Always

by Jude Deveraux

  When they came to the end of that branch of the tunnel, Adam flattened against the wall, his arm across her upper chest as he held her pinned against the wall.

  Darci listened but heard no one and nothing. The silence was as deep as only being underground could make it. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that the little stream went to the left, around the outer wall of the open area in front of them.

  It took her a moment before she realized they were looking into the room that would someday have vending machines in it. The room would be much larger in her time, but she knew it was the same room. Someday, the tunnel they were in would be closed off, and she was sure there hadn’t been a flowing stream along the back. Perhaps the stream had dried up, so they’d closed off the passage that led up to the icehouse. It had certainly been sealed off when she and her Adam had been there.

  On the far wall were the three tunnel openings and for a moment Darci visualized Adam kneeling there and searching for footprints.

  Cautiously, Adam Drayton stepped into the room, then motioned for Darci to follow him. After the darkness of the tunnel, the room with its four lanterns hanging from the walls was almost bright.

  She had no idea where Nokes put his safe, but she knew where there were some rooms in the tunnels. She motioned for Adam to follow her, but he caught her arm and pulled her back, shaking his head no. He pointed to the three openings with a question on his face. She pointed to the one on the far right, then Adam got in front of her, his rifle at hip level and ready.

  They tiptoed along silently, but it was all Darci could do to hold back tears. She vividly remembered the first time she’d followed Adam into this tunnel and how joyous she’d been! No one on earth had been happier than she was that day. She’d sensed that, eventually, Adam would come to love her, and she’d been anxious to get started.

  Now she was in another time, with another man who looked and acted like the man she loved, and Darci had to constantly remind herself that this man wasn’t her man.

  Suddenly, Adam stopped walking and flattened himself against the wall, again pushing Darci back. Déjà vu, she thought, because, just like the first time, she heard men’s voices coming from down the tunnel.

  “Dancing?” a man said. “Are you crazy? Who’d come here to dance?”

  “Anybody that wants money,” another man said.

  “What if Nokes finds out about this?”

  “What’s he gonna do? Fire us?”

  The men laughed together and Darci could hear their feet hurrying across the dirt floor. She knew that there was a staircase at that end of the tunnel. The night the witch had taken her, Darci had walked down those stairs.

  She cried to blank that image out of her mind but couldn’t. She’d been wearing a white gown that night and she knew that she was being led to a chamber of sacrifice. Her only solace had been her hope that Adam may have escaped. She’d been concentrating so hard that she didn’t know he was chained to a wall only a few feet away.

  When it was silent again, Darci motioned to Adam that just ahead, on the left, was a cutout in the wall. It was where she and Adam had nearly been caught, where Adam had cut her hair with a dagger that turned out to be used for the sacrifices. Looking back on it, she wondered if the witch had put such a valuable knife in a place used to store cups and plates as a lure to her, to Darci, who the witch wanted so much. The mirror had told the witch that a young woman with nine moles on her hand was going to kill her. Several young women had been killed before the witch found Darci.

  Inching along, Adam soon saw the room with the iron gate. It hadn’t changed since Darci had seen it last. Inside were shelves loaded with boxes of what looked to be supplies. This time, though, there was no tantalizing dagger lying on a shelf just out of their reach.

  Darci let out a sigh. She’d been hoping that the safe would be here, in this easiest place to reach, but it wasn’t.

  She looked down the corridor and decided not to go that way. There could be a guard sitting there, a rifle across his lap. Besides, it was her guess that a man like Nokes seemed to be wouldn’t keep his safe in a place where his workmen congregated.

  She motioned for Adam to follow her, then went back the way they came, to the big room that would someday be enlarged with a Bobcat.

  “I know of two big rooms,” she whispered to Adam as he bent down to hear her. Darci wasn’t going to tell him that she’d never actually been to either of the rooms, but she’d heard her father tell of every second he and Adam and Bo had searched for Darci. He’d said that he wanted to remember and record everything so he’d had Bo draw a map to the tunnels.

  “One has an oak door,” Darci said. “At least it did in my time, so I don’t know if it’s there now or not.”

  “A carved door, with a secret way to open it?” Adam asked.

  “Yes! Is it there?”

  “Yes. Nokes told me of it. He traded a sack of gems for it, and said that if you don’t know how to open it, there’s a trap. A deathly trap.”

  “I know how to open it,” Darci said as she turned away from him so he couldn’t see her face. She knew it was three things that she had to push. Animals? Leaves? Or was it a tree trunk that she had to push? And in what order? What was it that Bo had said about opening the door? It was a rhyme, or maybe a word.

  She tried to remember back to the day when Bo had been telling her father so he could record the information. By that time the door had been destroyed, along with the tunnels, and everything that had been in them. There were some stolen first-century panels that had gone to museums. Adam said that he didn’t care if the sacrificial altar had historical significance or not. He had it blown into tiny pieces.

  “Come,” she said over her shoulder, then hurried down the smallest of the three tunnels. After several minutes, she turned right; Adam caught her shoulder, and pointed. The tunnel in front of them widened, and there was more light farther down.

  She couldn’t help smiling at him as it looked as though she’d guessed right. This seemed to be the hub of the underground operation.

  Adam moved in front of her, stepping slowly and quietly, looking about at every moment. Once they had to stop when they heard male laughter.

  “Never seen anything like it,” they heard.

  “I threw last month’s pay at her,” said another male voice.

  “So what’s that? Nokes give you more than six cents?”

  “All the fancy stones I could steal,” said the first man. Their laughter faded as the men moved away.

  Adam and Darci stayed still until it was quiet again, then Adam started moving. Minutes later, they were standing in front of a door that was carved to represent a jungle. From the look of it, she thought the door must have been made in South America.

  Looking at the door, she tried to remember all that her sister-in-law had said. What was it Bo had said that day? Eliminate. Boadicea had said in her awkward cadence, “Eliminate. E.L.M. Eye, leaf, medallion. You only have to remember that it is the most large leaf.”

  Darci blinked a couple of times, drew in her breath, then pushed the eye of a funny-looking little animal, the biggest leaf, then the medallion in the corner.

  When the door opened, Adam gave her a grin of such praise that she felt as though she could have floated into the room—if her legs hadn’t been rubbery from her fear of not getting it right the first time, that is.

  He didn’t hesitate as he pushed the door open, entered the room, then closed the well-oiled door behind them. The only things in the room were a big, carved bed, a bedside table with a wash set on it, and a safe. Did the man Nokes sleep here? Darci wondered. With his money? If he did, then they’d better get out of here soon or he’d find them there.

  Adam saw her looking at the bed and knew what she was thinking. “We should have time,” he said. “Fonty will see Jack and Lavender first. It’ll take him some time to get rid of them. He’ll be furious that his men aren’t working every minute. I’ll get this open and we’ll be out of
here in no time.”

  Darci stood by the door, her heart in her throat, and watched him turn the knob on the safe. True to his word, the door swung open seconds later. As he opened the heavy door, Darci peered around Adam and looked inside. There were stacks of cash, and many red leather pouches that she figured were full of the Nokes garnets. Money and gems seemed to be all that were in the safe.

  Quickly, Adam began moving the stacks of bills around, searching behind them. At last he pulled out the little man.

  “Yes!” Darci said as she made a fist and moved her arm downward.

  Adam laughed at her gesture, then imitated it. “Yes!”

  Smiling, he closed the door to the safe, slipped the little man into his pocket, then motioned for Darci to go ahead of him to the door.

  In the next second their triumph was shattered as they heard a noise outside the door, not exactly as though someone was knocking, but he was definitely doing something to the door.

  “It’s Fonty,” Adam said. “He’s the only one who knows how to open the door. Quick! Get under the bed.”

  Before Darci could think, Adam had pushed her onto the floor and was scooting under the bed beside her, his rifle at his side. The floor was damp and it was dusty under the bed; she had to hold her nose to keep from sneezing.

  In silence, they watched the feet of the man enter the room. If I had my power now, Darci thought, I could put him to sleep and we could leave. But she had no power.

  The feet walked so close to the bed that Darci drew in her breath. The man was going to bend down and look under the bed! If he was so paranoid that he slept with his money, then he was the type to check under the bed every night.

  Adam moved a bit closer to her, using his body to protect her. She knew that he was ready to leap. If this man Fonty started to look, Adam was going to do what he could to keep Darci hidden.

  But the man didn’t bend down. Instead his pants fell to the floor and they could see his long underwear and his boots. He waddled over to the bed, his pants around his ankles, and sat down. The old bed, with its feather-filled mattress, sagged under his weight so that Darci had to roll closer to Adam to keep from being hit by the mattress. She looked up in alarm. If the man lay down on the bed, they’d have no hiding space.

  Lifting his arm, Adam made a motion that she needed to be ready to roll his way when the mattress sank farther. Seconds later, they heard the boots hit the floor, followed by the man yawning and scratching, then he fell down into the center of the bed.

  Darci rolled to her right, jamming close to Adam’s body. He had moved to the edge of the bed, and he put his arm out to hold her, to keep her closer to him and away from the sag in the mattress.

  For a moment Darci closed her eyes. What if this were her Adam? she thought. What if right now she had the right to turn in his arms and kiss him?

  She didn’t move. It took all her willpower, all her courage, but she didn’t move. Unfortunately, Adam did move. He touched the hair at her temple, caressed it, then tucked a strand behind her ear.

  Please, she prayed. Help me resist this.

  She didn’t know if she was praying to God or maybe to the spirit of her husband. Please, Adam, she thought, if you’re anywhere that you can hear me, help me now.

  Adam Drayton’s hand moved to her cheek. She could feel his heart beating against her back. She could feel…she could feel that he wanted her.

  She closed her eyes again. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man. Already, overhead, they could hear Nokes’s snores. The man was asleep, and by the sound of the snores, she didn’t think he would hear them if they slipped out of the room. He probably wouldn’t hear them if they rolled out from under the bed and made quiet love on the floor.

  How long? Darci thought. How very, very long had it been since she’d felt a man’s touch?

  Adam’s hand was on her neck now and she could feel his rampant desire. God would forgive us, wouldn’t He? she thought. They were two extremely lonely people in unusual circumstances.

  Darci tried to think of her Adam, of the man she’d vowed to love forever, but she also felt this other man’s hands on her shoulder, traveling downward.

  Above them, Nokes rolled over and the mattress sagged in another place.

  And it was then that Darci felt a tiny spark run through her. It was a spark of…feeling. Her old feeling. It wasn’t what she’d come to call power—and thought of privately as Power—but it was something.

  She could feel the pull of the little ceramic man in Adam’s pocket. She knew exactly where the man was because it was humming. Like the key had hummed at the FBI agency. She’d followed that hum as it got louder and it had led her to Jack, who’d led her to the box that fit the key.

  The little man’s humming was sending a signal to something else that was also humming. It was as though she and Adam were caught between two night creatures that were calling to each other.

  When Adam’s hand abruptly stopped moving, she turned her head enough to see his eyes and looked at him in question. Did he feel it, too? she wanted to ask him. From the expression on his face, he did.

  Slowly, he managed to inch his hand down to his pocket. He halted once when Nokes stopped snoring. They held their breath and waited until the snoring started again.

  Adam managed to remove the little man from his pocket and put it in Darci’s hand, for the direction of the humming was on the other side of her. Taking the man, she held him out as far as her arm could reach.

  Nokes rolled over again, the snoring stopped, and they had to wait while he moved around before he settled down again. Adam and Darci held still, their breaths held until he was snoring loudly again.

  Lifting her arm, Darci stretched it out. She could feel vibrations in the little statue now, and they got stronger when her arm went to the left, toward the bulge that was Nokes.

  She glanced back at Adam to tell him that she was going to slide on her stomach and try to find what was pulling at her. He shook his head no as vigorously as possible, considering the way he was pinned, but Darci nodded yes.

  Rolling to her stomach, she tried to make herself as small as she could. She’d gained weight since she’d first met Adam. She’d eaten a lot and had had a baby, both of which had filled her out. She wasn’t fat, but she was no longer the waif she had once been. It was difficult trying to move under the hanging-down bulk of Nokes without touching the mattress. She couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t use her elbows to move herself. She had to scoot and wiggle. The floor was damp dirt and there were rocks sticking out of it, and the rocks seemed to know just where her ribs were. Twice she had to work to keep from crying out when a rib was bruised.

  After a long while and a lot of work, she felt the little man in her hand vibrate so hard she almost dropped him. Whatever had set it off was just over her head.

  With her heart pounding, she rolled out from under the bed—just as Nokes’s arm dropped. In an instant, she had to combat fear and loathing as a fat, dirty hand flopped down onto her face. She lay still and waited. Would he feel her face and wake? As she lay there, she looked up to see a pistol barrel protruding over the side of the bedside table. If he woke, there would be bullets exchanged between him and Adam, and someone would die.

  After what seemed like hours, she was sure that Nokes wasn’t going to awaken, so she slowly shuffled back under the bed, this time faceup. She glanced at Adam, and saw that he’d moved his rifle to the near side of him. If he had to shoot Nokes he would be shooting a man who was his friend. And all for a woman he barely knew.

  Darci looked back at the underside of the bed, but saw nothing that could make the little man hum. For one horrific second she thought maybe it was Nokes himself. Was he so attached to the little ceramic man that it would call out to him if it were being stolen?

  She looked back up at the bed again and this time she thought she saw something shiny. The underside was all ropes and old boards, but maybe what she was seeing was a nail.

/>   Darci stretched her arm out, holding the statue up as high as she could, and when it got within a couple of inches of the shiny thing, she felt a…a “joining of voices” is the only way she could describe it. The two objects were in perfect harmony.

  She glanced at Adam and again he was shaking his head no, that he didn’t want her to do whatever she was planning to do. Darci nodded, then began to move her arm down to her trouser’s pocket. It took some fiddling, but she managed to get the little dagger out of its sheath and into her hand. She had to do more scooting and had to put her arm next to the bulge of Nokes, but she managed to get the knife tip onto the shiny object.

  A few minutes later, it popped out and Darci almost dropped it. She had no time to look at it before she jammed it down the front of her shirt, into the two layers of underwear that kept her shirt from being transparent.

  Triumphant, she flattened her body to look at Adam. He was glaring at her, his eyes telling her that they had to get out immediately.

  When she nodded to him, he motioned for her to back out. Nokes was snoring loudly as she scooted out from under the bed, belly up, head first. This time Nokes’s dirty foot was hanging off the bed and Darci turned away when her face got too close. Minutes later, she was completely out. Adam was waiting for her by the door, and had silently opened it.

  She could tell that he was angry when he half pushed her through the door and out into the tunnel, closing the big, carved door behind them.

  “I hope you obey your husband better than that,” Adam said through clenched teeth as soon as they were a few feet from the door.

  “Much less,” she said, feeling good that they were now out from under the bed. But, best of all, she felt that someone had helped her. She had asked for help and she’d received it. For the first time in a long while she didn’t feel alone.

  “I never obey him,” she said happily. “Never, never, never.”

  Adam led them out of the tunnels. Expertly, he made all the correct turns, and once they were in the big room he hurried to the small opening in the far wall, the one that followed the stream out. Darci kept close behind him, and they said nothing until they’d reached the icehouse and climbed up the ladder. At the top in the icehouse, Adam helped Darci up. When they stood together in the blackness inside the old building, he said, “I want to apologize for my behavior back there,” he said. “I mean, what I did while we were under the bed. I think it was the moment and the situation.”