The Pagan Stone Page 0,97
iced air choked with smoke as they fell, fought back. Something sliced across his chest like claws, ripping flesh, spilling more blood. His blood stained the ground, and sizzled.
Midnight. He heard himself think it. Nearly midnight. And smearing his hands over the wound, he reached for Cybil. With tears glistening in her eyes, she gripped his hand, reached for Cal.
In turn, one by one, they joined until their hands, their blood, their minds, their will joined as well. Until the six were one. The ground split, the fire ripped its way closer. And the mass of black took form. Once again, he looked into Cybil's eyes, and taking what he found there, he broke the chain.
Reaching into the flames, he pulled the burning stone out with his bare hand. Closing it into his fist, he leaped, alone, into the black.
Into the belly of the beast.
"Stop, stop, stop." Cybil knelt beside him on the bed, beating her hands on his chest. "Come back, come back. Oh God, Gage, come back."
Could he? Could anyone come back from that? That cold, that burn, that pain, that terror? When he opened his eyes, it rolled through him, all of it, to center like a swarm of wasps in his head.
"Your nose is bleeding," he managed.
She made a sound, something between a sob and a curse before she slid off the bed, stumbled to the bath. She came back with a cloth for each of them, pressed her own against her bone-white face. "Where... Where's that spot?" He fumbled for the accupressure points on her hand, her neck.
"Doesn't matter."
"It does if your head feels like mine. Might be sick." He laid still, closed his eyes. "Really hate being sick. Let's just take a minute."
Shaking, shaking, she lay beside him, wrapped close. "I thought... I didn't think you were breathing. What did you see?"
"That it's going to be worse than anything we've come up against, anything we imagined we would. You saw it. I felt you right there with me."
"I saw you die. Did you see that?"
The bitterness in her tone surprised him enough for him to risk sitting up. "No. I took the stone, I've seen that before. The blood, the fire, the stone. I took it, and I went right into the bastard. Then..." He couldn't describe what he'd seen, what he'd felt. He didn't want to. "That's it. You were punching me and telling me to come back."
"I saw you die," she repeated. "You went into it, and you were gone. Everything went mad. Everything was mad, but it got worse. And the thing, form after form after form, twisting, screaming, burning. I don't know how long. Then, the light was blinding. I couldn't see. Light and heat and sound. Then silence. It was gone, and you were lying on the ground, covered with blood. Dead."
"What do you mean it was gone?"
"Did you hear what I said. You were dead. Not dying, not unconscious or floating in some damn limbo. When we got to you, you were dead."
"We? All of you?"
"Yes, yes, yes." She covered her face with her hands.
"Stop it." He yanked them back down. "Did we kill it?"
Her tearful eyes met his. "We killed you."
"Bullshit. Did we destroy it, Cybil? Did taking the bloodstone into it destroy it?"
"I can't be sure-" But when he gripped her shoulders, she closed her eyes, dug for strength. "Yes. There was nothing left of it. You took it back to hell."
The light on his face burned like the fires that waited there. "Now we know how it's done."
"You can't be serious. It killed you."
"We saw Fox dead on the side of the road. Right now he's on the lumpy pullout sleeping like a baby or banging Layla. Potential, remember. It's one of your favorites."
"None of us are going to let you do this."
"None of you makes decisions for me."
"Why does it have to be you?"
"It's a gamble." He shrugged. "It's what I do. Relax, sugar." He gave her arm an absent stroke. "We've made it this far. We'll hash it out some yet, look at the angles, options. Let's get some sleep."
"Gage."
"We'll sleep on it, kick it around tomorrow."
But as he lay in the dark, knowing she lay wakeful beside him, Gage had already made up his mind.
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
HE TOLD THEM IN THE MORNING, AND TOLD THEM straight-out. Then he drank his coffee while the arguments and the alternatives swarmed around him. If it had been any of them proposing to jump into