Chapter 378
Closing my laptop, I tried to calm myself down. My heart rate was still faster than normal, even though I was over the initial wave of adrenaline the fight had caused. In the silence around me, I could easily hear the rest of the apartment. My mom was in the other room crying. Part of me wanted to run out and tell her I’m sorry, that I’m still her little girl, and I didn’t mean to be such a horrible brat. Part of me was glad she was so upset. She deserved it, after all. There was no reason for her to stick her nose in my business all the time.
I turned on some soothing music to cover the sounds of my mother’s soft sobs and closed my eyes. I needed to figure out who this Daunator person was, and I needed to reach out to Larundel and see if I could find any Vampires that were still there. When Paul attacked, I wanted him to have as much information as possible. Not only was he my cousin, but we were linked now that I had been in his mind so frequently, particularly when he was being tortured.
With my eyes closed tightly, I stretched my mind, concentrating on the name Daunator. If he could be summoned through his name, perhaps I could find him that way as well. I felt the world fading around me, the music disappeared, the feel of the bed beneath me faded away, and I felt as if I were floating through time and space.
I was in a cave. It was pitch black, and I could smell the scent of mineral laden water dripping against the rocks. Not a flicker of light was present here, but I could sense I wasn’t alone. Off in the distance, there was a male being. His power pulsated out around him like a dark web of energy.
There was no way I was getting inside of his mind. Traversing my way through this energy field would’ve been impossible and made that barrier of black goo Holland had built around Aaron seem like Silly String. Whatever this creature was, he was at least a hundred times more powerful than Holland. And he knew I was there.
Standing across from him in the darkness, I had the urge to fade away as quickly as I’d come. I knew better than to stick around, to try to probe deeper into the labyrinth, but my feet seemed anchored, and I couldn’t get myself to pull back. It occurred to me that perhaps he was holding me here, that he was doing some probing himself, and I wondered if he could read all of my thoughts instantaneously, just because I’d entered his territory.
A resounding, “Yes,” echoed in my head, and I immediately pulled away, but by then, the damage was done. He knew everything that I knew, and if my senses were correct, he would be able to flip back and forth through the pages of my mind over and over again any time he liked, accessing all of my memories, everything I knew about the Ternion, all of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. This was not good. Thankfully, there wasn’t much in there that was top secret information. I didn’t even know enough about the upcoming attacks for that to be useful.
I opened my eyes before I pressed on to Larundel. It was late afternoon; I could tell by the fading light through my blinds. A glance at the clock told me I’d actually been under for two hours. I took another deep breath—that didn’t seem possible. I had four message on my IAC. Two from Brandon, one from Cadence, and one from Elliott.
I probably needed to tell my sister what had happened, but I couldn’t imagine how I’d start that conversation. Besides, they needed to know about Larundel, too. I decided I’d have more control over that investigation and closed my eyes again, ready to travel to Melbourne.
Once again, it didn’t take long for me to settle into a trance. My room disappeared from around me, and I found myself standing in the desert next to Larundel, which looked the same as it had in my dream. I knew the desert setting wasn’t right having seen the area around the building, so I wasn’t sure why my mind continued to place me here whenever I thought of this place, but it must be linked to Holland somehow.
I took a few careful steps toward the building, but before I got very far at all, the ground in front of me started to quake and rumble. I jumped back just as a large, iron wall shot out of the ground, high up into the sky so far I couldn’t see the top. It reminded me a bit of the wall I’d been too afraid to jump over at Eastern State, but this one was different. I took a step closer and saw that it was covered in razor blades. It was impenetrable, at least by the usual means.
But I had different resources at my fingertips, so I closed my eyes and imagined myself on the other side of the wall, thinking it should be easy. It wasn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to get through it. The information my team needed was behind this barrier, but I wasn’t strong enough to access it. Frustrated, I took a deep breath and reached out in front of me. As soon as my fingers made contact with the wall, I pulled my hand away with a shriek. Blood covered my fingertips, and even though I was aware I was in a trance, the pain was real. I couldn’t climb it, I couldn’t leap over it, and I couldn’t envision myself on the other side of it. Whatever Holland had done to put this wall here, I wasn’t powerful enough to get through it.
The thought was more than frustrating. I had thought my powers were growing, that I was nearly as strong as Holland now, but clearly I was wrong. Perhaps it was because she’d constructed this wall while at Larundel that made it so strong compared to everything else I’d been able to destroy, but there was no getting through this. With an angry sigh, I opened my eyes, taking myself back to my bed. The pain in my hand faded away, but the frustration lingered.
