Nika urged Tori's eyes open, ordered her sister's muscles to move so she would look around and show Nika where she was and how to get her out. What she saw was far from comforting.

"Zillah's with her. So is Maura."

From behind her, Nika heard Gilda suck in a harsh breath.

"There are"a"she counted fasta""at least thirty Synestryn in there. They know we're coming; they're on either side of the opening."

Nika sent the information to Madoc with a thought, so he could see what she did.

"Drake, take the right side. I've got the left," said Madoc.

The two men hurried ahead, swords drawn. Helen was right behind them, and Nika did her best to keep up. She could feel the heat of Angus's hand at her elbow. He didn't touch her, but he was ready to catch her if she fell.

Nika sent what rea.s.surance she could to her sister, watching through her eyes as Drake and Madoc cleared the tunnel and attacked the guards waiting for them.

Another contraction hit Tori and a portion of Nika's consciousness went blind as her sister closed her eyes. She stumbled into the wall and felt the burn of Angus's touch as he steadied her.

She needed to sever the connection with Tori if she was going to have any chance of concentrating enough to save her.

We're coming. Love you, she said to Tori; then she let the connection fade until she could feel Tori, but could no longer hear her thoughts or see through her eyes.

By the time Nika was able to move, Helen was already in the cavern opening, fighting. A column of flame as thick as Helen's arm shot from her hand. Nika stepped up behind her just in time to see that flame set a group of three Synestryn on fire. They burned hot and fast, dropping to the ground before their screams had finished echoing off the walls.

As well as fire seemed to work, Nika wasn't going to chance it again. She sent her mind searching for sgath or any other creature here who might have ingested her blooda"one she could control.

A kind of resonance shimmered around one of them, telling her it was her target. It wasn't a sgath. It was tall, stood on two legs, and gripped a bent sword in its hand, which was tipped with long, black fingernails. She'd never seen anything like it, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that her blood flowed inside its veins and that made its mind hers.

Nika stepped back into the tunnel so she wouldn't be in the way, shed her body, and hurled herself inside the thing's head.

Its mind was a hot, alien place. The hunger for blood consumed its thoughts, but its fear of Zillah held it in place. Only when he ordered it to move would it dare set out for the food that had walked in.

Nika wasn't going to wait for an order like that. She took control of the thing's body, shoving herself between thoughts and actions. The monster roared in defiance, but the only sound it made was inside its own mind.

She propelled the thing forward, moving its odd, spindly body clumsily toward Zillah.

She was going to kill him with his own miniona"cut him down before he had time to even figure out what had happened.

Zillah was bent over Tori, unfastening the restraints they'd used to hold her down. He didn't see her coming inside the borrowed body of the Synestryn. She lifted the crooked sword, preparing to plunge it into his back.

From a few feet away, Maura cried out a warning.

Zillah jerked to the side just as Nika struck. The sword hit the metal table, sliding along the edge. The movement knocked the monster Nika was inhabiting off balance, and she didn't have enough practice moving its body to recover from it. The monster fell to the ground in an awkward heap.

Nika pushed it back to its feet, but by the time she turned to strike out at Zillah again, he'd already drawn his own blade. With one powerful swing, he lopped off the monster's head.

Nika shoved herself out of its mind before the head hit the ground. She couldn't see, couldn't feel. Energy floated around her, warm and sparking against her wherever it touched.

The disorientation lasted a while before she realized she hadn't gone back into her own body. Jumping out of the monster so suddenly had left her reeling and without an anchor.

And then she felt him. Madoc. His power radiated out, glowing like a beacon. She followed that power until she could reach him.

His mind was a familiar place. Comforting. Even in the midst of battle, when his body was working hard and his thoughts were on the tactics of killing, he still eased her soul. She wanted to stay inside him, huddled in his warmth, but there was something she was supposed to do.

Tori. Tori was here and she was in trouble. Nika had to get back into her body so she could save her baby sister.

Using the luceria's link as a frame of reference, Nika followed the pathway between her and Madoc, found her body, and eased back where she belonged. It took her a moment to acclimate to her own skin and take in her surroundings again. The ground beneath her was cold and hard. The battle waged on. Smoke billowed along the rough, high ceiling of the chamber, proof of Helen's work. Bleeding Synestryn bodies cluttered the floor near the tunnel. Angus, Drake, and Madoc were slashing at demons, dropping them one by one.

Tynan was working his way toward Tori. His sole job tonight was making sure she lived through the birth, and if anything happened to him, Tori's chances for survival would plummet.

Nika struggled to stand. Dizziness plagued her, making her sweat and her stomach roll with a sickening twist.

She leaned against the rock wall, letting it hold her up. She'd been in Andra's mind enough times to know what she could do. Nika wasn't sure if her strengths would lie in the same area as Andra's, or if trying to create a shield would hurt as much as playing with fire had. Either way, it was worth a shot.

Nika pulled on Madoc's power, letting it fill her. She kept her eyes on Tynan and imagined a giant bubble forming around his body.

A second later, Tynan slammed into an invisible wall.

Right. Nika needed to let him move, taking the bubble with him.

A Synestryn's blade came down toward Tynan's head. It skittered off the wavering surface of the shield Nika had created, but that blow rang through her head, as if a giant bell had been struck against her ear.

The shock of the blow rattled her, and it took every bit of concentration she had to hold the barrier steady.

A few feet away, Zillah wrapped his too-long fingers around Tori's ankle. He grabbed one of his own demons and slit his chest open. Blood poured from the beast. Something shiny glinted in Zillah's fist as he shoved it into the bleeding demon's chest.

A blinding light flared inside the cavern, and a wave of stagnant air washed over Nika. When she could see again, Zillah was gone. The table where Tori had lain was empty.

"Tori!" screamed Nika, stumbling toward where her sister had been only a second ago.

Gilda's strong hand grabbed her arm, stopping her from flinging herself into combat. "He teleported away with her. They're gone."

"We have to go after them. Follow them."

Gilda's black eyes slid away, filled with shame. "I'm too weak. I'm sorry."

Nika wasn't going to let this happen. She wasn't going to get this close to having her sister back only to lose her like this.

She took Gilda's head in her hands and plowed her way into the other woman's mind. "Show me," she demanded. "Show me how to find her. I'll do it myself."

The knowledge was there inside Gilda's cluttered mind, along with a mountain of other information. There wasn't time to linger over any of it, as tempting as the notion was. Instead, Nika went straight for the knowledge she needed and ripped it from the woman.

Gilda's eyes flew wide and a shocked gasp froze on her lips.

Nika had what she needed. The bright kernel of knowledge was pulsing inside her, ready to be used.

She needed to be closer to Madoc and Tynan so she could take them with her. She couldn't do this on her own. She sent a call to Madoc's mind, screaming at him to grab Tynan. Trusting that he'd do as she asked, she flung her mind out, searching for some sign of her baby sister.

Pain flared in her body, gripping her so hard she couldn't breathe. Another contraction. This one worse than all those before it. She felt Tori's fear, felt her despair.

Hold on, she begged her sister. We're coming.

Nika felt Madoc's hand slide into hers, heard his thoughts whispering to her that he was here with Tynan.

She grabbed tight onto his hand, opened the knowledge she'd stolen from Gilda, and sucked in a huge column of power.

The world twisted and shimmered and then everything went black.

Chapter 23.

Blood rolled down Iain's forehead as he shoved his sword through the heart of the nearest demon.

He and the other Theronai with him had taken up a strategic position inside one of the tunnels, where they couldn't be easily flanked. He glanced behind him as often as he could, hoping that the tunnel didn't offer any more access points for Synestryn to sneak up on their backs.

Even though he'd taken a hit, he didn't feel the effects of any poison running through his system, so he was counting his blessings. The wound was already starting to close, though the blood stinging his eyes was becoming a dangerous problem.

The crowd of demons thinned, and the few remaining turned tail and ran.

He looked at Liam and the others. "You all stay here and hold the exit. I'm going to take them out."

Liam nodded.

"I'm going with you," said Nicholas.

Iain turned, refusing to waste time arguing with the man. He could do as he pleased. They hurried off after the Synestryn.

They'd just cleared a curve in the corridor when Iain heard the first cry for help. Human. Female. Scared as h.e.l.l.

There had been a time when that cry would have affected him, but now all he experienced was cold calculation.

Pretend you have honor. That was what he told the men he'd brought into the Band of the Barren. It was a code he was determined to live by, himself.

A man with a soul would have been horrified by that sound, so Iain played along. "What the h.e.l.l was that?"

"Let's find out," said Nicholas.

Both men had done enough tunnel fighting to know better than to run. It was too easy to set traps along these narrow paths, and a man going too fast had no time to avoid them. Instead, they moved along as fast as caution would allow.

The cry came again, only this time there was more than one voice. "Over here!" jumbled up with, "Help us." On top of that was the sobbing of what sounded like a child.

Rage surged inside Iain. He had to clench his jaw to keep from bellowing at the walls.

The tunnel widened out into a narrow room, and along one wall was a line of metal cages. Inside those cages were three women and two children.

"Please," said one of the women at the far end of the room. "Get us out of here."

Iain turned to Nicholas and barked, "Watch my back."

"Don't take long," said Nicholas. "I got a feeling company will be coming soon."

Iain went to the first cage, where a dirty woman clung to the bars. Her tangled hair fell to her waist. She wore a long, shapeless dress covered in stains. Dirt smudged her skin, making her pale gray eyes stand out in startling contrast. She wasn't crying. Her expression was flat. "There are keys on the wall behind you."

Nicholas grabbed them and tossed them to Iain. He moved to unlock her cage, but she stopped him. Her voice was quiet, but her command was unmistakable. "Free the children and the others first."

Iain didn't waste time fighting her. She was right to give the order, so he did as she asked, freeing the others before coming back to her cell.

She hadn't moved. The others were huddled together around Nicholas, crying and clinging to one another. There wasn't a sign of a single tear or fear or relief in this woman's eyes.

He unlocked her cell and offered his hand to help her step through the small door. The second her slender hand hit his, Iain's head began to buzz. The rage constantly boiling inside him fell away, quieting the incessant screaming of his dead soul. Until now, he hadn't realized how much chaos had tormented his minda"how much of his pain had come from carrying around the dead, hollow thing inside him.

Both parts of his luceria lurched away from his skin for a moment, as if reaching for her. The sudden urge to sweep her up in his arms and run away where no one could find them pounded inside his skull. He wanted to keep her, to hide her away from the world, tucked away where only he could touch her.

She jerked her hand away, her gray eyes flaring wide. She backed up into the cage until she pressed herself against the wall. For the first time, emotion showed on her face, and that fear shimmering inside her made Iain want to rip away the bars with his bare hands.

"Stay away," she ordered him. He had no idea where she got such an air of command, but he found himself obeying before he even bothered to question why he should.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he told her.

"That's what they all say."

"Company's coming," said Nicholas over the heads of the women and children hovering near him. "Time to go."

Fighting with so many innocents nearby could get really messy, really fast. Iain wasn't going to watch these people be slaughtered just because one woman got spooked.

"Are you coming on your own, or am I making you?" he asked her.

She glanced at the group by Nicholas, straightened her thin shoulders, and moved forward. Iain offered her his hand again. She ignored it and moved past him without touching him in any way.

Iain had to fight down anger at her treatment of him. He'd saved her life and she shunned him? What kind of way was that to act? Even he knew better.

Whatever. She was out and he had a job to do. The dry sound of claws on stone combined with the wet sounds of salivating demons was getting closer by the second.

"I'll bring up the rear," said Iain.

Nicholas turned and led the group back the way they'd come. Iain held back, sword ready, waiting to kill whatever came their way.

Jackie had been cold for so long she'd almost forgotten what it was like to be warm.

She could feel heat from the man behind her hitting her back in waves. She wanted to turn around and curl into that warmth, but there was something about him that scared her. Something dark and dangerous.

The way he'd looked at her when she'd taken his handa"that look of raw hungera"was enough to make her keep her distance despite the chill in her bones. Better to deal with the other man and avoid the dangerous one altogether.

"There are more children here," she whispered loudly enough so he could hear her over their pa.s.sage. "We have to find them and get them out, too."