“Sanctuary. There’s trouble at Sanctuary. I need a jet!”

“How is Dante getting there?”

“I don’t know!” Why was he playing twenty questions? Why didn’t he answer her questions? “He just ran out. I’m about half an hour behind him, I think.”

“Go to the airport,” Al said swiftly. “He has two corporate jets. He’ll take the bigger, faster one. I’ll call and have the smaller one fueled and ready. It’ll take longer-you’ll have to put down somewhere for fuel-but you still won’t be more than an hour, hour and a half, behind him.”

“Thank you,” she said, almost sobbing with relief. “I didn’t think-”

“You didn’t think I’d help? You said the magic word.”

“‘Please’?” She didn’t know if she’d said “please,” but she’d definitely said “thank you.”

“Sanctuary,” he said.

Wilmington, North Carolina, 1:00 p.m.

Hope Malory paced the kitchen nervously as she waited for the phone to ring. Gideon hadn’t been gone much more than an hour, so she really shouldn’t expect his call so soon, but still…she was anxious. He owed her a serious explanation.

When the phone finally did ring, she lurched forward and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”

She held her breath as she waited for Gideon’s calming, reasonable voice on the other end of the line. Her first clue that it wasn’t Gideon was the lack of static.

A woman’s smooth voice caused Hope’s heart to drop. “Is this the Gideon Raintree residence?’

Great. An old girlfriend. A wannabe girlfriend. Maybe a telemarketer. “Yes, but he’s not-”

“Not there, I know,” the woman said, not quite so smoothly this time. There was an almost undetectable hint of panic in her voice. “There’s no time for a proper explanation, but-”

That was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t know who you are, but ‘no time for a proper explanation’ isn’t going to earn you any points with me today.”

Before Hope could hang up the phone, the woman laughed in a nervous but friendly way that caught her attention. “I can only imagine. I’ll make this brief, then. My name is Lorna Clay. Dante and Gideon need us. I’m coming your way on a jet that’s scheduled to land at Fairmont Executive Airport just west of Asheville shortly before six this evening. If you can pick me up, I’ll explain all that I can while we’re on our way to the Raintree home place.”

Hope glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and did some mental math, taking into account the horsepower in Gideon’s Challenger. “I’ll be there.”

During the early afternoon, Mercy spoke to the eighteen Raintree visiting the home place, and together they began making preparations for the attack. By mid-afternoon, ten Raintree who lived within easy driving distance had arrived, including Echo, who had come flying in, tires screeching and horn honking. Her psychic abilities were powerful, but she had not yet mastered them, making her predictions a hodgepodge of sights and sounds and feelings. Mercy knew that one day soon, Echo would fulfill all the promise she now showed, including a latent empathic ability.

The moment Echo stormed into the house, she began calling Mercy’s name as she ran from room to room. She shoved open the door to the study. Wild-eyed and frantic, she rushed toward Mercy and grasped her hand. “I’ve been going nuts all the way here. Seeing things. Hearing things. Help me, please.” Echo clutched her head. “It won’t stop. I had to pull off to the side of the road twice on the way here.”

Mercy grasped Echo’s trembling hands.

Bloody sunset. Silent twilight. Death and destruction. Mercy saw what Echo was seeing and understood the girl’s panic. Working hurriedly, Mercy drew the fear and confusion from her young cousin’s mind, and infused her with calmness and a sense of purpose. But Echo’s mind fought what her subconscious perceived as interference and control.

Mercy clutched Echo by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “Calm down. Now. We need you. I want you to concentrate. Can you do that?”

Echo quieted. “I-I can try.”

“Good girl. Concentrate on the Ansara, think about the warriors who will soon attack the sanctuary. Try to find them.”

“You mean…”

“I mean go deep and search for the Ansara who are close enough to reach the sanctuary before sunset.” Mercy squeezed Eve’s shoulders. “I’ll be right with you every step of the way. I’ll feel and see what you do.”

Echo closed her eyes. “I’ll do my best.”

Mercy gave her shoulders another reassuring squeeze. “Concentrate on the name Cael Ansara. He’s the Ansara Dranir’s brother.”

Echo nodded and closed her eyes again.

Mercy followed Echo, her mind and her cousin’s separate and yet connected. Echo went deep within herself, while Mercy stood guard as she gently guided her cousin on a single, focused path.

A convoy of trucks filled with men, flanked front and back by jeeps, rolled along the highway. Cael Ansara, dressed all in black, rode in the first jeep.

Suddenly Echo saw only darkness and heard the screams of the dying. She fought to emerge from the vision, but Mercy urged her to fight her fear and follow through until the end. As if in accelerated motion, Echo’s sight flashed over the faces of the Ansara warriors inside the trucks, and with Mercy’s assistance, she absorbed minute traces of their emotions. The overwhelming hatred and savage bloodlust Echo sensed frightened her, and Mercy could no longer keep her focused. Realizing it was best not to force the matter, she helped Echo pull back from the vision as she took all the Ansara emotions from Echo and into herself.

“Crap!” Echo’s eyes flew open, and she jerked away from Mercy. “There were at least a hundred of them. And they were all thinking about coming here, killing every Raintree in sight and capturing the home place.”

Mercy staggered slightly as she struggled to dissolve the evil emotions trapped inside her. She could hear Echo talking to her, then felt her cousin shaking her, but she couldn’t respond, couldn’t return to the here and now, until she had disposed of the last particle of negative energy.

Several minutes later she slumped over, weak from the inner battle. Echo caught her before she hit the floor.

“Damn, that scares me,” Echo said. “I’ve seen you do it before, but it’s not an easy thing to watch.”

Mercy offered her cousin a weak smile. “I’m all right.”

“You saw what I saw, didn’t you? There are so many of them, and they’re heading here today.”

“I know. We have to be as prepared for them as we can be. Dante and Gideon are on their way. I expect them to arrive sometime between five and six.”

“How many Raintree do we have already here or that can make it here by the time Dante and Gideon arrive?” Echo asked.

“Not enough,” Mercy said. “Not nearly enough.”

5:40 p.m.

By late afternoon on the day of the summer solstice, a small band of Raintree were ready to go into battle to defend the sanctuary.

The clear blue sky slowly darkened with rain clouds moving in to obscure the sunlight. The rumble of distant thunder announced a brewing storm. But Mercy knew that Mother Nature had not created the impending tempest. Cael Ansara’s forces had breached the protective shield around the Raintree sanctuary and were at this very moment charging toward the handful of Raintree prepared to defend their home place.

She had sent out Helene and Frederick as scouts, because of the few Raintree under her command, they possessed the strongest telepathic abilities and therefore could send her instant reports on the positions and movements of Cael’s troops.

In times past, when the Raintree went into battle, their empathic healers were called upon to fight, but their primary purpose on the battlefield had been to attend to the wounded. Today Mercy had no choice but to be all warrior. Until Dante and Gideon arrived, she would lead her people against the Ansara, and then she would fight beside her brothers, a united royal front with combined powers. Temporarily outnumbered more than two to one, the Raintree had to hold out against the invaders by any means necessary.