Raintree

by Linda Howard

  The bottom dropped out of Dante’s stomach and his gut clenched. Last night he’d been rolling on a condom when abruptly he knew that he didn’t want to wear protection. Lorna had been watching him, waiting, and she’d noticed his long hesitation. Finally, without a word, he’d pulled off the condom and tossed it aside, then steadily met her gaze. If she wanted him to put on another one, he would; the choice was hers.

  She had reached out and pulled him down and into her. Just remembering the intense half hour that had followed turned him on so much that the candle beside the bed flared to life.

  Today was the solstice, and he felt as if he could set the world on fire, as if his skin would burst from all the power boiling inside him. He wanted to pull her under him and ride her until he was completely empty, until she had taken everything he had to give. First, though, they had to have a very serious talk. Last night they’d done something that was too important for them to let drift along.

  As he sat down on the edge of the bed, he extinguished the candle, because a candle that was already lit was useless as a barometer of his control. This conversation might be emotionally charged, so he would have to be very careful.

  He slid his hand under the sheet and touched her bare thigh. “Lorna. Wake up.”

  He felt her tense, as always; then she relaxed, and one sleepy hazel eye blinked open and glared at him over the edge of the sheet. “Why? It’s Sunday, the day of rest. I’m resting. Go away.”

  He tugged the sheet down. “Wake up. Breakfast is ready.”

  “It is not. You’re lying. You’ve been on the balcony.” She grabbed the sheet and pulled it over her head.

  “How do you know that, if you’ve been asleep?”

  “I didn’t say I was sleeping, I said I was resting.”

  “Eating isn’t considered work. Come on. I have fresh orange juice, coffee, the bagels are already toasted, and the sunrise is great.”

  “To you, maybe, but it’s five-thirty on Sunday morning, and I don’t want to eat breakfast this early. I want one day a week when you don’t drag me out of bed at the crack of dark-thirty.”

  “Next Sunday you can sleep, I promise.” Rather than fight her for custody of the sheet, he slid his hand under the covers, found her thigh again and swiftly reached upward to pinch her ass.

  She squeaked and bolted out of bed, rubbing her backside. “Payback will be hell,” she warned, as she pushed her disheveled hair out of her face and stalked off to the bathroom.

  He imagined it would be. Dante grinned as he returned to the balcony.

  She came out five minutes later, wrapped in his thick robe and still scowling. She wasn’t wearing anything under the robe, so he enjoyed glimpses as she plopped into a chair across from him. It also gaped at the neck, revealing the gold chain from which hung the protection charm he’d given her on Wednesday night. He’d made it specifically for her, out here on the balcony, and let her watch. She’d been enthralled at the way he cupped the charm and held it up so his breath warmed it as he murmured a few words in Gaelic. The charm had taken on a gentle green glow that quickly faded. When he slipped the chain over her head she had fingered the charm, looking as if she might cry. She hadn’t taken it off since.

  As grumpy as she was when she first woke, she didn’t stay that way for long. By the time she’d had her second bite of bagel she was looking much more cheerful. Still, he waited until she’d finished the bagel and her juice glass was empty before he said, “Will you marry me?”

  She had much the same reaction as when he’d mentioned a baby. She paled, then turned red, then jumped out of her chair and went to stand at the railing with her back to him. Dante knew a lot about women, but more specifically, he knew Lorna, so he didn’t leave her standing there alone. He caged her with his arms, putting his hands on top of hers on the railing, not holding her tightly but giving her his warmth. “Is the question that hard to answer?”

  He felt her shoulders heave. Alarmed, he turned her around. Tears were streaking down her face. “Lorna?”

  She wasn’t sobbing, but her lips were trembling. “I’m sorry,” she said, swiping at her face. “I know this is silly. It’s just—no one has ever wanted me before.”

  “I doubt that. Probably you just didn’t notice them wanting you. I wanted you the minute I saw you.”

  “Not that kind of wanting.” Another tear leaked down. “The other kind, the staying-around kind.”

  “I love you,” he said gently, mentally cursing the bitch who had given birth to her for not nurturing the sense of security that every child should have, the knowledge that, no matter what, someone loved her and wanted her.

  “I know. I believe you.” She gulped. “I sort of figured it out when you deliberately wrecked your Jaguar to protect me.”

  “I knew I could buy another car,” he said simply.

  “That’s when I knew that you’d ruined me, that I wouldn’t be able to leave unless you threw me out. I kept hoping it was just old-fashioned lust I was feeling, but I knew better, and it scared me to death.” She gave a shaky laugh, despite the slow roll of yet another tear. “In just two days, you’d ruined me.”

  He rubbed the side of his nose. “We hadn’t had much time together, but it was quality time.”

  “Quality!” She gaped at him, mouth open. Indignation dried her tears. “You manhandled me, dragged me into a fire, tore open my head and smashed my brain flat, tore off my clothes and kept me a prisoner!”

  “I didn’t say it was good quality. You have a way with words, you know that? ‘Tore open your head,’ my ass.”

  “You don’t like it when I call it ‘brain-rape,’” she said sourly. “And I think I have a better grasp of how it felt than you do.”

  “I guess you do, at that. When you voluntarily link with someone, it doesn’t—”

  “Good God.” She looked horrified. “Some of you actually do that willingly?”

  “I told you, it doesn’t hurt when it’s done right. If someone needs to boost their power, they find someone else who is willing to link. Every so often Gideon and I go home to Sanctuary, and we link with Mercy to perform a protection spell over the homeplace. Doing it right takes time, but it doesn’t hurt. Will you answer the—”

  “I hope you have some kind of law against doing it without permission.”

  “Uh—no.”

  She looked horrified. “You mean you Raintree people can just go around breaking into people’s heads, and nobody does anything about it?”

  He was beginning to feel frustrated. Would the woman never answer his question? “I didn’t say that. Very few of us are strong enough to overpower someone else’s brain unless they cooperate.”

  “And you’re one of those few,” she said sarcastically. “Right. Lucky me.”

  “Specifically, only the royal family. Which I’ve asked you to join, I’d like to point out, if you’ll answer the damn question!”

  She smiled, and it was like a ray of sunshine breaking across her lively, mobile face. “Of course I will. Did you really doubt it?”

  “I never know which way you’ll jump. I thought you might love me, because you stayed. Then, last night—” He flicked a finger over her chin. “Not telling me to wear a condom was a dead giveaway.”

  She stared at him, a peculiar expression stealing over her face.

  He straightened, instantly alert. “What’s wrong?” Just that quickly she looked sick, as if she were going to throw up.

  She rubbed her arms, frowning. “I’m cold. It’s that same—” She broke off, her eyes widening with horror, and before he could react she threw herself bodily at him, catching him unprepared for the impact of her weight. He caught her, staggering back, then lurching to the side as he tried to catch his balance and failed. They fell to the floor of the balcony in a tangle of arms, legs and bathrobe as the French door behind him shattered. Hard on the explosion of glass came a sharp, flat retort that echoed through the mountains.

  Rifle fire.

&
nbsp; Dante wrapped his arms around Lorna, got his feet under him and lunged through the shattered door just as another shot spatted into the side of the house where they had been. Then he rolled with her, getting her away from the wall, before finally lunging to his feet and dragging her out into the hall. “Stay down!” he yelled at her when she tried to stand, pushing her flat again.

  His mind was racing. The fire. The gang shooting when he and Lorna so conveniently happened to be boxed in the kill zone. Now someone was shooting at him again. These weren’t a series of accidents; they were all related. The fire marshal hadn’t found any evidence of arson, which meant—

  A Fire-Master didn’t need accelerants to start a fire, or to keep it going. Someone, or several someones, had been feeding the fire; that was why he hadn’t been able to extinguish it. If he hadn’t used mind control for the first time just minutes before trying to control the fire and hadn’t known how it would affect him, if he hadn’t suspected Lorna might be Ansara, he would have figured it out right away.

  Ansara! He snarled his rage. It had to be them. Several of them must have gotten together and decided to try burning him out. They’d known he would engage the fire, that he wouldn’t give up until it overwhelmed him. If Lorna hadn’t been there, the plan would have worked, too, but they hadn’t counted on her.

  The cold, sick feeling she kept getting—that was when any Ansara were nearby.

  “There was a red dot on your forehead,” she said, though her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely speak, or maybe that was because he was practically kneeling on her back to keep her down.

  A laser targeting system, then. This wasn’t simply seizing an opportunity, but actively planning and pursuing.

  The sniper had failed. What would they try next? He had to assume there was more than one Ansara out there, had to assume there was a back-up plan. They wouldn’t try to burn him out again, since the first effort had failed; they would think he had sufficient power to handle any flame they could muster. But what would they do?

  Whatever it was, he couldn’t let them succeed, not with Lorna here.

  “Stay here,” he commanded, getting to his feet.

  She scrambled after him. The woman didn’t obey worth a damn. “I said stay here!” he roared, whirling back and catching her arm, pushing her down once more. He started to stick her ass to the floor with a mental command, but he’d promised her—damn it, he’d promised her—and he couldn’t do it.

  “I was going to call the cops!” she shouted at him, so furious at his rough handling that she was practically levitating.

  “Don’t bother. This isn’t something the cops can handle. Stay here, Lorna. I don’t want you caught between us.”

  “Who is us?” she yelled at his back as he charged down the stairs. “What are you going to do?”

  “Fight fire with fire,” he said grimly.

  Dante had a tremendous advantage. This was his home, his property, and he knew every inch of it. Because he was Raintree, because he was the Dranir and took precautions, he went out through the tunnel he’d built under his house. He knew where he’d been standing when the laser scope had settled the telltale dot on his forehead, so he had a good idea where the shooter had been standing, too.

  There was only one. He hadn’t found signs of any others.

  He had no intention of trying to capture the bastard or engaging him in any sort of face-to-face battle. He prowled up the ravine like a big cat, death in his eyes. The shooter’s position must have been just around this cut, maybe in that big cluster of rocks. A sniper needed a stable shooting platform, and those rocks would be convenient. This ravine provided good cover, too, for approaching.

  And for leaving.

  Dante slid around the cut and came face-to-face with a man wearing desert camo and toting a rifle. He didn’t hesitate at all. The man had barely moved, bringing the rifle up to fire, when Dante set him aflame.

  The screams were raw and terrified. The man dropped the rifle and threw himself to the ground, frantically rolling, but Dante ruthlessly kept the fire going. This bastard had come close to killing Lorna, and there was no mercy in his heart for anyone who harmed her. In seconds the screams became howls, taking on an inhuman quality—and then silence.

  Dante extinguished the flame.

  The man lay smoldering, barely recognizable as human.

  Dante used his foot to roll the man onto his back. Incredibly, hate-filled eyes glared up at him from the charred face. The hole that had been the man’s mouth worked, and a ghostly sound tore from a throat that shouldn’t have worked.

  “Toooo late. Toooo late.”

  Then he died, massive shock stopping his heart. Dante stood frozen, his thoughts working furiously.

  Too late? Too late for what?

  He’d touched the Ansara. The man had been in agony, his hate projected like a force field, and Dante had read him.

  Too late.

  He could warn Mercy, but it would be too late.

  “Oh, shit,” he said softly, and ran.

  Lorna had obeyed him, and stayed put. She was in the kitchen, crouched by the refrigerator, when he charged in and grabbed the nearest phone. His first phone call was to Mercy. His second was to Gideon, who could get to Mercy much faster than he could.

  Because it was the solstice, because Gideon’s personal electrical field played hell with all electronics, when Gideon answered the phone almost all Dante could hear was static.

  “Get to Mercy!” he roared, hoping Gideon would understand anyway. “The Ansara are attacking Sanctuary!” Then he slammed down the phone and tore open the door to the garage, his mind racing.

  The corporate jet would get him to the airport nearest Sanctuary in about four hours. He could try Gideon again from the plane.

  Two hundred years ago the Ansara had tried to destroy the Raintree and had failed. Now they were trying again, and, damn it, this time they might succeed in destroying Sanctuary—where Mercy was, with Eve.

  “Where are you going?” Lorna shrieked as he got in the Lotus.

  “Stay here!” he ordered one last time, and reversed out of the garage. He didn’t want Lorna anywhere near Sanctuary. He didn’t know if he would make it back alive, but no matter what, he had to know she was safe.

  “I don’t think so,” Lorna muttered furiously as she changed clothes. Dante Raintree wasn’t the only person who knew how to get things done. If he thought he could leave her behind while he went to fight some sort of supernatural battle, well, he would soon find out he was wrong.

  LINDA WINSTEAD JONES

  HAUNTED

  With special thanks to Louis Goodrum, for the tour of Wilmington and the valuable insight.

  For Linda and Beverly. What a trip this has been!

  And for Leslie Wainger. Here’s to butterfly years and (thankfully) missed camera moments.

  GIDEON

  I am Raintree. It’s more than a last name, more than a notation on a family tree. It’s a quirk in my DNA.

  It’s a mark of destiny.

  Long story short, magic is real. It’s not only real, it exists all around us, but most people never open their eyes wide enough to see. My eyes have always been wide open. Magic is in my blood. My ancestors were called wizards, magicians and witches. They were also called demons and devils. Is it any wonder the family decided years ago to hide our gifts? Hide, I said, not bury. There’s a difference. Power is a responsibility not to be denied in order to make life simple.

  Each family member has a specific gift. Some are strong and some are weak; some have gifts that are more useful than others. Each Raintree has an otherworldly talent. Mine is electrical energy. I can harness the electricity that exists all around us. I can even create my own special surge of voltage. Yeah, I have a tendency to fry computers and destroy fluorescent lights, but that comes with the territory and I’ve learned to deal with it.

  I also speak to ghosts, who are simply a form of electrical energy we don’t yet fully under
stand. This talent comes in handy in my current profession.

  I am Gideon Raintree, and I’m Wilmington, North Carolina’s one and only homicide detective.

  PROLOGUE

  Sunday—Midnight

  The adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast that Tabby couldn’t make herself stand entirely still. Even the quick climb to this third floor walkup hadn’t dimmed her excitement. She wrinkled her nose in disdain as she studied the green apartment door and anxiously rose up onto her toes, then dropped down again. The paint on the door was peeling badly; the wood was warped; the number was crooked. What self-respecting Raintree would live in a dump like this one?

  Tabby had been waiting for this moment for so long. Forever, it sometimes seemed. She hadn’t waited patiently, but she had waited. Everything had to be perfect before the assault began; that had been stressed to her on more than one occasion. Finally it was time. She balanced the pizza box in her left hand as she knocked again with her right, harder and faster than she had before. A giddiness rose within her, and she savored it. She’d trained for this moment, had been practicing for almost a year, but finally the time was here.

  “Who is it?” an obviously annoyed woman asked from the other side of the weathered green door.

  “Pizza delivery,” Tabby answered.

  She listened as the security chain was undone with the slide of metal on metal and the rattle of sturdy links. A dead bolt turned, and finally—finally—the lock in the doorknob clicked and the door swung open.

  Tabby took quick stock of the woman before her. Twenty-two years old, five foot four, green eyes, short pink hair. Her.

  “I think there’s been a mistake, unless…” the pink-haired woman began. She didn’t get the chance to say another word.

  Tabby forced her way into the apartment, pushing the Raintree woman back into the shabby living room and slamming the door behind her. She dropped the empty pizza box, revealing the knife she held in her left hand. “Scream and I’ll kill you,” she said before Echo had a chance to make a sound.

  The girl’s eyes got big. Funny, but Tabby had expected the Raintree eyes to be more striking. She’d heard so much about them. Echo’s eyes were an average, unexciting blue-gray-green, not at all special.