“Why?”
“So that we can sell it.” The copián glanced to his companions. “Time is the most precious commodity in the entire universe. The most sacred. And yet it is the most often squandered. From the moment of our births, we’re only allotted so much of it. And for even an hour more, there are those who are willing to give up anything for it.” An evil smile curled his lips. “Even their immortal souls.”
Urian shook his head at the truth.
The copián stepped down to approach Medea. “Surely a child of the Apollite race can understand that driving desperation better than most.”
He was right about that. Nothing like being damned to only twenty-seven years for something you didn’t do to make someone realize just how precious life was.
Even more so while watching everyone around you die long before their time.
For one more breath, their race was willing to take human lives and destroy their immortal souls. Unlike Urian, Medea’s one saving grace was that her mother had sacrificed her own soul to save her from having to make that choice.
She’d never had to live like Urian and his siblings had. Medea had never made the hard choices they did.
The copián cocked his head. “You’ve heard the expression ‘living on borrowed time’?”
“Yeah.”
He gave Medea a crooked smile. “We’re the ones you borrow it from.”
But only an idiot played their game. Urian had heard too many horror stories about those who’d bargained with them and been burned.
There was never any such thing as a free lunch, and when you bargained with the paranormal, you always came up with the short end of the stick for it. The deck was stacked against you and they played with loaded dice.
The copián swept his sinister gaze over them. “My price is simple. An hour from each of you and I’ll open the portal.”
“An hour?” Falcyn sputtered. “How ’bout I just rip some heads off all y’all until you yield?”
Urian liked that idea.
The copián smirked. “You could do that, but you can’t open the portal without me.”
“Sure I could find someone.”
“You really want to chance it?”
Falcyn’s expression said he was willing to gamble.
The copián tsked at him. “So very violent from an immortal who can spare an hour with no problem whatsoever. Think of it like those humans who donate spare change for charity. An hour is but a penny and you have a jar full of them just sitting in your home that you’ll never use. Why not give one to someone who could really use it?”
“Because you’re assuming they’ll use it for good, when I know for a fact that most people who barter with you don’t have kindness in their hearts.”
“True, but sometimes that trash they take out on their way to the grave is a service in and of itself, is it not?” He cast a pointed stare toward Urian.
You son of a whore. Urian could have done without that dig.
Blaise sucked his teeth in sharply. “Word of advice when dealing with these two? I wouldn’t go for the twofers on the insults. Even with the zeitj?gers as backup. I mean, let’s face it. They’re not being peaceful at the moment because they don’t know how to be violent … however, I’ll be the first to say have at it if you can get us out of here. You can take two hours from me.”
The copián scowled at Blaise. “Two?”
“Yeah. One for me and one for Brogan. I’ll pay her fee.”
She gasped at his offer. “Why would you do that?”
Blaise shrugged. “Being stuck here has been punishment enough for you. As noted, I won’t miss two hours out of my life. I’d have just wasted them in a movie theater, anyway. And this way, I get to do something useful with them and be a hero to you. That’s a twofer I can live with.” He winked at her. “Besides, I don’t intend to leave here without you.”
“Suck-up, show-off,” Falcyn muttered. Then louder, “Fine, take mine.”
“So how do you take this time from us?” Medea glanced back to the zeitj?gers.
The copián laughed. “It’s already gone. As I said, you don’t even miss it. You didn’t even know we did it.”
Falcyn leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Told you. Insidious bastards.”
The copián walked toward the portal and lifted his staff up. The moment he did, the portal came alive with swirling, vibrant colors. He moved his staff through it until the mist began to mimic his movements.
Red fire shot out from the torch and was absorbed by the mist.
“It’s ready.”
Urian grinned at Medea. For the first time in a long while, he enjoyed being the little brother. “Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like you’d know if I didn’t make it.”
“You might be polite and scream … then again, it is you. Maybe Blaise should go first? I know he’d scream to warn us.”
He turned an angry glare to Falcyn. “I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone about my screaming fits?”
“I didn’t. That was Max who outed you.”
“Oh.… Remind me to kill him later.” Blaise headed for the portal. “Fine, I’ll go through first.”
Brogan took his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
Urian followed them into the stinging vortex. Damn it, he’d always hated stepping through one of these gates. They were similar to the one for Kalosis and Katateros.
Like him, Blaise held one of the keys that enabled the mandrake to travel to and from the veil world where the sorceress Merlin had pulled Avalon and Camelot out of time and place, so that she could protect the other worlds and realms from Morgen’s evil.
Once more, Urian found himself landing on hard, crappy ground.
Falcyn landed a few feet away. “Blaise? You dead?”
“No.” He didn’t sound like he was in any better shape than Falcyn, though.
“Good. I want the pleasure of killing you myself, you bastard!”
Blaise snorted.
“Don’t scoff, dragon.” Urian was every bit as peeved. “Soon as I can move again, I intend to help with your murder and dismemberment.”
Falcyn turned his head to the right, where Medea lay a few feet away from his side, unmoving on the grass. “Medea?”
She finally lifted a hand to brush her hair from her face. “Not dead, either.”
“Brogan?”
“Just wishing I were.” Shifting her legs, she made no move to rise. Rather she seemed content to lie on her back, staring up at the dismally gray sky. “Is it always this miserable to travel in such a manner?”
Blaise sighed. “Pretty much. Least I didn’t slam into an invisible force field this time.”
Rolling over, Falcyn pushed himself into a sitting position, then scowled as he caught sight of the dark, twisted trees around him. Trees that lined an equally screwed-up, bleak landscape.
“Hey, Blaise … Why the hell are we in Val Sans Retour?”
Yeah. Urian rose slowly.
Sitting up immediately, Medea scowled. “The what?”
Falcyn let out another groan before he answered. “The Valley of No Return. So named because no one ever comes out of here alive. Like Blaise … because I really am going to kill him as soon as I find my strength.”
“Not true!” Blaise stood and took a defensive position. “I came out alive a few years back when I was here.”
Falcyn made a rude noise at the reminder of the mandrake’s less-than-stellar adventure.
Medea stood up and brushed herself off. “Did you?”
“Yeah.”
His anger rising, Falcyn went to the mandrake. “But why are we here now, Blaise? How did we get here?”
Blaise quirked a sarcastic smirk. “Did you sleep through the part where we stepped into a magick portal and were sucked through a vortex?”
“Don’t make me beat you with my shoe.”
“Well, I’m just wondering. ’Cause you asked. I mean, you were there, were you not? You didn’t miss that rather large, ghastly light we stepped into, did you?”
“Yeah, but I have a head injury right now. Maybe a concussion. Thinking some kind of serious brain damage. Definitely trauma of some sort. And a migraine the size of you.”
Urian broke off Falcyn’s tirade by jerking on his sleeve to get his attention so that he could show him the man who was quickly approaching their group.