Читать книгу Darkest Knight - Karen Duvall - Страница 12

five

IT TOOK LESS THAN TEN MINUTES FOR US to reach the burned-out farmhouse at the edge of town. Flames flared orange in the distance, black smoke billowing up to blend with a gloomy sky. The house was just a smoldering mess of charred wood, exposed brick and chunks of blackened plumbing.

Natalie grabbed a toy truck from the ground and clutched it to her chest. “He’s still alive.”

“What?” I shot a look at Rusty, who appeared equally surprised. “Who are you talking about?”

Natalie swallowed. “The child no one knew was home when the fire started.”

Oh, my God. “Where are the parents?” I wondered out loud.

Natalie shook her head. “Not here, that much I know. But the boy is close. I can sense him.”

Rusty gave me a disapproving look. “If the boy inhaled too much smoke he may not be alive for much longer.”

“Don’t you have a fire to put out?” I asked, though I was more annoyed with myself than with Rusty. I shouldn’t have taken so much time to hide Shojin’s heart. Handing Rusty the ox horn, I told her, “Take this with you.”

She pushed it away. “I’m fine on my own. I don’t need help from a hex that once belonged to the Vyantara.”

I understood how she felt, but seriously? This from someone who whipped up a cloaking spell like a quick cup of coffee? “It can help you. Breathe through it if the smoke gets too thick. It acts as a kind of oxygen mask.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.” She turned and sprinted toward a line of flames less than a mile away. “I’ll send help back for the boy,” she shouted over her shoulder.

“I hope she’s as good at fighting fires as she is at being stubborn,” I said to Natalie.

“She is,” Natalie told me. “Though I wish she’d accepted your offer.” Her dark eyes shone with concern. “The knights are not invincible. We could use the help.”

Help against an unknown, and unnatural, enemy. The kind of help that only something equally unnatural could provide.

I wanted to ask her about the others, what she knew about them and their powers. I wanted details about the knights who had survived. And though it was peaceful here in the deserted yard of a burned-out farmhouse, a clock was ticking. An injured child, possibly a dying one, needed someone to find him.

I watched, breathless, as Natalie’s skin paled enough to rival the whiteness of snow beneath our feet. Her fingers worked over the metal toy, its bright yellow body dented, scratched and rusting on the edges. She gripped the thing as if clinging to life, which its owner might have been doing himself right then. Her knuckles turned bone-white and a drop of blood trickled down the side of her hand that had been cut on the old metal truck.

I knew better than to interrupt a psychometrist’s connection to a subject. She was linked to this child and disturbing her now could break the tie, or worse. I’d witnessed a psychic lose his sanity when someone hastily tore him away from the object he clutched. His mind was still attached to his subject and he never recovered. I wasn’t about to take that chance with Natalie. A cut hand was nothing compared to a lost mind.

A tear slipped free from Natalie’s glazed eyes. “He’s hiding.”

I’d guessed that already but kept my mouth shut. She was thinking out loud, expressing her vision.

“He’s cold,” she said, and freed one hand from the toy to hug herself. “And scared.”

“Where is he?”

She swiveled to directly face the farmhouse and pointed. “There.”

Impossible. The house had burned to the ground. Nothing could have survived that.

“Can you show me?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “That’s what I see. The house. And a darkness so black it’s as if he’s blind.”

“Is he?”

“No.”

Which meant some part of the house had been protected from the fire. “I’ll go look.”

“Be careful,” Natalie said.

No one needed to tell me that, but I still promised, “I will be.”

Seeing the charred remains of furniture and other household stuff tossed here and there reminded me of the Vyantara fatherhouse that had blown up soon after I’d summoned my fallen angel father. But there were no scattered charms and curses here, and thankfully no ghosts, either. Just ruined pieces of a family that had probably lived here for generations.

As I weaved through the smoldering ruins, I visualized the dissolving of walls that guarded my senses. The first sound I heard was a sobbing child. The boy had breath enough to cry and that lightened my heart with relief.

I squinted through the lingering smoke. No auras were visible, and therefore nothing alive that I could see. The boy’s crying sounded weak, but I could still feel it through the soles of my boots. He was below ground. I sniffed the air and, although it was heavily scented with the smell of burned wood and plastic, a subtle aroma of soap and shampoo wafted through. The bathrooms above ground had been destroyed, which meant the scent came from the boy.

“What’s his name?” I called to Natalie, who stood at a safe distance.

“Timmy.”

“Timmy?” I called out. “Can you hear me?”

I heard coughing, then a murmured reply I couldn’t make out. He began sobbing quietly again.

“Can you knock on something for me?” I asked, following the trail of muted sound to what must have been the kitchen. A blackened refrigerator lay on its side. “Knock on the wall or the floor. Anything.”

No answer.

And no more crying.

I hoped we weren’t too late. Where was the boy’s family? Why was he left here alone?

My vision could penetrate thin surfaces like paint and paper, even some fabrics. But the solid objects around me were too dense. However, I did manage to see through the black ashes covering the floor and noticed the outline of a door. A cellar door. And the charred refrigerator lay directly on top of it.

I crouched down to try pushing it off, but it was way too heavy for me. Timmy was down there; I could hear him breathing, but only barely.

“Natalie, I found him!” I called out. “He’s in the basement, but I can’t get to him. There’s a refrigerator blocking the door.”

“Help should have been here by now!” she yelled back, and I heard the Jeep’s door slam shut. “Hang tight, I’ll take care of it.” The engine started, followed by the sound of tires crunching over snow.

I kept pushing at the fridge, but it hardly budged. Whatever had been inside leaked out onto the blackened linoleum in a dark putrid mess. I closed my eyes to concentrate. Timmy was still breathing.

Then I heard something new. Wings flapped loudly above me and I glanced up at the sky, seeing nothing. Yet a sudden wind swept my hair back and flung ash and charred bits of wood in my face. Still crouched low to the ground, I covered my head with my arms.

I smelled damp fur and animal musk, but also a natural spicy scent I remembered from when he was human. Aydin had found me. Or maybe he’d been following me from the start. Either way, it was a relief to have him here even if I couldn’t see him.

His gargoyle form suddenly appeared above me and his talons pierced the appliance like it was made from tin foil. The fridge crumpled when he lifted it off the floor. I watched as it flew a dozen feet to the side, then bounced a couple times before coming to a stop. The cellar door was free. And Aydin was already gone.

Sirens screamed in the distance, meaning help had arrived. I opened the cellar door and a plume of gray smoke puffed out the opening. The dimly lit outline of a child lay at the foot of the stairs. I scuttled down the steps and scooped up the boy, who couldn’t have weighed more than forty pounds. His dark hair was powdered with ash, and soot smeared his nose and cheeks. He still breathed, but barely.

I ran up the steps and out of the burned rubble toward the ambulance. “Help!” I called to the two men who hopped out the back. “This boy was in the cellar when the house burned.”

They took him from me and got to work. I heard the boy cough and a wave of relief washed over me.

Catching my breath, I scouted the area for Natalie. I saw that a thick wall of smoke had replaced the flames so I hoped that meant the fire was out.

Gasps of heavy weeping came from the back of the ambulance and I wondered if it held another victim of the fire. I went to see if there was anything I could do to help.

Natalie sat crouched inside, head lowered over a prone figure covered head to toe with a white sheet.

“Natalie?” I climbed up to sit beside her. “What’s going on?”

Head still down, she snuffled before saying, “It’s Rusty. She’s dead.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe it. An immense sadness welled up inside me, but my fury battered it down. My sister knights were dying and I was helpless to stop it.

Hands shaking, I gently lowered the sheet to find Rusty’s pretty, pale face underneath. “How did it happen?”

“Don’t know,” Natalie said. “I arrived at the front line. Found her by a wall of fire. She was backing it off. Using her will to put it out. Then…” She gulped air before going on. “Then she collapsed.”

“Did anyone try to revive her?” I touched my fingers to Rusty’s throat. No pulse, but her skin was still warm. I thought about the boy. “She must have suffocated from inhaling too much smoke.”

Natalie shook her head. “Smoke has never been a problem for her.”

It obviously was now. I lowered my ear to Rusty’s face and listened. Not even the slightest breath.

“The EMTs did try to revive her.” Natalie wiped her nose on the sleeve of her coat. “But she wouldn’t come around.”

So that’s what had taken so long for them to get here. I glanced outside the ambulance to see both EMTs caring for the boy, who cried and coughed but appeared to be okay. I didn’t want them seeing what I was about to do.

“I’m going to try something.” I reached into my coat pocket and tugged out the ox horn charm. “I don’t know the extent of its power, but I have to give it a shot.”

The ugly black horn, no bigger than the width of my hand, was chipped and blackened with age. I’d never seen one used, but I knew it to be an object of magic the Vikings kept with them as part of their battle armor. It enabled them to breathe through smoke as they pillaged the villages they burned.

I didn’t know much about this charm and was hesitant to place the horn between Rusty’s blue lips. There was always a price to pay for using dark magic. If it gave her breath back, what would it demand in return?

“Chalice?” Natalie gulped a breath between sobs. “What are you doing?”

“What Rusty should have done when she had the chance.” I slipped the horn’s tip into Rusty’s mouth.

I waited a full minute. Nothing happened.

I started to withdraw the horn when a wisp of smoke trailed out the charm’s cone-shaped end.

“I think it’s working,” I whispered.

Rusty’s chest began rising slowly, as if being pumped with air. Now I was afraid she’d burst from a breath too big for her lungs. Instead, color pinked her cheeks and her eyelids squeezed so tight it looked like she was in pain, and I hoped she was. That would mean she was alive.

Rusty coughed and the ox horn flew from her mouth and landed in the snow outside. She sat up, gasping, clutching her chest and heaving in gulps of air.

Natalie lunged at her and wrapped her in a hug so tight I thought she’d squeeze the breath out of her again. They cried in each other’s arms. As much as I wanted to join in, I hung back and tried not to feel left out. I was a knight too, and that knowledge would have to be enough for now.

“You scared me to death,” Natalie told her.

Rusty looked confused for a second, then shot me a glance. “Was I dead?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I said.

She touched her lips. “Was that thing in my mouth? That cursed horn?”

I pulled back my shoulders and straightened my spine. “Yes. It gave you back your life.”

“If not for Chalice you’d still be dead,” Natalie said. “She saved you.”

Rusty frowned, not appearing one bit thankful. Then her frown deepened. “Something took my breath away.”

Natalie nodded. “The smoke. You suffocated.”

Shaking her head, Rusty said, “No, smoke has no effect on me. It was something else.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“It felt so…strange.” She still clutched her chest, her eyes growing distant as if trying to remember. “Like being inside a vacuum. There was no smoke, no air, no nothing. As if something sucked my breath right out of me.”

Natalie and I exchanged looks. She said, “That’s impossible, Rusty. It’s only happened to knights that are asleep.”

“Maybe whatever it was is now desperate enough to prey on us when we’re awake,” I said. “Rusty, what was the last thing you saw before passing out?”

“Fire.”

“You didn’t see anyone near you?” I asked.

“Of course there were people near me.” Rusty bit off each word. “We were fighting a fire. Four fighters stood beside me, each wearing a protective suit and mask.”

“So you couldn’t see their faces,” Natalie said.

“No, I couldn’t.”

“I bet one of them did it,” I said. “The Hatchet murderer disguised himself to get close to you.”

“Hatchet murderer?” Rusty chuckled. “You make it sound like a villain from a bad horror movie.”

I glared at her. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“Don’t worry, you weren’t,” Rusty said, but the corners of her mouth pulled up in a smile. “Thanks for saving my life even if you did use that…thing.”

I looked down at the snow where the horn had fallen. It lay there looking dull and ordinary, its power spent. I vaguely wondered if it could be recharged and if so, who could recharge it. Cursed or not, it was a handy gadget to have around, especially for a fire master like Rusty. I hopped down from the ambulance and snatched it up to shove into my coat pocket.

I gazed out at the sky, wondering if Aydin still watched. He was more of a guardian angel than Rafe, who spent too much time being stubborn about accepting Aydin for the good man he was. He wouldn’t stop criticizing him for becoming a gargoyle, which wasn’t even his fault. Come to think of it, none of our guardian angels had come to the rescue.

“I’m new at all this knight stuff,” I told my sisters. “Can I ask you both a question?”

They had guarded looks on their faces, their eyes shifting attention from me to each other and back again. “Sure,” Rusty said. “Shoot.”

“Where was your guardian angel when you were suffocating to death?” I asked.

The corner of Rusty’s mouth slid up in a smug grin. “That’s not how it works. It’s not like they’re on autopilot.”

Granted, I still had a lot to learn, but I was confused. “Guardians don’t guard?”

“They’re more like guides,” Natalie said. “Once we’re old enough to be knights, our guardians shift roles from protector to partner. They come to our aid only when summoned.”

Okay, I could buy that, but I had to admit the partner thing made me squeamish. I was about to say so when the two EMTs came back to the ambulance with the boy on a backboard. They stood statute-still and stared at Rusty, their mouths gaping like howler monkeys.

“Oh!” Rusty scrambled to her feet and wobbled, but Natalie caught her before she could fall. “The boy! Is he okay?”

“Chalice saved him, too.” Natalie sounded like a proud sister. It gave me a warm feeling.

Rusty blinked. “Cool,” she said as Natalie helped her down from the ambulance.

The EMTs were sputtering something about Rusty being dead, her heart having stopped, blah-blah-blah. I’d been around the supernatural long enough to know death wasn’t always a permanent condition, but these guys had no clue.

I infused my voice with amazement when I told them, “It was so strange. Rusty suddenly sat straight up. We about jumped right out of our skins, didn’t we, Natalie?”

Natalie trilled a nervous giggle that sounded about as real as a sitcom laugh track. She patted her chest. “Oh, yes. Quite a shock.”

The men shook their heads and went on with their work, securing the boy to a gurney. One of them said, “Miss, you need to come with us to the hospital and get checked out. You could be more injured than you think.”

“I’m fine,” Rusty said, waving them off like flies. “You have a more important patient to worry about.”

I tilted my head toward the boy. “Does anyone know where his parents are?”

The EMT who’d expressed concern about Rusty said, “They’ve been notified. The boy was supposed to be in school, but he snuck out to go home.” He frowned at Timmy, who looked no older than six or seven. “We suspect he started the fire.”

Someone was in big trouble. “I’m just happy he’s okay.”

“So are his parents. Thanks for your help.” The EMT nodded at me before slipping into the seat behind the wheel. His partner stayed in back and closed the ambulance doors.

We watched them drive off, siren blaring.

Rusty gave my shoulder a friendly yet firm slap. “Welcome to Halo Home.”