2000 Kisses (41 page)

“First thing to do is get you somewhere safe;” He pulled her down as a bullet whined across the walls overhead. “There's a second path that leads down the cliff face. It will be hell in the darkness, but we41 have to try it.”

Rocks spilled over the nearby steps and vanished into the darkness. There was no time left. “Come on,” T.J. rasped, guiding her up through the opening in the wall and out onto the narrow stone walkway at the front of the ruins.

More stones clattered into space, and a beam of light cut across the front of the cliffs. T.J. jerked her back out of sight as the light swung past again.

“We can't go that way.” Tess turned, inching along the base. Images were forming in her mind in a way she couldn't explain. “There's some sort of tower at the end of this corridor. I think there's a ledge above it”

“What kind of ledge?”

“Just trust me.” Tess wasn't sure herself about the source of her knowledge. AH she knew was that they would lose precious time talking.

T.J. moved in front of her, one hand to the wall. He trotted into the last room, then cursed softly. “Nothing here,” he whispered.

Tess drew a shaky breath. Was she crazy to trust a vision that had neither basis nor explanation? “It has to be there.” She stretched onto her toes and traced the wall, trying to ignore the flashlight beam playing back and forth over their heads. “There was some sort of stone bench. You could hear the drumming from there. “As she spoke, memories welled up like churning water.
“From the bench, you could just touch the wooden beams, and the ledge was right there beneath the roof.”

“Tess.” T.J. spoke low and tightly. “The roof is gone, and those beams have been rotted for centuries. We have to go back.”

“No.” She stood tensely. Light flared, as if from a small Are. She heard the muffled beat of great skin drums.

The vision of the ledge came again, more clearly than before. “Through here.” She tugged him past a huge slab of fallen stone. Beyond it stretched a wall of mortared clay bricks.

The remnant of a bench was just behind the fallen slab, half concealed by the debris of centuries. Tess climbed up, searching the top of the wall while the drums pounded furiously in her blood.

The room was entirely familiar to her now.

Here her blood had burned. Here she had met her warrior when the drums sobbed. He had waited for her beneath the ledge, stroked her long hair and whispered where he would meet her in the rocks above. She remembered that his skin bore the marks of many battles and a necklace of ocelot teeth that was the envy of her brothers.

She moved blindly, caught in flickering memories. As she reached up, a rock cut her fingers, making her sway. Then she felt the ledge. “Here.”

“You found it?” TJ.'s voice was tight with surprise as he touched the high inset, then braced his hands and caught her foot. “Go on, climb up. I'll hold you.”

“But how will you—”

“I'll use the bench.”

Tess clutched at the tiny ridges in the wall and struggled up, slipping back onto the ledge. She turned, reaching a hand down for T.J.

But he was already moving away. 'Tve got to go, Tess. Trust me.”

“But— ”

He faded into the darkness.

The drums sobbed as she pressed close to the wall. The world seemed to shudder like a picture tossed between positive and negative images, leaving her chilled by a sense of unspeakable tragedy and betrayal.

In the faint light of the rising moon, Tess froze as a second figure slid past the edge of the wall. It was too late to warn T.J. Her voice would echo, alerting anyone else who waited in the darkness. She searched the ledge until she felt the heavy outline of a rock, then peered down across the broken masonry.

The shadow crept forward, nearly beneath her. Moonlight glittered on the barrel of a gun.

The drums coaxed, warned, boomed, part of her blood, like a too-vivid dream, She prayed he would not look up where she crouched.

One more step. One more drumbeat.

He was directly beneath her as she held her breath, heart pumping, danger screaming in her chest.

She threw the stone at his head with alt- her strength.

T.J. heard a low crack, followed by a curse. He flattened himself against the rough wall, watching a shape sway on the walkway.

He realized the falling rock had been no accident. Tess must have seen the man following him and had taken matters into her own hands.

He smiled grimly as die figure slid to one knee, mouthing a string of curses. Then TJ.'s smile fled as
bullets cracked against stone. The man stumbled back onto his feet, firing wildly. Over the slam of gunfire came an odd yelping that rose and fell in eerie cacophony.

Something rustled behind TJ. He could have sworn he saw a dark shape shoot past, headed toward the man on the cliff face.

A bullet whined near his feet. Metal clattered as the gun hit the stone walk, followed by another high-pitched howl that echoed through the ruin. T.J. shot forward and grappled with the man, toppling him to the cliff floor. They struggled, panting, then T.J. landed a solid punch that sent his opponent's head snapping back against the mortar wall. This time the man did not get up.

T.J. stood slowly, wondering at the presence of the coyotes. Normally, they were wary of humans, ever careful. Yet there had to be at least four or five animals here, he realized. Maybe they had a den somewhere in the back of the ruin.

Straining, he made out the dark shape where Tess was still stretched on the ledge. It would take a direct beam of light to pick her out, and he wasn't going to give her kidnappers that opportunity.

Rocks clattered below him. T.J. heard something like the muffled slosh of liquid. Crouching, he inched forward, glad to feel the weight of his holstered pistol. He had counted three men down so far, and if his initial assessment was right, this should be the last of them.

But he was taking no chances.

He swung back to the narrow doorway as a flashlight beam shot over his head. Gravel skittered, raked by stealthy steps.

TJ. eased his weapon from his holster and slid the safety free. Outside the wall he heard a panting breath.
With luck, his own presence had been unnoticed, and the kidnapper would only be looking for Tess.

On the other hand, they had to be wondering why at least three of their party weren't answering.

Boots scuffed against stone.

A flashlight beam cut through the doorway, stopping only inches from where TJ. crouched. He waited tensely, watching the light move closer, A hand emerged through the near doorway, light scattering off the outline of a gun.

The figure swung left, searching the small room, and TJ. lunged, knocking the gun and flashlight to the floor. He wanted to bring the kidnappers back for questioning, and that meant using his own weapon as a last resort. He took a step back, circling in the shadows while the intruder panted and groped at the shaft of his boot.

TJ. didn't give him a chance to find a second weapon. He drove forward, ramming him with one shoulder. They tumbled to the debris-covered floor while the unearthly howling rose around them, rippling and dancing off the cliff walls, amplified by the empty rooms of stone.

T.J. almost had his target pinned when he slipped on a rock and swung sideways. The man was on his feet in an instant, driving forward as a blade glinted in the faint moonlight. The slashing blow burned across T.J.'s chest, and he spun backward with a grunt, slamming at his attacker's hand.

Too late.

The man was on his feet, dodging out through the doorway. As T.J. followed, a bullet cracked inches from his head. Even then he didn't slow down, coming in low and crouched, thinking only of bringing down this man for once and for all.

Another bullet screamed past, spraying sharp fragments
of clay and stone against his cheek. The eerie howling grew around them, a macabre counterpoint to the man's half delirious laughter as he sent another bullet into the shadows, then turned to clamber down the narrow steps.

Liquid sloshed, echoing against the walls. T.J. heard the scrape of metal. A veil of liquid sprayed out in the darkness, soaking his head and chest, and he caught the sharp odor of kerosene a second later.

Tess's kidnapper tore at his pockets. His ragged laughter echoed as he pulled out a flat square of metal.

One click sent flame dancing from the cigarette lighter.

T.J. leveled his gun. He didn't dare go closer, not soaked and ready to become a human torch. He'd have to risk a shot at the man's knee.

The kidnapper was spinning and twisting, denying T.J. a clear aim as he scrambled to a boulder above the stairs. With a wall behind him, T.J. could only edge sideways, gaze locked on the small silver lighter and its dancing wedge of flame.

But as the kidnapper's hand moved, a dark figure blocked him, yellow eyes pale in the moonlight. The pointed head lifted with a short bark that climbed to a keening howl. Whether a simple warning or a primal statement of superiority, it set all the hair rising on T.J.'s neck.

As the howl stretched on, the animal jumped high, slamming against the kidnapper. Each movement was a blur of shadow and speed, the unreality compounded by the wild song cast up around them.

Rocks skittered.

The kidnapper's lighter clattered over the steps, down forty feet or more to the valley floor. Then T.J. saw
the man sway, arms flailing, realizing loo late how close he was to the edge.

Cursing, TJ. lunged, trying to gmb him. But his outstretched hand met only restless wind and a scattering of cold pebbles.

T J. pulled Tess from the ledge and caught her tightly, the night's horror a tunnel he could notescape. Through die slam of his heart he heard her gasp.

“Tess, were you hit?” He searched her face and neck, terrified he would find blood.

“I'm fine. J-just a scratched knee and something that brushed my shoulder. But that man—”

“He's gone.” TJ. took a deep breath. He still couldn't believe what he'd seen.

“I heard the coyotes. They were calling all around the ruins. Did you see them?”

TJ. frowned. The biggest animal had been right at the top of the stairs, forty feet up from the ground but who was going to believe that? “In die shadows it's hard to say.”

Tess gripped his shoulders. “What's that smell?” She sniffed at his chest. “Is it kerosene?”

“I got caught when the can spilled.”

Her body stiffened, “He was going to burn everything, wasn't he? You, me. Even the ruins.”

T.J. drew her head against his chest, his hands tightening. “Forget about him.”

Motors droned up the hill.

Car lights cut through the darkness.

“Police. Put down your weapons!”

TJ. grinned at the sound of Grady's tense order booming from a bullhorn. “Stop shouting, Grady,” he called. “Everything's calm up here.”

“McCall?”

“Right here. We're coming out now, so don't fire.” He guided Tess into the light at the top of the stairs. The howling had abated, and the coyotes appeared to have made a strategic retreat. “You'll find two kidnappers down by the helicopter and one up in the ruins.” TJ. guided Tess slowly down the steps, his arm tight at her waist. “Another one fell from the cliff.”

A man jumped down from the front truck and sprinted toward them. “We got tired of waiting for news.”

Tess's eyes widened. “Andrew? When did
you
get here?”

“I phoned him as soon as I realized you were gone,” TJ. said, shaking hands with his old friend. “He had a call from the kidnappers about the same time that I did. They wanted an exchange.”

Tess shivered. “Me for the money?”

“Forget about it.” Andrew O'Mara gripped his sister's shoulder and tilted her head back in the truck lights. “Your cheek is a mess, and your shoulder is bleeding.”

“Just a scratch. It's good to see you too, big brother.”

Muttering, Andrew caught her in a fierce hug. When he stepped away, he fixed a measuring stare on TJ. “You don't look so good either, McCall.”

“Didn't know I'd be getting points for appearance,” TJ. drawled, Stetson shoved back on his head. “Next time I'll wear the tux.”

“There was a time when you wore a tux well.” Andrew
stared at TJ., then nodded. “You saved Tess's life. I owe you for that, cowboy.”