Bewitched & Betrayed

Chapter 21

I was relieved to see that not only were the dead goblins right where we’d left them, but they were also still dead. Lately “dead” had become an entirely too relative term.

Talon’s breath came in a startled hiss when he tripped over one of the bodies. Oh yeah, he was only half-goblin. Elven blue eyes, not goblin black—no preternatural night vision for Talon.

Talon quickly stepped back into the shadows with me on one side of the bunker door. Dad slipped silently into the dark on the other side. Talon didn’t need anyone to tell him to stay quiet.

The bunker’s dim light spilled out into the tunnel, just enough for us to see that we were out here all alone. From the tunnel in either direction there were no sounds, no light, no life. At least not any that I could sense.

And definitely no Piaras.

The Saghred’s presence inside of me was perfectly still, waiting. Waiting for something that it didn’t see fit to share with me—at least not yet.

Life with a soul-sucking rock. Never a dull moment.

If Piaras had been veiling next to the wall, he would have stepped out by now. I didn’t need intuition, seeker magic, or the Saghred to tell me that he wasn’t here. Perhaps he thought he could guard us better from farther down the tunnel, where he could intercept any goblins before they knew we were in Talon’s cell and trap us there. If he’d scouted ahead, we’d find him.

Unless he’d been captured. In which case, we’d be joining him shortly. By activating that iron door and its ward, Sarad Nukpana had given us no choice but to go forward. That was the direction Talon’s guards had come from, so I thought it safe to assume that a certain regenerating goblin psychopath would be happily awaiting our arrival at the other end.

I had a feeling there wouldn’t be any ambush or attack—nothing to prevent us from reaching Sarad Nukpana’s bunker. The goblin would do everything short of putting out a welcome mat. He needed to kill me. He wanted to kill Dad. And he would enjoy killing Piaras and Talon.

Every goblin down here would be able to see us coming. It didn’t matter if we were stumbling around in the dark or had a hundred lightglobes lighting our way. Light or dark—either one would give us away.

But most of all, Sarad Nukpana knew I was here. The Saghred knew he was here. So anything I did would just postpone the inevitable showdown. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t sneak up on his guards and even the odds a little in our favor. I didn’t want Sarad Nukpana in front of me and who knew how many of his minions creeping up behind me.

I spoke on the barest breath. “Dad, tell me how to do a negating spell.”

He arched a brow at me. “Raine, it takes more than few seconds to teach—”

“Just tell me,” I said flatly. “The rock and I learn fast.”

He glanced at Talon. “It’s an individual spell, so it won’t cover him. We’ll have to—”

“I think the rock will cover all of us. It wants Sarad Nukpana. Badly.”

I wanted the same thing, but for a different reason. The rock wanted to eat him; I just wanted him dead, preferably the old-fashioned way—just steel, no soul sucking. The longer we took getting to the goblin, the longer he’d have to prepare for us.

A prepared demigod would be very bad.

Dad told me the spell. I understood, but most important, the rock knew what to do and how to do it.

A few minutes later, we were sporting a solid negating spell courtesy of my magic and the rock’s knowledge. Dad and I wove a quartet of lightglobes and sent them down the hall in pairs at intervals of about twenty feet. We stayed behind the second pair close enough to the light to be able to see what or who was in front of us, but far enough away to have a hope of not being glaring targets. And if the negating spell was doing its job, any goblins would see four lightglobes coming down the tunnel by themselves with no one behind them. Goblins liked the dark, so you had to wonder what, if anything, they considered spooky. I knew that four disembodied lightglobes floating down a dark, deserted tunnel would do it for me.

The spell just negated our presence. Blades would still work, Talon’s voice could still do its thing—and now the Saghred was itching to get a piece of the action.

We hadn’t gone fifty yards before the rock started stirring. We were getting close. The Saghred could smell Sarad Nukpana, and through our bond, so could I. Gleefully sadistic, relishing the torment he’d caused, the death he’d brought, and eager to do it all again. The Saghred was experiencing much the same emotions. It had absorbed Nukpana and held him captive for nearly three months. It knew its own. And now, so did I.

I also knew something else. I had never been this scared in my whole life.

Facing Sarad Nukpana in Markus’s parlor had paled in comparison to this. This was raw terror of the whimpering kind. I tried to steel myself against the fear, at least the whimpering part. I could deal with Nukpana’s goons finding me if I got stupid and tripped over something in the dark, but I’d die of embarrassment before they could kill me if a whimper actually made it out of my mouth. Though that didn’t stop my nearly overwhelming need to do it. I bit my lip to stop any wayward, cowardly noises.

The only way I could defeat Sarad Nukpana was to use the Saghred. And the only thing the rock was interested in doing was eating Nukpana’s soul and anyone he’d consumed. That included one elven general, two ancient psychotic mages, and Rudra Muralin. The thought of their souls being forcibly pulled through me and into the Saghred was enough to make me want to scream my throat raw. I was going into this confrontation monumentally ignorant of what else to do and fatally unprepared for any of it. I’d tricked Sarad Nukpana once; that kind of luck wasn’t going to happen to me again. Phaelan would say that a Benares makes her own luck.

Phaelan wasn’t here. I was, and I didn’t want to be.

The farther we went, the worse the air got. Then my brain registered what my nose had caught wind of and my skin tried to crawl somewhere and hide.

Musty air and mold.

I’d smelled it before. In Sarad Nukpana’s coach behind Markus’s house. The smell was here, right here. The actual smell, not Nukpana’s memory of it.

We were within spitting distance of Sarad Nukpana’s lair.

Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

I stopped and so did Dad and Talon. Dad didn’t question why. Talon just settled for keeping his mouth shut. I was grateful for both.

I slowly dimmed our lightglobes, then let them flicker out of existence. We didn’t need them anymore. We could see just fine.

I’d seen it through Sarad Nukpana’s memories. Now I could see it with my own eyes.

The tunnel curved, and flickering firelight came from beyond an opening at the far end. A bunker. Nukpana’s bunker. Though with that crazy goblin in there, it was more like a crypt. Between us and the opening, cold blue light shone dimly from globes embedded in the ceiling, forming pools of light on the floor at regular intervals all the way from us to the door. Circles of pale light with plenty of shadows for hiding evil minions along the wall. Rats scuttled and squeaked in the dark next to the walls, running away from the light.

Away from what was in that room. The rats had the right idea.

I was shaking. Terror would do that to you.

So would a soul-sucking rock thinking it was going to get its biggest meal in centuries.

That thought just made me shake harder.

A rat brushed past my foot. I sucked in air through my teeth. I didn’t get this far to squeal like a girl now. Then I remembered a little fact about rats.

They knew the way out—and the way in.

Rats didn’t live where there wasn’t a food source. And when they ran, it was to safety. I’d seen nothing but bare tunnels, no food here. Nukpana and his Khrynsani didn’t just choose this bunker for privacy; they would have chosen it because it gave them a quick and hidden way to get out into the city. I saw two of the rats run into the darkness of a side tunnel and heard squeaks from farther into the darkness.

Down there, somewhere in the dark with the rats, was a way out.

Before I could stop him, Dad slipped into the shadows and moved quickly along the wall to the bunker opening. I started to call out to him, but that would just get us killed faster. Though I hadn’t seen or sensed even one Khrynsani guard.

Dad reached the end of the tunnel and with his back against the wall to the right side of the opening, cautiously peered into the room. I’d expected him to look, see what was in there, and then run like hell. I didn’t get what I expected, and apparently neither did Dad. He looked at me, confusion and disbelief on his face.

What the hell?

I went, I looked, and I didn’t believe my eyes for one second.

Sarad Nukpana was laid out on a stone bier in all of his dark beauty, his long black hair flowing over the side in an ebony wave. His eyes were closed, hands folded serenely on his chest. He wasn’t moving and I didn’t need the Saghred to tell me he wasn’t breathing, either.

The bastard was dead.

I froze. That meant his soul was no longer in his body. The damned thing could be anywhere.

A flash of panic gripped me and my breath came shallow and fast. Nukpana had told me that he wanted my body, to push my soul aside, to possess me completely. My shields went up, the strongest I had.

The Saghred suddenly felt like a tiger in a crouch. Its prey was in that room, waiting.

For me.

The Saghred had no interest in the empty corpse on the bier. All its attention was on someone standing in the shadows. There was someone in that bunker, a living, breathing someone. There were no guards, none at all. I didn’t trust it, but I couldn’t think about it, not now.

I had a job and I was going to do it, through the terror and with knees shaking so badly I had to concentrate to get one foot in front of the other.

I stepped into that bunker, brushing aside Dad’s attempt to stop me. Fear it and face it. I wasn’t going to run like the rats, so there was no going back. That left forward and fighting. I’d do whatever I had to, be it steel—or soul sucking. This had to end. Now.

My mouth was bone-dry and open; I was panting. “Come out, you son of a bitch.”

Black magic, thick and vile, hung in the air like an oily stain. This was evil, fetid and dripping. I felt it through my clothes, crawling on my skin, slick and cloying.

The shadows in the far corner literally parted like curtains, revealing who they had hidden.

I stopped breathing, paralyzed with a fear so sharp that it staked me to the ground where I stood. I whimpered. I didn’t have the breath to scream.

“A final gift for you, little seeker.” The words were from Sarad Nukpana.

The voice and body belonged to Tam.

Talon screamed, a full-throated roar of denial, anguish, and rage. He lunged at his father, and it took all Dad could do to hold him back.

“For shame,” Nukpana chided from inside Tam’s body. “And Tamnais risked everything to find him. Let the boy embrace his father. It may be the last chance he will ever have.”

Terror tried to sucker punch me, but I grabbed it and shoved it down. Terror had no place here, only cold logic, and even colder action. That didn’t stop my stomach from twisting into a tight knot and another whimper from escaping my lips.

It was my worst nightmare and it was standing right in front of me. The combined magical power of the mages’ souls that Sarad Nukpana had ingested made the air around Tam’s body ripple with the sheer magnitude of it. I’d never seen or heard of shields that strong.

Weapons couldn’t reach him; neither could magic.

The Saghred was squirming inside of me, desperate to try. I kept my breathing even, and held as tightly as I could on to the stone’s power. Sarad Nukpana was too strong now. When I made my move, it had to count. I’d only get one chance, and that chance hung on those shields coming down.

“I want to speak to Tam.” I had to force the words out past the pressure building in my chest.

“What if he doesn’t want to speak to you?” Nukpana taunted lightly. “Though even if he wanted to, he’s powerless to do anything about it.” Nukpana twisted Tam’s lips into a smirk. “He’s quite helpless to do anything.”

My hands clenched into fists as a white- hot rage took control of me. I didn’t fight it; I let it in, embraced it, and aimed it squarely at the goblin standing not ten feet away. Had he moved toward me? Or had I stepped closer to him? The Saghred wanted to be much closer. I remembered training with Tam: lose control, lose life. Though now my life wasn’t the only one at stake.

Neither was my soul.

I forced myself to see Tam not as Tam, but as Sarad Nukpana. He was holding Tam hostage, the only difference being that it was from the inside. Big difference, but the same problem.

I’d freed hostages and prisoners before. Find and free them. It was my job, and I was good at it.

I would free Tam.

“You’re welcome to try, little seeker.”

The bastard was reading my mi—

“There is no need to read that which I am bonded to.”

Oh no.

Nukpana sighed in unabashed pleasure. “It saves so much time and trouble to know precisely what my future partner is thinking even as she thinks it. Your umi’atsu bond with Tamnais is most convenient.” Tam’s voice dropped to a familiar seductive purr. “And the intimacy is absolutely delicious. When I took Tamnais, I took your umi’atsu bond. It links you with his magic and his mind. I am in possession of Tamnais’s mind, so I can easily see inside of yours. Soon I’ll be able to control the Saghred—and you just as easily. Rudra Muralin’s knowledge of the stone is extensive, though I am still absorbing his memories. He was detestable as a goblin, but he will prove useful in the coming hours and days.”

I lunged for the body on the bier and drove the point of my dagger against the big artery in Sarad Nukpana’s throat. It just broke the skin and cool blood welled up around it. Nukpana hadn’t been in Tam’s body for long; the corpse on the bier was still warm. “Release Tam now or you’re not going to have a body to come home to,” I snarled. “No blood, no life.” I drew my long goblin sword from the harness on my back. “Or better yet, no head, no Nukpana.”

“My previous body and its identity have become more of a burden than an asset,” Nukpana/Tam replied mildly. “Being notorious has been fun, but it is hardly productive for the work I have planned. So by all means, little seeker, decapitate my corpse. I have no further need of it. It is my intention to remain precisely where I am.” His smile was full of fang. “Would you enjoy that, Raine? Unlimited power in the body of your lover.”

“He’s not my lover.”

Nukpana/Tam took a slow, deliberate step toward me. “Then we shall have to change that very soon. I know Tamnais has desired you for years. Pity he will be a helpless bystander, only able to watch what I will use his body to do to you.”

“Hey,” said a quiet voice. “Remember me?”

Dad had slowly circled and was now within ten feet of Nukpana/Tam. “Looks like we both found bodies.” The steely glint in his eyes promised payback, and his smile said he was going to enjoy every second of it. “Too bad you won’t be keeping yours.”

Nukpana/Tam laughed in a perverse mixture of voices. “Eamaliel Anguis, still a noble Guardian, only now your host is barely old enough to shave. Coward, you took the first body you could find.”

“You took a body you’re going to regret.”

“The seeker will not kill her soon-to-be lover—and neither will her father.”

Tam rolled his eyes.

I didn’t move a muscle; I didn’t even dare to breathe.

That eye roll was all Tam. Nukpana didn’t have a thing to do with it.

And the goblin knew it. That eye roll was followed by a flash of panic. The panic was all Nukpana. Tam may not have been in control, but Sarad Nukpana didn’t have a firm hold on the reins. At least not yet.

The Saghred smelled Nukpana’s fear and relished it. The tiger was licking its chops. The goblin knew that, too.

Dad chuckled. “Problems, Sarad? Is your control slipping? Apparently even your host body finds your antics ridiculous.”

“Then the time for play has passed,” came Janos Ghalfari’s smooth voice from the doorway behind us. The nachtmagus had five Khrynsani temple guards with him. They were completely blocking the opening.

Dad casually glanced past them down the tunnel. “That’s it? No Khrynsani welcoming committee?” The air around him virtually crackled as he powered up his magic. The guards shifted uneasily. Dad flashed them a smile that was more a baring of teeth that told them to bring it on.

“These men are merely an escort,” Ghalfari said quietly. “Many more are here with me, brought from Regor. And you are . . . ?”

“Uncle, allow me to present the infamous Eamaliel Anguis,” Nukpana/Tam said. “New body, old nemesis.”

Ghalfari’s black eyes glittered with something ugly. “The Guardian who stole the Saghred from Rudra Muralin and our king a thousand years ago.”

“I prefer to call it a retrieval,” Dad replied dryly. “From a boy with far too much power and not enough sense or sanity to use it. And I’m only 934. Why does everyone insist on making me older than I already am?”

Ghalfari turned his head slightly to speak to the Khrynsani guard waiting just behind him to the right. “Go and get your brothers in arms. We will have need of them all.” He turned to his nephew. “We must move quickly, Sarad. The paladin knows where Mistress Benares has gone. The map in his possession shows this tunnel. We must prepare.”

Which meant Mychael knew the way in, or someone with him did. That knot in my stomach loosened a little. When it came to backup, you couldn’t have too many, especially when that backup was Justinius Valerian and half a citadel’s worth of Guardians. Ghalfari’s other Khrynsani must be waiting in a nearby bunker.

The Saghred burned in my chest. It didn’t want backup. It wanted the souls in Tam’s body—including Tam’s. I took a deep breath and pushed the urges down, nearly overpowering urges.

“Hungry, Raine?” Nukpana murmured.

“The rock’s on a diet until I say it’s not,” I said through clenched teeth.

“You being here will keep us from going to the trouble of finding Mychael,” Nukpana/Tam said. “Tamnais is trusted by a surprising number of people on this island. Tamnais and the paladin are friends of a sort, are they not?”

“Good enough that Tam told Mychael to kill him if the Saghred ever took control of him,” I said deliberately. “The same would apply to a certain goblin psycho. That is, unless I let the Saghred take a bite out of you first.”

One side of Tam’s lips briefly jerked into a lopsided smile. Tam may have lost control of his body, but he’d kept his sense of humor.

An instant later, Nukpana forced that smile down. “That’s the beauty of it, little seeker. Mychael won’t realize the truth until it is too late. I did promise you prolonged torment, did I not? I don’t want you to die; I want you to watch. I fully intend to return to Tamnais’s body, but for a few hours, I will require the body of a certain paladin who knows where the Saghred is being kept—and who can take it and walk away unchallenged.”

Hellfire and damnation.

“Yes,” Nukpana/Tam replied smoothly. “No doubt to Mychael Eiliesor, it will be hell. It will also confirm everything Carnades Silvanus has accused him of—that he’s been contaminated by contact with you and the Saghred. His stealing the stone will prove it. When I have finished with Mychael’s body, no doubt Silvanus will have plans for it—or at least his severed head.”

And we were the bait. Talon for Tam. Me for Mychael.

Like hell. I felt a growl building in my throat, and the Saghred’s hungry fire flared in my chest.

“Speaking of watching,” Nukpana/Tam continued. “Tamnais’s memory of when I took him is still quite fresh.” His smile was smooth, horrible, and all Nukpana. “Would you like to see?” he whispered. “With our bond, I’m certain that I can share it with you. He put up an impressive fight—but as you can see, obviously not impressive enough.”

Talon broke free of Dad’s grip and threw himself at Nukpana /Tam. The kid never made it past the bastard’s shields. The impact slammed him back against the bunker wall, not hard enough to kill. No, Nukpana was still playing, and to him Talon was a toy to be enjoyed. Dad was instantly by his side, helping him to sit up. Talon’s aqua eyes narrowed in raw hatred and he sang a single, discordant word—the same word he’d used to freeze the elven Nightshade on Sirens’ roof.

Nukpana/Tam dismissively waved his hand and the note froze in Talon’s throat. The kid tried again but no sound came out, and his eyes went wide with panic.

The Saghred’s fire roiled in my chest and I let it. “If you have taken—”

Dad helped Talon to his feet. “I’ve seen it done before, Raine. The loss is temporary, an hour at the most.”

Nukpana/Tam never took his eyes from Talon. “Though I could have ripped his voice from his throat and never left a mark. Children should be seen and not heard.”

“And this one should have been killed at birth.” Janos Ghalfari’s words were calm and precise.

Dad pushed Talon behind him.

The Khrynsani guard came running back into the bunker, his gray skin a couple of shades paler than it should have been. “Sir, the men . . . I can’t wake them.”

“Wake? What do you mean ‘wake’? What are you—”

My growl turned into a chuckle. Nukpana/Tam knew. He didn’t have to read my mind to know what had happened to every last one of his uncle’s Khrynsani guards.

Piaras had been a very busy young man. Brilliantly busy. Sleepsongs were what he did best.

“You’re looking for an elf, Uncle Janos,” Nukpana/Tam snarled. “A Guardian cadet named Piaras Rivalin. He is a spellsinger and obscenely gifted. I want him brought to me. Alive. The account I need to settle with him is long overdue.”

I had to get Sarad Nukpana out of my head. I needed to think and think fast, and having my target know my plans as I thought them would be counterproductive to say the least. I knew how to block someone from my thoughts. This was different; this was a bond, forged by the Saghred.

And sustained by the Saghred.

My lips twisted into a smug grin. If the rock wanted a meal, it’d better start cooperating with me.

Hear that, rock?

Instantly a wall of white noise went up between my mind and Nukpana/Tam’s. It didn’t block thoughts, but it distorted the hell out of them. If Nukpana tried to read my mind, he was going to get dizzy.

Nukpana/Tam’s head turned sharply toward me. He knew what I’d just done.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that eavesdropping is rude?” I told him.

Nukpana/Tam’s eyes darkened and expanded to solid black orbs with no white visible. The air chilled and tightened, and the black magic pressed on me like a giant hand, constricting, crushing—and caressing. My breath came in shallow, rapid gasps. He had no intention of killing me; this was just a show of force, of control.

I let the Saghred push back.

My eyes were locked with Nukpana/Tam’s in a silent battle of wills. The power of centuries of dark mages versus the power of the Saghred. Rudra Muralin knew how to control the Saghred, but Nukpana hadn’t digested all of that knowledge. The pressure lifted enough for me to speak.

“Looks like the rock . . . doesn’t want you in my head, either.”

Fire burned in my chest, throat, and behind my eyes. I sucked in a breath and bit my lip until I tasted blood to keep from crying out. Blood. A Saghred sacrifice. I dimly wondered if I could absorb myself.

At full power, the Saghred could probably blast through Nukpana/Tam’s shields. Though the force of it would kill Tam and bring the ceiling and any building above that down on all of us. And even if I could get past those shields, the Saghred would take every soul in Tam’s body—including Tam’s. I didn’t know of any other way to get Sarad Nukpana’s soul out of Tam’s body.

I couldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t risk Tam. There had to be another way. I just couldn’t think. Hell, I couldn’t think at all. Focus, Raine. Think. What stomped flat any idea I came up with was one simple fact: if Sarad Nukpana escaped with Tam’s body and was in it from one sunrise to the next, the possession was permanent, and there would be nothing even the best exorcist could do to change it.

Sarad Nukpana wouldn’t be tricked, not this time. I clenched my hands around my weapon grips until my nails dug into my palms.

My gloved palms.

I didn’t know if a layer of leather would stop the Saghred from satisfying centuries of starvation, but I didn’t have a choice. If Sarad Nukpana took me, he could use the Saghred, and he’d have the power to do anything to anyone at any time. He would be unstoppable. I had to warn Mychael. That meant leaving Tam. We were bonded. Once we were out of here there’d be no more magical distortion and I would follow Tam to Hell and back if I had to—by myself, with my own seeking skills.

I had to escape.

But escape meant first being captured.

I trusted Dad to know what to do. I slowly let my shields dissolve and loosened my grip on my weapons. My hands went slack, my fingers limp, then my blades clattered to the floor.

“That’s it, little seeker.”

Nukpana/Tam’s voice had dropped into a seductive lower register. I closed my eyes and took one deep breath and slowly let it out, then again.

I dimly heard Dad swear and scream at me, trying to break my trance, to make me hear him, heed him.

Nukpana/Tam laughed, low and confident. “Come to me, Raine.”

I did.

I put one foot in front of the other, hesitant, allowing myself to be drawn in. Closer. Exactly where Sarad Nukpana wanted me to be.

Exactly where I had to be.

With a will of its own, my right hand reached out toward him, and he took it, imprisoning my hand in his, drawing me to him, inside his shields. It was Tam’s body I was held against, but it was Nukpana’s hands that ran all over my body.

“You are already mine, Raine,” he whispered, his lips against my throat. “Your magic, my strength, the Saghred’s power.” His words rumbled deep and soft in his chest. “The acts we will commit, the kingdoms we will conquer.” His fangs nibbled the soft, vulnerable skin covering the artery in my throat, my blood pulsing frantically, in fear.

In anticipation.

“You will be by my side, the instrument of my will.” I felt his lips curl into a smile against my skin. “I will use the Saghred by using you.”

I ran my trembling hands up his chest to his shoulders and around the back of his neck, intertwining my fingers, stroking the skin there. I raised my face to his, my eyes wide, my lips parted, entreating.

Surrendering.

Nukpana/Tam lowered his head to mine.

I clenched the back of his neck and jerked his head and upper body down as my knee came up, slamming into Tam’s ribs—the second rib on his left side. The one that had never healed.

I heard it break. Hard.

Nukpana/Tam’s shields buckled along with his knees. He landed in a groaning heap on the floor.

I ran like hell.

Dad had cleared the five Khrynsani out of the way, the force of his magic slamming and pinning them to the wall like armored bugs. That left Janos Ghalfari and he stood squarely in my way, disbelief on his face giving way to determination. The Saghred’s power still coursed through my veins. I hissed a single word and Ghalfari folded and collapsed like he’d taken a giant fist to the gut.

There was no time to retrieve my blades. The three of us cleared the doorway and ran for the rats’ tunnel.

Tam’s weak laughter floated on the air behind us.

Tam, not Sarad Nukpana.

I brushed tears out of my eyes and kept running. And hated myself for it.