Thea Harrison - Rising Darkness

“Get dressed,” he said. “Hurry.”

She nodded. He rolled out of bed in one smooth, lithe motion. When she scrambled across the bed and would have risen, he gripped her shoulder. “Be careful. I kept the trees tall around the cabin on purpose, but long-range rifles can be remarkably accurate. Don’t take a chance and stand in front of the windows.”

She nodded again, slid to the floor and scurried in a crouch toward the dresser where she had left her clean, dried clothes. As she went she saw Michael out of the corner of her eye. He stood at the table and had already slipped on a T-shirt and his shoes. He strapped the sheath of a long knife to his thigh. The assault rifle lay within his reach.

She tore into her clothes, cursing her slow shaking fingers, and wriggled into her sweatshirt. As she yanked her shoes on and tied them, she heard a hawk scream outside. Her head lifted. When she had been attacked, she had heard that same sound coming from a countless number of hawks. There was no time to braid back her hair. She yanked it into a ponytail.

Michael strapped the sword to his back. Then he settled two belts of magazine clips across his shoulders. His expression was calm, even peaceful. She took one look at him and a fresh wave of dread threatened to buckle her knees. What did he know that would make him arm himself like that?

He pivoted toward her. “All right,” he said. “Now it’s your turn.”

He grabbed her with one hand. With the other he reached for the vest hanging on the back of a chair. “What are you doing?” she said. With an effort she kept her voice as quiet as his. “What’s going on? What do you know?”

“Meet Kevlar. It’s your new best friend,” he said. He didn’t wait for her to do it herself. He began to stuff her into the vest. It was far too big for her and felt strange, thick and stiff and heavy. “We have problems coming our way. Right now they think they’re being sneaky. You’re going to take your gun and slip out the back bathroom window. That path I told you about, the one that leads north to the lake—there’s an opening in the back clearing. It’s not very noticeable. I’ve kept that overgrown too. You’re going to take the path, skirt the lake and keep going north. I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

“No,” she said. She gripped his forearm. The corded muscle felt as hard as marble under her fingers. “We’ll both go. Michael, let’s just run.”

“They would follow,” he said. “Then we would have to fight them a quarter of a mile from here, or a half a mile from here, and I wouldn’t have the advantage of the cabin or familiar ground for cover.” He grabbed her other arm and tried to force it through the second armhole. “You need to go. I need to stay.”

“Stop it,” she said. She twisted away from him and slipped out of the vest. “I’m not going.”

He took her by the shoulders and jerked her toward him. “Don’t do this,” he growled in her face. “We don’t have time to argue. They haven’t circled around the cabin yet but they will. You are getting out of here.”

“I can’t just leave you!” she snapped. “I need to help.”

He said with rapid force, point-blank in her face, “If you need to help then you will leave. Now. You’re a liability if you stay.” He grabbed the vest from the floor and began to stuff her back into it. “You’re a doctor, not a soldier. You don’t know how to fight, and we’ve had no chance to really train together. You’re vulnerable, and you’re a target. I need you to protect yourself so I can be free to do what I need to do. Otherwise I’m expending all my energy trying to protect you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said. She foiled his efforts by going limp, slithered out of the vest and sat down hard on the floor. He glared at her. She pointed to the vest. “I’m not wearing that. It’s too big. You make sense. I’ll go. But only if you wear the vest. Don’t argue with me about this. It’s a waste of time.”

Looking furious, he dropped the vest and hauled her to her feet, scooped up two spare clips and slapped them in her hand. As she stuffed them into her pocket, he grabbed the nine-millimeter, marched her to the bathroom, unlatched the high window above the bathtub and opened it wide. He dropped the gun outside and swung her into his arms.

Her gaze swam with unshed tears. She ordered, “You put the vest on when I’m gone, do you hear?”

“You’re quite the tyrant, aren’t you?” he said, his face grim.

“Yes.” Her fingers twisted in his T-shirt. “I mean it, Michael. Put the vest on.”

“Fine.” He gave her a brief, hard kiss then he raised her to the window feet first.

She wiggled through the space as he pushed her, turning so that she rested on her stomach as she hung halfway out of the window. She grabbed his muscled forearms.

“I’m going to be really pissed at you if you get yourself killed,” she warned. “Don’t think I won’t find a way to hunt your ghost down and kick your ass.”

He kissed her again and stared hard into her eyes. “I’ll see you soon. GO.”

He grasped her by the upper arms and helped to control her descent to the ground. As soon as she gained her footing, she searched for the gun and found it, and looked at the window as she straightened.

He lingered long enough to point in the direction of the path. She saw the subtle break in the bushes and nodded. During target practice yesterday, she hadn’t even noticed it. He passed a hand over her hair in one last caress and disappeared inside.

She looked at the tangled greenery and took a deep breath.

That was an awfully big, strange forest. Whatever was sneaking toward the cabin would be crawling right through it. She could be intercepted on the path to the lake.

Despite all promises or common sense she nearly tried to crawl back through the window. Then she saw a speckled kestrel perched in a maple tree by the path. It tilted its head, focused a huge amber eye on her and mantled its wings. It was such a fierce little thing that, in spite of everything, she almost smiled.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I guess it’s just you and me for a while, kid.”

She stepped onto the path, such as it was. It was narrow and as overgrown as the clearing. From a few feet away, she wouldn’t be able to see it. The kestrel took wing and followed.

When she rounded a curve, a transparent, shimmering form of a man stood in front of her. She jerked to a halt in dismay, for she had already been caught.

The form held out a hand in greeting. Peace. I’m here to help.

She stared. The figure bore none of the malevolence of any of the dark creatures she had encountered. It seemed to wait patiently until she recovered her composure.

She squinted as she tried to see the man more clearly. He was much taller than she was, as tall as Michael. She received an impression of black military-short hair, hawkish features and the glitter of intelligent, dark eyes, but no matter how she tried, she could not bring him into the kind of sharp focus with which she had seen Astra in the Grotto or other creatures from the psychic realm. He was different in some fundamental way.

Who are you? she asked.

I am a compatriot of Michael’s, the man said. My name is Nicholas Crow. After I was killed, I stayed to watch at my post, but the Dark One is not there. He’s here.

This was Nicholas? Her astonishment at meeting the ghost was outmatched by an upsurge of panic.

The Dark One. Nicholas meant the Deceiver. Somehow he had found them. Despite their best efforts, someone had noticed something, or in their preoccupation with their own internal crises, they had let some small thing slip.