Dark Curse (39 page)

Lara traced the faint footprint of evil farther, spiraling down the long taproot. The impression of hatred and despair grew stronger until she was caught in its flow and felt the influence pressing on the mother's body to reject the small intruder nestled in her womb. The illusion was strong, mother hating child, wanting it to leave, to get out, that the
thing
inside was a monster not a beloved child.

She resisted sending the little boy reassurance. That wasn't her job. Far away she could hear melodic voices singing a lullaby softly. She concentrated on the heartbeat, on the crystal in her hand that kept her focused on her journey.

The shadows grew stronger and darker. Waves of despondency washed over her. Threads of hatred and rage mixed with the flow of desolation. A weave of incredible power, but restrained, so subtlety was at work here. She knew that touch. She'd felt that touch all too often as a child. Xavier had humiliated her. He'd made her feel weak and defenseless, unwanted and unloved. He had made her feel as if the people who had brought her into the world rejected and despised her. This was his work. His signature was everywhere. Whatever microbe he had devised to carry out his cunning conspiracy was very close. She was nearing the home of the killer.

She tapped Natalya's mind. She couldn't afford detection until Natalya was ready to strike and she dared not continue until Natalya followed her clear path and joined her spirit to spirit. This part was the most dangerous. Lara was light and airy, floating along the realm with little to alert others to her presence. Natalya was a warrior, skilled in the art of killing, and now, in spite of the fact that she had been mage, she was fully Carpathian. She had lost none of her mage skills, but it was possible the entity could feel her presence as a threat. Lara stayed very quiet until she felt Natalya's spirit join hers.

Lara continued forward, taking Natalya's spirit with her. The entity had burrowed beneath the earth, the negative energy raising the toxicity of the ground so that Lara's sensitive soul wanted to weep. She pressed her fingers against her clear crystal and pushed on, focusing on her mission. Used to the ice caves and the extremophiles she found there, she spotted the killer as it clung to a bit of fungus. It didn't surprise her at all that Xavier had chosen to use such an organism to deliver death.

Extremophiles were given the name because they could survive and thrive in all kinds of extreme conditions, hot or cold, darkness or light, even a salty environment. The microbe was perfect as an assassin. Of course, Xavier had mutated this one to serve his purpose. It was tiny, a chameleon microbe able to merge with cells and appear part of whatever it chose to mimic. She felt the moment the microbe became aware of her presence and the danger to it.

Alarm spread, resounding waves swamping her and she leapt aside as the microbe spit chemicals at her. Droplets of acid hissed through the stem of the root. The tree shook under the assault. She had known that extremophiles spit chemicals at other microbes to protect themselves and their territories so she'd been somewhat prepared, but the sudden aggression surprised her. The microbe went on the attack immediately, raining acid over the taproot in an effort to eradicate the threat to it.

Lara had to lure the thing to the surface so Natalya could kill it and she had to do so immediately. The attack could kill off the last of the baby's strength.
Baby
. The extremophile was programmed to kill an infant. No baby would be a threat to it. Knowing Xavier, he would have given his assassin the scent of both Dubrinsky and Dragonseeker blood.

For the first time she hesitated. She would have to go back to her childhood and face her demons again. There would be no Nicolas to stand between her and her traumatic memories, but she could not fail this child.

I am here
, Natalya reassured.

The echo of female voices surrounded her, uplifted her, gave her renewed confidence with their offer of sisterhood.

Lara looked to her spirit guide. Without hesitation, the little frog who had started in water and transformed to land, began the journey along another root. She felt the warp of time and knew the frog was taking her back so that she would appear as an infant to the assassin.

At once the acid stopped raining down, but now the attack was different, sharp and focused and very complex. It began as a feeling, dread stealing into her mind. A voice whispered to her in the Carpathian language, a repetitious message of hatred. The insidious tone was poisonous, seeping into her mind even though she knew she wasn't an infant. The disgust was all too reminiscent of her childhood.

She forced herself to continue up the taproot, knowing the microbe followed, feeling its presence as it whispered hideous things. No one wanted her. She was worthless. The body carrying her rejected her, fighting to rid itself of such a parasitic creature. Go! Go! Abandon the host. She detested carrying such a weak, pathetic foreign object. Not a person, an object.

Without warning, something stabbed at her, a vicious hot poker that tore through her outer shell to her soul. The microbe had gotten close enough to attack with a retracting stinger. She saw the probe disappear back into the chameleon of an extremophile. The pain was excruciating. Lara stumbled. At once sharpened points raked at her ankle. She nearly panicked, terrified of being injected with a mass of parasites. It was only the crystal in her hand and the sound of feminine voices rising in melodious harmony that kept her from abandoning her infant state.

She moved faster, her baby cries clearly spurring the microbe on to more vicious action. The murmur of the voice continued, relentlessly pushing at her to give up, to go away, that the body she resided in wanted her gone. Despair was an ever-present companion and now her environment became hostile as well. Attacks came in the form of an army of antibodies. Small chains lashed at her, beating at her in an attempt to drive her out. She realized the stinger had tagged her for attack and now the chains of proteins whipped around and through her.

This was happening to Raven's son and Savannahs daughters.

Outraged, Lara pushed upward toward the traveler's entrance where one realm met the other. No matter the cost to her, she would be bait and bring this hideous killer to the surface where Natalya waited.

As she moved upward, she felt a burning sensation, not on her outer shell, but deep inside, as if her blood was boiling. The stinger had injected her, not with a parasite, but with an incompatibility to her host's blood. Already cells were breaking down, causing hemorrhages. And all the while that voice continued to tell her how worthless she was and how much her host didn't want her there. Waves of despair swamped her continually.

Sound began to drown out the voice as pressure built all around her, squeezing down on her while the sound thundered in her ears and her heartbeat picked up pace. The comforting sound of the ebb and flow of life-giving fluid changed to a fast, hard race that roared in her ears, sounding like a frightening freight train coming at her from all sides.

Lara struggled up the tree, clinging to the sound of the lullaby, forcing the pads of her fingers into the crystal to maintain some semblance of reality. She wept, spurring the microbe on, letting her baby cries whip it into a frenzy so that the organism didn't realize she was doing anything but trying to flee its presence. In response, sensing victory, the killer increased its attacks, pressing despondency deep into her mind while it increased its assault.

Terrified, she fixed her sight on the smoke and mist swirling all around just out of reach. Time slowed, and she felt as if she was wading through quicksand. Her environment became less and less stable, small earthquakes rocking her, pressure squeezing down on her, shrinking her world from every side, fluid building all around her so that she felt as if she was drowning. A swarm of tremors shook the tree from branches to root deep within the ground.

Just when she thought she might not make it out, the little frog was there, swimming beside her, guiding her through the crumbling walls as violent shock waves attacked her. Fissures opened up around her as stability decreased. She made one last desperate push to regain the surface, to find her spot of entry.

Gasping, she inhaled sage and sweet grass. "Now, Natalya, now!" She slumped to the floor of the chamber, in the dark, fertile soil, exhaustion gripping her body and the echo of her childhood nightmares resounding in her mind.

Natalya crouched over Raven, her body as still as a tigress, unmoving, every sense alert, trained on her prey, waiting—waiting. She struck quickly when she detected a faint trace of mage and the taint of dark art. Her weapon was an egg. She rolled it carefully over Raven's wound, drawing the microbe into the center of the egg.

Lara couldn't talk, but she sent Natalya a warning using the common Carpathian path her aunts had taught her.
Watch out, it's nasty. Don't let it sting you
.

Already the egg was rocking, darkening in color, the microbe sending waves of hatred and despair out into the chamber. A mixture of the foul stench of decomposing flesh and rotten eggs assailed Lara, deepening the feeling of being back in the ice cave. In spite of the heat rising from the chambers beneath them, she shivered with cold, and icy fingers of fear traveled down her spine.

The smoke and incense quickly absorbed the negative energies. Natalya, mindful of the lashing stinger, rushed the new host from the cavern. She called for an electrical storm so that for a moment the night sky lit up as she called down the lightning to incinerate the microbe held within the egg.

Lara rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. Gentle hands touched her face and body as the women searched for injuries. She didn't have the energy left to tell them it wasn't her body that needed to be healed, but her mind. She pried open her eyes and watched as Francesca examined Raven.

Did we get it? Is the baby all right
? She didn't have the energy to speak aloud.

Natalya strode back in, going straight to Lara, taking her hand.

Raven closed her eyes and touched her son's mind. Her hands fluttered over her stomach, rubbing gently. "He's at peace. Finally, he's at peace and I feel different. I don't think my body's trying to reject him."

Francesca immediately sent herself outside her own body, to go seeking in Raven's. A smile of joy lit her face. "This is a miracle. Shea, her blood pressure is fine, there are no more contractions, she isn't bleeding, and her body isn't treating the baby as a foreign invader and trying to dispose of it."

Lara closed her eyes, pressing both hands to her pounding head. She wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. She was happy she'd been able to find the microbe, but now childhood memories beat at her, images of blood and torture and screaming men and women. More than that was the feeling of utter hopelessness, a seed planted from long ago that she could barely rise above. Her self esteem plummeted, the insidious thread of dark magic preying on her mind.

She didn't want Raven to know what the journey had cost her, but she felt sick to her stomach. Too many doors had opened along the way, and remembering wasn't a good thing. There had been a reason her aunts built a barrier to protect her and the shield seemed to be in shreds. She needed to be alone, far from everyone else where she could pull her fractured mind back together. The problem was—she was too weak to rise.

Around her, voices rose in excitement. Shea and Francesca whispered in consult, their body language animated. Raven's child was safe and the culprit had been found. The other women rejoiced and Raven wept with happiness.

"What about my daughters?" Savannah's quivering voice quieted the room. "Do I have one of those things in me attacking the girls? Is that why I'm having contractions and bleeding?"

Gregori! I need you
. Her cry was heartfelt, a mother's instinctive need to protect her children.

Lara stilled, her heart beginning to hammer inside her chest. She knew what was coming, but she
couldn't
. There was no possible way with her mind so fragmented that she could go back and face her childhood a second time. Without conscious thought, instinctively her traumatized mind reached out to Nicolas.

Nicolas. Hurry. I fear I'm lost.

"Lara?" Raven asked. "Does Savannah have a parasite in her body attacking the girls?"

For a moment she was paralyzed, her mind frozen, refusing to process information. She was still that child in the cave with Xavier standing over her telling her she was worthless and had killed her own mother.

"Get it out of me! Get it away from the babies," Savannah cried. "Get it out of me now."

She could hear herself screaming silently, deep down where no one could hear.

I hear. I am with you
. Nicolas's voice was quiet and gentle, but carried absolute confidence.
Hang on, hän ku kuulua sívamet, I am almost there
.

He was coming and he had called her "keeper of my heart." Lara tried to cling to that, shivering with cold, aware of little around her but the whispers of her past.

Natalya dropped on her knees beside Lara. "You need blood." She used her teeth to open her wrist, extending her hand toward Lara.

Lara's horrified gaze fastened on the elongated teeth, then touched on the red droplets welling up. The thin crimson trickle turned her stomach. Crablike, Lara scrambled backward away from Natalya, feeling trapped.