Crown of Ash (Blood Skies, Book 4) (5 page)

“What?” Kane said with a flippant smile.  “Oh, no…you know.  It’s all good.”

Jade laughed
.
             

She was
such
an enigma to him. 
Even with
as
much power
as she supposedly
possessed, Kane though
t
Jade
lacked
that
harde
ned edge he was used to seeing i
n other mercenaries. 

Well...most of the time, at least. 
Keep your head straight, pal.  She could fry your balls off with a gesture.

She turned back to the open
desert
. 

“What did you see?” he asked.

“I saw something the vampires
might
want,” she said.  “We should go
and check it out
.”

Blacksand had
to date
managed to stay out of the war between the So
uthern Claw and the Ebon Cities, in
part because the criminal
port-
city only had a relatively small human population
.  Most of
the inhabitants of the ramshackle
and
crime-ridden
place
were Doj, Vuul, Gol and the little-seen
Draj
, a race of Cruj offshoots who kept to the shadows and were generally distrusted and feared.  There was no true ruling authority in
Blacksand
.  As had been the case
in
Kane’s home city of
Kalakkaii, the crime guilds competed for control
.  I
n
Black
sand the upper hand unquestionably belonged to
Klos
Vago and T
he Shard,
but
Kane understood
they’d
recently
been challenged by a new
band of thrill-
seeking
mercenaries and robbers called t
he
Shadow Guild
. 

Yeah, I do
n’t see that ending well. 

Unfortunately for Vago, holding
the reins of power in the city
also
meant
that
he had to deal with
the city’s
problems
.  W
hile he maintained a fairly traditional city militia
that
handle
d
local troubles, the
problem of the
downed arcane barricade warranted sending out
the
heavy hitters
to investigate
. 

And since you
own
our asses at the mom
ent
, why waste your goons when you can send
us
instead
?  Seriously, we get all of the fun jobs
. 
             

Sightings of Ebo
n
Cities scouts in the region –
which was
unusual
in and of itself
, since
Blacksand
was literally hundreds of miles away from
both
Southern Claw
and vampire territories
–
had
forced Vago to take
some
initiative
and
find out what
was going on.  The last thing
the Shard
or any of the nomads, natives or settlers
of
the southern wastelands wanted was for
one
of the major powers to move in and start taking over the area. 

Kane thought about Danica, stuck
back
in the city with Vago, who
both
of them
suspected had no intention of
ever
keeping up his end of the bargain. 
He was worried about her.  She’d probably kill him if she knew that, but that didn’t change anything.

He thought about Cross, and wondered if they’d ever be able to bring him
back. 
He’d not woken since they’d rescued him from the ruins of Shadowmere Keep, ca
rried him across the wastelands
and hitched a ride on the Dubrakki Railway to
get to
Blacksand.  He
’d
not
stirred
in the three weeks since they’d found him
.  Not once.

Kane shuddered, and tried to calm his mind.  He’d
been
at odds ever since Ekko had died, but his new family – there was no other way he could think of them
now, not after all they’d been through
together
– had
helped
him
heal his wounds.  In a way, Cross’
s
disappearance had
brought
he and Danica closer
. 
They trusted each other now, and worked well together. 

That was important,
he thought
.  I spent two years blaming Danica for what had happened to Ekko.  It was past time for me to get over that shit.

Before, it had been Cross that had fused the team together, but Mike felt sure that even after Cross came back the three of them would be even more tightly knit than ever before.  Others came and went, but it was those three, the survivors of Karamanganji
i
, who held the tightest bond.

If
he comes back
, he thought. 
If.

“There,” Jade said. 

The
Rakzeri vessel tilted
back and forth as
freezing ocean wind batter
ed
the underbelly of the ship.  Everyone held onto support bars or
the
backs of the
seats.  Weapons and armor lined both walls of the vessel, and various gauges, valves and scopes littered the ceiling like plumbing pipes.  The unstable floor made Kane’s stomach turn, but he held on with muscular arms lined with tattoos – eyes, blades, suns, pyramids, crescent moons – and tried to balance the weight of the blades and
the
HK45s on his shoulder harness. 

“Fly much, Maur?” he laughed.  “I’m about to lose my lunch if you keep up your Red Baron
shtick
…”

“Maur will ignore that comment,” the Gol replied.
  “
That is lucky for you, because if he hadn’t
you would get out and walk.”

“That m
ight be safer,” Ronan laughed. 

“You girls are funny,”
Sol
smiled.  “Now shut up and keep your minds on business.”

“Maur should warn,” he shouted back, “that he can easily open the
bay
doors and dump
all of you
out.”

Kane walked up next to the
cockpit
, a small metal
recess
surrounded
by
tubes filled with hydraulic fluids and heating pumps that kept the vessel’s interior atmosphere bearable even in adverse weather conditions.  The pilot’s seat was pressed tight against the forward plating, and there were so many panels, monitors and dials it was actually difficult to
look
through
the forward window
and see
what
was in front of them
.  Jade stood directly behind Maur, and as Kane
came
close she pointed again.

“Look,” she said, and her voice was frightened. 

The
terrain ahead looked like any
beach along that stretch of the
coast
. 
Metallic white fog rolled along the
bleach white
sands and half-buried rock formations. 

But about a klick ahead of them
was
a wide expanse of dark ground surrounded by a crumbling circle of black pillars.
A
n unmistakable air of power
gripped
the area, a faint and shimmering
black ice
glow.

“There’s something
in
there,” Jade said.  “Something
that’s
hidden from plain sight.”

“Can
you…you know…scout it?” Kane asked.  “With your spirit?”

“I’m
sort of
hesitant
to do that
,” she said quietly.  “Something isn’t right
here
.
”  She took a breath and nodded.  “But you’re right…that’s what needs to be done.” 

T
he air twist
ed
and stiffen
ed
as her spirit shifted away from her body and exited the craft
.  Jade’s
feet lift
ed
off the ship’s floor
. 
White light shone from her eyes. 
Kane
heard cold whispers, a winter’s breath.

Up ahead, t
he space within the pillars shifted
.  Pale sands
burned to black and
twisted
in
to the sky
in
a tangle of
ink-dark
coils
.
Pulsating pockets of light appeared in the darkness,
a
shine of frozen stars. 

“Whoa,
”
he said.

The darkness
rose
. 
T
endrils of shadow joined
together in a wide arc
. 
A
shifting archway
of dust
rose
up
, and in just a matter of seconds it stood
a hundred feet high
.  T
he space
within the arch
was
like
a cold
dark mirror filled with
choking vapors. 

Kane
looked through the massive lens and
saw more of the desert and the sky, but
everyt
h
ing was
saturated in an air turned charcoal:
the sand
was
black, the sky
was
an onyx slate
,
and
the birds
were
twisted
,
like
scars
. 
Soiled
wind howled
from
within the
arch and
blast
ed
shards of
razored
darkness
onto the pale sand.

Kane’s eyes were
lost
in
th
at
vision.  He knew he
stared
into another world.

Moments after
the gateway appeared
it
exploded
,
and
fell back
to
the desert
floor
.  Only a
wide circle of charred ash
remained
.

“Jesus…” Kane breathed.  “PLEASE tell me I wasn’t the only one who saw that!”

“What the hell?” Ronan breathed. 
Sol
looked like he’d seen a ghost, and Maur was visibly shaken.

“Jade?” he asked.

Jade
shook all over.  She
held herself as st
ill
as she could.  Kane took her shoulder in his hand, and
he
almost
jumped at how cold
she
was
.

“Jade?” he repeated.  “
Y
ou okay?”

“I’m sorry,” she breathed.  She s
ounded exhausted and terrified. 
Kane tried to steady her.  “I’m not sure how that happened…”
             

“How
what
happened?” Kane asked. 

“I was just scouting the area,
but I
…I triggered something…I accidentally found the way to open some
p
ortal…”

“Ok…it’s okay,” Kane said. 
F
or a moment he forgot
the fact
that she techn
ically wasn’t on his side.  “I
t’s okay.  We know it’s
bad
, and that’s enough to get us started.” 
He looked at the rest of them.  “Maybe
we should…”