“Stop!” Tarak shouted. “There is no way to tell what direction the bullet will ricochet. Call down to the pilot. He’s got to disable the plane. Now.”
Lilith, however, wasn’t listening. She hadn’t come this far only to let Echo slip out of her grasp. She immediately followed Echo through the door and down the steps. Another door led outside and she could see that the men holding Rolf were suddenly unsure about what to do.
“Echo,” Rolf called out. “Help me!”
“Sorry, Rolf, honey. You’re on your own.” Echo raced for the stairs that led to the plane. She climbed them two at a time, but when she reached the top step she saw that the flight attendant, a small woman wearing another blue blazer, was attempting to close the hatch on her.
“Close that door and it is the last thing you’ll ever do.” Echo put her leg inside the plane, preventing the woman from shutting the hatch completely. Then she grabbed the flight attendant by the collar and shoved her hard toward the cockpit. “Tell the pilot to start the engines now. Tell him either he gets this plane off the ground in the next five seconds or you all die.”
Lilith heard Echo’s shouts and listened as the engines came to life. Desperate, she chased up the stairs after her but she could see Echo pushing the staircase away from the plane with all her strength. The sudden jerk underneath Lilith had her falling forward and she was forced hold on to the steps with both hands. She started to crawl the rest of the way.
“You just will not give up!” In order to get more leverage, Echo got on her knees and shoved at the staircase until there was at least a foot of space between the plane and Lilith. Then she leaned out farther and gave it another shove. The momentum of the staircase on wheels carried it back another foot.
Lilith held on and quickly scrambled for the top. “I will have that necklace.”
“You’ll have nothing! It should have been mine, anyway. All of it. You meant nothing to her. Nothing.”
“Then why did she visit me?” Lilith challenged. “Why did she come to see me instead of you? Because she knew deep in her heart that I was her favorite!”
Rage transformed Echo’s face into something impossibly ugly. “You’ll pay for that. You will pay!”
But just as the words fell from her lips, shots started to rain down from above. Lilith covered her head and watched as Echo had to refocus her energy. She was still on her knees inside the hatch but her arms were outside of the plane.
Lilith knew that she was concentrating on forming her force field and making sure she was covered from above. Lucy’s man must have shot his way through the glass window to be firing at her from such a position.
The necklace dangled from Echo’s neck. It looked vulnerable to Lilith.
One chance, she thought. Once chance now while Echo was distracted.
More shots were fired and she could hear Echo scream as she worked to deflect the bullets. Lilith got into a crouching position on the stairs. The timing would need to be perfect.
One, two and then she jumped. Off the steps and into the space between her and the plane. Her hand reached out and grabbed the gold spider, clasping it as if it were a lifeline. It cut into her hand painfully, but that only made Lilith more determined to hold it. Echo’s head dropped as the necklace pulled around her neck.
“Damn you!” She grunted even as Lilith’s weight began to pull her out of the plane. Lilith held on with two hands and looked up into her sister’s face, now red from strain as well as fury. If she could just reach up and touch her it would be over, but as soon as she had the thought the gold chain snapped.
Lilith felt herself falling and then her feet hit the ground hard. The jolt shot through her ankles and knees. Pain poured through her whole body as she tried to roll backward and disperse the energy. Her head hit the ground hard.
She lay on her back motionless. There was a ringing in her ears. She wasn’t sure if that was from the roar of the engines or the shrieking that must have been coming out of Echo’s open mouth.
She tightened her grip around the spider and lifted it so she could see it. Bringing her other hand up, she slid the back open and saw the flash drive tucked securely inside.
Then she looked up at the plane and saw that Echo had already shut the hatch. The plane started rolling forward and she had no doubt that the pilots had no choice but to comply. Echo could be very convincing.
She was going to get away.
“Lilith! Lilith!” Tarak scrambled down to where she was still lying flat on the black tarmac.
“I have it,” she whispered, trying to show him what was in her hand.
“Lilly, you need to listen to me. You need to retract the poison. Now. I’m going to have to touch you. To check for injuries. Do you understand?”
His face was a little fuzzy and it was still hard to hear him over the ringing. Ringing that she didn’t understand at all now that the sound of the plane was becoming more distant.
“She’s getting away.”
“We can’t stop that. She’s got a gun to the pilot’s head. That doesn’t matter, though. None of it. Just tell me you can retract the poison so I can see where you’re hurt. Please, Lilly. I have to be able to touch you.”
She understood.
If Tarak wanted to touch her then she would not allow him to be hurt. She closed her eyes and concentrated on letting the fear and the anger and the urgency she’d felt recede.
“You can touch me now,” she told him even as she lifted her empty hand to his cheek. “You can always touch me.”
Then his face dimmed. She felt the light start to fade around her. Her eyes closed and there was just the ringing. Then nothing.
Then blackness.
Chapter 20
“I want to make sure you are up for this.”
“I keep telling you I am all right.”
“You keep me telling me, but I will believe it a little better when you are off your crutches.”
Lilith smiled seductively. “I am not on my crutches now.”
Tarak stared at the woman on the bed and smiled. His wife. It was quite hard to believe and sometimes so utterly easy it took his breath away.
It had been a whirlwind of experiences since they lost Echo. Lilly had fallen exactly eight feet three inches when she leaped from the staircase to make a grab for Echo’s necklace. The fact that she’d caught it and it suspended her fall momentarily, allowing her to get her feet under her, probably spared her even more injury.
As it was, she was left with a severely sprained ankle, a bruised foot and a minor concussion. He’d been forced to take her to a hospital for X-rays but when it was confirmed that nothing was broken, he’d whisked her away. There was no point in arousing any sort of suspicion regarding her condition and given that she didn’t have complete control of her mental faculties he thought it best that she recuperate in private.
He’d taken her to a resort facility north of the city he’d discovered years before. Out of New Delhi, away from people, where she could have peace and he could think about his next move.
Lucy had followed Tarak to the hospital and had initially demanded the necklace. She said she would personally hand it over to Allison Gracelyn, who was truly the only person to be trusted with the information on the flash drive, but Tarak had resisted.
It was Lilly’s necklace. It was hers to give—or not give—to whomever she wanted. He hadn’t been prepared to take that decision out of her hands while she was unable to speak for herself.
Lucy eventually relented, but did tell him that she would be reporting back to her superior, who no doubt would share the entire story with Gracelyn. Tarak was fine with that. He had a strong feeling that when Lilly did come around, she might be very curious to meet Allison Gracelyn.
It was only days after her fall, while she was resting in bed and he was feeding her soup and thinking how happy he was to have a solid roof over his head, that he popped the question.
Actually it had been more like a statement. He explai
ned that she was going to be his wife.
Tarak smiled as he recalled her shocked expression. Her eyes had widened and she started to shake her head. But he simply kissed her. And kissed her again. Then one more time until she relented. He asked her then if she wanted to marry any other man, to which she was forced to say she would never want another man to touch her the way he touched her.
And so he told her she was stuck with him as a husband.
After a small, intimate ceremony, Tarak quickly saw to arranging some very legal paperwork with the help of some government contacts. It seemed his wife had the perfect idea for a place to start their honeymoon.
“My dear, are you trying to seduce me? Again? I fear you have become downright scandalous,” Tarak teased.
They were in the honeymoon suite of one of the finest hotels in Phoenix, not too far from the White Tank Mountains, beyond which was situated the Athena Academy. Lilith was lying back in bed wearing nothing more than a pink silk slip. Not unlike what she’d been wearing the night she first asked for his help. Only this time it was not her obligation to wear it but her choice.
Her ankle was still wrapped securely, but Tarak had found many ways to give his wife as much pleasure as possible without jostling her too much. In fact one of her favorite words was now more. He was a very happily married man.
He walked over to the bed and dropped the towel he’d only recently wrapped around his waist after having taken his shower. He’d just left her side, but he couldn’t resist the lure of her. His hand rested on her tummy and he enjoyed the feel of silk warmed by skin under his palm. Bending down, he kissed her. She had become quite a student of lovemaking in the last few weeks, and what she lacked in experience she more than made up for with enthusiasm.
Yes, he was a very happy man indeed.
“We’re supposed to be getting ready for your big meeting,” he told her even as his hand moved from her stomach to capture her breast. She sighed and let her head fall back into the pillow, clearly wallowing in his touch.
“We will. Soon. But this time is ours, yes? For a little while.”
“For as long as you want it,” Tarak said.
She gazed at him then with her serious expression. He found it to be her most popular. He was always working on pulling other ones from her. A smile. A laugh. Even a pout. A devilish gleam. But it was slow going. His Lilly was just learning to live in so many ways.
But every time he made her chuckle uncontrollably, which he found he could do if he touched her in exactly the right spot underneath her ribs, he felt like a god.
She reached up to touch his face. “Is that true? For as long as we want? I know eventually you must go back to your work. I told you once I didn’t want you to. The thought of you being in another jungle, this time without me, makes me nervous.”
“No doubt. Who would save me from the occasional stray tiger?”
“I am serious. I will worry. But I realize that I was wrong. I cannot tell you what to do. Especially when I know what evil there is in the world. That you stop people like Echo. Plus, she’s still out there.”
Tarak rolled onto his back but he reached for her hand so that they were still connected. “When I left Columbia I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to go back. The problem isn’t the danger. Not really. And sometimes yes, you can make a difference with the work. But I find it becomes harder and harder these days to know who to trust. I started on a quest to find my parents’ murderers. I continued on because I could think of nothing else to do with my life. That has changed. I have something to do with my life now. I have you.”
“You will miss it. You will resent me.”
Again, he turned to face her. “Never. This isn’t your choice, darling. This is mine. I promise.”
She smiled softly and it made his heart soar. Then she bit her lip.
“What is it?”
“It occurred to me that if you do not work and I do not work, we will have a very difficult time getting on in this world without money.”
Tarak couldn’t control the burst of laughter that erupted from his belly. “Ever my practical little flower. Trust me. I would not have us destitute. I told you my father was English.”
“Yes.”
“Well, he was very English. The Hammer-Smith family goes way back, you see, with many titles and all sorts of property to go with them. Trust me when I tell you we will not starve. In fact, when we are done here I want to take you there. I want to show you my estate. The land there is very different from India. The temperature will be colder than you are used to. And the rain…well, let’s just say it rains a lot. But there is a beauty to it that you will appreciate I am sure.”
“And then?”
“Then we pick out where we want to live. What we want to do. You have thought about it.”
She nodded. “I have. I want to be close to a place of science. I thought I was cursed for all of my life, but now I understand it is neither a curse nor a gift. It is simply what I am. It is my responsibility to learn everything I can about what I can do. If I can use this for good I will. I must.”
“That definitely sounds like plan. Good. I like the way you’re thinking. Then let’s get you up and dressed so we can have our little meeting and then get on with the business of our honeymoon.”
“Tarak.” He was about to roll off the bed when she stopped him with her hand. He gazed down at her face and was sad to see that the smile was gone, once more replaced by her very serious expression.
“Yes?”
“I do not know if it is possible. I have not stopped to consider such things. But you mentioned your family. Your lineage. If I do get pregnant…if I had a baby…”
“We would be blessed,” he said, caressing her cheek.
“What if she was like me?” she whispered, her voice tight with fear.
“Then I would be doubly blessed.”
The view was spectacular, Lilith thought as she drove toward the mountains. She’d never seen anything quite like this. The size of the sky was impossible. It was as if they were surrounded by blue. Only the stark outline of the mountains seemed to interfere. And the land. The land that seemed to go on forever, so flat with colors like she’d never seen before. Not brown. Not orange. Not gold. She felt so far away from her village in India that she couldn’t imagine that these two places could actually exist on the same planet.
Tarak drove the rented Land Rover over a narrow road called Script Pass. Eventually the road wound down into a valley at the base of the mountains. There Lilith got her first sight of the Academy.
Tarak parked the Rover in front of the main building and got out. He circled the car and opened the door, prepared to help Lilith gently to the ground.
“Do you think it was all right to wear jeans?”
They had quickly become her new favorite piece of clothing. While she knew her husband was partial to saris—he bought her a dozen to replace the one that he’d ripped—Lilith preferred the freedom of movement the pants gave her, especially as she still needed to negotiate the crutches.
“Given what you’re about to do, I imagine no one will mind that you are in jeans.” He pulled her crutches from the back of the car and handed them to her.
“You approve of what I am doing.”
“I do.” He nodded.
It made her glad to hear. It wouldn’t have changed her mind, but knowing that she had his support was important. She navigated her way inside the building and saw that two women were already in the main foyer waiting for them. One woman was older with short gray hair and impeccably straight posture. Next to her was a younger woman of average height and shoulder-length dark hair. She wore a sophisticated cream skirt suit that made Lilith instantly regret her jeans and long T-shirt.
She imagined she would also have to explain the gloves. The kind she wore today were short. Just to her wrist. But she found she still needed them when she knew she was going to be among strangers.
“Hello,” the older woman said. “And welc
ome to Athena Academy. I’m Christine Evans, the principal of this school, and this is Allison Gracelyn. But I’m sure you’re already aware of that. You must be Lilith.”
Lilith stopped and handed her crutches to Tarak. He hesitated to take them for a second, but she nodded her head. Her ankle was much stronger and her foot barely bothered her anymore. She limped forward and took the outstretched hand that Christine offered, then turned to Allison and shook her hand, as well.
“Please pardon my gloves. I wear them only as a precaution, but they make me feel more comfortable.”
“No excuses necessary,” Allison said politely. “Lucy, who you know is an alumna of this school, told us everything. She was sorry that she couldn’t be here today but as she explained it…”
“She left a very warm bed,” Tarak supplied. “I know she was anxious to return to it.”
Allison coughed politely. “Yes. Anyway, she said you were very brave in going after Echo. A true sister in the Athena tradition.”
Lilith shook her head. “I do not know if that is true. But Tarak says I can be very persistent.”
“It’s one of my favorite qualities,” he said. He then shook Christine’s and Allison’s hands. “How do you do?”
“Very well,” Allison answered. “Mr. Hammer-Smith, I can’t thank you enough for providing the help that Lilith needed to track Echo through the jungle. I understand you were injured, as well.”
“Minor stuff.”
“And now you and Lilith are enjoying a honeymoon, I understand. Congratulations.”
Lilith nodded. “Thank you. But I did not call this meeting to discuss such things.” She stopped and looked around the empty building. It was exceptionally quiet, she thought, for a school filled with girls.
“They are in class,” Christine explained. “If you’re wondering where the girls are. The classrooms are just down that hallway. Plus, we have several outlying buildings for different purposes. Our science and computer lab for one. Maybe you would like a tour?”
Untouchable Page 19
