The Darkness Beyond (13 page)

“We go
now
.”

She nodded but drank anyway. When she stood up, his expression made it all too clear that he'd noted the small rebellion. The chill in his eyes was scary, but she refused to cower.

Once again the other guy took the lead, Jeban following Reggie. It worried her that she was starting to trust Jeban to look after her. That was nothing but stupidity. If he'd really wanted to help her, he would've left her back in her world. Even so, he was far less scary than his partner.

For now she studied their surroundings, trying to memorize the path back to the cave. If somehow she managed to slip away, she'd need a plan. Of course, the cave would be the first place they'd look for her, but it was the only route home that she knew. Besides, it was the first place D.J. would check.

Just past the next rise, they reached the valley floor. The hills behind them looked much like those she could see in the distance. The terrain in between was flat and dry. Most of the plants were burned brown from the dry heat even though the light from the two stars in the sky was far dimmer than earth's single sun. No wonder Jeban had described his home as the land of the dying suns.

The stream ran parallel to the trail until it abruptly disappeared underground. From that point, the path they were following did a ninety-degree turn and headed straight across the valley floor toward the hills beyond.

“How far do we have to go?” she asked.

She'd addressed the question to Jeban, but it was his friend who answered. “Are you in such a hurry to meet your fate?”

There was nothing to be said to that, so she walked on in silence. Despite her two companions, she'd never felt so alone in her life.

Outside the cave, it didn't take long for D.J. to pick up a trail left behind by Reggie and her captors. They were nowhere in sight. Considering the head start they'd gotten, he hadn't really expected them to be. Rather than go charging down the hillside, he went back inside the cave to rummage through the supplies that Devlin had provided.

It was mostly food and water, but his friend had also stuck in extra clips for D.J.'s Glock as well as a first-aid kit and some space blankets, the kind that took up little room but provided a surprising amount of warmth. He'd also included matches, two flashlights, a small backpacker's stove, and even some plastic ties that could be used as restraints.

Yeah, like D.J. was going let the bastards live long enough to need those. Sworn Guardian Berk might have a different opinion on that subject should their paths cross, but he'd deal with it then. Rather than leave the packs in the cave where one of the Others might find them, D.J. stashed them a short distance away from the cave behind some low bushes.

Time to begin the hunt.

He didn't bother with caution. These guys either knew he was coming or they were fools. Whichever it was, he had to make up time if he'd stand any chance of catching them.

Starting off at a trot, he waited to see how the thinner atmosphere affected his stamina before picking up speed. He slowed occasionally to catch his breath as he looked for tracks to verify that he was still following the right trail.

About an hour later, he came to a stop. The grass to the side of the trail looked trampled, as if someone had cut across country. He drew his gun and started forward, worried about what he'd find. As soon as he spotted the stream, his tension drained away. It made sense that they would've stopped here for water and maybe a brief rest.

That didn't keep the fear that they'd stopped for much darker reasons from eating at him. He'd feel a whole lot better if he had some inkling of why they'd brought Reggie into Kalithia. It sure as hell wasn't because of her bitchin' computer skills, not in this world where such things didn't exist.

He studied the edge of the stream and could see where three different individuals had knelt to drink. Then he spotted something lying in the dirt beside a nearby rock. Granola wrappers. Okay, so they were feeding her. He had no doubt that she'd left the scraps of paper for him to find. God, he loved the way her mind worked.

Enough time wasted. After a quick drink, he soaked his handkerchief and wrapped it around his neck. Then he returned to the original trail, picking up greater speed as he ran downhill. Based on what he'd been able to learn from the footprints Reggie and her escorts had left in the dust, they were walking. As long as he maintained a faster pace, eventually he'd catch up with them.

When he did, there'd be hell to pay.

Cody knew he was sulking, but right then he didn't care. In the past two days, thanks to D.J., his whole life had gone straight to hell, starting with his best friend being kidnapped and dragged into an alien world. Not only that, Cody was now surrounded by a bunch of killers armed with swords and guns.

The whole thing read like a bad science fiction movie, the kind where the geeky kid gets swept up in events too big for him to comprehend. Devlin had taken off in a helicopter shortly after they'd left the caves. Lonzo had stayed behind with that Barak guy to wait for D.J.'s return.

Evidently Devlin was going to make contact with someone they knew who still lived in Kalithia. From what they said, this guy Berk was part of some kind of local militia. For Reggie's sake, it was nice to know there were good guys on the other side of that barrier, too.

Devlin was also going to sic D.J.'s friend Cullen on tracking the helicopter that had whisked the human contingent of bad guys off to safety before Trahern and Lonzo could catch up with them. Cody almost wished he'd been invited along for the ride. For one thing, Cullen was the guy D.J. had wanted Cody to work with on the computer stuff.

Right now, though, Trahern was taking Cody back to Portland to pick up a few things before heading up to the Paladins' Seattle headquarters. Rather than think too much about it all, Cody closed his eyes and tried to doze off.

It didn't work. About the time he managed to relax enough, Trahern pulled off the road, jarring Cody back to full alert.

“What's going on?”

“I thought we'd stop and chow down.”

Cody wanted to protest. No one seemed to be hurrying enough. Yeah, D.J. was hot on Reggie's trail, but Cody wanted—
needed
—to be doing something soon.

“But—”

Trahern turned his chilly gaze in Cody's direction. “No buts, Cody. None of us can function well when running on empty, and we have a long way to go tonight. Believe me, the first thing you learn in this world of ours is to eat whenever you get a chance. There'll be enough times ahead when you'd give your left nut for even a handful of granola.”

Cody hadn't made up his mind yet about whether to throw in his lot with these guys, but for the moment he had little choice in the matter. Once Reggie was back where she belonged and the Paladins had tracked down the guys who'd kidnapped her in the first place, he'd have time to think about it.

The other problem was that he had next to no money. The restaurant didn't look all that expensive, though. Maybe he could afford a bowl of soup; that was usually cheap.

“A little something might be good.”

Then Trahern actually winked at him. “Better eat up, Cody. It's not every day Devlin picks up the tab. Personally, I'm going order a big steak with all the trimmings.”

Okay, then. Obviously Devlin Bane looked out for his men. That was good to know.

Cody studied the restaurant's sign, which advertised home-style cooking. “Hey, think this place has a good dessert menu? And maybe extras to go?”

“No wonder D.J. took to you.” Trahern chuckled as he pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. “I like the way you think. You're gonna fit right in with us.”

When was the last time he'd fit in anyplace? He couldn't remember, but the idea that these guys actually wanted him to hang with them felt good. As they climbed out of the truck and headed inside, the Paladin clapped him on the back.

“While we're waiting for our dinners, you can tell me all about your fencing classes and what kind of weapon you like best. I'm a broadsword fan myself.”

When Cody started talking, it was clear that Trahern was really listening to him and cared about his opinions. Once the food arrived, they both turned their attention to eating.

Hanging with the Paladins felt damn good.

W
hat was going on? For the third time in the past fifteen minutes, Jeban had paused to stare back up the trail behind them. After the second time, he'd said something to his partner in their own language. All Reggie had been able to pick up was the growing tension in Jeban's voice. That, and his buddy's name: Kolar.

Once Jeban had drawn Kolar's attention to whatever was going on behind them, they'd both started walking faster and looking back more often. Jeban was careful to keep her between them, shoving her forward if she tried to slow down at all. She didn't know what to think. Was help on its way or was something else going on?

Obviously these two were criminals in both worlds. If they were being tracked, it could be that their own people were after them. Only one way to find out. The next time Jeban stopped, she walked back to join him.

If there was something happening behind them, she sure wasn't seeing any sign of it. “What's going on?”

“Perhaps we are being followed,” Jeban answered in English as he drew his sword. “Kolar, I'm going to circle back to see for sure.”

As soon as he disappeared off the trail into the tall grasses, Kolar caught Reggie by the arm and dragged her along in his wake. She fought to pull free of his grasp. He only tightened his grip, hard enough to leave bruises, making her wish that Jeban had been the one to stay with her.

“Any idea who it might be back there?”

Kolar stopped to answer. “Does it matter? If it is one of our people, he will be enjoying your company along with us.”

As he spoke, Kolar's eyes traveled from her head to her toes, pausing along the way to let her know exactly what he was thinking. She glared at him, but it had no effect.

His smile made her skin crawl. “Of course, it could be someone from your world coming to retrieve you, but that will not happen. Either he will die or you both will. That would be a shame. I have such interesting and pleasurable plans for you. Pleasurable for me, anyway.”

He moved in closer, his intent to kiss her obvious. Reggie turned her head to the side so that his lips landed on the side of her head. In response, he caught her chin in a painful grip and positioned her face right where he wanted it.

“You should be careful, pretty little human. I like it when women resist my attentions. Punishment offers its own pleasure.”

Then his mouth crushed down on hers as he used his other hand to grope her breast, hard. When he deepened the kiss, she retaliated by biting down on his tongue.

Kolar howled in pain and jumped back. He spit a mouthful of blood on the ground, his furious expression promising retribution. She immediately retreated, preparing to bolt if he took one more step toward her.

Instead, she backed right into Jeban. It didn't take him long to size up the situation. He looked at each of them with equal disgust. When Kolar tried to grab her, she used his partner as a shield.

“Get out of the way, Jeban. She needs to learn some manners. I shall greatly enjoy teaching them to her.”

Jeban kept himself firmly between her and his friend. “Now is not the time. There will be plenty of time later for us to school her in the proper behavior for a slave.”

Her stomach plummeted. So much for Jeban being the nice guy. When he reached out to take her hand, she jerked it back out of his reach and marched off down the trail ahead of them both.

Reggie ached straight through to her bones. Despite being physically fit, she'd been too long without sleep or enough food. Breathing was rapidly becoming problematic, thanks to air that was too thin on oxygen and too thick with dust. The legs of her black trousers were coated with the stuff; even her teeth were gritty.

A drink of water would taste good about now, but she was in no hurry to stop for the day. As tired as she was, she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep moving. For certain, she didn't want to give Kolar an excuse to begin the training session Jeban had mentioned.

Barbarian bastards.

What passed for daylight in this world was almost gone by the time they'd traversed halfway across the valley. Finally, Jeban called a halt. After a brief discussion with Kolar, he switched to English for her benefit.

“Our regular camp lies in that direction,” he said, pointing toward a clump of scrubby trees a short distance off to the right. “There we will stop for the night and wait for our partners to join us late tomorrow.”

He paused to look back the way they'd come. “Kolar, I'll start the fire and the evening meal. Why don't you circle back this time? I still sense someone behind us.”

Kolar nodded. “If I find it is a human, should he die?”

Jeban looked at Reggie before answering, a cold gleam in his pale eyes. “If you can capture him, do so, but it will be no great loss if he dies. Enough of our people have been murdered by human hands. Balancing the scales would be satisfying.”

Reggie shivered. These two talked of killing as if a life held no worth at all. Maybe for them, humans were disposable. If that was indeed D.J. or one of his fellow Paladins behind them, she could only pray that they stayed safely out of sight. Then there was the whole other problem of more of Jeban's gang being on their way to meet them.

She slowly followed Jeban to the campsite. She knew she should fear what these alien bastards had planned, but right now all she could do was collapse on the ground. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her legs and made herself as small as possible.

Jeban ignored her while he started a fire and then filled a kettle with water from a nearby spring. While he took care of the chores, Reggie prayed harder than she had in years.

God, I don't want my life to end here, but please don't let D.J. die because of me.

As she waited to see what would happen next, she stared into the fire and let her head fill with images of D.J. From what she'd read about the Paladins, he and his friends were certainly the stuff legends were made of: warriors with a code of honor so profound that they sacrificed their lives over and over again to protect ordinary people like her.

She really wished the two of them had had more time together. Rather than think about the potential horrors that might await her, she thought about the amazing kiss they had shared and drew comfort from the memory.

Todd did his best to ignore the argument occuring just outside his office. He didn't know what it was about and didn't care.

Then the door to his office slammed open with no warning. What the hell? He'd told his assistant Melinda to hold his calls and fend off anyone who wanted to see him so he could get this damned report done.

She hovered in the doorway, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Behind her stood Ray, obviously back from his trip to the coast. What the hell had happened to him? Rather than acknowledge him, Todd concentrated on soothing his assistant's ruffled feathers.

“Yes, Melinda, what is it?”

“I'm sorry, sir. I told Mr. Pine here that you weren't to be disturbed, but he wouldn't listen.” She shot the other man a nasty look. “Shall I call security?”

He forced a smile to hide his irritation

“That won't be necessary, Melinda. I should've told you that Ray might be stopping by today.”

Her relief was obvious as she backed out of the office, shooting one last look at Ray before pulling the door closed. When she was gone and safely out of hearing, Todd leaned back in his chair and glared at his unwanted associate.

“Ray, what the fuck happened to your face and why are you here? I thought we'd agreed that we wouldn't meet at work.”

The other man ignored him. Instead he helped himself to a cup of coffee before settling into the chair facing Todd's desk. He looked like hell. If Todd had to guess, Ray hadn't slept much in the past two days. He was also sporting a pair of world-class shiners and a nose swollen to twice its normal size. And the man looked thoroughly pissed off.

Todd couldn't resist tweaking the guy's already bad mood. “Tough day at the office or are you going to a costume party as a raccoon?”

Ray glared at him over the rim of his coffee cup. “Fuck you, Todd. I told you I didn't want to make that trip. Now look at me.”

Todd studied his friend's face. “Looks painful.”

“It is, and what's more, I'm going to need surgery to put my nose back together. Tomorrow, as a matter of fact, so I'll be out of commission for at least a couple of days. That little bitch you wanted picked up did this to me. I hope those two Others I left her with—”

When Ray's voice got louder with each word, Todd cut him off in midsentence. “Shut the fuck up right now. This is not the time or the place for this conversation.”

Ray glared right back at him. “Yeah, well, tough shit, Todd. Why don't you explain to my wife how I ended up like this after a business trip?”

God, he hated placating the peons. “Fine, I get it. You're hurt. You're mad. She's mad.”

Damn it, he should've handled the situation himself to make sure it was done well right from the start.

“I suppose it never occurred to you that by heading straight here you've led a trail right to my door.” He rose to his feet. “Let's go.”

“Where?”

“Someplace where we can talk without being overheard.”

Twenty minutes later they were sitting on a park bench with a couple of sandwiches and cold drinks. Todd had lost his appetite when Ray walked into his office, but appearances were everything. If anyone was paying any attention, it would look as if two friends were taking advantage of their lunch hour to enjoy a sunny afternoon in St. Louis.

“Okay, start to finish, fill me in.”

He took a bite of his sandwich while Ray explained what had happened. The more Todd listened, the more he wanted to choke the bastard.

“Any chance the dead guy can be traced back to you?”

Because if he could, there just might be another corpse in the making. At least Ray had been smart enough to use local talent in Portland. One Regents employee making a trip to the area might go unnoticed. Sending four but having only three return would be harder to hide.

“No way. We kept it to first names only. I paid cash and used burn phones.”

Ray paused to take a long swig of his iced tea. Then he cleared his throat. “There's more.”

“I figured there was.”

Todd stared out across the grassy slope and waited for the shit to hit the fan.

“Someone is already hunting for her. I don't know for sure, but I think it might be the Paladins from Seattle.”

Todd snorted his soft drink, nearly choking in the process. “Are you sure?”

“No, but one of the guys thought he overheard her call someone D.J. It would be too much of a coincidence for it to be some other random guy by that name.”

“Did he hear anything else?” One look at Ray's face told the story. “Don't tell me, he's the one you shot.”

“He let her steal his cell phone. It was his fault that things got this screwed up. I'm telling you right now, if the Paladins are really on the hunt, I want out.”

Yeah, like that was going to happen. But before Todd explained the facts of life to his good buddy Ray, he had to ask one more question.

“How the hell did you manage to drag those bastards into this? It was supposed to be a clean snatch-and-grab. You were to let the Others have some fun with the bitch, so that when we drag her back across the barrier she'd be more cooperative.”

Not that it would save her life in the long run.

“I don't know how they caught wind of what was going on. All I know is that someone followed us to the caves. We never saw them, but whoever it was sliced the tires to the truck. If I hadn't had a helo on call, we'd have been screwed. As it was, we'd barely gotten off the ground when another truck drove up.”

“Did you get a good look at them?”

“Three guys got out of the truck. One was tall and blond, the other two were shorter, with dark hair. We were too high up to pick out details.”

At least that meant it was unlikely that the guys on the ground could see Ray any better in the helicopter. Okay, maybe Ray could live awhile longer.

Todd pondered the situation. “Okay, I'll do some checking and see if I can pick up any chatter from out west. If necessary, I'll do some damage control. Right now I've got to get back to work.”

He wadded up the rest of his lunch, no longer hungry. “Go get your nose fixed.”

Wouldn't want the man to look bad for his own funeral.

In the distance, a flare of light and a wisp of smoke caught D.J.'s eye. If he had to guess, someone was setting up camp. Good. If his quarry had stopped for the night, this would be his best chance to catch up with them. With his night vision, he could keep moving even if both of Kalithia's cursed stars disappeared behind the horizon.

He kept a wary eye on his surroundings. There was no way to know if he'd managed to hide his presence from Reggie's captors. If he were them, he'd have one guy set up camp while the other hung back to watch the trail just in case someone had crossed over into Kalithia intent on rescuing Reggie.

As he walked, he studied the terrain ahead. If he were setting the trap, he'd be waiting just past where the trail wound up and over the side of the last hill overlooking the valley beyond. The trail ran along the edge of a rocky drop-off that would funnel him right toward where he hoped they were resting.

Options. He needed options. His Glock would allow him to kill from a distance. The downside was that the noise would alert any other Kalith in the area. A knife would be silent, but he'd have to get within cutting distance of the enemy.

He opted for skirting around the back side of the hill even though it would take him some distance off the trail. If he was reading the terrain correctly, he'd come out behind where they might be waiting. With luck, the enemy would be too intent on watching for him on the trail to notice that he was staging a little trap of his own.