by Cherry Adair
“I hope she’ll talk to us,” Sara said quietly as they accompanied the nurse down a series of long corridors to the patient’s room. “If her story is anything like that of the girl in Lima, she must still be terrified.”
The young girl looked awfully small in the hospital bed, her soft cocoa-colored skin marred by livid bruises crisscrossing her arms and neck. The whites of her wary eyes were still bloodshot, her lips swollen and scabbed as though she’d bitten them until they bled.
Sara approached her bed while Jack remained farther back, but the girl was clearly skittish having a strange man in the room.
“Maybe you’d better wait outside,” Sara suggested.
She heard him move behind her, his shoes squeaking on the linoleum. “I’ll be right outside the door.”
Listening, she knew. She nodded and gave him a grateful smile. The girl’s face noticeably softened.
“Hola, Valentina, my name is Sara Temple. They say you are having bad dreams,” Sara started in slow Spanish, pulling up a green molded plastic chair beside the bed. “Will you talk to me? I think I might be able to help you.”
“The nurses think I am loco,” the girl replied in broken English. “So do the policía. They think I am—que la component—making it up to hide a boyfriend who was too rough with me. I do not have such a boyfriend.”
“Will you tell me what happened?” Sara considered revealing that she too had been chased—assaulted—by Sarulu, but decided to play it by ear. This child hadn’t just been chased. She’d been whipped and brutally raped.
The girl, only about fifteen, stared out the window, as if she couldn’t bear to look at Sara while she spoke. “Sarulu came to our village seeking payment. Each family must sacrifice one of their daughters to appease the snake god. It was my family’s turn.
“He comes as a man. A young, handsome man, with hair and eyes of gold. He laughed and told me to run, to run fast. And for a moment, I thought that I would be the one who got away.” The girl lifted dull brown eyes to Sara’s.
“Some girls get away. Raped. Hurt, sí, but they get away. Algunas veces. I know the jungle near my home. I have lived there all my fifteen years. Who would know it better? But then he came behind me, tan rápido como el relámpago, very fast, his feet barely touching the ground.”
Sara shuddered. “He turned into a giant snake, with eyes of gold and a three-forked rainbow-colored tongue.”
“Sí.” The girl touched the welts on her neck—lacerations, Sara knew, from Sarulu’s damned tongue. The whip marks that cut and scored flesh until it split open in agonizing streaks that burned like fire.
“The snake—Madre de Dios—it licked and—and tasted me, then held me with sharp claws around here, and here.”
Sara noticed the stark white bandages wrapped around the girl’s ribs beneath her thin green hospital gown. Sunlight poured through the window, and the room was warm, but Sara was freezing cold.
“He squeezed and squeezed. I could no longer scream. I could no longer breathe.”
“Shh. Shh,” Sara soothed as the girl‘s breathing became labored and hurried. “You’re safe here. No one can hurt you now, Valentina.”
“The more I—luchó?”
“Struggled?”
The girl nodded. Her long, dark hair was probably pretty when it was clean and brushed, but she looked like exactly what she was: a girl on the brink of womanhood who’d been terrorized by something freaking unbelievably frightening.
“The more I fight, the more Sarulu laughed.” She twisted the sheets, her breathing becoming erratic. Tears ran down her face and throat. The monitors beside the bed began to beep with the frenetic beat of the girl’s pulse.
“Okay. That’s enough. You don’t have to tell me any more. Shh. Shh.” Sara sat on the side of the bed and gathered the girl in her arms. “Shh. You’re safe. You’re safe.” Rubbing the thin back, she rocked the girl in her arms, feeling helpless and absolutely furious. She and Jack were going to find this—whatever it was. Snake, man, whatever. And kill it stone dead.
“He was inside me, everywhere at once.” Valentina’s arms tightened around Sara, and she spoke against her shoulder. Sara kept rocking, not sure if she was giving comfort to this young woman or herself. “Sarulu went inside me. The pain … He was inside all m-my—inside my body.” She lifted her head and met Sara’s eyes. “Inside down there.” Crimson, she buried her hot face back against her neck as Sara continued rocking her, murmuring soothing nonsense when she wanted to scream and cry just like Valentina.
The girl wailed harder, her voice rising to a crescendo as she flung herself away from Sara, almost falling out of the narrow bed. The clatter of the metal headboard slamming against the brick wall added to the chaos.
Jack raced in, taking in the scene in a glance, followed closely by the nurse. The middle-aged woman glared at Sara and spoke in rapid Spanish to Valentina as she readied a syringe of sedative.
“Can you do a Mindwipe?” Sara begged Jack as, behind her, the girl continued sobbing hysterically. “Leave her with the facts, but not the emotion?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at Valentina, and a second later the girl’s sobbing stopped.
Sara reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you. Hang on a sec.” She went over to the bed. The nurse gave her a hostile look. “I just want to tell her good-bye.” When the woman stood back to give her access, Sara leaned down and smoothed the girl’s sweat-dampened hair off her face. “Thank you for telling me what happened; that was very brave of you. You are not loco. It happened to me as well, Valentina. And I swear to you, we’re going to figure out what’s going on near your village, and we’ll stop it.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
The girl wearily closed her eyes, then opened them and grabbed Sara’s hand, tugging her down so she could whisper in her ear. “What if I am embarazada—pregnant—yes?” Tears welled. “My bebé—serpiente o humanos?”
Wrapping her arms about the girl’s thin shoulders, Sara hugged her tightly, murmuring words of comfort.
If Grant or William really was responsible for this, she’d kill him herself.
Chapter Eighteen
Sunlight filtered through the trees, and the air shimmered with the drone of insects and the oppressive, sultry hothouse heat. A curious capuchin monkey, its inquisitive face capped with a tuft of black hair, sat on a nearby branch watching them.
To Jack, the whole damn jungle smelled like a rotting compost heap. Even in broad daylight, this particular chunk of rain forest had an evil feel to it that kept making him want to look over his shoulder. Both the cave and the jungle real estate surrounding it needed to be blown to hell, and he was ready to do just that.
“The sacrifice business seems to be thriving,” Sara said dryly, pointing to some new offerings that had been left at the mouth of the cave since they’d been there last. Flies buzzed around the rotting fruit, and the crystal snakeskin amulets strung around the entrance swayed and tinkled in the muggy breeze like macabre wind chimes.
She put a hand on his arm. “Jack, I don’t think I should help you with magic after all. My emotions are all over the place, and you know what could—I don’t want to hurt you.”
Jack took her in his arms. “You can do this. Concentrate, shove everything else out of your mind. Our strength is that our powers are stronger, more focused, when used together. Even more so when we’re touching. Concentrate.”
She squared her shoulders and sucked in a fortifying breath. “You’re right. I’ll do my best.”
“That’s my girl. Besides”—he shot her a grin—“what’s the worst that can happen? The place will blow up?”
She smiled. “Good point. Okay. Let’s see how much of an explosion we can make together.” She turned to face the cave.
“Ready, Sara-mine?” Jack asked, standing beside her.
Sara’s bracelets caught the sun and jangled as she touched her fingers to the sunstones in her ears to amp her pow
ers. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“On three. One. Two. Three.”
A faint, echoing pop came from inside. No explosion. Damn. “No cigar. Let’s try that again, but this time I’ll hold you to see if that amplifies the effect.” He felt the tension in her body as his arms went around her. “God knows that holding you makes me blow up. Let’s see what the two of us combined do to the portal.”
Sara gave him a real grin, leaned into him, and nodded to indicate she was ready to try again.
No luck. No nothing. Not even a tremor. Hell, the little monkey still sat right there watching them with big, curious eyes, nibbling on a leaf, blissfully unconcerned.
“Now what?”
“Now we use C-4,” Jack told her grimly.
“And you just happen to have some in your back pocket?” Sara asked, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder as the leaves rustled.
There were plenty of unthreatening reasons for there to be noises in the bushes, Jack knew. And several threatening reasons too. “Funny you should ask. I don’t, but I will.”
He called the psionic safe, spoke to it, and removed the C-4. He’d obtained the brick of explosive earlier from a friend in Montana and stuck it away as an insurance policy. He wasn’t proficient at blowing shit up, but Jack was perfectly capable of following instructions.
“That thing’s like a clown car,” Sara observed with dry irreverence as the ice cube closed and disappeared. “Oh, freaking hell.” She turned to look at him. “We don’t have to go inside, do we?”
He hefted the gray brick of explosive material. “I’m not leaving you out here alone.”
“Guess that answers the question.” She slipped off her bright red jacket and looked around for somewhere to put it. After a moment, a padded satin hanger materialized; Sara hung up the jacket, and a second later, it and the hanger disappeared.
“Better get rid of those shoes too, while you’re at it.”
She held out a foot clad in a strappy red high heel; her toenails were painted the same sexy red as the sandals. She pulled a face. “Jimmy does not make appropriate footwear, but—” An instant later, she wore heavy, bright red hiking boots, and her white T-shirt had changed to the same sunny yellow as the shoelaces. She gave him a smart salute. “Ready, Captain.”
He knew how vivid and terrifying her experience had been in this very spot, yet here she was with him, because he needed her to do this. Not only was Sara present physically, she was willing to do whatever was necessary. He was as impressed as hell.
Brave. Beautiful. And so sexy that just looking at her made his heart ache.
“Good little soldier,” he said thickly as he swooped down and captured her mouth, holding her with his free arm. The kiss was hot enough to compete with the temperature, but over too fast.
Reluctantly breaking away, he held out the brick of C-4. “This is a plastic bonded explosive. It’s like putty. We’ll squeeze off chunks and fill as many crevices as we can, then get back out here, and you can use your firepower as detonation. We’ll bring down the cave and everything in it. That’ll shut the portal down, if this is the damn portal.”
Blinking her eyes into focus, Sara tucked her yellow T-shirt back into her jeans. He hadn’t realized that in the nanosecond he’d been kissing her, he’d been trying to undress her right there. The idea had merit, but he’d rather their lovemaking in the great outdoors took place in a field of clover than in the rotting vegetation of a snake-infested rain forest. He’d work on that. Later. If there was a fucking later.
She secured a pin in her hair. “I don’t doubt it for a moment, do you?”
“No,” he said grimly. “Here’s the drill. We teleport in as far as we can, apply this stuff, and teleport directly to the Council. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“Don’t you want to stay and see the fireworks?”
“Just knowing there are fireworks is good enough for me. Ready?” He took her hand.
Her fingers felt cool and trusting in his as she tightened her grip. “As I’ll ever be. Let’s do it.”
Dim as it was inside the cave, he saw well enough and didn’t need the flashlight. Chunks of crystal sparkled around them like brilliant stars in a dusk sky.
Sara’s fingers tightened in his as she glanced around. “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
Thinking about the pit of snakes at the other end of the cave wasn’t doing wonders for him either. But there was something that scared him more. “My powers don’t work in here, Sara.” That gave him the freaking heebie-jeebies.
She stopped, her eyes wide. “What do you mean, your powers don’t work in here? Mine are just fine.”
“Yeah. I know, I can feel yours.”
Sara took out a square of linen with little yellow happy faces on it and mopped her glowing face. The smell of her hot skin made him hot, and he had to tamp down his lust and concentrate on what they were there for.
Later.
She shot him a puzzled glance as she tucked the hankie in her hip pocket. “Why do mine work and yours don’t?”
Damn good question. And he bet Duncan Edge had the answer. Finding out the answer was next on his agenda, after they blew this place to hell. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get this job done and get out of here.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, God. Do you feel okay ?” She scanned his face, eyes anxious, then put the back of her hand against his brow.
Jack grasped her hand. “What are you doing?”
“What if your powers aren’t working because you’re getting sick, just like those other wizards?”
“I’m perfectly fine. My powers aren’t on the fritz except in this cave. I’d bet my degree it has something to do with these unusual crystal formations.” Which apparently had no effect on Sara’s powers.
She twisted the sunstone stud in her ear. “You’re sure? Absolutely sure?”
“We teleported here, didn’t we?”
“I’d just hate for—”
He grabbed her and kissed her hard. “Yeah. I felt the same way when you told me about that giant snake attacking you. So let’s stick together, blow this place, and get the hell away from here.”
“You’d tell me if you felt sick, right?”
Hell, no. “Of course.”
She narrowed her pretty eyes at him. “Okay.”
The good news was that the pit he’d fallen into was no longer there. The bad news was that the dead end was. There had to be another way around this wall of rock, Jack was damn sure. But blowing the cave, entrance and all, was even more rewarding than seeing where it might lead. Cutting off the Omnivatic’s route, either coming or going, would work. With any luck, the son of a bitch had traveled through the portal to his nest. In a few minutes, he’d be trapped there, unable to return.
With any luck.
Jack didn’t set a whole helluva lot of store by luck.
He showed Sara how to break off smaller pieces of the explosive, then demonstrated how to insert the malleable material into nooks and crannies in the rock face. He didn’t plan to stand around doing any crimping or inserting of detonator caps. It would’ve taken more than an hour to set them. Fortunately, one good blast of Sara’s firepower, from a safe distance, and the portal would be nothing more than a pile of rubble.
It took twenty minutes for them to pack the C-4 into the walls and ceiling at the back of the cave. It was hot going. He hadn’t noticed how warm it was inside the cave the last time. Maybe it was the time of day? Perhaps a hot spring somewhere? He was used to working in the heat, yet sweat beaded his forehead. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe his face.
“Looks good.”
Pale gray lumps of compound stood out against the dark rock and diamond-bright glints of crystal, forming an arch across the walls and ceiling. Enough C-4 to blow up ten caves this size. But with one shot, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Sara grabbed his upper arm. “I really want to see this place blown
to hell.”
Jack grinned at her fierce expression. “Why not? The Council can wait another few minutes. Let’s get outside and watch the show.”
She smiled back. He swung her flush against his body, dipping his head to kiss her. Lifting his head after a few moments, he cupped her face in one hand. “When I walked away from you that day, it was as though I put on dark glasses. Being with you again is like walking into the sun.”
He kissed her again, short and unbearably sweet. Breaking away reluctantly, he said softly. “Later.” There would be a later. And he was going to make up for lost time. Lost opportunities. Lost love. “Get us out of here.”
OUTSIDE, JACK ENVELOPED THEM in a clear protective shield, then they worked together to amp their powers. The bezel on his watch started to turn, amping his powers until his entire body surged and pulsed with magic. He suggested that Sara hold her sunstones instead of just touching them.
She did so, clasping one small stud in each fist. “I’ve never taken them off before.” She felt naked, and oddly vulnerable.
Jack stood behind her. She loved the solid warmth of his body and his familiar smell as he loosely wrapped his arms around her waist. “One second—I want to clear the animals out of the area first. … Ready?”
Oh, Jack. She inhaled deeply. “You bet.”
“Hit it with all the juice you have. One. Two. Three!”
Sara had never used as much power. It seemed to come from the soles of her feet and up through her body, all projected at the C-4.
The massive explosion three seconds later was worth the wait. Showers of debris and giant chunks of rock rained down forcefully on the shield. The entire face of the cliff collapsed in on itself, blown away as they watched.
“Cool!” Sara pressed closer to the invisible wall of the bubble, fascinated as the rocks crashed around them, bouncing harmlessly off the shield but tearing into the trees and shrubs outside the entrance to the cave. “A thing of beauty, really.” She spun around and wound her arms around Jack’s neck, running her fingers through his thick hair. He smelled of clean male, and her pheromones went into overdrive. “Maybe we can go to the Council tomorrow?”
