Into the Shadow (17 page)

"We’ll jump in tandem so we don’t get separated. " He handed her a sheet of paper.

She glanced at it. It was written instructions to get them to the site where they would meet Jasha . . . if he decided to come.

‘‘Are you afraid?’’ he asked in apparent concern.

‘‘No, I’m not afraid! Why would I be afraid?’’

‘‘You’re afraid of falling.’’

‘‘I’m not afraid of jumping!’’ Did he think she was some kind of coward? ‘‘But look around you. This is a Cessna Citation X. It’s a beautiful bird. Crashing her would be a crime!’’ Karen frowned. ‘‘Actually, it probably really is a crime.’’

He considered her as he might consider a butterfly. ‘‘I’ve been a mercenary. I’ve killed and robbed. Do you see me as someone who is worried about the criminality of crashing my own airplane?’’

‘‘I suppose not. But the Cessna . . .’’

‘‘Did you see him?’’

At once she knew who he was talking about. The guy in her dream. The guy who had stood there and watched the airplane come at him without a sign of fear. She nodded, her gaze fixed on Warlord.

‘‘That beast is Innokenti Varinski. Remember that deal with the devil? His ancestor made it. Their ancestor . . . they’re trackers. They’re mercenaries. They find their prey wherever it runs. And they’re after you.’’

‘‘But . . . !’’ She patted the perfectly functioning, beautifully sleek controls.

‘‘I know.’’ He caressed his leather seat. ‘‘We’re going to crash it in a remote location in the High Sierras. It’s winter. Rescuers will have a hell of a time finding us.’’

‘‘They’ll follow the homing signal from the emergency locator transponder.’’

He looked at her incredulously.

And she knew. ‘‘You removed the ELT.’’

‘‘Disabled it,’’ he said. ‘‘When they do finally locate the crash site, it’s going to appear that our bodies have been incinerated in the fiery crash. The Varinskis will be suspicious, but this is the only chance we have of putting them off our scent, of buying ourselves time to escape.’’

Questions and protests whirled in her head. ‘‘If the Varinskis are mercenaries, who’s paying them to find me?’’

‘‘No one. They’re hunting you for themselves. ’’

‘‘Why? Why me?’’

‘‘Because you’ve got the icon.’’

‘‘Why? Is it that expensive that they have to have it?’’

‘‘No. It’s powerful. If it is united with the other three Varinski family icons, the pact with the devil will be broken and they will be like other men.’’ He pulled on the socks she’d brought him.

‘‘How do you know this?’’

‘‘After I held the icon, after it burned me, I was haunted by the realization that I was in league with the devil. That whether I liked it or not, I was the same as Innokenti, distasteful to heaven.’’ Warlord watched her steadily. ‘‘And not worthy of the woman who obsessed me in my dreams.’’

She shook her head. She didn’t want that responsibility.

‘‘Oh, yes. You kept me alive in the dark, and somehow you possessed one of the Varinski icons. I didn’t believe that was coincidence. Those icons have been hidden for a thousand years. So after I . . . after . . . about a year after you left, I got myself together and I made it my business to find out what was happening. I visited the old Varinski home in the Ukraine.’’ Warlord laughed. ‘‘That place was a joke, a huge old house with rooms added on wherever, broken windows stuffed with rags, cars in the yard overgrown with weeds. There are at least a hundred Varinskis living there. They’d killed their leader the year before and were fighting among themselves to see who would take over the family business.’’

‘‘Who would hire these . . . assassins?’’

‘‘Mostly dictators and military leaders, but really, anyone who can afford their price. And don’t forget the Varinskis have been doing this for a thousand years. They’ve got the reputation to charge whatever they please.’’

‘‘Is this big business?’’ she asked incredulously.

‘‘Is war big business? Is murder big business?’’

That was answer enough. ‘‘So the Varinskis are rolling in money.’’

‘‘Let’s say they have good reason to fight like hell to maintain the status quo.’’ He was fumbling with his hiking boots, acting as though his fingers were numb.

She put the plane on autopilot again, knelt at his feet, and pushed first one, then the other, into his hiking boots. ‘‘So you sneaked in the house somehow?’’

‘‘No.’’ He grinned. ‘‘I walked right in like I belonged.’’

She had to admire his guts.

‘‘Apparently I look enough like the rest of the family that no one paid a bit of attention. I wandered around, listened while they talked, and found out someone had made a prophecy—’’

‘‘Who? A medium?’’ She wavered between sarcasm and belief.

‘‘Sort of. Uncle Ivan is this old Varinski. He’s blind—the first Varinski ever to go blind.’’

‘‘No Varinski in a thousand years has gone blind?’’

‘‘The deal with the devil guaranteed good health and long life, but now there’s illness, and that is a sign the pact is disintegrating. From what I could tell, Uncle Ivan has these white, cloudy eyes, he drinks all the time, and pretty much is incoherent and drooling. Except every once in a while he speaks in Satan’s voice.’’ Warlord shivered. ‘‘He warned their leader that he’d better find the icons or else, and when Boris turned out to be a failure, he had the Varinskis kill Boris.’’

Nothing made sense; legends and mythical beasts were playing on a great big plasma screen that made the monsters—and the heroes—look more real than anything in the real world, and she was scared.

‘‘What about you?’’ she asked. ‘‘Will you be like other men, and never change into a cat or . . . ?’’

‘‘I assume.’’ His good eye became a fevered slit, and he looked . . . hungry. Anguished.

Warlord said she shone with light. She didn’t believe that, but she tried for a little optimism. ‘‘If the Varinskis are in such disarray, you’ve got a good chance of winning.’’

‘‘Yes, except . . .’’

‘‘Except what?’’

‘‘There’s one kid, name of Vadim. He smells like . . . evil, and I swear, when I was there he was the only one who knew I didn’t belong. He’s young, so at first he couldn’t seize power. But the old men who oppose him are dying, not by any natural means, and when I was there Vadim was gaining ground. Since then I’ve talked to other mercenaries, listened to the rumors, watched his progress on the Internet, and he’s in charge now.’’ Warlord was grim. ‘‘If he succeeds in stopping us—my family, the Wilders—the devil will keep every Varinski soul for another thousand years.’’

They were flying over the western edge of Nevada. To the east was the dry, brown, flat Great Basin. To the west the mountains rose, shocking white and snowy against the lowering gray sky.

She looked around at the luxurious Cessna. She looked out at the Sierra Nevadas. And she did not want to abandon this airplane. ‘‘You’ve got a brother,’’ she said persuasively. ‘‘You were sending me to him. Why don’t we go to him together?’’

‘‘He’s not happy with me, and he will be less happy when I bring my battle to his doorstep.’’

‘‘That battle is your family’s battle.’’ She finished tying his boots and sat back on her heels.

‘‘Innokenti is fighting for the Varinskis, yes. But he is stalking
me
. I made a fool of him. He beat me in battle. He imprisoned me. And all the while he thought I was nothing more than a mere human.’’

‘‘So what?’’

‘‘Do you realize how much the Varinskis would love to get their hands on a son of the current Konstantine? Of the American Konstantine Wilder? No, of course you don’t. If they held one of us, me or one of my brothers, or, God forbid, my sister, the battle would be over.’’ He grinned unpleasantly. ‘‘Innokenti had me and never realized who I was. He never realized that burying me a thousand feet underground wouldn’t be enough to keep me confined. He didn’t realize I could generate a revolt that would make the Varinskis a laughingstock among assassins and mercenaries around the world.’’

‘‘It’s personal between you two.’’ The sting in her fingertips was spreading up her arm. Her toes tingled painfully.

‘‘And you’re caught in the middle. I’m sorry.’’ He sounded sincere.

‘‘Not that I like being caught in the middle, but I rather like—’’ She stopped.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Nothing.’’
I rather like that you refuse to bring the wrath of the Varinskis down on your unsuspecting family.

‘‘We’ll parachute out of here together. We’ll survive somehow, and there’s a good chance this maneuver will fool Innokenti completely.’’

‘‘Really? A good chance?’’

‘‘A decent chance. The best chance I can make for us. If he believes his mission is complete, that we’re dead, then we’ll be safe.’’

‘‘Okay. Winter in the High Sierras.’’ She thought of the icy peaks, the snow measured in feet instead of inches, the avalanches . . . the cliffs waiting for the unwary to slip, plummet onto the rocks below, and die. ‘‘Goody.’’

He took her hand. ‘‘You won’t fall.’’

When she was his captive, she had hated that he knew her weakness. Now, when danger nipped at their heels and he was scarred by the past and threatened by the future, his words comforted her.

‘‘I know. I really do. I think it’s just a natural fear of falling combined with . . .’’ She could almost hear Jackson Sonnet’s voice snap,
God damn it, Karen, stop being so melodramatic.
‘‘Well, just a natural fear of falling.’’

‘‘Combined with your mother’s death,’’ Warlord finished her thought.

‘‘You did your research.’’ How uncomfortable was this? He knew about her mother. He was analyzing her. Seating herself in the pilot’s seat, she busied herself with the controls.

‘‘It wasn’t tough to find that news report.’’ Then he surprised her. He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘‘I am sorry. I can’t imagine the pain of losing your mother so soon.’’

To have him talk about her mother and hold her at the same time . . . that made her choke up. Choke up over a death that occurred twenty-six years ago. She furtively wiped a tear off her cheek. ‘‘I’ve never really gotten over it. I should have, but I haven’t.’’

‘‘I did some research on your father, too. He doesn’t sound like the most sensitive guy in the world. Maybe you were never given the chance to get over it.’’

She turned her head and looked at Warlord. She should be incredulous—this man who had held her captive, who placed slave bracelets on her wrists, who spent two solid weeks inflicting the best sex on her unwilling body—he was making aspersions about Jackson Sonnet and his lack of sensitivity.

But Warlord was so close his face almost touched hers. And this feeling that welled up in her—it wasn’t lust. It had nothing to do with sex. It was the recognition of one wounded human soul for another. ‘‘When did you last see your mother?’’ she asked in a low voice.

He answered as quietly, ‘‘Seventeen years ago.’’

‘‘Do you ever miss her?’’

‘‘Every day. And when I see her again, I’ll go down on my knees and beg her forgiveness for leaving and never letting her know I was alive.’’

‘‘What will she do?’’

‘‘Probably pop me a good one to the back of the head. Then hug me. Then feed me. I hope we get stuck on the ‘feed me’ stage for a while. She can really cook.’’

Karen smiled. He sounded so affectionate. So hopeful. ‘‘What about your father?’’

Warlord’s arm fell away. ‘‘My father and I always clashed.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘It’s hard. I love being a beast. I love stalking my prey. I love fighting with tooth and claw and knowing I will win,’’ Warlord said fiercely. ‘‘But my father is named Konstantine, because he was the leader of the Varinskis. Then he met my mother and fell in love. They married—from the stories they tell, the Varinskis and her Romany tribe opposed the match—and immigrated to the United States. They changed their name to Wilder, had us three boys, and then ten years later, a miracle girl, the first girl born in a thousand years. . . .’’ Warlord half smiled.

Karen watched him, fascinated to see him lost in his sentimental recollections.

But Warlord caught himself and straightened. ‘‘The thing is, as the leader of the Varinskis, my father did some unspeakable stuff before he married Mama, and he was strict like you wouldn’t believe. He said . . . he said every time I turned, I slid down the long path to hell, and you know what? He was right. I know it now. The mouth of hell almost swallowed me before I turned away, and even now it beckons me.’’

He scared her when he talked that way. ‘‘What do you mean?’’ she whispered.

‘‘I should never become a panther. I should never step into the shadow. But when I do, I feel so strong and sure. It must be like cocaine. It creates an illusion of power so addictive, I can never stop. Yet I have to, or I’ll be like . . . them.’’

‘‘The Varinskis.’’

‘‘Yes. Like the Varinskis. So you see, for a lot of reasons we have to save the icon.’’

Furtively she stroked the gold bracelet around her wrist, then straightened her shoulders. ‘‘I’ll throw it away.’’