Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series) (26 page)

And then they came. My silver ribbons of smoke. They wove around me
, cocooning me.

"What are you doing?"

I looked toward the senator, who looked furious.

"How are you controlling those?"

"The same way you are controlling that black smoke."

"You idiot. You have no idea," he replied. He poured a little more of the black smoke my way but it didn
't matter, my silver ribbons dissolved anything that came at me, quickly and seemingly effortlessly.

Then they went on the offense. Strand after strand gathered and started to nip away at him, at the flesh of his form.

"Get off me!" he screamed.

"No," I said as I got to my feet. I was bloody and in pain but I didn
't care, I would see the end of him.

"I command you to get off," he screamed but they didn
't listen.

He let out a howl
that filled the air; I imagined it could be heard for miles. The air kicked up into a vicious storm and I saw the tornado start to form around him.

"Oh no…" I leapt in his direction but all I got was air. He was gone.

The moment he left, I hung over the edge of the boat and tried to locate Cormac, Dodd and the rest of the Keepers, who were all swimming back to the boat from pretty substantial distances.

One by one
, as they reached the boat, they floated up and onto the deck, Cormac in the lead.

"Are you okay?" he asked, gripping my arms and looking at my torn clothes and
the gashes that were already healing. He didn't wait for my answer but started checking me for mortal wounds.

By time his gaze met mine, I could see the intensity there.

"I thought you were going to be die," he said.

"I almost did," I replied in a joking way, more from nerves and the thrill of having
survived.

His arm wrapped around my back
, pulling me snug against him and then his mouth was pressing on mine. It was nothing like the gentle invasion of his last kiss; a raw hunger that made my limbs feel weak took over.

His mouth left mine but he still held me close as he whispered in my ear,
"You know how I gave you a choice before we came here?"

I knew exactly what he was talking about and nodded my head.

"I'm taking it back." He released me to watch his men come aboard and join us.

I laughed at his joke but he didn
't.

"Cormac? You
're kidding, right?"

He gazed down into my eyes without a hint of a smile and then said, "No."

He turned toward the rest of the Keepers that had made it back on deck, while I stood trying to get my bearings.

"We saw a silver haze envel
ope the whole back of the boat," Dodd said. "What happened?"

I gave all the Keepers a rundown of the events after they
'd been thrown from the ship.

"So all this.." Buzz waved his arm around to encompass the strange creat
ures that were flying around, "the storms and weird weather? All here to stay?"

I collapsed on the bench, took another look around and turned back to the Keepers
, who were now looking to me for an answer.

"Welcome to our new universe."

The end

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