by Rachel Lee
"You sound like you have an idea," Joe said.
Dec nodded. "And if I told you, you'd laugh. Or suggest I see a psychologist. Or a priest, but I've already done that. I only hope it will help."
Joe's face had taken on a pallor as he'd stared into the microscope at one sample after another. The pallor hadn't gone away. "Whatever it is, Dr. Quinn, my team…we can't help. I just…can't help."
Dec could see it in the man's eyes. A look he was sure had been in his own eyes far too many times. But perhaps, for this young man, this was the first time. The first time he'd realized the limitations of the title "medical doctor." It was a moment that would haunt Joe Gardner for years to come, in the quiet of night, when the only sound was the beating of his own heart. It was a moment he would have to transcend, if he wanted to be an effective physician. Transcend, but never forget.
Dec had never forgotten. He hoped, maybe, that he had, that he could, transcend it.
Thomas Jefferson had once said there are times when doing one's best is not enough, times when one must do what needs be done. It was a noble statement, born of the hubris of the Enlightenment, when man began to believe that he was bigger than the world around him, more powerful than the forces of nature, wiser than his creator. Jefferson might have been a brilliant statesman and politician, but as a philosopher, he suffered from the blindness of his age.
There were times when one could not do what needed to be done, times when one could only do one's best. Dec had had to learn that. And Joe Gardner would have to learn that, too. In his own way. In his own time.
Dec rose and extended a hand. "You should be proud of your team, Joe."
Joe took the hand, but without any energy. "Why? We didn't track down the bug. We lost."
"No," Dec said. "Carter and Marilyn Shippey, Alice Wheatley, Caroline Fletcher…they lost. And your heart should grieve for them. But not for yourself, Joe. One of the hardest things to learn about this profession, what they can't teach you in med school, is this: it's not about you. It's never about you. It's about the patient. And you can't let it be about you, or you're no good to the patient. Or to yourself."
Joe seemed about to reply, anger in his eyes.
"Your team did great work, Joe. But this wasn't one you could have solved. I'm sorry. I've been there. And it's not fun. But it's part of being a doctor."
Joe finally nodded. "You're right, of course. But I don't have to like it."
"No, you don't. But you have to find a way to live with it. Or it will eat you alive."
"Words of experience?" Joe asked.
Dec simply looked at him. "I have to do some things. You won't need me here."
"No, I don't guess we will." Joe's back stiffened a bit, and his eyes held a fraction more resolve. "Good luck, Dr. Quinn. Maybe I'll read about it in a journal someday."
"That," Dec said with a crooked smile, "would be a greater miracle than what I'm going to try to do."
* * *
"So there's no doubt?" Markie asked as they drove back into town.
"Not in my mind," Dec said. "No pathogen did that. No pathogen could have done that."
Markie let out a quiet shudder. "I can't believe it…she…leaves the nerves alone. I can't even imagine what…you know…"
"Neither can I," Dec said. "It must be terrible beyond words."
Markie thought back to what Jolly had said, about English having no vocabulary for some things. Dec had just encapsulated this entire series of events. Terrible beyond words. And somehow, that was where he would have to go, if Loleen were to be believed. Beyond words. Into something even he did not understand.
The thought made her quail inside. Yes, she had a job, too. But she would rely on Kato. And that, she realized, was a comfort she too often took for granted. She relied on Kato in a hundred little ways every day. She knew she could trust the dog, and that, at an intuitive level, she trusted him beyond the ordinary give and take of life. Looking back, she could remember times when a quick nudge had broken her concentration on a book in time to get into the kitchen and rescue a meal that was about to burn, or a pull on the leash had made her sidestep a hole in a grassy field. Yes, she could rely on Kato.
But Dec had no such safety net. Neither of them knew exactly what he would have to do. Or what risks it might entail. Annie Black had been as evil a human being as had ever walked the earth. Apparently her residue, her spirit, was no less evil. She went after what she wanted, and if someone had to die along the way, well, so much the better. Not "them's the breaks" but "them's the perks." Markie couldn't imagine such a mindset. But that was the kind of spirit that, according to Loleen, controlled the hearts of those who had stirred her up. And that was the kind of spirit Dec would have to battle.
She didn't fear for herself. Nor, really, for Kato. Behind those golden eyes lay an intelligence she could only barely fathom. Kato would be fine. And he would take care of her. But Dec…she feared for Dec. The thought of losing him, when she had only just found him, was almost too awful to bear. As a child, she had, like most girls, fashioned a mental list of attributes for her dream man. Her fiancé had most of those qualities, and he had turned out to be a blight on her soul. She'd thrown away the mental list. It was the stuff of adolescent fantasies. And with it, she'd thrown away a dream.
But now a dream had walked into her life.
And she might lose him.
And that hurt.
* * *
Kato bounded out of the car and up to the door, drawing in quick sniffs, testing, examining. Markie and Dec had followed, but he turned and looked at them. Not yet. First he wanted to walk around the house. His body needed the walk, although he discounted that need. His pack needed to know something. And he was the only one who could find out.
The tangy-sweet scent of blooming azaleas and the rich, musky taste of freshly cut grass were normally warm and welcome beacons in his world. His own scents wafted on the rising evening air, a scrapbook of days gone by. Too many of those scents held worry and strain. Each brought back crystalline images. Images he would rather forget. Images that did not belong in this world.
The back of the house seemed normal, and he circled around to meet Markie and Dec, who had shown the good sense to wait for him at the sidewalk. He walked up to the front door and nosed it. It's okay.
Markie opened the door for him, and again they waited at the entrance while he toured the house. Everything was as it should be. That fact troubled him, but he could fix no target for his concern. He let them enter and trotted ahead of them to the kitchen, where he allowed himself a drink of cool, fresh water. Food and his other needs could wait until he was sure they were safe.
Markie walked over to the box she always went to when she got home. The box from which tinny, disembodied voices came. Dec had gone to the refrigerator and taken out a bottle of water while she pushed the button.
"Markie, it's Dawn Roth. If you're there, get out. When you get this message, get out. Get away. And stay away—"
Dec froze in midstride. Markie's face went pale.
Kato understood the message, if not the words.
Get out!
* * *
The black shadow loomed, invisible in the darkness over the ruins. The old woman's body, gone cold and flat long since, no longer interested it. It was still in the process of getting used to its regenerated existence, to the fact that it was existing apart from the body of Annie Black, apart from all that confinement of old. Yes, Annie was still part of it, but it was now so much greater.
The brief freedom it had enjoyed long ago at the old fort paled by comparison with the freedom and strength it had now. Those who had summoned it had also fed it with their own strength and will.
It flexed, stretching, learning its new parameters. No longer driven only by the need for self-protection, it had begun to think. It was no longer so ready to be ordered about by those who had freed it.
In fact, it had begun to fear them. For they had freed it and might be able to
imprison it once again.
So it floated over the ruins, a mere inkblot in the black of night, so well camouflaged that only the most attentive eye would notice that it dimmed the stars behind it.
It floated and thought. The gold, yes. That drive of Annie's still goaded it. It must keep itself safe. But more importantly, it must keep itself safe from those who knew of it.
Those who had seen it must die. But also those who had called it, for they held the most power to harm it.
Swaying gently, unaware of its own hideous beauty, feeling safe in the night's concealment, it probed the minds of the summoners.
The woman…she was a mere pawn. Her mate…he thought he was so smart, but he could be used at will. But there was the man who had seen it at his office, and the man who had started the whole thing.
Consciously, deliberately, it pulled back from all the humans who knew it, with whom it had come in touch. It departed them all and hovered alone, out of reach, debating what to do next.
For it had decided that it was in charge.
24
Steve Chase would no longer stay at his office alone. When his secretary left, he left, too, his briefcase stuffed with work.
It was late, he was tired, but he labored on at home, never so aware as he was that night that he was a lonely man. His wife had left him years ago for what she described as "a cab driver with a spinal cord." His 9,500-square-foot home, the embodiment of his architectural dreams, seemed cold and empty.
Finally he let his hands fall from the computer keyboard and turned to look out the wall of windows beside him. The view, as always, was spectacular. He had chosen the site well and had built well on it. There wasn't a room in this house that didn't offer a breathtaking view down the north slope of the island to the crescent beach below and the private marina.
From this dizzying height, the marina was small, hardly interfering with nature. And his neighbors' homes were spread far enough apart by design that only an occasional light blotted the night's beauty. It was a perfect location for a life that should have been perfect but had never quite achieved that exalted state. Oh, hell, who was he kidding? He was one of life's major screwups.
He hadn't inherited his father's business acumen, so he'd had to leave the running of the family oil and gas empire to cousins. He wasn't proud of that, and he was sure that the only reason they even called to "consult" him was that his father had left him a majority ownership.
It was small comfort to a man who had been bred to believe he would be more important than most heads of state. Instead of stepping into the shoes prepared for him by generations past, he'd had to step aside and come to hide on this small tropical isle.
Not that it was so awful. But it was a sign of his failure. Abel Roth, whose equal he should have been, had chosen to be here, to sit amidst his electronic web and control the futures of nations by the simple expedient of deciding whether to lend them money. Abel was here because it allowed him the privacy to conduct his schemes.
Steve was here because he couldn't do anything else.
His law practice was okay. But only okay. With Abel's tight grip on this island, there wasn't a lot of call for litigation. Architecture was his first love, but Abel's vision for this island did not include a stunning, Steve Chase-designed skyline. Instead, he had designed tract homes for the handful of subdivisions Abel had deigned to allow, in deference to the island's growing economy, and the occasional vacation villa for someone Abel had decided to invite to share the northern enclave.
Sitting in his aerie now, recounting the events of the past weeks, Steve admitted that he'd screwed up yet again. He'd let Tim Roth make him feel important. Essential. So he'd fallen in with the conspiracy to find Annie Black's treasure. It had seemed like an adventure, a chance to prove that he and Tim could do something astonishing.
But then the deaths had begun, and Steve was smart enough to realize they were connected to the treasure hunt. Nobody had been supposed to die, and certainly not by such awful means. Tim, fool that he was, thought he was controlling Annie. That she was going to show them where the treasure was buried, that every death merely meant they were looking in the wrong place. Annie, Tim insisted, wanted her gold found. If that were the case, then why did Steve feel they'd let a horrible genie out of a bottle and that Tim's control was purely an illusion?
He'd seen that shadow in his office. He'd felt its chill breath. There was no reason it should have been anywhere near him. But it had been.
Suddenly he leaned forward, wondering what had moved out there. The night was too dark to see much, and the reflection of his own image in the glass was probably what had startled him.
Nevertheless, he reached for the switch that cast his office into darkness and closed the lid on his laptop. Then, when everything was as dark inside as out, he slowly, carefully, eased open a desk drawer and pulled out a pistol.
Break-ins were almost unheard of, but they did happen from time to time. If someone was lurking out there in the garden…
Then he felt an icy breath blow across his nape.
* * *
It didn't take long at all for Markie to grab a few things for the next couple of days while Dec carted Kato's bag of kibble and dog bowls to the car. She shoved the bare minimum into a duffel, locked the door behind her and Kato and headed to the curb.
"We need to call Dawn," she said. "She knows something."
"Obviously. But we'll call from my house…unless we get a message telling us to leave it, too."
There was a grim set to his face, a tension that bespoke more than concern because of the phone call.
Not that Markie could blame him. There had been too many horrors in this day already. He gripped her hand tightly all the way to his house, then carried everything inside for her.
"I've only got one bedroom," he said flatly. "And I'm not letting you out of my sight. So you've got a choice. You can sleep on the couch and I'll doze in a chair, or…"
"We'll share your bed," she said. She'd gone past all the normal cautions of life, things that might have held her back. There was one place and one place only that she wanted to be, and that was in Dec's arms. Whatever safety the world held, she was sure she would find it there.
Wordlessly, he reached out for her and hugged her close and tight, as if he needed her in his arms as much as she needed to be there.
"God, Markie," he whispered, his breath stirring her hair. "God."
There didn't seem to be another thing to say, only the need that was drawing them so tightly together that their bodies seemed to want to fuse.
"If anything happens to you…" It was a ragged whisper, and he didn't finish the thought. It hung there, a promise and a plea.
It was as if a dam opened inside her, letting out all the feelings she'd been trying so hard to hold at bay, from grief to terror to love. They overflowed, filling her eyes with tears and her muscles with strength as she hugged him even tighter.
All she wanted, she thought with hazy desperation, was this one night with Dec. Just this one night. Before it was too late.
For an instant she teetered, almost as terrified of herself as of the terror that stalked the night.
Then she gave way. Her mouth lifted to his, her body shaped to his, and hunger for life and love possessed her with its undeniable power.
Hungry hands tore at clothes; naked bodies fell to the floor. Kato huffed and turned his back, but neither of the humans noticed.
For instants, precious, beautiful instants, everything else fled before the force of longing. Hands touched, caressed. Bodies slickened. Moans escaped from places so deep they had never been plumbed.
Bodies melding into one…hearts beating as one…driving higher on an aching promise of fulfillment…
He was in her, on her, all around her, and for a wild moment Markie opened her eyes and stared blindly upward, feeling safe…safe….
And oh, so hungry and needy. Thrust for thrust, she met him. Touch for touch, wanting him as m
addened as she was…
She teetered on the brink…aching so badly she hurt…afraid she wouldn't topple….
Then she fell into an abyss of pleasure, his groan following hers into the little death of joy.
* * *
For a little while they pretended everything was okay. They cuddled and kissed and finally rested, Markie's head on Dec's shoulder. They exchanged the soft words of lovers, even a little laugh or two as their eyes met, finally empty of all barriers. Vulnerable and safe all at once with each other. It was heaven.
Then Kato grew impatient. He padded over and started licking both their faces. Markie laughed, Dec chuckled, but Kato huffed.
That huff was as effective as a cold dousing. Reality intruded with its icy thorns, reminding them.
Reluctantly, all of a sudden faintly embarrassed, as if they'd just been thrown out of Eden, they reached for clothes. Dec gave Markie his T-shirt. She slipped it on, loving the scent of him even as she felt guilty for it. How could they have forgotten?
He stood, pulled on his shorts. "I'll call Dawn," he said.
Then he paused and squatted down beside her. He caught her chin in his hand and kissed her soundly. "We're going to survive this," he promised. "And then we're going to have a lot of living to do."
She liked the way he said it and gave him a smile. Something warm seemed to curl up inside her and purr.
But then he sat on the end of the couch and reached for the phone. Instinctively Markie wrapped her arm around Kato, burying her fingers in his fur. He didn't usually tolerate such confinement, but this time all he did was lean into her and give her a quick sniff, testing her emotional state.
Dec dialed, waited a few seconds. Markie saw the concern in his eyes an instant before his lips curled down into a frown.
"What is it?" she asked.
He held the receiver out to her, and she put it to her ear. The number you have dialed is out of service….
* * *
Dawn knelt on the floor, holding the dying pup as Brindle licked it and whimpered softly. Sobs shook her. She looked up at her husband.
"You bastard!" she whispered.
