Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (2 page)

Celestina stopped in her tracks and stared out to sea for several minutes. Thinking. Her aura flashed from confusion to clarity to rage. When she looked up at him, her face was once more composed, serene. A lie only he seemed to be able to see. If only Bran possessed his power. But Bran was his half-brother, born of the light, not the dark. Bran wouldn’t be able to see past the mask she wore, couldn’t know that the Seer was in trouble. In pain. And afraid.

Teagh felt a tight band of worry wrap his brow. In seven hundred years he’d seen her afraid a mere handful of times. Celestina was the greatest Seer among the Immortals. No one knew her true age or the limits to her visions or power. She’d been in the forward command post, with the King and Queen, when everything had gone wrong. They’d evacuated the council, lost the King and Queen, and boarded the ship that brought them here. His ship had been tracking a Triscani vessel and followed them into the wormhole.

They’d been stuck in Earth’s past ever since, trying to figure out what happened. After seven hundred years, they were still trying to figure out a way to win the final battle this time around. Droghan’s arrival didn’t bode well for any of them.

“Please, Tina. Talk to me. Tell me what is going on. I can help you. If not me, talk to Bran.”

“No. I can’t put either of your lives in any more danger. I won’t. I have enough sin to carry already.” Celestina looked away, stared out over the water, her long golden hair lifted by the soft breeze. “Thank you, Teagh. You know I love you both. Droghan? Yes. I will inform Bran immediately. We need to find him and figure out how to destroy him. Find the human Timewalker before Droghan kills her. And find Ajax. We’re running out of time.”

“I know.”
Running out of time.
That was a cruel joke. They’d been stuck here, in the past, for centuries, waiting for the day of the final battle to once again approach. Now that it drew near, the Archivers were screwed. The Lost King was in no condition to fight. The future Queen had no idea who she was, and she was being hunted by one of the most powerful Immortals to exist. They had a traitor on board the Archivers’ ship and the lovely Celestina was keeping secrets from them.

Teagh wanted to press her for answers, but knew the act would be futile. Celestina was the most stubborn female he’d ever known. She was an enigma.“You have worked very hard to find me when I didn’t want to be found. You exposed me, put me at risk, and dabbled with the past, as Marina’s message proved. I can’t help but wonder why.”

Her gaze darkened, the glacier-blue irises turned the color of a dark, stormy sea. Teagh’s shoulders tensed. “A Gate, Teagh. The humans have found one. They will open it soon, in Colorado.”

“A vision?”

“Yes.”

“Who have you told?”

“No one else, and now I cannot. If there is truly a conspirator on the council, as Marina’s message insists, I can’t trust anyone on the ship. I must inform Bran about the issue. He will have to hunt for the traitor. We’ve all been together on the ship for centuries. I trusted them all implicitly, and now I don’t dare go to any of them for help.”

Teagh digested that for a moment. A traitor on Tina’s ship. An Archiver or a Seer. The rest of the crew had no access to the Seers visions. The idea of anyone on the Archiver council betraying the Lost King was absurd, but Celestina obviously believed the human Timewalker’s warning. This news was somehow linked to Droghan, the Gate, and the Triscani invaders. “I guess we save the world all by ourselves. The Archivers have grown complacent. We’ve been here too long. They won’t believe you. Not about this. Not after seven hundred years. What do you need me to do?”

“Find the Timewalker descendant, Katherine.” Celestina bit her lower lip, something Teagh had never, in hundreds of years, seen her do. A cloud of sadness enveloped both of them. The woman’s aura was damn strong.

“Tell me the rest.”

“You must take control of her power. Prevent her from opening the Gate. If you can’t stop her, you must kill her.”

“Gods be damned.” Leave it to a prophetess to curse a male who was already in a sour mood. Teagh rolled his shoulders and stared up at the sky, at the piercing blue, so clear. So simple. His life was more like the sand under his feet, ever shifting and unstable. Both barren and dangerous.

“I’m so very sorry.” She wrung her hands together and he knew worse news followed. She didn’t disappoint. “Katherine is family to Tim and Sarah. If you can’t find her on your own, they can lead you right to her. But you must not tell them your true reason for going to her. They know where she is. They can contact her and draw her out.”

“I’m a guardian, not an assassin. You know that. Don’t ask me to murder an innocent female. I won’t do it. Not even for you.” He’d killed females before, on the battlefield, in combat during the war with the Triscani before this accursed leap back in time. He’d nearly lost his head to a few of the more experienced half-blood women who were wicked with a blade. If they came at him, tried to slaughter him, they were fair game. But not like this. Never like this.

Celestina’s eyes filled with tears. She shook, voice and aura filled with resignation. “You aren’t murdering an innocent, Teagh. She is dangerous. You must guard this planet.
Guard the Gate
. And that means you need to find her and kill her before they use her power. She is one mortal female. One human with just enough Timewalker blood to get us all killed. She can’t control her power. She is surrounded by soldiers she trusts. Honorable men. Warriors willing to sacrifice all to protect her. Men she loves like brothers and will not betray. Men she’s willing to die for. A few days will not be long enough to convince her to betray them. A few days won’t be enough…”

Teagh winced at her unfinished sentence. She was right. A handful of days wasn’t enough time for the woman to learn to trust him. To believe him. To listen to him and keep her power from these men she loved so much. A few days? It might as well be centuries. There was very likely no length of time that would get the job done. Not for him. He was a black-hearted bastard when it came to his duty. That wasn’t going to change, either. Still, he didn’t kill innocents in cold blood. “Then throw a wrench in their plans. Mess with these men she loves. Find another way.”

“There is no other way. They’ve already found the Gate. It chose her. It
summoned
her. She will open the Gate, and the darkness will devour her and her men.” Celestina wiped the tears from her cheeks with trembling fingers. The waterworks and tremors both signs of weakness the diminutive warrior princess never would have revealed to his brother.

Teagh frowned. “Won’t that solve the problem? They can’t open the Gate for the Triscani if they’re all dead.”

Celestina shook her head, an agony of knowledge shining from her aura. “The dark wants her for itself, Teagh. It’s too dangerous. If by some miracle she survives, if the Gate’s power doesn’t kill her, it will
obey
her.”

The words were a sinister fist around his heart. The Gates obeyed only one being on Earth. One.

Him.

Chapter One

Present Day

Katherine crept along the outer wall of the three-story mansion absolutely certain that every move she made was being watched through at least ten rifle scopes. The stone and mortar at her back snagged on her bullet-proof vest and clothing, snarling and tugging at the long braid that hung down her spine. She had her gun out, ready for any human threat, and her mind ready for the not so human. The home looked innocent enough, a rich man’s mountain retreat, until you paid attention to the details. Bulletproof glass, sniper perches and enough security to rival Fort Knox.

First the tech team had hacked in remotely to disconnect the house’s entire security system and force a communications blackout. Then the ground teams moved in to surround the place and eliminate the guards outside. Two teams had entered the house and battled their way through the home. Everyone was dead, the cult members who lived there electing to die by their own hand rather than be captured and questioned. The house was theirs..

Now it was Katherine’s turn.

Since her Timewalker cousin, Sarah’s, battle with the Triscani in Chicago last year, Katherine’s control over her power had been sketchy at best. It was almost like being that close to their evil had fried her circuits somehow. Katherine had told no one but the team doctor how bad she really was. Her boys knew something was wrong, but they had no idea how close she was to losing control.

She wasn’t as strong as she once was, but if anyone came at her, she was confident she could still fry their ass. The dry Colorado air helped boost her confidence. Electricity practically crackled all around her. A typical late-afternoon thunderstorm brewed overhead and the warmth of the day faded as the sun set over the Rockies.

“Clear, Katherine. You’re up.” Her team leader, Frank’s, voice cut through her thoughts. The man was all business, and she counted on that. They all did. It kept them alive.

“I’m coming in. North door.” Two teams had been sent into the house, one to clear the main floors, and her team, to clear the tunnels below before she entered the house. This fortress was built into the side of a mountain at high altitude and the entire team had memorized the layout. Six special ops teams surrounded the home, invisible in the pine trees and shrubs that littered the sides of the nearby mountain slopes. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there, ready to move if her team needed backup. The snipers had taken down most of the guards before she or her boys had gotten close to the house. She didn’t know how many people the two teams had been forced to battle inside the house, and she didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

The raw power emanating from this place was too powerful to ignore. Based on the number of armed guards and surveillance equipment surrounding the house, the cult members knew exactly what they were hiding. They’d put up a hell of a fight, with the Casper Project team ordered to take them alive for questioning. But as Katherine had listened to the assualtassault, it had quickly become apparent that the cult members were under orders to commit suicide rather than be taken alive. The artifact’s energy was too dangerous to leave in the hands of the asshole who had set up shop here. Official word was that the house was occupied by a cult loyal to its leader, the owner of the home, a man they referred to as The Dragon. Who knew what kind of alien weapon they were hiding, but its influence had woken Katherine from a dead sleep hundreds of miles away.

WhateverwasWhatever was hidden here was too dangerous to allow them to maintain control of it. She’d been the one to demand they come here and take the artifact. Finding alien artifacts, weapons, and things that reeked of power was her job. It was the reason the Rear Admiral had recruited her in the first place. When she’d told him about this place, he’d listened. Thank God. Because if he hadn’t, she would have come alone to face this cult and their ‘Dragon’. She suspected the cult leader was an alien himself, but he’d eluded capture and was, even now, probably gathering reinforcements and preparing to return.

“I’m inside.” Katherine stepped through the door her boys had left open for her and blinked to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim interior of the home. She shivered as heated air passed by her exposed face, reminding her of how cold she’d been crouched and waiting on the ground outside. It was nearly summer, but this high up there was still snow on the ground under the cover of shade, and warm days quickly turned into freezing-cold nights.

Katherine welcomed the approaching thunderstorm, but wouldn’t be able to use it for long. As soon as she entered the caves beneath the house, its power would be much harder to reach if she needed it. But if she had to, she could. And thank God for that.

Survival in this world was all about power. Who had it.

Who didn’t.

Power she had in spades. Leashed. Managed. Disciplined. She had final say on this mission. On nearly every mission. She saw things no one else saw. Felt things no one else felt. She was the most valued asset the Rear Admiral possessed. And so he kept her out of every room until her boys cleared it. She was the loaded stick of dynamite that never got lit.

She hadn’t fully understood, not until Chicago. She wasn’t military. Wasn’t a spy. She was something else, and that “else” tested the limits of her control more every day. It clawed up her spine like Crampons climbing a glacier. Pain she could deal with, but the rest? The dark power that had woken her and led her to this place, that filled her with both longing and dread? It summoned her now. A siren’s song that she couldn’t ignore.

“Move it, Katherine. We’re short on time.” Frank spoke in a clipped and precise voice through her earpiece.

“I’m at the top of the stairs.” Katherine spoke up so they wouldn’t shoot her and moved silently over the polished hardwood floors, past the flower-filled vases and strategically placed art. She loved these guys, but she didn’t do what she did for her boys, for the Rear Admiral, or for her country. There were monsters out there. Real monsters. Religious and political rhetoric were lost on her. She’d been to the dark side and it sucked.

“Katherine.” The bark of the Reader Admiral’s voice in her earpiece brought her to a complete stop. What the hell was he doing here? He was a man who believed that what he did was right. That he protected his country and his men. That every source of power in the world needed to be investigated and pursued. Controlled.