In a surprise move, he turned the gun on her, pressing it against her temple. “Drop the sword or she dies now.”
The flat calm of Purefoy’s voice sent chills through her. Did the Other understand enough about humans to recognize that Purefoy’s words weren’t a threat, but a promise? As she counted off what could be the last seconds of her life, it grieved her to know that Devlin would most likely be the one to find her body.
“What’s it going to be? Your sword or the woman’s life?”
The Other’s eyes met Laurel’s for a brief second. Had that been regret in the silver of his eyes? The clang of metal hitting stone echoed through the tunnel as his sword hit the ground. The Other held his hands out to the side to show he was now harmless—not that she believed it. She’d been around too many Paladins not to recognize a trained warrior when she saw one. Unfortunately, that was equally true for Purefoy. He calmly pointed his gun at the Other and pulled the trigger.
She screamed as the Other collapsed on the ground with blood pouring out of his leg. Her captor shoved her toward the wounded man.
“Get him up on his feet. We’re bringing him with us.”
“I can’t lift him with my hands cuffed together.” She didn’t know if that was true or not, but it was worth trying.
“Fine.” Purefoy pulled the small key from his pocket and threw it on the ground next to her. “Get moving. I want to be gone before your lover shows up.”
She considered fumbling with the key to delay their departure, but Purefoy was clearly running on the edge. It wouldn’t take much to push him over. They both knew he was a dead man if Devlin caught up with him, regardless of whether Laurel was still breathing. She was a bargaining chip and nothing more.
The key worked on the second try. Before she could start on the other cuff, Purefoy demanded the key back.
“Now get him moving.”
Ignoring Purefoy, she studied the Other’s bleeding leg. “How bad is it?” she asked.
“I will walk.”
He avoided her touch by trying to stand on his own. His attempt failed miserably. She wasn’t about to let him hurt himself worse out of stubborn pride. They may be from opposing worlds, but at this moment they were bound together by their common enemy.
“I need to bind his leg or he’ll bleed out, Sergeant.” She glared up at their captor. “I don’t know what you have in mind for the two of us, but dead, he won’t be any good to anyone. Besides, blood makes for an easy trail to follow.”
Without waiting for his approval, she looked around for something she could use as a bandage. Finally, Purefoy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it to her.
“Here, but make it fast.”
“I’ll need your uniform tie, too.” She offered her reluctant patient a tentative smile. “I’m a doctor. Let me see the wound.”
He tugged up the cuff of his pants far enough to reveal a well-muscled leg with a nasty hole through the meat of the calf. He winced when he tried to straighten his leg. Just that quickly, he ceased to be anything but a wounded patient who needed her care. A quick examination told her that the bullet had gone straight through the muscle. It was still bleeding, but at least that would have cleaned the wound.
“I think it will heal, with care.” After she wrapped the cotton handkerchief around his leg, she used the tie to bind it in place and to keep pressure on both sides of the wound. She tried not to think about the possible contamination from touching his Otherworld clothing and skin.
“That should hold for a while. I wish I could do better, but I have no medical supplies with me.”
“Your efforts honor me.” The Other gave her a grave nod and then accepted her assistance in standing up. He couldn’t hide the wince of pain when he put weight on his leg, but then he stood straight and tall.
“All right, move on out.” Purefoy prodded her with his gun. He’d also picked up the Other’s sword. “We need to be out of here.”
Her stomach clenched. “What have you done, Sergeant?”
“I left a little surprise for your lover.”
The smug look on his face made her want to smack him. “You’re just piling up reasons for him to take you down, Purefoy.”
“Not if I kill him first.”
She shook her head. “You forget—even if you kill him, he won’t stay that way. Eventually he’ll be right back on your trail, and Devlin gets testy when someone kills him. But you know that, don’t you? You’ve already killed him once.”
“Shut up, bitch.”
“Of course, then there are all those other Paladins. I suspect that Trahern’s a nasty enemy to have. And the last time Lonzo died, it took six of us to hold him down long enough to restrain him.”
She didn’t know why she felt compelled to keep jerking his chain, but she did. Every second he spent reacting to her taunts was one he wasn’t concentrating so hard on his plans. Besides, if she was going to die, she wanted her killer to be fully aware that his own hours were ticking away as the Paladins hunted him down like the vermin he was.
The Other stoically marched on beside her. Unless his kind were immune to pain, each step had to be agony, but he gave no sign of it. She never thought to admire anything about an Other, and the unexpected feeling was jarring. Far too many of the Paladins had suffered at their hands for her to see the Others as anything but the enemy. But the man next to her had shown himself to be far from the murdering animal she’d expected.
Surely he wasn’t typical of his kind.
“What’s your name?” she asked softly. “I’m Laurel Young.”
The Other had his eyes trained on the ground ahead of them, as if it took every bit of his concentration to keep moving. After a few steps he glanced toward her, his silver gray eyes bracketed by lines of pain. “Barak.”
She surprised them both by smiling. “I am pleased to meet you, Barak. Is that your complete name?”
He immediately turned his attention back to the floor. “It is all that is left of who I was and no longer am.”
She wanted to ask what he meant, but Purefoy interrupted them. “You two quit talking. You’re here to die, not to become best buddies.”
Since Barak showed little inclination to continue the conversation anyway, she fell silent. After a bit, she asked, “Where are we headed? Or is your plan to wander around in this maze until the Paladins find us or you manage to find a door somewhere?”
She was disappointed that he didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he prodded her with Barak’s sword. “Veer left.”
It was another dead end, almost indistinguishable from the one where he’d chained her earlier. Once they reached the back, she and Barak slowly turned to face Purefoy. With their backs to the wall, she was uncomfortably reminded of pictures of a firing squad. Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Purefoy laughed.
“Tell you what, Laurel. Show me a little of that same heat you’ve been generating with Bane, and I might just let you live.”
“Not in this lifetime.”
“Then chain yourself to your new buddy. I’m sure Bane will love finding his woman in the arms of his worst enemy.” Then he tipped his head to one side. “Actually, I guess I’m his worst enemy now.”
When she didn’t immediately fasten the loose cuff to Barak, Purefoy moved within carving range and raised the sword. “Now, Laurel, or I’ll start hacking away. Think Bane will still want you cut up and ugly?”
“Paladins are warriors. He will understand valor even if you do not, human.” Barak moved to stand slightly in front of Laurel. “It is easier to fight an unarmed female than to use that on a male. Give me my sword back, and we will see who gets carved up.”
Purefoy started to back away and then caught himself. “Chain yourself to the woman, you freak, or I’ll shoot your other leg—for starters.”
Each minute they kept Purefoy occupied gave Devlin more time to find them, but she wouldn’t let Barak get shot just to avoid being chained to her.
&nbs
p; She snapped the cuff in place before he could react. “Now what?”
“Turn around and sit down.”
For the first time, she noticed there was a line right down the middle of the narrow passage. It looked as if it had been etched there, arrow straight, by a laser, and she realized the barrier itself had cut through the rock. And if they were sitting on that line when the Paladins restored the energy, the two of them would die.
There had already been brief flashes of light along the passage, as if the barrier were flickering back to life. Purefoy started to move away, but in a sudden move he clubbed Barak on the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. The Other slumped against her shoulder and slid back onto the floor.
Laurel braced herself for a similar attack, but Purefoy backed away.
“Dragging an unconscious animal along with you should slow you down. I’d love to stay and watch, but I need to leave.” He tipped his head and listened. “I should have just enough time to get in position to watch it all come down.”
A few minutes later the lights went out, leaving her in the dark—waiting to see if death or Devlin would be the first one to find her and her silent companion.
Chapter 15
Devlin had been cursing for the past fifteen minutes as he figured out how to get around the mess in front of him. The son of a bitch was clever, he had to give him that. Half a dozen or more laser lights were angled across the narrowest point of the tunnel, forming a tangled web. If they hadn’t resonated on a frequency close to the barrier’s, he wouldn’t have even realized they were there. One more step would have triggered whatever little present his enemy had left for him.
The lasers served as a solid wall, trapping him on one side and Laurel on the other. In all those action movies, people always came up with some clever way to avoid the lights—either mirrors or smoke or convoluted body movements that would make a gymnast look clumsy. Unfortunately, he was fresh out of all those things. The best he could hope for was that the lasers weren’t hooked up to the current and their batteries would die.
Devlin considered his predicament from all sides. Within seconds, it hit him: Lasers were energy, and like all Paladins, he had an affinity for manipulating the pulsating energy that formed the barrier. Could he do the same with these narrow beams of light?
He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to find them. As his breathing slowed, he felt their faint but steady flow crisscrossing the passageway. Bracing himself for the worst, he willed the uppermost beam to move, bending its path to a point a few inches higher up the wall.
Success! He rolled his shoulders and ignored the beads of sweat dripping into his eyes. When the light beam remained stable, he went back to work, taking his time with each small adjustment until he’d managed to create enough room to slide under. It would be a close fit, but he didn’t have time to do more. His fellow Paladins had to be working on restoring the barrier. If it were to flash back on, the power surge could be enough to detonate the trap anyway. Worse, even if he managed to avoid triggering the explosion, Trahern could blunder into it. Using his knife blade, he scratched the word “laser” in the floor a short distance back and laid the knife down where Trahern would be sure to see it. It wasn’t much of a warning, but it was the best he could do.
Then he knelt down on the floor and slid his sword and his gun under the lasers to test the stability of the changes he’d made. When nothing happened, he stretched out on the floor and began carefully pushing himself along the uneven floor, knowing that death hovered only a fraction of an inch over his head. The rasp of his shirt and jeans sliding over the stone echoed in his ears, making him wish even his buttons were thinner. His size had always been an advantage in battle, but right now he’d give anything to have Cullen’s slender build. Inch by inch, he crept forward. At the end, he turned his feet out to the sides and dug in hard, shoving himself that last little bit to freedom.
Safely on the other side, he rested against the blessed coolness of the floor, wishing he could stay there longer. Working with energy always drained him, but rest would come later, when he had Laurel safe.
The tunnels in this area seemed to twist and turn more than most, which was both good and bad. He could run for only short distances before pausing to listen when the tunnel veered off sharply enough so that he couldn’t see past the turn. It also meant that he wasn’t exposed for long distances with no cover.
A flash of light on his right caught his attention. The barrier was struggling back to life. Trahern must have gotten through to Cullen and the others, so that problem was solved. Bit by bit, they’d piece the barrier back together. He could only hope that the unexpected interruption had caught the Others by surprise, too, so that huge numbers hadn’t been waiting to cross. But that was someone else’s problem, not his.
The barrier flickered again, this time with more substance. Based on the usual pattern, it should come back full strength within the next couple of attempts, which meant he needed to put serious distance between him and the trap in a hurry. Even if the barrier didn’t stay up, there was probably enough energy in it now to set it off. He took off at a dead run just as the tunnel lit up with a brilliant surge of light. The resulting explosion wasn’t long in coming, but he’d managed to put another couple of turns between him and the worst of the damage.
But his would-be killer didn’t know that. As the rumbling died away, Devlin waited, hoping that his enemy wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to check. Sure enough, the sound of footsteps whispered through the air so softly that if he hadn’t been listening so hard he would have missed them.
He eased forward to peek around the corner and immediately jerked back out of sight. At last he knew the identity of his enemy—Sergeant Purefoy. What had he ever done to him? Hell, he’d gone out of his way to be cooperative with the sneaking little bastard whenever he could. Whatever the man’s reasons were for coming after Devlin and his woman, he hoped they were worth dying for.
He listened again, but the footsteps were receding. Damn, he’d hoped the fool would come charging down the tunnel. Instead, he’d disappeared back down the way he’d come, probably to check on his hostage. With his sword in one hand and his gun in the other, Devlin charged forward, determined to reach the other end of the straightaway before Purefoy returned on another scouting mission.
A shot rang out before he’d made it little more than halfway. He dove for the ground and rolled to the side, dropping his sword to free up one hand to control his landing. Two more bullets ricocheted past him as he scrambled forward, not even considering the possibility of retreat.
“Stay back, Bane, or I’ll finish your woman off right now.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Purefoy. She’s the only reason you’re still breathing.” Devlin duck walked another few feet, stopping only a body length away from the final turn in the tunnel. “Turn her loose and I’ll give you a head start.”
“Not unless I take her with me for insurance, in case your friends are waiting at the other end.” His voice sounded farther away this time.
If the bastard had gone to ground, chances were Laurel was close by. Purefoy knew right where Devlin was, so stealth was no longer needed.
He bellowed her name at the top of his lungs, knowing his voice would carry down the tunnel. “Laurel!”
The only response was a muffled sound some distance away.
Cocking his head, he couldn’t decide if that had been her answering or not. He tried again.
“Devlin, I’m here!”
This time he was sure it was her voice, but the yelp of pain that followed right on its heels made his blood run cold and his temper hot.
He made sure his gun was fully loaded and retrieved his sword; then he ran full out. He made it to the end of another straight stretch with no sight of his quarry, and he hardly slowed as he rounded the corner. Nothing and no one. The path ahead split in two, one side veering off to the left; the other led closer to the barrier.
Purefoy wouldn’t be that stupid, would he? Maybe. Even probably. If he’d stashed Laurel somewhere that would trap her on the wrong side of the barrier, he knew Devlin would sacrifice himself to bring her back. If he couldn’t kill Devlin himself, he’d let the Others do it for him.
The barrier continued to flicker and flame.
There was no turning back.
If he were wrong, there’d be plenty of time to check it out. But the seconds were ticking away before the Paladins restored the barrier to full strength. Bracing himself for the worst, he stepped into the right tunnel and marched forward.
“Laurel!”
This time the answer was clear and immediate. “Devlin!”
He could just make her out crouching on the human side of the tunnel. Someone else was on the ground next to her. Purefoy stood beyond her, clearly planning on using her as a shield.
“Stop right there, Bane.” Purefoy grabbed Laurel by the hair and pressed his gun to her temple in warning, then he pointed it right at Devlin’s chest. “One more step and she’s dead.”
“What’s the point of winning this little game if you’re dead, too?” Devlin kept his voice low, as if only mildly curious about the answer. Inside, he was dying.
“If you had stayed dead the first time, Paladin, I wouldn’t have had to drag her into this.”
“So it’s my fault you’re a screw up?”
“Shut up, Bane, and back out of this tunnel. Let us out of here, and I’ll turn her loose as soon as it’s safe.”
“Don’t do it, Devlin. He’s got me chained to an Other who is unconscious. He can’t drag us both with him.”
Son of a bitch, could it get any worse? If the Other regained consciousness, there was no telling how he’d react. He was already dealing with one crazy; he didn’t need another one. He’d settle that problem with a single shot to the Other’s head, but he couldn’t risk hitting Laurel.
Purefoy shifted from foot to foot, clearly on edge. “What’s it going to be, Bane? Her life or my freedom?”
Dark Protector Page 23
