Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series) (9 page)

I
'd stepped into this wormhole countless times, but I'd never gone further than a few steps beyond the entrance. The lavender sky became more brilliant the closer I got.

"They won
't see us stepping out?" I asked as we neared the other side.

"No, this opens to an
empty area. They are a superstitious lot. They think that living too close to this energy could affect them negatively," he replied from slightly in front of me.

Cormac stepped out first and I watched, a small part of me afraid he
'd fry on the spot, but he didn't. I took a deep breath and my first step into a different universe. The ground was slightly springy, covered with a moss-like surface that was a turquoise color. Trees, or what would've been trees on Earth, hovered higher than I'd ever seen, bigger than even redwoods, like sky scrapers. But the thing I noticed the most was the sweet, cloying scent on the air as I breathed deeply.

Cormac stood close by and watched my slow adjustment. "You
'll get used to it. The oxygen level is lower, but it's not dangerous."

I nodded, not willing to waste my air on speaking yet as the feeling of not being able to get enough was threatening a bit of a panic. He grabbed the backpack off my shoulders and threw it over his, now carrying two. I would
've argued but I was too grateful to pick a fight about my independence.

"Come on, I want to get deeper under cover. The area isn
't occupied but that doesn't mean we can't be spotted."

I followed him
sluggishly as he moved around the larger trees.

"Do you know where we
're going?" I asked as I realized I had no idea.

"You just thought of that now?"

He annoyed me just enough to waste my oxygen. "I wouldn't talk. If your people hadn't been paranoid freaks and destroyed every ounce of history, we wouldn't be here."

He stopped in his tracks. "How many times do I have to remind you that they
're your paranoid freaks as well? And yes, I do know where we are going. I don't need a map. I've been there before."

"So where is it exactly?" I looked ahead, nothing but trees as far as I could see.

"We've got a two mile hike ahead of us." He started back in the same direction we'd been going.

"And you don
't think the place is guarded?" I asked, staring at his back.

"This isn
't one of the main settlements. They'll have people in the area, but I don't think too many. The Fae have no interest in their records and wouldn't bother. I don't think they'll have any idea that we would try to take them."

"Are you sure asking wouldn
't have worked?" I asked. I tugged on the backpack he was carrying and we stopped. I dug through my pack and grabbed a water bottle, taking a swig.

"I know you haven
't talked to too many of them, but what do you think?" He raised his eyebrows.

No answer was needed. I stopped talking, not wanting to waste anymore of my air on it and we started back through the trees
. Suddenly, the area cleared. When he had said hike, he'd really meant it. The ridiculously wide trees had blocked the rocky hill that lay ahead of us.

As we started to climb a craggy surface, I bit back a small yelp which turned into a larger squeal as my foot slipped on some moss
, interspersed here and there just to make traveling the rocks that much more unpleasant.

"You okay?" Cormac asked, as he doubled back a few feet to check out the nasty gash that bled down my leg. The sharp rocks had cut right through my jeans.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I looked up at the rest of the way ahead. "Can't we float or something?"

"Alchemists can float but it
's an up down thing, we don't move forward."

"That just sucks."

"At least I
can
float." He seemed a bit insulted over my comment.

"What
's that supposed to mean? I've floated. You've seen me."

He took a step back and stared at me. "Go ahead, float.
I dare you."

I shrugged. "
Maybe
I don't feel like floating right now."

"Not to take anything from you, you are exceptional at opening wormholes, but you seem to have deficit
s in other areas." He kept moving forward as he talked and I had to scramble to keep up.

"Are you calling me slow?"

"More like an idiot savant." I couldn't see his face but I could sense the smile on his face from the change in the tone of his words.

"Then what are you? You needed me here to be able to make sure you could even get back."

"I also didn't get stuck to a ceiling."

I opened my mouth but he beat me to the punch.

"I know why you carry that nickel around."

"That, sir, was a low blow." I raised my chin to the air and pushed past him up the slope without looking back.

I could feel him behind me. I always felt him when he was close by; it wasn't a comforting feeling, no, not comforting at all. It made me conscious of every move I made. If I didn't have a point to prove, I would've let him take the lead again. We'd see who was slow.

It took us about another twenty minutes
to reach the top. Lying on our stomachs, we peered over the cliff at the valley below. I could tell it was a town, of sorts, but like nothing I'd ever seen. The same gigantic trees lined the perimeter of an area that looked to be several miles in diameter. What I thought were huge boulders turned out to be buildings as I watched people walk in and out of carved doorways.

"What we need is supposed to be in that one," he pointed toward the middle.

"The one in the dead center?" It was surrounded by at least fifty other stone-like structures in the heart of all the activity.

"Yes."

"The place is crawling with people." At least they were all in human form. I remembered what Tracker had looked like that night in the basement which seemed so long ago now. He hadn't looked like a wolf, but a monster. Seeing them walk around in human form was much more comforting. "Do they ever go to sleep?"

"In about eight hours they
'll start. They don't sleep much, but they sleep like the dead when they do.

"
We couldn't come any earlier.
The light from the wormhole is too bright. Even several miles away, it can be seen at night. It wasn't safe." Cormac shimmied a few feet back from the edge and tugged on my ankle to get me to follow him as we settled in to wait it out.

When I awoke sometime later, I noticed the air had gotten chillier and that I was snug up against something very warm and hard. My arm was draped across his ridged stomach and my leg draped over his thighs. It was my traitorous subconscious who took over as I slept and clearly couldn't get enough physical contact with this man. I lay there for a moment while I tried to decide how to detach myself without waking him.

"How was your nap?"

Too late. His deep voice reverberated through me since I was lying pretty much on top of him.

"It
's quite chilly now," I replied as I sat up, not having the nerve to look at him as I detached. I looked up and saw the massive moon hanging above us. I'd seen glimpses of it from the other end of the wormhole a few times, but didn't realize just how large it would be. In person, it was awe inspiring.

While I straightened myself and
tugged my hair back into a ponytail, I watched Cormac walk over to the edge.

"Are you ready to do this?" he asked as he came back over.

"Yes. Let's do it. How do we get down there?" I started looking for a trail of some sort.

"We
're going to float down."

"I can
't float reliably, remember?"

"I
'll float us both down."

I peeked back over the edge of what had to be a five hundred foot drop. "Are you sure you can float two people? That
's a whole hell of a way down."

"You
're going to have to trust me on this."

"You drop me and this partnership is through."

"I've never dropped a girl by accident, only on purpose," he said, and smirked as he dug out a bag he'd stashed in one of the backpacks.

"What
's that for?"

"Supplies we might need to steal stuff." He took a step closer. "Put your arms around me."

"Is this the brightest way to go in?" I asked, having second thoughts. "Maybe we should take a less direct path in?"

"We could meander in slow and steady, but sometimes hard and fast is best."

I couldn't look down, and now I couldn't look at him either. He was probably talking about the matter at hand, but I wasn't really sure. I just wish it hadn't sounded so sexual while I was draped over him for the second time in less than an hour.

We stepped to the edge and took a final look
down. Actually, I only looked for a second because my fear of heights was already starting to get the best of me, but from what I saw, nothing and no one stirred. He pushed off with his foot and we slowly started to float down. We both wore black but if anyone woke and looked, they'd be able to spot us in the light this giant moon reflected.

We hit the ground silently a few moments later and I followed him
quickly to the side of one boulder. I could see door openings but none of them had windows. Cormac grabbed my hand as we moved, boulder by boulder, closer to the center of the area until we were at the one that supposedly housed information. It was the largest by far, with about a thirty foot radius.

We circled until we came to the door, or sort of door. It was simply a flap of leather that hung down over the opening
, like the rest of the buildings. Cormac turned and held up a hand and mouthed for me to 'wait there.' I nodded in agreement and then followed immediately behind him anyway. Would he never learn? If I hadn't wanted to not get caught, I would've laughed.

When we entered, it was pitch black inside
; I couldn't see a thing and walked straight into Cormac's back.

"I thought I told you to wait?" he whispered to me.

"You did. How are we going to find anything?"

I heard him rustling in front of me as he pulled out a very dim flashlight and handed me another. I held it up, scanning the walls and my breath caught. It was lined, from floor to domed ceiling, all with books. Shit! Getting in had been the easy part. Finding the stuff we wanted was going to take forever.

I quickly scanned the spines of the closest books to me.

"Cormac, nothing is in English. How are we supposed to know which ones we need?"

"It'll say Keepers or Alchemists on it in English, at least that's what Vitor told me." He dug in his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. "And this is how Book of Omens is written."

I took the slip from his hand and looked at the strangle symbols. "It
's here?"

"It
's rumored to have been taken by the wolves. It could be." We split up them as we both started at a different end of the room.

I
'd always had a soft spot for Vitor but it was quickly hardening as we stood in the middle of an enemy camp on his planet while he frolicked, all safe and sound, on mine. I was going to have to remember this next time he whined about his people. Yeah, yeah, whatever. My people are blowing holes in their heads. Where the hell is he?

I scanned book after book, searching for some sign and was starting to completely doubt Vitor. Had he ever even seen these books? I looked at the top shelves I couldn
't reach and that's when I noticed Cormac was floating along the top perimeter. I closed my eyes and tried to float but nothing. It sucked. If I had a mental block as a normal human, I could just go see a therapist but how the hell would I explain it to one?
Hi Doc. I'm frustrated about not floating.

I wandered over to him, having perused the lower shelves to no use.

"Here," he said, pausing his light on one book. "I think this is something." He lifted his hand to pull the book out but I grabbed his ankle that was nearest my shoulder.

"What?" he asked looking down at me.

"Doesn't this seem a little too easy to you?"

He hung there for a moment, not moving. "Yes, but I
'm not leaving empty handed."

"I
'm just getting this weird foreboding feeling." I thought I was probably being paranoid. Things didn't have a tendency to work out smoothly in my experience. "Forget it. Let me see what you found."

He grabbed the book and no sooner did he pull it from the shelf did he jerk back his hand in pain. If it had only been that, we still might have been okay but the shelf he pulled it from let out a high pitched squealing noise, a type I
'd never heard, high, loud and piercing. The gig was up. We had minutes, perhaps just seconds before the entire village came for us and we were stuck in a building with only one entrance.