Falling Light
Page 33
She growled. Aside from the dignity factor, it was hard to hear what was happening. What she could hear was violent and disjointed.
Footsteps pounded past. Someone gave a breathless shout. Gunfire spurted. Her body flinched each time she heard the gunfire. She waited for bullets to tear into her flesh. Shivering caused her skin to ripple in trembling spasms. Locked helpless inside darkness, she began to understand how someone could die of fright.
Then she overloaded again, and her mind detached from the battle. Intimate sensory input began to preoccupy her. The ground was cold and wet with dew. Dampness seeped into her clothing. The detritus of forest underneath her, comprised of dead leaves, new plant growth and earth, smelled rich and loamy. She caught a hint of acrid smoke.
She hoped the cabin wouldn’t set the rest of the island on fire. She hoped she wasn’t lying in poison ivy. She had to go to the bathroom, only Michael had blown up the toilet.
I have nylon panties, socks and shoes, she thought. I have a Kevlar vest and a damn inconvenient mask.
I have two nets. No. I guess two nets have me.
I have a headache. I have a bad feeling.
Her mind settled into cool focus. Michael fought because he wouldn’t leave her. He didn’t snatch her up and carry her away because he couldn’t. There were too many men that had converged on their location. He hadn’t killed her yet because he still had hope he could get them out of this alive. Their opponents hadn’t touched her because she was the least of their worries, with Michael loose and running at full throttle.
She realized something else as well. It was actually possible to be terrified and bored at the same time. She sighed. It was time for her to see what she could do to help.
Slipping out of her body really was a clever trick. She sat up and glanced down at her body with a grimace. From the hips down she was still connected to her physical self. She could still feel the binding of the nets cutting off the circulation in her legs, and the cold dampness of the ground. Apparently she was only partly astral.
She looked around, surprised to find the psychic realm clean of dark spirits. It carried hints of Lake, and forest, and healthy land, all of what she would have expected to find. Perhaps Astra’s influence still lingered. Whatever the reason, Mary was grateful Michael didn’t have to battle spirits.
She sought out Michael’s presence. He hadn’t gone far. He was in the process of stalking two men.
Three more were stalking him.
She pulled the rest of the way out of her body and rushed at the three men. Concentrating mightily, she managed to scoop up handfuls of leaves to throw in their faces. Two of them flinched in surprise. The third tapped at his headset as if it had suddenly stopped working.
She paused, cocked her head and watched the man. Did her presence cause static?
Suddenly Michael was there. In a flurry of action too fast for her to follow, he killed all three men. His body bore a light sheen of sweat. He had removed his mask. She could see the calm executioner in his face and noted with relief he had yet to take any wounds.
What are you doing? he asked.
Unable to resist the hot illumination of his presence, she flitted toward him, a moth to the flame. I got tired of waiting for you. I thought you could use some help.
He laughed softly. I’ll try to be a little faster, shall I?
I wouldn’t mind. He crouched and sprang somewhere. Disoriented, she looked around. She found him standing high in the limbs of an old oak tree. As he surveyed the shadowed area for oncoming attackers, she floated up to join him. Michael, I think my astral presence disrupts radio signals. Do you want me to try to mess up their communications?
His head snapped up. His eyes flared with what looked like panic. NO!
The force of his reaction blew her like a feather out from him. She didn’t gain control of her position until she had drifted down several branches, and she concentrated on floating back up beside him. Why not?
He listened intently at his stolen headset, tapped the earpiece, then he whispered out loud, “Mary, the Deceiver is controlling their communications. If you can disrupt the radio signals of the men in our immediate area, fine, go ahead and do it. For pity’s sake, stay close to your body, and remember he might overhear telepathy.”
I understand. She floated back down to the ground.
Searching the immediate area, she found armed black-clad men and rushed at them. She caused their headsets to erupt with an unexpected crackle of static, or startled them with an explosion of leaves, or made them flinch at strategic times when she trailed ghostly fingers along their bare skin. Once she managed to rock the aim of one rifleman who had Michael in his sights. That took a gargantuan effort.
After several minutes of frenetic activity, she shook with strain. She knew she couldn’t continue for much longer, yet she was unwilling to give in to exhaustion. Their attackers tightened in a circle around her and Michael like a hangman’s noose.
Their fight felt hopeless. There were so many attackers. Michael had killed, what, fifteen already? There had to be over a hundred or more.
But she had thought their battle at the cabin was hopeless. She had been convinced at Petoskey that she wouldn’t live to set foot on a boat. She had no real sense of Michael’s limits. When he had run up the side of the building at Petoskey’s marina? Boy howdy, she hadn’t seen that coming.
She turned her attention back to her body. She could affect the physical realm if she concentrated hard enough. Frantic to get rid of the hood, she threw everything she had into pulling at it. With an immense effort, she managed to yank it off her face.
Then she attacked the tight nylon bonds, plucking fiercely at the stubborn strands. If she could loosen the loops around her arms, she would have some freedom of movement once she slipped back into her body.
How long could she afford to stay out of her body? Would it kill her if she remained astral for too long, or would she simply snap back into her body?
Then something reverberated through the psychic realm that struck past faith and hope, and filled her with unreasoning terror.
The black diamond man stepped onto the island.
She lost control of her astral projection and slammed back into her body. Deprived of physical movement, drained of psychic strength and helpless, she whimpered, a panicked animal sound.
I have just one question for you, Mary, Mary, said the Deceiver. How can one small person make so much noise?
Sweat trickled down her ribs. Michael was caught in battle. God only knew where Astra was. She couldn’t do anything. She had no more magic tricks to pull out of her hat. She could only wait and watch while hell approached.
Something struck her back. She jerked and cried out. It took her a moment to realize that the blow had not hurt her. Something had fallen and bounced off her back.
It’s a present, Michael said. Work fast.
Michael had thrown something at her. Work fast at what? Rolling over, she landed on something cold and hard. Arching her body and twisting, she groped for the cold, hard thing and closed her fingers around a handle. It was some kind of tool.
She rolled back onto her side, careful not to wriggle and cause the nets to tighten again. She had managed to loosen the nets. It wasn’t much, just enough so that she could touch her hands together. Forcing her breathing to remain deep and steady, she ran shaking fingers along the tool as she tried to figure out what it was.
It felt like a thick pocketknife, a fancy, complicated one. Maybe it was a Swiss Army knife. She dug her fingernails into one of the grooves and pulled on it. A blade emerged halfway before her hold slipped, and she sliced open a finger. Damn.
Mary? Michael said.
“I’m working on it,” she gritted.
The black diamond man strolled up the path to the clearing where the ruins of Astra’s cabin still blazed. Half a dozen bodyguards ringed him. He spoke into his headset. More guards joined his group. He was taking no chances with this meeting.
She resumed a frantic exploration of the knife, digging for grooves and pulling parts of it out. Where was that damn blade?
What was that one? Shit, it was a corkscrew. What she wouldn’t give for a stiff drink right now. In safety. She shoved it back in and pulled something else out.
What was that? Her questing fingertips found a sharp hook at the base of the section. She reversed the handle in her hands, located a strand of the net and sawed at it. She sliced through the strand.
Eureka. She grabbed another strand and attacked it.
As she worked, an upsurge of activity yanked her attention back to Michael. He fought a couple men, trying to work his way back to her. He seemed to be moving more slowly. Several more fighters raced to join the battle.
Why was Michael moving so slowly?
A couple of the newcomers shot him. The percussion of their weapons sounded strange. Michael didn’t seem to react with much pain. He shot one man point-blank in the face, kicked at another and lurched closer to her. More men poured into the space between them.
What is it? she shouted.
Drugged darts, he said. Even his telepathic voice sounded slurred.
She froze, breathing hard. Should normal human medication affect him like that? Michael had a finely developed sense of separateness between spirit and flesh. Tranquilizers might bring his body down, but psychically he should be as alert as ever. Something was terribly wrong.
At last she got her arms free. She turned onto her side and curled into a ball to attack the bindings on her legs. Inside she was screaming.
Slowed, drugged, Michael continued to fight. He remained lethal and on his feet long after a normal human would have collapsed. In a lunge, he came within a few yards of her. Two men tackled him and brought him down. Even as he twisted to stab one in the neck, more darts struck his neck and hands.
I’m sorry, he slurred.
You have nothing to be sorry for, she told him. Nothing.
He didn’t reply. His prone body went still.
Two more men darted forward to bind Michael’s arms and legs. The black diamond man waited in the clearing with his guards until they were finished. Then he strolled toward her, his elegant figure silhouetted by the blazing cabin behind him.
She froze. Could he see that she had cut partway through the tangle of net? She was lying on one of her arms. She shifted the knife to that hand and, using just her wrist, she surreptitiously worked at sawing through the strand of net that bound her calves.
“Hello, cookie,” said the man.
His voice was young and male. She had never heard it before but it still held a terrible familiarity. It was the voice from all her night terrors.
Still talking, he drew closer. “Michael’s body count is already at twenty-three. The amount of money and manpower that bastard has cost me is unbelievable. Well, it could be worse. Thank God for modern pharmaceuticals, huh? The drug in those darts is one of my own concoctions. I created it specifically for just such an occasion, and I’m glad to see it worked.”
“Did you kill him?” Her mouth shook. She didn’t recognize her own voice and she couldn’t sense Michael’s energy. She had almost cut through the strand.
“Not yet. The amount of sedative he took would have knocked out a giraffe. I would have preferred talking to both of you at the same time, but it is impossible to reason with Michael. There’s nothing you can do except shoot him like a rabid dog. Sometimes that can be kind of sexy, but it’s so damn infuriating. Personally, I always thought you could do better. Just because he’s your soul twin doesn’t mean he has to be your lover.” His footsteps stopped by her head. “Know what I mean?”
She froze, her breathing coming in quick, shallow pants. She clutched the knife in a death grip. During my summer on the beach, she thought, my summer off . . .
The black diamond man bent over her. The unspeakable nightmare whispered in her ear, “All right, cookie. Where is the bitch?”
She said in that stranger’s raw voice, “She left us. She was gone when we woke up.”
“I think she’s still close,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I swear I don’t know anything,” she gasped. “I swear it.”
Something exploded in the bay.
The black diamond man leaped to his feet. Five others in quick succession followed the first explosion. Deep booming concussions shook the trees, all sounding from different points around the island. Light flared from beyond the tree line, an incandescent necklace of destruction.
“Jesus f**k,” someone said.
“Report!” the Deceiver bellowed. “Report now, goddamn it!”
And another man’s voice: “There were six. Six explosions. Somebody just blew all our boats.”
In the tiniest breath of a whisper in her mind, Astra said, Buy me some time. Just a few more moments, cookie.
At the same moment the Deceiver turned on her. He roared, “TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!”
Time.
A kind of insane fury took her over, built on centuries of struggle. It was clear and cold like freezer-chilled vodka, and it sliced away all of her terror. She barked out a laugh. “Right. I’m so motivated to do that.”
He kicked her. “Tell me, you sack of shit!”
“Fuck you,” she gasped. “Oh wait. You’re already f**ked.” Still laughing, she curled tighter to protect herself from the blows.
Just a few more moments, cookie.
He continued to kick at her. A crescendo of pain swept away her laughter, until she began to disconnect from her physical body. She fought to stay present and connected.
No, she said to her body when his steel-toed boots slammed into her. Heal.
Dampening the pain, she managed to snag another groove on the knife with her fingernails, and she pulled out a thin, sharp blade.
Then she noticed an oddity in the tableau of forty or so watching men. A small, skinny shadow puppet, held together with pins and wishes, stumped up to an army of alert, trained guards who didn’t appear to notice anything. Astra.
Footsteps pounded past. Someone gave a breathless shout. Gunfire spurted. Her body flinched each time she heard the gunfire. She waited for bullets to tear into her flesh. Shivering caused her skin to ripple in trembling spasms. Locked helpless inside darkness, she began to understand how someone could die of fright.
Then she overloaded again, and her mind detached from the battle. Intimate sensory input began to preoccupy her. The ground was cold and wet with dew. Dampness seeped into her clothing. The detritus of forest underneath her, comprised of dead leaves, new plant growth and earth, smelled rich and loamy. She caught a hint of acrid smoke.
She hoped the cabin wouldn’t set the rest of the island on fire. She hoped she wasn’t lying in poison ivy. She had to go to the bathroom, only Michael had blown up the toilet.
I have nylon panties, socks and shoes, she thought. I have a Kevlar vest and a damn inconvenient mask.
I have two nets. No. I guess two nets have me.
I have a headache. I have a bad feeling.
Her mind settled into cool focus. Michael fought because he wouldn’t leave her. He didn’t snatch her up and carry her away because he couldn’t. There were too many men that had converged on their location. He hadn’t killed her yet because he still had hope he could get them out of this alive. Their opponents hadn’t touched her because she was the least of their worries, with Michael loose and running at full throttle.
She realized something else as well. It was actually possible to be terrified and bored at the same time. She sighed. It was time for her to see what she could do to help.
Slipping out of her body really was a clever trick. She sat up and glanced down at her body with a grimace. From the hips down she was still connected to her physical self. She could still feel the binding of the nets cutting off the circulation in her legs, and the cold dampness of the ground. Apparently she was only partly astral.
She looked around, surprised to find the psychic realm clean of dark spirits. It carried hints of Lake, and forest, and healthy land, all of what she would have expected to find. Perhaps Astra’s influence still lingered. Whatever the reason, Mary was grateful Michael didn’t have to battle spirits.
She sought out Michael’s presence. He hadn’t gone far. He was in the process of stalking two men.
Three more were stalking him.
She pulled the rest of the way out of her body and rushed at the three men. Concentrating mightily, she managed to scoop up handfuls of leaves to throw in their faces. Two of them flinched in surprise. The third tapped at his headset as if it had suddenly stopped working.
She paused, cocked her head and watched the man. Did her presence cause static?
Suddenly Michael was there. In a flurry of action too fast for her to follow, he killed all three men. His body bore a light sheen of sweat. He had removed his mask. She could see the calm executioner in his face and noted with relief he had yet to take any wounds.
What are you doing? he asked.
Unable to resist the hot illumination of his presence, she flitted toward him, a moth to the flame. I got tired of waiting for you. I thought you could use some help.
He laughed softly. I’ll try to be a little faster, shall I?
I wouldn’t mind. He crouched and sprang somewhere. Disoriented, she looked around. She found him standing high in the limbs of an old oak tree. As he surveyed the shadowed area for oncoming attackers, she floated up to join him. Michael, I think my astral presence disrupts radio signals. Do you want me to try to mess up their communications?
His head snapped up. His eyes flared with what looked like panic. NO!
The force of his reaction blew her like a feather out from him. She didn’t gain control of her position until she had drifted down several branches, and she concentrated on floating back up beside him. Why not?
He listened intently at his stolen headset, tapped the earpiece, then he whispered out loud, “Mary, the Deceiver is controlling their communications. If you can disrupt the radio signals of the men in our immediate area, fine, go ahead and do it. For pity’s sake, stay close to your body, and remember he might overhear telepathy.”
I understand. She floated back down to the ground.
Searching the immediate area, she found armed black-clad men and rushed at them. She caused their headsets to erupt with an unexpected crackle of static, or startled them with an explosion of leaves, or made them flinch at strategic times when she trailed ghostly fingers along their bare skin. Once she managed to rock the aim of one rifleman who had Michael in his sights. That took a gargantuan effort.
After several minutes of frenetic activity, she shook with strain. She knew she couldn’t continue for much longer, yet she was unwilling to give in to exhaustion. Their attackers tightened in a circle around her and Michael like a hangman’s noose.
Their fight felt hopeless. There were so many attackers. Michael had killed, what, fifteen already? There had to be over a hundred or more.
But she had thought their battle at the cabin was hopeless. She had been convinced at Petoskey that she wouldn’t live to set foot on a boat. She had no real sense of Michael’s limits. When he had run up the side of the building at Petoskey’s marina? Boy howdy, she hadn’t seen that coming.
She turned her attention back to her body. She could affect the physical realm if she concentrated hard enough. Frantic to get rid of the hood, she threw everything she had into pulling at it. With an immense effort, she managed to yank it off her face.
Then she attacked the tight nylon bonds, plucking fiercely at the stubborn strands. If she could loosen the loops around her arms, she would have some freedom of movement once she slipped back into her body.
How long could she afford to stay out of her body? Would it kill her if she remained astral for too long, or would she simply snap back into her body?
Then something reverberated through the psychic realm that struck past faith and hope, and filled her with unreasoning terror.
The black diamond man stepped onto the island.
She lost control of her astral projection and slammed back into her body. Deprived of physical movement, drained of psychic strength and helpless, she whimpered, a panicked animal sound.
I have just one question for you, Mary, Mary, said the Deceiver. How can one small person make so much noise?
Sweat trickled down her ribs. Michael was caught in battle. God only knew where Astra was. She couldn’t do anything. She had no more magic tricks to pull out of her hat. She could only wait and watch while hell approached.
Something struck her back. She jerked and cried out. It took her a moment to realize that the blow had not hurt her. Something had fallen and bounced off her back.
It’s a present, Michael said. Work fast.
Michael had thrown something at her. Work fast at what? Rolling over, she landed on something cold and hard. Arching her body and twisting, she groped for the cold, hard thing and closed her fingers around a handle. It was some kind of tool.
She rolled back onto her side, careful not to wriggle and cause the nets to tighten again. She had managed to loosen the nets. It wasn’t much, just enough so that she could touch her hands together. Forcing her breathing to remain deep and steady, she ran shaking fingers along the tool as she tried to figure out what it was.
It felt like a thick pocketknife, a fancy, complicated one. Maybe it was a Swiss Army knife. She dug her fingernails into one of the grooves and pulled on it. A blade emerged halfway before her hold slipped, and she sliced open a finger. Damn.
Mary? Michael said.
“I’m working on it,” she gritted.
The black diamond man strolled up the path to the clearing where the ruins of Astra’s cabin still blazed. Half a dozen bodyguards ringed him. He spoke into his headset. More guards joined his group. He was taking no chances with this meeting.
She resumed a frantic exploration of the knife, digging for grooves and pulling parts of it out. Where was that damn blade?
What was that one? Shit, it was a corkscrew. What she wouldn’t give for a stiff drink right now. In safety. She shoved it back in and pulled something else out.
What was that? Her questing fingertips found a sharp hook at the base of the section. She reversed the handle in her hands, located a strand of the net and sawed at it. She sliced through the strand.
Eureka. She grabbed another strand and attacked it.
As she worked, an upsurge of activity yanked her attention back to Michael. He fought a couple men, trying to work his way back to her. He seemed to be moving more slowly. Several more fighters raced to join the battle.
Why was Michael moving so slowly?
A couple of the newcomers shot him. The percussion of their weapons sounded strange. Michael didn’t seem to react with much pain. He shot one man point-blank in the face, kicked at another and lurched closer to her. More men poured into the space between them.
What is it? she shouted.
Drugged darts, he said. Even his telepathic voice sounded slurred.
She froze, breathing hard. Should normal human medication affect him like that? Michael had a finely developed sense of separateness between spirit and flesh. Tranquilizers might bring his body down, but psychically he should be as alert as ever. Something was terribly wrong.
At last she got her arms free. She turned onto her side and curled into a ball to attack the bindings on her legs. Inside she was screaming.
Slowed, drugged, Michael continued to fight. He remained lethal and on his feet long after a normal human would have collapsed. In a lunge, he came within a few yards of her. Two men tackled him and brought him down. Even as he twisted to stab one in the neck, more darts struck his neck and hands.
I’m sorry, he slurred.
You have nothing to be sorry for, she told him. Nothing.
He didn’t reply. His prone body went still.
Two more men darted forward to bind Michael’s arms and legs. The black diamond man waited in the clearing with his guards until they were finished. Then he strolled toward her, his elegant figure silhouetted by the blazing cabin behind him.
She froze. Could he see that she had cut partway through the tangle of net? She was lying on one of her arms. She shifted the knife to that hand and, using just her wrist, she surreptitiously worked at sawing through the strand of net that bound her calves.
“Hello, cookie,” said the man.
His voice was young and male. She had never heard it before but it still held a terrible familiarity. It was the voice from all her night terrors.
Still talking, he drew closer. “Michael’s body count is already at twenty-three. The amount of money and manpower that bastard has cost me is unbelievable. Well, it could be worse. Thank God for modern pharmaceuticals, huh? The drug in those darts is one of my own concoctions. I created it specifically for just such an occasion, and I’m glad to see it worked.”
“Did you kill him?” Her mouth shook. She didn’t recognize her own voice and she couldn’t sense Michael’s energy. She had almost cut through the strand.
“Not yet. The amount of sedative he took would have knocked out a giraffe. I would have preferred talking to both of you at the same time, but it is impossible to reason with Michael. There’s nothing you can do except shoot him like a rabid dog. Sometimes that can be kind of sexy, but it’s so damn infuriating. Personally, I always thought you could do better. Just because he’s your soul twin doesn’t mean he has to be your lover.” His footsteps stopped by her head. “Know what I mean?”
She froze, her breathing coming in quick, shallow pants. She clutched the knife in a death grip. During my summer on the beach, she thought, my summer off . . .
The black diamond man bent over her. The unspeakable nightmare whispered in her ear, “All right, cookie. Where is the bitch?”
She said in that stranger’s raw voice, “She left us. She was gone when we woke up.”
“I think she’s still close,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I swear I don’t know anything,” she gasped. “I swear it.”
Something exploded in the bay.
The black diamond man leaped to his feet. Five others in quick succession followed the first explosion. Deep booming concussions shook the trees, all sounding from different points around the island. Light flared from beyond the tree line, an incandescent necklace of destruction.
“Jesus f**k,” someone said.
“Report!” the Deceiver bellowed. “Report now, goddamn it!”
And another man’s voice: “There were six. Six explosions. Somebody just blew all our boats.”
In the tiniest breath of a whisper in her mind, Astra said, Buy me some time. Just a few more moments, cookie.
At the same moment the Deceiver turned on her. He roared, “TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!”
Time.
A kind of insane fury took her over, built on centuries of struggle. It was clear and cold like freezer-chilled vodka, and it sliced away all of her terror. She barked out a laugh. “Right. I’m so motivated to do that.”
He kicked her. “Tell me, you sack of shit!”
“Fuck you,” she gasped. “Oh wait. You’re already f**ked.” Still laughing, she curled tighter to protect herself from the blows.
Just a few more moments, cookie.
He continued to kick at her. A crescendo of pain swept away her laughter, until she began to disconnect from her physical body. She fought to stay present and connected.
No, she said to her body when his steel-toed boots slammed into her. Heal.
Dampening the pain, she managed to snag another groove on the knife with her fingernails, and she pulled out a thin, sharp blade.
Then she noticed an oddity in the tableau of forty or so watching men. A small, skinny shadow puppet, held together with pins and wishes, stumped up to an army of alert, trained guards who didn’t appear to notice anything. Astra.
