Alphas in the Wild (18 page)

“It’s a deal.” Her blue eyes glowed tenderly. “Give me a few seconds. I need to think how to tell you this, so it doesn’t sound crazy and disjointed.”

T
ina cracked the door and busied herself with the small, white gas stove. Tea would go well with what she had to say. She wanted to burrow back into Craig’s arms. He felt so damned good against her, like coming home. He was right, though, to be strong enough to say no. They both needed to focus. Deep in her breast a stubborn burst of hope caught, blazing bright. Maybe there was still a chance for them after all—if she lived through the next forty-eight hours.

She glanced over a shoulder. “Do you still carry single malt scotch on these trips?”

“Um-hum. I’ll go get my flask. We can spike the tea you’re brewing.”

She listened to his footsteps fade, muffled by an inch of new snow. It had begun snowing lightly about an hour ago. Wind had picked up too. The canvas sides of the tent rattled, making a hell of a racket. Craig ducked back through the door and held out a flat, silver flask.

“Nah. Hang on to it. We’ll pour the scotch in once the tea’s done.” She quirked a brow. “Wouldn’t want to burn off any of its wonderful alcohol content.”

“Guess not.” He returned to his camp stool. “Weather seems to be turning to shit out there. I don’t get it. Forecast indicated clear for at least a week.”

She handed him a titanium mug, pulled her own camp stool close, and retrieved her mug from next to the stove. “Do we need anything else before I sit?”

He shook his head and poured a jot of liquor into his cup before holding it out to her.

Tina velcroed the door shut, settled herself, and took a sip of the steaming beverage. The scotch burned all the way to her stomach. One of life’s small pleasures, it felt lovely: rich and smooth. She took off her gloves and curled her fingers around the warm metal cup. “What do you know about Andean mythology?”

“Almost nothing. I know something about the Himalayan mountain gods, but I don’t suppose they count for much here.” He shot her a crooked smile. It lit his face from the inside out, and her heart skipped a beat.

“Well, I didn’t either. Know anything, that is. I studied up on it after the thing showed up...” She shook her head. “No. I need to tell this in some sort of order. Let me start with a local legend.”

He took a sip of tea and motioned with a hand for her to begin.

“Viracocha is sort of a god. He had four sons, each lords in their own right. Guess they fought like cats and dogs. I don’t think it’s accidental their names are local peaks.” She shut her eyes for a moment, opened them, and forged ahead. “Illampu was Lord of Light. Illimani, Lord of Water. Huayna Petosi, Lord of Stone. And Mururata was Lord of Air. Viracocha was sick of their perennial arguments, so he sent his deputy, Tunupa, to see what could be done. Long story short, Mururata was punished by beheading and isolation. His head became Sajama—”

“Which stands alone,” Craig finished for her. “So there’s the isolation part. How does this fit in with you feeling threatened? Sajama’s a long way from here.”

“Yes, but Mururata’s right next to Illimani. Nothing I could find in the library mentioned it, but I don’t think the Lord of Air ever gave up. Remember when I spent six weeks in the Andes during my second year of residency? We were still together then.”

“Of course. I was guiding in Antarctica while you were here.”

Tina took two large gulps of tea and then held her hand out for the scotch. She poured more into her cup and lifted it in a mock toast. “Here’s to liquid courage. I spent a couple of weeks in the small settlements between La Paz and the Cordillera Real. Every chance I got, I ran off and tackled a peak. Sort of like what Gunter just did.”

Craig nodded. “I can see where it could work. These are easy mountains.”

She grunted. “Yeah, I thought so too. Christmas day seven years ago, I finished with my patients in Estancia Una around the middle of the afternoon and took off at a jog for Nido de Condores. Figured I’d sleep for a couple of hours, start for the summit at one in the morning, and be back in Estancia by noon the next day.”

He dug into the cookies, dipped one into his tea, and waited.

She’d always appreciated Craig’s patience and was grateful he wasn’t pushing her now, mining for details before she was ready to spill them.

She started talking again. “I made Nido de Condores just fine and set up my tent. The wind was ripping.” She gestured toward the tent door. “Sort of like it is now, only worse. Figured I’d never get any sleep.”

Tina looked away. She hated to admit the next part because it had been foolhardy, but Craig would understand. Any mountaineer would.

He crossed one long leg over the other, set his cup down, and steepled his fingers together. “Let me guess,” he murmured, his lips twisted into a wry smile. “You said what the hell and went for the summit.”

“Yes, I did. I was well-acclimatized—”

He held up a hand. “Spare me your rationale. We’ve all made summit bids when common sense would’ve dictated otherwise.”

She smiled back. “I actually did fairly well. Wind was bad, but visibility didn’t really sock in until I was on my way down. I’ve never seen it drop so fast. One minute I could see. The next, it was like pea soup. I was close to that lip at the edge of the summit plateau right above the steep section, and believe me, I was barely crawling along. Tested every step with my axe to make certain I wasn’t going to step through the cornice.”

He offered the flask. She drank from it. Despite the liquor, her muscles felt tight. She’d avoided even thinking about that night since shortly after it happened. The impromptu rerun while out for her daily jog in Leadville had been damned unsettling. Talking about what happened—even with Craig who would never judge her—was hard. Tina stood and paced from one end of the very small space to the other. It took about three steps before she had to turn around.

More of her story unfolded. The words felt like bits of glass; they cut deep leaving the safety of her mouth.

“You must’ve been petrified.” Craig’s voice was warm and soothing. She’d just told him about falling from Illimani’s ridge.

She flashed him a grateful smile. “Only another climber would understand. I was scared and alone and fighting feeling hopeless. Once hopeless happens, we may as well cash in our chips. I wasn’t sure how far I’d fallen. It didn’t matter, really. I wasn’t climbing back up.”

A look of admiration crossed his face. “God, but you’re gutsy.”

Tina felt her face heat at the unexpected compliment. She kept pacing while she talked. Movement made things easier somehow. “Once I got off the cliffy part, I just sort of sank into the snow, put my head in my hands, and cried.”

“Was it dawn yet?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Not even close. Still dark as pitch—”

“I’m trying to picture the glacier,” he broke in. “You were at what, about nineteen thousand feet?”

She nodded. “Something like that. Anyway, I started to pick my way down. The tracks in the snow I’d followed on the way up had been obliterated by the wind, and I hadn’t set wands. Didn’t even bring any.” Tina rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t understand why every young mountain climber doesn’t end up dead.”

“You and me both,” he seconded. “But go on.”

“I’d just sidestepped a mother of a crevasse when a huge gust of wind knocked me to one side. My crampons skittered on ice and all hell broke loose. The snowfield disintegrated under my feet. It’s not the first crevasse I’ve fallen into, but it was the worst by a good big bunch.”

She looked at Craig. His forehead was creased; his hands had balled into fists. She’d just described a series of events, any one of which would’ve made the top ten hit parade in climbers’ worst nightmares.

“I figured I was as good as dead.”

“You tried to climb out, didn’t you?” Craig’s voice was terse, as if the words had been torn out of him. He leaned toward her.

“Of course. I tried until I was so winded I could barely breathe. It didn’t do any good. When I knew I’d never get my crampon points or axe into the ice, I started drilling in ice screws. Made it about twenty feet and my headlamp died.”

Craig’s breath rattled from between clenched teeth. “Shit!”

“Funny. Same thing I said, followed by fuck and a whole bunch of other useless cursing. I knew I’d have to wait until dawn. It was so cold, I was afraid I’d freeze to death if I wasn’t moving...”

Tina steeled herself. The next part was going to be hard. She lurched into a halting description of the thing that had visited her in the crevasse, led her to safety, and bound her with blood, ending with saying she thought it was likely Mururata.

She dragged her gaze upward to meet Craig’s. He shook his head and looked away. “Aw, come on, Tina. That’s not possible. You must’ve been hypoxic. I’ve had high altitude hallucinations before—”

“It wasn’t a hallucination,” she hissed. “Look.” She shucked both jackets and rolled up her left sleeve. A jagged scar ran six inches up the inside of her forearm. “A normal cut wouldn’t look like this.” She traced white, ridged edges that resembled out of control scar tissue. “I doused it with disinfectant and bound it that first night. Didn’t have energy for much else, and I had to stop the bleeding. I tried to put stitches in the next morning but the edges were too tough for my suture needle. It wouldn’t puncture the skin.” A corner of her mouth turned down. “Made it harder to delude myself the whole thing hadn’t happened.”

Craig’s green gaze zeroed in on her. “It’s right out of mythology. I saved you, so you belong to me now.”

Her chest was tight. Her skin crawled. She shrugged to loosen things up. “Yeah, not so different.”

He nodded. A muscle twitched in the set line of his jaw. Craig pushed to his feet and placed his arms around her. He kissed her forehead and moved away. Handing her jackets to her, he helped her into them. “I believe you, but it sure stretches the edges of credibility.” He poured more water from the pot into his cup, followed it with scotch, and sat back down. “What happened then?”

“Next day I went back to Estancia Una and tried not to think about any of it.” Tina snorted. “Did a pretty good job until a month ago when my supernatural buddy showed up in my bedroom and almost suffocated me to remind me of my debt.”

A whistling intake of breath told her more than words. “Is there anything else?”

“Isn’t what I’ve told you enough?”

“Probably. But you know me, I like to be thorough.”

“One of your more stellar traits, actually.” She glanced at him. He had the beginnings of circles under his eyes. “You need to get some rest.”

“I will. Once we come up with a plan.”

“Well, we can’t very well make one until we see if Gunter shows up.”

“Sure we can. We can come up with Plan A and Plan B. What happens if you just go back to Colorado?”

“He’ll show up like he did the other morning, except next time he’ll kill me.” Heat rose to her face. “I mentioned suffocate, but I didn’t elaborate about him pinning me to the mattress and cutting off my oxygen.”

“No, you didn’t. Any other small, insignificant details you left out?”

She winced. “I deserved that. No. You know everything now.”

“What do you suppose he does with his captives? And how about those other lords you mentioned? Wasn’t Illimani one of them?”

She nodded. “Yeah, Lord of Water.”

“Well, do you think he’d be willing to help? Or Illampu. What was he lord of? Light?”

“Good memory.” She shrugged and drained the rest of the liquid in her cup. It was stone cold and beginning to freeze. “How the hell do you ask a mountain spirit for help?” She slipped her gloves back on.

“We’re brainstorming here, Tina. Let’s get all our ideas out on the table. Surely we can come up with something better than you offering yourself up to Mururata, or whatever his name is, like a sacrificial goose. If that’s your best plan, you could’ve stayed in Colorado and let him kill you there. It would have been easier and much less expensive.”

She snorted. “Expensive for whom? Remember, you’re paying me.”

He furled his brows. “Didn’t you offer to come along pro bono if I’d already hired another doc?”

“Yes, but—”

“Tina. I’m teasing you. Listening to what happened to you seven years ago was painful. It probably wasn’t any easier for you to tell than it was for me to hear, but we need to move beyond feeling shell-shocked, if we’re going to be effective strategizing solutions.”

Tina dropped back onto her stool. “You always had a way of cutting right to the heart of things.”

“My pleasure.” He inclined his head. “What were you thinking you’d do once you got here?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Engage him in hand-to-hand combat? Spit in his face? Tell him to find some other patsy?”

“That’s my girl. You weren’t going down without a fight.”

“Would you?”

“Hell no. Help me think here. Maybe there’s some way to beat him at his own game. If he were any good at this, the mountain would be littered with corpses.”

“Maybe it is, and they’re all hidden in crevasses.”

“Now there’s a cheery thought.” He snapped his fingers; they didn’t make any sound since he had gloves on. “I have an idea. What if he targeted you because you’re female?”

“What if he did?”

“If you could lure one of them, sweetie, maybe you could enlist one of the others to help.” His gaze tracked the length of her body. “You’ve never appreciated how stunning you are.”

“Oh, bosh.” She waved a hand in the air.

“Humor me. There’re still a few hours of dark left. Come back behind the boulder pile where we talked earlier. I’ll go with you. Take off enough outer layers so your, um, assets are visible, and ask Illimani and Illampu for help.”

“Christ, Craig, I thought—”

“Do you have a better idea?” he countered. Getting to his feet, he held out both hands to her. “We have to stop thinking like twenty-first century humans. If the thing that has you in its gunsights in as ancient as you believe, we need to think more like him.”

“Got it.” She stood, sucked in a weary breath, and walked out of the mess tent with Craig right behind her. She was willing to try just about anything if it would free her from Mururata’s clutches.