I needed to hold on to him because in a few hours, I was going to dissolve into dimensional fire and hope I could remember who I was supposed to be.
And if I couldn’t — well, at least I would have tried. At least I would have fought for my family and the portal network and all the supernatural sites around the world that depended on natural energy flow.
The phoenix stirred, its consciousness brushing mine. No words again, just images of fire and rebirth and transformation, along with a certain faith that I was strong enough to hold on through the merge.
I hoped it was right.
Because ready or not, scared shitless or not, in six hours or less, I was going to find out exactly what I was made of.
And pray that when I re-formed, Sidney Lowell still existed somewhere in the flames.
Chapter Twelve
The phoenix was dying faster than Ben had anticipated.
Rebecca had given him a new watch to replace the one Rosenthal’s guards had confiscated, and he checked it now as they moved through the forest. A little past twelve-thirty in the afternoon. Their small group had been traveling for three hours, and the creature’s corruption had advanced the entire time. The contamination had progressed beyond ninety percent, well past the threshold where any previous guardian would have attempted intervention.
But Sidney wasn’t one of those previous guardians.
He adjusted his grip on the makeshift stretcher they’d fashioned from a tarp and branches cut from the Douglas firs that surround the safe house. Rebecca Morse carried the front end and moved with the easy stride of someone who’d handled worse cargo in worse conditions. Sidney walked beside them with one hand resting on the phoenix’s side, her face pale and drawn. She’d barely eaten this morning despite insisting that everyone else should get some food in them before they set out, and her electromagnetic signature was muted in a way that worried him. No point in bringing it up, though. She’d only tell him she was fine.
The dimensional burns on her arms had stopped oozing. The iridescent scabbing had hardened into something that looked almost like scales and caught the filtered sunlight in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. He tried not to think too hard about whether those marks would be permanent.
He didn’t want to believe she would carry forever the cost of saving him.
“Rest stop,” Rebecca called back from the front of the stretcher, her voice soft, as if she understood they needed to guard everything they said out here. “Five minutes.”
They lowered the phoenix carefully to the ground. The clearing they’d stopped in let some pale sun break through the canopy, but Ben couldn’t let himself be too cheered by its presence.
The phoenix made a soft sound that might have been pain or exhaustion. Its wings, once magnificent even when contaminated, hung limp at its sides. Those terrible shadow veins had spread to cover everything except a small patch of clean fire around its heart.
Sidney knelt beside it and pressed both hands against the one remaining clean spot. Ben watched her close her eyes and reach out with those strange inner abilities, checking the creature’s condition. After a moment, her shoulders sagged.
“It can’t fly anymore.” She didn’t open her eyes, but only continued, “The corruption’s reached its wing muscles. Even if we put it down and told it to go, it couldn’t.”
“How much time do we have?” Rebecca asked. Before leaving the safe house, she’d studied their route on her tablet, but now she seemed to be going from memory alone.
“A few hours. Maybe three or four at the most before the corruption hits its heart.” Sidney finally opened her eyes. Tears tracked through the smudges on her face. “After that, the creature will die whether we’ve reached the portal or not.”
Ben knelt beside her and found her shoulder with his hand. He could feel her exhaustion through their connection, her fear and her desperate determination to save this creature that had suffered so much. He squeezed gently and offered what comfort he could, even while knowing it wouldn’t be enough.
“Then we’ll keep moving,” he said. “We’re making good time. Another three hours should get us close to the portal site.”
“Close isn’t good enough.” Sidney wiped her eyes with her sleeve and left behind smudges of dirt and ash. “We need to be at the exact location. The portal’s energy is what will sustain the rebirth ritual. If we’re even fifty yards off, the merge will fail.”
Rebecca’s expression turned thoughtful. “I think I can get the exact coordinates. Eric Hargrove should have access to all of Rosenthal’s survey data.”
Next to Ben, Sidney went still. “The man whose artificial portal is a big part of our problem.”
Rebecca’s shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “People aren’t simple, Sidney. Yes, Eric Hargrove has made mistakes, but he’s trying to fix them now. I know him better than you do.”
Something about the way she said those words made Ben wonder if there was more going on between her and the scientist than simply being united against Rosenthal. There had been a slight softening in her tone, accompanied by a certain shift in the set of her mouth. Small tells, but he didn’t think he was imagining them.
Not that it mattered right now. He didn’t care if Rebecca Morse and Eric Hargrove had been doing the horizontal mambo at every cheap motel between here and Portland. The only thing that mattered was whether the information Hargrove had passed on remained valid.
Sidney’s jaw stayed tight with anger, but she seemed to decide there wasn’t much point in arguing. She gave a single curt nod.
“Anyway,” Rebecca went on, “he’s been documenting everything he can. Every experiment, every protocol violation, every time Rosenthal pushed the system past the safety parameters he and the other scientists set up. When this is over, his testimony should be enough to shut down DAPI completely.”
