Jasper Mountain (25 page)

Milena enjoyed the dark and quiet. There were no lamps lit in her room. She retreated once she finished telling the future of the doctor and four others. After the doctor, she gave the kind of fortune Isabella wanted the men to hear. Victor watched her constantly, and she sensed the King of the Jackals tightening his circle around her.

Her knees gave way and she sat on the edge of her bed, her head spinning with questions. If ever she needed guidance, the time was now. She needed to leave. Soon. But where to go?

Closing her eyes, she reached out to the Otherworld.
Shuv’hani, what am I to do?

Silence. No answer.

She stood and retrieved her bag from the dresser, intending to ask the Old Magic to help her through her cards. She slipped the bag’s cord around her wrist and turned.

A man of darkness stood against her door. He took a step forward and kicked the door shut with finality. He took yet another step forward and moonlight fell across his face.

Victor Creely.

Desire and purpose poured from him. And something else. There was a darkness to this man, a thousand darknesses, and they skittered from him and scurried around the room, circling her. She knew why she couldn’t hear the
Shuv’hani.
Victor wove black magic stronger than her own.

“I’m sorry, Milena. I didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice, silk. The lure of a rattlesnake. He took another step. And another.

She pressed against the dresser and shook her head. “No.” Her voice came out in only a whisper.

He closed the space between them. “My dear, why are you frightened of me? I would never, ever harm you.” He drew his finger down her cheek, her chin. She raised her hands and pushed against his chest, her velvet bag dangling helplessly, its magic lost. His hand circled her neck, barely touching her. The contact was just enough. Evil poured from him, dripped down her neck, over her shoulders, under her clothes, coating her, reaching into forbidden places. She shuddered. He smiled.

He pressed against her. No heat came from his body. Only ice. “I have so much to give you, Milena. You cannot comprehend what your life will be, with me.” His face stretched with a grin; his smile no smile at all.

“Please,” she managed on an exhalation. “No.”

His thumbs caressed the pulse in her neck. He looked down at her, the cold of his barren soul leeching her warmth. Her life.

He slipped his hands up her back, entangling her hair. His lips brushed hers, and he spoke. “Harm is the last thing I have on my mind.” His mouth closed on hers, his thumbs pressing into the tender flesh of her neck.

He tasted like ashes. Dust. Death.

She cried out, but he swallowed the sound. She pushed against him, but he locked her tighter in his arms and raised his mouth from hers, looking deeply into her eyes.

“No,” she said again, this time with her voice strong. To her relief, he loosened his hold and took a step back. Still smiling, he hit her. Her head snapped back and a bolt of hot pain stabbed down her neck.

“
No
is hardly acceptable, Milena. Especially when issued from the lips of a common whore.” He grabbed her throat and squeezed.

She clawed at his hand, trying to pry it from her throat, her effort a brush of butterfly wings in a tempest. He chuckled. Her struggle peaked, crazed. Black closed in. Sparks danced at the edge of her vision.

His eyes lit with exhilaration. Passion.

He kissed her again, even as he choked the life from her. He bit her mouth. Blood. He licked it from her lips. She was going to die in the arms of the King of the Jackals.

Shuv’hani!
Help me!

He lifted her and threw her to the bed. She gasped in a grateful gulp of air but he fell upon her, crushing her beneath his weight. He bit her again, his teeth piercing the flesh of her neck, his knee forcing her legs apart.

No!
her mind screamed. The cry did not reach her voice. He clapped his hand over her mouth. With his other hand, he ripped her drawers and then unfastened his pants.

Her bag. Her crystal ball. She closed her hand around velvet and swung with all her strength. The bag cracked into his head.

Instantly, he dropped on her, dead weight. Summoning all her strength, she heaved him over. He thudded onto the floor like a sack of filthy laundry.

She rolled to her side and drew a gulp of air. It seared down her throat. She took in another.
Run!
her mind screamed. No sound came from the floor. None at all. Leaning over the side of the bed, she looked down. He wasn’t moving. She backed away and sat up against the headboard. Trembling, her body jerked with each heartbeat.

He did not move. He looked strangely like a pile of clothing. Except his hand turned up, almost reaching for the ceiling.

She’d killed him.

She laughed, a crazed, hysterical sound, and then crammed her fist in her mouth to keep the wail within her. She’d killed him. The hangman’s noose would finish what he began if she didn’t gather her wits and do something. But what? Someone might be in the hall, and even if she did get out of the Blue Castle, the Golden Guard waited below.

She looked over to the window where the doctor had exited that very afternoon. She slid along the wall, keeping as far as possible from the body on the floor. His hand still gleamed, oddly twisted up.

She climbed out the window and dropped to the roof. The ground stretched below, more than ten feet away. She tucked her bag into the waist of her dress and hesitated, but the bulk on the floor of her room provided enough inspiration to jump. She landed on packed dirt, the impact pounding through her. Stones stung into her hands and knees in sharp, hot points. In an effort not to cry out, she bit her lip and scrambled away from the light of the Boarding House.

Keeping beyond the light, she crawled until she saw around the corner, to the front of the house. Luke sat on the porch, looking straight ahead. If he saw her, there would be no escaping. She hesitated, not sure of what to do. She stayed that way for what felt like eternity.

A voice whispered through the night, waking her. “Hey, handsome.”

Milena almost shrieked.

“Hey, Angelina.” Luke glanced back, into the Boarding House. “Right on time. We been busy tonight.”

A thin waif of a girl appeared at the edge of the light. Blond hair tangled to her waist and she sucked on a cigarette glowing red. She threw it down and crushed it out.

Luke jumped to his feet. “Get back, you stupid bitch! Someone might see you,” he hissed.

The girl backed away silently, disappearing into the dark. Luke visibly relaxed. “Give me a second,” he whispered out into the night and, turning, clomped through the front door.

Milena hugged the ground, praying the young woman would not come near her. The chill of night seeped deeply into her, and surely the girl heard her thundering heart or chattering teeth. She desperately tried to calm herself, to stop shaking.

After a few moments she was able to listen. Nothing other than her heart slamming inside and silence outside. All night creatures were silent. She clenched the ground, her fingernails digging into dirt. Finally, Luke clomped back out and headed for the dark. The waif ran to meet him, jumped up, and wrapped her legs around him. Giggles and hushes came, and they disappeared.

Milena heard low murmurs. Silenced laughter. Then a noise she’d become used to hearing from behind the doors of the Boarding House. The sound of mating.

This man was responsible for the safety of the women in the Boarding House? Although grateful for Luke’s female diversion, Milena was angered at such a showing. The Golden Guard was as inept as he was treacherous. A dangerous combination. Others were at ease around him, but Milena felt brutality ooze from him constantly.

At least tonight he provided her the perfect opportunity to escape from the nest of horror and the body upstairs.

“Jesus, Luke, you’re gonna buck me clean across the yard!”

“Shut up, you dumb bitch! You want someone to hear us?”

“Ain’t no one gonna—”

“I said, shut up! I think I hear someone.”

Milena froze.

“Ain’t no one around. Lessen you want me to bring some help next time.” A giggle and Luke’s grunting began again. Milena crept quietly. She must get closer to them before she’d reach the main road.

“Hang on, girl!” Luke whispered huskily and loud enough for Milena to hear. She fought the urge to cover her ears and block out the nightmare, but she needed to be completely aware of everything around her.

Luke groaned. “Not so fast. I ain’t done all the way.”

“You are lest you got another fifty cents,” Angelina answered.

Milena heard a dull thud and the woman gasped out. A fist against her flesh, no doubt.

“You ain’t nothin’ but a cheap poke,” Luke’s voice slobbered through the dark.

“Ain’t cheap. Fifty cents more,” she said, “and another fifty for hittin’ me.”

“What makes you think you’re worth another dollar?”

“Oh, I am, and you’re about to agree. How much you think Miss St. Claire would pay to find out one of her girls is cheatin’ on her?”

Silence. Milena wanted to quiet the girl before she betrayed one of the ladies. But she dared not move. “What’re you sayin'?” Luke asked.

“Just what you heard, cowboy. One of her ladies came down to my place today. I’ll tell you which one, but you gotta make it worth my while.”

Chills cascaded down Milena’s spine, and not good, affirming tingles. These were cold and shot through with the feel of death. Surely Beth had not come from the cribs. She’d been with Digger.

Luke’s voice broke the night. “I smell a whore trick.”

“No trick. I got much better tricks for my favorite man.”

“I got five bucks with me,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Sounds about right. You already owe me a dollar fifty. Give me the whole five dollars, and you git her name. Trust me, she’s worth every cent.”

“You throw in one of them ‘better’ tricks and you got yourself a deal, Angel.”

Angelina laughed. Not a sound of joy, but a sound of conquest and anger. “Here we go, cowboy.”

Luke’s grunting punched through the night. Milena wanted to stay and hear the name of the Boarding House lady soon to be in trouble, but this might be her only opportunity to get away. And what could she do? Once Victor Creely’s body was discovered, she would be hunted. Beth would have to take care of herself. She crept through brush until she met up with the road, and once she passed far enough out of the pool of Boarding House light, she stood up to travel. She looked behind her. The Boarding House seemed like another world, remote and unreachable. A faded painting, its details nothing more than some suggestive smears. Clutching her bag to her heart, she faced ahead and walked, not feeling, not thinking. She welcomed the numbness and did not want to push it aside. It wrapped around her, the most comfort she could hope to have.

She’d lost everything. All her long and arduous travels, away from all she loved, across the ocean, across this country. The loss of her family and friends, Baba, even the loss of the proprietress and the ladies, and nothing ahead for her. Nothing. Night insects sang, and from far away she heard piano music. There was nowhere but Jasper.

She looked behind. The cribs hunkered beyond the Boarding House. After that, wilderness stretched across the country. Death for one such as her.

Would death be so unwelcome?

She knocked the thought aside when another hit her. Was death unavoidable? She’d killed the King of the Jackals. All of Jasper would cry for justice.

Justice. Milena knew no such thing existed for a woman alone. Especially a foreign-born woman. Death in the wilderness felt like a better choice than hanging from a rope for all to see.

The sounds of a horse and carriage rumbled from behind her. She dove to the side of the road and scooted down. Hoping she wasn’t heading for a sheer drop, she settled into the crook of a strongly rooted tree and waited. The clacking grew louder until she thought they might be on top of her. Victor’s carriage passed, a blur. Behind it swept the chill of death.

She lowered her head onto her arms. For the first time during this journey of insanity, Milena truly could not hold her tears.

She did not try.

A
severed hand floated in a jar. Suspended in liquid, its fingers spread in a gesture of surrender. Milena almost cried out. Almost. She stumbled backward, into the dark beside the building, and looked around. No one saw her. Heard her.

She hugged her arms around herself. She must not make a mistake. Discovery meant death.

The town’s activity finally settled in the hours before morning. She’d kept back into the pines and emerged only when she could skirt the town without risking discovery. She slipped from alley to alley, building to building, holding herself out of sight. Keeping away from the main street, she made her way by slinking along the outskirts of town.

She did not travel the back alleys of the town alone. Spirits, a myriad of them, wandered, eyes blank, hollowed by whatever despair haunted them from this world. The further into town she’d come, the more specters roamed, hanging on the edges of life. Even in the crowded New York City, she’d not seen so many restless souls.

What did Jasper do to these people? What might it do to her?

She longed for the rambling rivers and gentle hills of Bukovyna and the time in her life when people were few, at the most a small village. Contacts with spirits was rare, considered a sacred moment to be revered. Time and energy to help the spirit on its journey to the place of peace. These specters of Jasper, rife with anger and hatred, drained her.

She vowed not to become one herself. If she died in this place she would move through the Otherworld with great eagerness. Fear, anger, hate, revenge, all these kept a spirit from traveling to the final destination.

Also, caring for someone in this world, like Beth’s mother or the twin of Jack Buchanan, meant entrapment between the two realms. Love could be as strong of an imprisonment as hate. Sometimes stronger.