Alterant (36 page)

The beast stirred inside Evalle.

She should have known that wacked-out witch was behind the fog. But would Kizira really spare mere humans or anyone who mattered to Evalle? Even Quinn?

“I’m through waiting, Tristan. Tell Evalle to come forward or I’ll have to hurt one of your friends.”

Tristan warned in a deadly tone, “Hurt one of them and expect to pay a price. Make this easy on everyone. Let these three and my sister leave. I’ll stay.”

Evalle tensed at his challenge. She peeked around the corner.

The witch flicked her fingers and a bolt of lightning shot toward the redheaded Alterant.

Tristan whipped his hands across his body, throwing a kinetic field of power to block the lightning bolt.

The block worked like a champ.

Kinetic energy hadn’t bounced back at Tristan. The
maze spirits wanted Kizira out of here. They must have cleared this area from any backlash.

But the witch had used the strike of lightning to divert Tristan’s powers.

She waved a hand and snarled out a hairy-sounding chant.

Two creatures rose from the moat of fire around Kizira. The scaly creatures had heads the size of fifty-gallon barrels, with teeth and jaws that looked as if they could crush cars. Fire raced up their red-orange scales and crawled along four arms that grew from each of their undulating serpent bodies.

Six long tentacle-like claws curled in and out at the end of each arm. The creatures continued to rise and coil into shape. When their tails came into view, the last ten feet curled up and over with a scorpion pincher.

“Last chance, Tristan,” Kizira warned.

“What good am I to you dead?”

“You’d be surprised what I could do with a dead Alterant, like, oh, bring Evalle to me and I’ll show you.” She called out another chant and flames roared to life around the tallest of the three Alterants.

Tristan charged the flaming circle, but one of the serpents lunged at him. He twisted around to throw up a field of energy to hold the thing off.

The other two Alterants lunged, but their fire circles flamed up, stopping them. They roared, shifting into beasts.

Evalle stepped from cover and raced into the room.

No one was dying to protect her.

The fire must have broken Kizira’s silence spell over the tall Alterant. Amidst his screams of pain he cried out,
“Petrina . . . not . . . here.”

The smell of charred flesh gagged Evalle. She shoved a blast of kinetic energy to knock the burning Alterant from his circle. The flames went with him.

He stopped struggling, dead.

Tristan yelled in Evalle’s head,
Kizira lied. My sister’s not here. Run!

Evalle said,
No way.
She made a decision she hoped she wouldn’t regret.
Link with me and we’ll kick her scrawny butt.

But when she opened her mind to link with all the Alterants, she only connected with Tristan. His beast power raged through her body, but he had his shift under control.

That allowed her to keep her beast in check.

Kizira screeched and flew across the top of her creatures at Evalle.

“I really hate the sound that witch makes,” Evalle muttered. She’d seen Tristan throw a lightning bolt back when he’d been with the Kujoo. Drawing on his powers, she whipped her hand at Kizira.

Their combined powers created a shaft of energy that blasted the witch as if she’d been shot from a fireman’s hose, knocking her back fifty feet into a wall of rock.

The second creature had gone after the other two Alterants, who had shifted into nasty-looking beast forms. Those two fought the creature from where they were caught in the circles.

Evalle threw a blast at the creature to back it off.

One of the Alterants charged out of the fire circle, howling as he rolled to put out the flames streaking up his body. The other Alterant did the same while Evalle kept the creature pushed off of them, but she couldn’t keep doing this and help Tristan.

She screamed at the two Alterants, “Run!”

They tried, but the creature whipped between them and the exit. The Alterants attacked it as a team. One latched onto the serpent’s arm. When the serpent dove his head down to bite the offender, the other Alterant jumped and dug his fangs into the serpent’s neck.

Stomping her boots to release the hidden blades, Evalle turned to help Tristan.

The first serpent had Tristan pinned down on his knees, caught between the ground and the field of kinetic energy he used as a shield. He’d be crushed in seconds. The thing’s tentacles had latched onto the power and lengthened, snaking around to find an opening.

Evalle blasted a wave of power at the beast. It whipped its head around toward her. Eyes of hell blazed with yellow centers. Foam poured around his fangs. He snarled and turned back to Tristan.

That hadn’t worked. Tristan needed more power on his side of the energy. Evalle took a step toward him.

The ground beneath her feet started swirling and sucking her down into a sand pit.

She searched for Kizira.

The Medb priestess hovered again, chanting, head back in a trance state. Lightning crackled and fingered
away from her body. She was feeding power to her creatures.

Evalle pushed and kicked at the funneling sand, but it kept dragging her down. She started gaining and broke a boot free to step away from the sand when she felt a hard draw on her energy from Tristan.

She lost her footing and was back to pedaling against being swallowed by the swirling sand. She looked to Tristan, needing his power.

He roared and shoved up against the serpent, knocking the creature back. Then Tristan whipped out a length of power that sparked and glowed. When the serpent roared back to life and dove at Tristan, he swung his six feet of sparking power across the serpent, cutting off its head.

The head flew past Evalle, purple liquid gushing all over Tristan and the floor, bubbling in the flames.

The sand pit sucked Evalle faster and faster.
Tristan!

Had Kizira wanted to kill her after all?

Evalle clawed at rushing sand and air, sinking to her waist, then her chest. Sand reached her chin . . . her nose.

Her gaze shot up, searching for any help.

Tristan dove toward her as she sank beneath the surface.

His hand clamped around her wrist with iron force.

Evalle couldn’t breathe. Tristan came into her mind.
Stay with me. Kizira’s still in her trance. Hold on. I’m taking all your power.

When he drained her power this time, it was as if her insides had been turned inside out.

She had no strength left to fight.

What had happened to her power?

He yanked her up once and had her head free. She sucked air, wheezing for every breath. Her lungs burned.

Ah, crap. Kizira came out of her trance right then. She raised her arm to attack.

Using the power of two Belador Alterants, Tristan threw a series of lightning bolts, shoving her back.

He wrenched Evalle’s arm, dragging her clear of the pit.

Kizira shouted a mouthful of undecipherable words and raised her arms, pointing at the ceiling.

Throw another lightning bolt,
Evalle told Tristan.

Can’t. I zapped everything you and I had left in that last attack.
He looked over to where the two Alterants were ripping arms from their creature and yelled, “Get out of here.”

A rumbling sound started across the ceiling and grew.

The ground shook beneath Evalle, throwing her backwards.

She struggled to her feet. Tristan hooked an arm around her waist and started dragging her to the opening.

Rocks began falling, crashing down in front of their exit.

One hit Evalle on her shoulder. She yelped.

A baseball-sized chunk bounced off Tristan’s temple, drawing blood. He flagged against her. The other two Alterants howled, pelted by more and more stones.

If she didn’t get out of here, the last two gifts the Tribunal had awarded her would be of no use. But what would stop that bitch from raining rocks down on them and contain her long enough for them to get away?

Evalle could not use any of the three gifts to kill unless she had no other choice, and she still had to justify wielding the power.

Would the Tribunal consider saving the three Alterants as an acceptable reason to kill Kizira?

“Turn me around,” Evalle ordered Tristan and added, “Now!” before he could argue.

When he did, she covered her head with her arms, ready to call upon the Tribunal powers.

THIRTY

E
valle flagged against Tristan as he shifted her to face a wild-eyed Kizira. The witch’s hair lifted with all the static energy firing from her.

Killing her was tempting, but Evalle did have an alternative, so lethal force couldn’t be used. She spoke in a voice hoarse from the dust and fires. “By the Tribunal power gifted me, I command the rocks from the ceiling to unite as one above my head and form a wall that will not touch me.”

Rocks hung in midair, then immediately changed direction. All sizes and shapes started banging together as if magnetically drawn to each other.

Kizira paused and stared at Evalle, mouth gaping.

Evalle grinned. “Didn’t expect me to have that kind of power up my sleeve, did you . . .
bitch
?”

She figured even Brina would call Kizira that right now.

Kizira railed and threw fireballs at the wall forming below her in midair, but the gaps were closing down to openings smaller than Evalle’s fist. Harmless sparks pinged through the holes.

She laughed at the last vision of Kizira until she noticed Tristan and the two Alterants staring at her.

Tristan asked, “Where did you get
that
power?”

Evalle shrugged. “I would say I have friends in high
places that loaned me a trick, but they aren’t friends, and I can’t do it again. I’m not sure how long that will hold her or if she’s any better at teleporting around this place than you are, so we need to roll.”

Tristan started toward the exit, which was now blocked by rocks that had made it to the ground. He lifted his hands to use his kinetics, and two small stones tumbled from the top.

Evalle had nothing to give him until her power regenerated. What could have drained her this way? Linking with Tristan? “How many Alterants does it take to get out of a hell party?”

One of the Alterants in beast form trudged over in front of Tristan and started shoving rocks aside as if they were foam balls. When he finished, he swung his head around at Evalle, then Tristan.

She recognized him by his exotic Haitian eyes . . . that were still brown. She smiled. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Thanks, Webster,” Tristan agreed.

Evalle gave a quick check of the other Alterant, whose eyes were blue.

Blue and brown eyes.

Why had Kizira called them Rías? These Alterants looked like the one that had shifted in the fog, but these two had their beasts under control.

Does that mean
any
Alterant could be taught to control his or her beast?

Tristan headed out through the opening with her stumbling along beside him. At some point in the last few
minutes, Tristan had unlinked with her. She could feel her energy finally seeping back through her limbs.

She stepped out of his hold and he let his arm fall away. “Why am I so drained? I’m never like this.”

Tristan covered several long strides before he answered. “I think it’s got something to do with that cocktail the Kujoo gave me that the witch made up with their blood mixed in.”

She ran back through the fight with the Kujoo. “They were immortals. Are you . . .”

“No. I’m not.”

But the downside of his extra abilities, like teleporting, was the drain on his powers. Her powers must have been drained by linking with him . . . just like when Beladors had the benefit of her night vision when they linked with her.

That’s also why he wouldn’t have shifted into his beast form to fight the serpents. He wouldn’t have been able to teleport soon if he had.

Could Tristan get all four of them out of here now? “Are you going to be able to teleport us, even one at a time?”

“I think so. If we can get out of here without another fight with Kizira or the ghosts, I’ll be back to a hundred percent soon.”

“Our kinetics didn’t backlash so I’m guessing the spirits are doing whatever they can to move us along. I just hope Kizira has a healthy respect for the maze’s ability to change shape, too.” Evalle looked back, checking to make sure that those two behind her were staying caught up.
Yes, but they were hanging back, as if reluctant to walk with her and Tristan.

Were they returning to their normal bodies? No.

She kept her voice low and asked Tristan, “Are those two going to be able to shift back to human form?”

He gave a negligible glance over his shoulder, then faced forward again. “Sure. They can do it in less than a minute. When I brought them to the Maze of Death, I showed them how to make the change and keep control.”

“Then why don’t they change back?”