Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles Book 4 Read online

  Him.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Katherine crept along the outer wall of the three-story mansion absolutely certain that every move she made was being watched through at least ten rifle scopes. The stone and mortar at her back snagged on her bullet-proof vest and clothing, snarling and tugging at the long braid that hung down her spine. She had her gun out, ready for any human threat, and her mind ready for the not so human. The home looked innocent enough, a rich man’s mountain retreat, until you paid attention to the details. Bulletproof glass, sniper perches and enough security to rival Fort Knox.

  First the tech team had hacked in remotely to disconnect the house’s entire security system and force a communications blackout. Then the ground teams moved in to surround the place and eliminate the guards outside. Two teams had entered the house and battled their way through the home. Everyone was dead, the cult members who lived there electing to die by their own hand rather than be captured and questioned. The house was theirs..

  Now it was Katherine’s turn.

  Since her Timewalker cousin, Sarah’s, battle with the Triscani in Chicago last year, Katherine’s control over her power had been sketchy at best. It was almost like being that close to their evil had fried her circuits somehow. Katherine had told no one but the team doctor how bad she really was. Her boys knew something was wrong, but they had no idea how close she was to losing control.

  She wasn’t as strong as she once was, but if anyone came at her, she was confident she could still fry their ass. The dry Colorado air helped boost her confidence. Electricity practically crackled all around her. A typical late-afternoon thunderstorm brewed overhead and the warmth of the day faded as the sun set over the Rockies.

  “Clear, Katherine. You’re up.” Her team leader, Frank’s, voice cut through her thoughts. The man was all business, and she counted on that. They all did. It kept them alive.

  “I’m coming in. North door.” Two teams had been sent into the house, one to clear the main floors, and her team, to clear the tunnels below before she entered the house. This fortress was built into the side of a mountain at high altitude and the entire team had memorized the layout. Six special ops teams surrounded the home, invisible in the pine trees and shrubs that littered the sides of the nearby mountain slopes. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there, ready to move if her team needed backup. The snipers had taken down most of the guards before she or her boys had gotten close to the house. She didn’t know how many people the two teams had been forced to battle inside the house, and she didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

  The raw power emanating from this place was too powerful to ignore. Based on the number of armed guards and surveillance equipment surrounding the house, the cult members knew exactly what they were hiding. They’d put up a hell of a fight, with the Casper Project team ordered to take them alive for questioning. But as Katherine had listened to the assualtassault, it had quickly become apparent that the cult members were under orders to commit suicide rather than be taken alive. The artifact’s energy was too dangerous to leave in the hands of the asshole who had set up shop here. Official word was that the house was occupied by a cult loyal to its leader, the owner of the home, a man they referred to as The Dragon. Who knew what kind of alien weapon they were hiding, but its influence had woken Katherine from a dead sleep hundreds of miles away.

  WhateverwasWhatever was hidden here was too dangerous to allow them to maintain control of it. She’d been the one to demand they come here and take the artifact. Finding alien artifacts, weapons, and things that reeked of power was her job. It was the reason the Rear Admiral had recruited her in the first place. When she’d told him about this place, he’d listened. Thank God. Because if he hadn’t, she would have come alone to face this cult and their ‘Dragon’. She suspected the cult leader was an alien himself, but he’d eluded capture and was, even now, probably gathering reinforcements and preparing to return.

  “I’m inside.” Katherine stepped through the door her boys had left open for her and blinked to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim interior of the home. She shivered as heated air passed by her exposed face, reminding her of how cold she’d been crouched and waiting on the ground outside. It was nearly summer, but this high up there was still snow on the ground under the cover of shade, and warm days quickly turned into freezing-cold nights.

  Katherine welcomed the approaching thunderstorm, but wouldn’t be able to use it for long. As soon as she entered the caves beneath the house, its power would be much harder to reach if she needed it. But if she had to, she could. And thank God for that.

  Survival in this world was all about power. Who had it.

  Who didn’t.

  Power she had in spades. Leashed. Managed. Disciplined. She had final say on this mission. On nearly every mission. She saw things no one else saw. Felt things no one else felt. She was the most valued asset the Rear Admiral possessed. And so he kept her out of every room until her boys cleared it. She was the loaded stick of dynamite that never got lit.

  She hadn’t fully understood, not until Chicago. She wasn’t military. Wasn’t a spy. She was something else, and that “else” tested the limits of her control more every day. It clawed up her spine like Crampons climbing a glacier. Pain she could deal with, but the rest? The dark power that had woken her and led her to this place, that filled her with both longing and dread? It summoned her now. A siren’s song that she couldn’t ignore.

  “Move it, Katherine. We’re short on time.” Frank spoke in a clipped and precise voice through her earpiece.

  “I’m at the top of the stairs.” Katherine spoke up so they wouldn’t shoot her and moved silently over the polished hardwood floors, past the flower-filled vases and strategically placed art. She loved these guys, but she didn’t do what she did for her boys, for the Rear Admiral, or for her country. There were monsters out there. Real monsters. Religious and political rhetoric were lost on her. She’d been to the dark side and it sucked.

  “Katherine.” The bark of the Reader Admiral’s voice in her earpiece brought her to a complete stop. What the hell was he doing here? He was a man who believed that what he did was right. That he protected his country and his men. That every source of power in the world needed to be investigated and pursued. Controlled.

  He was a very dangerous kind of fool, but she needed him, needed his resources and his men, and so she played a very dangerous game of cat and mouse with the system, the military, and the spooks. She worked her ass off and she kept her secrets.

  “Yes, Sir?” She purposely relaxed her body and continued to move silently down the darkened concrete stairwell. Despite her earlier chill, her dark French braid was soaked with sweat and stuck to the back of her neck before its long tail fell to hit her squarely between the shoulder blades.

  “Be careful.Thecareful. The others can feel it now, too.””

  “Understood.” A cold sense of dread squeezed her throat nearly closed. The others the Rear Admiral referred to were the lower level psychics embedded with each team outside. They had good instincts and helped make their missions successful, but none of them could touch her level of telepathy or her power to manipulate energy. Normally, she was the critical member on any retrieval. Today? As much as she hated to admit it, she was nothing but bad news. She needed a tranquilizer shot big enough to knock out a horse and about three days of unconsciousness to calm her nerve endings into some semblance of normalcy. She shouldn’t even be here and he knew it. She knew it. Hell, her whole team knew it.

  “Be very, very careful..” The Rear Admiral’s voice was gruff and more clipped than usual. The rest of her team remained silent, listening. Assessing and adapting, as they always did. Was it fear in his voice? Worry?

  No. Resignation. He knew she was a mess, and still he sent her in after it…whatever it was. He was an ass, but he wouldn’t risk her if he didn’t desperately want whatever was hidden here. And she
was the one who had led him right to it, demanded that they load the airplane and move. Today. Now.

  Palms cold and clammy with fear, Katherine passed through the doorway at the base of the stairs. It led belowground, into the hidden caves that hid secrets beneath the house. “Any luck with the scans? Have you located the object, Sir?”

  “No, but it’s down there. You are to find it, assess and advise. Nothing more. Do not touch it yourself. Is that understood?” The Rear Admiral’s voice drifted through her earpiece, but she wasn’t really listening anymore.

  “Yes, Sir.” She lied easily. The thing she hunted was closer. It tugged on her mind, filled her body with renewed energy. She wanted it. Needed it.

  Damn the man for ordering Frank to take the hit. Her team was, as far as she knew, very, very human. They were tough, brilliant soldiers, but they weren’t supernatural. They didn’t go anywhere without her. They didn’t touch alien artifacts. And they sure as hell didn’t mess around with unknown power sources so strong they caused her to bow up out of a dead sleep, screaming.

  “I mean it, Katherine. Touch nothing. Frank’s on it. Once you’ve located the object, he will retrieve it. Is. That. Clear?” The Rear Admiral wasn’t playing nice at all. Find the artifact, then let Frank, married father of three teenage boys, risk his life instead of hers. It was wrong.

  “I’ll handle it, Sir,” Frank assured the asshole. All business in that tone. Great. Frank wasn’t going to have much of a sense of humor about it if she tried to talk her way around him.

  She’d figure it out when she got there.

  “Katherine?”

  “Yes, Sir. I’ll behave.” For now. Her radio went silent as she moved into the lower levels of the house to another, hidden stairwell. Counting each step, she went deeper under the house, under the mountain. One hundred fifteen steps down the winding metal staircase of doom into a brightly lit tunnel.

  The rock walls were covered with wood paneling and art, the stone floor lined with plush carpeting that absorbed the slightest noise from her feet. The ceiling was bare rock, strung with wires and lights. She could believe she was in a normal home, if she didn’t look up.

  She continued through a labyrinth of twisting hallways and steep inclines, deeper and deeper under the mountain. The weight of earth settled on her senses, the heaviness blanketing her mind from the usual psychic noise of the surface. It was peaceful down here. Peaceful and beautiful, with hand-carved doors, paintings and statues lining the walls. The collection was exquisite, and very expensive. It would have been welcomed in the top museums in the world. It didn’t feel like a paramilitary bunker, or an evil criminal’s hideout. It felt like a home.

  These tunnels were within ancient, abandoned caves in the Rocky Mountains, where manmade underground walkways snaked beneath a mountain estate not far from the Cave of the Winds. The home and what lay beneath had been retrofitted to serve a new purpose. She understood why bad guys liked to stay underground most of the time. Fewer eyes. No rules.

  No room. No privacy. Nowhere to run. Total control. And communications? Monitored 24/7. Nothing got in or out without their leader knowing it. Unless this place had a long-range telepath slinking around, one who had another telepath on the receiving end of a personal psychic hotline.

  It was possible. Katherine would know.

  She was, and she did. Sarah. Thank God for her cousin. That connection was the only thing that kept her sane these days. There were other telepaths among the Timewalker descendants, but none she’d met were as strong as Sarah, and at times, even her cousin wasn’t enough to keep her from being totally alone in the dark.

  Eerie quiet threatened to suffocate her and she picked up her pace to a soft jog. Her team was ahead, she could feel their presence like flickering lights inside her mind. They never had to radio her to tell her where they were. She always knew. And she was close.

  “Frank, don’t touch anything.” Katherine’s instincts slithered a warning through her gut like an arctic snake winding its way through her intestines inch by icy inch. Moving and alive. Ice cold. Real. Frank was old enough to be her father, but he listened to her, had her back, and kept his mouth shut. And she loved him for it.

  “We’re all set down here. Just drinking a beer and kicking up our heels waiting on your slow ass.” Frank’s confidence helped her keep it together as she turned another corner. The object was close, so very close, and it was frying her system like an injection of liquid nitrogen into her bloodstream. Can’t lose it right now. Keep it together. Keep moving.

  Her feeling of foreboding grew. She sprinted through the corridors, slammed doors open on their hinges and raced through the tunnels. Seconds felt like hours. She knew this place like the back of her hand, and not just because she’d studied the layout of the house and grounds with the rest of her team. She felt like she was a ghost, a ghost who had haunted this house for years and was finally being allowed to come home.

  The closer she got to her destination, the tighter the apprehension in her stomach coiled, making it hard to breathe. The men outside the building barked at each other in her ear, they had fresh arrivals outside. The team on watch outside the grounds would handle it. She ignored them all. They were shifting position up top, giving her team time and keeping their escape route clear. Frank moved the pieces on the chessboard around to be sure they won the game. They always won.

  The fear, the tug in her gut, was the reason the Rear Admiral kept her around. This was the reason she got away with throwing off the Weasel’s shackles once a month and demanding a tiny modicum of freedom. When the base started to smother her and the constant monitoring became too much, she had to get out. And he had to allow her some down time, outside the base and away from the men, or the Rear Admiral would lose her. She’d made that clear after her third flawless escape. Technically, she was a civilian contractor, and she reminded him of it every chance she got. She’d even flipped him a very elegant finger gesture right before she blew out the last surveillance camera and stole his car.

  She’d come back to base four days later, rested and recharged, dropped his keys on his desk and her ass in the seat across from him, ready for the next op. After that, he’d never tried to stop her from leaving again. He didn’t own her the way he owned the guys on her team. They were all lifers, all different branches and backgrounds, recruited and retasked to this project.

  Katherine was in college when her mother, the leader of their secret network of Timewalker descendants, had discovered the existence of the Rear Admiral’s Casper Program. After that, Katherine Higgins, beloved daughter of Maggie and Robert Higgins, foreign language major, became Katherine Green, runaway and abandoned daughter of a drug-addicted mother who’d overdosed when she was fifteen. No father. Self-motivated brat who’d worked her way through the foster care system and ended up graduating from college at twenty-six with a psychology and foreign language double major. She spoke four languages. And, thanks to her mother’s network, she had all the right paper trails, witnesses and documentation to prove it.

  After that, she’d stolen an alien sidearm from a “collector’s” home, a very private collector of alien artifacts who happened to be a grade A asshole. Her mother had watched the collector for months and feared he was going to become a problem. The Rear Admiral didn’t know the man existed. So, after she stole it, Katherine started a “look-how-stupid-I-am” blog about alien artifacts and “are we alone?” psychobabble. She’d posted a video of herself wearing a mask and “anonymously” boasting about her raid, and how she’d done it to keep that kind of thing “out of the hands of the bad guys”. Then, she’d taken a video of herself firing the weapon. The gun had disintegrated a concrete block with one shot.

  The Rear Admiral’s boys had been on her doorstep in less than two hours. Her mother was happy, and she’d had her “in”.

  Hours of interrogation, where she’d eventually and very “reluctantly” revealed that she had some supernatural “abilities” and that those talent
s were what led her to the alien artifacts.

  Three days in lockup. Brain scans. Background checks. She’d waited and kept her cool. When finally, the Rear Admiral himself came to her and offered her a deal. She’d signed an agreement. Given her word for a whole lot of reasons the Rear Admiral didn’t ever need to know about. The Casper Project needed her. The Rear Admiral needed her to bring him new toys. And she needed them. Their airplanes, their money and resources, and the men who knew how to get things done, the boys who always had her back. Breaking and entering was their thing…not hers.

  That was when she’d found her second family, the team of men assigned as to her. Good guys. Her brothers. The men watching, waiting for her now.

  Dense, pulsating power filled the corridor. The vibrations hit her chest like she was standing in front of a giant base speaker at a rock concert. The energy touched her, flowed around and over her, so thick she felt like she could literally lean into it without falling over. Palatable. Solid…

  Alive.

  “Oh, my God.” Katherine crossed her arms over her chest in a futile attempt to protect her heart from the power undulating through her body. She leaned forward to push through the syrup-like opacity of the air toward her team, who surrounded a closed door. “Report. Have you found it?” The Rear Admiral’s voice felt far away, like a dream. She swayed on her feet. Andrew stepped up and grabbed her upper arm to steady her and Frank moved to catch her if she fell.

  “You all right?” Frank covered his mouthpiece and whispered the question, not wanting to alert the Rear Admiral to her reaction. Or her weakness. Her eyes met Frank’s serious brown gaze. She knew this was going to be bad, and by the look in those eyes, so did he.

  She nodded and gently shoved his shoulder to move him away from the door. Andrew stayed close but let her arm go as she moved up and pressed her palms flat to the door. “It’s in there.”