Touch of Darkness (31 page)

That echoed through the cavern, getting louder as it expanded to fill the dead space.

She backed up, found the wall again, and the ledge, and started forward once more.

The wall crumbled away beneath her touch.

Sometime in the recent past, a cave-in had made the wall crumble, and, with it, the ledge that would lead her to safety.

She couldn't believe it. This wasn't possible. She'd walked miles underground—if she figured three miles an hour for an average, and a minimum of eight hours, she'd walked twenty-four miles under the damned mountain seeking her freedom—to end here? Standing with her hand outstretched into nothing? It wasn't possible!

She couldn't go back. The Varinskis might not be chasing her into a cave, but she would bet they wouldn't allow her to just sashay back across Ruysh-vania to freedom.

She couldn't go forward because . . . because she didn't know where to go. She threw her arms forward, waving them around, trying to find the guidance she needed—and the gravel beneath her foot slipped away.

She fell. For an instant, she kept her footing, skidding down as if she were on skis.

Then the ground disappeared completely, and she fell into darkness.

Boris sat at his desk, staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. Waiting for his boys to call and tell him they'd destroyed Rurik Wilder, that they had the woman—and the icon.

Boris had obeyed the Other.

He'd found out all about the woman Rurik Wilder had with him, that Tasya Hunnicutt.

Now Boris knew he was in real trouble.

Because in New York City, a book made its way through the publication process. A book about the Varinskis.

A hundred years ago, even fifty, the Varinskis had had an iron grip on the New York publishing industry. They'd held the companies by their tiny little balls, and for safety, they'd bought the editors' souls.

Then in the last thirty years, women had stepped out of bounds, become powerful editors and even publishers, and those women wore trousers and had piercings in their eyebrows. Some of them were even young and pretty.

Boris had not thought it would matter. What difference would a book make? No one would believe the truth about the Varinskis.

But this author had researched everything about

them. She had written a book chronicling their history, their legend, their long stranglehold on the assassin business, the way they tracked and killed for hire, and how governments hired them to perpetrate "crimes." She'd had a story to tell, and the male editor said she had the voice to make it a best seller. The woman publisher smiled with her white teeth and called the author "the next Dan Brown."

As the world turned its attention to the Varinski trial, word of mouth among the booksellers and the press grew to almost mythic proportions. The gathering publicity around the Varinski Twins was ruining Boris's carefully developed Varinski image of invincible, untouchable murderers.

And the author was Tasya Hunnicutt.

Tasya Hunnicutt, Rurik's companion, the female who worked for the National Antiquities Society. She wasn't some old woman with fat, black chin hairs. She was the same woman who had disappeared with Rurik Wilder after the explosion at the Scottish tomb.

She had promised her publisher that before they published the book, she would provide sensational proof of the Varinskis' history, and what had occurred—the discovery of the gold, the explosion at the tomb, her mysterious disappearance—had created a furor far beyond anything she could have imagined. Right now, the American morning shows
were bidding on who would first have her as a guest when she reappeared.

When the Other found out about Hunnicutt, how she'd done research on the Varinskis, even going so far as to travel to the Ukraine and take photos of their home . . . when the Other discovered Boris hadn't been vigilant and watchful about their privacy . . . when the Other realized Boris had failed to stop the book before it was even submitted . . . Boris would suffer.

And if the Other asked what had been done to retrieve the woman and the icon, and Boris told him Konstantine's whelp and a mere woman had defeated the might of the Varinskis . . . Boris would die.

He would die, he would go to hell, and he would burn in eternal agony.

He knew it. He could already feel the flames.

Chapter 30

Tasya's head hurt. Her cheek was icy cold. She didn't know where she was, and when she opened her eyes, her disorientation increased.

Was she four years old?

Had her whole life been an illusion?

Had she died and found the afterlife one huge dark cavern?

She sat up with a jerk.

The path through the dark.

The wall that disappeared. The cavern. The fall. She remembered now, but remembering did her no good. It was pitch-dark. She didn't know where she'd come from. She didn't know where she should go. She was stuck here, in the mountain under her country, and she would die here.

She would disappear here, and the icon that would
help destroy the deal with the devil, avenge her parents, help Rurik's spirit rest in peace—it would disappear, too, never to be found.

The devil had won.

She had failed.

For the first time since she was four years old, Tasya lowered her head onto her knees and cried.

She cried for her parents. She cried for her lost childhood. She cried for all the sights of pain and inhumanity she'd documented with her camera. She cried for the death of Rurik's hopes.

Most of all, she cried for Rurik.

He'd been vanquished fighting for her.

He could have stolen the icon and run. He would have made it to safety and taken it to his family, and they would have guarded it while they waited for the next piece of destiny's puzzle to fall into place.

But no. Rurik had believed she was a integral part of the plan, and he'd refused to abandon her.

Yet that didn't change the fact that she loved him. For the first time since she was four years old, she had dared to love.

Yet she'd been an idiot. What good had guarding her heart, her words, and her affection done her? Rurik was dead, and he would never know that she'd do anything for him—take the icon to his parents, sacrifice her chance for revenge—because she loved him.

Lifting her head toward the unseen sky, she said, "God, for years, I haven't prayed to you. I didn't believe in you. How could I? I saw no evidence of your existence. But now I've seen proof that the devil exists. So you must exist, too, and now I beg you. ... Rurik Wilder is dead. He's been part of a pact with the devil, but he didn't sign the pact, and he is ... was a good man. If you're everything that is good, then please, I beg you, take him to be with you. Let him come . . . home." She couldn't talk anymore. Grief and anguish tore at her heart. She curled into a little ball. Sobs wracked her, hurt her head, and tore at her lungs. They echoed through the chamber, through the cracks in the rocks . . . and up into heaven.

She didn't know how long she cried. For an hour or more. But when she finally lifted her head, she felt better . . . lighter, more confident.

When all the days of her life had burned away, and she wandered into the lands of the dead, she would see Rurik again. And in the dark and the damp of the cavern, she made a vow—the first thing she would say to him was
I love you.

For now—no matter how hopeless it seemed—she had to try to find her way out of this maze of caves. She had to return the icon to Rurik's family, or die trying.

But—how odd!—it seemed as if there was a light
in the distance. Not a real light, not sunshine or a flashlight, but this glow . . .

She rubbed her eyes, trying to clear them, but the glow was still there. Two glows, actually.

She glanced around, wondering if the sun had somehow slanted in here. But no, it had to be nighttime. So the moon? Or maybe a phosphorescent fish in the lake or some glow-in-the-dark stalactite? She laughed a little.

Maybe she'd just gone crazy, because it looked like two people standing across the lake . . . and there was a lake. It filled the cavern, with no way around it.

But the people—it was a man and a woman— gestured for her to climb back up the way she'd come.

Tasya hiccuped. She stood up, her gaze fixed to those people. Who were they?

Were
they people? Or were they figments of her imagination?

Was Tasya dreaming? Still unconscious? Why were a man and a woman underground with her?

She grabbed her backpack and picked her way through the rockfall back toward the wall where she'd started. She could see the whole way; that faint white light bathed everything.

It was weird to view what had been hidden before. The rockfall had been huge; a whole section of wall

and ceiling had collapsed, demolishing what had been a smooth path through the mountains, damming the stream, and building the lake.

When she got to the top, she could see back the way she'd come, along the path, and forward where a thin strip of stone path still clung close to the wall,

A
really
thin strip of stone. So narrow that if she inched her way around, following the summons of those luminous strangers, there was a pretty good chance she'd slide and fall, and this time she wouldn't live.

But the people waited for her, and somehow, she knew she had to go to them. Sure—if she didn't, she'd be lost forever. But if she did . . . who were they? Where would they lead her?

They looked familiar.

How could they look familiar?

With her gaze fixed on them, she put her back against the wall and walked sideways along the ledge. She kept her gaze on the strangers, kept her gaze on the strangers, kept her gaze . . . she glanced down.

And froze.

Her toes were hanging over the edge—and the cliff dropped straight down into the lake. It was miles down, and the boulders stuck up like teeth. If she fell...

A thin whisper of sound brought her head around.

"Come on, sweetheart. Come on."

That was her mother's voice.

That was her
mother's
voice.

Eyes wide and fixed to the glow, Tasya followed the thin strip of rock around the edge of the lake. It remained sturdy beneath her feet.

Her mother. Her
parents.
She'd prayed, and her parents had come to get her. Or to help her escape the caves. She didn't know. She didn't care. For the first time in twenty-five years, she could see her mother's face, the bright blue eyes, so like her own. She could see her father's face, the determined jaw, the same one she saw in the mirror every morning.

This was the best moment of her life.

This was the moment she realized how much she'd lost. And how much she had.

"Mama," she whispered as she inched forward. "I miss you."

Her mother smiled.
I know.

Tasya couldn't hear her. Not really. The words were like a breath in her mind.

"Papa . . ."

I
know.

The ledge widened. She moved with more confidence. "Is he there with you?"

They didn't answer.

She moved faster, trying to see them more clearly. "Please. Rurik. I loved him. Can I see him?"

Her parents moved away as she came closer. The warmth of their love surrounded her, leading her onward. They smiled, rejoicing in her.

The ledge grew wider, became a path, and Tasya hurried more and more, until she was running after them.

But they weren't talking.

"Oh, please. Oh, please—" The glow was growing brighter, stronger. "If I could just see him one more time . . ." She rounded a corner—and the morning sun struck her full in the eyes.

She flung her hands up over her eyes, and herself backward. "Mama?"

But they were gone, vanished in the light of day. They had led her ... to freedom. To life.

Now she was again alone.

The sense of loss struck her like a blow.

But she couldn't falter. She couldn't collapse.