Dark Time: Mortal Path

file:///C:/Users/UszCzelQa/Desktop/Dakota%20Banks%20-%20%5BM...

Dakota Banks

Dark Time

Mortal Path

2009-08-25 02:50

file:///C:/Users/UszCzelQa/Desktop/Dakota%20Banks%20-%20%5BM...

To my husband, Dennis,

the wind beneath my wings

Good and evil are repaid in kind,

just as shadows follow bodies,

and echoes follow sounds.

—CHINESE PROVERB

Contents

Epigraph

It was well after dark, time to set aside the…

Suddenly she was elsewhere. Cold, moist air flowed over her…

The government agents would have to explain how an intruder…

Susannah strolled through the summertime exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s work…

Outside the Louvre, Susannah kicked her shoes off and began…

Rabishu approached her, drawing her into the sphere around him.

Susannah Layhem, demon’s assassin, was in Houston in a home…

She closed her eyes to greet death, but instead Rabishu…

Maliha Crayne, set afire as the witch Susannah Layhem three…

Maliha paid cash at Los Angeles International, waited impatiently to…

2009-08-25 02:50

The flight back to Chicago was uneventful. She brought with…

The buzz of her intercom woke Maliha at 8 A.M.

Watcher saw her arrive in a taxi at the building…

Manco Miguel Serrano sat back on his haunches, pulled out…

Advanced PharmBots, Inc., was located in Research Triangle Park in…

Maliha arrived home in Chicago on a Thursday afternoon after…

Maliha selected a deep blue off-the-newly-healed-shoulder dress for the charity…

Maliha took the crudely wrapped box from the hotel manager.

Friday evening carried a touch of the winter to come.

The lights in Kelly’s Pub were turned low. The man…

Hound looked out from behind a tree at the clearing…

ShaleTech had its headquarters in Chicagoland’s Technology Corridor, which flanked…

After his guest took her leave, Greg Shale moved into…

Maliha wanted to sort out her thoughts about Subedei in…

Responding to the intriguing summons from the Peruvian archaeologist, Maliha…

I love you,” Yanmeng said.

When the storm outside the Andean plane wreckage brightened into…

Maliha was back in North Carolina, skulking in the line…

2009-08-25 02:50

Susannah traveled across China, taking time to perfect her knowledge…

Maliha arrived at Kelly’s Pub early the next day. She…

The McLaren ate up the road as Maliha drove to…

An ultra-compact ram-air parachute nestled on Maliha’s back, running from…

The morning after Maliha’s incursion into the Shale compound, her…

Maliha was cautious on the way back to her home…

China was in the midst of the Cultural Revolution launched…

It turned out that the architect of Greg’s building-within-a-building was…

Subedei was housecleaning. His home was on the third floor…

Maliha woke at dawn. Something had disturbed her, someone fanning…

Maliha didn’t relax until she received the phone call from…

When the pain of the figure moving across her body…

Greg was in his element, strutting in front of the…

Ten million is a good starting bid,” Greg said, with…

When Maliha had ordered Hound to stay behind, he’d chafed…

It had been nearly three weeks since the death of…

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by Dakota Banks

4 z 138

2009-08-25 02:50

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

I
t was well after dark, time to set aside the herbs Susannah Layhem was sorting at the table. Time to blow out the candle and join her husband Nathan.

Nathan had worked since dawn, hard physical labor helping his younger brother build a home. The boy—Susannah couldn’t help thinking of Nathan’s younger brother George as a boy, even though he was a scant two years younger than her age of twenty—was getting married in a month. It made her smile to think about the couple moving in nearby and starting a family. If Patience, the bride, caught a baby soon after marriage, then she and Patience could raise their first children only a year apart. The two young women had already grown as close as sisters. Patience reminded her of the sister she’d lost years ago, in the rush of a flooded river. Susannah would be the experienced mother Patience looked to for guidance, and that would deepen their relationship further. If Patience could get out from under her mother’s broad and smothering wing, that is.

Susannah had been working with horehound, useful for the coughs that came with winter. She’d also fashioned a number of packets of yarrow that could be grabbed in a hurry and used to staunch bleeding from harvest-time accidents. The pungent odor of the yarrow filled her nostrils, reminding her why it was sometimes called Devil’s Nettle.

Silly. If the Devil wanted to do a person harm, I doubt he’d need to use a little flower.

She gathered the remaining herbs from the table and placed them into a basket, then scrubbed her hands in a basin of water. Herbs were very useful, but some of them discolored her hands, added a bitter taste to any food she touched, or weren’t good to be exposed to for a long time—especially with a baby growing inside her.

After blowing out the candle, she sat in the fading light of a dying fire in the fireplace, one hand on the swollen belly that rounded the front of her nightgown. Looking around the room, she felt warmly enclosed in the place she’d turned into a home. Sometime soon, she would sit and look at the fire while nursing her baby. She hoped that her baby would be born by the time Patience got married. The midwife said it would be so, and Susannah’s healer’s instincts agreed.

My baby. The name will be Resolved if a boy, Constanta if a girl. I hope a son first, for Nathan,
then a girl for me the next time.

She’d thought those words so many times they were practically a prayer.

Nathan had gone to bed more than an hour ago. He’d come home in the dark, smelling of sweat and freshly sawn wood, and gulped the meal she’d prepared. She heard his snoring from the other room with satisfaction. She could go to bed and not have to worry about Nathan’s intentions, about his arms wrapping her and fumbling with raising her nightgown.

It was the only thing she faulted her husband for, and never aloud. He wanted to lie with her nearly every night, and at first, she enjoyed it—so much that she wondered about the wifely duty her mother had told her she must endure. It wasn’t a duty to her. Nathan was a gentle lover compared to stories she had heard, involving her and not just taking his pleasure. As her birth time grew near, though, it became very uncomfortable for her; yet he kept on, even after she told him that. She secretly dreaded his touch, his whispered, “Come here, wife,” in the darkness.

Any other time we can shake the bed, but now I fear for my baby’s life. Maybe it’s a fear that
doesn’t make sense, but can’t he wait a month or two?

5 z 138

2009-08-25 02:50

Nathan told her that babies didn’t suffer any consequences from a man’s natural urges. What did he know? She hid from him the red stains she found on the sheet in the morning. Susannah loved her husband and wouldn’t do anything to make him think less of her as a wife, so she tucked her fear away. That worked—mostly—during the daytime, but at night, worry crept back.

It was the kind of thing that slowly eroded marriages from the inside, but she didn’t want to think about that. In a little while, she wouldn’t have to deal with the issue for another year, and maybe by then his newlywed’s ardor would have cooled enough that he would grant her a few weeks’ peace.

Breathing a sigh of relief at his continued snoring, she rose and went into the room. Perching cautiously on the edge of the bed, she slipped her feet under the blanket and rested her head on the pillow.

Safe! At least for tonight.

She slept on her side, letting her belly rest on the bed, one arm cradling it. For some reason, that seemed to be the signal for her baby to kick. She would lie there unable to sleep for a while, but enjoying the feeling of life within her.

A thunderous knocking rattled the front door.

Susannah sat straight up in bed. Nathan was still asleep. He was so tired she could have clapped wooden plates next to his ear and he wouldn’t have noticed. She shook him, hard.

“Nathan! Someone’s at the door.”

He got groggily to his feet. Few things brought a knock at the door at this time of night, and they were all bad.