The Kingmakers(27)

Come on, Gareth, Adele entreated mutely. Give me a sign. Soon she would have no choice but to activate the rift; her body would be unable to dampen the energies piling inside. She could feel the rift beckoning her, luring her closer. She followed the pulsing line on the floor, struggling to keep her breath even and silent so as not to attract attention. The arched ceiling stretched down the corridor like a multitude of mirror images. She didn’t know exactly where it led, but it was where the line was taking her, deeper into the bowels of the Bastille.

With each step, she felt as if she were wading through a wild river’s cascade. The powers swirled around her legs and chest, pushing her toward the rift. It forced her to lean back or she would stumble forward with the pull of it. Only with great concentration was she able to calm the flow and make the energy slip more peacefully around her. The patterns in the earth shimmered, just as she was shimmering, in a beautiful, hypnotic rhythm.

Something jarred inside, and she knew her last step had placed her over the rift. It was like stepping over an endless expanse. Her stomach dropped. She could see nothing under her but a swirling vortex of energy. Tendrils of pulsating light reached greedily for her. Adele should have been terrified, but she only wanted to sink into the expanse and explore, to surrender herself in the grip of something warm and powerful.

Mamoru’s fervent lessons shouted in her ears. The energies of the earth were terrible things. She could be lost within them.

Her mind snapped back to the present. The power bristled and crackled, sending shocks along her skin. The pain in her body swelled to a crescendo.

“Adele?”

The barely whispered word cut through the storm of sight, scent, and sensation. She opened her eyes. She was standing slumped against a wall inside a large vaulted chamber. Her head lifted, and she saw Gareth just a few feet away, his eyes scanning the corridor, his nostrils flared as he tried to follow her scent.

She pushed off the stone and her hand reached out, but then stopped as she saw the energies swirling like silver smoke around her fingers.

Gareth flinched and then, realizing what he was feeling, jerked toward her, finally focusing on a faint shimmer. “Are you there?”

“Go now!” Her voice sounded deeper, as if resonating. Other vampires in the corridor turned toward the empty space she occupied. They stiffened, sensing the discomfort of the pulsing rift.

Gareth didn’t hesitate, but sprinted out into the nearest passageway, his form a distant blur in seconds. A number of the other vampires started backing away as the energy boiled inside her. Some stood their ground, sensing the danger but also sensing something else that perhaps they could attack.

Adele was counting now, giving Gareth time to get far enough away. She was also watching the approaching vampires as they stalked through the heat searching for the source, hissing and snarling.

“What is that?” one shouted.

“There’s someone here,” another warned.

“Where?”

Adele reached out an arm, and the tendrils coiling around her arched out and encircled the vampires. The vampires screamed an unholy sound as they burned, their flesh consumed by the searing touch of Adele’s focus. The pitch-black passageway glowed as the power within her intensified, sensing release was near. Suddenly chaos reigned as vampires panicked like a swarm of bats fleeing. The grey air outside the fort no doubt darkened with them.

Adele had no choice. With a hard exhale of relief, she released the energy. To her there was no sound, just sensations of white-and-saffron light and overwhelming heat. The rift and the connecting lines flared like lit fuses racing through the Bastille and down the mountain into the city of Grenoble.

The ground beneath her opened its eye and stared at the creatures above it. In its sight, flesh melted, hair burned. Screams echoed everywhere, but Adele heard none of it. Instead she heard and felt the sounds of the Earth, grinding plates, rustling wind, and the rush of heat. The world went whiter than the snow outside and blinded her. A desperate roar filled her ears. She was determined to stay upright, though she had no idea which direction that entailed.

The next thing she knew, someone was grabbing her. Her eyes snapped open as arms wrapped around her. “It’s all right.” The voice was gravelly and deep, unrecognizable to her ears. She struggled to sit up and turn around.

“Just rest.” General Anhalt held her, his forehead bound in a bloody rag.

“Gareth!”

“He’s fine,” Anhalt assured her. “He just can’t come near you yet.”

Adele sank back into Anhalt’s embrace and offered him a tired smile as she reached her hand to touch his temple. Her eyes traveled up and around to plaster walls and a wooden beam ceiling. Not a dirt tunnel in the ground. Not the hard stone walls of the Bastille. “Where am I?”