A Darkness Absolute

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Oh, I'm not nearly as clean as you think," Anders says. "You just can't see the dirt. And Casey scrubbed up before she climbed down to rescue you. She's such a prima donna."

  Nicole laughs, a real one, and looks up at him. "I remember that about you. You were always funny and kind, and I wanted to get to know you better." Another flush. "Not like that. I just mean you seemed nice."

  Her hands flutter on her lap, and as Anders examines her, he keeps teasing, that gentle way of his, but even as he does, he sneaks me looks that tell me this is not the woman he remembers. She's dangerously thin, and up close, I can see signs of malnutrition, her hair patchy, rashes on her skin.

  "Can we leave now?" she says. "Please? I'm not hurt, and I'd really like to get out of here. I can make it. Just show me the way."

  Anders and I look at each other. I say, "It's the middle of the night, and there's been a storm. We'll go if that's what you absolutely need, but it'll be much safer to wait until morning."

  She starts to shake, and I hurry on. "If you need to get out of here, we completely understand. But you are safe. We have guns, and we're both police officers."

  "Both?" She looks from me to Anders. "Oh. I know Will likes caving, so I thought you two were out doing that. I didn't realize it was night." Another twist of a smile. "Or winter."

  "It is," I say. "We were--"

  I think of what we were doing. Of that bloodied toque. Of the man in the path. I'm not telling her that, so I say, "We were on patrol when the storm hit, and it was late in the day, so we holed up here. The point is, we have supplies, and we're armed. We'll be fine until morning. One of us will stay awake, and we'll leave at the first hint of light. But if you need us to go now, we can do that."

  She nibbles her lip and looks at Anders.

  He nods. "Casey's right. You want to get out of here as fast as you can. We totally get that, and we'll do our best to make that happen. But it is safer in the daytime."

  She squares her shoulders. "He won't come tonight. If he does..." She looks, not at Anders, but at me. "Will you shoot him?"

  "With pleasure."

  SIX

  We return to the cavern where we left our things. Anders sits guard at the entrance while I unpack for Nicole. I hand her two energy bars, and she stares at them and says, "Chocolate?"

  "Well, supposedly. It's not exactly Godiva."

  Tears well again. "I used to turn up my nose at Godiva. Clients would buy us baskets, and I'd tell my co-workers that if you've had real Swiss chocolate, Godiva wasn't any better than that cheap stuff you get at Easter. Do you know how many times I dreamed of those baskets?" She opens a bar and inhales. "No fancy chocolate can touch this. Not today."

  She takes a bite, and the sheer rapture on her face makes my eyes well.

  "Were there Saskatoon berries in Rockton this year?" she asks. "I remember Tina's jam. On Brian's bread. That was heaven."

  "Tina made jam," I say as I hand her the water pouch. "And Brian is still baking bread. You'll get all you want tomorrow."

  "So Tina and Brian are still there," she says. "What about--" She stops herself. "I'm sorry. You need to sleep."

  "Nah, Casey never sleeps," Anders says. "You want to know who's still in Rockton? Let's see, there's..."

  *

  Anders doesn't list everyone. There are nearly two hundred people. A few months ago, I couldn't have imagined a town that small. Now it feels huge, as I struggle to remember names. This is community policing, where every resident expects you to know their name. More importantly, I need to know them all because policing in Rockton isn't like law enforcement anywhere else in the world.

  Rockton is supposed to be a place of refuge for those in need, those whose very lives depend on escaping the world--escaping an abuser, escaping false charges, escaping an impossible situation or a stupidly naive mistake. The town is financed by also admitting white-collar criminals who've amassed a fortune and are willing to pay very well to lie low until they're forgotten. Then there are those like me and Anders, on the run for something we did, something that does deserve retribution, but the council has decided our crimes aren't the types we're liable to re-commit and they are otherwise in need of our skills.

  So that's Rockton. Or that's what it's supposed to be. There's a deeper ugly truth, the one that means they really need people like me and Anders. Modern Rockton, established as a haven by idealists in the sixties, is now run by investors who aren't content to take a cut of profit from white-collar crime. They accept massive admission fees from actual criminals, giving Dalton false stories, which leaves him trying to uncover the real criminals to protect the real victims.

  These criminals are exactly what Anders and I discuss once Nicole is asleep. She's snoring softly, telling us she's definitely out, and we slip into the next cavern, our voices lowered as we talk. We discuss the possibility that Nicole's captor isn't a settler or a hostile but a monster much closer to home.

  Before she fell asleep, I'd asked her, as carefully as I could, if she could tell us anything about her captor. She said that the whole time she'd been in there, he'd covered his face. She knew only he was undeniably male. As for how she knew that ... I know the answer. But I wasn't making her say it.

  "I want to say it's not possible he's from Rockton, but--" Will runs a hand over his hair. "Shit."

  "It wouldn't be easy. Presumably he's coming up at least once a week, likely twice, with food and water. It'd be a long hike in bad weather, but if he left Rockton in the early evening and got back in time for his work shift in the morning, no one would be the wiser. It's not as if residents can't sneak past the patrols."

  Rockton isn't a walled city. They've tried that--it only makes people rebel. Residents aren't prisoners. The rules against wandering into the forest are for their own good, and most people know enough to stay put.

  "I'll need a list of everyone who has been in Rockton since before Nicole disappeared," I said. "I'll cross-reference it against those who've been caught out at night, but really, we're going to be looking at every able-bodied male." Which encompasses most of the population. Less than twenty-five percent is female, and you don't get into Rockton if you aren't "able-bodied"--we just don't have the resources.

  "Anyone on Eric's list who might be good for it?" Anders asks.

  I wish it was a list. It's a book filled with details he's gathered on every resident he knows or suspects is in Rockton under false pretenses. Most of it is suspicion, but in Rockton, it's guilty until proven innocent. It has to be.

  We discuss a few possibilities. I don't tell Anders what Dalton suspects them of. Anders knows we have criminals in Rockton. Hell, technically, he's one of them. I'm one of them too, but I'm not in the book because Dalton alredy knew my crime when I arrived. I've convinced Dalton that Anders needs to know what we're dealing with, but he's never seen the book and doesn't want to.

  What I tell Anders is names only, and he gives me his thoughts on each. Two of them arrived after Nicole disappeared. We discuss the others.

  "Personally, I like Mathias for it," Anders says, leaning against the cave wall as we sit, side by side, blanket drawn over our legs.

  "Mathias isn't on my list."

  "He should be."

  "He isn't even on Eric's list."

  "He should be. Crazy butcher Frenchman should be on every list."

  "I like Mathias."

  "You like weird. Look at the company you keep."

  I bop my head against his shoulder. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

  "I meant Eric. I am the picture of normalcy and mental health."

  There was a time pre-Dalton when Anders and I flirted with the idea of, well, flirting. On paper, he's perfect--gorgeous, funny, smart, sweet. Finding the deeper and darker parts should have made him even more perfect for me. Instead, it made him too good a fit. Even before that, it would have felt like flirting with a brother. So very wrong.

  "Nicki doesn't suspect it's someone from Rockton, does she?" Anders says.


  "She doesn't seem to, considering she's eager to get back there. Which might mean she somehow knows it's not a resident. But more likely, she just doesn't think it could be. Because that's not the kind of person we let in."

  Anders shuts his eyes. "I liked Rockton a lot better when I thought I was the only exception."

  "You're not that special. Sorry."

  He smiles and squeezes my hand under the blanket. "So how are we going to handle this? Taking her back to the very place where her kidnapper might be waiting."

  "Very, very carefully."

  *

  We crawl out of the cave at eight thirty the next morning. It looks like 2:00 A.M., not even a hint of gray to the east.

  "It'll be light soon, right?" Nicole says. "I know it takes a while for the sun to come up, but it gets gray long before that." She manages a smile. "I'm used to gray."

  As she says that, a realization hits, and I turn to Anders and point at my eyes. Nicole has been in candlelight for ...

  I keep avoiding the question of how long she's been down there. I cannot comprehend the idea of being in that hole for a year. Even thinking it sends my brain spiraling, unable to process. I hold on to a fantasy that she left Rockton and was living on her own, and her captivity was recent.

  However long she's been down there, though, she cannot be out here in full daylight. It would be like looking into an eclipse, permanently damaging her retinas.

  We can work around that. Put on a helmet, the visor tinted. Blindfold her if we need to. But while I look at that darkness and know "gray" isn't coming anytime soon, I also know how much she wants to leave--needs to leave. If it were me, I'd run until I collapsed. Get away, as far as I could, as fast as I could.

  We set out.

  SEVEN

  The compass leads us back to the path. We find the snowmobiles and dig them out. Then we discover a problem I feared.

  "It's dead," I say as I try--again--to start Anders's snowmobile.

  "Is that the technical term?" he asks.

  I mouth an obscenity, and Nicole chuckles. Dalton has been teaching me basic mechanics, but there hasn't been time for more than having him explain while he fixes something.

  As I head to open the hood, my foot kicks at the snow and the smell of fuel wafts up.

  "I think the technical term is 'out of gas,'" Nicole says.

  She's right. When the machine ended up on its side, it started leaking fuel through a cap that must not have been screwed on properly.

  "We can siphon some from the other sled," Anders says.

  "We don't have a hose," I say. "And I'm not sure lack of fuel is the only thing keeping her down. You had a collision and a wipeout. Take mine with Nicole. I'll follow the path on foot."

  Anders shakes his head. "If you walk, we all--"

  "No." I catch his eye and shoot a look toward Nicole. I made her sit while I examined the sled. She's winded, and there's no way she can walk to Rockton.

  "Then you two take the snowmobile," Anders says.

  I wave the compass. He gestures at the path. I wave the compass again. He sighs.

  "I'm not even going to ask what all that means," Nicole says.

  "Casey is reminding me I can't find my way out of a shopping mall. I'm pointing out that I have a path to follow. She's not buying it."

  "If it was a straight line to Rockton...," I say.

  "Yeah, yeah. But I'm not leaving you out here. All three of us can ride. I've doubled up with Eric."

  "It's a matter of space not weight," I say. "Stop arguing, and get on the damn sled. You'll be in Rockton within the hour. You can send Kenny back for me."

  Nicole is shivering convulsively. She's wearing my snowsuit and Anders's sweater, but she's having trouble regulating her body temperature, a combination of semistarvation and living in a controlled temperate environment. As soon as she sees us looking, she straightens and says, "I'm fine. Just caught a chill. I can walk."

  Anders looks at me. "You're taking the backpack and my snowsuit."

  "Bag, yes. But that snowsuit? I'll be lucky if I don't face-plant every five paces, tripping over it. I'm fine."

  "Nicki? We're going to switch suits, okay? Mine probably smells more than Casey's, but it's a sexy, manly smell."

  I snort at that, but it gets a glimmer of a smile from Nicole. We find a sheltered spot, and he strips first, and we help her switch as fast as possible. After a few last words, they're on the sled and roaring to Rockton.

  I start walking. It's five kilometers. I can do that in a couple of hours. I have to laugh at the thought. In the city, if someone told me it'd take me two hours to travel that far, I'd wonder if I had to get on all fours and crawl.

  I'm not a runner--muscle damage means I can't do more than dash from point A to point B. But down south it wasn't unusual for me to walk this far to work in good weather, and I could clock it in under an hour easily. Walking in a snowy forest is a whole different thing. Which is why humans invented snowshoes, to emulate animals with oversized feet as an adaptation to winter travel. And, yes, that's another Dalton tidbit, squirreled away in my brain. He's been taking me snowshoeing, though I'm not sure if it's more for my education or his amusement.

  I'm thinking of the last time we went out, a week ago, heading into the forest with the fixings for a bonfire and--

  A twig cracks to my left.

  I spin. Even as I do, I'm mentally rolling my eyes. It's going to take more than four months up here to stifle the city girl in me. I still need to pay attention. But the startle response--hand going to my gun--isn't required ... unless I have a hankering for venison or rabbit.

  A wash of gray to the east promises sunshine, but it's no more than a promise, and I need to shine my flashlight into the forest. I expect to hear more twig snapping as some curious woodland creature beats a hasty retreat.

  Instead, I hear silence. An eerie one I'd have noticed earlier if I hadn't been amusing myself in pleasant-memory land.

  Quiet's not good in a forest.

  Um, it's always quiet in the forest.

  I said that once, and Dalton made me stop talking, close my eyes, and identify five sounds, not unlike a drill sergeant making me drop and give him five. It'd been a lesson, too. I easily heard the sounds, even if I needed help identifying them. Quiet isn't silence. When the forest goes silent ...

  There's a predator nearby.

  Right. Me.

  But even as I reason that, I'm still shining that flashlight, and the hairs on my neck are still up. I'm just a human. Wildlife steers clear, but it doesn't stop what it's doing and wait for me to pass.

  I consider. Then I take a step in the direction of the noise. I stop. Silence. Another step. Still silence. Another ...

  The wind whips past in a sudden gust, startling me again, and I get a face full of blowing snow. Then an eerie whine cuts through the trees and another blast of wind hits, driving icy pellets into my face.

  That's why the forest went quiet. A fresh storm blowing up.

  I turn back toward the path, mentally calculating how much farther I have to go--

  A figure stands ten feet away. Wearing a snowsuit, a dark balaclava, and goggles. The first thing I process is that he's roughly Dalton's size. But then he moves, and that movement tells me it's not Dalton. The balaclava and goggles aren't something he would wear while combing the woods for me ... and it's exactly what was wrong about that figure on the path yesterday, one reason we'd mistaken it for a bear, our eyes failing to see a human face.

  I remember what Nicole said about never seeing her captor's face. How it'd always been covered.

  I raise my gun. The figure dives into the undergrowth. I fire a warning shot, the sound echoing, some creature to my right barreling through the trees in escape.

  I'm looking around, both hands on my gun, having dropped the flashlight when I aimed. It's on the ground behind me, lighting the scene, but a visual sweep shows nothing, and the wind swirls madly now, ice beating my face, stinging my
eyes as I struggle to keep them open and--

  I sense something behind me. I spin and see a metal bar on a collision course with my skull. I duck, and it glances off my ponytail. There's a grunt, and the man lunges, metal bar in flight, poised to strike me as soon as I run. I don't run. I wheel and kick.

  It's a crappy kick. Guys on the force always expected me to be some kind of martial arts expert, given my Asian heritage. I do have a black belt ... in aikido. Kicks aren't my thing.

  But I kick now because it's the best move, and while my foot connects, there's not enough power--my messed-up leg again. It's enough to knock him off balance, though. I go in for the throw down, and I grab the arm holding the bar, but a whiteout gust slams us at that very moment, and I can't see what I'm grabbing for. I glimpse something dark, and my fingers close instead around the metal bar. It starts to slide, too smooth for a decent grip.

  I twist, thrusting the bar up and getting under it. My motions match his rather than opposing them, and he gives another grunt of surprise. His grip loosens, and I wrench on the bar, and then it's mine, which is nice, but not really what I want.

  I whip the bar as far away as I can. I don't go for my gun, though. The snow is swirling around us, and I can barely see a guy who isn't more than two feet away. I'm as likely to lose my weapon like he just lost his. So I keep the gun holstered and punch instead, an uppercut aiming for the highest point of the dark figure.

  My fist connects with a thwack. The figure reels, and I swing again, a right jab this time. It's a glancing blow, my knuckles grazing his snowsuit as he dodges. And then he's gone.

  He's retreated only a foot or two, but it's enough. He disappears behind the snow veil. I lunge, swinging, and I'm moving slow enough that I keep my balance when my fist strikes air. I do, however, hit a tree. Pain rips through my arm, and I keep moving, wheeling, to put that massive trunk at my back. I press up against it, fists raised, watching for movement through the swirling snow.

  I wait. And then I wait some more.

  There's not a damn thing else I can do. I can't see through the snow. I can't hear over the howl of the wind. I am frozen here, quite literally starting to freeze as snow pelts my face and melts and freezes again, and then it's not melting; it's coming so hard and fast that it's piling on me, and still I don't move.