David scudded along in Grace's wake, the tail to her flaming comet. For the first time, he was traveling into the crossroads with another psychic. He hadn't known it was possible, but with Grace, every barrier he'd believed existed crumbled into dust. He could neither see nor hear her voice, yet the glowing essence of her ferried him higher and higher into the star field that comprised the psychic crossroads.
A wall. Up ahead.
The pressure constricted his mind, stabbing pains through his metaphysical form. He struggled to draw back from the barrier, but Grace rocketed both of them toward it. They collided with the wall. If he'd had a voice, he would've screamed.
The strain sprang loose.
He hovered somewhere near Grace, bathed in the glow of her energy. Beyond her fire, a darkness gaped its maw, hungry for the power it sniffed out in her. Alien thoughts bombarded him.
You've come home, Grace, and you will never leave me again.
Nkosi's astral voice. They must've breached the hideaway of the Golden Power.
He shouldn't have allowed Grace to do this. What kind of coward made his fiancée fight the ultimate battle alone? He was here, sure, but how could he aid her? Liberating her from the facility, and then from Nkosi's puppet man, depleted his metaphysical reserves. She must feel that.
Did she let him tag along out of pity?
The darkness closed in around them.
Oily energy slithered through him, seeking cracks and holes in his psyche, avenues by which to sneak inside and break him apart bit by bit. The power would consume Grace. As for him…
It would annihilate him.
Maybe she's better off without me.
He didn't mean it, didn't believe it, but the fleeting thought split open a hairline fracture somewhere inside him. The Golden Power clawed at his soul, pried open the crack, wormed itself into the gap, into him. Slimy, viscous, and putrid, it crept inside.
If it took him, Grace would fall next.
A glistening, incandescent outpouring of love shot down the connection from Grace into him. His own words, the ones he'd admonished her with, echoed in his mind. Stop being afraid.
The time had come to take his own advice.
He threw open the gates of his heart and soul, and embraced the essence of her. Hope and anguish. Passion and trust. An aching loneliness, at last quenched by his vow to value her above all else. I won't let you down this time, Grace. He would sacrifice his very soul for her.
And it was time to live up to the promise.
Summoning all the power he harbored in his core, he lashed out at the invading entity that was the Golden Power. Slashing. Goring. Spraying black energy into the ether, and lapping it up with a ravenous thirst.
Gorged on the ultimate power, he hesitated.
This time, Grace didn't need to taint herself. He'd absorbed the brunt of it for her. And the unbridled knowledge whirling into his mind bestowed on him the one ability he'd failed to master before. The power to deliver her from her darkest fears.
He knew where to find Nkosi.
A wave of anxiety streaked into him from Grace. She sensed the change in him. Her panic begged him to stop. It was too late.
He raced toward Nkosi.
Grace hurtled after David, still bound to him by the psychic tether of their connection. Her mind bucked and scraped across barriers she could neither see nor touch, but that scuffed her raw anyway. The stinging and constriction of repressed sobs wracked her astral body.
Stop, David, please.
What had he done? One second, the Golden Power pawed at her, with Nkosi's thoughts injected into her mind. The next second, the pressure let go with a dizzying abruptness and a silence deeper than the vacuum of space deafened her. David's energy, once warm and comforting, devolved into a writhing, oily mass of —
No. It couldn't be.
She reached out to caress him with the psychic equivalent of fingers — and plunged into the viscous morass. The amorphous thing smothered him, burrowing deeper with each second.
He had absorbed the Golden Power.
Why, why, why?
A sick feeling infiltrated her. She knew why. He did it for her.
To save her. To free her. But instead of unchaining her from the tainted lure of the Golden Power, he was dragging her down with him. She'd follow him into Hell, if necessary, but not at the expense of losing him. And she would lose him. Forever. He'd ingested too much of the supreme and insatiable power source, granting it unfettered access to another human body and mind.
This was her fault. He wouldn't have sunk to this level if she hadn't made him feel unworthy. Her nagging, her accusations, drove him to this.
She was going to save him, dammit.
Light exploded around her. She plummeted out into the world, whirling and whirling, without form or focus. David's energy — the warm, sharp energy of him and only him — shielded her from the onslaught. It calmed every nerve and anchored her to the world around them. His arms caught her as she struggled to sort out what she saw.
Trees towered all around them, sentinels that penned them inside a claustrophobic clearing. Green moss squished under her feet. The sun blazed behind the treetops, its rays puncturing the shadows below. A frozen sliver of realization pierced her heart. She'd visited this place before. This was where her vision unfolded. David died here.
His fingers cinched tight, cutting into her flesh.
She hissed. "Ow."
His fingers dug in deeper.
Grace pulled out of his grasp. Her gaze journeyed up to his, and her heart stopped beating.
His eyes. They flared a bright white, the pupils and irises overwhelmed by the terrifying glow that radiated from within. The brilliance expanded, inch by inch, to engulf his body in a sterile aura composed of raw power. The force of it battered her mind. If not for the psychic firewall she'd built, the Golden Power would be breaking through to pillage her mind. The energy roiling out of David prickled her flesh, inciting a hard shiver.
Her skin. She felt it. His hands had grasped her.
They had manifested. He manufactured bodies for both of them.
"No David." The grief rending her heart bled through in her voice. She reached for him, but a wave of sickening power punched into her from him, and she yanked her hand away. "No. David, no, you have to let it go. Please, for us, scrub it out of you and come back to me."
His eyes flashed brighter, tiny stars about to go supernova. The power in him distended, hot and thick and vile, rising toward an outburst of galactic proportions.
She dived into the power envelope barricading him. It scorched her skin, scraped at her body and mind, desperate to drag her back into its clutches. No, dammit, never again, you will never take me and you can't have David. She seized his face with both hands. Energy seared her flesh and coiled around her wrists, like wires ratcheting tighter. Pain shot up her arms. She bit back a cry and pulled his face to hers.
"It can't have you." Her voice growled, as if a feral animal possessed her. Yet it was her voice, her fury infusing her tone and hardening her resolve. "David, goddammit, you listen to me. The Golden Power can't take you unless you give in. Fight it. Scratch and scream and thrash until it lets go." She jerked his head down, their lips touching, her hands so tight on his face her nails dug into his cheekbones. "You're stronger than Nkosi. You can conquer this power and come back to me."
His lips twitched against hers. His body tensed. And in his eyes, a glimmer of blue broke through the screen of white-hot fire.
"That's it," she said, tears running down her cheeks. "That's it, keep fighting. You're mine, remember? Nothing else can claim you." On her next words, the fierceness of her voice reverberated in her soul. "You are mine."
The blue glittered and swelled, annihilating the white brilliance one spark at a time. The darkness seething into her from him weakened. Her heart pounded at the sight of blue fire overtaking the nuclear glow. What else could she say to rouse him, to drive out the alien power?
Nothing. Words were over.
The memory of what he'd done for her surged to the surface.
Eyes locked on his, she crushed her mouth to his, delved her tongue inside, branding him as hers with each swipe and swirl. At first, he held still, his mouth open to her but his entire being oblivious to her wanton assault. Then, with devastating swiftness, the inhuman facade imploded and avid passion combusted between them, ricocheting up and down their connection, until she couldn't distinguish his fervor from hers. The whiteness evaporated from his eyes, cast out by the blue bonfire in his irises. The blinding aura around him snuffed out. When his arms clamped his arms around her, his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth, demanding more while giving it in return, she let her eyelids shut and basked in the euphoria of their bodies fused.
Their manifestations disintegrated. As one, their minds soared back across the metaphysical distance to their bodies, uncoupling at the last second.
Sean slouched on the desk, perched on its edge. "Back already?"
David pushed away from her, his posture casual, yet with a coiled tension beneath the surface. "I know where Tesler is. Let's go."
His resolve, steel hard and impenetrable, brooked no argument. She would've tried anyway, but she knew it would do no good. The battle was imminent, and he would not be dissuaded from his goal.
Resigned, she let him lead her out to the Jeep.
Grace eyed the massive pine tree and repressed a shudder. They'd arrived here, in the clearing where her vision took place, a few minutes ago. No sign of Tesler, or Nkosi. Those facts did nothing to disperse the chill that kept rushing through her every time she looked at the tree.
David kicked the pine's truck. "He was here, I know it."
"Maybe you were wrong," she said. "We didn't see Tesler when we RV'd this place. You might've been, I don't know, channeling my vision."
"No. He was here."
She grasped his shoulders and turned her toward him. Angry lines carved into his features. Ordering him to chill out, or even begging him, wouldn't work. So she seized handfuls of his shirt and yanked him in for a fiery lip-lock. He resisted at first, stubborn in his righteous fury, but the longer she demanded a response, with every slant of her mouth over his, the more he melted into the kiss.
Ka-chunk.
The mechanical noise arrested their passion. David broke the kiss, his eyes scanning the forest. "I know that sound."
An electric shiver dislodged the heat of desire. She recognized the sound too. It was a round being chambered into a gun.
She tore her body away from his and searched the shadows between the trees.
"You won't see them," said a voice colored by a familiar accent. "Not until I command them to reveal their presence."
Nkosi strode out of the trees.
Tesler lurched out behind him, eyes as wild as his gray hair, his cheeks splotched with red.
"Over there," Nkosi told Tesler, nodding toward a thick pine tree.
The world seemed to skid to a halt, and the air caught in her lungs. The tree. In her vision, that was where Tesler murdered David.
She latched onto his hand. He was focused on Nkosi, his lips compressed, his eyes narrowed. She tugged his hand.
He turned his head, brow furrowed.
"Please get us out of here," she said. "This is where it happened."
His brow knit tighter.
"My vision." She wound her fingers through his and gripped with all her strength. "This is where my premonition took place."
He didn't ask if she was sure. He didn't need to. Their link, no longer poisoned with the Golden Power, told him all he needed to know.
The wrinkles ironed out of his brow, and his expression went stoic. "We changed things. It won't happen the way you saw."
"Please, David. Let's un-manifest and get the hell out of here."
"No." He shook free of her hand. "Tesler and Nkosi must be stopped."
"David." The sharpness in her tone resonated, loud and unmistakable. All heads jerked in her direction.
Nkosi chuckled. The sound chilled her to the core and reverberated off the trees. "A lover's tiff? I will gladly give you a moment to mend the rift, before I rip the brains out of your heads."
David swelled taller somehow, his stance wide, every muscle tensed and ready for battle. His blond hair glistened in the sunshine, and his eyes glinted with a purpose she'd never witnessed before. Her warrior angel. Her hero.
In that moment, she loved him more than she'd imagined possible.
He hurled himself at Nkosi. A snarl ripped out of him as he tackled the other man and their bodies tumbled to the ground in a blur of motion. They rolled, kicked, clobbered, bellowed. Nkosi's eyes glared white. His lips peeled back, and crooked teeth sank into David's shoulder. David rammed his knee into Nkosi's gut. The other man convulsed, his face contorted with pain.
David threw a glance at her. In an instant, she knew what he needed.
She poured all her energy into their connection, into him.
He drew his fists back and slugged them into Nkosi's chest. The power gushing through David demolished his manifestation, transmuting him into a ghost once more. His fists, now masses of energy, punched through Nkosi's body, straight to the heart of his power.
Nkosi screamed.
A crack split the air. The power coruscating out of Nkosi shredded and dispersed into the void of the crossroads.
David flung his hands away. Grace fed more energy into him, until he manifested again. A pinch in her chest alerted her the second it happened.
Moaning, Nkosi rolled his head side to side.
Each breath a wheeze, David clambered to his feet and stumbled backward.
"You fools," Nkosi said, his voice slurred. "Did you think it would be that simple?"
David tripped, flailing toward the ground. Grace hurried to catch him, her arms around him so fast he'd barely tipped over yet. He listed against her, and they both stared at the man sprawled on the ground.
Nkosi pushed up onto his elbows. "I was willing. I welcomed the Golden Power. It granted me untold potential, and I offered up my mind and soul to it. You — " He speared the air with a finger pointed at Grace. "You rejected it. I gave it form and purpose."
David trembled in her arms, too weak to move or speak. His body weighed down on her, but she gritted her teeth and held on. No way in hell she'd ever let go of him again.
Nkosi wrestled to his feet and wiped his hands on his pants. "You may have driven out the Golden Power, but I still have plenty of my own psychic energy. Yes, you are the strongest traveler my ally Tesler has ever seen, but I am almost as powerful as you."
"Maybe," she said, "and maybe not."
Nkosi massaged his jaw, one of the places where David had clouted him. "I volunteered for the project. Your parents were weak, unwilling to take the risks necessary for advancement. I was terribly pleased when Tesler came on board, and when he shared with me his vision for the project, I invited him to test his methods on me."
"You let him torture you?"
"Of course." Nkosi grinned with predatory lust. "How else could we discover if the technique would work?"
David stiffened against her, and she hugged him to her. "Technique? You aided in the torture of hundreds of psychics, not to mention the ones how died because of it. You're insane." She shook her head, unable to process the depth of his madness. "You've lost your big advantage. The Golden Power is gone."
"But I still have Digital Prognostics." He took one lithe step toward her. "I purchased JT's company after his demise, which means I own Tesler's files. I own the facilities scattered around the world. You stripped me of my greatest asset, but I hold more cards than you believe."
Like hell. They hadn't come this far, survived this much, to lose the final battle.
She must destroy all the files. There had to be a way. Without JT's secret files, which she still kept tucked inside her bra back in her real body, Nkosi would have nothing if she obliterated Tesler's data. The loss would terminate Nkosi's manic dreams.
But she had no idea how to destroy the data.
Nkosi knew how.
David pushed away from her, though his hand lingered on her back. "No."
"I thought you couldn't read my mind."
"Don't need to." He fixed his fiery eyes on her. "I know you, Grace, and I know how you think. This is not the way to end things."
"I'm afraid it is. If I don't stop him here and now, the suffering will never end."
His eyes went wild, his face pale. "Please don't do this. Please."
She kissed him, a light and tender expression of the immortal flame he'd lit inside her.
David's eyes, his beautiful soul, pleaded with her.
I'm sorry. His tiny flinch assured her he'd heard.
She confronted Nkosi. He bared his teeth in a nasty imitation of a smile. She balled her hands into fists, battling the urge to sock him in the gut. Instead, she marched up to him, nailed her gaze to his, and bashed through his mental ramparts.
He wailed. His eyes rolled back into his head. His mind fought her, pushed back, floundered for a weapon to fend her off.
She battered him with the last remnants of her psychic power. His mind splintered under her assault. A crack opened up, and she charged inside.
Not so powerful now, are you, Nkosi?
He whimpered, wailed, and collapsed to his knees. His thoughts rushed into her, a swirling, seething mass of words and intentions, laced with panic and rage, and engorged with a madness beyond comprehension.
Gunshots boomed around her.
David shouted her name.
None of it registered in her conscious mind. None of it mattered. She held a man's mind in her hands, and every thought he ever conceived slithered in her palms. She dived her fingers into the quicksand, digging, hunting, ripping, tearing.
"David, no!" Sean's voice. Distant. Unimportant.
Need, I need, yes, I need this.
She rifled through Nkosi's memories. Tossed each aside. Dug deeper. With one final thrust, she captured the information she coveted and ripped it from his mind without hesitation.
Far away, he shrieked.
A sharp pain jabbed into her neck. Weariness flooded through her, buckling her knees, and she toppled into the void.