Embrace The Twilight

by Maggie Shayne

Chapter 23

 

  "The tunnel leads where?" Rhiannon repeated, as she stuffed the woman into a closet.

  "To the sea. Stiles keeps a boat there in case we need to escape in a hurry. "

  "A boat. One single boat?" She shook her head. "With room enough for all seven of you?"

  The woman frowned as if she'd never considered that.

  "Twit. " Rhiannon closed the closet door and braced a chair under the outer knob for good measure.

  "They're going to be trapped out there," Rhiannon said. ' 'The soldiers will radio the house, and when no one answers, they'll come inside. The twit will tell them about the passage if they don't already know. "

  Roland raced through the house in a haze of motion, peered out the front window. "They're already in sight on the road, heading back this way. We have to get out of here before they get back into position. Come on, the back way will give us the most time. " He gripped Rhiannon's hand, and together they sped through the house and out the back. They made it to the iron fence just as several men came around the house and began retaking their positions. All those soldiers had to do was turn their heads. . . .

  Roland and Rhiannon jumped and cleared the fence, landing on the other side and quickly darting for cover. The soldiers heard the impact of their landing, looked toward the sound, and then, frowning, moved closer.

  Rhiannon and Roland stayed very still in the brush while a pair of eagle-eyed troops walked up and down the fence, shining flashlight beams through it, searching.

  Soft footfalls from behind drew Rhiannon's gaze, and she turned. Pandora padded up to her, almost soundless. Rhiannon wrapped her arms around the cat and nuzzled her face.

  After a moment, the soldiers returned to their posts.

  Rhiannon rose, cautious and quiet. "Come on. We have to find a boat. "

  They made their way along the road, back to where Will had hidden the Mercedes. Then they got in, Pandora sprawled on the back seat, and drove, as Rhiannon focused her mind on her need and followed the coastline. It wasn't long before they found a small marina, where a dozen or so boats seemed to make themselves at home. Some were dangling from contraptions with straps that held them up out of the water. Some were floating, tied loosely to a dock.

  She stopped the car and they got out, walking toward the docks, Pandora close to Rhiannon's side.

  The place was dead at this hour. Dawn was just over an hour away.

  "I don't know the first thing about boats," Roland told her.

  "Then we'll just have to take a driver along with us. " She walked ahead of him, out onto the second dock, where a young man was tying off his boat. There wasn't another person within a mile of them.

  "Excuse me, but I need you to take me somewhere in your boat," Rhiannon said.

  The young man looked at her, and his eyes slid down her body in appreciation. Then they landed on the cat and widened. "Uh, look, lady, I don't know what this is about, but-"

  "It's an emergency. A matter of life-and-death. "

  "Life-and-death?"

  "Yes. Yours. Now get in the boat or experience what it feels like to be catnip. "

  At her cue, Pandora bared her teeth and emitted a dangerous growl.

  "Okay, okay. " The kid held up his hands and stepped into the boat, starting the motor. Rhiannon got in, and her cat leaped in behind her. Roland untied the rope and climbed aboard last of all.

  "Really, Rhiannon, the theatrics," he said. "You needn't have frightened the poor lad like that. "

  "He wasn't going to cooperate. I didn't have time to convince him. "

  The kid maneuvered the boat into the open water. Roland took the seat beside him, playing good vamp to Rhiannon's bad vamp, and pointing out the direction to take.

  "Look, I'm glad to help you out, okay?" the boy said nervously. And he was just a boy. Perhaps twenty. "I wouldn't refuse someone in trouble. I'm not that kind of guy. I just. . . that panther made me nervous. "

  "As well she should," Rhiannon said. She watched the coastline with her eyes. She also watched the boy until she understood how to operate the controls. When they got close, she said, "Can you swim to shore from here?"

  The kid looked back at her and blinked. "Oh, come on. You're not gonna steal my boat. Come on, please. . . "

  "Young man," Roland said, "there are some soldiers just around this bend. Mercenaries, and they will start shooting at us if they see us. Now, unless you want to join us in ducking bullets. . . "

  He scanned the shoreline as he slowed the boat's speed to a near crawl, then let it float and, finally, sit idle in the water. "I don't see any-"

  "Oh, for pity sake. " Rhiannon snapped a finger.

  Pandora pounced, growling. The boy jumped to his feet, and the cat hit him in the chest with both paws. He went over the side, into the water, sinking out of sight. When his head popped up again, Pandora was looking over the side, and she took a couple of playful swats at him, claws retracted.

  "Look, darling. Pandora wants to bob for humans. " Rhiannon got into the driver's seat. She'd been watching the young man carefully and thought she had a handle on how to accelerate, decelerate, stop and steer the thing. She hoped she didn't have to attempt to make it reverse at any point. She waved to him. "Go now, swim. I'll try to bring your boat back to you in one piece. "

  The boy shot a pleading glance at Roland, but Roland only shrugged as Rhiannon coaxed the boat into motion. It was only twenty more yards before the first shots were fired. The shoreline rose steadily, growing into towering cliffs, and the bullets fired from on high plipped into the water around the boat. Rhiannon steered the boat in closer when she saw Eric's former home towering above, with its iron fence marching out to the very edge of the cliffs.

  She slowed as the boat drew near. The soldiers above raced toward the edge, because that was the only place from which they would be able to hit them, and even then, they had to aim straight down. It was obvious they were finally aware of what had happened in the house.

  "There!" Roland pointed. Rhiannon saw the dark opening in the cliff face and steered toward it, slowing the boat. She spotted Jameson and Angelica in the opening; Amber was with them. Where was the stubborn mortal, Willem Stone?

  As the boat slowed, the three jumped from the mouth of the cave, which was some ten feet above the level of the water. They splashed into the water and swam closer, and Roland pulled them aboard one by one, beginning with Amber.

  "Where is Will?" he asked.

  "There was a rowboat about fifty yards up. " Jameson hauled himself over the side and sat on the floor between the front and back seats. "When we got to the mouth, we could still see Stiles-or at least we thought it was him-in a motorboat. Looked like he was heading for that island. "

  Jameson pointed, and Rhiannon looked ahead. It wasn't so much an island as a jutting pillar of rock.

  "Will couldn't see it-there's too much mist for mortal eyes to penetrate. But he did see the rowboat, so he dove in and swam for it. Then he took it and headed straight out there, following Stiles's motor-boat.

  "We need to go after him. "

  Amber looked at the sky, then at her parents. "It's going to be dawn soon. You don't want to be trapped out there on that treeless hunk of granite when it comes. "

  "We have at least another hour," Jameson said. "We can make it. "

  "Then let's make it quick," Rhiannon said. She raced the boat as fast as she dared, across the waves, toward the nearly perpendicular rock formation in the distance.

  Sarafina struggled to remain conscious as the madman-the unnaturally strong madman-carried her higher and higher, scaling the side of a megalith with her thrown over his shoulder. He'd grown weary of her blood soaking into his clothing as he'd run through the tunnel with her, had cursed her for it, though she'd reminded him that he was the one who'd shot her.

  When he pitched her from the cave mouth into the sea, the salt water's sting was nea
rly unbearable. Was unbearable-yet she bore it. For she was a vampire and hadn't yet lost every last drop of blood in her.

  The water swallowed her down, then belched her up again, and when her head broke the surface, she saw him at the bottom of a rope ladder that hung from the cave. He stepped off the bottom rung, slogging toward the shore, where a small boat was lying on the narrow beach, tied to a scrubby tree. He pushed the craft into the water, leaving it tied, then waded in until he could reach Sarafina.

  She was in too much pain to move away. Pain, in her kind, was magnified a thousand times, and she wondered how long it would be before death relieved her of it. She'd been wrong in her fears of loving Willem, hadn't she? It wasn't he who would die and leave her to grieve and mourn. He was the one who would be left behind to do the grieving.

  Stiles grabbed her hair where it floated like seaweed on the surface and towed her to shore. All the way up onto the tiny scrap of beach, he dragged her. Then he knelt beside her, hooked his fingers into the jagged bullet hole in her dress and ripped it open. He tore it up to the neckline, ripping that apart, too.

  She lay there in the darkness, wondering if he thought this was supposed to make matters worse for her somehow. She had no qualms about nudity. No shyness. Good God, who did he think she was?

  But no, that wasn't his objective. He scooped wet, mudlike sand, soaked by saltwater, into his hands and mercilessly packed it into the bullet wound in her belly. He ground it into the hole, and she shrieked in unbridled agony, tears springing into her eyes against her will.

  And he laughed. Frank Stiles laughed at her pain.

  Then he rolled her over and ground more salty sand into the exit wound at her back.

  Red, then white-hot, fire filled her vision. She was quivering in anguish.

  He picked her up, dropped her into the boat, then untied it, got in himself and drove it to the island. When he arrived, he threw her over one shoulder and a coiled length of rope over the other. The flow of her blood would no longer trouble him as he began hauling her up to the very precipice of the tall phallic boulder that rose from the sea to impale the sky.

  And finally, at the very top, he leaned forward and let her fall onto the angled stone surface.

  The impact knocked the breath from her, and her head hit so hard she felt the skin split and blood begin to seep into her hair.

  Stiles knelt, bound her wrists together, then got up and stretched the rope beyond her head, pulling her arms with it. She tipped her head backward, trying to see what he was up to. He was tying the rope around a finger of rock. Then he took out a pocketknife, sawed off the excess rope and bound her ankles to another stone protrusion below her. Ruthlessly he pulled the ankle rope tight, stretching her body, using the boulder as a pulley. As her ribs and stomach muscles pulled taut, the pain screamed.

  "There's a monster coming for you soon, Sarafina. "

  Her mind spun, and she no longer knew if she was alive or dead, or if she'd journeyed backward in time, taken to a dark cave at the hand of her sister, left bound as an offering to a creature she had feared.

  "I call it the sun. It's going to rise, and then you're going to lie here helpless as it roasts your skin. It will be a slow burn, until it gets high enough. It will come up this side of the stone, beyond your head, so it won't hit you all at once. You're going to suffer slowly, burn slowly, before you finally burst into fullblown flames. "

  "Over my dead body, Stiles!"

  Fina lifted her head weakly. Willem stood behind Stiles on the top of the pillar, his shirt and his hair dripping wet. He was hot and breathless, and his foot was killing him. How the hell had he ever managed to climb this precipice with that bad foot? she wondered. But then she knew.

  Sheer will. Will of Stone.

  The two sprang at each other at the same moment, reminding Sarafina of a pair of mountain rams, vying for the ewe.

  They clashed, struck, rolled on the ground.

  "Will, be careful! He's stronger than a normal man-he's done something!" she cried, though it took every ounce of strength she had to make the words loud enough for him to hear.

  Even as she said it, Will took a blow to the chin that launched him through the air, until he landed on his back near the very edge of the boulder.

  "Let's end this," Stiles said. His pocketknife in his hand, he advanced on Will.

  Will seemed to have been stunned by the impact. He was just lying there on his back, blinking his eyes as if to clear his vision.

  "Willem!" Sarafina screamed. She tugged at the ropes binding her, but the pain and blood loss left her too weak to snap them.

  Stiles towered over Will, raising the knife.

  Will's legs suddenly hooked around Stiles's ankles, while Will reached up to grasp his wrist, jerking him forward. Stiles was falling, even as Willem rolled to the side and gave him an extra push-just enough to send him plummeting over the edge. His horrified wail stopped suddenly at the bottom. Will leaned over, looking down. "Sheesh, he didn't even clear the rocks at the bottom. Too bad. "

  Wincing, he got himself to his feet and came to Sarafina. He knelt beside her, where she lay. "It'll be daylight soon," he said softly. "Will the bullet wound heal?"

  She nodded.

  He leaned over her, kissed her mouth. "But it might not have. I might not have gotten here in time. I could have lost you. You understand that, right?"

  "Will, please. . . just untie me. "

  "I'm about to. " He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "If you weren't shot full of holes and the sun wasn't about to rise, I wouldn't for several hours yet. Seems to me I owe you. "

  She smiled, but weakly. It hurt too much to smile.

  He moved toward her ankles, unbound them, rubbed the places where the ropes had been. "I could've lost you. I could still lose you. At any time, without warning. You're not immortal. You don't age, and you won't die of natural causes, but that's not immortality. You can die, same as I can. "

  He ran his hands up her legs, over her hips, then paused, staring at the sand-packed hole in her belly. "Should I clean this out for you?"

  "No. It kept me from bleeding to death. "

  He nodded; then he reached up to her wrists to untie them. As he worked the knot loose, he said, "I love you, Sarafina. You know that, right? It was never a lie. Never a game. Never an act. I love you. "

  She closed her eyes. "Willem. . . "

  "A year of love beats a lifetime alone. Freddy Mercury said something like that, and I'm sure he wouldn't lie. "

  "Freddy. . . who?"

  "I'm willing to risk the pain of losing you, of growing old and watching you stay young and vital. I'm willing to risk anything at all, Sarafina, just for the joy of being with you, loving you, for whatever time the universe chooses to let me. Are you willing to take that same risk for me?''

  The rope came free. She lowered her hands, and he took them, lifting her wrists to his lips to kiss the rope burns.

  "I don't think I have any choice in the matter, Willem. I've tried. I've told myself there's no future for us. That loving you is a guarantee of heartbreak. But it didn't stop me from loving you anyway. "

  "Thank God," he whispered. He lifted her body from the rock, hugging her gently to his chest.

  "I have so many regrets, Willem. Things I can't change. You made me see how wrong I've been. "

  "About what?"

  "For years I've hated my precious Dante for choosing Morgan over me. But now. . . now I finally understand. I'd have done the same, for you. "

  He nodded. "Then it's not too late to make amends. "

  "But there's so much else. Things I can't so easily undo. Misty and Edward, for example. "

  He stroked her hair. "You told me yourself they were criminals. "

  "But I took away their will. I never realized what a valuable thing that was until I saw yours in action, Willem. "

  "Isn't there. . . any way to reverse it?"

>   She blinked. "There might be. In that laboratory in the house, there were notebooks upon notebooks. Did you see them? And the computer, and all those shiny discs. . . "

  "CD-ROMs. "

  "Stiles must have salvaged a lot of DPI research. And no doubt he's added more. Maybe, somewhere in there, they've learned of a way to free a vampire-enslaved mind. "

  "Maybe. "

  She nodded, snuggled closed to him. "I'm sorry for what I did to you, Will. I'm sorry. I have no excuse. "

  "You have the perfect excuse. You loved me. You were afraid to give me the chance to hurt you like everyone else you've ever loved has hurt you. Fortunately I don't have any intention of doing that. "

  A motor sounded in the distance.

  Will stiffened, went alert and quickly lowered her to the ground. He unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it off, handing it to her. "Put this on. "

  He was apparently more concerned about her nudity than she was. She tried to sit up, failed. "Will, I can't-I can't move enough to-"

  Turning, his face full of love, he eased her torn dress off her shoulders, slipped his midnight-blue, still-damp shirt on her and buttoned it up the front.

  "It's Rhiannon and the others," she said.

  Will glanced at the sky. ' 'Not a moment too soon. " Rising to his feet, he scooped her gently, carefully, up into his arms and began the long trek down the hill.

  "Your foot is killing you," she said, feeling his pain.

  "So's your bullet hole, but we still need to get down there to the boat. "

  He bent to kiss her forehead and continued limping down the path to the bottom.

  When they finally got to sea level, the others came running toward them, Rhiannon leading the way. Her eyes shifted to the wound before meeting Sarafina's gaze again.

  "You're going to survive?"

  "Yes, I think so. "

  "Good. " Rhiannon gave a nod.

  Sarafina lifted her brows as Will carried her toward the waiting boat, the "princess" walking close beside her. "Good?"

  Rhiannon shot her a look. "You're the first vampiress I've encountered who had the gall to challenge me, much less the power to present a real challenge. " She shrugged. "Not a threat, of course, but a challenge. "

  "I was somewhat handicapped when we locked horns, Rhiannon. "

  "You were injured?"

  "Heartsick. "

  '' Ahh. So then the next time you might even land a few real blows. One never can tell. " She didn't quite smile, but her eyes did. And she steadied Will by holding his shoulder as he stepped into the boat.

  Jameson got into the driver's seat. Angelica squeezed into the center between him and Roland. Will sat in the back with Sarafina across his lap and Rhiannon in the seat beside him. Her cat curled in the small space behind their seats.

  Amber stood on the rock.

  "Amber? The sun will be up soon, we have to go. "

  She glanced at the sky, then looked around. "But. . . where is he? Where is Stiles?"

  Fina lifted her head very weakly. "Willem pitched him from the very top. He hit the rocks below, child. You don't have to worry about him anymore. "

  "Where?" she asked. "I want the bastard dead. I want to see for myself that he's dead. "

  "Amber-"

  Jameson put a calming hand on his wife's shoulder, and she fell silent. He glanced at Will, nodded once.

  '"Put me down, Will," Sarafina whispered. "Take her. She needs to see. "

  Will swallowed hard but he did as she asked, easing Sarafina onto the floor of the boat, where she could lie as flat as possible. He climbed out, and walked with Amber.

  The two of them stood on the rocks, right where Stiles had fallen. There was blood. Even bits of flesh and hair on the rocks. But no sign of Stiles.

  "His boat was still there," Amber said. "Just a few yards from ours, tied to a rock. " Then she blinked. "But the rowboat you took wasn't. Did you tie it to the other side, Will?"

  He met her eyes, thought about lying to the girl, then decided against it. "No. I left it just over there. " He pointed. But of course there was no boat in sight.

  "He knows more about me than I do. "

  "You have his notes," Will told her. "You can find out everything he learned by. . . "

  "By killing me over and over again. " She lowered her eyes. "And now maybe he can't be killed, either. Maybe he's even more of a danger to us now. "

  "Or maybe the waves just washed him out to sea," he said softly. "And maybe I forgot to tie my boat in my hurry to get to Sarafina. "

  Amber sighed, lowering her head. Her voice breaking, she said, "I don't know what I am, Will. "

  He slid an arm around her shoulders and turning, began walking her back to the boat and the others. "You think you've got problems? I'm in love with a vampire. "

  That made her laugh, just a little. He was glad to hear it. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Sorry about almost getting you killed. "

  "I've been almost getting killed my entire adult life, kid. Think nothing of it. "

  The boat came into sight, and he helped her in, let her have the seat, then wedged himself onto the floor with Sarafina.

  Fina searched his eyes, a question in hers. He gave his head a slight shake, left, then right.

  Then Rhiannon caught his eyes, her own guiding them to follow her gaze to a small speck far out in the water.

  He narrowed his. It looked like. . . a man, in a rowboat.

  Rhiannon looked at him again. Her brows furrowed. Will thought he knew what she was thinking.

  Sarafina looked from one of them to the other. "You didn't find him?" she asked. "You didn't find Stiles?"

  Will said softly, "No. "

  "But. . . that means he could have survived the fall. That means. . . "

  "It means we didn't find the body," Will said. "And that's all it means, Fina. "

  But he could see by the look in her eyes that she thought it might mean more, and he couldn't quite keep himself from wondering if it did.