"Turn the pointy end of this aerial vehicle to northwest. Three-three-zero should be about right."
As they arrived at a nice, safe, mountain-clearing alt.i.tude, she engaged the autopilot and turned to Warlord.
He looked like h.e.l.l. A long cut on his chest oozed blood onto his crumpled two-hundred-dollar shirt, and his eyes were closed hard, the skin over them crusting over, as if he were trying to keep evil visions at bay. One fist rested over his heart, the other over his gut, and his legs were braced as if he were fighting a grim battle.
She was sorry, but she didnat have time for sympathy. "Whatas the plan here? Youare in bad shape, and to tell you the truth, Iam not feeling so good myself."
He stared at her through one dull green eye. "Itas the poison. Even a trace is toxic to someone like you."
"Iam not dead, just feeling ill."
"You also swallowed a few molecules of my blood, and that will fight the venom."
"Why? Whatas so special about your blood?" Other than the fact that it makes me see things youave seen, hear things youave heard, fall into your memories, your mind.
He grimaced and didnat answer.
"Itas because youare one of them." And that made her furious all over again. "Youare a . . . a Varinski."
His unwounded eye sprang open, and he glared fiercely. "No, Iam a Wilder. My name is Adrik Wilder. Remember that."
"Why should I?"
"Because if I die of this, I want one person to remember my name."
"Youare not going to die." Not after all this, he wasnat. She wouldnat allow it.
"No?" He groaned and moved his long legs as if the joints ached. "Go back in the cabin. Get in the right overhead. Get out my clothes."
She did as he commanded, and when she came back in he was naked, huddled on the seat, his formal wear crumpled on the floor beside him.
She sized him up with a single glance. His body looked longer, thinner than it had been in the Himalayas, and yet the muscles were sculpted. He had scars on his shoulders, pale and crisscrossed, and across his chest and down his arm, a vibrant tattoo, two thunderbolts of glorious red and gold.
Despite her fervent hopes while they were apart, his genitals were still intact.
"When did you have time to get a tattoo?" She touched the thunderbolt lightly.
"Itas not a tattoo. Itas the mark that came to each Wilder boy at p.u.b.erty, the one that proves heas part of the pact with the devil." He winked. "Itas a swell gift to get along with a cracking voice, body hair, and inconveniently timed erections."
"But you didnat have it before."
"I did, but as I grew more evil, the stain shriveled and became black."
"Like your eyes."
"Yes. Like my eyes. And as with my eyes, as Iave stepped back into the light, the color has returned." He shivered, and goose b.u.mps spread over his skin.
She started to shove his arms into the black T-shirt, but when he leaned forward she caught a glimpse of his back. The crisscrossed scars covered him from his b.u.t.tocks all the way up his spine and from shoulder to shoulder. Some were deep, cutting ridges through his skin. In outrage she asked, "What happened to you?"
"It doesnat matter." He took the T-shirt and pulled it on.
"Doesnat matter!" She pushed him into the black flannel shirt and wrapped him in the thigh-length camouflage coat. "How could that not matter? Someone beat you!"
"Doesnat matter," he repeated.
Kneeling at his feet, she fed his legs into long underwear and a pair of camouflage combat pants. "It was that Varinski, wasnat it? The guy who defeated you in battle."
"How do you know that?" he snapped.
So she was right. She had seen into his mind. Into his memories.
Every time she tasted his blood, their mindsa connection grew stronger. . . .
But he didnat realize it, and she didnat want to explain what she couldnat comprehend herself. "Doesnat matter," she imitated him.
"You are an aggravating woman." He pulled up the pants, dug in the pocket, and found a piece of paper. He shoved it at her. "In an hour, call that number. Youall get Jasha. Give him these coordinates and tell him Adrik needs him."
"Whoas Jasha?"
"My brother."
"Why donat you call him?"
"Thereas a pretty good chance he hates me."
"You have that effect on people."
He caught her by the back of the neck, held her as he leaned down, and kissed her hard. "But not on you."
"I do hate you," she said automatically.
At least, she had hated him for two years, and for good reason. But no matter how hard shead tried, she hadnat forgotten him.
Now, as she stared at his face, so close to hers, as fever flashed through him, as his pupils narrowed and he shuddered in agony, she knew what head risked to rescue her.
Maybe she still hated him. She didnat know. But death pumped through his veinsa"through her veins, alsoa"and she would not let it take them.
They had unfinished business.
Warlord sat back, his face twisted. "Whether he hates me or not, thereas a pretty good chance Jasha will come. If he believes you."
"I canat wait to make that phone call."
"I prefiled the flight plan with the FAA. Weare about to change it."
She remembered the guy on the runway. "Good idea."
"Descend as low as you can comfortably fly and turn north, across the Great Basin."
She disengaged the autopilot and did as he directed.
He continued, "Weare headed for the Sierra Nevadas just south of Yosemite."
"And then where?"
His mouth set in grim lines. "Thatas all."
"What do you mean?" She wasnat going to like the answer, she could tell.
"Weare flying this baby right into the side of Acantilado Mountain."
Chapter Twenty-five.
"No. Oh, no." Karen clutched Warlordas arm. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Weall jump in tandem so we donat get separated. " He handed her a sheet of paper.
She glanced at it. It was written instructions to get them to the site where they would meet Jasha . . . if he decided to come.
"Are you afraid?" he asked in apparent concern.
"No, Iam not afraid! Why would I be afraid?"
"Youare afraid of falling."
"Iam not afraid of jumping!" Did he think she was some kind of coward? "But look around you. This is a Cessna Citation X. Itas a beautiful bird. Crashing her would be a crime!" Karen frowned. "Actually, it probably really is a crime."
He considered her as he might consider a b.u.t.terfly. "Iave been a mercenary. Iave killed and robbed. Do you see me as someone who is worried about the criminality of crashing my own airplane?"
"I suppose not. But the Cessna . . ."
"Did you see him?"
At once she knew who he was talking about. The guy in her dream. The guy who had stood there and watched the airplane come at him without a sign of fear. She nodded, her gaze fixed on Warlord.
"That beast is Innokenti Varinski. Remember that deal with the devil? His ancestor made it. Their ancestor . . . theyare trackers. Theyare mercenaries. They find their prey wherever it runs. And theyare after you."
"But . . . !" She patted the perfectly functioning, beautifully sleek controls.
"I know." He caressed his leather seat. "Weare going to crash it in a remote location in the High Sierras. Itas winter. Rescuers will have a h.e.l.l of a time finding us."
"Theyall follow the homing signal from the emergency locator transponder."
He looked at her incredulously.
And she knew. "You removed the ELT."
"Disabled it," he said. "When they do finally locate the crash site, itas going to appear that our bodies have been incinerated in the fiery crash. The Varinskis will be suspicious, but this is the only chance we have of putting them off our scent, of buying ourselves time to escape."
Questions and protests whirled in her head. "If the Varinskis are mercenaries, whoas paying them to find me?"
"No one. Theyare hunting you for themselves. "
"Why? Why me?"
"Because youave got the icon."
"Why? Is it that expensive that they have to have it?"
"No. Itas powerful. If it is united with the other three Varinski family icons, the pact with the devil will be broken and they will be like other men." He pulled on the socks shead brought him.
"How do you know this?"
"After I held the icon, after it burned me, I was haunted by the realization that I was in league with the devil. That whether I liked it or not, I was the same as Innokenti, distasteful to heaven." Warlord watched her steadily. "And not worthy of the woman who obsessed me in my dreams."
She shook her head. She didnat want that responsibility.
"Oh, yes. You kept me alive in the dark, and somehow you possessed one of the Varinski icons. I didnat believe that was coincidence. Those icons have been hidden for a thousand years. So after I . . . after . . . about a year after you left, I got myself together and I made it my business to find out what was happening. I visited the old Varinski home in the Ukraine." Warlord laughed. "That place was a joke, a huge old house with rooms added on wherever, broken windows stuffed with rags, cars in the yard overgrown with weeds. There are at least a hundred Varinskis living there. Theyad killed their leader the year before and were fighting among themselves to see who would take over the family business."
"Who would hire these . . . a.s.sa.s.sins?"
"Mostly dictators and military leaders, but really, anyone who can afford their price. And donat forget the Varinskis have been doing this for a thousand years. Theyave got the reputation to charge whatever they please."
"Is this big business?" she asked incredulously.
"Is war big business? Is murder big business?"
That was answer enough. "So the Varinskis are rolling in money."
"Letas say they have good reason to fight like h.e.l.l to maintain the status quo." He was fumbling with his hiking boots, acting as though his fingers were numb.
She put the plane on autopilot again, knelt at his feet, and pushed first one, then the other, into his hiking boots. "So you sneaked in the house somehow?"
"No." He grinned. "I walked right in like I belonged."
She had to admire his guts.
"Apparently I look enough like the rest of the family that no one paid a bit of attention. I wandered around, listened while they talked, and found out someone had made a prophecya""
"Who? A medium?" She wavered between sarcasm and belief.
"Sort of. Uncle Ivan is this old Varinski. Heas blinda"the first Varinski ever to go blind."