King Among the Dead - Lauren Gilley Page 0,88

eyes against it – and against the physical shove of power that blasted out from the center of the circle. It ripped across her like a wind, howling, tugging at her hair and clothes.

The room shrieked.

Her right hand came loose, and she lifted it up to shield her eyes, daring to crack them open as the initial flare of light dimmed. She had the sense that shock and fear blurred some of what she was seeing; twisted the impossible into something her brain could process.

A seething pool of crimson liquid, viscous, dark, and velvet as fresh blood, steamed at the circle’s center, spreading outward by the moment. A tide. A tide of blood. Daniel stood at its center, dagger in one hand, Caster’s throat in the other; the gangster had lost consciousness, but the blood still poured down his body, dripping down into the darker, thicker tide that seemed to boil up through the stones. It swept outward, covering the chalk sigils, swallowing them.

And from it…wraiths. That was all she could think to describe them as. Indistinct blurs of shadows; the impressions of dragging claws, and reaching arms, and gaping, fanged mouths. One flew straight at one of the guards, and he screamed, and fell, blood spraying across a column in an arc. Others flew up to the burning lamps, and she saw slitted, gleaming golden eyes, and fangs like knives…

They had to get out of here right now.

She shook her sleeve knife totally free, gripped its hilt, and reached to cut the rope that secured her other hand.

A tight grip on her wrist halted her. Warm breath in her ear. A voice, low and urgent: “Wait.” It wasn’t Beck.

She twisted around to look at him, whoever he was, fighting to get her wrist, and her knife, free. But he held fast, fingers strong, the way he pinched the nerves in her arm sure and effective; her hand went limp, and the knife clattered to the floor.

It was the death squad guard who’d taken Castor the dagger. The one who’d looked at her before.

Up close, his features were clean and handsome, his gaze dark, and sparking with barely suppressed energy. He was working very hard not to panic.

“If you’re going to kill me, make it quick,” she hissed.

“I’m not.” He shoved his face into hers, his breath hot and quick. “Listen to me. We need to leave now, but we need to close that portal.”

A darted glance revealed that the blood tide was expanding ever-outward. Castor was paper white, totally bled out. Daniel dropped him, and when he hit the floor, he was sucked beneath the crimson pool and out of sight.

“How do we do that?” she asked.

“We have to kill the conduit.”

“How? Did you see what he did to your friends?”

His jaw got even tighter. “They’re not my friends. I’m United States special forces. I’m a Rift Walker, and I’m working undercover.”

Rift Walkers. The elite conduit suppression unit that had sprung up in the midst of the Atmospheric Rift. Most of them former pilots or black ops guys; all of them half-crazy, more than a little suicidal. The best of the best. The worst of the worst.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, a kneejerk protest.

“You don’t have to, but it’s the truth.” He huffed out a sigh. “What’s your name?”

She didn’t tell him.

“Mine’s Lance du Lac. I’m a sergeant with the Gold Knights. Google it later, okay? But we need to go.”

Whoever the hell he was, if he could get them out, then she wouldn’t turn him away.

“Cut Beck loose,” she said, nodding toward him. “I’m okay.”

He stood and moved off.

The initial scream of the portal opening had died down to a low roar, one that rattled the floor, the columns – presumably the whole mansion. Rose heard shouts, and low, animal growls she thought must be coming from the wraiths. She sawed at the thick rope on her wrist, sweating, heart pounding, struggling to think. She could keep her cool in a hand-to-hand altercation, but this was pandemonium. This was an angel opening a gateway to hell, and what did anything mean anymore?

She heard a thump, a curse. Tugged her wrist loose, and scrambled to her feet.

Lance du Lac, if that was really his name, was sprawled back across the floor, clutching a bloodied nose, but already springing back to his feet.

Beck–

“Oh, God,” she breathed.

Beck was loose, and on his feet, and striding through the widening blood pool toward the conduit at its center.

“Beck, no!” She leaped to