walker saga 07 - earth (24 page)

“Are our marks all permanent now?” I finally found my voice.

“Yes, because I captured whatever free energy of the originals was left in the universe, and returned it to you all. You required this additional strength to survive that first joining.”

A thought struck me. “Is that why my Walker powers took the longest to enlighten? Because I have more original energy than the other girls?”

I’d been wondering about this ever since Brace expressed his theory on Earth. But it couldn’t have just been the energy transference barrier, because Eva had been inside also, and her Walker element had worked when she was younger.

“Yes, you have the most original power and you needed to be strong enough to withstand the force of this conduit energy.”

That made sense to me now, and the jury was still out about whether I’d been strong enough when it happened. I remembered the pain of my enlightenment. Like my skin was being sliced from my body. Ouch.

Delane, voice shaking, spoke. “If you gathered some original energy and infused it with ours, then where is the rest of the original energy?”

Somehow I knew that the Mother of All was turning to acknowledge each of us as she spoke, but still, I couldn’t see her face clearly. It was so weird.

“Some, a very small amount, is still locked in the walls of the prison. Over half resides inside each of you, which is why the marks are permanently on your skin. Just like the original seven. And the remaining is within one that you know well. One who is not on your side, but who is also not your enemy. Que.”

Uh, say what? Since when was Que not our enemy?

“Brace was right. That is what he’s doing in that regeneration machine. Taking energy of the originals and fusing it into himself,” I muttered out loud.

“Yes,” she said.

“So what do we do now?” I asked her. “How can we become strong enough to beat the Seventine?”

I heard the slightest tinkle, almost like laughter.

“I cannot give you the answers. I must maintain the balance. I am simply allowing you a brief moment in a world where time stands still. You can do whatever you like here, but my suggestion would be to create some obstacles, and then join your powers together to defeat them … don’t forget about your sacred guides. They are more useful than you could possibly understand.”

As her words faded away so did she. Right before the flash of lights disappeared, I heard one last sentence.

Hurry, you don’t have much time.

Then she was gone.

I sucked in deeply. It felt as if there was no air here, and yet at the same time I’d never breathed so easily before. Six sets of eyes zeroed in on me. Not to mention seven animals, who were watching us with their wise and soulful gazes. I was the unofficial leader. The conduit was the one to draw everyone together. It was time to act like it.

I pulled myself taller. “Okay, we need to hurry. She said to create some obstacles; that must mean that this world can be manipulated by our thoughts.”

As soon as I mentioned that there was a roaring crash around us, and suddenly the sky was filled with dragoonas.

I jerked myself around to see Fury, who was wearing a bit of a sheepish expression.

“Uh, oops.”

“Oops?” I blinked a few times.

She shrugged. “I was just trying out our new power of creation.”

I really wanted to yell at her; I was about at the end of my patience. But there wasn’t time. We all hit the ground as a large beast skimmed right above us. I reached for my tether, and flung free the golden cord. In an instant the seven of us were connected. As the power flowed and built between us, I gritted my teeth and tried to hold on to my sanity. I understood why the Mother had said that we’d barely survived the first joining of seven. The energy was literally peeling the flesh off my bones and enamel off my teeth.

We have to try and figure out how to manage this much power!
I was shouting mentally, hoping that someone could hear me.

Maybe we need to use the animals …

That was from Ria, and I thought it was a brilliant idea. Although, I had no idea how to make that happen.

I decided to just throw more tethers in the guides’ direction. Of course, all that happened was some of my energy left for a moment, before returning to me again. The sensations we were battling right then were a lot like the moment we absorbed the Crais sun, a power that would eventually destroy us. We gained no control, and when I couldn’t take it any longer I severed the connection between the seven of us.

My body smashed into the stark ground. I wasn’t the only one. All of us heaved and breathed deeply, trying to regroup.

“Okay, so that really didn’t work.” Eva had a bit of a scowl going on and it was directed at me. “Thought you knew what you were doing?”

“Abby is no god. She knows no more than us. We learn together. The seven of us have never joined. Six was powerful, but seven is too much.” My unexpected defender was Sapha.

It must be Eva’s turn to be the outsider-attitude-problem-Walker. One after the other. I had to go through the same stupid dance each time before I earned their trust.

“It has to be something to do with the animals,” Talina said, defusing the situation.

She stretched out her spine, an attempt to work out the aches. The emerald strands of her hair twisted around her. They had a life of their own. Though they did look a little parched right then.

“The Mother God wouldn’t have mentioned them if they weren’t important.”

She was right. But how was I supposed to connect to them and the females? We all hit the deck again as another sweep from a dragoona came a little too close. The majority of the scaled beasts were forming some type of battle circle above us. They were going to attack together.

“Can you get rid of them, Fury?” Delane had her twin axes in her hands, twirling them around as she took in the scene above us.

“No,” Fury said with a hitch in her voice. “I’ve tried, but it seems that as soon as they appear, you can’t
will
them away.”

Okay, well here’s hoping everyone else was more circumspect with their thoughts or we’d soon be running from every dangerous creature that had existed across the seven worlds.

A shadow fell over me, the darkness obvious against the white of the area. I dived down, expecting to feel flames wash across my skin. But this time it wasn’t a dragoona; it was Cerberus.

My hellhound stood protectively above me. He was growing in size, and soon would be bigger than most of the Crais fire-lizards. Which was great, but he was only one, and Fury had imagined up dozens to face us. She was an overachiever, our fiery half-Walker.

Then the other sacred animals crowded closer too. All of them could change their size to some degree, although most of them were not as big as Cerberus. Except for Apollo. That water dragon was a massive beast.

As I reached out and ran a hand over the bristly fur of my hellhound, I could also feel his power. Simmering beneath the surface. It gave me a sudden thought.

“Everyone touch your animal,” I barked out.

My tether was already at the ready, and the moment I saw the connection between each female and her guide, I sent the golden cord free.

It was a veritable explosion of energy. The ground beneath us shook. The air around us shimmered. And the dragoonas who had been about to dive and make minced meat of us were no longer in the sky. For the first time since joining all the half-Walkers as seven, we were all able to remain coherent and standing. The massive tidal wave of energy spread between us and our animals. It was almost visible in waves around us, flowing out from one girl and her animal to the next.

I could feel each of them. The same way I sensed the elemental power of my girls, I sensed the ancient power of the sacred animals.
Oh, my.
We’d had no idea of their energy. It was so well contained, but they were packing a punch. It was an energy unlike any I’d felt before, even unlike the Seventine. Not cold but warm, so intoxicatingly warm that I wanted to run into them and wrap that feeling around myself and never come out again.

The bond between each of the half-Walkers and her guide was visible. The golden tethers joined all of us, and then there were smaller links between each girl and her animal. Cerberus and mine was a red, deep and rich, like the color of my hair and marks.

Oh, hell yeah, this is totally more like it!
Fury’s tone was exuberant as she felt the full swell of the power we held.

It was slightly intoxicating. I would have to work hard to keep some of the girls from losing their heads. Blond hair caught my eye and I realized that this was the first time Eva had been in a bond like this. I expected a reaction from her, a comment or observation. But she was strangely silent. I was starting to think she was having a little breakdown, when she suddenly snapped back to life.

You have a weak right knee,
she said to Delane.

The slight rise of the warrior-Walker’s eyebrows and slackening of her jaw was enough to show her disbelief.

The Angelica answered,
yes, it was crushed during a battle. I regenerated, but it’s never been the same.

I’d never noticed her favor the left leg, or show a lack of dexterity in any of her battles. She was scary at times, my warrior-Walker.

You would never notice. I’m trained to withstand pain, I don’t show my weaknesses.
Delane had picked up on my thoughts.
How did you know?
Her inner voice wavered minutely as she turned to stare at Eva.

The Earth half shifted on the spot. Lugi, her lycan, sidled closer, comforting her.
I don’t know. Could this be a part of my power?

Explain to everyone what your power was like on Earth,
I said.

I could see dead people, the spiritual essence left behind. They would sometimes warn me of things, depending how much awareness remained.

We all knew her ability was ‘spirit’ and I was starting to get a pretty decent idea of what that entailed.

What are you thinking, Abby?
Ria’s keen observations missed nothing.

I think that Eva sees the spirit or soul within us all. On Earth, where her powers were muted, she could only sense the powerful resonance left behind by those who were no longer physically present.
Josian had told me once that the physical body blocked much of the spiritual from our sight.
But here, joined with all of us, she sees our souls. And the soul keeps no secrets.

Eva’s eyes almost bulged out of her head at this information.
Yes, it’s clearer now. I’m … sensing your injuries, weaknesses, fears.

She could sense weaknesses? Well, now things just got interesting.

Chapter 13

“There has to be a way to use this to our advantage.” Delane had switched it up, speaking outside of our link. She believed that changing our communication method from internal to external strengthened our bond. “If Eva can find the weaknesses of the Seventine then we have a much stronger chance of beating them.”

She was right. “Okay, since we’re running out of time.” The Mother of All could send us back at any moment. “Let’s try these powers out.”

Our past experiences as a joined unit of power had me as the one who controlled the energy. I could push it toward any of the girls and then together we would ignite her elemental power. Since this was what we knew, we started out the same way. The six of them reached for their energy. Eva took a few moments longer, but quickly caught on.

Boom! The world exploded; fire, water, wind, shadows and plants wrapped around us all and within seconds the sky was no longer visible.
Okay.
Well, apparently the girls did not need me to control the power any longer. As a unit of seven – plus our guides – the power was complete and we all held equal control.

The swirl of energy continued above our heads. We had done this once before, joined our elements together. The last time we had formed a storm of sorts. It was brutal and uncontrollable. I had cut off the energy before we could do any damage. Today, though, on the Mother’s realm, I was no longer the one to control the push and pull of power. We had an equal balance. And as the storm above us raged, I knew it would take all of us to bring it back within our grasp.

This is wicked!
The pitch of Fury’s voice rose. She had been a little pissed at me last time; I was the spoil sport who wouldn’t let our weird powers smash out of control and destroy planets.

No, it’s not. Uncontrollable power can just as easily turn back on itself. We must gain control.
The queen in Ria was out in full force.

“Yes, we must,” Delane agreed.

Those two were always on the same page.

My well inside continued to cycle the elemental energy between all of us. The power from the six girls swirled in arcs and fed the storm cell. I should know what to do to help them manage this merged power. I was the conduit. It was kind of my damn job to keep us together and in control. In a desperate move I started to suck some of the energy into my well, hoping to lessen our output. Within moments my well was filled, so then I moved to filling the filing cabinet.

“What are you doing, Abby?” Sapha asked.

Her voice was partially lost in the mess of winds and shadow, but I heard her. I also noted the genuine curiosity in her voice. She was more inquisitive than the others; I think because her world was so far removed from what all of us had grown up with.

I raised my voice to be heard. “I have this place inside where I can store energy. Like a battery cell that sits there until I’m ready to use it.” Yeah, she was totally not going to know what a battery was. “Like I’ve got a box of power inside, and can tap into that energy whenever I’m feeling low.”

I heard a brief “Okay” in reply.

I noticed then that the storm had stopped its massive spread. Was I actually helping them control their powers?

I concentrated again on moving the energy around in equal amounts between the girls and the sacred animals, while still storing large chunks within my compartment.