The Eternity Key (33 page)

The ground rumbles under my feet, almost knocking me over.

“Damn me to Tartarus,” Garrick whispers, standing beside me. “It’s really here.”

I squint into the light and see the gleaming, golden, two-pronged staff floating where the tree once stood.

“The Eternity Key, Hades’s Kronolithe,” Garrick whispers,
affording the object a quiet reverence. He steps in front of me, bowing his head, and reaches for it.

“Not so fast,” a voice rings through the grove.

A bolt of lightning explodes at Garrick’s feet, sending him flying away into the thick trunk of a tree beside him. I hear his head smack, and then he slumps forward, lying face-first in the dirt. A crack of thunder rips the air, followed by the trill of amused laughter.

“Terresa,” I say. “Fancy meeting you here.”

She smiles, holding her hands out. White-hot lightning crackles up from her palms. “I’ve just come to collect what’s been promised to me.”

“Promised to you?”

“Let’s just say that someone in your group wanted something more than he wanted you to have the Key. The desperate and angry always make the best deals.”

chapter forty-nine

“Tobin!” I say, when I reel around and see him behind me. I could tell I was being followed, but didn’t expect my pursuer to be him. He was still dressed in his costume: a white toga and one of those stupid hats of his. “How did you catch up to me?”

“Shortcut,” he pants. He clasps his hand to his side. He looks like he’s been in a full sprint. “Nobody knows these trails like me.”

“What are you doing? You should have stayed back!” I pick up my pace again, knowing I’ve wasted too much time already on this unexpected distraction.

“Terresa. She was gone,” he says, jogging beside me.

“I know; that’s why I left when I did.”

“And Rowan,” he says, and coughs. “If he took the same path as you did, he’s only a minute or two behind us.”

“
Kopros
. Not Rowan.”

I fall into a flat-out run, not caring that Tobin can’t keep up. In a firefight, he’d only be a liability. I’m on the part of the path that switches from asphalt to gravel, which means I’m still a half mile from the bridge that leads to the grove, when I see a beam of light shoot up from the island. I almost stop dead in my tracks but I force myself to run even faster.

“What … is … that?” Tobin pants from far behind me.

“The Key!” Frustration ripples through me, and I don’t know if this meant Dax was where he was supposed to be, or if it meant Garrick hadn’t even been listening when I told him to stop Daphne from getting the Key.

A roll of thunder comes from the island.

Or worse
.

chapter fifty

Terresa enters the grove with her fists full of lightning. A sinister snarl that I think is supposed to be a smile mars her face as she approaches the Key.

“A real Kronolithe,” she says, eyeing the bident with gleeful malevolence. “Do you know the power this thing holds? It could grant an entire race immortality. Or wipe one completely out of existence.” She extinguishes the bolt in one of her hands and wraps her fingers around the staff of the bident.

“What are you going to do? Open the gate and try to take on the entire population of the Underrealm on your own?”

“I’ve got a legion of Skylords waiting for my call. Calix is taking care of that for me right now.” She hefts the bident in her hand, as if testing the weight. “But perhaps we should test this thing out first. See if it does what it’s supposed to.” She swings the bident toward me, and I jump away, scraping my arm against a tree.

She laughs. “Don’t worry; you’re not even worth killing. You’re just the Cypher. You’ve already done your part. Now you’re useless.”

She holds the bident upright and marches toward the far end of the grove. “Now, where is that pesky gate?” She holds her hand
out in front of her as if searching for some kind of energy signature.

“Terresa, stop!” I shout.

“Or you’ll do what?”

I scramble after her, trying to grab her arm. She pushes me away. Hard. I fall back in a sitting position on the ground.

“You’re nothing but a worthless human again.” She takes another few steps. “Here we go,” she says, standing in front of the archway created by two curved trees that cloak the gate. “Hmm, do you think I just jab it in?”

I rock forward on my knees. “I mean it, Terresa. Don’t do this.”

She thrusts the pitchforklike end of the bident into the archway and turns the handle as if twisting a key in a lock. A green light as brilliant as emeralds ripples out from the bident’s prongs. Energy surges as the gate pulses to life. Terresa croons with arrogant joy, stomping her feet on the low, flat rock she’s standing on.

“Terresa! Turn it off!” I demand, standing now.

She turns toward me. “Watcha going to do, sing at me?”

“Exactly.” I let a low hum out of my lips and then direct all my attention to the rock she stands on. “Move,” I command it, using that same low tone.

“Um, what?” Terresa starts to say, but then the rock flies out from under her feet. She falls sideways and hits one of the trees that forms the archway. The hand that holds the bident ricochets off the green light of the gate. She screams, snatching her hand away as if it were burned, and drops the bident in front of her.

I scramble for the bident. She makes a move toward me, but I command another rock to fly. This one hits her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. I grab the bident, pulling it out of her reach, just as a motorcycle bursts into the grove.

chapter fifty-one

A shrieking scream echoes from the grove. I pound across the bridge, knowing I’m only seconds away—and possibly seconds too late. My feet hit the gravel path again when an even more terrible noise fills my ears. The roar of a motorcycle. Coming from the other side of the island. Rowan must have ridden his bike around the lake and come over the footbridge on the other side. That way would have been too far on foot, but Rowan wouldn’t even begin to care about the “no motorized vehicles on the footpaths” law.

He’s going to beat me to Daphne.

I charge into the grove, just in time to see Rowan, dressed in motorcycle leathers and helmet, discard his motorcycle in the trees and charge at Daphne. She’s holding a golden bident, the gate pulsing green behind her. Rocks fly through the air, seemingly flinging themselves at him. Then I realize that Daphne is using her voice to throw the rocks. A large one cracks against Rowan’s helmet. It would have been a good blow if his head weren’t protected. He keeps advancing on her.

“Stop!” I demand.

When he doesn’t, I fling a lightning bolt at him. It narrowly misses and hits a tree branch above him. The branch explodes,
sending shards of splintered wood raining down on both Rowan and Daphne. I shudder, realizing my mistake, but Daphne holds up her hand, and the shards stop midair right in front of her face, and then fall softly to the ground.

Rowan, probably shocked by what he’s just witnessed, hesitates for a moment. That’s when I make my move. Not wanting to risk possibly hurting Daphne with another stray bolt, I throw myself at Rowan, knocking him to the ground. I’m on top of him, pinning him to the ground with my knees.

I slam my fist against the face visor of his helmet. The plastic cracks. My knuckles scream with pain. I slam it again. Another crack. That’s taking too long. I grab the bottom of his helmet and start wrenching it from his head. He screams in pain as I finally rip it loose. Blood oozes from one of his earlobes and from a cut just under his lip, where the cracked plastic must have caught his face. A surge of electricity shudders up my body, swirling in my chest and then exploding into my arm and hand. I’d had Rowan in this position once before. Only hours before leaving on my quest.

“Get back,” I shout at Daphne.

She scrambles away, the Key in hand, to the other side of the grove. Well out of range of a blast.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

“If he invokes
elios
—begs for mercy—I will only incapacitate him so he cannot follow us,” I say. “If not … then I’ll make sure he can’t interfere in another way.”

Rowan had called my bluff when I’d had him in this position before, but I hope to Hades he doesn’t do it now. Maybe my emotions have softened me, but I don’t like the idea of killing someone in front of Daphne. However, after witnessing him attack her and reflecting on his words about how he’d find a way to trick Daphne
into giving him the Key, I fear I will have no other choice if he will not relent on his own mission.

“You don’t have what it takes, little brother,” Rowan snarls at me.

I raise my electrified fist, ready to show that I do, when a shout from somewhere else stops me.

“Help!” Tobin cries. I’d all but forgotten that he’d followed me into the grove. I search for the origin of his voice and find him lying on his side in the grass, only about twenty feet away. Terresa is crouched over him, her knee pinning down his shoulder, and an electrified knife held just in front of his throat. I had barely noticed her slumped against the archway when I tore into the grove. It is my failure not realizing she is still a threat.

“Give me the Key, Daphne, or your friend here loses his face,” Terresa says.

Daphne takes a step toward them. “Leave him alone.”

“Key first. Demands later.”

Daphne moves closer. I can see her eyeing her surroundings, trying to find a way to attack Terresa without causing Tobin harm.

I want to tell her not to give the Key to Terresa, but there’s no way I can ask that of her. Not when it’s Tobin.

“Take it,” Daphne says, holding the Key out in front of her.

chapter fifty-two

I hold the Key out in front of me, offering it to Terresa. She will have to let go of Tobin if she wants it.

“Stop,” I hear Garrick say. I’d almost forgotten he was here. “They’re working together. Tobin and Terresa.”

“What?” Tobin says, his eyes wide, looking up at me. “That’s not true.”

“She said she was working with someone,” Garrick says, pushing himself up to standing. “She said someone in our group had told her in exchange for something he wanted. Tobin must’ve tipped her off about us coming for the Key tonight in exchange for information about Abbie.”