The Sanctuary

  She then got to work on building a fire. The winter rains hadn’t yet arrived, and the twigs and branches she collected were dry and brittle. She managed to get a good fire going opposite the tree Corben was against and gathered a small pile of additional wood to keep it fed.

  She wondered how long it would be before help arrived. Given that they’d ridden for close to two hours to get to this spot, she reckoned it would take at least twice as long before anyone appeared, probably even longer given that they’d be making the entire journey at night—and that was assuming they would actually attempt it at night and not wait until morning. A warm feeling spread through her as she thought of Evelyn and Tom wistfully. She knew they wouldn’t wait till morning, and yet, at the same time, she didn’t want to put them in any more danger.

  The exhaustion—both physical and mental—was overwhelming the last traces of adrenaline that had kept her going. She surrendered to it and slid down to the ground beside Corben. They just lay there in silence for a while, staring at the bonfire, listening as it crackled and popped, watching as the flames licked and curled around the twigs before pulling them down and consuming them.

  “Last thing I remember is going out to meet my mom for a drink,” Mia eventually said. “How did we end up here?”

  Corben chewed on it for a brief moment. “Because of assholes like the hakeem. And me.” His hollow voice was laced with regret.

  Mia turned to him. “You wanted it that badly?”

  He shrugged. “It kind of beats everything, doesn’t it?” He winced. “Everything except a bullet in the gut.”

  “Did you kill Farouk?”

  Corben’s nodded faintly. “He was badly hit, but…yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Greed. Self-preservation.” He mulled his words. “Greed, mostly.” He leaned around so that he was facing her. “I’m not a good person, Mia. I wasn’t trained to be good. I was trained to be effective. To get things done. And I’ve done some questionable things, some awful things that were applauded by my superiors.” He shook his head with remorse. “I guess somewhere on that road, I decided I could also do it for myself.”

  “So my mom, me…we were just, what? Useful?”

  He shook his head faintly. “There was no master plan. It just kind of took me—took us all by surprise and sucked us all in. Something happens, an opportunity pops up, and you go after it. But the last thing I wanted in all this was for you to be put in harm’s way, to get hurt. That’s the truth. And regardless of my motives, I always thought I’d get your mom out, as soon as it was possible. The thing is, in my business, the first lesson you learn is that things rarely work out the way you plan them.” He coughed up a bit of blood and wiped it off his mouth. He looked up at her. “For what it’s worth, I…” He shook his head, as if deciding against saying it. “I’m sorry. About everything.”

  Just then, a spine-tingling cry shattered the stillness of the night. It was the unmistakable howl of a wolf. Another quickly responded, its cry echoing around them.

  Not a wolf.

  Wolves.

  They never hunted alone.

  A sudden feeling of dread wrung Mia’s gut. Her eyes swung over to Corben. He’d heard them too.

  “It’s the blood,” Corben reported gloomily, straightening up. “They’ve smelled it.”

  Another howl pierced the night, this one much closer.

  How quickly did they travel?

  Mia sat up, her eyes and ears on high alert.

  “The guns,” he mumbled. “Get the guns.”

  Mia hurled herself to her feet and pulled a flaming stick out of the fire. She scurried away on rubbery legs towards where she remembered the mokhtar’s son had fallen. She thought she remembered seeing the mokhtar put the boy’s rifle down there. She’d seen submachine guns by the two fallen villagers, but they were further afield, and she wasn’t sure she dared venture that far.

  She advanced cautiously, sweeping the lighted brand left and right, scanning the murky obscurity for any sign of the predators. Her eyes picked out the old hunting rifle, propped up like a talisman against the tree where the mokhtar’s son had lain. She stepped towards it, and just as she reached out to grab it, she saw the gray forms lurking in the shadows. Her heart skipped a whole bar as she watched them skulk there, eyeing her. She stabbed the brand at them, causing them to flinch and retreat a step, but they weren’t easily cowed. They inched forward again, baring their teeth menacingly, their sleek bodies taut with anticipation.

  She steeled herself and sliced the air with the brand, shouting at them as she took a careful step to the rifle. She snatched it with her free hand, its weight taking her by surprise, then pulled away, keeping her back to the bonfire, retreating while swinging the stick manically around her. Farther away, she heard yelps and angry snarls, and the three wolves that had been stalking her rushed off into the darkness. She heard them working feverishly on something and realized they had found the villagers’ dead bodies.

  She hustled back to Corben before they came back for more. He’d managed to get himself up and was half-crouched, his back to the fire, a flaming brand in his hand. Mia handed him the gun.

  “What about the automatics?”

  “I couldn’t get to them,” she said fearfully.

  Corben checked the rifle and frowned. It was a Russian SKS carbine, ex-Iraqi-army-issue. Its magazine had a capacity of ten rounds. Corben thought he’d heard two of them go wild, and the third had ripped through him, which meant he had seven shots left, if it had been fully loaded. He felt under its barrel. Its bayonet, normally swiveled, tucked in under it and nondetachable on the military-issue weapon, had been taken off, much to his dismay.

  Mia was watching him from the corner of her eye. “What have we got?”

  “Seven rounds, tops,” he informed her glumly.

  The ghostly shapes soon materialized in the darkness around them, the golden glint of the flames flickering in their eyes. They swirled around Mia and Corben like a legion from hell, crisscrossing each other’s paths calmly, almost as if they were conferring with each other and planning their onslaught. They snapped their jaws and bared their teeth, taunting their prey, darting forward and lurching back just as fast, playing with them, testing their defenses.

  Their fetid smell clawed at Mia’s nose as she lunged at them, her eyes stinging from the heat of her torch, her back inches from the raging bonfire that licked hungrily at it.

  “We’re not going to be able to hold them off forever,” she hissed to Corben, “and there’s more than seven of them.”

  Corben had been thinking the same thing.

  His eyes had been scouring their perimeter, trying to gauge how many they were up against. From what he could see, there seemed to be ten of them, maybe a dozen. At least, those were the ones he could see on the front line.

  He faltered, his strength long gone, his legs living on borrowed time. A couple of the predators decided to push a little harder and darted at him, their long muzzles wide-open, their wet tongues slobbering ravenously, their sharp fangs gleaming in the firelight. He stabbed back with his brand, struggling to remain on his feet, the throbbing of an overtaxed heart deafening in his ears. The wolves dodged the flames with ease, pulling back with lightning agility. As if sensing his faltering life force, one of them decided to go for the kill and leapt at him, paws and jaws flung wide and aimed at his neck. Corben squeezed off a round that caught it in midflight, and it yelped and dropped like a sandbag, at his feet. Another grabbed the opportunity and pounced at Corben, who stopped it with another shot. The others seemed momentarily spooked by the gunshots and the sudden deaths of their brethren and retreated, receding into the darkness.

  “You alright?” Mia asked, her eyes still locked on the shadows stalking them.

  Corben could barely stand or keep his eyes open. He felt as if he were sinking into a smothering abyss.

  “We’re going to need those automatics,” he rasped through clenched teeth. A burning se
nsation, more fierce than the heat from the bonfire, was scorching him from the inside. “Where’s the nearest one?”

  “Down that way.” Mia pointed in the direction of the fallen villagers. “But they were too far to reach, I told you.”

  “We don’t have much choice. I’m not going to get the rest of them with the handful of bullets this piece of junk has left in it. And without them, we’re dead anyway. The fire’s going to give out sometime. They’ll just wear us out, it’s what they do. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on ending up as wolf feed.”

  “What do you want to do?” Mia asked, her mouth dry with fear.

  “Grab two big fire sticks. The biggest you can carry. We’ll head out there, back to back. Take it one step at a time, keep them at bay. If I need to, I’ll use the bullets I have left. If we can get to one of the guns, I think I can take them out. What do you say?”

  “Can you make it there?”

  Corben wiped the beads of sweat streaming down his face. “Never felt better.” He grinned. “Shall we?”

  Mia met his gaze. No matter what he’d done or what his intentions had been, he’d still saved her life more than once, and maybe, just maybe, he was going to do it again. Which had to count for something.

  “Come on,” he blurted, coughing up some blood. “While we’re young,” he added, a sardonic glint in his eyes.

  Mia bent to the foot of the bonfire and pulled out two large, flaming logs.

  She nodded at Corben.

  “Lead the way, but stay close,” he told her.

  With her back against him, they crab-walked, sideways, inching away from the fire, heading into dark waters, swinging the torches back and forth, surrounding themselves with a ring of protective fire. Step by step, they edged closer and closer to the spot where one of the villagers had fallen, the image of the man’s dead body getting torn apart by the wolves clawing at their debilitated minds. All around them, the creatures snapped and snarled, lunging and pulling back, running around, their glowing eyes locked on their prey.

  In the dim firelight, Corben spotted the shredded carcass of the villager, and, not far from it, the glint of the AK-47’s barrel.

  “That way,” he grunted to Mia, adjusting their trajectory, angling towards the weapon of their salvation.

  He felt his legs about to give out, but willed them to stay with him a bit longer, and with a Herculean effort, he managed to edge them over to the fallen machine gun.

  “Keep them off me while I check it,” he managed, as he reached down and picked up the gun. It felt as if it weighed a ton in his hands. He grunted and winced as he lifted it up, then steadied himself and clicked out its magazine, pushing against the top cartridge with his fingers, checking its load.

  “Well?” Mia asked, desperation ringing in her voice.

  “We’re good to go,” he shot back, barely able to stand now. He set the selector to semiauto and half-turned to be able to see her face. She was looking at him, her eyes ratcheted wide with nervous anticipation.

  “Take this,” he told her, handing her the rifle. “I’ll take down as many as I can, but if they get me, you’ll have to finish them off with this. The safety’s off. Just aim and squeeze, okay?”

  She managed a smile. She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but he knew now was not the time. She knew it too.

  The creatures were now in a frenzy, sensing the final confrontation and the imminent kill. One of them bunched up its hind legs and pounced at Corben. He squeezed the trigger, and the wolf jerked in midair and fell dead just as the others swarmed in for the kill.

  Corben loosed off more rounds, swinging the gun left and right, spitting death at them. His body was running on pure momentum now, each shot resonating across him, pushing him backwards against Mia, his fingers stuck in a death clutch on the gun’s handle and magazine. One after another, the wolves fell, stopped in midair as if hit by an invisible sledgehammer or slamming against a nonexistent glass barrier, toppling on top of each other, littering the ground with fur and bone and blood.

  With two remaining wolves snapping at his feet, the firing pin slammed against the empty chamber in a loud clunk. One of the wolves leapt up at him. He spun the wooden stock of the Kalashnikov upwards and batted it off him. It righted itself almost immediately, as if he had swatted it with nothing more than a rolled-up newspaper. Before it could come around for another frontal attack, he’d flicked the machine gun in his hands, gripping it now from its barrel, like an ax, and brought it down heavily on the creature, pounding it once, twice, desperate yelps slicing the still air.

  “Jim,” he heard Mia yell, but before he could turn, he was hit from behind by the last surviving wolf. He felt its teeth digging into his neck, its claws carving into his back, and the first wolf recovered, spun on itself, and joined in. The carbine fell from his hands and he saw the earth rise up to meet him as he plummeted to the ground. The pain was surreal, his body getting ripped to pieces from all quarters, but he was already numb to it all, his neurons long exhausted and no longer able to transmit any sensations to his depleted brain. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a gunshot, then another, and another still, and the movement on him stopped, the mauling ceased, and the teeth and claws that had buried themselves in his body froze in place.

  He rolled onto his back and felt the light leaving his body. He saw Mia’s vague form grunting as she yanked at the beasts that had been tearing at him, pulling them off him, and then he saw her face looming down at him, studying him with a combination of horror and sadness, tears from her eyes dripping down onto his lips, their salty taste resuscitating the dead cells they were landing on, her soft fingers moving across his face and clearing something off his forehead, her lips moving and saying something he couldn’t quite fathom, a mesmerizing halo of distant stars shimmering around her heavenly face, and he decided it would be a good way to die, better than any he had ever imagined for himself or thought he deserved. He might have managed a smile, but he wasn’t sure of it, as he drank in a final warming sip of the glorious elixir before him before it faded to black and all feeling deserted his pillaged body.

  Chapter 73

  M ia just sat by Corben’s body for a long while, not moving. Her skin resonated with a shivering that wouldn’t stop, and her eyes stared out into the darkness, avoiding the mounds of dead bodies, man and beast, that littered the ground around her.

  Eventually, noticing that the brand she was still clutching was dying out, she rose to her feet and trudged over to the bonfire. She didn’t even bother looking around for more wolves, too weary and bone-tired and drained to care.

  Nothing came at her.

  With numb hands, she fed the fire again, then shrank down, her back to the tree Corben had been leaning against, and cupped her face with her hands.

  Dawn was far off. She’d lost all notion of time, but she knew she had a long night ahead of her. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was going to stay there, riveted to that spot, until someone—or something—came and plucked her off it.

  A lone, distant howl broke the stillness.

  It wasn’t answered.

  The creature sounded mournful, as if lamenting the great loss of life, the monsoon of death that had drenched the parched soil of the mountain.

  And then she saw them.

  Distant lights, flickering in and out from behind trees, a slow convoy snaking its way towards her.

  She strained to get a clearer picture of who, or what, they were, but they were far off. They would disappear behind a ridge, then reappear a few minutes later, slightly closer. Gradually, they made their way to her, traveling in silence, a muted procession. When they finally came into view, she saw that there were several of them, on horseback, half a dozen or more perhaps, holding up flaming torches and oil lanterns.

  She didn’t recognize any of them. She didn’t think they were from Nerva Zhori—she’d met a lot of the villagers in the commotion after the helicopt
er had exploded—then she saw the familiar face of the mokhtar as he climbed off his horse and approached her with a weary smile and a blanket.

  He draped it over and led her to a waiting horse, the others watching her every move in respectful, if intrigued, silence.

  Chapter 74

  Philadelphia—December 1783

  T he fireplace crackled in the small but comfortable room as Thérésia stared out the window. A light dusting of snow was falling on the trees outside, the flakes twinkling in the suffused moonlight as they glided to a gentle rest.

  She knew he wouldn’t be coming back.

  She’d known it at the quayside in Lisbon, almost two decades earlier.

  Had it been that long ago?

  Her face relaxed into a bittersweet smile at the memories floating through her mind.

  Thérésia hadn’t wanted Sebastian to leave, but she knew he had to. Those years in Lisbon had been the happiest, the most fulfilling of her long life—living with him, traveling in his company, learning with him, and, of course, raising their young son together. She had never wanted it to end, she desperately wanted him to stay or take her and Miguel with him, but she realized it wasn’t possible. He had to follow his destiny, and she had to keep their son safe.

  His leaving her, and her move across the ocean, had—as he’d promised—brought her peace. No one had bothered her or Miguel—Michael now—since they’d settled in Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love had lived up to its name. The last few years had been turbulent—revolutions usually are—but, mercifully, she and Michael had survived the turmoil and with the Treaty of Paris now signed, it looked as if the worst was well behind them.