Lord of Lightning (3 page)

The class went quiet. Julie tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“I still don’t think you should go alone,” Julie said after a moment, then grinned irrepressibly. “But whatever you do, don’t let him hold your hand. That’s how the alien in
Barbarella
made love.”

L
ISE
A
NDERSON WAS
immobilized. And very impatient with herself because of it. Heaving a sigh, she stared out the front windshield of her secondhand Cordoba, still in cream puff condition except for a patch of oxidizing maroon paint and a loose hood ornament, and wondered why she was sitting in the driveway of her house. She’d been there, contemplating the horizon, for at least a half an hour. Perhaps longer, she thought. The sun was starting to set, and soon it would be dark.

This is childish, Lise
, she told herself. If she wanted to go out there and welcome the man to Shady Tree, why didn’t she just do it? The package of copper wiring sat on the car seat beside her, all the excuse she needed. There was also the necessity of stopping the escalating gossip, a very real problem in a small, rural community. Shady Tree wasn’t Los Angeles. It wasn’t even San Bernardino. The residents were close-knit, protective, and quickly roused to action when they perceived a threat. Yes, she ought to go. It was the appropriate thing to do.

A half hour later she was pulling off the arterial highway onto a smaller road that branched into the foothills. In the distance, carbon-black mountains seduced a flaming red sun into their hoary depths. Struck by the beauty, Lisa cracked the car window to let in cooling air, fragrant with pine and sage.

She loved the sinuous landscape of the hills, the rolling, sage-kissed chaparral, the black oak and juniper trees. Whenever her schedule allowed, she escaped to the hill country, to walk, to pick wildflowers, and to be alone. Even though she would miss her students terribly, she often thought she would make a very good hermit. Her spirit seemed to require the renewal of solitude. Her senses preferred simplicity.

There were drawbacks to her self-imposed isolation, however. Occasionally she paid a heavy price in loneliness. It didn’t happen often, but there were evenings when she longed for someone to share her innermost thoughts with. Some wishes had to be told to come true. Some dreams needed a coconspirator.

But that kind of intimacy also had its price.

The road branched off again, a rutted dirt access way that tested the Cordoba’s shocks with every jolt. Lisa took the bumps stoically. Like the car, she wore her scars well. She’d long ago decided that independence was too precious a commodity to risk in the marketplace of human relationships. At eighteen, she’d fought a long and bitter battle with her father for autonomy, for self-rule. The victory had been sweet, but it had cost her his love. And it had torn away a piece of her heart ...

A flash of crimson light pulled Lise out of her reverie. It was the sun’s last gasp, and she was grateful for its timing.

The deserted cabin was nestled back in the trees. Lise spotted it as she drove into the clearing, only it didn’t look deserted. There was a light glowing dimly through the window, and the broken pane had been replaced.

She parked the Cordoba and let herself out, glancing around for any sign of the strange phenomena the children had described. The forested landscape looked normal for that time of the evening. Warm carmine light glowed through the darkening woods, and the rock quarry, though some distance away, was partially visible through the trees.

It was just as Lise had thought. The children had seen something out here, perhaps Stephen Gage ministering to a wounded bird, but their imaginations had taken over from there. Relief washed over her, bringing with it the realization that she
had
been nervous. She would give Mr. Gage his copper wire, warn him of the rumors, and have a good laugh about them. Then she would leave.

No one answered her knock. Lise tested the door and found it locked and bolted. A glance in the window convinced her that no one was inside. One lamp glowed in the corner of a sparsely furnished living area, illuminating the uninhabited room.

The tightness in her chest was disappointment, she realized. She had wanted to see him again, even just a glimpse, to see if he would have the same crazy effect on her nervous system. She was more than a little curious about the electric shocks, and she remembered vividly that odd, grasping sensation deep in her stomach. Staring at the package in her hand, she considered leaving it on his doorstep. Instead, she carried it with her back to the Cordoba.

The car radio blared on as she keyed the ignition. The static was deafening, and as she reached to switch the radio off, she saw something that astonished her. A greenish vapor was seeping from the rock quarry. Faintly iridescent, it drifted and plumed like smoke from a huge bonfire. Lise switched off the ignition, her fingers curling around the keys. A pulse beat near her thumb where the metal ridge pressed into her flesh.
What in the world?
A forest fire just starting?

She got out of the car, at war with her instincts, which told her not to go one step farther. They also told her quite emphatically to get the heck out of there, to find someone who could help her check it out. Preferably someone large and powerful. Nevertheless, she started for the overgrown path that led to the quarry. Just to get a closer look, she told herself. The weather had been extremely dry recently, and there’d been a rash of summer lightning storms. If it was a fire, she should notify the authorities immediately.

The quarry was surrounded by a rocky border a dozen feet high and raised like the cone of a small volcano, which made it impossible for Lise to see the interior from her vantage point on the path. It looked uncannily like a moon crater, she thought, names flashing through her mind as she remembered a science class she’d taught for Harlan Meek ... the Apennines, the lunar Alps and the great Carpathians, all mountains of the moon.

The mist began to look more like light than vapor as she neared. It took on luminous tones as the sky darkened, shimmering and dancing, the green deepening to emerald before it fanned out in plumes. A faint smell of ether hung in the air.

By this time Lise’s curiosity had all but silenced the warning messages in her head. She wasn’t going to be able to stop until she’d seen for herself what was going on. Accepting that fact, she proceeded cautiously, but steadily, toward the quarry.

Gravel crunched beneath the soles of her leather sandals as the path fanned out into glacial streams of rock that cascaded from the quarry walls. She’d changed from her high heels, but she was still wearing the shirtwaist dress she’d chosen for school that day. Now she wished she’d worn something more suitable, and warmer.

The night sky was darkening rapidly as Lise began to climb the gradual rise. The rocks gave way under her weight, making her ascent as laborious as trudging in sand. Sharp pebbles worked their way into her sandals, forcing her to stop and shake them out. She was digging a fragment from the ball of her foot when she heard the sound. Crackling like static on a telephone line, it came from the quarry.

Lise was practically on all fours by the time she reached the crest and looked into the quarry. What she saw there made her drop to her knees in astonishment. The basin of the craterlike form was ablaze with a brilliant blue-green fire.

The brightness forced her to shield her eyes. It was staggering to look at—a turquoise inferno—but without heat. Only that incessant buzzing sound. Or was it a clicking? She couldn’t take it all in.

A darkness moved behind the sheets of flaming light. Lise pushed to her feet, trying to make out the apparitional form. It flowed like mercury, taking different shapes. Her heart was beating wildly, but curiosity held her in place. Was it an illusion? A shadow? She inched down the steep grade for a closer look and stopped abruptly as the vaporous form seemed to float in her direction. It might have been the body shape of a man, she realized, only it looked larger, much larger.

The gravel gave way beneath Lise, and by the time she’d stopped her slide, she realized she’d entered the aura. The light drew in around her, gauzy and surreal, eddying like an azure tide. The color intensified, and she felt a prickling sensation run along her skin, rifling the hair on her arms. An ethereal odor filled her nostrils, burning the tender membranes.

Lise lurched backward. If the light was actually some sort of gaseous substance, it could be poisonous. She’d heard of things like marsh gas, but never in the mountains. Panic caught her as she floundered in the rock bed. The gravel sank beneath her with the deadly suction of quicksand as she wrenched around and fought for traction. Digging in, propelling herself upward, she burst into the fresh air. Air. It seared into her lungs in several sharp gasps.

She was halfway up the cone when she heard a hiss of sound and glanced back. The darkness was a black wraith swimming in blue fire. It grew larger and more distinct by the second. Lise could discern a domelike head and appendages that might have been arms. That’s when she realized it was moving closer.
It was following her.

Adrenaline burst through her body. She heaved herself toward the crest of the cone, laboring frantically to reach it. A stitch of pain caught her as she reached the top, and the sharpness doubled her over as if she were a stricken marathoner. She clutched her side and dropped to one knee, fighting to get up again. Through the trees, she could see the clearing where her car was parked.
Just let me get there
, she thought.

She started down the slope, pitching forward as her foot snagged something. An instant later she was tumbling helplessly down the rocky decline.

Even if Lise had seen the boulder that lay in her path, she wouldn’t have had the strength or the control to avoid it. The blow caught her in the ribs and solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her, a collision of flesh and bone against solid granite.

The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was an amorphous silvery form descending upon her.

Hushed by night’s descent, the foothills became a moonlit temple, sanctuary to a thousand nocturnal creatures. A coyote howled in the distance, the sound forlorn. As the cry faded a sparrow hawk swooped through the clearing and landed on the front porch railing of the Cooper cabin. Silvery-winged in the moonlight, it seemed to be standing guard, a vigilant sentry.

Inside the cabin Stephen Gage was contemplating the unconscious woman he’d just settled on his bed. He’d checked her for breaks at the quarry and had found only lacerations and bruises. Her breathing was normal, and there were no apparent concussions, but some of the cuts looked deep. They would have to be treated to prevent infection.

A flash of silver caught his eye as he turned. Seeing his own reflection in the dresser mirror, he realized he hadn’t changed out of his protective gear. He unzipped the disposable suit at the shoulders first, pulling off the gloved sleeves as though they were pieces of a sewing pattern.

A moment later the rest of the jumpsuit lay pooled around his feet. He stepped out of it, swept up the cellophane-thin, antistatic material and walked to the cabin’s enclosed back porch to discard it in a sealed metal container.

When he returned to the room moments later with an antiseptic solution and some bandages to dress her wounds, she had shifted to her side and thrown her hand above her head. The position made her look fragile and feminine, even faintly tragic. He stopped to study her, struck by the vulnerability she’d unknowingly exposed to his eyes. It hit him then that she
was
vulnerable. A woman unconscious on a strange man’s bed.

She was beautiful, he realized, surprised that he hadn’t noticed it before, in the store. He’d found her attractive then, but now, in repose, he could see the simplicity inherent in her bone structure and the brushed golden tones in her skin. The sunny streaks in her wheat-colored hair highlighted the plaits of her French braid, which was coiled and pinned at her nape. He remembered her eyes. They were a strange pale blue, like dawn on a cloudy day. Beautiful eyes, he decided. She was a woman who brought fundamental things to mind—dawn, sunshine, the elements.

He sat down on the bed next to her, and with a dampened cloth, began to clean the cut on her forehead. She stirred, but didn’t wake. When she did, he knew he would have to find a way to quickly reassure her that she was safe. He didn’t want her panicking again. She’d already done herself enough damage.

He cleaned the cuts on her arm, and then attempted to roll her to her back so that he could clean the arm she was lying on. She moaned softly as he lifted and repositioned her. That was when he saw the rip in her dress and the gash that began at her rib cage and ran alongside her breast to her armpit. Though she was no longer bleeding, there were some violent looking bruises. It was possible she’d broken some ribs.

He rose slowly, staring at her, his heart thudding.

He was going to have to undress her to get to the wound.

The brutal irony of it hit him immediately. Undressing a beautiful woman would have been a fantasy come true for most men—but Stephen Gage wasn’t most men. And he had no intention of subjecting himself to that kind of cruel and unusual punishment. It would be ludicrous to think that he could treat her wounds with any kind of clinical detachment. She was injured, but that wasn’t nearly as significant to him as the fact that she was an injured
woman.

It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman in any condition. Until recently, it had been years since he’d
seen
a woman, and he wasn’t willing to put himself to the test of seeing one naked—or of undressing her himself. Not yet. And not her, he thought. She was too desirable, a mantrap lying in wait, an ambush rigged with irresistible female secrets. And she was helpless to defend herself against a man dangerously low on self-control.

His moral dilemma quickly became irrelevant. He couldn’t call an ambulance. It would draw attention to the quarry lights, and to himself—a risk he wasn’t willing to take. He also couldn’t let her lay there and bleed. If her ribs were broken, they would have to be wrapped. He considered waking her, and decided it would be easier for both of them if she remained out cold. He wouldn’t have to deal with her resistance and/or embarrassment. She wouldn’t have to watch him sweat it out, trying to appear indifferent.