The tunnel curved, and flickering firelight came from beyond an opening at the far end. A bunker. Nukpana’s bunker. Though with that crazy goblin in there, it was more like a crypt. Between us and the opening, cold blue light shone dimly from globes embedded in the ceiling, forming pools of light on the floor at regular intervals all the way from us to the door. Circles of pale light with plenty of shadows for hiding evil minions along the wall. Rats scuttled and squeaked in the dark next to the walls, running away from the light.
Away from what was in that room. The rats had the right idea.
I was shaking. Terror would do that to you.
So would a soul-sucking rock thinking it was going to get its biggest meal in centuries.
That thought just made me shake harder.
A rat brushed past my foot. I sucked in air through my teeth. I didn’t get this far to squeal like a girl now. Then I remembered a little fact about rats.
They knew the way out—and the way in.
Rats didn’t live where there wasn’t a food source. And when they ran, it was to safety. I’d seen nothing but bare tunnels, no food here. Nukpana and his Khrynsani didn’t just choose this bunker for privacy; they would have chosen it because it gave them a quick and hidden way to get out into the city. I saw two of the rats run into the darkness of a side tunnel and heard squeaks from farther into the darkness.
Down there, somewhere in the dark with the rats, was a way out.
Before I could stop him, Dad slipped into the shadows and moved quickly along the wall to the bunker opening. I started to call out to him, but that would just get us killed faster. Though I hadn’t seen or sensed even one Khrynsani guard.
Dad reached the end of the tunnel and with his back against the wall to the right side of the opening, cautiously peered into the room. I’d expected him to look, see what was in there, and then run like hell. I didn’t get what I expected, and apparently neither did Dad. He looked at me, confusion and disbelief on his face.
What the hell?
I went, I looked, and I didn’t believe my eyes for one second.
Sarad Nukpana was laid out on a stone bier in all of his dark beauty, his long black hair flowing over the side in an ebony wave. His eyes were closed, hands folded serenely on his chest. He wasn’t moving and I didn’t need the Saghred to tell me he wasn’t breathing, either.
The bastard was dead.
I froze. That meant his soul was no longer in his body. The damned thing could be anywhere.
A flash of panic gripped me and my breath came shallow and fast. Nukpana had told me that he wanted my body, to push my soul aside, to possess me completely. My shields went up, the strongest I had.
The Saghred suddenly felt like a tiger in a crouch. Its prey was in that room, waiting.
For me.
The Saghred had no interest in the empty corpse on the bier. All its attention was on someone standing in the shadows. There was someone in that bunker, a living, breathing someone. There were no guards, none at all. I didn’t trust it, but I couldn’t think about it, not now.
I had a job and I was going to do it, through the terror and with knees shaking so badly I had to concentrate to get one foot in front of the other.
I stepped into that bunker, brushing aside Dad’s attempt to stop me. Fear it and face it. I wasn’t going to run like the rats, so there was no going back. That left forward and fighting. I’d do whatever I had to, be it steel—or soul sucking. This had to end. Now.
My mouth was bone-dry and open; I was panting. “Come out, you son of a bitch.”
Black magic, thick and vile, hung in the air like an oily stain. This was evil, fetid and dripping. I felt it through my clothes, crawling on my skin, slick and cloying.
The shadows in the far corner literally parted like curtains, revealing who they had hidden.
I stopped breathing, paralyzed with a fear so sharp that it staked me to the ground where I stood. I whimpered. I didn’t have the breath to scream.
“A final gift for you, little seeker.” The words were from Sarad Nukpana.
The voice and body belonged to Tam.
Talon screamed, a full-throated roar of denial, anguish, and rage. He lunged at his father, and it took all Dad could do to hold him back.
“For shame,” Nukpana chided from inside Tam’s body. “And Tamnais risked everything to find him. Let the boy embrace his father. It may be the last chance he will ever have.”
Terror tried to sucker punch me, but I grabbed it and shoved it down. Terror had no place here, only cold logic, and even colder action. That didn’t stop my stomach from twisting into a tight knot and another whimper from escaping my lips.
It was my worst nightmare and it was standing right in front of me. The combined magical power of the mages’ souls that Sarad Nukpana had ingested made the air around Tam’s body ripple with the sheer magnitude of it. I’d never seen or heard of shields that strong.
Weapons couldn’t reach him; neither could magic.
The Saghred was squirming inside of me, desperate to try. I kept my breathing even, and held as tightly as I could on to the stone’s power. Sarad Nukpana was too strong now. When I made my move, it had to count. I’d only get one chance, and that chance hung on those shields coming down.
“I want to speak to Tam.” I had to force the words out past the pressure building in my chest.
“What if he doesn’t want to speak to you?” Nukpana taunted lightly. “Though even if he wanted to, he’s powerless to do anything about it.” Nukpana twisted Tam’s lips into a smirk. “He’s quite helpless to do anything.”
My hands clenched into fists as a white- hot rage took control of me. I didn’t fight it; I let it in, embraced it, and aimed it squarely at the goblin standing not ten feet away. Had he moved toward me? Or had I stepped closer to him? The Saghred wanted to be much closer. I remembered training with Tam: lose control, lose life. Though now my life wasn’t the only one at stake.
Neither was my soul.
I forced myself to see Tam not as Tam, but as Sarad Nukpana. He was holding Tam hostage, the only difference being that it was from the inside. Big difference, but the same problem.
I’d freed hostages and prisoners before. Find and free them. It was my job, and I was good at it.
I would free Tam.
“You’re welcome to try, little seeker.”
The bastard was reading my mi—
“There is no need to read that which I am bonded to.”
Oh no.
Nukpana sighed in unabashed pleasure. “It saves so much time and trouble to know precisely what my future partner is thinking even as she thinks it. Your umi’atsu bond with Tamnais is most convenient.” Tam’s voice dropped to a familiar seductive purr. “And the intimacy is absolutely delicious. When I took Tamnais, I took your umi’atsu bond. It links you with his magic and his mind. I am in possession of Tamnais’s mind, so I can easily see inside of yours. Soon I’ll be able to control the Saghred—and you just as easily. Rudra Muralin’s knowledge of the stone is extensive, though I am still absorbing his memories. He was detestable as a goblin, but he will prove useful in the coming hours and days.”
I lunged for the body on the bier and drove the point of my dagger against the big artery in Sarad Nukpana’s throat. It just broke the skin and cool blood welled up around it. Nukpana hadn’t been in Tam’s body for long; the corpse on the bier was still warm. “Release Tam now or you’re not going to have a body to come home to,” I snarled. “No blood, no life.” I drew my long goblin sword from the harness on my back. “Or better yet, no head, no Nukpana.”
“My previous body and its identity have become more of a burden than an asset,” Nukpana/Tam replied mildly. “Being notorious has been fun, but it is hardly productive for the work I have planned. So by all means, little seeker, decapitate my corpse. I have no further need of it. It is my intention to remain precisely where I am.” His smile was full of fang. “Would you enjoy that, Raine? Unlimited power in the body of your lover.”
“He’s not my lover.”
Nukpana/Tam took a slow, deliberate step toward me. “Then we shall have to change that very soon. I know Tamnais has desired you for years. Pity he will be a helpless bystander, only able to watch what I will use his body to do to you.”
“Hey,” said a quiet voice. “Remember me?”
Dad had slowly circled and was now within ten feet of Nukpana/Tam. “Looks like we both found bodies.” The steely glint in his eyes promised payback, and his smile said he was going to enjoy every second of it. “Too bad you won’t be keeping yours.”
Nukpana/Tam laughed in a perverse mixture of voices. “Eamaliel Anguis, still a noble Guardian, only now your host is barely old enough to shave. Coward, you took the first body you could find.”
“You took a body you’re going to regret.”
“The seeker will not kill her soon-to-be lover—and neither will her father.”
Tam rolled his eyes.
I didn’t move a muscle; I didn’t even dare to breathe.
That eye roll was all Tam. Nukpana didn’t have a thing to do with it.
And the goblin knew it. That eye roll was followed by a flash of panic. The panic was all Nukpana. Tam may not have been in control, but Sarad Nukpana didn’t have a firm hold on the reins. At least not yet.
The Saghred smelled Nukpana’s fear and relished it. The tiger was licking its chops. The goblin knew that, too.
Dad chuckled. “Problems, Sarad? Is your control slipping? Apparently even your host body finds your antics ridiculous.”
“Then the time for play has passed,” came Janos Ghalfari’s smooth voice from the doorway behind us. The nachtmagus had five Khrynsani temple guards with him. They were completely blocking the opening.
Dad casually glanced past them down the tunnel. “That’s it? No Khrynsani welcoming committee?” The air around him virtually crackled as he powered up his magic. The guards shifted uneasily. Dad flashed them a smile that was more a baring of teeth that told them to bring it on.
