It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 8
S he couldn’t get comfortable in the small confines of the helicopter. He was too close. The rain continued to pound down. The noise was terrible off the inorganic material of the machine. Like an unending shower of tiny bullets. At least she was dry. That’s what she tried to tell herself.
Only she could smell him.
Lilith shifted in the bucket seat again, looking for the farthest distance she could find. She had already determined it would be rude to move into one of the seats in back. Not that another few inches would make much difference. She was sure she would smell him from back there, too.
“Can you please stop fidgeting?”
His eyes were closed, his arms crossed loosely over his stomach. He looked very relaxed within his space. That plus the even rise and fall of his chest, which she had watched for what felt like hours, almost made her believe him to be asleep.
Almost.
But she knew that even as he rested he was still alert. She could practically feel his senses filtering out the extraneous data. The sound of the rain. The creaking of the trees as they bent under the relentless pressure. Searching all of it for the anomalies that would signal danger. It was that invisible tension keeping her up.
That and his smell.
“I do not fidget.” It was silly to be offended, but she was. Fidgeting made her sound like a young child.
He tilted his head in her direction. A single eye popped open. “I hate to break this to you, Lilly. But you fidget.”
“That is not my name.”
“Lilly? No, it isn’t. But I’m having a difficult time calling you Lilith.”
“Why?”
“Do you know where it comes from? The origination of the name?”
Lilith nodded. “My father.” She paused over the word. Did she even need to call him that anymore? “The man who sired me told me that Lilith spawned monsters.” It was such an awful image for a child to grow up with. She could see now he intended it that way. Curiously she wondered who was responsible for naming her. It certainly wasn’t a traditional Nepalese name. It must have come from Jackie. No doubt the woman had found a perverse humor in the name. Or maybe it was her ironic way of naming Lilith after herself.
“Okay, you know she didn’t actually…I mean that she’s a myth.”
“You think because of where I live that I am not sophisticated about the world. I have learned many things from the monks and the nuns. I have studied very hard. I am not stupid.”
“Hackles down, Lilly. I wasn’t trying to offend. Just trying to get a sense of where you come from…philosophically that is.”
“I am a Buddhist.”
“The nuns couldn’t convert you?”
Lilith thought of Sister Joseph and it made her smile. “They tried.”
“I’m sure. Perfect setup for them actually. You’re already half nun. You believe in helping people. You’re obviously self-sacrificing. No worries about the chastity issue because well, you’re deadly.”
Lilith bristled. It wasn’t so much the remark, but his tone. He wasn’t trying to insult her. Instead she believed he was poking fun at her. “You are mocking me,” she accused. “Or do you think I am lying? If I could demonstrate I would. Unfortunately for you, you would not live to see the results.”
Tarak shrugged. “Of course I do not think you are lying. You are far too serious for that, Lilly. But tell me how you learned of this. How does someone come to realize that their touch is literally poison?”
“My mother was dead. As a child I asked why. My father told me it was because I killed her as she gave birth to me. As well as the doctor who delivered me. Then as a young woman my uncle tried to…He wanted me for a wife. He wanted to…touch me. You understand?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“He died, too. My father said it was because I was cursed. Now I know better.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I was not cursed. I was made. There is a difference.”
“And if I reached over and crossed the space separating us and touched your cheek or your lips or your shoulder…”
Lilith met his gaze directly. “You would die.” She watched sadness seep into his eyes. “You pity me. Please do not.”
Then he snorted and turned away from her. “Pity you? Hell, I pity myself. First time in a long time I’ve been in close quarters with a woman I want with nothing better to do to pass the time and she’s off-limits. Trust me, if anyone is the victim in this scenario it’s me.”
She watched him close his eyes and thought that she would let his words pass unnoticed, but he was right. For the first time she was alone with a man other than a relative, a leper or an abstinent monk. She found herself curious.
“Why does a man want a woman?”
“Oh, this should get interesting.” Again Tarak shifted so that he was facing her. “I have no good answer for that, Lilly. We just do.”
“And you take what you want. Like my uncle tried to do.”
“Your uncle sounds like a sick man. Not all men take. Sometimes we can’t stop the wanting. But we can always stop the taking.”
“Will it go away? This wanting, now that you know you cannot have me.”
He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “No. In fact, it is probably only going to get worse the more I get to know you. First, I wanted you because of your body. The color and shape of it. The way your skin shines makes me yearn to touch it. Then, I wanted you more when I saw you try to fight your sister even after the blow you had been dealt by the loss of your friend. Then, even more when you asked me to help you because I knew it was hard for you, but you did it anyway. These things make me want you.”
“Fighting? Asking for help?” It didn’t make any sense to her why those things would attract a man.
“Courage and persistence. They happen to be two of my favorite traits. So will it go away? Probably not. Would I ever take you…”
“You cannot,” she insisted.
“Lilly, if your skin was made out of pure silk rather than poison I still wouldn’t take you unless you wanted me to.”
“Oh.”
Again, Tarak rolled away and once more closed his eyes. “Now tell me,” he said casually. “Why do you want me?”
“I do not know,” Lilith answered honestly. It didn’t occur to her to be coy. There was no reason for it. Truth had no impact on the reality of their situation. “I have never felt this before. It is like a tug in the center of my body. I think it has to do with your smell.”
He chuckled and the sound made her smile. “Go to sleep. They’ll be moving fast tomorrow. We’ll need to move faster if we’re to catch up. We can’t do that if we’re not rested.”
She tried to do as he asked, but sleep seemed so elusive. Over and over again she could see Echo holding the gun to Sister Peter’s head. She could see the anger and the terror in the nun’s eyes and then nothing. Just a slumping of the body that signaled instant and complete death. Then Echo had just let her go.
Revenge wasn’t something Lilith had ever believed in until now. The heat of it was something that she couldn’t ignore. It gave her power even though she knew that it wasn’t the kind of power that she wanted. This journey she was on would test her in ways that she knew she hadn’t been tested before.
The frightening part was that Lilith had no idea how she would fare.
The next morning Tarak lifted his head, startled that he’d let himself fall so deeply into sleep. He was still recovering and his body hadn’t responded as well to the ten-hour trek the day before as he would have liked. Was it possible that he was getting old?
Old before his thirtieth birthday?
No. Definitely not possible. But he couldn’t deny the life he’d led had hardened him. Aged him. Beaten him down and spit him out on occasion. There was always another fight. Another battle. Another mission.
There was never just peace. In his heart he knew that’s what had
sent him back to his mother’s people. He’d needed to rest his body, yes, but he had also needed to rest his soul.
For a brief second he wondered what his parents would have thought of his retreat. His father would have frowned. Peace was for the weak. His mother would have said nothing to contradict his father but she would have been glad that for a short time he was not in danger.
Or at least he hadn’t been in danger until he met Lilith.
Lilith. Lilly. Yes, definitely Lilly.
Shaking off the strange melancholy that always accompanied thoughts of his parents, Tarak turned and saw that his copilot was already up and gone. Fearing she might have foolishly gone after the enemy on her own, he opened the door to the helicopter and maneuvered himself out onto the overturned tree that it had crashed on.
“Stop. Do not move any farther.”
Unable to heed the warning, he turned to his left, in the direction of the voice, and saw her standing rather calmly just beyond a bush.
Calmly considering she was facing off against a full-size male tiger.
Tarak quickly swallowed his shout. Exciting the animal would do no good. Five meters in either direction, the tiger stood motionless between them. Then a slow turn of the head indicated the beast was aware of Tarak’s presence behind him. A slow turn back to Lilith let Tarak know that the animal didn’t consider him a threat.
“Beautiful,” Tarak whispered. And he was. Orange like he’d never seen before with inky-black and snow-white stripes. The tiger resonated power. “I’m sorry I have to do this.”
He reached for the gun in his holster, but Lilith held up her hand.
“There is no need to shoot him.”
“He could attack at any second. If I wait until he makes his move you will already be dead.”
“He is not in an attack position. His back is not arched. His tail is not down. And truly I am not a large enough prey to entice him. He wants a deer or a fat wild boar. Besides, I think he can sense I would not taste very good.”
Tarak remained still. As did Lilith and the animal. “What about me?” he half joked.
“You, he would eat.”
“Of course.”
“But as I said, he is not interested in hunting today. Go now,” she urged the beast gently. “Find your meal elsewhere.”
As if the tiger understood her language, he turned and slowly walked off into the forest. After five more seconds Tarak could finally breathe.
“I thought they were all on preserves.”
“Most are. But some still roam wild. And despite their low numbers, people still come to kill them for sport. I could not let you shoot it as long as I knew there was no threat. The smell of the body we covered might have attracted him. They usually keep their distance from people.”
“No threat,” Tarak puffed. “I’ve never been so close to a deadly animal like that in my life. It was facing you, but you had the presence of mind to assess the threat level?”
To that, she simply shrugged. “I have washed already and filled my water supply. There is a stream not too far east. Once you are ready we can be on our way.”
“Our best chance is to head for the river and follow it south until we find civilization.” Tarak pulled his backpack out of the helicopter and slung it over his shoulders.
“That is the path Echo and her men will take.”
“Right. We’re following them, remember? Big ugly necklace. You want it back.”
Lilith shook her head slightly. “I meant to say, if we cut through the jungle heading southwest for a time, we could make up ground on them.”
“Or lose it, depending on how difficult the terrain is and what we run into.”
“Yes,” she allowed. “Or lose it. Echo will not be moving slowly. She will want to get to where she needs to be as fast as she can.”
“And where is that? Ultimately?”
“I do not know. My guess would be first to Bomdila as we suspected. That’s about two hundred kilometers from where we are now. If she makes it there she can find transportation. From there she will want an even bigger city. One with an airport that has planes to everywhere in the world.”
Tarak considered asking why Lilith was so certain that would be the case, but decided there would be more than enough time for questions later. Now they needed to set a course.
“New Delhi fits the bill. And it’s closer than Calcutta,” Tarak concluded. “If she makes it there, we’ll never find her. We’ll have to go on as if she’s headed to Bomdila first and trust that we’re right.”
“We found the helicopter.”
“With a tracker and a GPS receiver. Neither one of which are of use anymore.”
He didn’t bother to point out that trying to take the same general direction and hoping to find four people in a jungle that spanned over ten thousand square kilometers wasn’t going to be easy.
“Right,” he decided. “We’ll cut through the jungle heading southwest and hope she sticks to the water. If she finds a village with a boat or a car…”
“She won’t. There are few cars and fewer powered boats in these villages. And the people are very suspicious. Outsiders are not welcomed. The only foreigners they see are tourists out for sport. It is the same with people who come to our village to see the monastery. They are not trusted.”
“We’re talking at least another two, probably three, days on foot.”
“I know. Will you be able to walk for so long?”
He tried not to let her innocent question prick his male pride. “I’ll manage,” he said dryly.
“Then we should go.”
“I hate India in the springtime!” Echo sang out to the trees above her. “I hate India in the fall. I hate India, oh why do I hate India, because…I’m stuck in this hellish jungle with a bunch of incompetents who couldn’t check the damn fuel line.”
Echo chuckled at her little joke. Rolf turned around but was smart enough not to say anything.
“Actually, I have to give that girl credit. Cutting the fuel line. Priceless. How the hell did she even know what a fuel line was? Is it possible that I misjudged her? Maybe she wasn’t some village half-wit. Maybe it was all a scam to throw me off. No, not possible,” Echo said, talking herself out of her paranoid conclusions. “I do know one thing—I should have killed her when I had the chance.”
“If we stick to the river’s edge we should eventually find a village. Hopefully one with a car,” Rolf said.
“Right.” Echo snorted. “Lots of cars in this part of India. Just keep walking and keep your mouth shut. And get me the hell out of this jungle. I have a world to conquer.”
“Do you think she’ll follow us?”
Echo glanced behind her at Kent, who was bringing up the rear. “Worried she might want to reach out and touch you?”
“I would like to know if it’s a possibility. Yeah.”
“She did mess with my helicopter. Would she have the balls to chase me through the jungle to get her precious necklace back?” Echo smiled. “If only I could be lucky enough to have a chance to meet up with dear sis one more time. Don’t worry. If she does come for us I’ll know it.”
“How?”
“I’ll know it,” Echo insisted through clenched teeth. “And this time I won’t be so nice.”
Chapter 9
“H ow is your leg?”
Lilith focused on the appendage even as Tarak hacked his way through the heavy bush in front of them with a machete he’d stowed in his backpack. When she asked what else he’d brought with him besides his guns, the GPS receiver and the canteen that he’d filled by the river, he simply stated that he had everything he needed. It was a very large backpack.
“Stop asking about my leg.”
“If you need us to go slower I can…”
Tarak stopped and faced her. “If you finish that sentence I’m going to turn you over my knee and spank you. I’m fine.”
Lilith knew it was an empty threat. But she also knew enough about male pri
de from her father and the monks to know that she probably shouldn’t be offering to slow down. Although if he was too lame to help her when she confronted Echo that wouldn’t do her much good, either. Someday someone would have to explain to her why men could be so stubborn about their pride.
Night was beginning to fall, but they had decided to press on with the torches for a little longer. The hike during the day hadn’t been too difficult. The rain had picked up in the afternoon, but had finally stopped. For the most part it had been uneventful and they’d managed to find some wild fruit that they could eat along the way.
“We do have to watch for leopards,” she said. “They will hunt at night. Unlike the tiger we encountered they will find our size more to their liking.”
“But you said the tiger sensed that you wouldn’t taste very good. Are you telling me leopards aren’t as discriminating?”
“No, I’m reminding you that while I might be safe you are still vulnerable. My guess is you would taste very good.”
Again Tarak stopped in his tracks. He looked at her with an expression she didn’t understand. “You don’t realize what you just said, do you?”
“I was commenting on your vulnerability.”
“Right.” He sighed. “I wish you would stop worrying about me so much. I’ll have you know I’m rather competent at what I do. This isn’t the first time I’ve been in a jungle.”
His face was lit by the torch he carried. She could see the sharp features that she was coming to know very well. This morning she’d watched him sleep for almost an hour until the need to reach over and touch him became so strong that she’d been forced to leave the helicopter. It had been foolish to wander off as far as she had. Despite what she told him she was lucky the tiger hadn’t attacked. They both were.
But she had needed to…get away. It wasn’t a need she could explain, only one that she could act on. Looking at him now, a part of her knew that the wisest course of action would be to have as little communication with him as possible. He was here to help her track down Echo and to retrieve the necklace. She was certain that knowing him beyond that would make the tug worse. Just like he had suggested last night. There were already things about him that were compelling to her. The sound of his laugh for one. The way he called her Lilly.
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