Darkness Chosen: Into The Shadow Part 25

Another alarm. And another.

"There isnat a right thing to say to my family. Iave burned too many bridges." He hooked her to him.

"He said theyad buried your remains." She looked back at him. "Ready?"

"Letas go."

The alarms were sounding continuously now. Frigid air blasted them in the face.

They jumped.

They were free-falling less than a thousand feet from the ground.

She counted to three, then yelled, "Do it!"

Warlord pulled their rip cord. The updraft snapped them from full screaming downward fall to a slow, peaceful descent. A slow, peaceful, freezing-a.s.s-cold descent.

Behind her, Warlord maneuvered them to face the impact.

He wrapped his arms around her as the glorious, sleek bird of a Cessna cascaded into the stark, rocky cliff of Acantilado Mountain. The ball of flame exploded, then disintegrated. The concussion blasted them across the tree-tops and down a slope.

With the two of them hooked together, and all the weight they carried, they descended fast. Too fast. They had no clear s.p.a.ce to land. "Cross your legs!" Karen heard, and complied just as the snowy forest reached up to snag them. She flinched as her boot hit a tree limb.

Then they were in the woods, snow spilling off the branches that slapped them for their impertinence. The scent of pine filled the air.

They were headed for a tree trunk, the biggest tree trunk shead ever seen. Warlordas arms tightened around her. She threw her arms up to protect her head.

And something grabbed the parachute and jerked them to a stop.

The jolt knocked the breath out of her.

Then, with a huge crack, the branch that held them broke. They plummeted to the ground, smacking boughs, until Karen landed face-down in a s...o...b..nk, Warlord on her back. The impact broke through the crust. Ice packed in under her face guard, filled her eyes and her mouth, and brought her to immediate full consciousness. The weight of Warlord and the supplies made her flail helplessly, desperate to take a breath.

He rolled over, pulling her out of the snow, and while she yanked off her helmet he unhooked the strap that bound them.

While she spit and wiped, he came to his feet, pulled off his helmeta"and laughed.

She couldnat believe it.

"Whatas wrong with you?" She cleaned a chunk of hard-packed snow out of her cleavage. "We almost dieda"more than once we almost dieda"weare still in serious danger, and youare laughing."

"But we didnat die, and what a ride!" He laughed again, and shrugged out of the parachute harness. "Wasnat it spectaular?"

"No."

"Come on, Karen." He hugged her to his side. "Gravity won. We got to the ground. Thatas a good omen."

"Youare crazy."

"One of us has to be. And look." He pointed to his face. "The cold brought the swelling down. I can open my eye a littlea"and I can see."

He was right. Where the venom had touched, his skin still looked appallinga" crusted-over and red. But his lid was better, and his eye was clear and moved freely.

Her relief made her admit, "Then I guess all this snow is good for something." He watched her wiggle around, pulling snow from places that should never have seen snow. "Need any help digging that out?"

"No."

"Really. Iad be glad to help."

Sick as he was, he was smiling. Flirting. Happy to be on the ground, glad his eye was undamaged, and somehow sh.o.r.ed up with the unshakable belief of idiotic manhood that if he could just put his warm hands on her freezing body, shead collapse into his arms in a pa.s.sionate heap. "Youare incorrigible."

"So Iave been told." With a carefree shrug, he gave up . . . for the moment.

He put on his snowshoes, then helped her on with hers. Glancing up at the broken branch above them, he said, "If the Varinskis search, thatas going to betray us."

"Weare over seven thousand feet. Itas twenty degrees. The storm is starting." She held out a gloved hand and let a snowflake drift into it. "The Varinskis are the least of our problems."

"True. The snow will cover the wreckage and our tracks."

"If we donat get to a safe place, the snow will bury us alive."

He collected the parachute. "Come on, while I can walk, and letas find somewhere to set up camp."

"And then what?"

"And then we will live through this . . . or die together." He kissed her cold cheek. "If I have to die, I want it to be with you."

She pulled a hat and scarf out of her bag and wrapped herself up. "Letas make sure we live. Iave got unfinished business with the Varinskis. " She shot him a meaningful glance. "And with you."

Chapter Twenty-eight.

Karen saw Warlord stagger, go down on one knee. Lines of pain etched his face, and the venomas mark etched his skin.

She stopped, gasping. "We have to set up camp."

"We havenat gone far enough." He rose to his feet. He sank back down. "Not far to the rendezvous point."

The excitement of the jump had kept them on their feet, but after a mile in the snowy woods with a snowstorm closing in, that excitement had failed. Everything about Warlorda"his fading color, his dull eyes, the sweat that beaded on the exposed part of his browa"mirrored her own adrenaline crash, and the creeping pain and paralysis of the venom.

"It doesnat matter. We simply canat go any farther."

"Weave got to. Weare too close to the spot where we landed. Weare too easy for the Varinskis to find."

"Right. You go ahead. Let me know how that works out." She looked around for the best place to set up camp. When she looked back, head quietly pitched forward on his face.

She dragged herself over, flipped him onto his back, and checked his pulse. He was giving off flashes of fever that should have melted him right through the snow. "What did you expect?" she asked his p.r.o.ne body. "Five hours ago a magical big-a.s.s cobra bit you. Four hours ago you beat up Wonder Falcon. An hour ago we crashed your plane. Did you think you were Superman?"

He did. She knew it. Shead be surprised if he didnat own Superman sheets. In some ways he was such a guy. In others . . . well, this wasnat the time to contemplate his past or his ability to turn into a panther, or shead leave him out in the snow.

"At least the cold has reduced the swelling on your face." She squinted into his eyes. "I think your vision will be okay." She patted him on the shoulder. "Good work."

She picked a flat spot nestled into some boulders where the towering incense cedars would protect them from the snow. She looked up at the sky and saw only billions of snowflakes rus.h.i.+ng toward the ground. She didnat want to be buried alive.

She searched his backpack. She found dried rations, rope, snap links, a folding shovel, two semiautomatic pistols, ammunition . . . Jackson Sonnet would approve. The guy was prepared.

She dug a shallow trench, took the parachute from Warlordas stiff hands, and layered it over the snow. She pulled the two-man tent out of his backpack. Thanks to Jackson Sonnet, shead learned to set up a tent in the dark in subzero temperatures, with the wind blowing. Good thing, for she erected this one in a haze of pain and desperation. She didnat have a lot of time. The numbness was spreading inexorably up her arms and legs.

She laid out the sleeping bagsa"good to forty below, she noted approvinglya"in the cramped s.p.a.ce inside the tent. She zipped them together to make one big bag, and stacked their back-packs in the corner. With a s.h.i.+ver she went back out into the snowstorm, dragged Warlordas p.r.o.ne body to the entrance, and rolled him inside, knocking the snow off him. She fastened the tent flap closed. She stripped him down to his underwear, shook him awake enough to drink water from the canteen. She took a drink herself, and zipped him into the bag.

Then she sat, panting, stared at his black, tousled hair, and tried to remember why shead worked so hard at saving his life. He was Warlord, the mercenary whoad kept her as a slave and forced her to acknowledge helplessness in the face of her own s.e.xuality. This was Rick Wilder, the jerk who pretended to be an innocuous businessman to get in her pants again. And when she had saved his life, he would still insist that he should be part of her life. If she left him out in the snow to die . . . She shuddered.

Okay, she couldnat do that, because . . . She opened her bag and dug through until shead found the icon. She stared at the rendering of the Virgin Mary, broken by her sonas sacrifice. The Madonna looked right at Karen, silently reminding her of the precariousness of life, and her painted-on tears glistened anew. Karen couldnat sacrifice Warlord, no matter what head done or what he would do.

She knew a lot about Warlordas defeat. Shead seen it herself, and in a corner of her brain, she played and replayed that scene she had witnessed in her mind: the battle, the fight with the Varinski, Warlordas loss.

Where had he been the last two years? In a hospital? In a prison? In a coffin? It was possible, she supposed. When that Varinski had hit him, head been flung through the air onto jagged rocks. Most men would have died. Yet Warlord was here and, until tonight, he had appeared to be hale and hearty. How was that possible?

How was any of this possible?

His rough voice grated across her nerves. "Karen. Come to bed. We need each otheras warmth."

Karen woke with a start.

Warlord was unconscious.

The icon was in her bag.

She was delirious. If she didnat get in the sleeping bag soon, she never would.

Outside, the stormas fury made the trees creak and groan.

In here, in the dim light, she could see her breath.

She fought her way out of her outerwear, sweating from exertion and fever. When she was down to a T-s.h.i.+rt and underwear, she gave a sigh and slid in next to Warlord. She ought to take off her gold bracelets, but right now, for no reason she could understand or admit to, they gave her comfort. They connected the past and the present, and she needed a bridge back to the time when Warlord was healthy . . . for now he burned beneath her touch.

Placing one hand on his chest, another on his brow, she whispered, "Please, G.o.d. We have to live through this."

As if shead prayed the perfect prayer, she sank into Warlordas mind and his heart.

Warlord woke in a panic. He tried to stand. His legs were broken. His ribs were broken. He was blind. He could barely breathe, and his thoughts stuttered in his head. Panic beat at him, and he shouted, "Hey!"

"Shut him up. Shut him up!" The flashlight shone directly into his face, and he flinched away.

"Ye leave him alone. Heas hurt."

Warlord recognized the voice. "Magnus?"

"Hush." Magnus sounded funny. Hoa.r.s.e and anguished. "Weave got to be quiet."

"You shut him up," the flashlight said, "or Iall finish him."

Not likely. Youare not a Varinski. But Warlord obeyed Magnus. His second in command sounded so frantic, and Warlord didnat understand where he was, why he hurt, what had happened to them.

The flashlight went away, once more leaving them in absolute pitch dark.

"Where are we?" Warlord whispered.

"In Siberia, in the deepest gold mine in the world." Magnus groped up Warlordas arm and held his shoulder. "I canat believe yeare alive. How did ye survive that fall? When that monster hit ye, it was like yead been blown from a cannon."

A face popped into Warlordas mind, blazing like a demented Halloween mask, a face composed of a Neanderthal brow and jaw. Involuntarily, Warlord shrank in his skin. "Who was he?"

"Name of Innokenti Varinski. Heas the new enforcer for the armies on the border where we used to reign." Magnus moved, and groaned. "Did ye know ye had a cousin like him?"

"No." In all Warlordas years as a mercenary, head never met a Varinski.

Now he never wanted to meet another one. "Who did they capture? Who did they kill? Whoas hurt?"

"Thereas a lot of injuriesa"Bobbie Berkleyas in here with us; heas not going to livea"but we lost only eight men." Bitterly, Magnus said, "They have a use for us."

Warlord didnat guess; he knew. "Weare the new slave labor."

"Gold miners, thatas us."

All of his men, but especially Magnus, hated to be confined. These were men who walked their own paths, and now they would dig . . . until they died. Warlord felt sick with guilt. "How far down are we?"

"Only eight hundred feet. Theyare pampering us until weare healthya""

"Healthy? Whatas wrong with you?"

"I lost an eye, and I canat stand up straight enough to run a drill."

This was his fault. "What happens when weare healthy?"

"Theyall send us below."

"Below?" Warlord moved painfully, slowly. "Weare at eight hundred feet. Just how deep is this sucker?" He healed quickly, more quickly than normal men. His bones were mending, but there had been a lot of damage. He had to get on his feet. How much longer until he could stand?

"Sixteen hundred feet straight down. They say they wonat let helicopters fly in the area because the down-drafts suck them in. The deeper you go, the closer to h.e.l.l you are, the hotter it gets. They say the air down there is full of poison and men die where they drop, and not even the worms are there to eat them."

This was his fault. His fault. His fault. Head neglected duty to touch Karen, to hold Karen, to hear Karenas voice and make love to Karen. His men trusted him, they followed him, and head led them right into slavery. Head failed them.

He knew what damage his uncontrolled l.u.s.t had caused, yet he had to ask, "Did Karen escape?"