The Kingmakers(146)

And she was in Greyfriar's Kirk.





THE FIRES OF the Earth rose in front of Gareth's eyes as he plummeted toward Greyfriar's Kirk. The sheer weight of it pushed back against his body. His muscles strained to continue even though he knew the suffering it would bring. All he wanted was to sink to the ground and curl up into a ball, and let the weight and the heat finish him. Every agonizing second brought him closer to the eye of the maelstrom.

Through the haze of pain, he saw two figures in the trees below him. Adele was laid out on a crypt of stone next to the kirk. She was as still as any of the dead in the churchyard. A stone image of a skeleton with a book, frozen on the kirk's wall, looked down on her. Mamoru stood over her supine form. The traitor had found his student again. Crystals lay around her like candles for mourning, but Gareth knew they were for a much more deadly purpose.

He dove, but Mamoru sensed him and glanced up. The priest made an adjustment with the crystals, his lips moving ever so slightly. The Earth flinched, and Gareth screamed as a burst of silver fire erupted, sweeping up and over him. He slammed hard to the ground. The impact drove the air from his lungs. It felt as if a searing anvil sat upon his shoulders. The ground beneath him boiled, blistering his chest and face. The smell of his burnt flesh filled his nostrils.

He struggled to rise, even just to his hands and knees. In his fingers, he still clutched the talisman. A hoarse shout slipped from his lips at the effort. Mamoru ignored him, calmly continuing his ministrations.

Adele remained oblivious, lying deathly still on the stone. Her eyes were wide open, her face to the sky, but only the barest rise and fall of her chest indicated she was alive, bathed in a sheen of sweat. Tendrils of smoke slithered over her still form.

“Adele!” Gareth's voice came out as a desperate cry.

With each adjustment Mamoru made to the crystals around the empress, the heat increased tenfold and her breathing labored. Gareth crawled toward her. His hands crackled and burned, pale flesh transforming to black.

The ground around him was a violent thing to see. Torrents of silver magma pushed up from cracks in the surface. Tombs were shuddering as the smoke coiled around them. The stone skeletal faces on the headstones watched him in silent judgment, their hollow eyes cold and black. Shoving himself upright with one final effort, his shoulders hunched over against the pain, he dragged himself the last few feet. His gaze remained fixated on Adele.

He was mere paces away when Mamoru looked at him. The priest narrowed his eyes and aligned the final crystal. Gareth's world exploded. A wall of liquid heat rained down on him. He screamed as it engulfed him. He was going to die, but he would do so at Adele's side.



The eye of the Earth opened and pierced Adele with its stare. She was lost. The air around her formed intricate patterns, colors swirling like a cocoon, hot and constricting. They were carrying her someplace, as if she were trapped in a turbulent river. The water was sparkling silver, washing over her, although she never got wet.

Everything screamed, and she couldn't shut her ears to it. Such power could transform the world if only it was free, but she knew it wasn't right. Her chest constricted, again and again. Her heart convulsed and then beat once more, wildly, painfully. Her body flushed as if she were ill. Heat was building beneath her.

A different scream cut through the chaos. She jerked violently, and the kirkyard snapped back into focus. She recognized the anguished voice and tried to turn to see, but she couldn't will herself to move. She let her rage fill her, and her attempts to escape from the rift's hunger intensified. Finally her head flopped to the side and the kaleidoscope of energy faded from the corner of her vision. She saw two figures. One she recognized as Mamoru, his back toward her. Her Fahrenheit dagger was shoved into his silken sash. Then beyond him, she saw Gareth, his skin half burnt black. His body was shuddering and shimmering as if the colors were bleeding out of him.

Adele strained to sit up. Her fury welled up inside her. She managed to roll to her side. Her limbs were heavy, her head spinning and her body flushed nauseatingly with the power. The rift beneath her was wide open; its energies screaming through her, flooding into the lines of the Earth, spreading out into the distance.

Adele shoved herself upright and weaved precariously onto her feet. She took a palsied step toward where Mamoru stood over the figure of Gareth writhing in the grass.

“There is no pain too excruciating for you.” The samurai placed a foot on the vampire's chest. “If I could prolong your agony for my lifetime, for your lifetime, I would do it.”

Gareth reached feebly for Mamoru's leg, barely strong enough to tighten his fingers around the cloth of the samurai's robe.