Blood Borne Read online

  Blood Born

  DarkWorld: SoulTracker 8

  T.G. Ayer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  The SoulTracker Series

  Also by T.G. Ayer

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  About the Author

  1

  If there was anything I knew it was that the very instant in which I believed I’d caught a break, shit happened to put me back on the right track--the track where I screamed to the universe to bring it on even as I staggered when a few more chunks hit the fan.

  Steph's little Mini skidded on the wet blacktop as I hung a hard left. My fingers gripped the wheel and my vision blurred, an odd sensation within my belly twisting as though I was about to jump to the ether.

  The blinding glare of twin headlights had dogged my every move since I’d left the house to meet Ash at Elite HQ. Whoever was on my tail had taken the corner close behind me and was now approaching all too fast. The fact that they no longer felt the need to hide their presence didn’t bode at all well for me.

  Why the hell was I being chased down a dark highway by a black SUV when all I was supposed to do today was meet a friend and get an update on a bunch of unknown poisons.

  After we’d helped Saleem and the people of Mithras, we’d returned to EarthWorld, but I had too many things to think about, Samuel’s murder and my sister’s crimes at the top of the list. Of course, the curse of the Sharaita was up there too, a glaring reminder of how close we could be to our own destruction when the relic finally chose its price.

  The tires squealed and the acrid odor of burnt rubber teased my nose. Crap. Steph was going to give me hell for pushing her poor car well beyond its limits. But I figured it was better to be alive and deal with Steph's anger, than dead and unable to defend myself when my favorite hacker let me have it.

  Then again, given how furious Steph was with me right now, maybe death would be preferable.

  I’d barely completed the thought when the SUV slammed into the mini. My head snapped forward and then back hard and from the loud crack that filled the inside of the little car, I suspected I’d hurt my neck.

  The glare of the headlights, the honking horn, the sudden ringing in my ears...all accumulated enough that I felt I couldn’t breathe. A near-weightless sensation filled my mind and body. The air in front of the car shimmered then sparkled like glass, moonlight flashing off the hard surface in tandem with headlights’ glare.

  I slammed my foot on the brakes and tugged the wheel around in an almost full revolution. But I wasn't fast enough.

  Metal slammed into the magically apparated glass shattering the window in the middle of the road. The glass shattered sending shards raining down on the blacktop. The splinters tinkled as they hit the top of Steph's car.

  I'm going to be in so much trouble.

  That was my last thought before the Veil opened and the car tumbled into black nothing.

  I flailed, hands spread, wildly reaching for something to grab onto, imagining myself cartwheeling through the air, cannonballing along like some crazed trapeze artist high on Synthe.

  Somewhere along the way, Steph's car had faded into nothingness leaving me spinning in an opaque vacuum that resembled the blackness of outer space.

  I flew along almost believing I was lost somewhere in a part of the ether I'd never entered when suddenly my hand smacked hard into something. Pain screamed in my knuckles and warmth flooded the wounds. I couldn't tell what I'd hit but even as I worried about what else was out there that I could crash into, something struck my shoulder then careened past along the tunnel.

  The vehicle giving chase seemed to have disappeared into thin air but for some reason, the thought that I was here alone in this place of utter darkness scared me. Though my fingers burned with the pain of the impact I reached out around me, desperate to find something, anything, to stop my fall.

  And then a strange sound filled my ears, a loud growling that at first sounded like a crazed animal, something deranged perhaps or in agony. And it was following close behind me.

  Pain exploded in my head as something hard hit my skull. The groaning of metal the screaming of an engine, all made my heart still with fear. The vehicle that had followed so closely behind me was still with me inside this wormhole of darkness.

  And I found I was far from relieved at the reality.

  I ducked, curling myself into a ball as the car wooshed past me, tumbling over and over as it went, the lights from the dash giving off a pale green glow as it slowed and righted itself.

  Whoever they were they could still be determined to kill me. What if their weapons worked here, wherever this place was that I'd been sucked into? I blinked hard to keep the pain at bay, to keep the buzzing out of my ears.

  Even while I fell and fell along this pitch dark tunnel, I had to hope I could somehow get myself out of this mess, get back to reality. I had too much going on to be stuck in this nowhere place.

  And then the doors opened the sound of a low pinging echoing toward me as two tall dark figures sprang from the car. They seemed immune to the gravity-less ether, and where I flailed and cartwheeled like an astronaut in space these two straightened nice and tall and swung dark and strange weapons at me.

  Heart thudding, I felt a little grateful that Steph's car was long gone and that she wouldn't have to kill me if these guys put more bullet holes into her pride and joy.

  Their eyes glowed as they hovered with me, speeding along the darkness, faces hidden though their strange-looking guns shimmered as though reflecting random streams of moonlight. Who were these guys and had they been the ones to open up this wormhole? Or had I constructed it in a moment of panic? And, if I had created this tunnel of darkness, then how were my two attackers able to follow me inside?

  All too many questions and not an answer in sight.

  I blinked, limbs paralyzed as they raised their rifles. It all seemed so incongruous. The way they stared, so determined and serious. The way I flew along, cartwheeling like a crazed trapeze artist with only a sense of the tunnel walls to confirm I wasn’t lost in space.

  When the first shot went off, I wasn't surprised. I'd expected the attack but the bullet itself--and the way the tiny silvery missile behaved in the dense blackness of the dark wormhole--was like nothing I'd ever seen before.

  The bullet was headed straight for me and I did the only thing I knew how to do. Back in Mithras I'd created a dome of protection around me out of pure instinct for self-preservation. In the here and now, survival was also my preferred state of being. I didn't have time to clear my mind fully. Or to prepare.

  With the bullet speeding toward me, I raised my hands and drew the power of my instinct from inside me. We’d only returned from Mithras the day before and had all spent m
uch of the last twenty four hours recuperating.

  I hadn't had the opportunity to practice how exactly I was expected to contain my magic, or to wield it. I suppose I ought to have allowed Saleem to train me as he’d suggested, but I'd decided he needed more time to recover from his ordeals in Mithras. Despite his djinn nature, he’d been having a slow time of regeneration, probably what with everything Ward had done to Saleem’s mind. That was a whole other set of issues that had to be addressed. And soon.

  Still, it was probably not my best idea to delay training, considering I could have done with some actual experience with my newly developed powers.

  Either way, my instinct seemed to be working. The golden sparks of magical power shimmered around me, drawing a shield between me and the oncoming bullet. I had to compartmentalise my surprise now, as this was my first time seeing what the shield looked like with its network of magical threads all haphazardly connected, millions of coppery lightning bolts of energy all linked together to create a sphere of protection around me.

  I was partly aware of the postures of my attackers, both stiffening with what I could only assume was surprise, or maybe shock. Perhaps they hadn't been prepared for me to protect myself against their onslaught.

  Sorry guys. If you thought eliminating this tracker was going to be an easy assassination then you're in for a disappointment.

  I shouldn’t get too cocky though. The power shuddered within my mental grasp and I focused my thoughts on the shield, willing the skin of the protective net to hold as the bullet hit its surface.

  But the bullet didn't bounce off my shield as I had expected. Instead, the shimmering black casing of the slug split apart like pieces of orange skin peeling off in ragged strips. The shattered shards of casing fell away, discarded in our wake as we continued to fly along the black tunnel.

  I felt a tiny lilt of pride that I’d incapacitated the missile. And then that satisfaction evaporated and I blinked as the bullet just kept traveling. It pierced my magical ward, shattering the shimmering network of threads, and just kept coming at me.

  Shit.

  Now what was I supposed to do?

  2

  My magical shield was supposed to have stopped the damned bullet.

  I dug deeper and drew more power to the surface, creating a second protective sphere--this one, I hoped, would be stronger.

  I wasn't sure how I knew to do it--but I willed the ether, and the electrical energies that lived there--to help me, to help infuse the magic with its power.

  Sparks of tiny electric bolts skimmed along the energy field, shimmering as they flowed along the outer surface and infused the shield with even more power. The bullet flew straight at the second shield, slamming into the pulsating magic with enough force to shatter steel.

  This time though, my magic held.

  The gleaming missile struck hard, bounced off and then shattered into a million tiny pieces. The silver of the bullet split and then splintered off, flying off in a starburst of shimmering metallic dust.

  But even as I felt another flush of triumph, I swallowed hard, blinking to be sure I was seeing what my eyes were telling me was happening.

  The curling strips flared out like a catherine wheel of sparks but then remarkably their speed slowed as though each tiny piece of metal had grown heavy, sluggish somehow.

  And then they hovered for a moment, seeming to melt into a mercurial gloop before they changed direction and streamed back to where the bullet had impacted the shield as though attracted to that specific position by some inexplicable magical force.

  I held my breath, terrified now as the dire reality of this weapon hit me in the gut. Whatever the bullet was made of, it appeared almost indestructible. Yes, my second shield had kept it at bay, but if my attackers' bullets were all this indestructible, this intelligent, how much longer could I possibly hold out against a barrage of such weapons?

  Beyond the bullet, the second attacker fired his own weapon, letting loose a volley of bullets in quick succession. I hesitated for the briefest moment. How could I hold them off when I was suddenly faced with so much ammo?

  I pushed away my doubts and focused on an attempt to escape. I tried again to jump, concentrating on the ether, trying to claw my way toward the feel of the Ethereal Plane, but again, I had no success. The Veil had answered when I'd called for energy but for some reason, the ether was closed to me, unreachable.

  That had never happened before.

  The thought that I couldn't access the ether with my spirit filled me with a visceral terror.

  I needed help. And I needed it fast.

  As I pulled more energy from beyond the Veil and infused my magical dome with its power, I focused my thoughts on the ether itself. Yes, I was able to access the plane with some portion of my mind and I was going to take full advantage of even such a small piece of luck.

  With one portion of my awareness holding tightly to the skein of energy from the Veil, filling my dome of protection with a constant supply of power, I allowed the rest of my mind to focus on sending a message.

  I didn't know too many people who could help me in this particular situation; not too many people I knew could travel the ether the way I did. Had Samuel been around, he'd have been my first port of call.

  But now I sent a message to the one person I'd sworn not to disturb.

  Saleem.

  My mind reached for his life threads within the ether, honing in on them fast, mostly because I was already intimately familiar with them. Saleem's life source shimmered with flame, the djinn fire dispelling some of its innate power even within the ether. I clutched onto his thread and send a mental SOS in one urgent blast of thought.

  Saleem's energy filtered through to me, strong and pulsing as he recognized my SOS. It was more like a mental scream, if I had to be honest. Maybe I'd put too much of my need into it because now I also felt the pulsating fear in Saleem's lifethread. Still, at least it got him moving.

  I held my breath as I focused on holding my shield together. A barrage of bullets hit the ward and the network of magic shuddered beneath my mental grip.

  I was slowly understanding how the ability worked. I had to use mental as well as emotional will, and source my power from the ether and the Veil. But for some reason, the Veil was totally denying me right now.

  How I knew the Veil infused my magic, I wasn't sure, but it felt like an instinctive knowledge coupled with disappointment. Something told me that right now, if I could have accessed the Veil’s power, I would have easily dealt with my attackers.

  But I couldn't dwell on what-ifs.

  Saleem's lifethread grew stronger as he entered the ether, then hovered just out of my reach. "Mel?" he asked, his mental voice filling my mind and bringing a rash of goosebumps to the surface of my skin.

  He was so close and I was suddenly afraid that he'd be unable to help me, unable to see me in order to find me. I still wasn't sure where I was so I had more than my fair share of doubts.

  "Saleem?" I called, my voice shivering with fear even as I projected it as far into the ethereal plane as I could. "Can you hear me?"

  "I can hear you,” he replied, the relief in his voice only mirroring mine. “But I can't sense you. What's wrong? Where are you?"

  I shook my head, frustrated now with not knowing my next step. "I'm not sure where I am. It's someplace dark and strange. It feels like it's sucking my energy, my lifeforce." I hesitated for a second. "Can you not sense my lifethread?"

  Saleem's energy sent me a negative pulse. "No. Your thread ends dead. As though it's been cut off. What happened? What’s going one?"

  I swallowed hard. "I was on my way to see Ash about Samuel’s blood tests. And a couple of assholes tried to run me off the road. Before I knew it, I was here in the tunnel of pitch black. Honestly, I thought I'd opened a doorway in the Veil that would take me to the ether but this place is just...wrong. It's black and suffocating but it still feels as though it's alive or something."

  Sale
em’s growl of fear raised the hairs on my arms. "Shit, Mel. If it's where I think it is, I'm not even sure how you'd have gotten there without even knowing it existed in the first place."

  I wanted to laugh. Just another thing to slap me in the face out of the blue.

  I gritted my teeth as I built more power into the shield. The bullets were shattering and regrouping in a constant cloud, my two attackers watching as though they'd paid to see the latest blockbuster. I still couldn't see their faces but the glow from the energy from my shield gave me enough light to see that their faces were hidden by some kind of synthetic mask.

  At first, I'd thought their skin was as black as night but the way the surface reflected light, the matte black of their complexions as they moved, told me this wasn't real skin. Either that or these two men were more machines than living breathing creatures. Again, a mystery for a time when my life wasn't hanging in the balance.

  I blinked again and said, "Wherever you think I am, is there a way you can get to me? I've got these two assholes sending bullets at me like it's raining metal. I'm running out of energy and I can't seem to access the ether in a way to draw myself out of here. Any chance of throwing me some sort of lifeline?"

  Saleem affirmative came down to me through his lifethread and I was instantly buoyed by the possibility that I could get out of here--wherever this godforsaken place was. "Hold on a second. I think I can figure this out."