His stomach had started cramping again. He rose to his feet, fighting the urge to vomit the whole time. Sweat poured from him. He was shaking, but he wanted to be ready since the mist would probably shift again.
He shuffled his feet apart to get his balance. “Grace,” he shouted.
All that returned to him was his voice in a series of echoes. Casimir had to be behind this. No Second ascender that he knew of, including Greaves or Endelle, had the power to make mist that moved around.
“Grace,” he called out again. His arms shook, but not from weakness. This time, his need to get to her took control of him, even strengthened him. Some of the nausea eased, and he found he could move.
He paced the cell, if slowly, and wiped his sleeve over his forehead. Jesus, he still wore the wool from Moscow. He shed it now, even though the cell was frigid. Grace lived in the vilest of places.
Oh, God, he had to figure this out.
He stopped moving and drew in a deep breath. That’s when he caught her scent. The mist could do many things but it couldn’t keep her earthy wildflower scent from him.
He took another step forward, in the direction of the hallway, where the door would be on the other side of the mist. The scent grew stronger.
She was there, near the door and not far from him.
He tried to reach through the mist but couldn’t. It was as much a physical barrier as a shroud over the space between.
But one thing he knew to be true—the mist would move again. And when it did, he wanted to be as close to her as he could get.
* * *
Thorne?
He heard Marguerite’s voice in his head like a sharp bell. He was surprised because though he couldn’t communicate telepathically with any of his warriors, he could hear her. Breh-hedden, maybe?
He wanted to answer her but damn, he’d never seen such a big-ass death vampire in his entire fighting life. And the bastard had mad sword skills.
Little busy here, he finally managed between heavy grunts. You okay?
Yeah, I’m fine. I’m safe. Never mind, I’ll figure this out.
The confines of the hallway and the physical barrier of the mist left little room to maneuver, to get in a killing strike. He’d seen the bastard in the vision, but yeah, he’d looked smaller, probably because he’d been alone and there hadn’t been any other pretty-boys to compare him to.
The death vamp whirled, caught him with a fist against his chest, and slammed him against the way-too-solid mist. Thorne jumped back, crouched, sword upright. This ass**le had to be six-eight and built like Luken. He’d been around a good long time. Besides the usual faint bluing of the skin, he also had darker blue markings in curves just in front of his ears. He wore braids to keep the hair out of his eyes.
“I’ve been waiting for this a long time,” the vamp bellowed. He spun, raising his sword, and before Thorne could get in a thrust the bastard brought his sword down fast, preternaturally fast, almost as fast as Kerrick. Thorne blocked with his sword, but shit, what the hell was this?
His arm vibrated from the blow and his shoulder muscle seized, but like hell he was going down for this prick or any other death vamp. He grunted hard, spun and tried for an upper thrust, but the pretty-boy’s sword was just there. And he wasn’t even sweating. What the hell was he looking at?
He folded behind the pretty-boy, using one of his best spinning moves, but that ass**le was again right there with him as he materialized and once more that sword-strike sang up his arm.
What the f**k?
The bastard’s eyes glittered. “Something wrong, Warrior Thorne? You out of your depth here?”
“You’re what’s wrong, you stinking pile of blue shit.”
Something deep within, however, whispered to him, some kind of preternatural intuition. Then he understood. He was looking at a Third Earth death vampire, something new in Greaves’s arsenal—or maybe this was Casimir’s idea.
It didn’t f**king matter. Thorne was officially up shit creek. Right now, he needed more power, plain and simple, or he was going down. He might have stood a chance if the space hadn’t been so tight, but the size of this motherfucker, and the power he wielded, made movement all but impossible.
From deep within his mind, that same intuition moved and shifted about. What came to him in a blinding flash of awareness was that he needed Fiona and her obsidian flame power right now, the one she’d shared with Jean-Pierre more than once, the same one that Endelle had used to save all those people just a few weeks ago.
But how to get to her through all this fourth level mist?
Telepathy?
He moved backward, away from the blue prick, trying to give himself just a few extra seconds to figure this out. He wasn’t able to reach his warriors telepathically. On the other hand, he could converse with Marguerite, but he had assumed that was a result of the breh-hedden.
What if it wasn’t? What if somehow he was connected to her obsidian flame power? What if that was why telepathy worked between them?
Was it possible a simple telepathic message would reach Fiona?
He stopped debating the matter and sent a hard-driving piece of telepathy in a beeline straight at Fiona, holding her image as the bastard moved in on him.
The pretty-boy came at him hard and fast. Thorne sprinted, preternatural-style, doing a roll and coming up on his back only to barely block a heavy sword-swipe. He rolled and gained his feet, then sprinted back to where he’d begun.
Thorne, is that you?
Fiona, thank the Creator. Listen, I need your obsidian flame help now. Can you hook me up? I need to expand my sword speed fast.
There was a slight pause, then she said, I’ll have hell to pay with Jean-Pierre. He’s a little possessive, as you know, but you got it.
As he stood at the ready, crouched, his sword upright, his gaze glued to the death vamp’s laughing eyes, he suddenly felt Fiona right beside him, her shoulder to his shoulder, her hip to his hip, then a kind of melding took place.
I’m right here, she sent. Can you feel me?
Yep.
Which power do you want me to enhance?
My sword-arm. I need a goddamn blur of speed.
Here ya go.
He felt the tingle, then the vibration all down his right arm. His muscles bunched in just the right way. He could feel the enhancement.
He blurred as fast as he could. He folded just two feet behind the Third ass**le and caught him through the spine in a quick powerful thrust, faster than anything he’d ever done before.
And identified swords were f**king sharp.
The pretty-boy screamed and Thorne gave a hard jerk to the right, severing the spine, then withdrew. As the death vamp started to fall and as though time just about stopped, Thorne turned so that his shoulder squared up to the bastard. Without missing a beat, he continued making use of Fiona’s channeling power and with incredible speed took the pretty-boy’s head. It hit the stone with a thump, but the body landed on solid knees and wavered. Thorne shoved his foot against the ass**le’s back and the whole thick meaty body flopped forward.