Into the Shadow (19 page)

‘‘Did you think to check the dental records?’’ For someone who was asking for help, Karen was damned sarcastic.

‘‘There wasn’t enough left for dental records.’’

‘‘You should have checked the DNA.’’ He heard Karen take an annoyed breath. ‘‘Look. We’re crashing the plane in a remote location in the High Sierras and making our way on foot to these coordinates. You can take them down or not. You can believe me or not. You can help us or not. But as I understand it, there’s a prophecy about
your
family,
your
cousins want
my
icon, and the giant snake that bit Warlord isn’t nearly as horrible as the extreme fighter who’s tracking us.’’

Whoever she was, she knew a hell of a lot about a hell of a lot. Jasha gestured to Ann for a pen and paper. ‘‘Give me the coordinates. Maybe I’ll be there.’’

Ann handed him the paper, and on her laptop typed,
Rick Wilder.

‘‘And maybe if you’re not up for it, you ought to send help.’’ Karen rattled off the coordinates.

‘‘I’ll call you with my decision.’’

‘‘Not on this phone you won’t. It’s going down with the plane.’’

Jasha heard a beeping.

‘‘Gotta go,’’ Karen said. ‘‘We’re jumping in three minutes.’’

‘‘I thought you said Warlord was unconscious. ’’

‘‘He is, on and off. If the slap of cold air doesn’t wake him up, I’m flinging him out anyway.’’

‘‘What if he doesn’t come to?’’

‘‘Serve him right.’’

Maybe it
was
Adrik.

‘‘Although sometimes he’s not so bad. You know?’’ As if she didn’t like admitting to softness, she snapped back into annoyance. ‘‘Don’t worry; we’re jumping tandem. I’ll get him on the ground. Then . . . God help us if you won’t.’’

The line went dead.

Jasha stared at the receiver in fury and astonishment. He was the president and CEO of Wilder Wines. He was married to the finest woman in the world. He was the oldest Wilder son. He was a warrior. He was a wolf. No one talked to him that way. ‘‘Does she think I’m so dumb that I’m going to drop everything and go running into what is obviously a Varinski trap? I cannot believe the nerve of that woman.’’

‘‘It’s been two years since your mother had that vision,’’ Ann reminded him absently as she flipped through Internet pages. ‘‘Two years since I found the first icon and Tasya found the second one. Your father’s illness is accelerating. If we don’t find those last two icons pretty soon, he’s going to die, the pact will go on forever, and—’’

‘‘I know. I know!’’ Jasha hated being so helpless. ‘‘He’ll go to hell for all eternity.’’

‘‘And your mother will be in her own hell without him.’’ Ann tapped his arm and handed him the laptop.

There, on a tech business news page, was the announcement of a hot new computer game set to sweep American gamers, and under the headline, WARLORD, was a photo of its designer, Rick Wilder.

Even after seventeen years, Jasha recognized his brother Adrik.

Tears sprang to his eyes. ‘‘The little shit,’’ he said.

Ann hugged him. ‘‘I know.’’

‘‘Seventeen years without a word. He broke Mama’s heart. The news of his death almost killed Papa.’’

‘‘I know.’’

‘‘For God’s sake, we buried Adrik’s remains. ’’

‘‘I know.’’

‘‘I ought to leave that snot to freeze in the wilderness.’’

‘‘You should.’’ Ann looked at him. ‘‘Do you want me to charter you a plane to Yosemite?’’

‘‘Right.’’ He kissed Ann and jumped out of bed. ‘‘I’ll call Rurik and tell him we’ve got to go get our little brother out of trouble—again.’’

She finished her preparations, pressed a kiss of apology to her palm and then to the instrument panel, and stepped back into the cabin.

Warlord was stretched out in the aisle, dressed for the jump.

She touched his forehead, pressed her hand against the vein beating in his throat.

He was still alive.
Thank God.
She’d wondered. She’d feared . . . and why, she didn’t know. Of all the men in this world who deserved to die, in her book he had been number one.

She pulled on her coat, jumpsuit, goggles, and full-face helmet. She strapped her bag to the front of her, then pulled on the bare piggyback harness. She could not believe she was going to abandon this beautiful plane.

Yet she couldn’t really whip up indignation about the loss of the airplane, not after hearing the story about his first love. . . .
If I could, I’d do it again.

He’d lured a man to his death. He’d killed him with tooth and claw.

Emma’s father had deserved it. And if he’d been turned over to the courts, sooner or later he would have walked and gone back and beaten Emma again. Or killed her.

So who was in the wrong?

She stepped over Warlord’s body. His camping backpack bulged, with snowshoes strapped to the outside.

She looked down at his unconscious face. ‘‘You were ready for this, weren’t you?’’

Going to the door, she located the emergency door-release handle and activated it. The door blew out and down, disappearing under the Citation’s wing. Wind blasted a tornado in the cabin. She turned and started.

Warlord was standing behind her, strapping his backpack to his waist.

The first alarm sounded; the plane’s computer recognized that it was too low, recognized that it was approaching an obstacle.

‘‘Is Jasha coming?’’ Warlord shouted into the wind.

‘‘I don’t know,’’ she shouted back. ‘‘I probably said the wrong thing.’’ She glanced at the rapidly oncoming mountain.

Another alarm. And another.

‘‘There isn’t a right thing to say to my family. I’ve burned too many bridges.’’ He hooked her to him.

‘‘He said they’d buried your remains.’’ She looked back at him. ‘‘Ready?’’

‘‘Let’s go.’’

The alarms were sounding continuously now. Frigid air blasted them in the face.

They jumped.

They were free-falling less than a thousand feet from the ground.

She counted to three, then yelled, ‘‘Do it!’’

Warlord pulled their rip cord. The updraft snapped them from full screaming downward fall to a slow, peaceful descent. A slow, peaceful, freezing-ass-cold descent.

Behind her, Warlord maneuvered them to face the impact.

He wrapped his arms around her as the glorious, sleek bird of a Cessna cascaded into the stark, rocky cliff of Acantilado Mountain. The ball of flame exploded, then disintegrated. The concussion blasted them across the tree-tops and down a slope.

With the two of them hooked together, and all the weight they carried, they descended fast. Too fast. They had no clear space to land. ‘‘Cross your legs!’’ Karen heard, and complied just as the snowy forest reached up to snag them. She flinched as her boot hit a tree limb.

Then they were in the woods, snow spilling off the branches that slapped them for their impertinence. The scent of pine filled the air.

They were headed for a tree trunk, the biggest tree trunk she’d ever seen. Warlord’s arms tightened around her. She threw her arms up to protect her head.

And something grabbed the parachute and jerked them to a stop.

The jolt knocked the breath out of her.

Then, with a huge crack, the branch that held them broke. They plummeted to the ground, smacking boughs, until Karen landed face-down in a snowbank, Warlord on her back. The impact broke through the crust. Ice packed in under her face guard, filled her eyes and her mouth, and brought her to immediate full consciousness. The weight of Warlord and the supplies made her flail helplessly, desperate to take a breath.

He rolled over, pulling her out of the snow, and while she yanked off her helmet he unhooked the strap that bound them.

While she spit and wiped, he came to his feet, pulled off his helmet—and laughed.

She couldn’t believe it.

‘‘What’s wrong with you?’’ She cleaned a chunk of hard-packed snow out of her cleavage. ‘‘We almost died—more than once we almost died—we’re still in serious danger, and you’re
laughing
.’’

‘‘But we didn’t die, and what a ride!’’ He laughed again, and shrugged out of the parachute harness. ‘‘Wasn’t it spectaular?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘Come on, Karen.’’ He hugged her to his side. ‘‘Gravity won. We got to the ground. That’s a good omen.’’

‘‘You’re crazy.’’

‘‘One of us has to be. And look.’’ He pointed to his face. ‘‘The cold brought the swelling down. I can open my eye a little—and I can see.’’

He was right. Where the venom had touched, his skin still looked appalling— crusted-over and red. But his lid was better, and his eye was clear and moved freely.

Her relief made her admit, ‘‘Then I guess all this snow is good for something.’’ He watched her wiggle around, pulling snow from places that should never have seen snow. ‘‘Need any help digging that out?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘Really. I’d be glad to help.’’

Sick as he was, he was smiling. Flirting. Happy to be on the ground, glad his eye was undamaged, and somehow shored up with the unshakable belief of idiotic manhood that if he could just put his warm hands on her freezing body, she’d collapse into his arms in a passionate heap. ‘‘You’re incorrigible.’’

‘‘So I’ve been told.’’ With a carefree shrug, he gave up . . . for the moment.

He put on his snowshoes, then helped her on with hers. Glancing up at the broken branch above them, he said, ‘‘If the Varinskis search, that’s going to betray us.’’

‘‘We’re over seven thousand feet. It’s twenty degrees. The storm is starting.’’ She held out a gloved hand and let a snowflake drift into it. ‘‘The Varinskis are the least of our problems.’’

‘‘True. The snow will cover the wreckage and our tracks.’’

‘‘If we don’t get to a safe place, the snow will bury us alive.’’

He collected the parachute. ‘‘Come on, while I can walk, and let’s find somewhere to set up camp.’’

‘‘And then what?’’

‘‘And then we will live through this . . . or die together.’’ He kissed her cold cheek. ‘‘If I have to die, I want it to be with you.’’

She pulled a hat and scarf out of her bag and wrapped herself up. ‘‘Let’s make sure we live. I’ve got unfinished business with the Varinskis. ’’ She shot him a meaningful glance. ‘‘And with you.’’

She stopped, gasping. ‘‘We have to set up camp.’’

‘‘We haven’t gone far enough.’’ He rose to his feet. He sank back down. ‘‘Not far to the rendezvous point.’’

The excitement of the jump had kept them on their feet, but after a mile in the snowy woods with a snowstorm closing in, that excitement had failed. Everything about Warlord—his fading color, his dull eyes, the sweat that beaded on the exposed part of his brow—mirrored her own adrenaline crash, and the creeping pain and paralysis of the venom.

‘‘It doesn’t matter. We simply can’t go any farther.’’

‘‘We’ve got to. We’re too close to the spot where we landed. We’re too easy for the Varinskis to find.’’

‘‘Right. You go ahead. Let me know how that works out.’’ She looked around for the best place to set up camp. When she looked back, he’d quietly pitched forward on his face.

She dragged herself over, flipped him onto his back, and checked his pulse. He was giving off flashes of fever that should have melted him right through the snow. ‘‘What did you expect?’’ she asked his prone body. ‘‘Five hours ago a magical big-ass cobra bit you. Four hours ago you beat up Wonder Falcon. An hour ago we crashed your plane. Did you think you were Superman?’’

He did. She knew it. She’d be surprised if he didn’t own Superman sheets. In some ways he was such a guy. In others . . . well, this wasn’t the time to contemplate his past or his ability to turn into a panther, or she’d leave him out in the snow.

‘‘At least the cold has reduced the swelling on your face.’’ She squinted into his eyes. ‘‘I think your vision will be okay.’’ She patted him on the shoulder. ‘‘Good work.’’

She picked a flat spot nestled into some boulders where the towering incense cedars would protect them from the snow. She looked up at the sky and saw only billions of snowflakes rushing toward the ground. She didn’t want to be buried alive.

She searched his backpack. She found dried rations, rope, snap links, a folding shovel, two semiautomatic pistols, ammunition . . . Jackson Sonnet would approve. The guy was prepared.

She dug a shallow trench, took the parachute from Warlord’s stiff hands, and layered it over the snow. She pulled the two-man tent out of his backpack. Thanks to Jackson Sonnet, she’d learned to set up a tent in the dark in subzero temperatures, with the wind blowing. Good thing, for she erected this one in a haze of pain and desperation. She didn’t have a lot of time. The numbness was spreading inexorably up her arms and legs.

She laid out the sleeping bags—good to forty below, she noted approvingly—in the cramped space inside the tent. She zipped them together to make one big bag, and stacked their back-packs in the corner. With a shiver she went back out into the snowstorm, dragged Warlord’s prone body to the entrance, and rolled him inside, knocking the snow off him. She fastened the tent flap closed. She stripped him down to his underwear, shook him awake enough to drink water from the canteen. She took a drink herself, and zipped him into the bag.

Then she sat, panting, stared at his black, tousled hair, and tried to remember why she’d worked so hard at saving his life. He was Warlord, the mercenary who’d kept her as a slave and forced her to acknowledge helplessness in the face of her own sexuality. This was Rick Wilder, the jerk who pretended to be an innocuous businessman to get in her pants again. And when she had saved his life, he would still insist that he should be part of her life. If she left him out in the snow to die . . . She shuddered.

Okay, she couldn’t do that, because . . . She opened her bag and dug through until she’d found the icon. She stared at the rendering of the Virgin Mary, broken by her son’s sacrifice. The Madonna looked right at Karen, silently reminding her of the precariousness of life, and her painted-on tears glistened anew. Karen couldn’t sacrifice Warlord, no matter what he’d done or what he would do.

She knew a lot about Warlord’s defeat. She’d seen it herself, and in a corner of her brain, she played and replayed that scene she had witnessed in her mind: the battle, the fight with the Varinski, Warlord’s loss.

Where had he been the last two years? In a hospital? In a prison? In a coffin? It was possible, she supposed. When that Varinski had hit him, he’d been flung through the air onto jagged rocks. Most men would have died. Yet Warlord was here and, until tonight, he had appeared to be hale and hearty. How was that possible?

How was any of this possible?

His rough voice grated across her nerves. ‘‘Karen. Come to bed. We need each other’s warmth.’’

Karen woke with a start.

Warlord was unconscious.

The icon was in her bag.

She was delirious. If she didn’t get in the sleeping bag soon, she never would.

Outside, the storm’s fury made the trees creak and groan.

In here, in the dim light, she could see her breath.

She fought her way out of her outerwear, sweating from exertion and fever. When she was down to a T-shirt and underwear, she gave a sigh and slid in next to Warlord. She ought to take off her gold bracelets, but right now, for no reason she could understand or admit to, they gave her comfort. They connected the past and the present, and she needed a bridge back to the time when Warlord was healthy . . . for now he burned beneath her touch.

Placing one hand on his chest, another on his brow, she whispered, ‘‘Please, God. We have to live through this.’’

As if she’d prayed the perfect prayer, she sank into Warlord’s mind and his heart.

Warlord woke in a panic. He tried to stand. His legs were broken. His ribs were broken. He was blind. He could barely breathe, and his thoughts stuttered in his head. Panic beat at him, and he shouted, ‘‘Hey!’’

‘‘Shut him up. Shut him up!’’ The flashlight shone directly into his face, and he flinched away.

‘‘Ye leave him alone. He’s hurt.’’

Warlord recognized the voice. ‘‘Magnus?’’

‘‘Hush.’’ Magnus sounded funny. Hoarse and anguished. ‘‘We’ve got to be quiet.’’

‘‘You shut him up,’’ the flashlight said, ‘‘or I’ll finish him.’’

Not likely. You’re not a Varinski.
But Warlord obeyed Magnus. His second in command sounded so frantic, and Warlord didn’t understand where he was, why he hurt, what had happened to them.

The flashlight went away, once more leaving them in absolute pitch dark.

‘‘Where are we?’’ Warlord whispered.

‘‘In Siberia, in the deepest gold mine in the world.’’ Magnus groped up Warlord’s arm and held his shoulder. ‘‘I can’t believe ye’re alive. How did ye survive that fall? When that monster hit ye, it was like ye’d been blown from a cannon.’’

A face popped into Warlord’s mind, blazing like a demented Halloween mask, a face composed of a
Neanderthal brow and jaw. Involuntarily, Warlord shrank in his skin. ‘‘Who was he?’’

‘‘Name of Innokenti Varinski. He’s the new enforcer for the armies on the border where we used to reign.’’ Magnus moved, and groaned. ‘‘Did ye know ye had a cousin like him?’’

‘‘No.’’ In all Warlord’s years as a mercenary, he’d never met a Varinski.

Now he never wanted to meet another one. ‘‘Who did they capture? Who did they kill? Who’s hurt?’’

‘‘There’s a lot of injuries—Bobbie Berkley’s in here with us; he’s not going to live—but we lost only eight men.’’ Bitterly, Magnus said, ‘‘They have a use for us.’’

Warlord didn’t guess; he knew. ‘‘We’re the new slave labor.’’

‘‘Gold miners, that’s us.’’

All of his men, but especially Magnus, hated to be confined. These were men who walked their own paths, and now they would dig . . . until they died. Warlord felt sick with guilt. ‘‘How far down are we?’’

‘‘Only eight hundred feet. They’re pampering us until we’re healthy—’’

‘‘Healthy? What’s wrong with you?’’

‘‘I lost an eye, and I can’t stand up straight enough to run a drill.’’

This was his fault. ‘‘What happens when we’re healthy?’’

‘‘They’ll send us below.’’

‘‘Below?’’ Warlord moved painfully, slowly. ‘‘We’re at eight hundred feet. Just how deep is this sucker?’’ He healed quickly, more quickly than normal men. His bones were mending, but there had been a lot of damage. He had to get on his feet. How much longer until he could stand?

‘‘Sixteen hundred feet straight down. They say they won’t let helicopters fly in the area because the down-drafts suck them in. The deeper you go, the closer to hell you are, the hotter it gets. They say the air down there is full of poison and men die where they drop, and not even the worms are there to eat them.’’

This was his fault. His fault. His fault. He’d neglected duty to touch Karen, to hold Karen, to hear Karen’s voice and make love to Karen. His men trusted him, they followed him, and he’d led them right into slavery. He’d failed them.

He knew what damage his uncontrolled lust had caused, yet he had to ask, ‘‘Did Karen escape?’’

‘‘Yer woman?’’ There wasn’t an ounce of reproach in Magnus’s voice. ‘‘I never heard that they caught her, and no reason why she shouldn’t have. The damned Varinskis were too occupied with crushing our bones to bother with a woman.’’

Warlord closed his eyes in relief.

Karen was safe.

Then, lifting his head, he said, ‘‘Listen to me, Magnus. I’ll get better fast. And you know what I am. I’ll get you and the other men out of here; I swear I will. . . .’’

Karen struggled, trying to get away from the horror of this vision, but it gripped her and wouldn’t let her go.

Four days Warlord had been down here. He knew that because once a day someone shoved food and water into their cell. Bobbie Berkley had died on the floor beside them; the guards had left him for twenty-four hours before they dragged his body away. The heat, the dark, the sense of being trapped in the womb of the earth with billions of tons of rock pressing all around like a grave . . . it never changed. Nothing changed down here.

Magnus twitched and groaned in his sleep, and once when the guards shone a light in the cell, Warlord saw his injuries.

He hadn’t just lost an eye. He’d lost half his face.

His fault. It was all his fault.

Now Warlord heard the guards at the door, and jerked away at the light.

‘‘He’s fine. Get him up and send him down.’’ Warlord recognized that voice. Innokenti Varinski.

He broke into a cold sweat.

As if he were a puppy, the Neanderthal picked him up by the collar. ‘‘I see you remember me.’’

‘‘I remember you.’’

‘‘I am Innokenti Varinski. I am your conqueror.’’ When Warlord said nothing, Innokenti shook him. ‘‘Say it.’’

‘‘You are Innokenti Varinski. You are my conqueror. ’’ Warlord told himself he obeyed because it
was the smart thing to do. But more than that, he obeyed because he was afraid. Afraid of this beast who had defeated him in battle, hurt him as he had never been hurt before, and who would delight in the chance to do it again. And again.

Innokenti sniffed him as he would a moldy piece of bread. ‘‘You smell funny . . . for a human.’’

‘‘I need to wash.’’ Warlord did not need this massive Sauron imitator to figure out they were related by blood. As long as Warlord’s abilities were secret, his men had a chance.

‘‘Would you like us to draw you a bath? And put rose petals in the water?’’ Innokenti grinned and showed a mouthful of black and missing teeth.

‘‘When did the Varinskis start rotting like normal men?’’ It was a fair query, maybe a little rude, but still a fair query, for the deal with the devil had guaranteed them long lives without the problems that plagued mere mortals.

But evidently Warlord had hit a sore spot.

The Varinski’s smile disappeared. He smashed his forehead against Warlord’s face until blood spurted from Warlord’s nose and mouth. ‘‘You insolent little prick. I’ll show you rot.’’ He flung him against the wall, picked up the guard’s steel prod, and slashed Warlord across the back.

Warlord screamed. Five times the rod fell. Then Innokenti threw it across the room. He hit a guard, who shrieked and fell to the ground. ‘‘Chain his hands and feet and put him to work.’’ Picking Warlord up off the floor, the Varinski said, ‘‘I’m Innokenti Varinski. When you die, remember me and curse my name.’’

‘‘Innokenti,’’ Karen muttered. ‘‘Innokenti.’’ The scene shifted and . . .

Days and months without end, without light, without enough food or water.

Warlord didn’t have the breath to curse Innokenti Varinski. He didn’t have the strength or the will. The depths of the mine sapped his energy. The work shattered his body. The constant loss of his men, one after another, broke his will.

This was his fault. His fault. His fault.

Once a month Innokenti arrived with his steel rod and beat Warlord. At first Warlord didn’t know why he’d been singled out. Had Innokenti realized that Warlord was related to the hated rogue branch of the Varinskis, the Wilder family?