Guardian of the Abyss (10 page)

"No more playing," she informed him, and began to slide up and down on him. He watched, enthralled, as her breasts bounced in front of his face. He reached out to touch them, kneading them. They were magnificent, begging him to touch them and fondle them.

Their bodies slapped together, filling the cavern with the sound of their coupling. Their moans joined the music and the scents of salt water and seaweed hung heavy in the cold air. The heat of her body was incredible, especially knowing that she was so low on energy.

Remembering that, he rolled her over until he was above her. "You are sublime when you're on top, but you must preserve your energy." He tried again for a smile, hoping he was managing. "I'm happy to help."

This time, he controlled his need to slam into her and stroked smoothly, sliding his hand down to spread her labia and slip a finger between them. She cried out, her head thrashing. She looked so amazing, so pleasured, that he could barely stand it. When she finally gave in to his ministrations and slipped away into her orgasm with a scream, he followed with a roar of his own, emptying himself inside her with spasms that ran through his entire body.

Thus they passed the next few hours as he tried to get himself to hold off longer. His desire for her only increased with each bout of lovemaking, however. He wanted more than anything to have the stamina to keep himself from finding his release when she did, but watching her succumb to his touch was more than he could bear each time.

Finally, he could feel exhaustion pulling at her. To his disappointment, she was still obviously aroused and rubbing against him, and he felt inadequate to the task of satisfying her. But he knew that she was hastening the inevitable encroachment of death by wasting so much energy. He gently pulled her against him and murmured that she had to rest.

She pouted but soon gave in. He was unsurprised this time when she drifted off to sleep, her body functions slowing down to what they would have been if she was in statue form. A short time passed and he felt himself tugged into another dream. He gave in and followed her into a strange world where the buildings were pointed and there was sand everywhere.

They made love again in the dream. When they at last reluctantly left it, it was day again in their little grotto. He adamantly demanded that they go outside, despite her protestations. They made love several times that night, but Abaddon stopped it before allowing her to become exhausted. They made up for it in her dreams. He apologized for being a poor lover and she laughed at him.

"You've got it all backwards. If you were a poor lover, I wouldn't want more of you every few minutes. Believe me. You're exactly the opposite. I've never been with a man who puts so much effort into pleasing me. And you still think you're terrible. That's a crime."

The next day he sat in the sun's rays feeling stupidly overjoyed. Days and nights passed and he lost track of the time. But more and more of their lovemaking moved into Sarah's dreams, and the other gargoyles appeared more and more frequently. They stood in whatever dream place  Sarah took them to, just staring at her and speaking words he couldn't hear.

It was a statement of Sarah's slipping control, which was a testament to her rapidly failing health. Her light dimmed, and his heart broke each time he looked at her. He refused to join with her sexually anymore, keeping their activity to dreams.

It wasn't until she couldn't shift to statue form one day that the truth struck home for him. Sarah was almost out of time. He found himself pacing the small cavern in fear, unwilling to go outside. He feared that if he went outside, he would come back to find her dead.

It took two days for her to convince him to go. He went, unhappy. She lay on the cold ground, her light shimmering and barely there. Her body had grown distorted, her stomach protruding and her once magnificent hair now muted in color and dull, without the healthy sheen it had first shown.

He spent his time in the sun, every second of it spent in eternal agony. When at last he knew she wouldn't be able to tell that he'd returned early, he went back to the cavern. To his surprise, her glow had strengthened significantly.

Sitting beside her, he felt encouraged, until recognition struck him straight in the heart.

Sarah's glow wasn't brighter, there was a new glow. She was pregnant, and the baby had quickened within her. He reached out to touch her belly, and felt the vague sense of the new life.

"Abaddon?" She touched his face. "I'm dying."

"No." Fear and steely resolve swam through him in equal measure. "I'm not going to let that happen."

He had to save her and their son. There was no choice, no other possibility. He had to do it, and he had to do so without killing the coral. He could sense the sentience within the coral, and he couldn't take one life to save another.

There was a way. A way he'd never take for his own sake. But for his wife and child? He had to try. They were going to die anyway, and they could all die from what he was going to try.

Sarah and his son would definitely die if he didn't get them out. If he failed, they'd all die, and he no longer wanted life if Sarah wasn't in it. He cradled her to his chest, not bothering to wonder when he'd begun to pretend to himself that she was his wife even though they'd taken no vows.

Maybe she would accept him. But she wouldn't get the chance if he didn't get her out of there. So he laid down with her for a last dream before he took her outside and risked everything. But the dream never came, and he looked over to find light once more filtering in through the water.

It was time.

Chapter 14

Abaddon gathered Sarah up and walked outside. She laid with her eyes closed even as he jumped into the water. Knowing how much she feared it, that fact chilled him to the bottom of his soul. Time was almost up.

It took him a great length of time to climb to the top of the stones that comprised the cavern they'd lived in. Once at the top, he looked down and saw the areas that had never recovered from his first attempts to jump far enough to land outside of the ring of coral. There was a powerful current here; so powerful in fact that it pushed him back every time he jumped.

He turned to face the other direction for a moment. Salvation was in that direction, if he had the strength to make it that far. He looked down at Sarah, pale and still in his arms. Her glow as nearly gone, and their son's was little more than an ember.

Turning to look back the other way, the opposite way he had to face, he felt anxiety seethe within him. He had no choice, he reminded himself. He was out of options. He had to face his terror and overcome it, or all would be lost. Better to die together with his family, than to live eternity without them.

He reached deep inside and called for his wings. Nothing happened. He had trained them never to come out in the water after the first few times he had unintentionally opened them and they had been shredded. It had taken them years to heal--years of agony. Now they refused to come to his call.

Despair rumbled in his heart, rolling over and over like a lead ball. Sarah would die and he would be stuck here without her. Forever.

No. He wouldn't accept that. He couldn't accept that. He tried again. Then again. The futile stupidity of it finally caught in his mind and he wanted to scream. Frenzied rage and desperation rose within him, and with a 'snap', his wings extended to their full range.

With a jerk that nearly tore Sarah from his grasp, he was yanked from his perch. The first time he'd opened his wings, they hadn't extended fully, and thus they hadn't experienced the degree of torque they were now.

It was horrific agony. Abaddon fought with every ounce of his strength to keep his wings straight, his neck muscles corded with the strain even as his legs curled. He fought not to squeeze Sarah, his mind thick with suffering. The hollow, brittle, small bones in his wings began to snap, and the torment ratcheted up several notches. The water filling his wings dragged them out and over the coral. If he lost it now, they would crash to their deaths, taking much of the coral colony with them.

He fought to hold on, one of his wings snapping close to his back. With that wing shredded, the other bore the sudden brunt of all that water pressure and his weight along with what he carried. If he had thought he was in pain before, this was sheer, unadulterated torture.

His mind fought to hang on through the onslaught of anguish. Tears were torn from his eyes, mixing with the water to vanish into nothingness as he was whipped and jerked wildly as he tried in vain to keep his wing unfurled. The other wing was wrenched and jerked and twisted, his black blood running freely from the many rips caused by mangled bones. At last the second wing gave out and they were plummeting, both wings now shredding in the sheer force of the fall.

They impacted on the edge of the coral ring and a piece of coral was driven into Abaddon's back. It drove in through his chest and came out the front of his shoulder. He gave an inarticulate scream as it bored through him, but he realized that it was a piece that was already dead.

For long moments, he hung there, his feet sinking into the sand. At last, groggily realizing his danger, he pulled until  his feet finally popped out of the sucking sand. Then, he dug them in again, leaning forward until the piece of coral snapped.

Then he headed the direction that he'd seen the majority of boats go. He could only hope that he would arrive on dry land somewhere. His mind awash in a sea of misery, he focused on keeping his grip on his precious burden and putting one foot before the other. His energy, already low, flagged. Sometimes he walked and sometimes he climbed, fumbling to dig into mighty stones and drag himself and his precious burden upwards.

Blood from his wings left a billowing black cloud behind him as the water continually tugged on them. Finally he was pulled from his feet by the ravaging water. Agonized, he knelt where he'd fallen, until at last he put Sarah down and reached back, taking one of the tattered wings in his hand. With a powerful jerk and another inaudible cry, he ripped it free.

Then, barely able to lift it with the coral still in his chest and shoulder, he reached his other hand over and grasped the other wing. As if to torture him more, that one took three agonized jerks to free.

Now bleeding even more profusely, he picked Sarah back up. If he made it to land, he knew now, he would not live to see the birth of his fifty-seventh son. The chances of him making it to land were dimming by the moment as the minerals that made up his body were slowly siphoned away by the relentless water. It would not release its coveted prize.

Clutching Sarah, he staggered onwards. Hope was dying by the minute, and he lost more of his life to tears he couldn't stop. The only consolation was that they would die together. Darkness fell and he continued on, stumbling every couple of steps. Finally, he stood for long moments, swaying. He took another few steps, dimly aware that he was falling.

Chapter 15

Sarah became aware of the voices again. They dragged her out of a sleep so deep that she wasn't even dreaming.

"Wake up, little one," one of them whispered. "You must wake up and tell us where you are."

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop bothering me!" she thought back.

"If you tell us where you are, we promise to stop bothering you."

Dimly, Sarah fought the tide of exhaustion that gripped her. Something important was happening, if she could just figure it out. "Too tired," she objected.

"We know, little one. We know you're tired, but you must wake up and tell us where you are."

She had to think. It seemed like a multitude of lifetimes ago that she'd fallen here. "Bimini," she finally remembered. "We're off the coast of Bimini." She faltered. "Can you hear me?"

"We hear you, little one. Come out of the water. You're so close. Can you get out of the water?"

She opened her eyes and looked around her. She was lying half in the water and half out of it on a beach. The moon overhead made her stare in awe for a moment. Then she realized that Abaddon was washing slowly back out to sea towards the waters of the Gulf Stream.

"Oh my god, Abaddon!" she thought. "I have to save him."

"You can't go back--"

She shut them out. She didn't know how they'd gotten to land, but she wasn't going to let Abaddon go. Rushing out into the water, she grabbed him by his hand, dragging him back inland. But she knew she was going to fail. It was too far, and he was entirely too heavy for her to drag onto the land.

"No," she sobbed. "No. No!" She slapped him across the face, then punched him in the chest. "Wake up!" she screamed.

Silence met her, and she sobbed again. Then she gave another heave and moved him in a bit further.

"Sarah?" he asked, his voice sounding raw and distorted.

"Get up," she told him, screaming it with mind and mouth.

"Can't," came the weak, distant thought. "Can't get up ever again."

"Then crawl," she demanded. "Damn you, get up on your fucking knees and crawl! I don't care what you have to do, you get out of the water!"