The Pagan Stone Page 0,122

Main Street. Pressing bloody wrists together by the campfire. Cybil, casting that sultry look over her shoulder. Moving to him. Moving under him. Weeping for him.

Nearly over, he thought. Life flashing in front of my eyes. So fucking tired. Going numb. Going out. Nearly done. And the light, he mused, dizzy now. Tunnel of light. Fucking clich茅.

Cards on the table now. He felt-thought he felt-the bloodstone vibrate in his hand. As he reared back, it shot fire through his clutched fingers.

The light washed white, blinding him. In his mind, he saw a figure. The man closed his hands over his. Eyes, clear and gray, looked into his.

It is not death. My blood, her blood, our blood. Its end in the fire.

Their joined hands plunged the stone into the heart of the beast.

In the clearing, the explosion knocked Cybil off her feet. The rush of heat rolled over her, sent her tumbling like a pebble in an angry surf. The light blazed like the sun, dazzling her eyes before throwing everything into sharp relief. For a moment the woods, the stone, the sky were a single sheet of fire, and in the next stood utterly still, like the negative of a photograph.

At the edge of the clearing two figures shimmered-a man and a woman locked in a desperate embrace. In a fingersnap they were gone, and the world moved again.

A rush of wind, a last throaty call of flame, the smoke that crawled along the ground, then faded as that ground burgeoned up, swallowed it. When the wind died to a quiet breeze, the fire guttering out, she saw Gage lying motionless on that ruined earth.

She pushed up to run to him, dropping down to lay her trembling fingers at his throat. "I can't find a pulse!" So much blood. His face, his body looked as if he'd been torn to pieces.

"Come on, goddamn it." Cal knelt, gripped one of Gage's hands as Fox took the other. "Come back."

"CPR," Layla said, and Quinn was already straddling Gage, crossing her hands over his chest to pump.

Cybil started to tip his head back to begin mouth-to-mouth. And saw the Pagan Stone was still sheathed in fire, pure and white. There. She had seen him there.

"Get him on the stone. On the altar. Hurry, hurry."

Cal and Fox carried him-bloodied and lifeless-to lay him on the simmering white flames. "Blood and fire," Cybil repeated, kissing his hand, then his lips. "I had a dream-I got it wrong, that's all. All of you on the stone, like I'd killed you, and Gage coming out of the dark to kill me. Ego, that's all. Please, Gage, please. Just my ego. Not me, not about me. All of us around the stone, and Gage coming out of the dark after killing it. "Please come back. Please."

She pressed her lips to his again, willing him to breathe. Her tears fell on his face. "Death isn't the answer. Life's the answer."

She laid her lips on his again and his moved against hers.

"Gage! He's breathing. He's-"

"We've got him." Cal squeezed his hand on Gage's hand. "We've got you."

His eyes fluttered open, and met Cybil's. "I-I got lucky."

On a shudder, Cybil laid her head on his chest, listened to the beat of his heart. "We all did."

"Hey, Turner." With his grin huge, Fox leaned over so Gage could see his face. "You owe me a thousand dollars. Happy fucking birthday."

Epilogue

Epilogue

HE WOKE ALONE IN BED, WHICH HE FIGURED WAS a damn shame since he felt nearly normal again. The sun blasted through the windows. He'd probably been out for hours, Gage thought. And small wonder. Dying took a lot out of a man.

He couldn't remember much of the trip back. The entire trip had been one of those "one foot in front of the other" ordeals, and with several stints of that made with his arms slung around Fox's and Cal's shoulders. But he'd wanted to get the hell back-all of them had.

He'd been weak as a baby, that much he remembered. So weak even after they'd gotten back to the house that Cal and Fox had had to help him shower off the blood and dirt, and Christ only knew what he'd brought back from hell with him.

But it no longer hurt to breathe-a good sign. And when he sat up, nothing spun. When he got to his feet, the floor stayed steady and nothing inside him wept with pain. Taking a moment to be sure he remained upright, he glanced