Burning Alive

She could do that.



“Keep a close eye behind you, too.”



Some of the thrill wore off with those words, reminding her that they weren’t out of the woods yet.



Drake turned to Thomas. “On your go.”



Thomas straightened his face shield and gripped his heavy blade with both hands. “Go.”



Both men moved into the opening on silent feet, crossing the distance quickly. Thomas stayed close to Drake, keeping a watchful eye on the two mosquito-like creatures they’d called haest. Drake moved directly toward the sword.



Helen looked over her shoulder every three seconds, but nothing was there.



Drake saw the blackened tip of the sword and nudged it with the toe of his boot. The mound exploded in a flurry of movement as spiny rat things scurried out in every direction.



The haest heard the sound and turned their fanged heads around toward the noise.



Thomas smiled and stepped forward, squaring his heavy shoulders for attack.



Drake bent down to pick up the sword.



Something resembling a puddle of tar dropped from the ceiling, engulfing the mound of garbage and the sword inside it. Drake hissed and jerked his hand back. Helen could feel her own hand burning where the tar had touched him.



“Kajmelas!” Drake shouted the warning, but it was too late. A second tar-thing dropped from above and slithered over the ground toward Helen.



Helen stared at it, trying to figure out what to do. Her legs felt heavy and her brain spat out terrified commands to flee, but she’d been hearing those all night and tried to fight them. She wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to do that now, too. The time it took her to figure it out made the decision moot.



A thick, oily tentacle shot toward her.



She jumped back. Both men charged it, but Thomas was closer to her than Drake. He lunged toward her on powerful legs and pushed Helen back. She stumbled and landed on her butt.



The thing hit Thomas instead of her. It wrapped a slimy tentacle around his legs. Thomas screamed in pain and slashed at the thing with his sword. It did no good. His blade sliced right through it, only to have the cut close up as if it had never been there.



The black stuff oozed up Thomas’s body, covering him inch by inch. Thomas was still screaming in ragged cries of agony.



Helen felt Drake’s panic—something she’d never felt from him before. It set off the beginnings of her own panic and she had to struggle to remain coherent.



Drake took a step toward Thomas and the sludge thing shot a tentacle out toward his legs. The two mosquito monsters made a series of excited clicking sounds and skittered over the dirt floor on skinny insect legs.



Drake was caught between them.



Helen tried to scream at him to run, but her lungs had seized up and all that came out was a thready squeak.



Drake held his position until the last second and jumped out of the way. The mosquito monsters slammed into the sludge thing, which promptly began eating them. They made frantic clicking noises and struggled to get free of the sticky beast, but they were no match for the slow advance of the oily mound.



Drake spared one quick glance to see that his plan had worked and rushed to Thomas’s side.



Helen didn’t know what to do or how to help. Her mind raced for a way to save Thomas, but she could think of none.



Helen felt that wavering tendril of power floating between them and tentatively pulled at it. Energy flooded her, but she had no idea what to do.



The second mound of sludge had absorbed the two mosquito monsters, leaving behind only the spindly insectoid legs. Now it was looking for a new target.



Drake was closest and the thing headed right for him in a flowing mound of slime.



She had to stop it. She had no clue what she was doing, but she couldn’t just stand there. She had to do something.



She shouted a warning in her mind, but if Drake heard her, he didn’t respond. He was too busy pounding at the thing eating Thomas.



Helen pulled more power from Drake. Too much. She had to concentrate to keep herself from doubling over in pain. The energy flowed into her in an agonizing rush. It stretched her insides until she thought her ribs would explode out of her chest. Her body heated until her eyes and mouth went dry. It was hard to think with all that pain. Hard to breathe. She had to get rid of the power before it killed her.



She sent up a quick prayer that she was doing this right and focused on the sludge thing headed for Drake. She pushed the energy out of her and built an invisible wall around it. She made the air thicken, forced the molecules tighter together until a semitransparent cylinder surrounded the thing.



Helen didn’t know what would happen if she relaxed, so she held her focus, drawing more power from Drake to keep the barrier in place.



She was breathing hard and her vision grayed around the edges. The luceria buzzed and heated until she was sure blisters would form under the band.



She couldn’t see Drake any longer, but she could feel his desperation to save Thomas.



Chapter 13



Drake’s sword did no good against the kajmela, so he dropped it and picked up a heavy stick from the ground. Thomas’s screams rose an octave until they were shrill and sickening. He wasn’t going to last much longer.



Thomas had turned his sword around, holding it by the blade and using the hilt in an effort to pound the thing away from him. His hands were slick with his own blood where the sword had sliced through his palms. As strong as Thomas’s arms were, the hilt was of little use against the thing eating him whole.



They needed fire. It was the only thing that could kill a kajmela, and Helen was the only one who could make it.



He felt Helen tugging at his power, but still there was no fire. Not even a spark.



Drake swung the stick at the kajmela and a big blob of sludge disconnected from the mass and hit the far wall. He hit it again and again, tearing chunks of the kajmela off, but there were always more to fill in the holes.



They needed fire, damn it. Why wasn’t Helen using his power to give them fire?



Because she had no clue that’s what she was supposed to do. He suddenly remembered she’d never been taught. He only hoped there was enough time left to teach her now.



Thomas was covered up to his chest now and the thing had constricted around him until he could no longer pull in enough breath to scream. The acidic Synestryn dissolved flesh wherever it touched, causing Thomas to bleed heavily everywhere kajmela and human skin met.



Drake kept batting away, frantic to save his friend even though he knew it was futile.



Thomas’s struggles ceased and Drake could see that Thomas had accepted his fate. He was going to die.



While he continued battling the kajmela, Drake formed a mental image of what he wanted Helen to do and sent it through their already crowded link. He could feel her revulsion at the idea, so he pushed harder—demanded that she listen to him.



“Take my sword,” he said to Drake. “I don’t want it to hurt anyone.” His voice was ragged from screaming and shallow from lack of breath.



The kajmela inched higher until it was nearly at Thomas’s throat. Thomas gritted his teeth against the pain and tossed his bloody sword to Drake. Drake let it clang to the ground. Once Drake took Thomas’s sword, his friend would give up. He’d be as good as dead.



Drake beat the kajmela, taking out all his fury on the thing. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end for Thomas. He was supposed to live. He was supposed to find his own Theronai. He was supposed to end his life peacefully years from now when every last Synestryn was driven from the earth.



He wasn’t supposed to die suffering in a dark cave, knowing it was going to happen.



“Go, Drake,” he gasped.



“I won’t leave you.” Drake’s chest bellowed for air. Sweat covered his body. He pounded the kajmela mercilessly until nearly half of it was smeared over the rock wall.



“I’m dead either way. My lifemark is bare. Go. Take my sword.”



“No!” Drake let out an enraged bellow and beat at the kajmela. The stick broke off in his hands.



“Save . . . Helen.”



Helen. She was still siphoning off more power than was safe and still there was no fire. Finally, he figured out what she was doing with it. She was holding off the other kajmela so it wouldn’t kill him. She was protecting his back, but she wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer.



Drake knew what he had to do and hated every second of it. He looked Thomas straight in the eye, memorizing every pained line of his friend’s face. He picked up Thomas’s sword, making sure he saw Drake had it safe in his keeping. Thomas’s sword would never hurt anyone. “I love you, Thomas. You’ll never be forgotten.”



Thomas couldn’t speak. The kajmela had filled his mouth. A tear slid from Thomas’s bright blue eye before it, too, was consumed by oily black sludge.



When nothing of Thomas was left, Drake turned away, pushed aside the grinding pain of his grief, and focused on what he had to do. Get Kevin’s sword and get out of here while they still could.



He grabbed his sword from the ground, shoved it in the scabbard, and went to Helen’s side. She was breathing hard and shaking. Her skin had a sickly gray cast to it that scared the hell out of him.



“Release it now,” he told her. His voice was rough and strained with grief.



She didn’t respond. Drake settled his left hand at the nape of her neck, connecting the two parts of the luceria. “Let it go, Helen. You need to let it go.”



She shuddered and sagged against his side. The wall around the kajmela dissipated and the thing oozed toward them. It was bigger now. Faster. Somewhere inside that mass was Kevin’s sword. The only way to get it out was to burn the kajmela to ash.



Helen stood there too shocked to move. Her body was weak and trembling and if it hadn’t been for Drake’s support, she would have sunk to the ground.



Drake turned to her, his face a mask of tortured grief. “You need to call fire,” he told her.



Helen didn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of what was happening.



“You have to burn it off Kevin’s sword. Now, while there’s still time.”



Helen felt her necklace heat and saw a split-second image of what Drake wanted her to do. She saw herself standing in the tunnel, fire spewing from her fingertips. The tar thing heading toward them, bursting into flames.



Drake wanted her to make fire come out of her body? No freaking way. Drake had nearly died by fire. Her mother had died by fire. Her house had burned down three times. The diner caught fire while everyone was in it. She was going to burn alive in darkness much like this and Drake was going to watch it happen.



How could he ask that of her?



“We need Kevin’s sword.”



She felt Drake’s quiet desperation pounding at her. He was crushed under a mountain of grief and guilt, and somehow, recovering the sword was still at the top of his list of priorities.



The sludge thing oozed forward and melted into the one that had eaten Thomas. The two became one—a much bigger one. Drake pulled her back down the tunnel as the thing slowly advanced on them.



“Please try, Helen. We need that sword,” he said in an even voice.



Helen lifted her hand and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to do this, but she had no choice but to try. She sure as hell didn’t want to have to come back here later.