“That reminds me. I have a gift for you.” Dalhard reached up into the overhead bin to pull out a box from a high-end designer. At his touch, her body obediently opened it, moving like a puppet on strings.
A conservative suit jacket and skirt in dull blue pastel with matching stilettos. Dani wondered if throwing up counted as an involuntary response. If he tried to put that on her, she’d find out. A picture-perfect, anonymous, political-wife outfit for someone who smiled on cue and stood on the sidelines. He would take away everything she was and remake her in his own sad image of a perfect wife. Her determination to pull up the Huntress gained new urgency.
The seat belt light chimed on and Dalhard shrugged. “We’ll try it on once we’re airborne.”
Seat buckles clicked as Dani closed her eyes, trying to summon her rage. She needed the Huntress back to have any hope of avenging Michael. Come on! She screamed inside, clawing mentally at her internal barriers. They finally collapsed as the plane began to move. The familiar reptilian slithering of the Huntress rasped against her skull.
Now you want the darkness? It hissed inside her mind.
Yes! Dani agreed.
The Huntress moved to the forefront of her mind. We cannot move.
He did this to us. Dani flicked her gaze toward Dalhard. He is prey.
Assent resonated through her psyche. The Huntress coiled in her mind, ready to strike as soon as their prey came in range. The plane’s engines roared to full power, preparing for take-off.
Then they spluttered to a ragged stop as alarms blared in the cockpit.
“What the—?” Dalhard snapped, glaring at Karan. The plane bounced and shook, rattling its passengers like candies in a shaken jar before abruptly coming to a stop.
Smothered laughter came from the back seats. Everyone turned to where Nada rested in her seat, her mouth still sealed with duct tape. Karan stalked back and ripped off the tape, pointing the gun at her.
“I’m too old for you to threaten, boy.” Nada chuckled despite the fury in her dark eyes. “Interesting thing about airplanes—lots of electronics in them. Can’t fly without them.”
“Turn them back on!” Dalhard ordered, specks of spittle flying from his lips.
Nada shrugged. “Can’t. They’re fried like butter on a hot skillet. This plane won’t be going anywhere ever again.”
Dalhard drew himself up. A fresh wave of panic swept through Dani as the scent of his anger vanished into cold wrath. She struggled to get up, to stop him before he said the words. “And neither will you.”
Karan fired his gun.
Chapter Forty-Five
“We’re too late!” Joe shouted as the small cream-colored private jet began to taxi down the runway. Michael couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d done, everything he’d gone through, this couldn’t be how it all ended.
“Try to get close to them!” Michael shouted back.
“Their engines will flip us over before we get there.” Joe accelerated anyway. Michael stared at the speeding plane as if he could somehow will it to stop pulling away from them.
To his surprise, it worked. The engines suddenly stopped and the plane coasted to a rough halt, the wheels grinding into the grass strip beside the runway.
Joe screeched to a stop beside the plane. Michael ripped open his seat belt and flung himself out of the door, ignoring Joe’s shouts. Dani and Bernie were in that plane.
A bright flash lit up the inside of the fuselage and a dull crack split the air.
“Gunshot! Get down!” Joe shouted.
Michael sprinted toward the plane, his heart smothering his brain’s attempts at conscious thought. He didn’t care about risk. Every instinct he possessed insisted on rushing after the woman he loved. They didn’t understand about booby traps or helping the injured. All they knew was that some would-be alpha prick took his woman and they were demanding some immediate, chest-thumping retaliation.
The door opened and Michael could hear Bernie wailing. He dashed to the unfolding steps and found himself facing a gun. The barrel looked large enough to swallow him whole.
“Stay where you are,” Karan ordered him. He glanced over at Joe. “You there, throw your gun on the ground.”
Joe reluctantly complied, his weapon clattering against the concrete a few feet away.
Dalhard emerged, a gun of his own held in his fist. “Your dead friend owes me a new plane.”
Michael ignored him.
“I am rather disappointed to find you survived. But intrigued you managed to follow us. How did you manage it?” Dalhard’s jovial mask began to show cracks of irritation.
McBride appeared in the doorway, specks of blood splashed across his face. He held a crying Bernie in his arms. McBride looked up at Michael without recognition. “They shot her. The old lady. They shot her. I couldn’t stop it.”
Vincent emerged, escorting Dani down the stairs. Once he let go of her arm, she stood limply in place. But there was something different about her, more menacing. Faint glowing dots of red outlined the edges of her irises. Michael sucked in his breath, horrified to realize the Huntress had control once again.
Her eyes widened when she saw him and the tips of her fingers twitched toward him. But otherwise she remained a statue.
“Dani, you have to fight it!” Michael called out, reaching toward her.
“Michael!” Joe shouted his warning only to fall back as Karan moved to protect his boss.
Dalhard stepped between Dani and Michael, brandishing his gun. “However you survived the explosion, I doubt you will survive a bullet.”
“Dani, please. Please come back to me,” Michael pleaded, ignoring Dalhard.
A swell of fury exploded, filling the air and dragging Michael’s attention back to their original quarry. Dalhard’s hands shook with the intensity of his rage. He hissed. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
She doesn’t belong to anyone. Not the Goddess, not Michael, and certainly not Dalhard. Michael tuned out the possessive jealousy coming from the other man to focus once more on Dani. The red rings in her eyes were growing brighter and stronger.
Dalhard grabbed Dani by the arm and hauled her forward. “Tell him! Tell him you’re mine!”
Her mouth opened but no sound came out. A faint groaning rumbled in her throat, as if she were simultaneously trying to say something and not say it.
“Tell him!” Dalhard’s fingers tightened on her bare skin.
“She’s not yours,” Michael said quietly.
“Very well. There’s an easier solution.” Dalhard raised his gun and fired it at Michael.
The blast of the gun echoed across the airfield, and a cloud of dust and grit swelled up where the bullet plowed into the runway.
Dani stood beside Dalhard, her doll’s face impassive despite the reddened flesh on her fingers where she still gripped the hot gun barrel, forcing it down toward the tarmac.
Karan wheeled as Dalhard tried to yank the gun out of Dani’s grasp. Joe took advantage of his captor’s distraction to jump on Karan from behind. McBride took off for the dubious cover of the nearby car, Bernie still clutched in his arms. Vincent stood in the middle of the runway, terrible confusion written across his face.
Dani simply stood there, gripping the weapon, her posture as inflexible and fixed as a store mannequin. Dalhard screamed at her to let it go, but she ignored him. Only a faint tension in her neck and arm suggested how hard she had clamped on, despite the burns. She hadn’t moved or blinked since seizing the gun.
Set her loose! The coercive flash ripped through Michael’s brain, the sort that used to bring debilitating headaches along with compulsion. But now, any discomfort vanished under clarity. He lunged forward, ripping her arm out of Dalhard’s grasp.
“Get away from her!” Dalhard released the gun to swing at Michael.
The businessman screamed in pain a second later, cradling a broken wrist as the gun thudded to the ground. Dani’s strike had been practically invisible. Only the snap
of bone confirmed the hit.
It was eerie. Like watching a statue come briefly to life and then freeze back into stone. Michael took Dani’s hands in his own. No visible response came from his touch, but he could dimly sense her presence. It was muffled by layers of Dalhard’s influence as well as the coils of the raging, alien Huntress.
Open. Michael let go of himself immediately under the compulsive direction. As the outside world began to vanish, he saw Karan throwing Joe to the ground and Dalhard reaching for the gun. The practical side of him wanted to pull back, protect himself and the others. But the intuitive side warned him this was his only chance to reach Dani. He poured his consciousness into the connection between them, just as he’d inadvertently done with Gwen.
The chaos around him vanished into darkness. He heard the slither of the Huntress, scales grinding against stone.
She summoned me, mortal. You will not interfere. Gleaming red eyes hung in the darkness.
“Dani!” Michael shouted. His questing fingers found a thin, opaque layer of darkness, like a balloon skin. His fingers sank in but when he pulled back, it snapped back into its original position. His hand didn’t seem harmed, no cuts or bruises, no numbness or tingling. He pushed deeper, and this time he brushed against something on the other side. He shouted again. “Dani!”
No answer came, but the darkness began to flex toward him. It curved out in the outline of a hand, reaching out to grasp his wrist.
It was her. Certainty crushed him with relief. The shadow balloon must be a manifestation of Dalhard’s influence. He could dimly sense her emotions behind the barrier. Fear of Dalhard, fear for him, an overwhelming grief, burning anger. And at the bottom, something truly dangerous: bone-deep exhaustion. She had burned her considerable strength fighting Dalhard.
Scaly skin brushed across his leg and back, reminding him the Huntress was still there as well. He stroked Dani’s hand through the barrier, wishing she could sense him more directly. “Trust me, I’ll find a way out of this.”
Nothing could stretch forever without breaking. That was a basic law of nature. Michael pushed as hard as he could at a single point, locking his arms together and throwing his weight into it.
The barrier slowly yielded, first enveloping his arms and then his head in slick, chilly darkness. He ignored the atavistic impulse to breathe and kept on pressing at his single chosen point. It was working! The membrane was thinning. Just a little more.
He popped through the barrier, landing hard on his outstretched arms.
“Michael!” Dani’s hands patted and stroked, checking for injury.
“Quickly, before it—” He stared at the unbroken black layer surrounding him. “Closes.”
“Are you hurt?” she demanded.
“Come on, we’ll push our way back through.” He took Dani’s hand.
“I’ve already tried. It doesn’t work.”
“O-kay. This rescue is not exactly going according to plan.” He shook his head. Trapped inside the bubble, everything else might as well not exist. Belatedly, he wondered what kind of effect such total separation of mind and body would have.
“I guess not since we’re both trapped in my brain now.” She wrapped herself around him, breathing deeply. “I thought you were dead. I thought he’d killed you.”
Comprehension dawned. “That’s why the Huntress is back.”
Dani nodded against his shoulder. “I was going to make sure Dalhard ended up a vegetable, and then make sure neither of us could ever hurt anyone else again.”
His hands and arms tightened around her. Annihilating herself struck him as horrific, even if it were to avenge him. Dani continued. “Now we’re both trapped in here, and I’ll be a living, breathing doll for Mr. Asshat Bigshot.”
“We’re going to find a way out,” Michael promised. “We conquered the Huntress before and we’ll conquer Mr. Asshat together.”
She pulled back to stare at him, lips gaping in surprise.
“What? I can swear if I want to.”
He could feel the laughter bubbling up inside her, banishing the fear. It spilled out in uncontrollable bursts, pushing the darkness back… literally—it stretched the dark bubble outward.
“It hasn’t done that before.” Dani studied the skin, keeping her fingers interlaced with Michael’s.
“Dalhard’s using your own anger and fear to keep you trapped,” Michael guessed. “Without it, his grip is weaker.”
“The Goddess said I needed to let go of my anger.” Dani took a deep breath, cupping Michael’s face. “I don’t want to be angry anymore. I don’t want vengeance. Not if the cost is losing you.”
She leaned in to kiss him. The soft caress of her lips banished every other concern. Michael held her tenderly, letting his fingers tease the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck as his lips tasted the sweetness of hers. There was no battle, no desperation. Only love and mutual exploration.
He felt the scintillating flash of the divine connection reestablishing as she opened herself fully to him. No holding back.
The dream-like world around them shifted and the bubble of shadow around them began to swell outward, stretching thinner and thinner. But holding. Something still kept it intact. Years of therapy training gave Michael insight into what. Outwardly expressed anger wasn’t the only kind. “Forgive yourself, Dani,” he whispered against her lips.
“What I did… it isn’t forgivable.” Dani rubbed her soft cheek against his as she shook her head.
“You were young. You were afraid. You didn’t mean to hurt them that badly.” He’d been there, inside her mind when she remembered her college attack.
“But I did want to hurt them,” she exhaled softly, resting her head against his shoulder.
“Let it go. You’ve spent years punishing yourself for it. You’ve suffered enough.” They were close. The bubble hovered on the edge of popping. Michael wondered if she could truly let go of the past.
“I’ve hurt so many people. How can I be your hero if I’ve hurt people?” The words were barely audible. Michael wasn’t even sure she’d actually spoken them. She was so afraid of disappointing him, he could almost see it weighing her down.
“Every hero has an origin story. What defines a hero are the choices they make now, not the ones from their past,” he insisted, pulling back so he could look her in the eye. “I believe in you, Dani. Together, we can make a difference. We can make things better than they are. But only if we find a way out of this darn brain of yours.”
Her smile could have stopped his heart, if he had one in his mental projection. “Together, then. I can’t do it without you.”
The bubble burst, revealing the Huntress looming over them, her blazing red eyes lighting the darkness. Long translucent fangs dripped shimmering venom.
To his surprise, Michael wasn’t afraid of the predator. And from the emotions flowing between their clasped hands, neither was Dani.
“You have no place here,” she said, sounding like one of her priestess ancestors.
You summoned me. The gleaming eyes and dripping fangs crouched lower.
“And now I’m getting rid of you.” Dani closed her eyes to concentrate.
Michael could see the edges of black scales catching the light against the darkness.
What light? There shouldn’t have been any light here, but when he looked at Dani, she was glowing. A soft, pearlescent gleam in reds and golds danced along her skin, bright enough to illuminate the Huntress. A translucent image of the Goddess stood behind her priestess.
“You fed on anger and fear, on lies and delusion. There is nothing left here for you,” Dani pronounced, her voice echoing like the Goddess’s.
The Huntress hissed, opening its maw wide. But it cringed back from Dani’s words. Michael grinned, certain it was finally finished.
Dani’s eyes opened and brilliant starlight poured out of them, too bright to look at. When the light touched the Huntress, the scaly flesh sizzled and dissolved into nothingness. It
tried to surge forward, but its entire body simply vanished into the darkness.
“Like every monster in the closet, the light reveals there is nothing to fear.” Dani’s eyes closed as she finished speaking and the light faded from her skin.
Well done, my Priestess. Well done. The Goddess smiled at the two of them. Now return to your bodies before it is too late to save them.
Chapter Forty-Six
Dani kept herself perfectly still as she returned to awareness. Dalhard’s influence slipped off like a heavy blanket, letting her breathe freely again. Their fight in her mind seemed to have only taken a fraction of a second. Dalhard was still yelling, reaching for Michael. Karan still grappled with Joe for control of the other gun. McBride crouched behind the car with a wailing Bernie. And Vincent’s eyes were tightly squeezed shut, his hands digging into his dark curls. She scanned the tarmac, only moving her eyes, but didn’t see Eric. He must still be on the plane.
She released Michael’s hands as Dalhard pushed him back. Michael fell and rolled back over his shoulder to come up in a crouched position. Dalhard stepped in front of her to face Michael, his hands curled into fists.
Dani slowly shuffled her feet, keeping her upper body as rigid as possible. To those focused on the confrontation between Dalhard and Michael, the lack of change would keep them from noticing her slow movements. Thanks, George. She sent a mental note to the kid from Michael’s workplace for demonstrating the technique.
They didn’t have much of a window of opportunity. Dalhard might be half-blind with rage, but Karan’s sharp eyes would catch her soon enough. Michael’s eyes never even flickered in her direction. He trusted her to do her part, even though they hadn’t exactly set up a plan. He couldn’t have demonstrated his faith in her any more clearly. The realization lightened her heart and would have brought a smile to her face in a less life-and-death situation.
“You might be able to temporarily hold on to people by frying their brains, but you can’t persuade someone to join you through coercion,” Michael said to Dalhard.
Revelations: Book One of the Lalassu Page 30
