Kay Hooper - Sleeping With Fear

Riley emerged into the clearing, her gaze going to the peculiarly ancient shape of the stone altar. Nothing hanging above it this time, but the circle had been re-created. She knew that, even though she couldn't see the salt, because there were candles placed at specific points.

Black candles.

Burning.

She took no more than two steps into the clearing and, preoccupied, failed to heed the prickle of warning on the back of her neck that came just seconds before he grabbed her from behind.

Riley could command a literal arsenal of hand-to-hand combat techniques, everything from exotic martial arts to down-and-dirty street fighting, and it was the latter instincts that guided her in this particular instance.

With lightning speed, she reached back and grabbed him, her hand squeezing with full strength and short nails digging into his testicles.

He howled in agony and let go of her, and as he fell she twisted expertly and ended up facing him-with his gun in her hands.

Curled on the ground clutching his bruised flesh, gagging and moaning, he was so wrapped up in his own suffering that Riley was reasonably sure he was blind and deaf to everything else around him for at least a couple of long minutes.

She waited him out, his own gun trained on him, and, when he showed signs of beginning to recover, spoke calmly.

"Nature gave you greater size, more muscle, more aggression. Your edge. She also gave you balls." Riley cocked the revolver she had taken from him. "My edge."

Jake didn't even try to get up, and wheezed a few times before he was able to say, "Jesus…you fight dirty."

"I fight to win," she told him. "Always."

He wheezed some more, finally getting out, "I figured…you'd use some…of that…martial…arts shit."

"Yeah, I could have. But this way was more fun." Even as the flippant words left her, Riley had a realization, and there was no humor in her voice when she added, "You shouldn't be here. Goddammit, Jake, what're you doing here?"

He made a halfhearted attempt to rise, then fell back with a groan. "Shit, Riley, you told me to meet you here. Said you had it all figured out, and-"

She lowered the gun but continued to hold it in a practiced two-handed grip. "Then why did you grab me?"

"For the hell of it," he replied with another groan, this one more theatrical than real. "I thought you might try to throw me over your shoulder or something, but-Jesus Christ, Riley-"

Typical macho bullshit, she thought, not sparing the energy to even be indignant or disgusted by it. He'd been curious about her self-defense skills, and he'd wanted to get his hands on her.

Figured.

Some of her energy was focused on maintaining the deceptively foggy surface of her mind, but she spared a few tendrils to reach out and probe the clearing.

Absently, she said to Jake, "Stay down, understand? Don't even try to get up. I didn't call you myself, did I? Somebody passed on a message?"

"What're you talking about?"

"Who told you I wanted to meet you, Jake? Or can I guess?" She raised her voice. "You can come out, Leah."

There was a moment of silence, and then the tall redhead stepped into the clearing on the other side. And into the circle. She was definitely out of uniform, wearing a long black robe. The hood was down, allowing her long red hair to gleam in the bright moonlight.

"When did you know?" she asked calmly.

"Slow on the uptake, I'm afraid," Riley answered, matching the other woman's calm. "Today-or yesterday, rather-just before you started yanking my mind around. I figured out there was a connection I had missed. Gordon said it. That he didn't believe in coincidence. Ash and me both here, each with a past connection to John Henry Price, that was what he was thinking. Couldn't be coincidence. And wasn't. You wanted Ash in this. That's why it had to be here. In Castle. Because this is where you found Ash. Right?"

Leah smiled faintly. "I may have underestimated you."

Riley kept going. "Ash was here, and he wasn't going anywhere. He was the only one who had come close to putting Price behind bars where he belonged. And it didn't matter to you that he'd failed. It mattered to you that he had dared."

"He shouldn't have done that," Leah said. "It was…upsetting. The trial. All the watching eyes. We don't like watching eyes."

Riley resisted the temptation to follow that tangent. "So it had to be here. Where you'd make your stand and even all the scores. You'd already met Gordon. Probably in Charleston, when he was looking for his retirement spot. That was the question I forgot to ask him, you know, who it was suggested Opal Island as a nice place to retire. I had it backwards, thanks to that sweet little story you spun for me about picking Castle by sticking a pin in a map. I thought he was already here when you came. But it was the other way around, wasn't it, Leah?"

"I'm going to regret Gordon, I think," she replied. "He's been fun. And amazingly easy to handle. Most men are, I've found."

It was taking everything Riley had to split her focus, to keep her eyes on Leah, her voice even and calm as she talked, while another part of her consciousness was reaching out in another direction entirely.

Everything she had was-she hoped-just enough.

"You had already picked your group of satanists," she went on. "Thanks to Price and his interests, you knew the right people. Knew how to find what you were looking for. A tame group ready to relocate, a member with an ex-husband hoping to reconcile. It was, as you say, easy enough to manipulate Wesley Tate. Maybe you went out with him once or twice and found out about Jenny that way."

Leah shrugged, still smiling.

"You had almost all the players ready. Gordon was here. Ash was here. Tate was primed to get his ex-wife and her group here. I was next. To get me here, you needed to worry Gordon. So you did. By planting all those little signs of occult activity. I don't know, maybe you planted a bit more than signs. Maybe you planted the worry in Gordon, or strengthened it. So he'd contact me."

Riley took a half step to one side, coming around just a bit to face the other woman more squarely.

She didn't raise Jake's gun.

"And I came. All according to your plan. Or was it his plan? Does your father control you even from his grave, Leah?"

That surprised Leah, her smile fading and tension visible as she stiffened.

Riley nodded. "He really didn't like women, but he had tried to be what he believed was normal. No marriage on the books, no girlfriend we could ever find, so I'm betting your mother was a one-night stand. What was she, Leah, some hooker he paid to help him get it up?"

Leah's head moved slightly in an odd, twisted way-and in the circle all the candles flared suddenly brighter.

The extra light allowed Riley to see what she had been afraid of seeing. In the center of the circle, lying limply across the flat altar stone, was Jenny.

Not dead yet: The long, curved blade of the knife Leah held was not yet bloodied. But the dark woman was clearly unconscious.

Riley was still trying to hide the part of her mind and senses that was reaching desperately for a connection, so she made her voice a bit slow and uncertain.

"I guess the darkest energy would come from the sacrifice of a priestess, wouldn't it? And you need the darkest energy tonight. A full moon, a satanic priestess. What else, Leah? Does Jenny have some of your blood in her stomach like Tate did?"

"So you figured that out, did you?"

"That it was your blood? Had to be, really. Whoever planned that sacrifice had saved and stored the blood. And you really couldn't afford to have another body turn up before your plan was under way. So it had to be your blood."