Beyond the Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  Chapter 18

  Petra saw the Zion Park signs, relief coursing through her. “We still made it early, even with the traffic snag.”

  Cheveyo only nodded, riding on through the small dusty town. All around were the flat-topped mountains jutting up into clear skies. If she never saw a rock again, she’d be happy. It wasn’t that they weren’t beautiful, or at least interesting. Just that it was all she’d seen for days now.

  He turned off onto a small shoulder area. “This is where we start hoofing it.”

  They got off the bike and she stretched. He pulled out the map from the bike’s bags and moved his finger along the highway as he read Pope’s notes.

  She eyed the expanse of land that stretched for miles in either direction. Hoofing it was a cute way of saying they’d be walking in the glaring sun without a bathroom or a Starbucks to be had. No chair to sit down, and not a lot of shade either. She pulled out the hiking shoes they’d bought at a camping store, along with a backpack of food and water.

  “We’re not going far,” he said, brightening her mood. “Unless we get lost.”

  “Thanks for that. Just when I was cheering up. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

  He met her gaze. “You’re complaining.”

  “Only a teeny weeny bit.” She changed into the clunky, butt-ugly shoes that didn’t come in pretty colors. She called this color smashed bug-gut green. With as much driving as they’d been doing, she was way familiar with that particular shade. She, however, wasn’t saying a word about the shoes’ color.

  Cheveyo’s black shoes seemed capable of handling all kinds of terrain. He hefted the pack onto his back. During a lull between passing cars, he pushed the bike behind a large mound of boulders.

  He consulted the map and notes again. “That way. Let’s go. The less talk, the better. We don’t know where Baal might be, but we have to assume he’s out there. The terrain could be just as deadly. Pope said the ridge drops off into a steep ravine near the finestra. The ground is loose, and one misstep will send you falling to the rocks below.”

  “I know, I know. The mental pictures he showed us looked scary.”

  Thankfully it wasn’t summer. It wasn’t even eighty degrees, though the dry air felt like someone had stuck a hair dryer in her sinuses. Her skin felt dry and itchy.

  He aimed for a low spot in the long ridge that turned out not to be that low when they reached it.

  She groaned, staring up at the steep angle. “Okay, I’m complaining.” She tapped her chest. “Right here.”

  Why didn’t he look tired? He was hardly breaking a sweat. He rubbed the back of her neck as though sensing her frustration.

  They climbed up and over. More mountains as far as she could see. She tried to remember the luxury suite back in Vegas, and tried not to remember what they’d done in that suite. No need for distractions like that.

  The terrain got steeper as they went. Cheveyo kept stopping and looking at the sketches Pope had given him. “Over there.”

  “The witch’s nose, wart and all.” She found a smile inside her.

  They reached four landmarks, and each one made him act more wary about their surroundings. She kept practicing whipping out her knife, ready to plunge it into an imaginary opponent. Every time Cheveyo looked at his watch, she looked at hers. Two hours before Yurek was due to return.

  They climbed up another ridge, this one steeper. She stumbled, sending a cascade of pebbles and dirt down to the ground several yards below. Her feet slipped and she grabbed onto rocks, chipping two nails. He grabbed her arm, steadying her.

  Okay? He asked psychically.

  I forgot we can talk this way. I could have been loudly complaining all this time! At his chagrined look, she added, Kidding.

  He motioned for her to remain low while he peered up over the ridge. After scanning it, he nodded for her to follow. They stepped up on the ridge, crouching low, and then down on the other side into a crevasse. Over there . . . the final landmark.

  She felt the energy and saw the shimmer, as she had at the first finestra. He surveyed the area again, knife at the ready. As they’d planned, she went to the right and he to the left. They would wait until Yurek arrived.

  The waiting was as bad as the walking, except it wasn’t physically taxing. She was tucked into the shade, too, but in a place that left her two ways in which to run.

  Ten minutes later movement caught her eye in the other direction. Cheveyo waved for her to come. Her heart clenched. He must have spotted Baal. She had been watching the finestra and didn’t see Yurek come through. She made her way toward him, the boots clunky and awkward. He was watching something in the near distance, his gaze riveted there. She reached him, looking in the same direction.

  Baal, in human form, leaning against an outcropping of rock, looking right at them. Then Cheveyo’s arm came around her shoulder, pulling her against his chest. One hand came up hard against her mouth. She jerked her head toward him. His eyes. They weren’t blue-gray, or black, but a muddy gray.

  Yurek!

  She kicked and tried to scream against his hand, but he’d locked her tight against him. Her fingers stretched but she couldn’t begin to reach for her knife. Baal ambled over, a triumphant smile on his face. The two exchanged a nod, and Baal patted her down as Yurek held her, running his hands from her ankles all the way up, lingering on the roundness of her behind and even jabbing into the crack. She jerked, but he continued, finding her cell phone in her back pocket.

  Baal put it in Yurek’s pocket and continued to check her, not patting but rubbing up her sides, over her breasts, the bastard, and then finding the sheath. He pulled the collar of her shirt down, yanked the cord. It held, jerking her neck forward. She quickly stepped back. He pulled the cord over her head, removed the knife, and tucked it in his waistband. Then Yurek pushed her toward Baal, who grabbed her just as tight. She had one second to scream before Baal’s big hand slapped her mouth.

  It hit her then that they had let her scream. To get Cheveyo to come over. Yurek crept up beneath the ledge, watching for him.

  No, no, no!

  She wriggled harder, kicking Baal’s shin. Something shiny in Yurek’s hand caught the sunlight. Wait! She could communicate with Cheveyo!

  Don’t come here! It’s a trap!

  Too late. He skidded to a stop at the edge.

  Below you!

  A white-yellow laser beam shot out of the small gold device Yurek held and hit Cheveyo in the chest. He staggered back. His body swayed when he stared at the blood pouring out of the hole. Breaking out of his shock, he jammed his hand over it, but blood kept gushing out between his fingers. He looked at her and dropped to his knees. Yurek was already crouching beside him as he fell to the side.

  God, no! Cheveyo, don’t die on me. Don’t you dare die!

  This was what his father had seen. Her fault, yes, her fault. Yurek, who still looked like Cheveyo, stood again, nodding toward Baal. “Get them to the car.”

  Baal dragged her across the dirt and rocks toward Yurek. For a few seconds all she could see was Cheveyo’s legs, and then Baal brought her into full view of him. She gasped. Her stomach churned. The hole was two inches wide, a perfect circle, and the visible flesh and muscle meant it went deep.

  He was looking at her, still there, though pain glazed his eyes. She saw fear pierce the glaze. Fear for her. His breaths came in short, choppy gasps.

  Sorry . . . he got across to her.

  No, I’m sorry. But this isn’t over yet.

  If they could get help—

  Yurek nodded toward Cheveyo. “Get him, I’ll take the girl.”

  In the exchange, she had a moment to let out a gut-wrenching cry. Cheveyo’s eyes drifted closed against his will. Grief curdled her scream, sending her to her knees. She tried to crawl to him, but Yurek hauled her up and threw her over his shoulder as though she weighed nothing.

  “He’s still alive, but he won’t be for long. Can I finish him?” Baal asked, lookin
g at Cheveyo with a feral gleam.

  “Let him suffer. He has been like the sandstorms that wreak havoc in Surfacia: unexpected, destructive, and creating a lot of work.”

  Baal struggled to pick him up. “Can’t we just leave him here?”

  “I cannot leave evidence.”

  She sobbed again, beating on Yurek’s back. Stop looking like him!

  He had her legs pinned against his chest, so she couldn’t kick him. She went from beating to scratching, lifting his shirt so she could go deeper. Her broken nails left raw, red streaks across his back. He shifted but couldn’t escape her claws.

  With a quick twist to the left, he rammed her head against the side of the rock. Pain rocketed through her skull, followed by a wave of dizziness. She looked up to see Baal carrying Cheveyo in a similar way, but he wasn’t moving. Blood continued to drip down the front of Baal’s shirt.

  Cheveyo’s blood.

  They reached a sedan that was covered in red dust, its tires caked with mud.

  “Struggle, and I’ll ram you into the car. It won’t be pleasant,” Yurek promised as he unlocked the hood. “For you, anyway.”

  She couldn’t help the cry as Baal dumped Cheveyo into the trunk. She tried to see if he was still alive before the trunk lid slammed down, but he was lying on his side, facing away from her.

  Baal opened the door to the backseat and pulled out several lengths of rope. “See, it was a good idea to pick this up. Just in case.”

  She felt the rope bind her ankles. She kicked, but her legs were still held tight. A few seconds later Baal’s face peered from below, gazing up at her. She spit on him. He wiped it from his cheek, but instead of looking pissed, he licked it off his palm with a smile. Her stomach lurched.

  Glouks ate humans. And the way he was looking at her, moving her saliva around in his mouth as though it was a sip of wine, he looked at though he would love to eat her, too.

  He grabbed her hands, and though she fought him, he gripped her painfully hard and managed to tie her wrists tight. “Got her.” He opened the back door of the car to dump her in.

  “Put me in the trunk with him . . . please.”

  No one bothered to acknowledge her. Yurek dropped her onto the backseat, then slammed the door and morphed back to the guise she had seen before. She watched with morbid fascination despite herself. Bastard had tricked her; she hadn’t even considered that he wasn’t Cheveyo. Baal walked around to the driver’s side while Yurek got into the passenger side.

  They bumped along for several minutes. Cheveyo, in the trunk, was behind the leather seat Petra sat on. She pressed her hand against the back of it. So close, and yet. . .

  Are you there? Please answer me.

  She thought she heard something, but it was too faint to understand. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Cheveyo. Don’t die. I love you. I’m sorry, so sorry. This is my fault.

  She felt the terrain go smooth as they got back on the paved road.

  Yurek said, “Their motorcycle is somewhere along here, behind a rock. I’m sure he has the keys on his person.”

  They’d been watching at least since she and Cheveyo had arrived in the area. Yurek must have gotten back early. It still wasn’t twenty-four hours yet.

  They stopped and Yurek got out. He opened the trunk and a minute later slammed it shut. He walked over to the open driver’s window. “I’ll let you know the plan after I talk to Pope,” he told Baal.

  Pope?

  Yurek held up her phone and looked at her, a smug smile on his face. “Won’t he be surprised to hear we’ve got his daughter?”

  “I’m not—” She held the words back. He thought she was Pope’s daughter? Because he’d sensed Callorian in her. If she negated that, he would want to know how she’d gotten it.

  “Not what?” Yurek asked, as though indulging her.

  “I’m not going to talk to him, if you think you’re going to use me to get him to come to you.”

  He smiled. “I won’t need your cooperation.” He held up her phone and took her picture. “Baal, get in back with her.”

  He was out his door in a second, hovering over her. “What should I do to her?”

  “Just be in the picture. It’s proof we have her. I’ll take one of the hunter, too.” Baal laid on top of her, swamping her with his odor. Yurek took another picture.

  Pope would be devastated. She hoped he wouldn’t turn himself in to save her. Her life for all the others, for the baby. No! If Yurek looked at her pictures, he’d see the sonogram.

  Baal remained on her, his hot breath pulsing against her neck. She shoved at him. Yurek had gotten his damned pictures. He only pushed up and got to his feet after Yurek said, “We go now.”

  Baal was still looking at her. “I’ll take her to the house.”

  Yurek held up the phone. “No signal, as I thought. Stay there until you hear from me. Don’t let her loose, even for a second. We can’t afford for her to get killed in an altercation. We can afford for her to escape even less.”

  She felt numb as she heard Cheveyo’s bike start and then fade off in the distance. Numb even to the ache that permeated her.

  Cheveyo?

  No answer. Was he gone? She squeezed her eyes shut at that, tears spilling out. No, she would have felt it. Wouldn’t she? She kept the sobs quiet so Baal wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t get the satisfaction. What house were they taking her to?

  It was twenty minutes before they stopped. Baal got out. She hoped he would leave her there, but that was dashed when the door near her feet opened. Hands grabbed her ankles, pulling her across the seat. She didn’t like the smile on Baal’s face. It was predatory. Anticipatory.

  She’d started thinking of him as he, because in that rough face were human emotions. She could not treat him like a dumb animal.

  He pulled her up, hitching her over his shoulder as Yurek had done. She struggled, but his strong hands just gripped her harder. With her feet and hands bound, she had no chance of escaping. She lifted her head, seeing nothing but more wilderness and a house that sat in a clearing. He walked toward the building, hardly thrown at all by her movements. She had stabbed him pretty badly, though he wasn’t limping now. She stared at the car, the trunk, moving farther away.

  Baal inserted a key into the lock. When he turned as he pushed open the door, she saw a sign that read WELCOME TO LUNA VILLA. They’d gotten a vacation rental. She got one last glimpse of the car before the door slammed shut.

  Fight! the lizard part of her brain screamed. But her heart was so heavy inside her chest, like one of those huge boulders. It weighed her down. Not that it mattered. She was bound, and he was stronger.

  He carried her through a nice living area and a doorway to what looked like the master bedroom. He deposited her onto the bed and climbed on top of her, pinning her down. He unwrapped some of the rope around her wrists. Would he release her? If she could get to Cheveyo . . .

  He tied the rope, still around one wrist, to the iron headboard. One of the nightstand drawers held more rope. She fought him, because she should, but there was hardly any fight left. She was outweighed, outpowered, and Cheveyo . . . gone. Baal tied her other wrist to the headboard. He climbed off and stood by the bed looking at her, his head tilted. “Sadness has marked your face.”

  Marked . . . ? Probably tears had tracked through the dirt. He walked into the adjacent bathroom and ran water, then emerged with a washcloth. She expected him to be cruel, to gloat, maybe even hit her. This she didn’t expect. It alarmed her even more than retaliatory violence.

  “So pretty,” he said as he wiped in gentle strokes.

  The washcloth moved down her throat to the open collar of her shirt. It was the first time she’d seen him close up as a human. His features were blunt, mouth square, eyebrows thick slashes. His mouth and chin jutted out slightly, a faint resemblance to a dog’s snout. He tossed aside the cloth and pulled her head forward. She felt him tugging at the band that held her braid. He tossed that aside, too, jerking his f
ingers through her hair to unravel it. She winced at his roughness but kept her expression stiff and neutral.

  His gaze settled on her face. “Do not cry. It makes your nose red and eyes puffy.”

  He stroked her face. His fingers were weirdly smooth and soft, but the touch shot her heartbeat up into her throat. She said nothing, remaining absolutely motionless.

  “I saw you and the hunter touching each other. Kissing. Humans enjoy the mating experience.” He put his hand on her breast. “It woke something in me.”

  She shuddered, both from his touch and the knowledge that he’d seen them. Where? Obviously out in the open. She saw the flame of desire in his dark brown eyes. Desire. He wanted her, sexually.

  Panic clawed through her. “When . . . when humans get involved physically, it’s because they want to. Because they feel a deep desire for each other.”

  His smile grew wider. “I want to. I feel a . . . desire.”

  “I don’t. Both parties have to be willing.” She sure as hell wasn’t going to explain rape to him.

  He was still stroking her, his gaze on his hand as it moved to her other breast. “You will be willing. I saw the willingness grow between you and the hunter. It will grow for me, too.”

  The grief Cheveyo felt while bumping along in the hot trunk of the car was not for himself. Knowing that Petra was in harm’s way and he couldn’t do a damned thing to save her, it washed over him, searing him more than the heat that nearly suffocated him. Pain tore his thoughts to shreds. Hard to hold onto anything. Petra’s voice? Calling out to him? Probably delirium.

  Pain throbbed through his chest and then seemed to envelop him as much as the heat. It grew duller, though, but with the dullness came the inability to take a deep breath.

  Dying.

  The car stopped. He heard doors open and close, expected the trunk lid to open. Footsteps walking away, one pair. Was she still in the car?

  He couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, though there was nothing to see other than a slash of light from a rusted-out hole near the rear wheel well. One last hope. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t work.

  Father? Are you there?