Dirk And Steele: The Wild Road Part 22

Not unless you want all of me.

She wanted him. She wanted him now. Inside her, on her, around her, any which way he would have her. She wanted to feel him thrust between her legs and steal the pain away.

But you 're afraid, he whispered in her mind, going very still. I can feel it.

No, she told him, but even as that thought flitted across her mind, she felt the s.h.i.+ver in her heart. Not of him. But of herself.

Lannes dragged in a deep, ragged breath, and he very gently pulled her hand out of his jeans. He cradled it between them, twining her fingers through his.

"Afraid to be alone, but afraid to be with someone," he murmured. "How familiar."

"We're pathetic," she told him. "Me, more than you. I'm terrified to close my eyes."

"You're afraid you'll be someone else when you open them."

"It could happen," she said simply. "That...thing...still hasn't left my mind. I can feel the hook. I don't know why it-she-hasn't done anything yet."

Lannes sighed. "Maybe what it wants has less to do with power than fixing some old pain. Maybe all it wants is solace. I suppose that's what anyone ever wants who's been hurt."

"Like you," she whispered.

"Like you," he replied. "Though that doesn't...doesn't make it right to hurt others. To take out that fear and pain on innocents."

Then you're better than most, she thought at him, and sidled closer, simply for comfort, needing to hear his heart beat.

"Lannes," she said softly. "I want to see what you look like." He was silent for a very long time, and only the pulse she felt within that odd little link told her that he was awake. Then, quietly: "Go to sleep, Lethe." But when she did, she dreamed.

She was back in the dome, and it was dark and she was not alone. Children laughed, squealing and shrieking at echoes, and she heard the clicks and thunderous claps of shoes racing on tile. They were slicing through her, cutting like knives.

And...something was behind her, large and pitiless and lost in stony slumber. Heaving great breaths and tremulous sighs. A beast. A monster.

A line of poetry whispered in her ear, as though a voice hovered in the air like a b.u.t.terfly.

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed," she heard, "and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned."

Drowned, dying, dead. She tried to turn, to see what slept behind her, but it was no use. Her body refused to move, and she endured, frozen and terrified, as the laughter of the children neared and the thing behind her began to stir like the slow grind of mountain rock.

It would eat her when it awakened. She knew that. She was as much a sacrifice as a lamb is to a lion, and she looked down suddenly and saw rope around her wrists and feet. Terror clawed up her throat. She tried to cry out, to scream, but could not make a sound. Nothing but a squeak.

The children came closer, still laughing, but quieter now. Hushed.

Until, suddenly, a shadow loomed, big as the dome, and hands grabbed the rope around her wrists. A woman's hands, a flash of blond hair, eyes that were green and furious and frightened.

And then those eyes s.h.i.+fted to blue, and the face became masculine and dark, and the hands melted from woman's into man's, sinewy and large with muscle. Her vision blurred, shadows gathered around the figure wrestling with her bindings, but she knew the heart, and she knew those eyes.

Lannes, she thought.

"This is only a dream," he told her, but he sounded afraid. The ropes would not loosen. When he tried to pick her up, her feet would not budge from the tile floor. They were glued there. Anch.o.r.ed.

"Run," she told him. "Hurry."

But he did not, merely stepped back, turning in place to survey the cavernous room. And she saw something that made her forget fear.

Lannes no longer appeared human. Immense wings folded against his broad muscular back, wings made of thin bones and pliable skin the color of silver and lavender. Between those wings was long dark hair, heavy and s.h.i.+ning, coa.r.s.e as fish line. She glimpsed the edge of his face: a craggy cheek, a jaw edged in a gently protruding bone that swept up toward his pointed ear.

He turned slightly to look at her, and she knew his face, though it was alien and wild. His human mask had been less of an illusion than a simple softening of features-and it was some comfort that she could still recognize those craggy lines cut with shadows and sharp angles.

And his eyes...His eyes were exactly the same-dangerously intelligent, heartbreakingly compa.s.sionate. Otherworldly. A fairy tale.

Lannes looked past her, his eyes widening. She could not imagine what he saw, but air compressed around her body like a coc.o.o.n-not a hand or a body squeezing upon her, but instead a mind, a lumbering awareness finally shaking itself from sleep.

The children, somewhere, began chanting. It was different this time. Louder. Coa.r.s.er.

Lannes pressed close, wrapping his wings around her. He tried to lift her, struggled to cut the ropes. Nothing worked. His desperation was horrific.

"It's just a dream," he hissed.

"No," she told him. "No."

Again, he looked over her shoulder. "Close your eyes."

"Lannes-"

"Do it now."

She closed her eyes, hardly able to breathe. Lannes wrapped himself around her body, pressing her face against his chest. Around them, the air closed like a fist and the voices of the children grew higher, shrill.

Until, quite suddenly, it all disappeared, swallowed by darkness.

Lannes was with her. Lethe could hear his heart thudding in time to her own, their bodies pressed skin to skin, so close she could have been part of him.

"They sold my daughter," whispered a voice from the darkness, broken with grief. "Oh, Milly. Oh, G.o.d. They took her from me. They called it a game and they lured her, they enticed her, but it wasn't, it wasn't, and I couldn't save her, they wouldn't let me save her, and I would have died for her, I would have died-"

"Stop," Lethe breathed. "Stop,please."

"You see," said the voice. "You see why I stole you. Because you are of me, you are all I have, you are my blood. And you came here. You came here, and you were willing, and I will keep you until they are dead. All of them, dead. And when they are dead, you will be free."

"Don't make her kill," said Lannes. "Don't turn her into a monster."

"We are all monsters," whispered the voice.

Lethe struggled to protest, but everything inside her tightened like the stretching of a rubber band-the world heaving with shadows-and before she could ask who or how, she was flung back into her mind.

She opened her eyes-thought she was turning somersaults, but that was just dizziness. She shut her eyes again, holding very still. Something moved beneath her: a warm chest, breathing in and out. A large hand that fell against the back of her neck.

She was on the floor. On top of Lannes. They had fallen off the bed, both of them tangled in covers. His arms were wrapped around her. It was hard to breathe. Part of her was still wild with terror.

"Lethe," he mumbled, "Are you okay?"

She could not answer him. Her voice refused to work. Lannes sat up, groaning slightly as he carefully rolled her sideways so that she lay on her back on the hard floor. He leaned over her, ma.s.sive as a mountain, his right hand moving lightly over her waist, up her ribs, following her arm to her wrist.

He checked her wrists. She tried to sit up, but he held her still.

"What?" she asked, and he held up her arm. Lethe squinted. "I can't see."

"Can you feel?" he asked, and the moment the question left his lips, she suddenly became aware of a burning sensation around her ankles and wrists. Fear spiked through her. She had to close her eyes.

"Oh, my G.o.d," she breathed. "It was real."

"Or it felt so real in our minds that our bodies reacted." Lannes ran his hand very lightly up her throat, his thumb brus.h.i.+ng the edge of her collarbone with a gentleness that made her shudder.

"Something terrible happened here," she managed to whisper.

"Someone was sacrificed," Lannes replied, sounding ill. "That's what started this."

"Runa," Lethe said, then shook her head. "No. Her daughter. Milly. Those other kids hurt her."

"A game," Lannes growled, with such fury he almost frightened her. "They used the little girl to summon something."

"You saw it."

He closed his eyes. "I felt it. There was nothing to see."

"Are you lying to me?"

"No," he said firmly.

Lethe wished she could see his eyes. "We almost died, didn't we?"

His silence was all the answer she needed, and she clamped her mouth tight, struggling for calm. Lannes leaned in even closer and pulled her into his arms with an ease that made her feel impossibly delicate.

"It's not safe for you here," he said. "We'll go as soon as possible."

"She'll just keep following me. She wants them dead. If what we saw was true, I don't blame her. Doesn't mean I want to do the deed, though."

"Etta and her brother. Simon. Who else? That name on the back of the postcard. Will...?"

She hardly heard. Another memory tormented her. "What did she mean, Lannes, when she said...'You are my blood'?"

"I don't..." He stopped. "I don't want to speculate."

"I might be related to Runa. That's what's she meant, right? According to Ed, I look just like her." A horrifying thought slipped into her brain. "You don't think... I am Runa, do you?"

"Absolutely not," he said firmly. "That would be crazy."

She banged her head on the floor, frustrated. Lannes, swearing softly, slid his ma.s.sive hand beneath her skull like a soft pillow. "Don't take this out on yourself. Not even in the smallest way."

"Lay off," she said.

"Trust me," he shot back. "Things are going to get worse. Take out your frustration on the enemy. Not yourself. Once you start that..." Lannes stopped, looking away. "Once you start, you'll lose part of yourself. More than your memories."

He began to pull away, and she grabbed his face, her thumbs caressing craggy lines and bone, and in her mind she saw again his true appearance. It was not nearly as shocking as she had believed it would be. And not in the slightest bit disgusting.

If he realized what she had seen in her vision, he gave no sign. She forced him to look at her. "Whoever hurt you...are they gone now?"

"Dead," he said, terrible tension raging through his body.

"Then stop. You let it go." Lethe curled her arm around his neck and pulled herself close, brus.h.i.+ng her lips over his cheek. His arms squeezed.

She heard a distant thump and the low murmur of voices. Then came a knock at the bedroom door, which opened before either of them could say a word.

"Lady, you need to- Oh." Koni stopped, staring at them. His body was backlit by the lights in the parlor, preventing her from seeing his expression, but his silence was enough.

And then: "It's good you're both here. We need to go. Right now."

Lannes sat up, bringing Lethe with him. "What happened?"

"The police," Koni replied. "They're at the front desk. Looking for the woman."

Chapter Sixteen.

They took nothing with them except Lethe's new clothes. Just got up and walked out. Lannes flung his thoughts ahead and behind, searching for any surprises, but the hall was quiet and they found the stairs. Five minutes later, they were in the parking lot, at the cars. Rictor was already in the Humvee. Koni climbed in. Lannes and Lethe slid into the Impala. They drove away.

No one stopped them, though they pa.s.sed an empty police sedan parked by the front entrance. They drove out of town, the Humvee in the lead, following a road that traveled from West Baden into the deep country night. Lannes did not know what time it was, but no other cars were out, and when they left the small state highway for an even smaller road, they pa.s.sed old farmhouses and small cottages framed by trees. At one point, they were chased by a wickedly fast spotted dog that leapt from behind a bush to snap at their wheels.

Lannes liked the near emptiness, the quiet. Reminded him of his youth, a world that no longer existed. He was seventy years old, still young by gargoyle standards, but everything around him had deteriorated in the intervening years, turning from a land that was idealistic, full of hardworking pride, into a carnival of glitter and excess, where the superficial, the artificial, reigned supreme.

Not that Lannes was old-fas.h.i.+oned. Not exactly. But for someone who had watched the world turn for seventy years and would not hit a midlife crisis for seventy more, there was something to be said for the solid strength of a land not eaten by strip malls and parking lots.

Rictor and Koni led them to a state park, which was little more than a boat ramp at the edge of a lake. No one else was there, and the air was quiet except for the faint lapping of waves on the sh.o.r.e. It was cold out, and dark. Almost three in the morning. Lannes could see Lethe's breath, and he wished he had thought to buy her a coat.

Rictor walked a short distance away, down to the water's edge. Koni sat inside the Humvee, bracing his foot on the open door.

"We're being screwed with," Lethe suggested.

"It's an odd way to do it," Lannes replied. "If Simon is capable of taking over minds, then why not just jump into the police officer himself? He seems capable of tracking you, too. He wouldn't have needed to ask at the front desk."

She leaned against the car, rubbing her arms. "He must be old. If the thing inside me needs to rest after coming into my mind, what about him? Maybe he's getting too worn out, so he calls in a tip to the police, tells them about Orwell Price or the car chase. Maybe he makes something up."

That made a bit of sense but was of little comfort. Lannes had prided himself on a nice orderly life for decades, and this free spin had his nerves in a bind.