Leopard Dreaming (28 page)

‘Not here,’ she pleaded. ‘Not near … the sink. You need to stay different.’

He swung her around, still kissing her, consuming her mind and body as he pushed her back against the ghostly refrigerator, making it rock and bump against the wall as he seduced her attention back to him with a trail of hot kisses down her throat. Her skin tingled with a magic she’d never dreamed possible, and she clung to him all the more, aching and growing hungrier. She felt a deep stir of something wild within her. Something starving to explore more of him.

He broke free, leaving her breathless.

Bastard!
She pummelled his chest in frustration.

He made no attempt to stop her. He only continued to hold her close as her temper quelled, breathing heavily himself, as if fighting his own inner demons.

‘It worked,’ she whispered, finally. ‘I still don’t understand why, but it did.’ The turmoil of emotions in the aftermath left her feeling stunned and numb to virtually everything but Lockman. ‘I dropped them, sorry. The spoons.’

‘Spoons,’ he whispered, shakily. ‘Yeah, right.’ He moved as if looking around for them, and crouched to collect them from the floor. It took a minute longer for him to find where the bug had rolled, since he’d dropped it too, but he assembled the makeshift clamp in no time, and then wrapped her hands around it, inside his own.

‘Together,’ he said. ‘So you know I’m not cheating you about busting it.’

Instead, he waited until she squeezed first, and tightened his hands around hers only enough to make the hard shell of the bug pop, without hurting her.

‘Want to check it?’ He lifted the makeshift bug crusher from her hands, dropped the metal spoons into the sink with a clank, and slid the bug into her right palm.

She smiled as she felt the web of cracks on both sides. ‘How do we know it’s broken inside?’

‘Doesn’t need to be. The only way to switch it on is to twist the top and bottom together until they lock, but they’re both splintered now and can’t turn enough.’

She tried it herself with no luck.

‘Turn around please. Your zip. I have to … You know.’

She turned slowly, and felt him shift aside her hair gently to fit the magnetic bug above the lip of her zip, as if it was a button. Strange to notice only then how much her hair had grown. It seemed like a lifetime ago since the last time she’d been sedated to avoid a fight so a nurse could steal her curls while she’d slept. All for hygiene.

Distracted a few seconds too long, she realised he might have switched it for a live bug at the last second, so she reached back awkwardly to double check it still had the web of fractures. Relieved to find that it did.

‘Maybe I should slip it down here,’ she said, holding her hand over her cleavage. ‘So I can throw it at him if he asks about it.’

‘That’s the last place it should go.’ He turned her to face his voice, so she closed her eyes, better able to picture him in her mind, and feeling less crazy than speaking to an invisible man — no matter how wonderfully comforting he felt in the flesh.

She blushed and looked down, regretting that thought, since Maddy’s life was more important than anything right now. Her own comfort had to come last.

‘You can’t shift it anywhere that will invite unwanted attention,’ Lockman warned her. ‘The top of your zip is dangerous enough, but the most believable, since normally a pat on the back would be the easiest way to plant one on you without alerting you.’

‘If I throw it, he won’t get within arm’s reach.’

‘Don’t bet on it, Mira. You’re a beautiful woman, and Kitching may be old but he’s not dead yet.’

‘Yet,’ she repeated with bitter emphasis.

‘Don’t even think about it. Leave that part to me, okay? Promise me.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Promise me!’ He clamped both hands on her shoulders. ‘Don’t give him, or any of his men, any reason to get this close to you.’

Something playful stirred inside her. Something she’d never felt before, and she couldn’t help herself.

‘You mean
this
close?’ Smiling wickedly, she splayed her fingers across his chest and pushed him back a step, feeling empowered to be able to do that to him. No resistance. And yet she noticed his heart pounding hard against the softness of his t-shirt. She shifted her hand nearer to his heart, curious to notice the pace of his pulse increase.

‘Don’t,’ he whispered, holding her hand only long enough to give it back to her. ‘I don’t know if I could stop myself again.’

‘What’s to stop? It’s only a kiss. It didn’t mean anything between us.’

‘Is that what you really think?’

She shrugged, unsure of it herself now that he challenged her. All around her, she could feel the lingering energy from decades of lovers seeking to pleasure each other, some craven or strange, and yet they all paled to insignificance as long as she kept her hand on him.

Instinctively, she reached to find his face to read his expression like Braille. She needed to know what he was thinking, but as she caressed the side of his jaw, and felt him tighten under her touch, she realised how much she hungered for him.

Closing her eyes, she slid both hands up behind his neck and breathed in the warm scent of him. Not enough to steady her own heartbeat. Quite the opposite.

‘Please?’ she whispered, still hoping to relive just a little of what she’d lost with Ben. ‘Just one last little taste?’

‘Oh, Mira.’ He groaned and peeled her hands down slowly. ‘I don’t think you understand how much danger you’re in.’ Cupping her face with both hands, he used his thumbs to stroke her cheeks, as if wiping away the last traces of her dried tears, then he grabbed her wrists and tugged her towards the door out to the hallway. ‘We need fresh air.’

‘Isn’t it dangerous out there?’

‘Trust me,’ he said, pausing only long enough to grab his survival kit and scoop the wallaby into her pouch. ‘It’s more dangerous for you in here.’

‘H
old it right there, my dear.’ Kitching raised his hand to Matron Sanchez, and covered the manuscript with his sleek little Kimber Colt variant. ‘That’s as much as I can process for now. It’s getting chilly in here.’

The Delta III had been riding the icy northbound thermocline current below the more famous southbound warm flow of the East Australian Current so the matron could read aloud without bombarding Freddie with too many maddening future echoes, while also minimising the chance of detection by any allied activity in the area. And so far she’d only read the long term predictions up to the part where she’d boarded the
Sea Snake
in her car. Clever of his brother to write it all in Braille, but probably the last clever thing he’d ever do. Kitching still had contacts in research and development labs where his scientists would kill to get their hands on basilar membranes or DNA such as his brother’s. Combined with Mira Chambers and her particular talent, a tame hybrid could be far more valuable. A child who perceived both past and future.

‘Take a break,’ he ordered, ‘and we’ll resume again in an hour. Time to head in to meet our flight anyway.’

Sanchez broke into a sweat, her lip trembling. ‘Please, Colonel, don’t send me back. Freddie needs his wounds tending, and I promise I won’t be any trouble.’ She glanced at him, already sobbing and huddled in the corner on his bunk, holding his ears and banging his head against the wall. ‘He needs comforting.
Please
? He only does that when he thinks something very bad is going to happen.’

‘And how often is he wrong? Take my advice and go quietly, Matron, so the only ruckus he’s hearing is you complaining about having to return to your own quarters … Moryakov!’ he called to summon the two Russian seamen who’d been holding guard outside the door. ‘Please escort Miss Sanchez back to her Stallion.’

‘You’re inhuman!’ she screamed, as they untied her from the chair. She’d been watching them long enough to guess most of their races. ‘You’re all going to Hell, Hades, Jiok, Jigoku, Diyu, Pinyin and Naraka!’

Kitching slammed the desk with his fist, seized the Colt and shoved the sleek little muzzle up her left nostril. ‘I’m the most compassionate man you’ve ever met, Matron! I’m fighting to
save
lives. You only function to care for the broken ones.’

‘
Save
lives?’ She laughed. ‘Name
one
, I dare you!’

‘I can do better than that. I can name five countries. I’m sure you can guess which ones. Now go, and pray to all your Greek gods that Fredarick doesn’t stop cooperating with me, because if it wasn’t for him and that Braille manuscript, you’d be sedated the whole time in that Stallion, relying on Mira Chambers to come to me. A fool’s dream.’

His men whisked Sanchez away, smothering the last of her complaints behind their filthy hands, but when he turned to face his brother, Freddie’s glare of condemnation turned unexpectedly to one of admiration. A new creature stood before him; an amalgamation of all the smartest he’d seen so far.

‘Now that’s how to handle a woman, Colonel. Grant me an hour alone with Mira Chambers like that, and you’ll get no more trouble from me either.’

‘What’s the catch?’ Kitching asked suspiciously. ‘Mira Chambers is trouble enough already without you touching her, and bound to be worse once she realises where we’ll be taking her.’

‘No catch. So long as you guarantee my sweet matron’s safety, I’ll make sure you’re doubly rewarded with the hybrid you’re planning. One hour alone first. That’s all I want. I’ll even seed her for you, personally, with twins.’

Lockman led Mira down the hall, careful not to walk too fast, hold her hand too tight or pass too close to any windows that overlooked the street or car park. She might not have been able to see Garland’s people outside, playing tourist or fisherman, but she knew enough of their voices to be able to recognise them if she heard them.

‘Nothing’s changing,’ she complained as he took her down the stairwell instead of the elevator. ‘I’m on the run, when I should be chasing.’

‘I thought you preferred stairs to elevators?’ He shuddered to think what it must be like to ride in a shaft when the floor of the real lift appeared to be elsewhere.

‘I do, but I’m being led, when I want freedom to go anywhere. And that’s about as close as I’ve ever made it to popcorn.’ Her stomach growled in agreement.

‘I’ll make it up to you later.’
Much later,
he hoped, when he could trust himself to be alone with her. ‘Keep moving, please, and keep your voice down.’ For now he had a job to finish, and anything less would be failing her as well as her beloved matron and his own murdered sergeant. So long ago now, and yet no less important. Hawthorne deserved recognition for
discovering Kitching’s thefts of military technology in the first place.

Leading her deeper into the resort, away from the car park, Lockman took her past two rows of apartments to a scrubby sand dune with a narrow walking trail that took them deep into the neighbouring forest.

Silicon in the sand made it squeak underfoot, so he kept her off the trail as much as possible, using the shorter ground covers and leaf litter. Quieter that way, as well as easier on ankles. Easier to trip too, so he took care of any minor hazards by keeping ahead a few steps; also wary that their new trail might be easier for others to follow in some places. Hikers and joggers passed them often enough to mask their footprints, he hoped.

Between the silent yester-spectres he supposed she could see, and the noisier “invisibles” like him that she could hear, there seemed to be enough to keep her distracted and quiet — until they reached an intersection with three walking trails and a four-wheel-drive track which offered detours to all points of the compass. Lockman veered for the narrowest trail to Dead Man’s Beach, but Mira stopped in the track like an anchor.

‘Where are we going?’

He didn’t bother stating the obvious. On an island where locals on the west coast called their main road the East Coast Road, signage couldn’t be trusted. ‘To get a boat. Something small to get us in and out of the hotel unnoticed from the beach side.’

‘You do realise who lives at Dead Man’s?’

He certainly did. Ben Chiron’s childhood sweetheart, Gabion Biche, offshore in a thirty-foot sloop called the
Aquadisiac
. ‘Your friend the park ranger.’ Strange that Mira seemed to get along so well with her, considering the potential for rivalry over Ben. ‘Does she still keep a van ashore for storing her furniture?’

‘You wouldn’t ask if you didn’t already know. And when were you going to discuss it with me anyway?’

‘My mistake,’ he conceded. ‘I never did work well with others. Ask General Garland.’

‘Yeah, like I’d run right off and do that. I don’t want Gabby messed up with me any more. She doesn’t deserve it.’

‘We only need her boat. She must have a little one to get out to her sloop.’ He knew she’d been coming ashore regularly to jog, shop and visit Ben. ‘You’re not jealous, are you?’

‘Of you and Gabby?’ She laughed nervously. ‘Go right ahead.’

‘I meant of her and Ben?’

‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Why should I be? He’s known her much longer than me, but it was still me that he invited to live with him.’

Lockman kept walking, choosing not to remind her of how badly that had worked out.

‘I happen to love Gabby,’ she added, more convincingly. ‘I only want the best for her, so if that happens to include you on her arm, so be it.’

Only the best. He took it as a compliment, although it brought him no comfort. If anything, it made him feel worse.

He tried to distract himself with the trail ahead, taking in details, like the way it narrowed down to a single line in the sand with thorny bush shouldering each side. He also kept a close watch for any boot prints that stood out from the usual trampling by civilian hikers. The path didn’t seem as well trafficked as the other trails, so he also stayed alert to how many steps she trailed behind him. Six to eight. Too many for his liking, but she wasn’t the kind of girl who appreciated the logistics of tightening the line.

‘Are you mad at me?’ she asked after half a kilometre.

He shook his head to convince himself. ‘Mad isn’t the right word.’ He’d spent too long in foreign jungles and deserts to waste time being mad at anyone for small reasons. Especially when he admired her for so many other things. ‘Forget it. We need to keep moving.’

Shortening his stride, he hoped she’d catch up a little without making it too obvious that he was going easier on her.

‘Oh, yeah. You’re mad,’ she said decidedly. ‘You never use that stride unless there’s something bugging you.’

‘Now’s not the time to discuss it.’

‘Why the hell not? I don’t care who hears. I’m sick of people pretending to be nice all the time. I’ve seen how filthy the world really is. Everyone wears masks of normality, and I was beginning to think yours was a mile thick.’

He wished it was. He needed his mask. Some days it seemed like the only thing holding him together. Especially around her.

‘Is that why you did that to me back in the room?’ Her hand on his chest and that smile still haunted him; as if she’d known exactly what she’d been doing to him and enjoyed it. ‘Some kind of sick joke to see how far you could push me?’

‘Joke? Are you kidding? I was in agony. At least now I can walk straight.’

Stopping abruptly, he spun back on her. ‘I’m not talking about the kiss, Mira. I’m talking about after, when you touched me.’

‘Touch is the only way I can read you! Don’t take it personally, Lieutenant.’ She hugged herself, guardedly. ‘I certainly didn’t. And it wasn’t my intention to upset you.’

‘You can’t be that naïve, or else that vestal virgin sundress should be your uniform.’

‘It’s not the same for me. You’re invisible, remember? The world I see and the one I feel are disjointed and
surreal. I can be standing right up in your face and it’s like we’re not even on the same planet. If I want a better picture, I need to shut my eyes and imagine you.’

He swallowed hard, knowing exactly whose face she’d been conjuring. ‘If you ever touch me like that again, it had better be my face you’re imagining, or …’ He didn’t dare to admit how easily she could break him.

‘Or what?’ She grabbed him by the arm, fumbling to catch a firm hold and forcing him to face her question. ‘Would you kill me? Or hand me to Kitching or Garland?’

He flicked off her hand and gripped her by the shoulders, holding her at arm’s length, but aching to show her precisely what he’d do, until he heard a regular squeak approaching from the far side of a low dune that could only be the steady tread of a jogger. ‘If you touch me like that again,’ he warned in a low whisper, ‘it’s more likely Ben will want to kill me. And by then I wouldn’t blame him.’

Bracing himself, he turned, ready to defend her as the jogger appeared over the scrubby dune; a plain-jane brunette in a black sports bikini with broad shoulder straps and a translucent green t-shirt with a cartoon of a beetle jogging through a swamp, saying
Don’t bug me. I’m in my happy place.

‘Gabby?’ He blocked Mira from taking another step and colliding into her.

‘Gabby?’ Mira asked, surprised too.

‘Oh, oui?’ She skidded in the sandy trail and grinned broadly. ‘Hey, Adam … Mira?’ She tugged the headphones out of her ears. ‘Now here’s wildlife I don’t see every day.’ She hugged Mira first, then him. ‘What brings you here? Have you been to see Benny?’

‘We were coming to see you.’ Lockman fisted both hands in his pockets, trying to look casual.

Mira frowned. ‘Actually, we were arguing about it.’

Gabby laughed. ‘You two, arguing? How totally unbelievable. Oh, but you brought Pockets?’ She peeked inside the top of the pouch, startling Mira and making her flinch. ‘Steady, honey. She may be asleep, but stress can still add up on a joey. Kill her unexpectedly. Much better if you leave her hanging behind a door somewhere whenever you go out. Even if it is only to visit me.’

‘It wasn’t safe,’ Mira argued.

‘She’s a fighter,’ Lockman added in support of Mira. ‘Or she couldn’t have survived so long without her mother. Do you still live out on a sloop?’

‘The
Aquadisiac
, oui. So what of it?’

‘And do you have a dinghy or something to get in and out to it?’

‘The
Seaview Play
. It has many other names today, though. My little Biche is cantankerous.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Can we borrow it?’

‘Why?’

‘Same reason we needed the last one, I’m afraid.’ He saw her cringe, and yet there wasn’t much he could say to make her feel any better. ‘I promise I’ll bring it back in one piece this time.’

‘I don’t know …’ Gabby eyed him warily, while her lip curled to a grin. ‘Boats have a tendency to blow up around you. That’s two for two now, isn’t it? My cat and that cargo ship?’

‘If I make it three in a row, I’ll buy you a shiny new one. Promise.’

‘If you survive, you mean.’ Her grin flattened to a frown. ‘Seriously, it’s not big enough for all three of us. The hull is too old, and rides too low in the chop, even with me. We’d be manning the buckets so often we might as well swim.’

‘Actually, I meant just for us.’ He offered her a smooth smile, but she wasn’t buying. ‘You get to stay ashore where it’s safe.’

‘You’re serious?’ Gabby took off her cap, which held her brown ponytail up through the gap in the back of it. ‘What am I saying? When are you
not
serious?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about, Gabby. Just finish your run ashore and I’ll make sure it’s returned for you.’

‘Or maybe he’ll pull strings with General Garland and get you a loaner.’ Mira frowned, hoping to discourage her, as if she expected the name to be a deterrent for Gabby too. ‘You remember her, right?’

‘Oh, oui. She’s the nice general who smoothed things over with my boss. After. My. Cat. Blew. Up … I thought you’d both done and finished with her?’

‘So did I,’ Mira said. ‘Read his face for me Gabby. Is he lying?’

‘Okay, that’s it, cutie pies.’ Gabby planted her feet with both hands on her hips. ‘I want details. Cough ’em up for me.’