Immortal Flame (21 page)

Desperate to reach her, he shoved away more rocks. Old supporting timbers bowed downward. How much time did he have before the ceiling came down?

Almost there. He had a small opening in the wall now and heard a paroxysmal cough and frantic wheeze.

“Allie?”

“Peter?” she panted.

He heard movement on the other side of the wall and a flashlight beam pierced the darkness.

When he peered into the black hole, her dirt-covered face and glassy eyes staring back at him were the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. Her chest heaved as she gulped fresh air. Quincy's limp form lay in her arms.

“Peter, get her out of here!” She rose up, yelping as dirt and rocks poured down over her shoulders.

“Don't move.”

Gingerly, he removed a few more rocks, making room for the girl. His hands shook as he forced himself to work carefully. But he had to hurry. The whole ceiling was about to collapse. Black thoughts of what he wanted to do with Anton welled up again.

Focus
.

“Can you push Quincy up to me? Go slowly,” he called to Allie.

She nudged Quincy until the girl woke up and whimpered.

“It's okay, honey. Mr. Peter is here to help us. I need you to lift your arms and hold his hands, please.”

He grasped the girl's forearms and guided her out of the hole. Pulling Quincy free, he rolled back onto several sharp rocks, wincing as he bore the brunt of the impact. He cradled her in his arms, and, in a crouch, scrambled out of the tunnel, depositing the crying girl in the trampled snow outside the mine entrance.

A timber creaked ominously as he raced back down the mine. He had to get Allie out of here. Now.

Reaching the hole in the rock, he called, “Can you get to me?”

She coughed. “Maybe, but if I force myself through a small space, it'll collapse.”

Her tight, high-pitched voice conveyed every bit of anxiety he also felt.

Working even faster than he could register the movements, he shifted more material out of the way. Additional creaks preceded more falling dirt.

“Come on, Allie.” He held his hands out, willing her to move faster.

Emerging from the darkness, her slim hand made contact with his, and the jolt of mixed terror and joy stunned him. He pulled until he grasped beneath her arms.

With an ominous rumble, the wooden beams above them shuddered.

Heart thudding, Peter braced his feet and heaved her out through the narrow passage, trying to ignore her cries when she landed on the rocks. A heavy ceiling timber came loose, barely missing her.

Peter half ran, half crawled up the tunnel, dragging Allie behind him as rocks rained down. He burst from the mine, flinging Allie onto the snow as the remainder of the supports failed, sealing the tunnel behind them in a cloud of black dust.

Allie sprawled on the snowy ground, coughing, struggling for air. Snow fell on her dirt-covered skin, making clean dots where each new snowflake landed. He could still make out her face as twilight faded to evening.

Peter crouched over her. “Are you hurt?”

He pushed the tangled hair away from her face. She'd lost her hat in the mine collapse.

“Quincy?” She sobbed for air.

“Auntie Al?” came the girl's high voice a few feet away. “I'm cold.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Allie sat up and reached out shaking arms for her niece, hugging her. “We'll get you warm.”

Allie's flashlight was still attached to her arm. With a blank expression, she clicked it on to reveal thickly falling snow, now driven by a harsh wind.

Clinging to each other, both she and Quincy started to shiver.

He knelt in the snow next to them. “We've got to get you two dried off and warm. What about going down the mountain?”

Allie shook her head. “Quincy can't survive several more hours of pure exposure without getting warmed up first. She's already hypothermic and her clothes are wet. And my backpack with the extra heating packs is back there.” She gestured toward the sealed mine entrance.

“How about one of those cabins?”

“That's the safest option, at least until it's light out again. We also have only one set of snowshoes now.”

He helped her to stand and then picked up a shivering Quincy. He opened his jacket to conduct some of his heat into the girl's body. Quincy's teeth chattered next to his chest.

Handing Allie his pair of snowshoes, he said, “Lead the way to the cabins.”

She buckled them on and slung his backpack over her shoulder. “We'll go back through the trees where we came in and then angle down toward the lake. Hopefully, we will reach a cabin.”

• • •

Holding the flashlight, Allison led the way, trying to move in what she guessed was the right direction. The snowfall had thickened to the point where the beam wouldn't penetrate more than a few feet in front of them. The tracks from their hike up the hill earlier today had all but vanished.

Adrenaline draining away, she fought to put one foot in front of the other. Peter followed close behind with an ominously silent Quincy in his arms. She needed to get her niece warmed up.

What if Anton comes back?

She refused to consider that possibility for now.

Reaching the boulder field, she headed directly downhill, hearing the faint sounds of the stream, muffled in the falling snow.

“Do you know where we are?” Peter asked.

She projected more confidence than she felt. “This should be the stream that leads to the lake. As long as we're slightly uphill from it, we should run into at least one of the cabins. If not, we can double back a little higher on the hill.”

Panic kept her weary eyes open now. So tired. Her joints ached from being buried alive. But at least they were free of the mine. What if they hadn't arrived in time, or Anton had decided to bury Quincy alone? Allison shuddered.

As desperate as she was to find shelter, she kept imagining cabins rising out of the darkness. When a structure appeared in front of her, she stopped and stared mutely, not sure if it was real.

“Allie? What's that?”

“I thought I dreamt it,” she whispered. “I think it's the outdoor club's hiking hut.”

At the base of the compact wooden yurt, a snowdrift blocked the door. Wordlessly handing Quincy to Allison, Peter dug out the door with his bare hands. He worked faster than Allison could follow, but she kept the light trained on the door so he could see. She managed to remain standing and to hold on to Quincy, although exhaustion turned her arms and legs to Jell-O.

Once he had the door cleared, he chopped the doorknob with his hand, breaking the latch. Yanking the door open, he motioned them inside, taking Quincy back as Allison removed the snowshoes and stumbled into the building.

The hut contained four low wooden platforms for hikers' sleeping bags, a small wooden table, and a central stove, its metal pipe exiting through the center of the roof. A bucket of kindling sat next to the stove. Right about now, the cabin looked luxurious and cozy to Allison.

Relief, exhaustion, and cold all settled on her shoulders and she collapsed clumsily onto the floor. Moving quickly, Peter lowered Quincy to her, then laid the dry tinder in the stove and dismantled the table and two sleeping pallets into small pieces. After lighting one of the waterproof matches from a box she had insisted on placing in each of their packs, on the second strike, he cupped his hand around the flame until a piece of kindling caught.

She could already imagine the heat even though it would take much more time to reach her. Quincy murmured in her arms, the shivers stopping. It was a bad progression of symptoms. The girl needed fluids and to warm up. Soon.

Stacking pieces of the table on the fire, Peter closed the stove door and laid another pile next to it. “Use these to keep feeding the fire. Get it really stoked. I'm going to get more wood so we can get this place as warm as possible.”

Stabbing fear paralyzed her for a split second and she blurted out, “Please don't go far.”

He ran his rough hand over her cheek, his eyes black in the dim light. “I'll stay close. I promise.”

She nodded blankly as Peter exited the yurt. The only light came from the small windows in the flickering stove. Outside the building, cracks and explosions reverberated through the walls of the hut.

After a time, Allison laid Quincy on the cold floor and opened the stove, shoving in several more pieces of wood. She sat as close as she dared with Quincy, turning her niece so the snow-dampened seat of Quincy's pants could dry. She debated stripping off the child's clothes, but decided against it. The room remained much too chilly.

She checked the girl's pulse. Steady but too rapid. When she pinched her niece's skin, it remained tented. Quincy was exhausted, hypothermic, and dehydrated. Allison couldn't rouse her to drink anything.

When Allison's stomach growled, she pulled out two granola bars and washed them down with the water. Instead of her gaining more energy, lethargy oozed through every pore of her body. She'd dozed off when the door swung open with a blast of cold air, startling her.

Peter held a large bundle of broken wood. He dumped his load of branches next to the flickering stove and pushed the yurt door closed.

• • •

“It's already warmer in here,” he said.

Allie's haunted eyes drilled into him.

She put her hand on the girl's head. “Big improvement. But we need to get out of here at first light. Quincy needs medical care. What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “Pushing midnight. We can leave in six hours when there's enough light to safely hike back down. In the meantime, let's get you two more comfortable.”

Yanking one of the remaining sleeping pallets out of the wall, he dragged it in front of the stove.

Allie eased Quincy onto the pallet. Her niece's dust-covered face had turned rosier, but the girl didn't wake up with the movement. Allie stood, her shoulders slumped, and turned into Peter's open arms. She sagged into his chest, shaking with sobs.

He swallowed a lump in his throat and cradled her, careful of her bruised body. He brushed away the tears, kissed her forehead, and tucked her back into the shelter of his arms. Resting his chin on the crown of her head, fury and possessiveness began to blend into his emotions. He needed her. He didn't want to let her go. But he couldn't stay with her and expose this woman to more evil.

“Why?” she asked, her voice muffled by his shirt.

Guilt pierced his heart. He damn well knew the answer and would take ownership of this mess. “I'm the reason you and Quincy got hurt. It's my fault.”

“I don't understand.”

Peter ran his fingers over the soft skin of her neck. “You were right before. Anton
is
someone like me. Only he's worse. His job is to keep me from finishing my contract.” Her lithe frame fit perfectly against his, trusting him. He didn't deserve this woman.

“Okay, but why did he have to hurt Quincy?”

The anger behind her question was justified.

“When our kind get close to finishing their contracts, Jerahmeel throws everything at us to make it difficult to obtain the Meaningful Kill. Jerahmeel wants to hurt anyone I care about, shut down my motivation to try and break the contract. It may be that Anton is my Meaningful Kill. By finding a way to finish him off, I could be done killing forever.”

She burrowed deeper into his chest. “How hard would that be? Killing him?”

“Very. He's exceptionally strong. I had to cheat to slow him down. But it's not impossible to kill him.”

“That would be a good thing, getting out of your contract. Right?”

“Not for Jerahmeel. He needs as many of us as possible killing for him to maintain his supply of power. When one of us drops out, it reduces his food source. And his energy.”

“But if you finish the contract, that would be good for you, right?”

“Yes. Then I could have a normal life, like a normal man. And perhaps spend it with one person.” He stared down at her. “But only if I can finish my contract.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

He lowered his mouth to her lips and kissed her tenderly, and then wrapped her back up in his arms. She leaned against him.

“You need to rest.”

“But Anton—”

“He won't get to you tonight. I'll be right here, I promise.” He could at least do this one thing.

He helped her to the pallet, easing her onto her side next to Quincy. Peter put more wood in the stove, increasing the heat. He sat down on the floor and rested his hands on her head and hip, determined to maintain contact. Turning awkwardly, he kept his eyes on the door and held silent guard over Allie and her niece.

The morning arrived cold and windy. Peter had spent the entire night vigilant, refusing to doze off. Anton was still out there, injured but alive. He would see the minion again, no question, but where and when?

The knife on his leg pulsed with thirsty anticipation.

Flat, gray light illuminated the yurt's windows. He rocked Allie's hip to wake her. She rolled over, her face streaked with dried tear tracks and dirt, circles under her eyes, hair knotted and tousled. Peter had never seen anyone more lovely.

He brushed the hair off her forehead. “Time to go.”

She sat up, rubbing her face, and turned to Quincy, who was more difficult to rouse. The grumpy six-year-old swatted weakly at her aunt's hands and rolled back over.

“Let's go. She'll wake up out there. I hope.”

Thankfully, the snow had diminished to flurries. “Ready to get down the mountain?”

“Yes, the sooner the better.”

Allie donned her snowshoes and took off into the crisp morning air. They would make better time going back down.

Carrying the backpack and Quincy, he followed over the fresh snow. How did Allie keep going? She had to be exhausted.