But that didn't change the fact that she was in serious trouble. Clutching her injury, she limped through the darkness, hoping to find some kind of exit.
I'm going to die.
She knew it. There was no alternative.
Her hand trembling, she applied more pressure to her wound. It wasn't that deep, but it throbbed unmercifully and made it all the harder to breathe. Worse, it was making her extremely dizzy, and if she didn't get it tended, she could bleed out.
Through the darkness, she heard more shrill cries. Different ones this time.
Cries she knew all too well from her dreams.
Raven mockers.
Even more terrified, she fell back further into the shadows, praying they wouldn't find her.
As she felt her way down the wall, she cringed at what was happening. She just didn't want to believe her grandmother's stories were real. They couldn't be.
Because if they were ...
I am not that person. I'm not. I don't believe in magic or spells.
But what other explanation could there be? She wasn't stupid and her denials were bordering on that at this point. No matter how much you believed something-how much something had been proven-part of being a scientist was learning how to accept new findings that completely changed the way people viewed things.
So accept it. Your grandmother was right.
All of it was real.
Yet it was hard because she didn't want to have the responsibilities her grandmother had held. Everyone had depended on her for every little thing. She'd been responsible for people's lives and their immortal souls....
As if her thoughts reached across the worlds, she felt her grandmother's presence in the room with her. Smelled the Jurgen's and peppermint. "Kateri? Help me. I need you, child. My soul will die if you don't come."
She took a step forward instinctively, then caught herself. It wasn't her grandmother calling out to her. Her grandmother had been dead for years and she would be using the name only the two of them knew. They're trying to trick me.
"Help me, child!"
Hoping to put more distance between herself and the things after her, Kateri pressed her back against the cold stone wall and took another step away from the opening.
Someone tsked in her ear. "Where are you going, tidbit? You're not trying to leave us so soon, are you?"
Her vision dimmed as a bony hand sank like a claw into her shoulder, piercing it with pain. Unlike the other things in the cave, she knew this one. It was a raven mocker.
Suddenly, a deep masculine voice thundered, speaking a language she didn't know.
But the raven mocker knew it. She could tell by its sharp, angry intake of breath. Releasing her, it lunged at the voice and shrieked so loudly that it made her ears ring.
The moment it struck the man, light bathed the small shaft with an orange glow. A glow that came from the man's skin ...
Kateri wanted to run while they fought, but she couldn't. She felt as frozen as Enrique had been in her lab. Her entire body tense, she watched closely, praying the newcomer was friend and not foe.
She was so over her foe quota for the day, and it was barely noon....
As she watched, her gaze went from the twisted, hideous raven mocker to the man it fought. Swathed head to toe in black, he was even larger than the raven mocker. Because of the eerie glow he was giving off, she couldn't make out his features clearly, but his long black hair was loose, falling to the middle of his back as he turned and dodged, then attacked the raven mocker with movements so graceful they reminded her of a dancer's.
The raven mocker slashed at his throat.
In an elegant, quick move, the man jerked back.
Instead of the raven mocker cutting his throat, it caught his bone-and-turquoise necklace, and snatched it free. It flew through the darkness to land on the ground at her feet.
Kateri picked it up, then froze as her gaze focused on the silver circle that held the imprint of a thunderbird.
From the east, the Thunderbird will fly into the direction of the death lands. Beware the Thunderbird, child. For in his path, all will perish. None can stand against him.
Not even you.
Her grandmother's words had barely whispered through her head before the warrior caught the raven mocker a blow that caused it to explode into bright, flickering flames.
The man turned toward her.
In that instant, her heart stopped beating as she clearly saw his entire body. His eyes were as black as his hair and clothes. Every line on his handsome face sculpted to perfection, he held the expression of a merciless fighter who was more used to taking lives than saving them.
And as he focused that cold, dark gaze on her, she felt the hand of death brush her cheek.
For all time ...
This was the man who always killed her in her dreams.