The Hunter (11 page)
Authors: Theresa Meyers
He straightened, then blew out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. They were still alive.
He gave Miss Arliss a cocky grin as he moved his fingers to pry open the lid. “That wasn’t so bad.”
That’s when the rumbling started. Panic drained her face of color. Her eyes widened and her gaze darted about the room. It was bad, really bad, if the demon was worried.
The grinding of moving rock filled the cavern. Gritty dust fell from the ceiling, catching in the back of his throat and itching there. The crystals began to fracture and crack, their greenish phosphorescence turning crimson.
“If you were waiting for a sign that it’s time to go, the messenger just arrived!” she shouted above the rumble.
Chapter 9
The once placid green water of the enormous unnatural lake was a bubbling, boiling red. Naiads grappled and strained, creating a turbulent surface, their transparent bodies as fiery scarlet as the water. Elongated hands clawed for purchase on the stone ledge inches from Colt’s feet.
“Nobody invited you up here,” he said as he stomped on a hand that nearly grabbed his foot. The naiad shrieked like a damn banshee.
He heard an ominous crack, watched a fissure do a crazy zigzag along the ledge. Nowhere to go. Ah, hell! Miss Arliss screamed as the ledge beneath their feet crumbled.
He hit the scalding lake feetfirst. Plunged into the hot, viscous liquid, thick and rank like whale oil, the clutching hands of the naiads pulling at his clothing, hair, skin, forcing him beneath the surface. Where was Miss Arliss? he wondered, frantically trying to evade the grasping hands and keep his head above the roiling surface. Was she there with him in this liquid hell or back on the last shards of the ledge, safe?
But it was hard to think about anything other than his burning flesh and staying alive.
Don’t fight it. Relax. The water feels good.
The hell it did. A cool hand gripped his sleeve, then slid lower to his hand as he sank beneath the surface, and the contrary thoughts invading his brain dissipated like mist. A pent-up breath burned within his chest. His muscles went rigid as panic once again shot through him. Breaking the surface, shockingly one arm still locked around the box, he gasped, kicking against the viscous fluid for all he was worth. Finally—thank God! Finally, his toe scraped bottom.
Still gripping his hand, the succubus bobbed up beside him, red hair slicked back from her face. “Just keep in touch with me until we reach the shore. They might make our way difficult, but they can’t take you if we’re connected.”
A bubble of raw fear swelled in his throat. “I’ve only got one free arm.” Hold on to Miss Arliss, or drop the box? Neither was a viable option. There was no way he was letting go of the box, even if it meant fighting the naiads every inch of the way to the shore.
“There,” she said, gripping his shoulder with her other hand before she released her tight grip on his fingers. “Now you have a free hand. Let’s go.” Her fingers on his shoulder dug in, becoming a death grip.
They struggled through the thick water, the rushing liquid-spirit bodies bumping against them and grasping at them like an undertow.
The shore seemed as though it were receding with every laborious step, yet Colt knew they must be making progress. He could now see his Stetson, boots, and saddle packs, small brown dots on the black sand. Colt’s limbs were lead weights, pulling him down in the water, making it a challenge to keep just his nose and mouth above the surface.
“Don’t you dare give up!” Miss Arliss yelled.
He didn’t have the heart to remind her that he was only human. They were never going to make it. Hell’s bells, he could barely move. The liquid of the lake was the consistency of warm aspic.
He was going to die for nothing. The portion of the Book he held would be lost forever in the depths of this cursed lake. He’d failed not only his calling, but his brothers. Without these missing pages, there was no way the pieces could be reunited.
“We’re almost there. Keep going,” Miss Arliss urged. With her small, strong hands she pushed him through the water, unwilling to let go.
They were in the middle of the lake when Colt’s vision began to turn black at the edges, his heart seeming to beat right behind his eyes. “I’m not going to make it. Take the Book,” he gulped, struggling for air. “Take it to my brother at the sheriff’s office in Bodie. Winn will know what to do with it.”
She tugged harder. “Save your breath. Move, Mr. Jackson. Don’t you dare quit on me now.”
He didn’t know how they made it to the shore. He just knew he pitched forward in the lake as the bottom sloped up out of the water, forcing him to crawl onto the gritty shore beside his hat. Exhausted, Miss Arliss collapsed beside him, her pale, wet cheek resting against the black sand.
“I hope it was worth it, Colt Ambrose Jackson.”
He blinked and stared hard at her with stunned disbelief, his chest still heaving. “What’d you say?”
“I hope it was worth it, Colt Ambrose Jackson?”
Colt lifted his head. Confusion crowding his brain. “You know my middle name.” Middle names weren’t just names in the Darkin realm. They were a means of control. She could have put him under a glamour at any time since he’d released her from that circle he’d cast. She could have owned him body and soul and there wouldn’t have been a damn thing he could have done about it, and yet, she hadn’t.
She turned away from him, placing her back to the sand and staring up at the arch of the cavern above them. Her delicate profile was utterly feminine, and Colt couldn’t drag his gaze away.
“I know a great deal more about you than that,” she said softly.
“You’re not at all what I expected from a demon.”
She turned her head to look at him. Her unnaturally green gaze caught his briefly. And there it was again. That sensation that she could reach in and twist his very heart around her little finger. The knowing that if he let her get to him, she’d forever change his life. His breath hitched.
In an instant those same eyes turned wary and guarded. “Demons are just like mortals; every one of us is different,” she added, her tone defensive.
“You don’t have to look at me like that. I’m not going to dispatch you just because we found the box. I’m going to help you escape Rathe. I promised.”
Tears welled along her lashes and she looked back across the bubbling red water. A tear slipped down her cheek, leaving a glistening trail against her creamy skin. He’d said he’d help her escape Rathe. Clearly she didn’t believe him. She wanted to, but she couldn’t for reasons he had yet to understand.
She swiped her face with the back of her hand, then sat up, dusting the black sand from her palms. “You ought to open that.”
Colt’s fingers flexed on the box under his hand. “I’ve been working more than three years now to find my pa’s part of the Book of Legend.” His fingers traced over the ornate gold filigree of the latch and hinges. The box wasn’t nearly as old as what it held. “Funny how something so small could make such a big difference. The whole future rests on what’s in this little box.”
His eyes focused on hers. “You sure we should open it now? I mean, look at me.” He gestured to his sagging wet pants and tattered, singed shirt. “I’m soaked in God knows what and it might drip all over the pages. And isn’t opening it here kind of like sending up a flare to the Darkin, saying, ‘Hey, we’re over here! Come and get us.’”
“Perhaps. But it sounds like you’re searching for reasons not to open it. I’m scared too, but eventually you’re going to have to open that box.”
The temptation to crack it open and look was immense, but the risks outweighed the benefits. Gut deep he knew what was inside. It was Pa’s part of the Book. Everything he’d researched and discovered had led him to it. “It can wait until we get outside.” His voice cracked as he picked up his hat and settled it back into the familiar, comfortable place on his head.
“Are you sure?”
He had to admit she did have a point. After all they’d gone through to get the box, they should at least look inside. Hell’s bells. For something this monumental, it was worth the risk.
She scooted closer, her breath catching as his fingers popped open the latches on the wooden box. The strange water of the lake seemed to bead and roll off the smooth black finish of the box, leaving it perfectly dry. He held it reverently; a jolt of expectation zipped from his fingertips to his scalp, making the hair all prickly. Slowly he lifted the rectangular lid, and the scent of old wood, mellow and musty, rose with it.
What was waiting for him was nothing like what he’d expected.
Nestled deep in the box on a ripple of burgundy velvet was a single small scroll of yellowed paper curled in upon itself.
A crushing invisible weight pressed in on Colt’s chest, making it hard to breathe. The edges of his vision started first to darken, then turn red. Rage boiled up inside him. He clamped down hard with his jaw, the grinding sound of his teeth filling his ears. Not the Book. Not. The. Damned. Book. “Damn filthy liar,” he growled.
Lilly leaned in closer, crowding into him, glancing first into the box and then expectantly at him. “Where are the pages? Where’s the Book of Legend?” Panic laced her voice.
For a second his brain stuttered. She’d known all along about what he’d been searching for, but she’d never hinted at it? He was so angry he couldn’t take time to absorb this new bit of information.
“They’re not here! Nothing’s here but this!” He snatched the scrap of paper and crumpled it in his hand, then threw the wooden box he’d been willing to die for down into the black sand at his feet. He stood, stalking away from the box and away from the demon who’d brought him here.
“Maybe there’s a hidden compartment. Something.”
Colt glanced back. She’d picked the damn box out of the sand and was turning it over and skimming her fingers along it, searching. Her determination was as fierce as his.
“Leave it. It’s worthless.” His tone was harsher than he intended, but he couldn’t control it. He wanted to tear the rocks of the cavern down with his bare hands. He wanted to punch something, preferably Winn. But Winn wasn’t around.
“But what about the Book?”
Yep, what about the Book. The Book he didn’t have a blasted chance in hell of finding. His lip curled into a sneer. She’d known about the Book and never let on. If she could do that, what else was she capable of hiding from him? Ironic, really. This close to Hell and he hadn’t been able to find what he’d been searching for. Now he was back to square one, partnered up with a supernatural he’d vowed to send to Hell, yet as much as he doubted her, he trusted her in equal measure. Trusted her and admired her courage and strength. Hell, was even beginning to like her. Too much. It had to have taken a lot for her to give her soul to save her little sister. It had taken even more for her not to glamour him when her need was equal to his own. If she could be that stalwart and loyal, so could he. And that’s the precise moment where he stopped thinking of her as Miss Arliss or a succubus, and instead as Lilly. His to protect and help, just as he’d promised.
Colt shifted his gaze to his fist. The crumpled paper was growing damp in his palm. He released his hold, letting the paper unfold slightly.
He sighed and pressed it open with his fingers. The writing was small, some swirling gibberish thing-a-ma-do. “What the hell is this?”
The weight of her small hand on his shoulder was so light he barely felt it, but it was the heat and scent of her that caught his attention as she peered around his arm. “Looks like it’s in some kind of code.”
“That yellow-bellied horse’s ass.”
“Surely you aren’t talking about your father.” She sounded a bit sarcastic, as if she had one she thought of in precisely that way.
“No. My brother. He sent me down here knowing it was a wild-goose chase. He’s afraid of joining the Book of Legend together.”
“Are you certain?”
“There’s only one way to find out. We’re going to jail.”
Chapter 10
Both of them knew getting out of the Dark Rim Mine wasn’t an easy proposition. Lilly peered back at the tunnel entrance they’d come through, which yawned like a dark open maw high above the frothing red underground lake. “Which way now? We can’t go back out that way. It’s blocked past the waterfall.”
Colt knew she was strong, but how strong? “Don’t suppose you could use your powers to take us out of here.”
Lilly gave him a look that clearly said no. “That would take a more powerful demon than me. I can materialize to a place I’ve been to before and I can materialize small objects without a problem. But two of us? Impossible.”
Colt cast a narrow-eyed glance, scanning the rock walls. “Mines always have more than one entrance. They’d need ventilation shafts. We’ll find one of those and make our way out.” His frown ironed out a bit. “There.”
He pointed to a small, dark opening in the rock at the far end of the black stretch of shoreline. It was tall enough to accommodate them only if they crawled through it. Not by any means his first choice. He didn’t like tight spaces that left him no room to maneuver. Hunters stayed alive because they thought through how things could go wrong and prepared for them. But there was no preparing for what had happened so far, especially with his changing feelings for Lilly, and he wasn’t fool enough to believe it was going to get any easier any time soon.
Lilly’s shoulder brushed his. Despite what they’d already been through, she still looked fresh-smelling, sweet, and womanly to him. She had a sense of humor and a dogged determination and was brave enough to stand with him shoulder to shoulder even against tough odds. If he weren’t a Hunter, she could have been damn near perfect.
“Fighting our way out of the Darkin realm is far more difficult than fighting our way in, but I think I can guide us out.” Lilly’s voice seemed to shrivel. The haunted look in her eye told him she’d seen far more of the Darkin’s ruthless side than he had, even as a Hunter.
Putting his life in Lilly’s hands didn’t seem nearly as horrible as it had before. There’d already been several times that day alone she could’ve let his ass be dragged off to Hell in the bat of an eyelash, but she hadn’t. Considering how difficult it had been to find the worthless box in the first place, he didn’t relish the idea of fighting God only knew what to get out of the mines. He still didn’t have the pages, which meant he had more work to do once they got out. He shot her a smile, touching his fingers to her cheek. “You haven’t failed me yet, sweetheart.”
“You know as well as I do that nothing down here is what it appears to be.” Lilly sighed, stretching her hands toward the top of the cavern, which rippled with reflected red light from the water. She fixed her gaze on the small, dark opening and started toward it.
Colt fell into step beside her. “Can’t be worse than anything we faced so far,” he offered, but his words were far bolder than he felt. The truth was he had no idea what they were up against. Finding the box empty except for the small scrap of paper hadn’t helped. For the first time in a long time, Colt allowed doubt to creep into the fringes of his certainty.
Would he ever find the pages? And if he did, would he find them in time?
Lilly dropped to her knees, giving him a delectable view of her small, curvy backside as she crawled into the low opening in the rough rock face.
“Stop looking at my behind!”
Colt bit back a smile as he followed her. “Since it’s only twelve inches from my face, hard to miss. Besides, it’s a very pretty behind, Miss Lilly.”
She made a rude noise. “What am I to do with you?”
“I can think of several things,” he said dryly, removing his hat and unshouldering his pack. “Unfortunately, none of them here or now. Can you see anything up ahead?”
“No. Can you give me the coil illuminator?” Her voice echoed inside the passage.
He pulled it from his pack and placed it in her outstretched hand. A blue glow lit up the narrow space.
Colt gritted his teeth. In a tunnel too narrow to turn or stretch in, all they could do was crawl forward. The glow of the coil illuminator she held limned Lilly’s body, its illumination not penetrating behind her. That put him in the uncomfortable position of staring at the very enticing feminine curves of her bottom shifting beneath a clinging swath of blue calico as she crawled just a few inches in front of him. If the view weren’t enough to frustrate a man, being shoved in the space roughly the size of a barrel, unable to do a damn thing about his growing attraction to her, was worse. His hands and knees were scraped raw and starting to bleed, and his shaft was aching in response to watching her move.
“Stop a minute.”
Lilly stopped dead in her tracks and whispered, “What is it?”
Colt gripped the hem of her skirt and ripped it awkwardly in the tightly confined space. “Here.” He handed her the first strip as he went back for another. “Wrap this around your hands to protect them. This rough surface is going to shred your skin.” It probably had already cut up her tender palms, he was sure. But she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.
“Thanks. Tear some for yourself while you’re back there turning my dress to rags.”
No point protesting that he was too manly to do so. His hands were already burning like fire. He ripped a couple more strips and wrapped his hands. “Okay. Keep going.”
The cushion helped, and they both moved a little faster.
“How far does this thing go?” Colt muttered as he pushed his hat and pack just ahead of him as he moved. The tunnel narrowed, getting even more suffocating, making them crawl along on their bellies an inch at a time.
“Can’t be much farther,” Lilly retorted. The tunnel became a mere seam between the rocks, squeezing them as they pushed through. Panic started to pound fast and furious in his chest, thundering in his ears, as Colt realized he was stuck, unable to move forward and unable to scoot backward.
Sweat beaded his brow and upper lip, and he said, as evenly as his manic heartbeat allowed, “Stop. I can’t move, I’m stuck fast.” This would be a lousy way to die. No glory being buried inside the Dark Rim, his gun still in its holster, his hat in his hand.
Colt forced himself to blow all the air out of his lungs, twisted his head to the side, and pushed forward hard. The rocks scraped his ears and cheeks as he moved. A soft hand grabbed firmly around his wrist and pulled, stretching the tendons in his arm and shoulder. Damn. She was stronger than he realized. But then a lot of things about this woman weren’t at all what he’d expected. She was soft, but tough. Beautiful, but deadly. And Darkin, but not. She was caught in between, same as him. Both of them part of the supernatural that lay in between humanity and the world of the Darkin.
Colt jettisoned forward out of the mouth of the tunnel onto hard, uneven ground. He groaned, rolling over. Rocks dug uncomfortably into his back, and his skin felt dirty and abraded, as though he’d been tied behind a stagecoach and dragged to Bodie and back. “Damn. I’m glad I’m out, but remind me never to do that again.”
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The bluish light of the coil illuminator seemed brilliant in the inky darkness. Colt blinked, holding a hand before his eyes as they adjusted to the light Lilly held.
The bluish light of the coil illuminator seemed brilliant in the inky darkness. Colt blinked, holding a hand before his eyes as they adjusted to the light Lilly held.
“You might not be so glad once you see where we are.” The black ribbon about Lilly’s throat moved as she swallowed hard. Death and decay lent a sickly odor to the air. She pointed a shaking finger in the direction of the cavern that opened up in front of them.
Colt looked around. “What the ...” The floor and walls looked white and fuzzy. He sat up with a start as he realized that the floor of the cavern was covered in pale bones. Thousands of them. The rocks beneath him weren’t rocks at all, but bits of skeletal remains.
He leapt to his feet, his skin too thin and uncomfortable as it suddenly shrank tight to his body. “Whatever calls this cave home is hungry.” He pushed a coyote skull away with the toe of his boot, then reached out to touch the haphazardly woven sparkling white cloth-like substance covering the walls.
“Don’t touch it,” Lilly hissed, her voice low and insistent. “Can’t you see it’s a web?”
Colt yanked back his hand. Upon closer inspection, the white filaments of the thickly woven web were glistening with clear pearls of liquid. The stuff was probably sticky as hell. As Lilly moved the light about the cavern, grisly husks—animal and human—appeared from the gloom, their flesh decayed and dried like mummies. An upward glance showed more desiccated bodies suspended from the ceiling, shrouded in webbing.
“Well, there’s one good thing about this.” Colt placed his hat firmly on his head, then shrugged into his pack.
Lilly turned and glared at him. “How can it possibly be good? We’ve got either an army of spiders waiting to pounce on us or one enormous spider that’s hunting somewhere else.”
“No. We’ve got to be close to the surface.”
“What makes you think that?”
He jerked his thumb at the floor. “There’s no way it could have found this much food wandering into the mine aimlessly. It has to hunt on the surface and bring its prey here, where it feels relatively safe from other predators.”
Lilly gazed around them and gestured to the remains dangling from the ceiling. “Based on the size of its prey, it’s probably large enough to cover a lot of ground,” she pointed out. “We could still be a good distance from the surface.”
Colt tugged his Stetson down lower on his forehead. “Either way, we need to move.”
They struggled across the uneven piles of bones, slick, shifting, and smooth beneath their feet, toward the large opening of the cavern. Twice Colt grasped Lilly’s arm to keep her from falling among the macabre debris.
“Thank yo—”
Colt held up a hand and silenced her, then pointed to the funnel-like opening of the webbed cavern. The sound of skittering rocks and an unfamiliar rasping
click, click, click
was echoing in the tunnel beyond.
click, click, click
was echoing in the tunnel beyond.
Colt’s gun hand itched like holy hell. “That don’t sound good.”
They inched out farther into the mine shaft, careful not to catch themselves in the sticky web lining the walls and draped in diaphanous sweeps from the ceiling.
A glint of something shining in the darkness caught Lilly’s eye and she swiveled in its direction, holding out the coil illuminator so they could see it better.
Eight soup bowl–sized eyes came into view over a pair of pointed mandibles, each as long and thick as Colt’s arm and tipped with a deadly black shining fang. Their razor-sharp edges rasped as they clicked with the monster-size spider’s movement. A distinctive red hourglass four feet long marked the undercarriage of its enormous globular black body. The spider suspended itself from the ceiling with long, thin legs as its eyes avariciously took in what must look like two meaty snacks.
Lilly gasped. Her body went rigid beside him, all color draining, turning her skin ashen as sun-bleached wood. Colt tugged on her sleeve. “Lilly.” He said her name low and harsh. “Move!”
She didn’t budge. Didn’t even blink. Damn, the spider seemed to have mesmerized her; either that or she was utterly terrified. His heart sped up, his senses growing sharper in the presence of danger. The spider crept forward. Its bristled, hairy forelegs stretched out toward them, then lunged.
There wasn’t time for words. He unceremoniously yanked Lilly off her feet as he wrapped a thick arm around her waist and pulled her out of range of the spider’s piercing fangs.
He shoved her down the hallway, placing himself between her and the enormous arachnid, then spun back to face the monster. “I ain’t heard any dinner bell yet.”
With practice-honed reflexes he pulled his revolver from its holster, using one hand to fire and the other to recock the gun as fast as he could, firing off three quick shots. From the corner of his eye he could see Lilly jerk with the ricocheting sound of each shot.
The spider bucked backward and screeched, two of its eyes blown apart. Dark liquid splattered the rock wall and dripped from the gauzy web in long, stringy black strands. One leg had been shot clean through and twitched on the ground. Great. Only seven to go.
It lunged forward again, angry, snapping fangs and giant mandibles at him. A scream tore from Lilly’s throat as she huddled on the floor of the tunnel. He pulled six more bullets from his ammunition belt and shoved them in the revolver chambers as fast as he could. Marley’s special bullets weren’t going to stop this monster. It was too damn big. Time to improvise.
Instead of shooting at the advancing creature, he fired the six rounds at the wooden support beam over its head, sending out a shower of splintered wood, debris, and bones. The beam weakened with an audible crack and the rock it had held in place came crashing down on the spider. It screeched, writhing and still alive, but pinned down.
Lilly coughed against the dust. Colt hauled her up from the floor with his free hand. “You hurt?”
Colt knew that glassy-eyed look. Shock. Fear. She swung her head slightly from side to side, still too shaken to speak properly. “Good. That ain’t going to hold it long. Can you run?”
Lilly nodded mutely, but it was all the reassurance he needed. He took her hand firmly in his and pulled her along after him.
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