The Rift Walker (19 page)

“You have to eat,” Adele said bluntly as she pulled up her sleeve, revealing numerous bite marks on her forearm.

“No!” He snarled as the hunger rushed back at the mere words. At her wide-eyed expression, he relented. “It's too soon for you. I can wait.”

She crossed her arms. “I'm willing to take the risk.”

He shook his head mutely as he paced the wall, trying to keep distance between them. Her sheer willingness fanned his hunger to monumental levels. There was a red haze before his eyes.

“What can I do?” she asked him quietly.

His laugh was desperate and haunted. Then his pacing abruptly ceased, his blue eyes boring into her. “I need to be alone.”

Anxiety immediately flared in her face at the thought of leaving him in such a state.

“It's for the best, Adele. You are a walking reminder of what I long for.” He could see that she understood.

“I'll be nearby. Call if you need me.”

The moment she left, Gareth sagged to the ground, his legs buckling beneath him. Every limb shook with the restraint it took to calm himself. The hunger began to subside to normal levels that he could control. He was used to fits and starts in his meals, but never like this. Not to mention the oppressive heat. It was all he could do to keep sane. He had no idea what would happen to him if this deprivation continued. He might just react on instinct and attack Adele, or perhaps he would be too weak to do that.

Miserable, Gareth huddled alone in the dark, waiting for the heat to fade.

A
DELE ATTEMPTED TO
stay busy by making her evening meal, knowing that Gareth was starving just below her. Her heart broke as she stared at her food and sat back with her hunger forgotten. He had paced like a wild animal. His behavior frightened her in ways it never had before. She couldn't believe he'd hurt her, but his desperation was a cruel thing to watch.

The hopeless situation was coming down to either watching Gareth slowly die or encouraging him to feed, on someone. There was finally a desert chill in the air. In a fluid motion she rose to her feet and padded back into the temple. Gareth was already standing in the shadows of the doorway. For a split second, his sudden appearance jarred her. He looked dreadful, his features sunken to dark hollows.

“It's okay,” she said softly.

His head swiveled toward her sharply.

“You have to feed,” she continued. “If you won't do it with me, then you need to find someone. Go while you still can. I know you won't harm them.”

Gareth looked away, his head lowered.

She hesitated. “I…I know you don't need my permission, but I just wanted you to know I'll be here when you get back.”

Gareth silently slipped past her, aiming for the door. As he passed, he reached out and touched her hand, his long fingers brushing against hers, feather-light, a caress. Her chest caught in a swell of emotion. Suddenly she was frightened for him. An irrational desire to go with him swept over her, but she refrained. Instead, her fingers curled around his, clinging to him for just an instant before releasing her hold.

With that they separated, Gareth to the embrace of the desert night and Adele to the dark chambers of the temple.

A scrape of feet on stone woke Adele. She sat up abruptly, her blanket falling to her lap. It took only a second to turn up the flickering lantern beside her. Her sleep had been fitful with dreams of Gareth in trouble, but he was coming back now.

She hoped he had been successful, no longer caring about the monstrous implications of that wish. She only wanted to see him stride in full of life and vigor, the man she remembered.

The footfalls ceased suddenly, which was odd, but perhaps Gareth's attention had been grabbed by the many monuments and he'd paused to study them. He had been trapped in the hold of the boat for days, and he wouldn't be in a hurry to come underground again. Then the footsteps continued, but they had a strange echo to them. She rose to her feet, coming forward to meet Gareth, when four men entered the room.

Three were Bedouin in light robes and burnooses while the fourth was European with a stained linen suit. All four were heavily bearded and leathery from the sun. Their eyes swept the room, and they expressed their good fortune by grinning menacingly at the woman they found alone.

“We followed you a long way from Cairo, mon petite Equateur,” the northerner said in a French accent, likely from Marseilles. He pointed a pistol at Adele and nodded at her gun belt on the floor. “Please don't move toward your guns or I will have to shoot you. And I truly don't wish to do so.”

Adele slowly inched away from the pistol belt and toward her pack, where her Fahrenheit dagger lay hidden. Gareth had been right; someone had followed them. Foolishly, she had disregarded his comment. Now, she kept her hands in front of her, keeping the men's attention on her upper body until she nudged the rucksack with her toe. Adele made calculations as to how she might reach her dagger and strike the men without getting killed.

The Frenchman said, “We want the jewels you have. No doubt they are stolen from some rich family. You're going to give us what we want. Such a pretty little girl to hide such expensive gems.”

Adele's odds lessened as the thugs spread out, making it harder to deal with them in tight quarters. Then, in the trembling shadows behind them, stirred another figure.

Gareth.

The sunken hollows of his eyes were fixed on the men. She could see from his hunched stance that he had not fed. His stare at the intruders was one of undeniable need. He was dark and terrifying, a creature of nightmares.

Adele glanced at the men who stalked toward her with cruel grins. A sense of dread for them slipped over her just before she used her foot to tip over the lantern and plunge the room into pitch darkness.

Chaos broke out. Flashes of pistol fire lit up the room. Someone rushed her and shoved her to the floor. Screams echoed horribly around the walls soon after. Even the burly man pressing her down paused, suddenly unsure what was happening around him. Adele slammed an elbow into his face with a resounding crack, and the weight shifted off just enough to allow her to grab the heavy lantern next to her. She swung it, and the howl of pain pleased her as the man slumped to the side. She pulled her dagger and swiped out. It failed to connect. Her eyes struggled to see past the eerie glow of the Fahrenheit blade.

With legs bent and arms outstretched, she paused, straining to see shapes in the gloom, listening for everyone's location, but there were only moans and sobbing. Someone was crying hysterically.

Another shouted, “What the hell was that?”

“Heaven help us!”

Something shifted beside her and she spun, her knife darting out, this time connecting. A scream of pain followed. A meaty hand grabbed her other arm and pulled her close. A man's foul breath washed over her face. She struck again, aiming for a more vital area now. The blade cut and bounced off bone but settled in silently. With a strangled gasp, the man slumped against her.

Adele shoved him away and rocked back on her heels. Now there was only a lone, muffled sobbing in the silence. Her hands fumbled for the lantern in the dust nearby. Trembling fingers turned the knob, and the gaslight bathed her corner of the room.

Three men lay dead. Blood was everywhere. The sobbing stopped. An icy chill enveloped her as she saw Gareth in the filtered light. He was hunched over one of the robbers with his fangs plunged deeply into the man's neck. His white shirt was soaked red. The figure in his arms was motionless except for an occasional twitch of his loose limbs. Gareth stared up at her over his meal with a crimson face. When their eyes locked, he turned away and dragged the man into the dark out of her sight.

Adele's breath came out in gasps. The smell of blood filled her nostrils. She turned and vomited.

The attack had been feral, a slaughter. Adele's brain kept repeating that he had had no choice. If Gareth had not been here, she would have been killed. She knew that. Still, her hand turned off the light and the carnage faded from her sight.

It was several minutes later when she heard Gareth approach. He gently touched her on the arm.

“Come.”

She obeyed, permitting him to help her to stand on shaky legs. There was more strength in him now than there was in her. It was shock, she knew. It would pass. He steered her unerringly in the darkness toward the temple entrance, where the faintest of light was just seeping over the horizon. The air outside was fresh and clean and devoid of death.

“Go to the boat,” he said. “I'll clean up.”

Adele nodded, wanting to say something to him, but unable to think of anything suitable. Instead, instinct took over and she walked to the boat. A bottle of palm wine from the hold washed away the taste of bile in her throat. She took a deeper draft to steady her nerves.

Eventually she heard Gareth by the river's edge. He was on one knee, washing his torso, now bare of the blood-drenched shirt. The human blood from him stained the Nile red like the old Biblical tale.

There was just enough light to see that Gareth was truly recovered. The pallor that had hung over him was lifted. That sight brought Adele back to center somewhat. His gaze strayed to her as he approached the boat.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded and found her voice. “I'm fine.”

“Adele, I'm sorry for reminding you of what I am, but they would have killed you. I could taste it in them. They would have killed you and worse.”

Adele fought a chill at his words, and then asked, “What do you mean you could taste it?”

Gareth continued to stare into the distance beyond her. “When we drink the blood of humans, we get a strong sense of them. Not memories, but emotions. We can sense their nature. Fear. Anger. Sorrow.”

“My God,” she breathed. “I never imagined…”

“I could taste Cairo in them. They had followed us.”

“The merchant where I sold the diamond?”

“Likely. But I know their intentions toward you.” His tone was near snarling. “For that alone they deserved death.”

His violence had been in her defense, and not just from his insatiable hunger. Knowing that eased Adele's fears, but then she realized another disturbing fact. She asked, “You've had my blood.” He shifted away from her at the comment, but she continued, “What did you taste in me?”

There was a long silence covered by the whistle of the desert wind and the lapping sound of the Nile. Gareth finally turned his head slowly and looked her in the eye.

“Power,” he said quietly before turning back toward the temple. “I'm almost done inside.”

As he walked away from her, Adele took guilty pleasure in the fact that he was once again the man she knew, despite the heavy price.

Adele wondered again about Colonel Anhalt as she methodically checked the small motor on the boat in the predawn glow. The colonel knew to meet them here in this temple, but she could only stare at the gigantic façade with a shudder now. Gareth had removed the slaughtered corpses and buried them in the desert, but the place conjured horrifying memories of him she'd rather not have.

Thankfully there was another place of refuge no more than a hundred yards distant. They could wait there for Anhalt. However, they couldn't abandon the temple without leaving a message about where they had gone. Adele hopped off the boat and made her way toward the huge, uncaring pharaohs. From her earlier campfire, she took a sturdy piece of burnt wood that would serve her perfectly for what she had in mind.

Gareth appeared from the interior, carrying a bundle of their belongings. He paused and silently regarded her, unsure of her reaction toward him.

She held up the bit of charred wood. “I think we should move. But we need to leave Anhalt a message.”

“Where will we go?”

“The Temple of Hathor is just north of here.”

“Will we give ourselves away by leaving him a message to follow?”

“I'll use code. Anhalt will recognize it.”

“Hieroglyphics?”

Her lips quirked upward slightly. “I doubt he knows how to read those. But something pictorial will work. The colonel is rather clever.”

Gareth nodded and departed northward with their possessions. He passed near Adele, but still left ample room between them. Adele wanted to reach out and touch him and tell him she was not afraid or repelled by him. The animal in him was gone like a sudden rage. He was Prince Gareth once again. Her shock had passed, but she still couldn't find the right words to assure him.

She found a smooth surface on the temple entrance and attempted to draw a cow of some sort, a representation of the goddess Hathor. It wasn't the best-looking cow, but it would do. At least it was better than Simon's stick-figure bovines.