She dropped to her knees when Creed fell. Closing her eyes, she visualized him rising, stronger, bigger and more powerful than their enemy. She felt him get up, turbocharged by her extra energy, focused totally on one goal: defeating the man before him. She reached out to him in desperation, oblivious to the bleeding cuts the rocks made on her knees. She wanted only to share her strength so he could resist as well as attack.
Creed rose and shook his head, sweat flying, and took a deep breath. Something had happened inside him. Whether it was from Lillian’s magic powder or his own reserve of adrenaline, he could feel the electric tingle of his nerves, the strengthening of his muscles. When he ran toward the tattooed warrior, catching him in the midsection with a powerful kick, it was almost as if he wasn’t alone. As if he had the strength of two.
“Give up,” he taunted Rhori. “I can do this all day. Can you?”
Rhori struggled to his feet, pain etched across his features.
“I will never surrender,” he shouted, the words echoing across the barren terrain. “You will die, and the woman will be Odin’s.”
He flicked his fingers toward the dark sky and his sword reappeared in his right hand. Creed jumped backwards and made a scooping motion toward the ground. To his great relief, his own sword appeared. Grabbing it, he shouted, “Come on, you bastard! I’ve got better things to do than screw around with you all day!”
His blade whistled as he swung it, the new power within him making it lighter and easier to wield than when he’d first held it. He lunged at Rhori, following the warrior’s every move as he twisted and jumped to avoid the killing steel. Creed ran at him, dropping down to send the blade slicing into the thick of his enemy’s thigh. Rhori screamed in pain, lurching sideways as his leg gave way. Caught in a blood thirst, Creed slashed off the hand that held Rhori’s sword, then plunged his own blade into the fallen warrior’s chest.
“She is mine!” he roared as Rhori’s eyes widened and his blood ran in a river of red across the ground. “Now that you’re dead again, tell Odin he can never win. The woman belongs to me, now and for eternity.”
Rhori’s body faded as Creed watched, claimed by death a second time along with his soul. Dropping his sword, Creed fell to his knees, exhausted and feeling his own wounds for the first time. He compressed his hands over the worst of the wounds as the blackness overtook him.
Chiana ran to him, tears falling as she curled against him. Her plaintive plea of “Creed, don’t die. Please, please don’t die,” slipped away as the darkness took her, too.
* * * *
“Come on, sweetie, wake up.”
Chiana opened her eyes, then closed them again, wanting desperately to wake up as she was being urged but unable to pull herself out of the dark world that held her.
“It’s time to come back.” The voice was stern now. “Wake up. Creed needs you.”
Creed.
She fought to gain consciousness. Hands wrapped her shoulders, brought her up from the cold beneath her. She moaned as her body bumped something hard.
“Now.”
The voice was insistent, like her mother’s when Chiana refused to get out of bed on a cold morning. It held something more, too. Like desperation.
Summoning all her will, Chiana forced her eyelids open and kept them open. A green glow filled the space around her, and she realized she was back in the cave. Or maybe she’d never left the cave, and everything she’d experienced had been a hallucination induced by Dr. Wil’s stupendous serum.
“Creed needs you.” The woman was helping her rise, smoothing her hair, rubbing her arms as if Chiana had just been pulled from the mouth of danger.
Chiana took a few deep, gulping breaths. Whether reality or illusion, she felt like she’d gotten her ass kicked by a paranormal army. She moved her shoulders, her arms, her legs to assess the damage. She ached, but she wasn’t hurt.
A deep groan brought her fully back to the world and the man who had promised to die before he’d let her be taken. Creed lay on the cave floor, hands clasped to his chest as if he was holding his flesh together. She rushed to him, knelt beside him and, after taking a deep breath to fortify herself, gently moved his hands.
His body was intact.
“What’s wrong with him?” She glanced over her shoulder at the woman who’d forced her awake.
“He’s still in the other plane,” the woman said. “My name’s Caroline, by the way, and Creed used to be my partner. I tried to help him, but I can’t. Apparently there’s a connection between you two that no one else can get into. Kinda like a private phone line, I guess.”
“What do I do?”
“What I did for you. Bring him back. Talk to him, make his spirit come back to this place and time.”
She stretched out beside Creed, facing him, oblivious to the rocky surface beneath her. She laced her fingers through his and began talking.
“Hey, guy, it’s about time you got back here with me,” she began. “I already told you I don’t intend to spend my life in a cave, and you know the rule: Leave no one behind. So if you intend to make this your permanent residence, I’m stuck here too, and I really want that burger basket you promised me.”
Creed lay still as death beside her, although she could see him breathing and feel his heartbeat. Time to try a different tack.
“I need you back here, big boy.” She dropped his hands and snuggled her body against him. “You’ve been toying with my affections, you know, and you can’t hide from the consequences. You come back, and I promise it will be well worth your while.”
Still nothing. Well, she remembered her fairy tales. She’d try the Sleeping Beauty approach. Scooting up, she leaned over and touched his lips with hers, eyes closed, with all the
take me, I’m yours
she could put into one kiss.
Joy filled her when he responded. The joy became desire when his arm came around her, pulling her on top of him. The kiss lengthened, igniting an aching need that made her forget where they were and that they weren’t alone.
Caroline’s voice seemed to come from a distance as she said, “Okay, you two, this is a public cave. I think you’re both back with me now.”
Chiana gave a tiny mew of protest when Creed let go of her. She felt cool air fill the space where his body had been hot against hers, and reluctantly got up when he stood and offered his hand.
“I’d excuse myself and let you two do what you obviously need to do, but I’m kinda bad with small spaces. So what say we get out of here, now.”
“I second the motion,” Chiana said, pulling her flashlight from her pocket. “I mean, it’s been fun and all…”
Creed clicked on his own light and led the way through the tunnels to the cave opening. Chiana decided when they finally got out that she’d never seen a more beautiful sight than the late night sky that greeted them, tinged with the early orange of sunrise. She inhaled deeply of the fresh air, grateful to be able to do so.
Creed had moved away to speak quietly to Caroline. Chiana didn’t know their connection, but she could see their conversation was private. She walked over to the truck and rummaged in the glove compartment to see if she could find something to satisfy her growing hunger.
She found half a roll of candy mints and an unopened bag of peanuts. Deciding they’d have to do, she jumped up on the hood and watched the others.
Creed looked pissed. Caroline looked sad. So what was their deal, anyway? Boyfriend, girlfriend, bad break-up? Former partners who got reassigned because they couldn’t work together? She gave a mental shrug. Eventually, she’d find out.
Tipping her head back to pour some peanuts in her mouth, she realized her neck ached. She used her flashlight to examine her arms and realized she was sporting some fresh bruises. Her spirit might have done battle, but she was feeling the effects.
She bet Creed felt like hell. If what she remembered was right, and she was pretty sure it was, there had been some sort of mind meld or something that let her get inside him. She grinned. That sure gave new meaning to the phrase “got you under my skin.”
“Hey, you gonna talk all day? I’m starving,” she shouted when the peanuts were gone.
“You’re pretty bossy for the only person who doesn’t have a car,” he retorted, walking toward her with Caroline by his side.
“I’m not worried,” she said, sliding off the truck and opening the passenger door. “If you don’t take me, I’m riding with her, and we’ll spend the whole time back to Louisville discussing you.”
She was rewarded with laughter from Caroline, who seemed to be recovering from Rhori’s possession rapidly. She relaxed against the seat, eager to get as far away from this place as possible. She wasn’t worried about Odin dispatching another warrior to bring her back. She was more concerned with getting gone before the ranger saw their vehicles, found the glow sticks down in the cave and had them arrested for trespassing.
Sitting in a jail cell for real truly would suck.
Chapter Fourteen
“Talk to me.” Chiana wadded up the wrapper her sandwich had come in and stuffed it into the paper bag at the center of the picnic table.
“About what happened?” Caroline asked.
“No. I can figure that out once I’ve had some sleep. You don’t know what a relief it is to feel like myself again.” She glanced at her now-naked arm. “And to have that thing gone. I felt like a cow with that brand on me.”
She put her elbows on the table and folded her hands together. Tipping her head, she turned her attention to Creed.
“I know you were possessed or something, and once the big baddie got transported to the fighting grounds thanks to Lillian’s little helper, you were you again,” she said. “I know that even though I felt like I was there, it was just my spirit or whatever. Got that. I want to know about you and Caroline.”
All she heard in response was the whoosh of traffic past the interstate rest area and some bird song from trees at the back of the lot.
“Really, if you don’t just tell me, I’m going to bug you all the way back to Louisville.”
Creed sighed.
Caroline spoke.
“We were partnered together once, on an emergency. Things didn’t go well.”
“Oh, please.” Chiana rolled her eyes. “That makes it sound like a bad blind date. Details, I want details.”
After exchanging glances one more time, Caroline began to tell the story. Chiana listened in fascinated silence as she learned of the talent that brought Caroline into the agency, her ability to see death surrounding people. When Caroline faltered, Creed stepped in.
“I’d never seen so many people in various stages of death,” Caroline said after they’d shared the bare bones of their assignment. “Imagine that you’re surrounded by people. One of them is playing a violent video game at high volume, another is listening to a heavy rock station, another is singing opera and yet another is playing a tuba. That’s kinda what it was like, except it was a cacophony of colors, not noise.
“Just walking down the street was overwhelming. So many people, so little I could do. And then I saw
her
.”
* * * *
The woman had been younger than Caroline and obviously pregnant. Instead of the pale pastel glow Caroline sometimes saw around expectant mothers, a cloud of bright orange tipped with red surrounded her. The effect was like a physical blow; Caroline felt as if the violent colors pushed at her, trying to force her to keep her distance.
She might have closed her eyes and tried to forget what she’d seen if a young boy, too young for school, hadn’t run up to the woman and grabbed her hand. The look he gave her, one of adoration, caught at Caroline’s heart. She couldn’t walk away.
Following them down the street, she saw the color begin to wrap itself around the child. Without thinking, without remembering that she was in Haiti to exterminate hell creatures and not save humans, she ran up to the woman and stopped her before she could walk into the little shop with the dark curtains.
“I figured she’d think I was crazy and call for a policeman, but she listened,” Caroline explained. “When I told her I saw death surrounding her, she crossed herself and hugged her son closer. I didn’t know we were being watched as we talked; I was only concerned with her safety and that of her children, born and unborn.”
Caroline’s voice cracked; Creed began to speak. Chiana learned from his sparse explanation that the woman had been paying the shop owner weekly for charms to protect her during pregnancy. Either the woman’s own suspicions or Caroline’s pleading not to wear them anymore kept her from entering the shop.
“What happened next is my fault,” Creed said, his voice devoid of emotion. “I was the senior agent; I knew the rule. You never leave your partner, which applies double when you’re chasing hell creatures.
“But I did. I thought I knew everything, and the last thing I needed was someone whose talent made no sense in the situation. The island had been devastated. Why send in an agent who’s going to see death everywhere?”
“No.” The denial came from Caroline in a small voice. “I walked away from you. I followed that woman; I caused my own problem.”