Thea Harrison: Rising Darkness

“Well,” he said wearily after a moment. “Let’s not borrow trouble. Come on.”

He carried his weapons bag and her kit outside. She followed him out to the car. With a pained grunt, he heaved the kit and the weapons bag into the back. She stuffed the pillow, blanket and her purse into the passenger seat.

When she turned to scan the clearing for Nicholas, she found the ghost standing in sunlight near two prone bodies. In full sunshine, Nicholas looked like the faintest extra shimmer of light. She was only sure it was him because she could sense his presence, warm and strong.

It was only then that she remembered she had seen his death when she had connected with his energy. Too easy tears pricked at her gaze. She had never met him when he was alive, and yet he had helped her. He was generous and brave, and it was terrible that he too was dead.

When she walked toward Nicholas and the two unconscious drones, she heard a quiet whisper of steel. She looked over her shoulder. Michael had reached into the backseat and drawn his long knife from the weapons bag.

Her stomach tightened. She turned away, and without looking back, she said, “Would you please bring my kit?”

His pause stretched her already frayed nerves. “Of course.”

He walked beside her with the first aid kit in one hand, his knife in another. The growing warmth in the sunny morning messed with her already shaky equilibrium. She fought it off, staying alert by force of will. When she reached the first man, she knelt beside him and said to Nicholas, Thank you for watching them. Thank you for everything.

You’re welcome. He knelt beside her. Thank you for trying to do something for them.

No need to thank me, she told him. I have to do this.

Flanked on either side by the men, one alive and one dead, she examined the unconscious drone. A bullet had grazed his head. As far as she could tell, that was what had knocked him out. As head wounds so often do, it had bled a lot, but it was by no means fatal.

Then she opened her other senses and examined him psychically.

The man’s spirit was gone, and there was no way to recall it. She could even see how the Deceiver had killed the spirit but left the body still animate and functional. The long slashing psychic scar was readily apparent to her mind’s eye.

Her breathing turned ragged, and tears pricked at the back of her eyes again. Had he committed this atrocity on Justin before he had stolen Justin’s body?

How did he do that?

She looked at Nicholas, into the faintest impression of dark, intelligent eyes. At the ghost of a courageous and extraordinary man who had not deserved to die.

A chilling possibility opened in front of her. She almost hated the fact that she had the capacity to be so clinical to consider it. But on the one hand, there was one man who did not deserve to be dead. While on the other hand, according to Michael, the Deceiver created lots of drones that no longer deserved to live.

If the Deceiver could take over another’s body, could someone else do it too?

It was one thing to harvest separate organs from a body once a person was declared dead. It was an entirely different thing altogether to consider harvesting the whole body.

She shook off the train of thought. At the moment, she had no answers, only questions. Sitting back on her heels, her heart aching and her mind in turmoil, she shook her head at the other two. “I can’t do anything for these men.”

Without bending his bad leg, Michael bent over and cupped the back of her head gently. “Now will you go to the car and wait for me?”

“Yes, all right.” She took a deep breath, clasped the hand he offered and climbed to her feet.

Michael looked at Nicholas’s insubstantial, shimmering form. Thank you for coming to help her. Will you do one more thing?

If I can, said the ghost. What do you need?

Just check on Astra. Make sure she’s all right.

I’ll do that.

Then Nicholas seemed to turn to her. She felt extra warmth on her right cheek, as if he had touched her face, and he faded from the clearing.

Her eyes welled again as she put a hand to her cheek. Then, glancing once last time at Justin’s body in silent farewell, she turned to walk to the car without looking back.

While she waited for Michael, she leaned against the car by the passenger door and tilted her face up. She may not have a summer of peace in this place, but she could still let the warm, bright sun wash her clean and new.

As a doctor she’d learned to accept that sometimes, despite all her best efforts, death and tragedy happen.

But so does love, life and passion. She lost herself in memories of last night, Michael moving over her, and in her, and the words he had whispered to her.

My miracle. My home.

The next thing she knew, Michael stood in front of her. He had retrieved the gun and held it, along with the knife, in one hand. He leaned forward and kissed her, and she lost herself in the touch of his lips.

He took her free hand. “Listen to me. We’re both hurt, and Astra’s strength is depleted. Thanks to you, the Deceiver has to recover too, but we don’t know how much reinforcement he has, so we can’t stop in one place again. I can drive for a while, but you need to concentrate on healing yourself. Nothing else matters. Heal yourself so you can take over driving, because soon I’m going to need your help. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He kissed her hand. She curled her fingers along the lean edge of his cheek, hating how he looked so haggard, so worn. His physical wounds would be exhausting enough. Coupled with those worrisome fractures in his energy, he seemed drained of all vitality. He opened the passenger door for her, and after she had slid in, he walked around the car and eased into the driver’s seat.

They shared a quick, tense glance. She whispered, “Come on, start.”

He turned the key.

The engine purred into life with smooth perfection. It was such a mercy she could have wept. “Now we need to make tracks,” he said. “We’ve miles to go before we sleep.”

She eased the seat belt around her aching body. “‘Miles to go before I sleep.’ That was a Robert Frost poem, right? It was some poet anyway.”

“Whoever it was,” he growled. “I’ve got a bone to pick with him.”

“At least we’re alive and together,” she pointed out.

He shifted the car in gear and pulled onto the gravel drive. “And at least we get another day or two. Maybe more.”

“A veritable wealth of minutes.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “A staggering fortune in seconds.”

Struck by a thought, she said, “Hey. You never did steal any flowers for me, you know.”

“I’m with a woman who is developing a memory like a steel trap.” His lips pulled into a real smile. “I’ll have to get right on that.”

They drove off, into the morning’s falling light.

HE DROVE AWAY from the cabin in a white heat.

Out of his whole elite strike force, he was the only one that had escaped.

As the armored black limousine roared down the highway he made a rapid series of cell phone calls. His first call insured that Mary and Michael became fugitives from the Michigan state police. Then he called for reinforcements to meet him at a designated place. He was still raging when he hung up several minutes later.

Dead or alive, he’d told his people. Dead or alive. He would rather wait for the conflict to come to a head in another lifetime than risk them reuniting with Astra in this one.

Damn them, damn them , GODDAMN HER.