Dark Journey

by Stuart, Anne

  "Laura doesn't squabble," Cynthia murmured. Jeremy's pampered, undeniably gorgeous wife was curled up in the most comfortable chair. She, too, had noticed the shadowy figure behind Laura, and her expression had altered from one of sullen boredom to faint interest. "Who's your friend?"

  "Alex Montmort," Laura answered politely, then dutifully made the introductions. "This is my family. My stepbrother, Jeremy, and his wife, Cynthia, and my younger sister, Justine and her husband, Ricky."

  "Montmort?" Ricky said with a snort. "Mountain of death? That's a hell of a name, buddy. What do you do for a living, with a name like that?"

  "I ski." The response was cool, faintly tinged with that odd, seductive accent.

  "Extreme skiing, I suppose," Jeremy said, with an attempt at normalcy. "The kind of stuff where you ski over cliffs and hope you don't die?"

  "Most people who ski over cliffs are fully prepared to die," he replied, closing the door behind him and moving deeper into the room. Once more Laura had the sense that he wanted to touch her, wanted to cup her arm. But he didn't.

  "Gloomy subject," Ricky said carelessly. "We've got too much death around here as it is. Lemme get you a drink, Al. What are you having?"

  "Alex," the stranger said calmly. "Cognac would be ... pleasant."

  "Cognac it is," Ricky said, taking his own empty glass over to the bar tray. "Ginger ale for you, Laura."

  "She will have cognac, as well," Alex said.

  They all turned to look at him with a mixture of shock and speculation. "Laura doesn't drink," Jeremy said flatly. "It's not good for her health."

  "It won't hurt her tonight," Alex said calmly.

  "It could kill her!" Justine cried.

  "Not tonight."

  Laura broke into the argument, feeling oddly unsettled. "Alex has decreed that no one will die tonight, including Father," she said with a faint smile. "Personally, I can't imagine fate daring to disagree with him. I think I'll risk a small glass of cognac, Ricky."

  "Most unwise, my dear," Jeremy murmured, clutching his own tall glass of whiskey.

  A few moments later the cognac burned quite nicely as she sipped it. Alcohol was just one of the many normal pleasures in life that were denied her, and having seen its inroads on her family life, she'd never regretted that. But there was something undeniably pleasant about sitting on the overstuffed sofa with the dark stranger beside her, watching as he cradled a Waterford brandy snifter in his long, elegant hands.

  "So tell me," Jeremy said, with a heavy-handed attempt at affability, "how did you happen to find your way up here? This is private property, and we do our best to keep it that way."

  "Alex is an old friend." Laura didn't know where the words came from—they were instinctive.

  "Where did you meet?" he demanded, pompous as ever. "Laura hasn't left this mountain since she was a teenager."

  Alex glanced at her. She didn't know how she was certain, since he still wore those mirrored sunglasses that shielded his narrow, elegantly-boned face, but she felt as if she could read the expression in the eyes she'd never seen. "I've known her for years," he said easily.

  For a bald-faced lie, it had the curious ring of truth. She didn't deny it, simply sat back, sipping at her cognac, for once comfortable among her battling siblings.

  "Odd that she never mentioned you," Jeremy said, and the undercurrent of suspicion was obvious. "Excuse me for being rude, but why are you wearing sunglasses? It's nighttime, and the house is far from brightly lit."

  "My eyes are very sensitive," he said. "I'm sorry if it bothers you."

  "Ignore my husband, Alex," Cynthia said, in her most charming voice. "He has the manners of a lout, and he's very possessive of his little sister. You'll be staying, won't you?"

  For a moment, the world seemed to stop. Laura sat there, bathed in the heat of the fire, her family surrounding her, and yet she felt distant, apart, watching. Waiting for what Alex would say.

  It mattered. She wasn't sure why, but it mattered terribly that he should stay. A matter of life and death, she thought oddly.

  Please, she begged silently.

  The moment passed, the voices returned, and Laura's damaged heart started beating again. "I will stay," Alex said.

  And suddenly Laura knew that life had just changed, shifted, irrevocably. There would be no going back, and she wasn't certain whether she was frightened or glad.

  Perhaps a little bit of both.

  She stole a glance at the man sitting next to her. He was like no one she had ever seen, and yet he seemed so familiar, a part of her in some way she couldn't define.

  It no longer mattered. The die was cast. He would stay. And life would change, forever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He was afraid to touch her, he who wasn't afraid of anything. She sat close enough to him on that overstuffed sofa that he could smell the trace of her perfume, the scent of cognac on her mouth. It had been so long since he'd tasted brandy, tasted another mouth. He wanted to so badly he thought he might die of it.

  He kept his sour amusement to himself. He knew better than anyone that one didn't die of lust, of longing, of loneliness. The acknowledged causes of death were far more pragmatic. But the real cause of death was that he chose to take someone.

  Lightning crackled outside the thick pine walls of the house, and everyone jumped. Everyone but Alex. They were uneasy, this group of assorted siblings, and his presence wasn't making things any more comfortable. He considered leaving. But then, if he was to go, he would take Laura with him, the old man, as well, and the assembled Fitzpatricks would be a great deal unhappier.

  "Did you see the news tonight?" Jeremy said, trying to inject a note of normalcy into the evening. He was a pleasant-looking, undistinguished middle-aged man who probably had a long life ahead of him. There was nothing the slightest bit remarkable about him, apart from his air of self-importance, and Alex barely paid attention to him. "Someone jumped off the Empire State Building."

  "Why is that so remarkable?" Cynthia demanded in a captious voice. "People have been committing suicide since the dawn of mankind."

  "But that's what makes it so interesting. The man who jumped didn't die. He fell God knows how many flights, and he didn't die." Jeremy took another swallow of his whiskey.

  "Don't tell me he got up, brushed himself off and walked away?" Ricky demanded, his voice both belligerent and slurred.

  "No. He broke every bone in his body. His internal organs were smashed to pieces. But he's not dead."

  Silence reigned for a moment. "You choose the most morbid topics of conversation, Jeremy," Cynthia finally remarked. "Could we perhaps talk about something other than death? Considering your father is lying in his room, dying. Why don't we talk about the weather?"

  "The weather's just as strange. There have been electrical storms almost everywhere. Apparently three people were struck by lightning near Monarch Pass."

  "They must be toast," Ricky said unpleasantly.

  "They're not dead, either."

  “Would you stop with the gruesome stories!" Laura said, shuddering. "I don't want to hear any more."

  "I don't think you'll have to worry about that," Jeremy said. "According to Mrs. Hawkins, the power's gone. We're making do on generators until it comes back on. The phones, the television, even the radio stations, are out. That news report I heard a while ago will probably be our last until the problem's solved."

  "That's ridiculous. We can pick up radio stations from Mexico and Canada up here on the mountain," Cynthia protested. "Don't tell me none of them are coming in!"

  "All right, I won't tell you," Jeremy said agreeably, his eyes unreadable. "But it's true. Beats me what could be causing it, though."

  "The storms," Alex suggested. "Electrical storms can do very strange things in Europe – I imagine the same is true here. Once it calms down outside things will be back to normal."

  It should have amused him, how easily they swallowed his reasoning. It fascinated him, instead— he
'd always known how very gullible people were, how desperate to find comfortable explanations for the inexplicable. The Fitzpatricks, for all their wealth and power, were no different. Except, perhaps, for the woman sitting next to him.

  "You're probably right," Jeremy said a bit grudgingly. "In the meantime, it's probably just as well you showed up when you did. We were worried when Justine returned and Laura didn't. We were afraid she might have gotten into trouble out there in the woods."

  "What kind of trouble could I get into?" she demanded.

  Alex recognized the faint note of defiance in Laura's voice. Life with her family was a battle she had long ago conceded, yet she still managed to rise to a skirmish or two.

  "You ran into someone unexpected, didn't you?" Jeremy countered.

  "It's a good thing I did," she snapped back.

  Suddenly they were all attention. Cynthia moved closer, perching on the edge of the sofa next to him. Her black silk dress was cut low, and her scent was musky, sexual. "Did you come to the aid of my little sister-in-law?" she cooed.

  He glanced up at her. She would be an easier one to experiment with. She called to him; her ripe, abundant flesh luring him, even as her soul seemed strangely absent. He could content himself with learning what he needed to learn from her and leave Laura alone until he no longer had a choice but to take her. He had no inexplicable feelings for Cynthia, no strange, haunting desires. He could use her and feel nothing.

  He didn't smile at Cynthia—there was no need. Her eyes were deep and blue and knowing. "She'd fallen," he said in an offhand voice. "She'd tripped over a root and knocked the breath out of herself. She was more frightened than anything else."

  "Laura doesn't usually get frightened. She lets the rest of us get terrified for her," Justine said from her spot in the corner.

  "There's no reason for anyone to worry about me," Laura said firmly. "Alex is right. I tripped, I couldn't breathe, and I panicked. Fortunately, Alex was there."

  "Fortunate is right," Jeremy said. "We're doubly grateful to you, then. We're at the point of losing our father. I don't think this family could stand it if anything happened to Laura at the same time. She's the baby of the family."

  Alex turned to look at her, saw the flush of annoyance on her pale face. He'd had time to watch them all: Jeremy, with his shallow, friendly pomposity; Justine, with her fragile nerves and haunted eyes; drunken, bullying Ricky; and the voracious Cynthia. Not one of them had Laura's fine, tensile strength of character. She was clearly the grown-up of the family, despite the measurement of years.

  He smiled faintly, wishing he could reach out and touch her clenched fist, which lay on the couch between them. He didn't dare. He knew too well just what his touch could do if he reached for her. She had to touch him first, and Laura wasn't a woman for casual touching.

  Another crash of thunder shook the house; the lights dimmed and then brightened again. An elderly woman, clearly some kind of servant, appeared in the doorway. "I've sent the girls home, Miss Laura. If they don't leave now, there's no telling whether they'll be able to get down the mountain in this weather."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins. Shouldn't you leave as well? We're more than capable of seeing to our own needs," Laura said in her soft voice.

  "Speak for yourself, Laura," Cynthia said rudely, interrupting her. "Justine's too much of an emotional basket case, and I don't cook."

  "I can take care of things," Laura said.

  "Not our fragile little Laura." Cynthia's mocking voice was unpleasant, deliberately husky.

  "Make m'wife do something," Ricky said, his voice getting even more slurred. "She might as well be good at something. She's lousy in bed, a lousy house-keeper, a lousy cook. She can't even get pregnant."

  "Be quiet, Ricky," Laura said.

  "If Justine's a lousy cook, that's hardly a recommendation," Cynthia added.

  "Enough of this squabbling!" Mrs. Hawkins said. "I'm not going anywhere tonight. Not with Mr. Fitzpatrick in such rough shape. I don't know if the night nurse will make it up here, but Maria and I will take turns sitting with him,"

  "We'll all take turns," Laura said, pushing herself up from the sofa. "Me first." She glanced back at Alex. "Do you want to come with me? You don't need to—some people are uncomfortable in the face of death."

  His smile was so faint that most people wouldn't have noticed it. Laura did. "If you think your father wouldn't mind," he said as he rose.

  Cynthia piped up, still perched on the sofa. "He's been in a coma for almost a week now. I doubt he'd notice if the Easter Bunny showed up."

  "I'm not the Easter Bunny," Alex said. "And you'd be surprised what people notice, even at the moment of death."

  Cynthia reached up and put her slender, manicured hand on his arm. He felt it like an electric shock, and she felt it, too, pulling her hand back in surprise.

  "Static," she muttered.

  She wasn't dead. She'd touched him, reached out to him, and she hadn't died. Interesting. But then, no one was dying. Not while he was otherwise occupied.

  William Fitzpatrick lay motionless in the hospital bed that had obviously been brought in as his condition worsened. It looked odd in the midst of the huge southwestern-style master bedroom, amid the hand-carved furniture and rich Indian throws. William Fitzpatrick was beyond noticing, though.

  "You can take a break now, Maria," Laura said in her soft voice.

  The woman in the uniform lifted her head sharply, taking in the two of them before she concentrated on Laura. "You look like hell," she said frankly, setting down her paperback novel and moving toward them. "Did you run into a tree or something?"

  "I'm fine."

  Maria ignored the faint protest. "I think I should take a listen to your heart. I don't like your color. What have you been doing, racing around when you know you shouldn't?"

  "Don't you pick on me, Maria!" Laura said, but there was friendly exasperation in her voice. "It's bad enough that the rest of them hover over me, expecting me to keel over at any minute."

  "And who's to say you won't?" Maria said darkly.

  "Listen, if people can plummet from the Empire State Building and survive, then I think my heart will make it through the next few days. It's brought me this far, hasn't it?"

  "Amazingly enough. No thanks to the care you take of yourself."

  "No, you can thank my overprotective family," Laura said, more in resignation than gratitude.

  Maria rose, a sturdy, comforting soul, and put a reassuring hand on Laura's shoulder. "Sit with him awhile. I think he'd like it." She glanced past Laura, directly at Alex, and for a moment her placid expression clouded with concern. "Have we met?"

  "I don't think so. My name is Alex."

  "I'm sorry. I should have introduced you. He's a friend of mine," Laura said, sinking down into Maria's vacated chair with an almost imperceptible sigh. "He just arrived."

  Maria looked him up and down, her dark brown eyes measuring. "I could swear I'd seen you before," she said, half to herself. "But then, I wouldn't forget that voice. Besides, I specialize in hospice work. I'm afraid most of the people I work with die."

  Alex said nothing, merely smiled faintly. She knew him, all right, but her brain couldn't assimilate how or why. It was just as well. He had no intention of telling anyone, until he was ready to leave. He'd asked for two days. He wondered if he would really get them.

  "Get some dinner, Maria," Laura said, reaching out and taking her father's motionless hand. "I'll keep him company."

  The room was utterly silent after the nurse left, the stillness marred only by the distant sound of thunder and the faint hiss and pop of the breathing device. Alex watched the old man with silent interest. He could sense his spirit, floating, waiting, frustrated by the delay in the inevitable.

  "He's been like this for more than a week," Laura said in a hushed voice, her slender, strong hand wrapped around the old man's. "I was certain he was going to die this afternoon. That's what made Justine run off—she co
uldn't deal with it. But he's still here. At least in body, if not in spirit."

  Alex said nothing, waiting. As if on cue, the old man's crepey eyes opened, blinking at the bright light. The sound he made was indiscernible—barely more than a croak—but they both understood. "Laura," he whispered.

  "Oh, my God!" she breathed. "You're awake! Let me go and tell the others—"

  His hands were too feeble to stop her, and she ran from the room before either man could move. William Fitzpatrick, patriarch, millionaire, political kingmaker, raised his gaze to Alex's shaded stare, and froze.

  "Take off your sunglasses." The words were barely spoken, but Alex heard them nonetheless. "Come here."

  He didn't hesitate. He stepped up to the bedside, shoving the sunglasses up on his forehead, and met the old man's inimical gaze.

  "Damn you," William Fitzpatrick wheezed. "You've come for me, haven't you?"

  "Among other things," he replied, pitching his voice so low that most mortals couldn't hear him. Only those he chose.

  Real fear crossed the old man's face for the first time. Not fear for himself, though. Another interesting facet of human behavior, Alex thought. They feared more for their loved ones than they feared for themselves. The number of people who had come to him, thrusting their children, their beloveds, out of his reach and making him take them instead, had been baffling and innumerable. Another question he needed the answer to.

  "No," the old man gasped. But before he could say any more, his grown-up, contentious children pushed their way into the room, and Alex quickly slid the sunglasses down on the bridge of his nose and stepped back from the bedside.

  All their fuss would have killed the old man if nothing else did. But for the time being, no one was dying. Not even a man so riddled with cancer that most of his organs had shut down. Not some poor smashed, mangled soul who'd tried to kill himself by jumping off a tall building. Not the three people in the car hit by lightning, not the three hundred people from the capsized ferry in Indonesia. Not the sniper's victims in Afghanistan, nor any of the poor souls ready to meet him. They would all have to wait.