Part 12 (1/2)

She closed her eyes. Something her skin s.h.i.+mmered for a moment, as if encased in a sheath of light. Then she opened her eyes and met his gaze.

”An hour, maybe two, but it won't be any more than that. If he waits longer, the ritual will fail, and the crystals will be destroyed.”

She fell silent, and Donovan turned away toward the building. She reached out and gripped his arm. He turned back.

”If that happens,” she said, ”if he destroys the crystals? You don't want to be in the building. You probably don't want to be on this block, but you definitely don't want to be in there. It won't exist.”

”They'll explode?” he asked, frowning.

”No,” she said. ”They are timeline crystals. If they are destroyed, whatever they have the strongest link to will draw them along with everything and anything near them through time, s.p.a.ce, and dimensions a whatever is between them and their source. Donovan, whatever is too close to them may not be destroyed, but it won't be here, and there won't be any way to get back.”

”Then I'd better hurry,” he said.

”What are you going to do?” she asked.

”If I can't go up the inside,” he replied, I'll have to go up the outside. If I can blow the outer door off of that elevator, they'll have a chance, and they'll have to take it. I'll be going in that way and going after our boy Lance.”

”I'm going in the front,” she said. ”I think I can trace your friends up there,” she pointed at the trapped elevator. ”They must have found a way in. If you make enough of a disturbance blowing the side off the wall, maybe I can slip in under his guard. One of us has to get through.”

Donovan nodded. He stepped forward impulsively, and she almost stepped back, but he was too quick. He pulled her close and slid his fingers into her hair, feeling crystals slide over his fingers. She pressed against him, and they kissed. He let the moment linger for a heartbeat, and then stepped back.

”Be careful,” he said.

”I'll try, she replied, grinning at him, ”but I'm kind of p.i.s.sed off right now.”

He stared at her, glanced up at the building, and then laughed. ”I bet you are at that,” he said.

She winked at him, turned, and was gone, running back around to the front of the building. He watched her go until she was out of sight, and then turned back to the wall. It wasn't going to be easy, but he'd come prepared to climb the inside of the elevator shaft, and the exterior wall wouldn't be that much different. There would be wind to contend with, but he thought he could manage, as long as he reached them before the sun crested the horizon.

The charm was simple, but he took his time. This was one tall building, and though he might find a way to survive a fall, he'd never make it up the side twice in the time allotted to him. He drew a leather bag from his jacket pocket. It bore a beaded design in the shape of a thunderbird, and the top was tied closed with drawstring straps. The bag was old and slightly brittle, and he handled it carefully.

As his fingers brushed the old hide, images floated through his mind. He saw an old man with gray hair. Feathers and bones were woven into that hair, and the eyes that stared at him over a hawk-like nose were slate gray and piercing. Across time and death, he felt the old shaman's presence, and he breathed a prayer of thanks. The images dispersed, and he continued.

He opened the bag and drew out two feathers and a beaded necklace. The necklace was a string of claws, more feathers, painted beads, and stones. Donovan slipped it over his neck. He quickly removed his boots and placed one feather in each, then laced them back up.

Working quickly, he shuffled in a slow circle and recited the incantation he'd learned so long ago. He closed his eyes and pictured the old Lakota's face once more. He felt the rhythm s.h.i.+ver through his bones, and felt the familiar lightening, as if the air around him had permeated his skin, soaked in and drained back out, taking his weight and his ma.s.s with it. He continued until he actually felt a breeze through his heart.

”One with the wind,” he whispered. He didn't hesitate. He turned, and like a large insect, he scuttled up the side of the wall. The cracks and niches he used for steps and grips were narrow. They shouldn't have held his weight; but they did.

As the sunrise seeped closer to the horizon, he climbed, repeating a soft prayer to the thunderbird as he went and wis.h.i.+ng the ancient G.o.d could grant him its wings.

EIGHTEEN.

Deep in the secret heart of the Tefft Complex, beneath the chamber where Vanessa had been held captive, but far above the ground floor lobby, a larger s.p.a.ce had been created. The elevator appeared not to stop on this floor, and the only other access was by certain pa.s.sages not obvious to the average eye. There were other safeguards. Ezzel knew that the wards he'd placed weren't going to stop anyone truly determined to get in, but at this point it didn't matter. He didn't need them to be stopped, only slowed. When he stepped from the elevator, he sent it upward, and with a short phrase, he locked it in place. This elevator was a mechanical device, but it responded to other controls as well, and it was these less mundane methods he now employed.

The center of his private floor was another round chamber, and it was there that he gathered the items he'd spent such time and effort gathering. They were spread over the top of a long altar table, which itself sat in the center of a wide circle that had been first carved, and then burned into the floor. The braziers that would have to be placed at the compa.s.s points in a less permanent circle were imbedded in the stone floor. The room was designed with a single purpose in mind.

The inner circle was also cut into the floor, but it was narrow, and shallow. Ezzel stood within, pouring white powder from a vial around this smaller circle. As he pa.s.sed each of the braziers he lit it and spoke the invocation, then continued until he reached the final brazier. A ring of symbols had been carefully drawn between the concentric circles, and when he reached the southernmost point on the circle, he would close it, seal it, and light the powder. He'd run through this with meaningless elements a thousand times. He'd repeated the ritual, breaking it into pieces so that he set no random power loose on the room, nor created any anomaly accidentally, and he'd committed every motion, and every word to memory.

In the center of the altar, the ancient journal rested on a wooden stand. It was open to the first page of the ritual. Ezzel didn't need it. In fact, if he'd still needed to read the instructions or the words of the ritual from that book, he would not have been ready to complete the process at all. The timing of each segment was critical. He just felt it was proper that some portion of Le Duc join him at this penultimate moment a the culmination of something begun centuries earlier. Le Duc had met his untimely end trying to secure the vampire's blood necessary to complete the ritual. Ezzel had been more careful, and more patient.

The urn with Father Vargas' remains stood off to one side, beyond the circle. He had extracted the ashes he needed the moment it was in his possession. At the bottom of a chute he used to dispose of garbage, the corpse of the collector, Jasper Windham, had begun its long courts.h.i.+p with rot and maggots. Loose ends were not acceptable, and even though Ezzel knew he was no longer operating in secret, he saw no reason to change the rules of the game now. Windham couldn't be trusted a it was obvious in the way he'd betrayed DeChance, and with a very long lifetime ahead of him, Ezzel intended to surround himself only with those he could trust. The rest would be eliminated, or brought in line.

The room he'd prepared for his ritual was awash in color. Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting astrological signs, chemical formulas, arcane symbols and images from the Tarot. It was mostly an affectation a but it was one that he enjoyed. The entire room a the building surrounding it a the melodrama of the kidnapping and thefts a none of it had been specifically necessary. He could have spent the time and money to range further and find the ingredients he needed. He could have taken a different vampire, one with fewer connections and less beauty. He might even have found one whose people wouldn't have been sad to lose them. In some ways he wasn't so unlike the pretender he'd slain, Cornwell. He liked the idea of who, and what he was and saw no reason not to surround himself with the symbolic trappings.

Ezzel didn't want his triumph to be a secret. He didn't want anonymity, or silence. He was about to complete something that had never been completed. When the ritual was finished, he would be immortal. He would have lifetimes without end to enjoy every pleasure the world had to offer, and he didn't want that feat to go unnoticed. If he could have performed the ceremony on top of the most prominent building in town with an audience of his peers watching him become more than their peer, he would have done so.

For the moment, all of that was incidental. He concentrated carefully and made his way around to the final compa.s.s point. He lit the brazier, watched the white, scented smoke rise in curling tendrils to join that from the other braziers. With a quick flick of his wrist, he completed the inner circle and stepped back. He took a deep breath, and inventoried his equipment for the thousandth time. Everything was in place, and had been in place for a week, but there was no turning back once he lit the powder. He had cast the wards, but the circle remained open. He could step across that line, never speak the words, and walk away. He even thought he could get out without being caught, and disappear from San Valencez.

He glanced down at the ring. Between two of the carved characters the Timeline Crystals winked back at him with reflected brilliance. They were set into the stone of the floor, ready to form the portal. It would be the last point through which he would pa.s.s as a mortal. He thought of Amethyst, imagined the shocked, angry expression she must be wearing, and almost laughed. Yes, he could go now, take the crystals, and leave it all behind.

For a moment, he pretended to give the notion serious consideration. He remembered the desert near Cairo, and the years he'd spent studying scrolls and crawling the tunnels of pyramids. He thought of Jerusalem, the temples and the mosques, and the secrets still buried in caves from the Dead Sea to the holy city itself. He thought of Asia and Europe, even the hills and mountains of California and Tennessee. Each held memories, and each held bits and pieces of the trail that led to this moment. None of those he'd met on the road had believed in the formula a not the way Ezzel believed in it. They knew legends. Some of them knew Le Duc's name. One even had a single page transcribed from the journal, enough to state the purpose of the ritual, and to name it, but not to reveal any of the necessary elements.

It had been a long, hard, intriguing journey. Even the gathering of the final elements had been entertaining. DeChance was not to be taken lightly, and walking into the den of one of the vampire council members, stealing his lover from under his nose, and draining her slowly had been Ezzel's gift to Le Duc. In his way, it was a tribute. Le Duc discovered the formula, but failed in the collection. He'd been a great alchemist, but not particularly powerful in other elements of the craft, and the vampire he'd chosen had bested him easily. Nothing more had ever been heard of him, but the journal survived.

Now it rested on the altar behind him, and the circle was complete. Ezzel closed his eyes, whispered a quick and meaningless charm for luck, and lit a large, sulfur match. He dropped it into the white powder, and the flames shot around the circle. They flashed to blue flame, leaped and danced, and then settled. Smoke rose in an even curtain that closed him from the rest of the room. At first it was thin and translucent. The colored tapestries and metaphysical paraphernalia he'd gathered were visible through the haze as vague lumps and dangling shadows.

Then the smoke thickened and he stood within a cylindrical white wall. He watched it for a moment, turning in a slow circle and examining the protective ring carefully, but he knew he'd find no weakness in it. It was perfect. He turned to the altar, stepped closer, and began.

It took Amethyst longer to find the maintenance pa.s.sage that reached the two private elevators than it had taken Vein, but she was more careful. Once she was in the first floor pa.s.sage she stopped and established a tight web of protection around herself before moving on. She reached the elevator shaft, and began to climb. She didn't have the advantage of a Thunderbird bag, but she did have an amulet consecrated by rites sacred to air and wind, and she made good time.

Under other circ.u.mstances she might have worried that the elevator would descend, catch her between floors, and crush her, but she'd seen what Ezell planned. The one elevator would not leave the top floor by his hand, it was meant as a death chamber for the vampires, and it needed to remain in place to keep them trapped. Ezzel wouldn't be leaving until he'd finished what he started, and that meant he needed the second elevator for his escape. She saw the bottom of the car far above. She climbed as quickly as she could, and as she did, she thought about what to do when she reached the top.

Ezzel had posed as her apprentice, and during the time he'd spent with her, she'd shared a lot of her knowledge with him. There might be other things he'd taken, and there was no way to know what he might have stolen from her books and papers when her guard was down. It was infuriating, but she couldn't afford to take any chances with him. Whatever she used he might be ready to counter. She'd have to dig deep and be resourceful. Thankfully, everything she knew had not been shared, and not everything she owned that was powerful was stored in the single vault he'd stolen the timeline crystals from.

She stopped a floor below where the bottom of the elevator car hung over her head. Clinging to the maintenance ladder, she leaned out and breathed a handful of dust on to the crack in the center of the door in the side of the shaft. As that dust settled, she spoke a short charm. The doors slid open. She swung out on the ladder, away from the door, and then used the momentum of the return swing to flip in through the opening. She landed heavily, but without injury, and rolled to her feet. She pressed to the wall, slipped to the first corner, and then stood very still.

She didn't really expect to meet anyone in the hall, but she was in no mood for further mistakes. If Ezzel completed this ritual, part of the blame was hers, and if she couldn't stop him, she intended to let him know she was there. It wasn't so much the ritual, or his thievery, or even the deaths he took so lightly. It was the fact that he'd lied to her, fooled her, worked with her and gained her trust.

She rounded the corner and began checking doors. All were locked until she reached the last. It hung open, and she saw dim, flickering light in the dark opening. She moved very slowly up to the edge of the door frame and stopped. Then she took a deep breath and glanced inside.

At first she saw only shadows. The walls were stone, and the only light was from a couple of guttering candles that had nearly burned themselves out. There was very little furniture. She saw a cot along one wall. There was a small table. She saw and sensed no one.

Once inside, she moved along the wall carefully, searching the barren room for shadows and finding none. Then she reached the cot, and when she did, she noticed something dangling from the wall just beyond it. It wasn't very large, and at first she thought it might be empty chains, or a torn tapestry. She stepped closer, looked, and reeled away, gagging. What hung from the manacles on the wall and leaned precariously over the lip of the metal collar was barely recognizable as human. The skin was like leather worn so thin and brittle it could have been paper. The eye sockets were empty pits. Bones jutted and threatened to release their tenuous hold on one another.

”Vanessa.” Amethyst whispered the name, but she didn't look back. She knew what the remains hanging on the wall meant. Caution was no longer a viable option. She needed to find Ezell immediately, and probably that wouldn't be soon enough.

She pulled a small yellow crystal from her pocket and tossed it in the air. Before it could fall she snapped a command and whipped her finger in an intricate spiral between herself and the door. The crystal fell about a foot, wobbled in the air, and then hovered. It pointed toward the center of the building, and down. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the crystal and took off at a run.

She didn't bother to follow the hallway around to the end; that was where the other elevator would end, and that was where Donovan would enter. There was no way to know how he intended to get in, but since the wall was solid, and the elevator was apparently strong enough to hold adult vampires against their will, it was unlikely to be a good idea to be on this side of the wall when he decided to drop in.