Worlds Apart (24 page)

Not seeing anything, she rooted in
her pocket for her phone, cursing when it slipped from her gloved
hand deeper into the pocket. Before she found it again, her
passenger door swung open and Damien slid into the car.

She yelped in surprise. “Shit!
Where'd you come from so fast? I thought you were hurt.”

He grinned. “I lied.”

“What?”

“Just wanted to get you out
here.”

She stared at him, speechless. His
grin widened, and her voice returned. “What the hell does that
mean? Is this a joke? An attempt to be romantic or something?
Because it doesn't work.”

“No, it isn't anything like that,”
he said, and before she could blink, a large, nasty-looking knife
was in his hand, held up between them.

She froze in place. The knife
stood in stark relief in front of his face. His grin stretched on
either side of it, and his eyes bore past the knife's tip into
hers. Such blue eyes, cold and glinting from some inward light. In
a moment of clarity, she wondered what his aura would show her if
she could see it.

“Damien,” she whispered. “Don't do
this.”

He breathed deeply through his
nose. “Fear. Good, Tina. Fear is good.”

The knife glided toward her,
twisting her hair around the tip. Her fear escalated to terror, but
she stayed frozen in place, unable to move.
A familiar
feeling.
She felt the tip stroke her ear and the soft skin
behind it. Damien leaned forward, his face buried in her neck as he
took another deep breath. She couldn't stop the whimper that
escaped her.

“So good,” he murmured. “There
will be more. Much more, before we're done.”

Clive,
she thought.
I've
got to apologize to Clive before I die.
For some reason, she
couldn't bear the thought that he might never know how she
felt.

Damien sat back, once again using
the knife to stroke her hair. “You're strong, Tina,” he said, as if
they were having a normal conversation. “I don't know how you do
it, but you're able to resist me. Not enough, you understand. But
enough to be puzzling. I want to understand it.” The knife traveled
to her stomach and rested there. She flinched against the
paralysis, tried to move away. It didn't work. “I want to
understand how you carry the spawn of a werewolf and are still
alive. I want that power.”

She gasped against his hold on
her. “I can explain it. I can help you, Damien. It's a cure… we
hope… you won't have to be a werewolf anymore.”

He stared at her a moment, then
laughed. “Why would I want that? Do you have any idea of the power
a werewolf has? Why would I give that up? No one can beat me, Tina.
Everyone fears me.” He leaned close. “You fear me.”

She forced herself to sniff, tried
to bury the fear. “I see that Kaarmanesh also has psychopaths. You
people are just like us.”

He smiled, tracing her cheek with
the knife. “Drive, Tina. Down the fire road. I'll tell you where to
stop.”

~~

Clive spoke to one of the ravens
Kasia was using as guards. It reported that this section of the
forest was quiet. No humans were out in the cold dark. It showed
him where others were searching and agreed to pass on his location
to Kasia. The raven did not offer any other information, nor make
an effort to chat. It didn't trust him, but it made no suggestion
that he return to the Keeper's house.

He waited a few minutes after the
raven had left. His fury eased, leaving weary despair in its place.
He felt the pull of the moon, even through the rain. Two days until
Full.

Even in the Flatlands, his blood
rose to meet the shining orb, as if eager for consummation. His
bones ached as they prepared for the coming Change.

Clive closed his eyes and lifted
his face to the rain. Slowly, his senses began to wander, reaching
into the forest. He felt the fear his presence brought to Flatland
creatures. It was a fear based on instinct, as they had no
practical experience with werewolves.

Beyond the fear, he searched for a
trail. He’d sensed the other werewolf in this forest before and he
brought back the memory of it: the smell, the taste, the feel of
him wandering where he had no right to be.

And he found a trace, responding
to his memory.

He opened his eyes and turned a
quarter circle, staring into the trees. There was no ripple of
magic like he might see in Kaarmanesh. But it was a path,
nevertheless. He stepped out, holding the trace in his sight, and
followed.

Fifteen minutes later, he crested
a hill and tried to make sense of what he saw. The sun was sinking
behind him and its evening rays lit a path that stretched ahead.
About twenty feet below him the hill broke away in a bare scarp.
About twenty feet below that, a foot path ran perpendicular to the
hill. The far side of the path continued down. Between the scarp
and as far below him as he could see—which wasn’t very far beyond
the path—a wide swath of land was bare of trees. He saw a few
stumps, broken branches, and rocks of all sizes.

A rockslide.
Nothing
unusual about it.

Except for the telltale trace of
black magic that still throbbed along the swath.

The werewolf had caused this
slide. But why?

Frowning, Clive made his way down
the hill, detouring around the bare rock face which had been the
source of the slide. He sensed it when he reached the path. Shock
made him stop and turn to stare back up the mountain, to see the
path taken by the rocks. He imagined humans—young ones by the
scent—staring upward. Seeing the rocks.

Knowing they had no time to
run.

He didn’t want to go, but he
turned back to follow the rocks to the end of the fall. This side
of the path smelled of terror and pain, and something
else—something unique to his quarry.

Joy. Power.

Magic like this was only whispered
about in Kaarmanesh, but as a law officer, Clive had come across it
before. Magic wielded by those who absorbed power from the
suffering of others.

Clive stood amid the carnage and
sensed the age of this magic. It wasn’t recent. It had probably
happened around the time he first came through to talk to Sebastian
Ruth. If he’d been smarter about it, perhaps he could have
prevented this.

Damn.

~~

“Stop.”

Tina hit the brakes at Damien's
sudden command. The back tires skidded briefly. Damien pointed to
the left. “Pull over into the trees. Slow. I'll tell you when to
stop.”

She turned the wheel and inched
ahead, continuing even as the pine needles screeched over the hood
and roof of her car. Just as she thought she couldn't go farther,
Damien told her to stop again. They had driven for an hour along
the fire road, each mile from civilization adding to her despair.
Eventually, she stopped thinking about it and forced her mind to
settle into a mantra:
Protect the baby. Apologize to Clive.
She almost forgot about Damien until he'd said to stop.

“Turn off the car,” he
ordered.

She obeyed.
Protect the baby.
Apologize to Clive.
She blinked herself out of a daze. The
situation was changing and she needed to pay attention.

He gestured with the knife.
“Out.”

She hesitated, then opened the
door, taking a moment to lift her jacket’s hood into place before
stepping out. He followed on the passenger side, his flashlight
trained on her. She stayed by the open door.

He gestured with the light,
pointing to some rocks about fifteen feet away. “Wait over there,”
he said.

She made her way across the
slippery needles, turning to look back at him when she reached the
rocks. He was a dark blur against the light, but she saw him nod.
“You'll wait there until I'm done.”

She felt the paralysis return,
locking her into place.

Protect the baby. Apologize to
Clive.
Her heart drummed in her chest.

Damien faced the car, turning off
the flashlight. She couldn't see anything in the dark, but heard
him crunching through the needles. Her heart seemed to beat into
her throat, until she realized his steps were not coming closer. As
her eyes adjusted, she saw he was circling the car, over and over.
She heard him chanting.

Was he casting a spell? Kasia said
he was a witch. It occurred to her that he might be concealing the
car so no one could find her.

Then she had an idea. She had one
chance. Staying as quiet as possible, she took off her gloves,
stuffing them into a pocket. He wasn't watching her. She pulled her
cell out, thumbing the on switch. She dared not look down. She
turned slightly, trying to hide the light. There was one number she
could reach without thought, one person who would always check a
message from her.

Her blind thumbs danced over the
keys.
kidnapped damien off grillman fire

She started to press the send
button. She may have pressed it. But before she could be sure, a
stinging blow knocked the phone from her hand. She heard it
shatter. A shadowy glimpse of Damien's arm passed her vision just
before another blow landed on her head. She flew through the air,
coming up against the rocks with a sharp pain in her back. Her cry
turned into a scream as he lifted her by her coat, and smashed a
fist into her face. She lay where he dropped her.

“Bitch.” As he turned back to the
car, something hard passed over her waist, pinning her to the
ground. Her frantic hands encountered a strip of metal around her.
She tried to find its end, but it seemed to disappear into the
ground. She lay still, held a hand to her burning face, and
waited.

Chapter 29

“Want your booster chair?” Will
laughed as his two-year-old son dragged the seat from its
corner.

“Want 'ster chair,” Jed repeated,
dragging it to the table.

“Got it.” Will placed the seat on
Jed's kitchen chair as he fished his buzzing cell from his pocket.
“Hope this can wait,” he told Marilyn, who was carrying a dish of
mashed potatoes to the table.

He glanced at the message, saw
Tina's name, and suspected his dinner was going to be interrupted.
The words on the screen froze him in place, until his wife stepped
beside him, Jed in her arms.

She gasped at the message. “What
on earth?”

He shook his head.

“Is it spam?”

He double checked. “It's Tina's
number. Unless someone stole her phone...” He stared at Marilyn,
alarm stirring within him. Tina would not send a prank
message.

She gazed back with a troubled
expression. “Try calling her back.”

He began, then paused. “What if
she's really... he might hear it ring.”

“She always has it on buzz,”
Marilyn reminded him. Jed squirmed, trying to get into his
chair.

Will finished the call, putting it
on the speaker. There was no ring before a mechanical voice told
him the device was not connected.

“Oh, God,” Marilyn
said.

Will turned away, pulling up
another number. Sheriff Ringstrom answered and Will jumped right in
with the story, reading the message to him.

There was a pause before Ringstrom
said, “Read that again.”

“Kidnapped. Damien. Off Grillman
Fire.” His voice shook. “I called her back, but her phone isn’t
connected. Didn't even get voice mail.”

“Hang on. Let me call her
house.”

Will and Marilyn stared at each
other while waiting for Ringstrom to return. Jed fussed in his
mother's arms, but neither one paid attention.

“Rang three times and went to
voice mail,” Ringstrom reported.

“That's normal,” Will
said.

“You got a key, right?”

“Yes. To her office,
too.”

“Meet me there.”

Will closed the connection and
hugged Marilyn. “Stay in the house. Keep everything
locked.”

“Do you think she's really been
kidnapped by Damien?”

“I'm going to check this out.” He
had his coat on, heading for the garage door. “I'll call
you.”

On the way, he called Sharon.
“When did you last see or speak to Tina?”

She sounded startled. “About four.
She was in her office when I left, working on charts.”

“She say anything about plans this
evening?”

“No. What's wrong?”

“I don't know yet. I'll get back
to you.” He disconnected.

Ringstrom was getting out of his
car when Will pulled up. He motioned for Will to stay where he was,
then began a quick circuit of the house. When he came back around,
he gestured for Will to come up. Will joined him on the porch, keys
in hand. He told Ringstrom about his call to Sharon.

“Okay,” Ringstrom said. “I sent a
couple of deputies out to the fire road. They’ll report in soon.”
He gestured to the door. “Unlock it. Let's see what's in
there.”