Christine Feehan - Dark Possession

MaryAnn realized tears were running down her face. The sense of dread and fear was overwhelming. Where are you? Find me. She continued to try calling to Manolito mentally, although clearly she didn't have the psychic gifts they all thought she did.

As she moved deeper into the interior of the forest, she noticed that the greens weren't quite so vivid. Leaves and shrubs appeared to have a veil of fog over them, changing the vibrant color to a dull gray. Shadows grew where there had been none. First she had seen bright colors in the dark, and now she was seeing shadows when she shouldn't be able to. Terror moved through her, but she couldn't stop going. Whispers plagued her mind as she began to jog. She didn't jog. She wasn't a jogger, or a runner of any kind, but she found herself hurrying through the forest in an effort to get to Manolito.

Something pushed her onward when all around the forest grew darker and the rustling above her head more pronounced. Once, she risked a look up, but there were small furry things swinging over her head, and it made her feel dizzy and slightly sick. She stumbled and nearly fell, putting out her hand to break her fall. Her long, beautifully manicured nails dug into the wet moss. One nail broke. A dozen green frogs leapt onto her arm and clung with their sticky webbed feet.

She froze. The frogs stared at her with huge, black, green-lidded eyes. They were shiny, with spots on their underbellies and matching green toenails, as if they wore polish. Tongues darted out, tasting the leather of her jacket. MaryAnn shuddered and looked back at Juliette.

«Why are they doing that?»

Juliette didn't have an answer for her. She'd never seen the frogs congregate together in such numbers before, and she'd spent most of her life in the rain forest.

«I don't know,» she admitted. «It's unusual behavior.» Riordan, they ignore even the strongest of pushes. There was alarm in both her voice and her mind.

Riordan set Juliette behind him, regarding the frogs with suspicion. «When creatures do not act as they should, it is best to destroy them.»

MaryAnn's breath caught in her throat. She shook her head. «No, I didn't mean for you to kill them. Maybe

they're just curious about my jacket.» She made a scooting gesture with her free hand. «Move along, little froggies.» Hurry before the big bad Carpathian fries you all. I mean it, you've got to move. Silently she urged them to cooperate, while mentally rolling her eyes. For heaven's sake, how much damage could a tiny little innocent tree frog do, after all? She didn't want to see Riordan do anything like rain down fire on the poor helpless things. «Shoo, shoo. Go back to your little froggy homes.»

The frogs took to the trees, the movement sending a strange wave of green over the tangle of roots, as dozens of frogs skittered away toward the safety of the higher branches. MaryAnn sent Riordan a small little sniff. «What were you going to do, make them into shish kebab? Poor little things. They're probably as scared as I am.»

Did you feel that, Juliette? That surge of power? She made the frogs leave. And she's sneering at me. Sneering. He was going to have to revise his thinking about his brother's lifemate. «Those frogs are poisonous. Natives used them for years to tip their arrows,» he couldn't resist adding.

MaryAnn straightened slowly, automatically looking at her broken nail. Her nails grew abnormally fast, they always had, but now her nail polish was going to be a mess. And it was hurting like hell. It always did when she broke off a nail. Her finger would throb and burn and tingle as the nail regenerated.

She nicked a scowl at Riordan. «Don't try to scare me with frogs. I don't like them, but I'm not that big of a city girl.» She was, but he didn't need to know that.

«They really are toxic,» Juliette confirmed. «Riordan is telling the truth. It isn't normal to see so many frogs in one area, and they certainly shouldn't be following us.»

MaryAnn glanced at the frogs surrounding them. «Are they following?» The idea made her nervous. She didn't want them killed, but she wanted them gone. Out of sight. Of course then they might be hidden in the foliage, staring with their giant eyes just like everything else in the rain forest seemed to be doing.

«Yes, and so are the monkeys,» Riordan said, folding his arms across his chest and indicating the canopy with a nod of his chin.

MaryAnn was afraid to look. Frogs were one thing-and she chose to leave out the poisonous part-but monkeys were furry little beasts with near-human hands and big teeth. She knew that because once, just once, she'd gone to the zoo and the monkeys had all been insane, screaming and jumping around, baring huge teeth at her through what appeared to be smiles. It had been a horrible day, not as bad as this one, but she'd vowed never to go to a zoo again.

MaryAnn squared her shoulders and elevated her chin a notch. «Do you have an explanation for why these creatures aren't behaving normally?»

«I thought I did,» Riordan admitted. «I believed a vampire might be using their eyes and ears to gather information, but now I am not so certain.»

Her heart jumped when she heard the word «vampire.» She'd been expecting it ever since she'd entered the dark oppression of the rain forest, but she still wasn't prepared. She longed for the normalcy of gangs hanging out on the corner. She could quell the street toughs with one look, but a herd of frogs or monkeys commanded by vampires… Was it herd? She didn't even know. She didn't belong in the animal kingdom. She desperately wanted to go home.

As soon as the thought was completed, grief welled up, swamping her. More than sorrow, she felt need, a compulsion to keep moving, to hurry. She turned away from Riordan and Juliette, toward the direction the

pull was strongest. She couldn't leave this terrible place until she found Manolito.

She turned her head from side to side, not seeing anything, only thinking of him, the lines of pain and fatigue etched deep into the handsome features. His broad shoulders and thick chest. He was tall, much taller than she was, and she wasn't exactly short. Where was he?

She could hear the high-pitched sound of bats calling to one another, and somewhere in the raging river one porpoise beckoned to another. The world seemed to narrow, or maybe her senses expanded, making her hearing far more acute, so that her brain processed every individual noise. The rustles in the leaves were insects, the flutter of wings were birds settling for the night, the monkeys overhead disturbed leaves as they kept pace. She heard the sound of voices, two men, about six miles away, and she recognized Manolito's sensual tone, His voice shimmered in her mind, sent goose bumps skittering over her skin and her stomach clenching in anticipation of seeing him.

MaryAnn walked fast, urgency driving her. He was in trouble. She knew it. She felt him now, close, where before she couldn't reach him. She didn't try connecting mind-to-mind; she wasn't psychic, but it didn't matter. She heard his whispered command floating in the air. dome to me. She knew he was injured. Confused. He needed her. Scents burst through her brain, the three-day-old trail of a tapir rooting for vegetation. A margay hidden deep in the canopy a mile to her left. So many creatures, even… jaguar. Her breath hitched and she drew her knees higher, pumping her arms, picking up speed.

She cut through a series of slopes running along a swollen stream, uncaring when the lower shrubbery tore at her hair. Water poured from every conceivable outlet, creating waterfalls everywhere. The sound was loud in the stillness of the forest. With little moon and the thick canopy overhead, the interior was dark and eerie. Low-lying fog wove a trail of ghoulish gray vapor in and out of the trees, covering the buttress of tangled roots so when she got close to them, the thick knots and snakelike limbs appeared to be dark fortresses hiding secrets. The huge trunks rose up out of the fog, seemingly disembodied from the roots holding them to ground.