loved. Her mother’s words slid through her mind, “No harm will come to you in this forest. Trust the elements.”
“What do you want?” Her voice came out far calmer than expected, given the oh-shit going on in her mind.
“You. Shannon Randolph. I can’t believe I’m the one who found you. She’s going to be so pleased.” He rubbed his hands together.
She was terrified, but stillness, almost an acceptance of what needed to be done, settled over her. No more running. No more being afraid of what she was. The gods may deserve her fear, but a human with pumped-up evil skills? Not so much. A sharp buildup of energy surrounded her as if an electrical current flickered through the ground. The trees swayed when the wind picked up, heralding an approaching storm.
The guy glanced around. “What are you doing?”
The wind increased, twirling into a spinning wind funnel.
Shock, horror, and utter terror spread over her attacker’s face. He stood frozen as the tornado sped toward him. With a scream he ran. The miniature tornado increased speed and sucked up its target. The funnel disappeared upward into nothing, leaving behind a gentle breeze. Where the evil man had gone, Shannon didn’t know. She didn’t see him, but sensed him gone. As in forever gone.
She’d done that. Her. No one else. Her.
In the aftermath, the steady motion of running water of the creek calmed her.
There was also pain. She touched her back, her hand coming away with blood. No knife, but it might’ve fallen out. Or was it a bullet? The guy hadn’t been carrying a gun. Either way, she was hit.
She glanced toward the narrows of the creek and then back in the direction of Merck. Wiped out from the energy output required to build the tornado, she stumbled against a tree. She wasn’t going to make it across alone. Even if she did somehow cross the stream, she’d collapse on the opposite shore.
A body pushed her from behind into the tree. Her hands were gripped behind her and cuffed.
“No disappearing. Let’s take a walk.” The man leaning into her gripped the back of her neck, spun, and propelled her forward.
She butted her head backward, intent on his nose, but he ducked. He punched the side of her head. Dazed, she fell to her knees.
One glance up and she froze. The familiar blue gaze of the host of Extreme Survivor glared a command of compliance. Owen. Everything about the buff, blond man was angular and beautiful as one would expect for the host of several popular reality TV series.
“Behave, Shannon, or I’ll knock you out. Then we’ll have to cut the Trident out of you. No one here’s a surgeon. So your chances of surviving aren’t good.”
“You’re saying my chances of living are higher if I go with you willingly?”
He yanked her to her feet. “Can’t say it looks good for you either way.”
She wobbled, light-headed from the punch.
“Move.” Owen pushed her forward.
She stumbled, catching herself on a low-slung tree branch whose bark burned her palm. Her legs buckled.
He wrenched her back up by an arm, slung her body over a shoulder, and trudged up the hill back toward Merck’s house. Each jarring step shuttled pain through her body.
She focused on breathing to ignore the faintness in her brain. Breath in. Breath out. Slam. She whacked against Owen’s back and gasped. New breaths. Slam.
Owen dropped her to the ground in the backyard. She blinked through tripling vision, relieved to no longer be moving. A scan of the yard for Merck found him statue still on his dock as if he hadn’t moved from where he had told her to run. He didn’t glance her way or deviate from his fixation on the stunning woman with a kid-in-the-candy-store grin. The grin was directed at Shannon.
Anaïs. The necromancer.
“Good job, sweetheart,” Anaïs said to Owen. “Where’s Reevo?”
“Don’t know. He got a direct hit on her, though.”
“Reevo died in Savannah,” Merck said.
“Oh, did he die? Haven’t you heard of fake-death pills? Azalea-induced coma?” Anaïs shot Merck a condescending smile.
“He’s dead now,” Shannon said, but it came out slurred.
Anaïs tugged Shannon to her feet, gripped her neck, and pulled her head backward. “Does it hurt, Shannon? Do you feel the black poison’s spread as Deus Mortem destroys your body and works its way to your mind?”
“Go to hell.” She struggled against the necromancer’s abnormally strong grip.
Anaïs dragged her closer to Merck, throwing her onto the dock at Merck’s feet. “Get the Trident out of her and give it to me. If you don’t, she’ll die.”
“What’d they do to you?” Merck’s gaze darted down to meet hers. This was the Enforcer again. No warmth lit his eyes. Stone-cold scary. This was good. She needed him focused on business, and deadly.
“Shot me with something in the back. Burns.”
Merck stared silently at Anaïs.
Anaïs said, “Something you’re familiar with. I’m impressed you survived when those Pleiades goddesses went down so easily. Seems I’ll have to come up with something special for you next time. Nothing of this world can counteract the poison, though. But I can. Give me the Trident and I’ll give you the antidote.”
Merck knelt and rolled Shannon over to view her back.
“I’m sorry. I ran toward the creek. I swear.” Shannon found the confidence in his gaze calming.
“This isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have sent you away when I knew they were here. The mistake is on me.” Merck addressed Anaïs. “What assurance do I have you’ll give me the antidote should I give you what you want?”
Anaïs gestured to Owen, who removed a syringe from an abandoned backpack Shannon hadn’t noticed in the backyard. Anaïs pointed at the first piling still far enough away from Merck to keep Owen out of danger. Owen set the syringe on the piling. His aura swirled with the colors of deceit.
Merck gazed at the syringe filled with clear fluid.
Shannon whispered, “I don’t think whatever’s in that will work.”
***
The syringe had to be bogus. Highly unlikely she could’ve stolen both Deus Mortem and its antidote from Circe. He saw only one way out of this.
Merck’s addressed Owen. “How do I know the syringe isn’t filled with more poison or just ordinary saline?”
Owen didn’t answer. His gaze remained fixated on Anaïs in an oddly robotic way.
Anaïs shrugged. “You’ve got to believe in something.”
“Why are you with her, Owen?” Merck asked. “You might hang out with some magical assholes from time to time, but you’re not like her.”
Owen acted as if he hadn’t heard him as he stared moon-eyed at Anaïs.
Anaïs reached out with her talonlike, blue-painted nails and touched Owen’s square jaw. “We’re in love.”
“Uh-huh,” Merck grumbled sarcastically. “More like spellbound or bewitched. Why did you kill the Pleiades goddesses?”
Anaïs smiled broadly. “Their souls have made me invincible. I can wield the power of the Trident now.”
“Why those particular goddesses?”
“Rick wanted them dead. I needed their power. Win win for all of us, even if Rick got killed. Win win for me, I guess.” She grinned. “Get it out of her.”
Shannon released an almost silent moan. The small noise tore through him, killed him. “All right. I do believe in something.”
Shannon whispered, “Don’t. They can’t have it.”
“Sometimes, you’ve got to believe. I’m going to see if I can get the Trident from you. Totally not sure on how to do this. You think you can lie on your back, or does it hurt too much?”
“Will side work?” She rolled to her side, facing him.
He yanked his knife off his belt and cut a hole in her dress over the scarred area.
“Are you going to cut it out of me?” Horror passed over her face.
“No.”
“Okay. I trust you. I do.” Her eyes settled into a faith he hoped he’d deserve. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but he was going to try. He cut a small window in her dress and held his hand over the scarred area. Closing his eyes helped him sense the power lodged within her. He detected the ocean and all that was marine in its most organic and primal sense churning beneath her skin.
Come to me, he silently commanded. A strength he’d never before experienced fueled him with energy. His hands closed around something solid. He gasped as his body charged, not with discomfort, but with a vigor that was tempting and intoxicating. When he opened his eyes, he held the Trident. He almost dropped it out of shock. The golden symbol for rule of the ocean was in his hand. It didn’t burn him as he’d expected it would with anyone not Poseidon. It accepted him. It tempted him with a boundless power of rule.
It also wasn’t impressive for something considered to be so powerful. Three barbed tines on the end of a metal pole. The metal didn’t even look like real gold. The thing just looked like a boring fishing tool.
“You can’t give it to her,” Shannon said, breaking through his fixation on the weapon. “Please, give it back to him.”
“You’ll die,” he said softly.
“This isn’t about me. It’s about people who shouldn’t die for something they had nothing to do with. Worthy people. People I love.”
How he loved this woman.
“Give it to me!” Anaïs screamed. She charged toward the dock, but waves picked up as the ocean churned, casting over the dock both in front of and behind Merck and Shannon, hindering Anaïs’s trajectory.
“This is about a lot more than either of us or the necromancer.” He kissed the inside of Shannon’s hand. For years, he’d been fighting for free will. He’d fought for a choice in his future. Now he realized he’d never had a choice.
Fuck free will. He’d believe in destiny. His destiny was about this brave woman who’d die for those she loved. It was about protecting her bloodline and that of the other Pleiades descendants. No matter how much this might hurt in the short-term, fully expecting to lose her to death or be cast out of this life when judged, love had to endure. Maybe in another lifetime he’d find her. Maybe in his next life as the Enforcer he’d remember her. Love was infinite. It could sustain. He would remember. “There’s only one way for you to live.”
He stood and held the Trident as if he meant to toss it to Anaïs. Shannon gasped. He gazed down and winked at her. With a pivot, he cast the Trident toward the water. His eldest dolphin friend jumped from the water and caught it.
“Return it,” he ordered the dolphin. Merck knelt beside Shannon and reached one hand toward the water, praying it could heal her. The water ran up his arm and onto her, around her lesions. Nothing. The darkness was still on her skin. He tried again.
“I can’t do it, baby. I can’t heal this poison. It’s powerful enough to kill a god. She used it to kill all seven of the Pleiades goddesses.” Even he heard the panic in his tone.
“Thank you. As you said, this isn’t about us.”
He smoothed hair away from her face and kissed her briefly.
With a frown, her eyes moved away from his to stare at the churning sea. “What’s happening?”
The sky darkened and the water pounded the dock, angry or perhaps excited. He couldn’t read the ocean’s mood, which was rare. Overhead, dark clouds gathered. Slivers of light peeked around the clouds, glittering furiously. Water sloshed against the dock, growing in height with each new wave. From the water rose a gigantic man with long white hair, grasping the Trident. Vicious blue eyes skimmed over Merck and Shannon.
Poseidon.
All Merck remembered from years of research into his mysterious father were accounts of him being unpredictable and easily pissed.
Merck dropped to his knees, kneeling with head bowed, but made sure to remain protectively in front of Shannon. Heavy footsteps approached. His heart thundered against his ribs as visions of various ways he could die passed through his brain. Doubt hit him. Maybe he shouldn’t have given the Trident back.
“Who attempted to steal my Trident?” a thunderous voice demanded.
Merck glanced up.
Poseidon pointed to Anaïs, who stood frozen at the dock’s entrance. Far behind her Owen shook his head feeling as if he was coming out of a daze or dream. He glanced around, shocked, and slowly backed away.
“You deem yourself more worthy than I to rule my seas? You see yourself as jury and executioner to destroy several of the sea nymphs?” Poseidon twirled the Trident and scrutinized her.
The necromancer chanted and cast a blast of energy toward Poseidon.
The energy hit him, causing him to back up one step. “You attack me? For the Trident’s power?”
“I have absorbed the souls of the seven goddesses. I am strong enough to wield it’s power.”
He pointed the Trident at her. “Then feel it. Feel the power you so long to have.”
Anaïs screamed as her body lit with light. At first, she laughed with glee, but then she screamed in pain.
“May it consume your tainted soul and return those souls you stole to their owners.” Poseidon’s expression didn’t alter even when Anaïs’s body fractured with light and combusted into nothing. He pointed at Owen. “You are free of her enthrallment descendant of Orion, but you should run or I will destroy you as well.”
Owen fled.
In the silence that followed, Merck lowered his gaze again. “I’m prepared to die, but please let Shannon live. Clear this poison from her. She deserved none of this.”
A large hand landed on his shoulder. Solid. Heavy. Then a painful squeeze. A good squeeze or a you’re-going-to-die squeeze? Shit, he didn’t know.
He peeked up, but tried to remain deferential. Not easy when the eerie blue of Poseidon’s eyes penetrated straight to his soul.
“You do not need me for this request, my son.” Poseidon’s voice thundered inside his skull, as powerful as Athena’s, but a lower resonance.
“I tried. Nothing happened when I asked the ocean to help.”
“You have been judged.”
“Take me, then. Please. Not her. Heal her.”
Danny strolled onto the dock. He knelt before Poseidon. “My time as watcher has ended. Anything more you need from me?”
“Danny?” A loud what the hell pinged around in Merck’s brain. Danny here didn’t make sense. What did he mean by being a watcher? Merck shot to a stand. “Why are you here?”
“I’m sorry, Merck. My job was to watch and provide unbiased information needed for your judgment.”
“I trusted you. And you spied against me? To him?”
“You still can trust me, man. Sorry about the spying. But when a god asks you to do something, it’s not like you can say no.” He shrugged.
“You can if it involves throwing a friend under the bus.”
Poseidon swept his arm to silence them. “Judgment is done.”
Merck swallowed hard against panic. Sweat slid between his shoulders. He glanced down at Shannon, who’d curled her body into a C and clutched her middle. He didn’t want her to die. Not like this.
Shannon struggled to unbend her body. She reached out and grabbed Merck’s hand. He clasped her smaller hand in his.
“What does that mean?” Merck demanded.
Poseidon’s angular face looked pinched. He waved a hand. “I’ve already explained.”
“You’ve explained nothing.” He bit back more demands when Poseidon cast him a deadly glower. Athena wants me to call you a dickhead. But he didn’t say it out loud.
“I heard that,” Poseidon thundered. For a split second, his lips tilted into a smile. His eyes creased out and softened. “Impertinent, just like she said you were. I like that.”
Now he’d get struck down.
“Bythos can deal with you and your questions.” Poseidon pivoted and disappeared into the ocean, which calmed almost immediately upon his departure. The old dolphin jumped out of the water into a back flip, followed by three other members of his pod, including the juvenile Merck had helped.
“What the fuck did he mean?” Merck yelled. “Danny, what’d you tell him or them or whoever the hell you reported to?”
Danny backed up a few steps with his hands in the air. “Whoa there. Had your back, man. Only good stuff to report. You worked hard, played hard, believed in good shit.”
“Then why is this happening?”
“I swear I only reported good things.” He made a cross sign over his chest. “Always said I’d be there for you and I meant it.”
Shannon’s eyes locked on the sky and darkened. Death was coming, but not for him…for Shannon.
He shook her. “You stay with me…stay. You’re not going to die.”
“Oh, God. I’m not going to make it.”
“You hang on. Damn it.”
She whispered, “I love…”
“No!”