Into the Shadow (23 page)

Dimly, he was aware of his brothers’ hands on his shoulders.

He shrugged them away, and gathered her into his arms. He shouldn’t have let her lie in the snow. She was cold. Already cold. ‘‘Listen to me,’’ he said to her. ‘‘You said it yourself. We’re joined. I’m in your mind. You’re in mine. We can’t be separated. Karen. Come back to me.’’

He listened for a response. Listened for her to speak in his mind. In his heart.

He heard only silence.

No. This couldn’t be happening. She could not be dead. They were meant to be together. All the time he’d been imprisoned in the mine, he had imagined their future. Believed in their future. To think of Karen, her vital inner light extinguished . . . it was impossible.
This
was impossible.

Yet . . . she was without breath, without heartbeat, limp in his arms and drifting away from him. He could feel it. Every minute, she moved further away, into eternity.

He leaned close to her ear. ‘‘If you can’t come back, take me with you.’’

Her hand dropped away, limp and lifeless.

‘‘I’m going with you. Please.’’ A thought struck him. He dug in Karen’s pocket, found the picture of her mother. He brought it out and placed it on her chest. He found the icon. It blistered his hand, reminding him of what he was. A demon, one of the devil’s servants. He held it clasped in his palm, wanting the pain to purify him . . . knowing that was impossible.

He placed the icon beside the picture and pleaded with Karen’s mother, a pretty blonde, with the dark-haired, sad-eyed Madonna. ‘‘Please. You both love her. And she loves you. She protected you both. Bring her back. Or take me. I beg you.’’

‘‘Adrik, for the love of God . . .’’ Jasha sounded hoarse, choked.

Warlord ignored him. ‘‘Please, Mary, I know what I am. I know what I’ve done. I’m not worthy to . . . touch you. Or Karen. But I love her so much, and she loves me. She really does. Don’t separate us forever. I beg . . .’’ He struggled to speak through the lump in his throat. ‘‘Talk to Karen’s mother. She wouldn’t want her daughter to be alone. She would want me to be with her. You’re both mothers. Please . . .’’ Tears trickled down his cheeks, hot and salty. Not out of fear, as they had in the mine. Not for himself. But for Karen, beautiful, vibrant, courageous. His voice shook. ‘‘She pulled me back from the brink of hell. She sacrificed her life for me.’’

Only silence answered him. She was gone. Really gone. He couldn’t feel her in his mind. All he had were memories and a cold, still body in his arms.

A sob broke from him like the wail of a wounded animal. His tears fell—on Karen, on the icon, on the photograph. He sobbed again and again, crying with such grief he thought he
would
die.

But the Madonna had made the answer clear. He had to live. Live until he helped break the pact.

‘‘All right,’’ he whispered fiercely. ‘‘I will do what needs to be done. I’ll fight the battles to defeat the devil, and when he’s vanquished, I’ll live the rest of my life as a virtuous man. Every day, I will repent for the sins I’ve comitted.’’ As he gave his oath, he cradled Karen and clenched his fist until the cords stood out in his wrists. ‘‘I will live every day with one goal in mind—that I must be as good a man as any man can be, so that when I die, I can see Karen again, I can be with Karen again. I swear.
I swear.
’’

The wind whispered through the pines and lifted his hair. The frigid air bit at his bare flesh, and the cold earth dug into his knees. A snowflake drifted past his gaze and nestled on Karen’s marble skin.

Nature wept with him.

But somewhere, someone heard his vow.

‘‘I love you, Karen Sonnet,’’ he whispered, hugging her, wanting to absorb her into his bones. ‘‘I will always love you.’’

He heard a huge, gasping sob behind him. Jackson, the poor son of a bitch, was crying.

Rurik knelt beside Adrik and clasped his hand. ‘‘I know you don’t care, but you’re bleeding, and we’ve got to do something about your arm.’’

Warlord stared at him blankly, then down at Karen. His tears had mixed with his blood and his sweat, and one pink-tinged drop rolled slowly away from the corner of her eye. It looked as if she were crying, and tenderly he brushed it away.

Her eyes fluttered.

Rurik jumped backward.

Jackson’s sob broke in the middle.

Jasha said, ‘‘Did you see . . . ?’’

Against his body Warlord felt her take a breath. He didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare speak.

She took another. And another. Her lips, her skin slowly flushed with color. Her eyes fluttered again.

He couldn’t look away.

Her eyes opened. She looked right at him. ‘‘I heard you calling me.’’ She took another slow, careful breath. ‘‘You brought me back.’’

Baby on her shoulder, Zorana Wilder walked back and forth in the kitchen of her Craftsman-style home, making dinner for her stubborn, opinionated husband, who, after thirty-six years of marriage, didn’t trust her to know what was good for him. He tried to stand by himself when she should help him. He grumbled about eating his vegetables. He tried to drink vodka when he should be taking his medications. The big ox. The big, stupid, horribly ill ox.

She whisked away her tears. He also worried when she cried, so she wept in the kitchen into her soup pot rather than on him in his wheelchair, with his tubes and his oxygen and his drugs and all the thousands of things needed to keep his tired, wounded heart beating.

She heard a car drive up the road.

Firebird said they were miles away from civilization.

Zorana laughed at her daughter and told her she didn’t know what she was talking about. When Zorana was a girl, traveling with her Romany tribe throughout the Ukraine, there had been days and roads where they saw only broken farmhouses and broken men. Here, the Cascade Mountains were all around, covered by primal forest, Douglas firs, and hemlocks so tall they protected Zorana’s family from the ferocious storms off the Pacific. In their little valley they grew vegetables and fruit and wine grapes. Here they were protected from bleak weather.

Zorana made sure of it.

The nearest town, Blythe, was twenty miles away, and Seattle was only a few hours away. So
this
home was the best of civilization.

Her friends and family knew where to find her at this hour, and sure enough, the car she’d heard drove around to the back, and in a few moments someone tapped, then opened the door.

Her daughters-in-law stuck their heads in. ‘‘Hi, Mama,’’ they said in unison.

They were pretty women.

Jasha’s wife, Ann, was twenty-four, blue-eyed, slender, and six feet tall. She dwarfed Zorana, who at five-foot-one looked up to everyone in the family while bossing them around—for their own good, of course.

Rurik’s wife, Tasya, was the opposite of quiet Ann. She was a former photojournalist who traveled the world taking pictures of war, of poverty, of troubles that could land her in prison or worse. Her dark, curly hair and bright blue eyes snapped with life. Now she was writing her fiction book, and Rurik no longer worried quite so much.

‘‘Mama, you shouldn’t carry Aleksandr. He’s too big for you.’’ Ann took the warm, limp weight that was Firebird’s son and Zorana’s only grandchild.

‘‘I know.’’ Zorana rolled her tired shoulders, then kissed the girls, one after the other. ‘‘He is like my boys. Too tall for his age, sturdy and strong. And stubborn. When Firebird is in Seattle he doesn’t sleep well.’’

‘‘Mama’s boy,’’ Ann murmured to the sleeping child.

No one said the obvious—he had no choice but to be a mama’s boy. His father was a mystery. Firebird had returned pregnant from college, and to her brothers’ fury she had refused to name her lover. In the two and a half years since, she’d never wavered; she would not allow the man, whoever he was, to know about Aleksandr.

Firebird was like her brothers. Like her father. Stubborn. Too stubborn.

‘‘Where is Firebird?’’ Tasya lingered by the window, looking out.

‘‘She’s in Seattle, having those tests done.’’ Bitterly, Zorana said, ‘‘You know which ones. The doctors are trying to discover what is wrong with Konstantine by checking his children. They think it’s genetics. They would be better asking Satan what evil he’s worked.’’

‘‘I don’t think the doctors are that well connected. ’’ Tasya’s cheek quirked.

‘‘Only some of them,’’ Zorana snapped.

‘‘How is Konstantine?’’ Ann asked.

‘‘It would be easier if I could carry him around as I do Aleksandr. His feet would drag on the ground, but at least then he could sleep when the pain gets too much. . . .’’ Zorana studied the girls, the way they looked everywhere but at her, the way they glanced out the window. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

‘‘Mama.’’ Tasya came forward and put her arm around Zorana. ‘‘We have found the third icon.’’

Zorana froze. The pain that was never far away swamped her. ‘‘Adrik’s icon?’’

‘‘Yes.’’ Ann came to join them.

‘‘He had a . . . love?’’ Without thinking, Zorana stroked Aleksandr’s soft cheek. Aleksandr, who, with his bright, sparkling laughter and his angry tantrums, reminded her so much of her third son. . . .

‘‘We have Adrik’s woman,’’ Tasya said.

‘‘Actually, his wife,’’ Ann said.

‘‘He married?’’ Zorana clutched her fist against her chest. ‘‘Where is she?’’

‘‘Jasha and Rurik are getting her out of the car.’’ Tasya grimaced. ‘‘She was hurt.’’

‘‘She was hurt caring for the icon?’’ Zorana headed out the door, out onto the porch, down the stairs.

They had a saying here:
As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen.
So true. The yard and Zorana’s garden looked sad, waiting for spring, and Zorana wished briefly for a coat.

Then she forgot the winter and the cold.

Jasha and Rurik had driven a strange van with dark windows, and Zorana quickly saw why. They had pulled a stretcher out of the back, and were now maneuvering a woman into a wheelchair.

She was a tiny thing, only a little taller than Zorana herself. She was gaunt. She was bruised. She had tubes running into her arm. And Zorana knew she had been Adrik’s love.

She walked out to meet them.

‘‘Mama—’’ Jasha began.

‘‘Sh.’’ Absently Zorana cupped his cheek. Cupped Rurik’s. Then, carefully, she enfolded the girl in her arms. ‘‘Welcome. Welcome.’’

Tears sprang to the girl’s amazing blue-green eyes.

Answering tears sprang to Zorana’s. She knelt before the woman. ‘‘I’m Zorana. What’s your name?’’

‘‘I’m Karen.’’ She had a pretty voice, husky and warm.

‘‘And you knew my Adrik. He loved you.’’

‘‘And I love him.’’

Zorana’s heart squeezed. The pain of loss, the knowledge that he had died so far away, those things were always there. But Karen would tell them about Adrik, fill in the gaps from so many lost years, and that would help Zorana’s anguish. She really hoped it would help.

Karen looked so fragile, as if she could blow away in the brisk winter breeze.

Zorana rose. ‘‘What are you boys doing, letting her linger in the cold? Take her inside. Your papa will want to meet her at once. Go on. Scoot!’’

Rather than pushing the wheelchair across the grass, they picked it up and headed toward the porch. A handicapped ramp had been installed, a necessity as Konstantine grew ever weaker.

An older man, a man of steel gray hair and steel blue eyes, followed them. He stopped beside her. ‘‘I’m Jackson Sonnet. I’m Karen’s father. I hope it’s all right, but I’m going to impose.’’

He looked so uneasy and sounded so gruff, as if he half expected her to kick him into the vines. So she hugged him, because, as Firebird always said, Zorana had no respect for personal space. ‘‘Please go in, Mr. Sonnet. A guest is a blessing for my soul, and the father of Adrik’s woman . . . that is a double blessing.’’

Another man, young, tall, handsome, stepped out of the van.

She glanced at him and smiled welcomingly, thinking he must be Karen’s brother. Except that he didn’t look like Karen’s brother.

Instead he was tall, like her sons. His hair was dark. He had a cast on one arm. He was thin, wiry, with a tanned, scarred face that had seen dissipation and suffering. His green-and-gold eyes were a peculiar shade she’d seen only once before in her life . . . in a baby she’d held in her arms.

Her heart stopped beating.

‘‘Mama?’’ The man raised his eyebrows. He spoke hesitantly, as if unsure of her response.

‘‘Adrik? Adrik?’’ She heard her own voice. It was loud, louder than she ever was, and Konstantine had the keen hearing of a gray wolf. She clapped her hands over her mouth, then slowly peeled them away. She whispered, ‘‘Adrik?’’

‘‘It’s me, Mama.’’ He smiled, the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen. ‘‘I’ve come home.’’

The last time she had seen him, he’d been a gangly boy. Now he was a man, lashed by experiences that had molded him, lifted him, broken him, and remade him. She didn’t know him now, and at the same time . . . he was her boy, her little boy.

She flew toward him, arms outstretched.

He caught her, picked her up, hugged her so hard her bones cracked. ‘‘Mama.’’ His voice broke. ‘‘Mama.’’

‘‘My beautiful boy.’’ Overcome with joy, she hugged his neck. Hugged and hugged, as if she could never let him go. This was the baby she had carried in her womb, the boy whose knees she had bandaged, the young man who had grown tall on her cooking, who had hugged her before his first date and told her he would always love her best. . . .

Abruptly enraged, she leaned back, took his shoulders in her hands, and shook him as hard as she could. ‘‘Where have you been, you stupid . . . I have worried and cried. Where have you been? Why didn’t you call? Or write?’’

‘‘You didn’t want to hear from me.’’ He wore guilt on his face, and hard-won wisdom, and such sadness.

‘‘Of course I wanted to hear from you, you big, stupid . . .’’ She hugged him again. ‘‘Men are so stupid. You are so stupid. Like your brothers. And your father. Did you have to be such a man?’’

He kissed her and set her down. ‘‘I guess.’’

She turned and faced the porch. Her other boys stood with Karen and Jackson, watching and grinning. Tasya and Ann stood by the windows, looking out and crying.

The boys started to applaud and hoot, and Zorana hushed them. ‘‘Your father’s sleeping in the living room. If he looks out . . .’’ Remembering her shriek, she said, ‘‘In fact . . .’’ and started for the house.

Too late.

The door slammed open.

Konstantine Wilder stepped out on the porch.

The stent was still in his arm, thank heavens, but he’d stripped the tubes away. For the first time in over a month he was on his feet, thin, worn with pain, his face ablaze with some emotion she didn’t dare guess.

Jasha and Rurik rushed to his side, took his arms.

He gestured them to help him down the stairs.

They didn’t argue. No one argued with Konstantine when he looked like that, like the lead wolf in a fury.

They helped him down the stairs, step after painful step.

He shook them off. He fixed his gaze on Adrik, pale and immobile, waiting for his father’s verdict.

Zorana didn’t dare move, didn’t dare speak.

The whole world waited in a hush to see what Konstantine would do.

He walked to Adrik. He stood and looked at him, looked at him for many long seconds, his eyes overly bright. Then he opened his arms. ‘‘My son. Adrik. My son.’’

Adrik walked into Konstantine’s all-enveloping hug. ‘‘Papa, forgive me. Forgive me.’’

‘‘You’re alive. You are home.’’ Tears ran down Konstantine’s face. ‘‘I have forgotten everything except how much I have longed to hear your voice and see your face.’’ Throwing his arm around Adrik’s shoulders, he said, ‘‘Now come in. Come in. Tonight we celebrate. Tonight we will have a feast!’’