Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(85)

Without bending his bad leg, Michael bent over and cupped the back of her head gently. “Now will you go to the car and wait for me?”

“Yes, all right.” She took a deep breath, clasped the hand he offered and climbed to her feet.

Michael looked at Nicholas’s insubstantial, shimmering form. Thank you for coming to help her. Will you do one more thing?

If I can, said the ghost. What do you need?

Just check on Astra. Make sure she’s all right.

I’ll do that.

Then Nicholas seemed to turn to her. She felt extra warmth on her right cheek, as if he had touched her face, and he faded from the clearing.

Her eyes welled again as she put a hand to her cheek. Then, glancing once last time at Justin’s body in silent farewell, she turned to walk to the car without looking back.

While she waited for Michael, she leaned against the car by the passenger door and tilted her face up. She may not have a summer of peace in this place, but she could still let the warm, bright sun wash her clean and new.

As a doctor she’d learned to accept that sometimes, despite all her best efforts, death and tragedy happen.

But so does love, life and passion. She lost herself in memories of last night, Michael moving over her, and in her, and the words he had whispered to her.

My miracle. My home.

The next thing she knew, Michael stood in front of her. He had retrieved the gun and held it, along with the knife, in one hand. He leaned forward and kissed her, and she lost herself in the touch of his lips.

He took her free hand. “Listen to me. We’re both hurt, and Astra’s strength is depleted. Thanks to you, the Deceiver has to recover too, but we don’t know how much reinforcement he has, so we can’t stop in one place again. I can drive for a while, but you need to concentrate on healing yourself. Nothing else matters. Heal yourself so you can take over driving, because soon I’m going to need your help. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He kissed her hand. She curled her fingers along the lean edge of his cheek, hating how he looked so haggard, so worn. His physical wounds would be exhausting enough. Coupled with those worrisome fractures in his energy, he seemed drained of all vitality. He opened the passenger door for her, and after she had slid in, he walked around the car and eased into the driver’s seat.

They shared a quick, tense glance. She whispered, “Come on, start.”

He turned the key.

The engine purred into life with smooth perfection. It was such a mercy she could have wept. “Now we need to make tracks,” he said. “We’ve miles to go before we sleep.”

She eased the seat belt around her aching body. “‘Miles to go before I sleep.’ That was a Robert Frost poem, right? It was some poet anyway.”

“Whoever it was,” he growled. “I’ve got a bone to pick with him.”

“At least we’re alive and together,” she pointed out.

He shifted the car in gear and pulled onto the gravel drive. “And at least we get another day or two. Maybe more.”

“A veritable wealth of minutes.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “A staggering fortune in seconds.”

Struck by a thought, she said, “Hey. You never did steal any flowers for me, you know.”

“I’m with a woman who is developing a memory like a steel trap.” His lips pulled into a real smile. “I’ll have to get right on that.”

They drove off, into the morning’s falling light.

Epilogue

HE DROVE AWAY from the cabin in a white heat.

Out of his whole elite strike force, he was the only one that had escaped.

As the armored black limousine roared down the highway he made a rapid series of cell phone calls. His first call insured that Mary and Michael became fugitives from the Michigan state police. Then he called for reinforcements to meet him at a designated place. He was still raging when he hung up several minutes later.

Dead or alive, he’d told his people. Dead or alive. He would rather wait for the conflict to come to a head in another lifetime than risk them reuniting with Astra in this one.

Damn them, damn them, GODDAMN HER.

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, he had nursed such pretty hopes. With a little effort and experimentation, he believed he could alchemically change Mary’s spirit. He wanted to weaken it in all the right places so he could take over her will. He had intended to turn her into a drone, so she would be as obedient as his human servants and yet still retain her healing abilities. He had wanted her as his insurance policy against accidental death or intentional harm.

Living a high-roller life meant he enjoyed some juicy perks, but there were a lot of risks too. It made sense to maintain a personal physician. What better physician than one of their own? Besides, he had also imagined such lovely hypothetical scenarios of getting at Michael through her. He might even be able to control Michael in a way that no one else ever had managed before.

So today, what did he do? He’d let that old acquisitive lust take over his judgment. He had panted after Mary like a stallion after a mare in heat, when a part of him knew he should have ripped apart the bird he’d had at hand.

In that one dazzling moment, when he had Michael’s spirit straining toward a fractured dissolution, the victory had felt too quick, too easy over the cunning bastard who had so plagued him throughout the ages.