Hallow House - Part Two (10 page)

He shook his head. "You have no idea what you are asking of me. What I do is more important than my life."

She stared at him imploringly. "More important than us?"

Mark put his fingers under her chin and turned her face toward him. "You still care for me even now?" His voice had softened, but still sounded wary.

She nodded miserably. "I love you, I can't help it."

"Then you don't intend to tell your father?"

"No." He didn't understand what had happened in that room in the past, didn't understand how grief still plagued her father. If Mark would promise not to use the room again and give her the key, she'd never mention anything to her father.

Mark raised one eyebrow and half-smiled. For the first time a faint doubt crept into Samara's mind. His supercilious look hinted he thought less of her for some reason. Why?

Never mind that now, what was important was for her to extract a promise from him.

Before she could open her mouth, he said, "Will you ride with me this evening?"

"Yes," she said, relieved. Away from Hallow House she could speak more easily of the past, could tell him about Sergei and the dreadful danger of dabbling with old spells and incantations. Once he knew, surely he'd promise never to go in there again.

After dinner she changed clothes and went out to the stables. Mark already had the bay gelding and Anna K. saddled. Sal was nowhere in sight and she supposed he'd gone home for the night. As she swung herself onto the mare, something swooped over her head and she almost slipped off as Anna K. danced skittishly.

"What was that?" she cried.

"An owl," Mark said. "He's white--see him perched on the stable roof?"

Samara looked, remembering there'd always been a white owl around Hallow House. "I see him. Jose says white owls are bad luck, but he admits the owl keeps the mice and ground squirrel population down."

"You cannot believe peasant superstitions," Mark said, leading the way through the gate to the field.

Jose would hardly like being called a peasant, but she excused Mark since, after all, he came from another country, where customs were different. She glanced back and saw the owl fly off his perch on the stable roof and disappear into the gathering dusk.

"What do you see?" Mark's voice was sharp. "Does someone follow?"

Samara shook her head. "I was just looking back--like Lot's wife, I guess. I hope I don't suffer her fate. I'd hate to be turned into a pillar of salt."

He smiled, but it wasn't the usual warm flash of white teeth, but almost sad, somehow regretful.

The Mark flicked Cossack into a gallop and she forgot everything as she raced after him. The wind blew the ribbon from her hair and the doubts from her mind. She laughed aloud with excitement and happiness. She was with Mark and nothing else mattered.

Finally Mark slowed the bay, allowing the mare to catch up. "You'll wear poor old Anna K. out," she said.

"But not you?"

"Oh, no. I can keep up wherever you go."

"This is the way to the cave is it not?"

"Yes, but...." She reined the mare in.

"What is the matter?"

"Must we go there?"

"No one will see us at the cave." In the twilight his blue eyes looked dark as they stared into hers.

Warmth rose inside her and she flushed as she realized what he was implying.

"Are you afraid to be alone with me?" he asked softly.

"Of course not!"

"Then you must follow wherever I lead." He urged Cossack into a trot.

Samara trailed after him, tingling with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

When they dismounted near the cave, Mark led the horses into a stand of oaks and tied them. Then he strode up the incline, pulling her with him. They slid down to the cave mouth.

"You remembered every turn," she said admiringly.

"I cannot afford to get lost," he told her.

She glazed into the gloom of the cave, darker inside than the gathering dusk. "If I'd known we were coming here I'd have brought a flashlight."

"We need none," he told her, pulling her with him inside the first chamber and wrapping his arms around her.

Samara surrendered to his embrace, but his kisses were so savage and demanding, she tried to pull away.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Well, you're so--so ruthless tonight."

"Are you coming with me when I go?"

"Go? I don't understand."

"You must know I have to leave the valley. I can count on your silence, but Rosita has seen me, too. I never trust anyone who takes money for silence."

"But why would she tell? I'll talk to her and--"

"No!"

How strangely he was acting, she thought. "Where would you go?"

"Will you come with me?"

Her heart leaped. "You mean--elope?"

She thought he shrugged. "You may think of it that way if you wish."

"But I'd like to get married at Hallow House. Once everyone knew we were to be married they'd feel differently."

"What do you mean? How do they feel now?"

Somehow she'd upset him. Samara wondered how to begin. "You must know my Uncle Vince doesn't like you," she ventured.

"I think he suspects. Are you sure you have not told anyone?" He gripped her shoulders.

"You're hurting me again," she complained.

He paid no attention. "I know how women are, they cannot keep secrets. Have you dared to hint of my equipment to anyone?"

She swallowed, beginning to be frightened as well as confused. "I didn't say a word."

"Even a hint to that uncle of yours would have him breaking down the door. He would like nothing better to confirm his suspicion that I am a German patriot."

"But--" she stammered, "but you're an American now."

He let her go. "Always a German first." Pride tinged his voice.

She got as far as, "I don't under--" when the rest of the word stuck in her throat as various fragments came together, creating a picture she didn't want to see.

"Don't play coy with me," he said. "You must have known the minute you walked into that room behind the black door. Even the code book was there. I was so certain I had the only key. I cannot afford such a mistake again."

"I don't have a key." Samara could hardly speak. "I saw you come out of the room and I thought you were like Sergei. In that room my brother called up the forces of evil. He--" Her voice broke and she couldn't go on.

An ominous silence fell.

"Will you still come with me, knowing?" Mark said at last.

"Knowing you're a--a spy?"

He caught her to him and began kissing her. Her only reaction was one of suffocation. She pushed at him and squirmed in his arms until he released her.

"Is that my answer?" he asked.

"I can't go," she cried. "How can I go when you've ruined everything?" She started for the cave entrance.

He grabbed her arm. Thoroughly frightened now, she screamed and struggled to get away. He slapped her face once, twice, so hard she was stunned by the blows.

"You will stay here and you will keep quiet." He shook her. "Understand?"

"You can't make me go with you," she muttered defiantly.

"You will go with--at least as far as the skull chamber," he said. Terror overwhelmed her. "No," she begged, "not in there, please no." Desperate, she fought to free herself. His hands came around her throat choking her, she couldn't pry them free, she couldn't breathe, all was a blackness....

Samara felt someone dragging her, holding her by the feet and pulling her along over a hard, uneven surface. She could see nothing. Where was she? In a nightmare? How it hurt her head to bump along. She moaned.

We have arrived in the burial chamber." Mark's voice. In a burst of horror she knew what was happening, but was helpless to resist as he jerked her to her feet and shoved her so that she staggered into the darkness, stumbling and falling full length. With the breath knocked out of her she couldn't gather her wits for long minutes.

"Mark!" she screamed when her voice returned.

o answer other than an obscene echo off the rock walls. Or maybe the skulls were mocking her. She knew they were above her, staring down with their empty eye sockets. "No," she whispered, dreading to hear another echo. Stumbling to her feet, arms outstretched, she blundered about, searching for the opening to the tunnel that led to the outer chamber. She banged her arms and her head until, dazed, she sank onto the floor and sobbed.

After a time, she raised her head. Silence. Fighting off panic, she told herself all she had to do was to crawl until she came up against a wall. Then she could work her way around the cave until she found the tunnel opening. Eventually she encountered space knew she'd found the way out. Staying on her hands and knees in the tunnel she crawled along until suddenly she came up against unyielding rock. No matter how frantically she felt around her, there was no opening to be found. At last she understood there was no way to go but back.

he lost all reason, screaming and crying until she lay curled exhausted in the tunnel. When her mind began to function once more, she tried to interpret what had happened. She asked herself if there could have been another opening in the cave with the skulls, one leading deep inside the earth. When she stopped shuddering over this possibility, she told herself firmly that she'd flashed her light all over the cave when she was in here before and had seen only the one opening. She refused to believe she could have missed it.

But, if she was in the right tunnel, the only tunnel, why couldn't she get through it. Remembering all the loose boulders outside the outer chamber, she thought of how she'd idealized Mark's handsomeness, his strong body. A body that was capable of rolling one of those boulders inside and jamming it so tightly into the mouth of the tunnel that she wouldn't be able to dislodge it.

e meant her to die here. Why hadn't he strangled her as he'd started out to do? Had he preferred not to kill her himself, to let time do it for him?

Tat made him a coward, she told herself, but it was no consolation. Nobody knew where she was. She was going to die here.

Whimpering, she curled into a ball on the tunnel floor, closing her eyes. After a time she drifted into semi-consciousness.

"Samara!" a voice cried.

he must be dreaming, there was no light in the cave and yet light shone on her. She cringed away. If it wasn't a dream, Mark must have come back to finish the job.

"Here, take my hand," the voice said. Not Mark's. Sal's voice.

"Can you take my hand?" Sal asked. "There's no room for me to get in there but I can pull you out."

he reached, he grasped her hand and yanked her free, out of the tunnel and into the outer chamber. She saw it was still dark, his flashlight the only illumination.

e helped her to her feet and she clung to him so tightly he dropped the flashlight and it went out, leaving her once again in the dark. She began to cry.

You'll be all right." Sal's words soothed her while he patted her back with gentle hands.

Finally she was able to let go of him and he led her to where Tsar waited, then held her in front of him while the horse headed for Hallow House.

"Oh, Sal, I was so sacred," she said.

"It's over. You're safe."

"Is Mark--?"

I've been to Skull Cave before--there was never any rock jamming the tunnel. He trapped you there. What the hell's wrong with him?"

"He--he's a spy."

"A German spy?" Sal's voice was incredulous.

In--in the room Rosita saw him come out of there's radio equipment." Samara shivered.

"I'll be damned."

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked.

The mare came back. He must've tied her--guess he didn't know Anna K.'s an escape artist. I'm bunking in with Jose right now so I heard her pass his cabin. When I got to the stables to take care of her, I saw Cossack was gone. It didn't make sense to me. I was going to rouse the house, but then I wondered if you two might be eloping or some crazy thing. But that didn't mesh with Anna K. coming back riderless, so I finally saddled Tsar and rode to look for you."

"You came to the cave."

Yeah, well, I knew you hated it. Something about that guy Mark made me want to deck him, even before Rosita told me about him. I figured being what he was, that's where he'd take you."

Everyone had Mark pegged right except her, Samara thought. And Daddy. The two of them had trusted him when no one else did. Her father had also trusted Delores. And Sergei. Poor Daddy, no better judge than she was. She giggled, began to laugh.