Lone Star 04 (19 page)

Ki closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, trying desperately to slow the thing welling up within him. His heart pounded frantically in his chest, surging blood through his veins. He relaxed, slowly, consciously withdrawing the feeling from his body. He was still there, thrusting himself inside her, but a part of him was somewhere else. He gripped Lucy hard, squeezing the slender circle of her waist, plunging his shaft again and again to the heart of her pleasure. Lucy squealed and tried to tear herself from his grip. The tables were suddenly turned. She gave a little cry and writhed against him. He lifted her into a deep, swelling orgasm that wrenched her with pain and pleasure. She hung there a moment, trembling on the crest, then fell back drained and exhausted. Her long legs collapsed, but Ki held on. He thrust himself deeper, drawing her naked thighs about his waist. Lucy lay limp on her belly, nails clawing the ground. Her back was sleek and wet, dotted with tiny pearls of moisture.

She begged him to stop, her voice a ragged slur without words. Ki carried her up to the heights again and again, until one delicious orgasm flowed into the next. Her body went rigid, curved into a bow—and at that precise moment, Ki let himself feel once more. His loins exploded with a violence that loosed a terrible cry from his lungs. He pumped her with liquid heat, filled her belly with fire. Lucy joined his joyous cry. His orgasm merged with her own and tossed them both into a syrupy whirlpool of pleasure . . .

 

 

“It doesn't matter, does it?” she whispered into his shoulder. “What you are or what I am or anything . . .”

“Hush.” He stroked her red hair and pulled her to him. “There is no need to talk.”

“There is, though, isn't there?” She leaned up on his chest and he saw the pain and sadness behind her gaze. This was not the Lucy Jordan he had known. The thing they'd shared had stripped her of a great deal more than her clothing. Now the ice-blue windows of her eyes were open to something she'd seldom let herself see, and she was frightened of what was there.

“When we leave here, we won't be the same people who made that lovin‘,” she said tightly. “We'll—be what we were.”

“People are never what they were. They change. They do not have to be the same.”

“We—” She looked at him, bit her lip, and lowered her eyes. “You think—we could be different?” He started to answer, but her words rushed out to stop him. “I don't mean you'd have to stay
with
me or anything, but we could try. We could start out and see. Maybe something would work. If we go back there—” She stopped suddenly, and let out a sigh.

“Lucy...”

“No. You don't have to say it.” She gave a brittle little laugh. “Jesus—I gotta be crazy to talk like that. You an' me would have about as much chance as—what? What is it?” She gave him a curious look, and Ki shook his head.

“I don't know. Stay here. It's probably nothing.” He came to his feet, padded naked across the floor to the blackened stone wall, and picked up his Colt. Afternoon shadows were stretched across the flats, and the earth shimmered up to the sky in waves of heat. The ground dipped just past the ruined way station toward the low line of trees along the creek. He could just see the gray-green crown of foliage from where he stood. He walked around the wall, keeping to cover as best he could, letting his senses roam the bright horizon. Nothing. Lucy caught his eye and he shook his head. If anything had been there, it was gone now. Still...

Ki turned away and saw it out of the corner of his eye. Something moved. In the high grass near the front of the station, where he and Lucy had tracked one another hours before. He motioned the girl to stay where she was, and before she could speak he was gone, moving low and fast into the open.

He stopped, listened, moved forward again—then froze in his tracks. The sound chilled his blood and wrenched his gut with fear. He turned on his heels and ran, knowing he'd never make it. The grass tore apart and the thing came at him, an ugly growl rising in its throat.

“Lucy, get out!” he shouted.

Ki dug his feet into the earth and twisted away. The wolf sprang past him, slamming him to the ground and tearing the Colt from his grip. Suddenly, Lucy came out of shadow, her naked form startlingly pale in the harsh light. In one motion she scrambled across the dirt floor for his jacket, scooped her pistol out of the folds, and whipped it toward the charging animal.

White fire exploded. Lucy screamed and went down, her terrible cry raking every nerve in Ki's body. He rolled to his feet and stared. The thing ripped and tore, spattered creamy skin with flecks of crimson, staggered on its feet, then collapsed across her breasts.

“Luuuuuuucy!”
Bile rose in his throat. He ran to her, face twisted in pain. Trembling with anger and rage, he lifted the beast from her body and threw it against the wall.

“No, damn it,
no!”
he shouted hoarsely. “You can't be, I won't let you—”

A bullet ripped flesh along his thigh. Another hit stone and whined away. Ki jerked back, clawing for cover as the sound of the shots rolled over the plains.

Ki's mind raced. He tried to keep his eyes off Lucy's small figure, fought to quell the anger that boiled in his blood. It was happening again, just as before. The hunter had him trapped, stuck in a hole like a hare. Only this time was different. This time, Ki knew the hunter. And this time, Zascha was not playing a game. He had no intention of letting him go.

Ki, however, had no intention of staying. He would not make the same mistake twice—wait until the hunter could make him guess his new position. The pistol was lying between Lucy and the animal, gleaming in the sun. He didn't even think about trying for it. Zascha would be waiting for that. Instead, he moved along the wall, slipped on his pants, and retrieved his jacket. The Stetson was too exposed and he left it. Stretching every muscle in his body, he braced himself, leaped for the top of the broken wall, grasped hard stone, and threw himself over. Three shots rang out behind him, stitching a path in the dirt. But Ki was already lost in the high grasses...

 

 

He had no idea whether Zascha would guess what he'd do, and he didn't much care. In a way, he hoped the man knew he was after him, stalking him under the trees on the quiet banks of the creek. He stopped only long enough to wash out the wound where the charging animal had grazed his shoulder. The place where Zascha's bullet had creased his thigh was only an angry cut and didn't concern him.

Lucy was never far from his mind. He no longer tried to put her image aside. He steeled himself to look at it, the way she was in life, her naked arms about him, eyes flashing her love. And the way she was in death. He held up the picture and made himself see it.

A dozen questions raced through his head. He had no answers for any of them. Had Lucy chosen the old way station for a purpose? Ki wondered. At first he'd assumed she stopped there deliberately to make a stand. She knew he was on her trail, and it was a convenient place for an ambush. Now, since Zascha and the wolf had found them there, he wasn't all that sure. Maybe Torgler had told her to go there. Ki knew for certain she thought she could trick him and get away. Maybe even kill him. The handful of sand and the canteen had proven that.

The thought came up and touched him, whether he wanted to see it or not. Lucy's passion was real, but hadn't started out that way at all. Maybe it had
never
been real. Maybe—hell, if she could have gotten the pistol before... Ki cast the thought aside. It hadn't been that way at all, damn it. She'd killed the wolf and saved him...

And who was the animal after? he asked himself silently. Lucy, or himself? Torgler had silenced Gaiter. Why not Lucy as well? After she'd failed to kill Jessie in Roster, she was little more use to the man...

It was another question he might as well forget. No one was likely to give him the answer.

 

 

Zascha was making no effort to cover his trail. A few hundred yards down the creek, Ki saw where the man had led both Ki's horse and Lucy's across the water, gotten quickly on another mount, and torn through the trees with the two animals in tow.

Ki stopped and frowned thoughtfully into the woods. Clearly, Zascha was in one hell of a hurry. Why? Why was he making tracks when he really didn't have to? Even if he knew Ki might follow, that wouldn't bother him at all. He was a skilled hunter and marksman. If anything, sticking around to finish off his foe would have been a wise move. Ki had counted on the possibility and taken great care in his pursuit. Zascha, though, hadn't waited around for a minute.

Ki dropped all caution and bolted through the woods, following the clear tracks of the three horses. Something was wrong. Very wrong. He could feel it, sense it in the air. It was right there, taunting him, just out of sight...

Ki decided it was four o‘clock, maybe a little after. There was still plenty of light—the midsummer sun wouldn't set till eight or eight-thirty. He'd have no trouble making it back to the village. And Zascha, of course, wouldn't have the nerve to show up there again. He was convinced, now, that the man was playing a far more important role in Torgler's plan that he'd first imagined. He was more than just a troublemaker, a paid informer in Gustolf's settlement. He was almost certain to be the keeper of the wolves, the man who—

Ki stopped, letting his eyes sweep the soft ground ahead. The trail had suddenly changed. The running horses had passed this way, but—there was something else. there, too.

He bent to the ground a moment, then jerked to his feet and stared.
Wolf tracks!
And more than one animal, too. They'd been here, right where he was standing, and not too long ago.

That was startling enough, but there was more to it than that. Something that raised the hackles on his neck and brought the stink of his own fear to his nostrils. Mingled among the tracks was another, more chilling set of prints. Ki set his own foot inside one of the things and quickly pulled it away. God! It was twice, nearly three times as big as his own! What the hell kind of a man made a track like that!

Now, at least, he had some idea why Zascha was in such a great hurry to leave...

Chapter 15

It took all the restraint Jessie could muster to keep from showing her frustration and anger. Feodor carefully explained to Gustolf everything that had happened in Roster—relying on Jessie to fill in the gaps. She told him about the cartel, how they'd hired Lucy Jordan to kill her, and how she'd almost gotten away with it on the train—then tried again in town. She explained Torgler's role, how he'd used Marshal Gaiter, and then had him murdered. Gustolf listened politely, but Jessie knew he didn't believe a word of what she was saying. As soon as he learned the wolf had struck again, he cast everything she'd told him aside.

“You see?” The color drained from his features and he shook a trembling hand in her face. “It has happened—just as I knew it would! The curse is upon us. It has taken our people, and now an outsider as well!”

“Father, please.” Sonia tried to keep him down, but Gustolf pushed her off and struggled to his feet. He seemed terribly weak to Jessie—much more so than the day before. She wondered if it was the wounds he'd received, or his own fear that was draining his strength. More likely the latter, she decided. He
believed
he was tainted by the wolf, that he'd soon become one of the creatures himself. He was a strong, tough old man, Jessie knew. But not as strong as the fears that tugged at his heart.

“I know what you think,” Jessie told him. “There is a wolf out there and it's killing people. But there's nothing mystical about it. Believe me. I know these people. They're using your own superstition to frighten you into selling. This is Torgler's doing, and nothing else!”

Gustolf gave her a cold, disparaging look. “You mean well, lady. I know this. But you are not one of us.”

“Neither was the marshal,” snapped Jessie. “How come the man-wolf got
him?”

“There are things not so easily understood as you might think, Miss Starbuck.”

“Yes,” Jessie fumed, “I'm beginning to understand that.”

“Jessica—” Feodor frowned in warning.

“Huh-uh. Don‘t, Feodor.” She got up and started across the room. “I think maybe you're right and I'm wrong. There isn't any use in fighting this thing. You and your people won't change. I don't think they can. I—” Jessie stopped in her tracks, stared out the window a moment, then tossed back her hair and laughed out loud. “Would you like to see someone who speaks with
reason,
Gustolf? Well, you've got your wish, my friend.”