Into the Shadow

  The thin, gray premorning light spilled into the long valley, and from up here she could see it all—the cliff on one side, the gorge on the other, and the narrow bottleneck of an entrance on the far end. On the flat valley floor a dozen men slept in bags and tents, and two sat hunched over, cleaning their rifles. One of them glanced up at her, then glanced up toward the other end of the valley. Following his gaze she saw a guard sitting high on a rock, rifle in hand. Looking more closely, she saw other guards stationed strategically at lookout points, dressed in camouflage and holding an impressive array of firearms.

  ‘‘This isn’t going to be easy.’’ Karen stepped out and scanned the mountains around them. ‘‘We can’t fight our way out, so we’re going to have to be crafty. I wonder if these guys are open to bribes.’’

  Mingma stepped out beside her. ‘‘You want to leave?’’

  ‘‘Of course I want to leave!’’

  ‘‘Why do you want to leave Warlord?’’

  Mingma didn’t understand. Obviously. So, in a voice gravelly with fury, Karen said, ‘‘Because the bastard brought me here against my will, that’s why. To use me like . . . like a whore.’’

  ‘‘Not like a whore. Like a wife. It is an honor.’’

  ‘‘An honor? To be forced to have sex with an ignorant, brutal raider?’’

  ‘‘But is he not your secret lover?’’

  ‘‘What?’’ Stiff with shock, Karen swung on Mingma.

  ‘‘Is he not the lover who heard your tears, who slipped into your tent at night to make you forget your sorrow?’’

  ‘‘You knew?’’ Karen stood, her hands slack at her sides.

  Mingma knew.

  ‘‘It is not good for a young woman to sleep alone.’’

  Karen covered her hot cheeks with her hands. ‘‘Did everyone know?’’

  ‘‘No, miss. The men you could hire were not good. Only the laziest would work in that evil place. Warlord keeps the best for himself.’’ Mingma turned her solemn brown eyes on Karen. ‘‘I am the best, so he hire me to care for you.’’

  Karen stared at Mingma, at the woman she thought she knew, and realized her jaw hung open. Snapping it shut, she then asked, ‘‘When? You mean today?’’

  ‘‘No. When you come to Mount Anaya. Warlord, he saw you in Kathmandu, and he know right away he would make you his.’’

  ‘‘Did he now?’’ Warlord had been watching her on the train, and she hadn’t noticed. She’d been too busy fending off a pass from Phil. At the time she’d thought Phil was the worst lecher she’d have to contend with in Nepal. What a fool she’d been—about everything.

  ‘‘When he realized where you were going, he came to me. He said you would need someone to protect you. So I bring my lucky bells and hang them on your tent, and powerful soil from the god on Everest and spread it under your feet. Morning and night I say the prayers of defense from the Evil One, and at night I add sleep weed to your dinner so you not hear the cries from the mountain and go crazy and seek those who are lost.’’ As if she expected praise, Mingma smiled and bowed.

  Karen did not smile. ‘‘So you worked for him. You always worked for him. You came because he’s paying you.’’

  ‘‘Yes, miss.’’

  In less than twenty-four hours Karen had seen death, faced evil, embraced life, and discovered that her lover, her rescuer, was a warlord. The warlord. Yet this betrayal hurt her more than anything she’d seen or faced. ‘‘I trusted you,’’ she whispered.

  ‘‘Of course. As I trust you. We are sisters.’’ Mingma seemed so calm, as if she didn’t know she’d deceived Karen.

  ‘‘No. Sisters don’t hurt each other.’’

  ‘‘I have not hurt you. I have cared for you and watched over you when your lover could not.’’

  ‘‘For money!’’

  ‘‘Miss, I have a son, sixteen years old. Here, the schools are not good. So I send him to your United States, and pay for him to live with an American family and prepare for college. He is smart. He does well.’’ Mingma glowed with pride. ‘‘So I pay.’’

  ‘‘You pay for his life with mine.’’

  ‘‘No, miss. Warlord is the best soldier here. He holds control.’’ Mingma showed her clenched fist. ‘‘He will keep you safe.’’

  ‘‘I don’t want to be safe. I want to be gone!’’

  ‘‘He wants you here. Why should your desire be held higher than his?’’

  They were talking in circles.

  Karen seethed with frustration. ‘‘Fine. You’re his creature. So stay away from me.’’

  ‘‘But, miss, I have your breakfast.’’

  ‘‘Put it outside the door. I’ll get it when I get my appetite back.’’ Karen ducked back into the tent and stalked across the plush rug.

  Mingma. Mingma had betrayed her.

  She hadn’t seen that one coming. And why not? She’d worked in construction as a project manager, where every con man and wastrel flocked to her jobs in the hopes of cheating the stupid little woman. She’d learned the hard way not to trust anyone.

  Yet Mingma had slipped under her guard.

  Thank God her father would never know. Thank God . . . yeah, because if she didn’t break out of this prison, she’d end up being some wacko warlord’s plaything until he tired of her, or until the end of her life, and those two events might coincide closely.

  There had to be a way out of here. No self-respecting wacko would leave himself without an escape route.

  He’d placed the tent high on a platform against a cliff. Warlord was too canny to have done that by accident.

  She lifted the heavy tapestry that covered the back wall, and examined the weather-resistant tent fabric.

  There.

  A seam snaked up from the floor to a spot about halfway up the wall. Karen knelt and ran her fingers along the length. The work was done as an afterthought, the seam basted together by clear, strong nylon thread. She tried to tear it—impossible. A knife, something sharp . . . She ran to the holster strapped to one of the uprights on the headboard.

  Empty.

  Glancing around, she grabbed a gold-plated serving tray off the table and used the edge to saw through the thread above the knot, then slipped the stitching free. She spread the material and looked out.

  As she suspected, the platform jutted out a few inches beyond the tent, and just beyond in the cliff she saw the beginning of a path that wound into the mountains.

  Yet . . . she looked down. The path was six feet from the platform, and the drop was twenty feet onto sharp rocks—a fall guaranteed to break her bones.

  Warlord couldn’t jump that. Could he? He had to have some sort of temporary bridge. She knelt and groped under the platform, looking for something to span the distance.

  Nothing.

  She glanced inside the tent for a loose board that would hold her weight.

  Nothing.

  She didn’t dare wait any longer.

  Mingma would be back soon to try to convince Karen to dress in the harem clothes and play the coy maiden to Warlord’s conquering warrior.

  Bullshit.

  Karen wouldn’t do it.

  Again she measured the span with her gaze. She stood on the edge—and almost jumped.

  But like a sliver of glass, some sharp, bright thought cut her concentration.

  The icon. She had to take the icon.

  And her coat, of course. It was stupid to think of escaping into the Himalayas, even in the summer, without a coat.

  Hurrying to the camouflage parka, she slipped her arms into the sleeves and belted it around her waist. Irresistibly she slid her hand into the pocket and pulled out the icon.

  The Madonna stared solemnly at her.

  ‘‘I’ll save you,’’ Karen vowed, and walked back to the hole in the tent. She slipped through and stood there, the breeze lifting her hair. She stared at the lip of the path six feet away.

  She’d done a lot of climbing in her life. She’d jumped crevasses w
ith raging streams below. She knew the length of her legs, and she knew her limits.

  From a standing start . . . this jump was impossible.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist and swallowed the bile that built in her throat.

  She would fall.

  She’d dreamed this a million times.

  She would be horribly hurt, crippled, her bones shattered, her internal organs bleeding uncontrollably.

  Her breath hitched, and her eyes filled with tears.

  She was being dramatic. She was a coward.

  But she was afraid.

  On the other hand, if she stayed here, she’d be the plaything of a monster.

  Jump.

  So she jumped.

  She stretched out like Superman, hands forward, trying in midair to propel herself onto the path.

  She missed. She landed with a bone-crunching thump on her face and chest. Her legs dangled, wheeling madly. She slipped. Grabbed at the grass. Caught herself. The clump of grass broke. She slipped again. She was going down. . . .

  Her foot found a rock lodged solidly beneath the overhang.

  One hand caught the branch of a shrub.

  She wanted to scramble up.

  She forced herself to slow down, to balance herself, to concentrate. . . .

  Gradually she inched her stomach onto the path. She flung her leg up onto the ledge. She rolled . . . and she was safe. Safe.

  She took a long breath, the first one since she’d jumped.

  Safe? No way. Somehow, some way, Warlord would come after her.

  Magnus crawled forward along the rock at the edge of the cliff, his gaze fixed on the regiment below. He settled next to the man to whom he’d sworn his allegiance.

  Warlord rested on his belly, watching the movement of troops through the valley. He liked to keep an eye on them as they marched around, officiously and ineptly patroling the long, narrow river valleys and murderous peaks where the mercenaries held reign.

  Magnus wasn’t afraid of him. Not anymore. No reason to be. The scratch along his cheek had healed, stitched by a skilled physician in Kathmandu. He seldom woke anymore from the nightmare of a big cat’s weight on his chest and its hot breath on his face. He almost never thought of that night when he’d first realized the old, scary legends his poor mother had whispered in his ear were true, and monsters roamed the earth. Because, in the end, he knew he was already damned by his sins, and he’d rather die by Warlord’s hand—or paw—than live like most men did, chained to a desk or a dock, and ground down by poverty.

  Yet for all his loyalty to Warlord, he still kept a few careful inches’ distance from his master. In a low voice he said, ‘‘The army’s bloody casual about that payroll shipment.’’

  ‘‘Why shouldn’t they be?’’ Warlord smiled his expression of composed amusement. ‘‘They’ve transported two shipments through the mountains with no trouble at all. It’s obvious the government crackdown has worked, and the rogue mercenaries are under control.’’

  ‘‘Of course.’’ Magnus slapped his forehead in mocking dismay. ‘‘I should have known.’’

  Warlord was coolly confident. ‘‘When I came here fifteen years ago, I was a seventeen-year-old driven from his home by fear and guilt, sure of his damnation. Today we’re going to liberate the entire payroll for the Khalistan government officials.’’

  ‘‘Ye’ve come up in the world.’’

  ‘‘Yes. But have you seen the soldier who’s using the binoculars? The one with the bolts in his ears?’’

  Magnus had. The guy was tall, burly, with a face that looked as if it had stopped a freight train. He wore earrings—earrings that looked not so much like jewelry, but like machinery. ‘‘Aye. I wonder who he’s looking for.’’

  ‘‘He’s looking for us.’’

  ‘‘So he’s one of the new mercenaries?’’

  ‘‘Good assumption.’’ In a long, slow breath, Warlord pulled the air into his lungs. ‘‘I don’t like the smell of him. He’s . . . sour.’’

  ‘‘Ye’ve got the nose for trouble.’’ And now Magnus knew why. ‘‘Shall we take care of him?’’

  Warlord watched the big man. ‘‘No. That odor . . . it’s barely a hint on the air. But it reminds me of something; I can’t remember what . . . a danger to us.’’ His black eyes grew unfocused. He seemed to be looking inward. ‘‘Something’s coming . . . but it’s not here yet . . ."

  ‘‘Yer instincts are talking to ye, then?’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’ The word was barely a whisper on Warlord’s lips.

  ‘‘It’s good to see ye have yer concentration back,’’ Magnus said.

  Slowly Warlord turned his head and stared.

  ‘‘You do have your concentration back, don’t you?’’ Magnus asked anxiously. ‘‘Now that you have the woman in your tent?’’

  Warlord’s voice was level. ‘‘Have the profits dropped?’’

  ‘‘No.’’

  ‘‘Have the trades been untended?’’

  ‘‘No.’’

  ‘‘Then what’s your complaint?’’

  ‘‘Ye’re still a wee bit distracted, and in our business that’s asking for trouble.’’ Magnus knew that with one swipe of a claw Warlord could cut out his heart. But he had a duty to the men, and to Warlord himself, and the words needed to be spoken. ‘‘Now that ye know she’s safe, ye can put yer heart where it belongs—in the making of the money.’’

  ‘‘Your savings are safe in Switzerland. And don’t worry—my heart is just where it always was, cooking in hell.’’ Warlord drew another breath deep into his lungs. His head snapped up. Without any care at all he stood. ‘‘Follow the plan. Lead the men. I’ve got to go.’’

  ‘‘But . . . you . . . we . . .’’ Magnus could barely stammer his dismay.

  Warlord leaned over, grabbed the front of Magnus’s shirt, and lifted him to eye level. ‘‘Don’t fail me.’’

  In a single bound Warlord slid from man to panther.

  Chapter Ten

  Hurry. Hurry.

  He would know. He would find her.

  Hurry ...

  What was that?

  Karen skidded to a halt. She turned.

  The path stretched behind her, empty, rocky.

  She looked around, yet saw nothing but the line of the Himalayas etched against the sky, jagged, pristine, indifferent. She listened, yet heard nothing but the ever-present wind, the thunder of a distant waterfall, the brief scream of a hawk overhead.

  She’d been walking for a half hour, and she’d been nervous every minute.

  But she was being ridiculous, granting Warlord powers no mere man could possess. He was gone from the camp. Unless he’d arrived back the very minute Karen left, she had a good chance of escaping.

  She might not like the mountains, but she knew how to run, and she knew how to hide.

  So she needed to hurry.

  The path was no more than a slice of soft stone among the granite, but as long as it took her in the opposite direction from the warlord’s camp, she would follow.

  She turned back with renewed intent, walking briskly between giant stones and through a high mountain meadow. The path dipped . . . she heard the soft sound of a footfall . . . she swung around again.

  Nothing was there.

  She scanned the meadow.

  Nothing.

  A movement caught her eye. But when she looked at the place she saw only the shadow of a high and distant cloud.

  Nevertheless . . . she would have sworn that some thing moved through the grass after her.

  Impossible. It must be the wind that rippled through the flowers.

  Yet the hair stood up on the back of her neck.

  She would have sworn someone—or something—was watching her.

  She turned back to her journey, walked around a corner, and skidded to a stop.

  ‘‘Oh, help,’’ she whispered.

  The path skittered along a cliff above and a two-hundred-foot chasm below, and n
arrowed to only six inches of crumbling rock. Below, the raging river chewed at the stones, licking away at the support, and this crossing made the terrifying jump from the warlord’s tent look simple.

  When it came to heights, she was a coward. She knew it. Her father had taunted her often enough. And usually she handled her fear . . . but not today. Not when she was escaping a madman’s clutches. Not when she was imagining a pursuit that wasn’t there.

  Taking a deep breath, she put her back against the cliff and inched forward, one foot after the other, eyes determinedly forward and staring across the chasm to the opposite cliff. She took deep, slow breaths, warding off hyperventilation. The cool breeze chilled the sheen of sweat on her face. She didn’t want to faint. No, God, please, don’t faint, because there was always a chance she’d live through the fall and suffer for days and nights of never-ending agony . . . like her mother. . . .

  Worse, fear made her hallucinate.

  She thought someone stood in front of her on the path. Someone who breathed hot breath on her neck.

  With infinite care she turned her head to the side.

  Warlord stood there, fierce and furious, staring into her eyes.

  No. Oh, no. It wasn’t possible. How did he find her so quickly?

  ‘‘You would face this . . . rather than me?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘What do you think?’’ Her insolence was instinctive—and misplaced.

  For deep in his eyes that red flared, and he said, ‘‘I think you’ve made a terrible mistake.’’ He grabbed her.

  For a long, bitter moment she thought he was going to throw her into thin air, and she was going to die. Die as she had died every night in her nightmares.

  Instead he twirled her around, shoved her back to the meadow, and manhandled her to the ground, face-first. Her cheek crushed the green grass, and her eyes filled with disappointed tears.

  But not for long. She breathed deeply, got control.

  Karen Sonnet did not cry. She did not complain. She did not whine.

  She had failed to escape. She would take whatever punishment he handed out—and when she got the chance, she would run again.

  He picked her up and moved her around as if she weighed nothing, pulling her arms behind her and snapping cold metal around her wrists.