Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set (32 page)

"What are you saying, Frank?" Maddie screamed,
doubled over and clutching her knees. "Izzy is the one! Only she can save
us!"

"Fool!" hissed Ankouer, his humanlike shape
rippling with rancor. "She is puny and untrained. You will die, all of
you."

But Liz had eyes and ears only for her father. Even as he
continued crawling along that narrow ledge, he repeatedly grabbed for his
chest. His warnings came out as choked rasps. Should he manage to get the opal,
she doubted he'd make it down.

With only one thought—*
he needed her
*—Liz raced
across the cavern floor toward the slope leading to the ledge.

Suddenly, a man appeared to block her path.

"Richard!" Her whispered exclamation echoed back,
and her mind spun. How had he gotten here?

"Go back, Izzy. Leave the stone to Ankouer. In return,
he'll spare your pa's life and let you all go."

"The opal for my father?" she asked, looking up at
the swirling shape above.

"That's the deal," Richard said.

Liz tilted her head, shivers of fear running through her
body, but somehow she managed to calmly meet Richard's gaze. "Why should I
believe you?"

A self-satisfied typically Richard laugh came from his lips.
"What choice do you have?"

"This," she said. "Let me pass." Liz
thrust out the black doll and put her other hand on the needle protruding from
its heart.

Ankouer gave out a choked cry, and Richard backed away,
hands held up protectively. "There's more than me," he said.
"That hunk of mud will keep you safe, but not for long."

Then his form faded, and in the blink of Liz's eyes, he
disappeared. Ankouer wailed in outrage, the dancing flames split into dozens
more, bouncing over the water like sprites.

And still her father warned her away.

Her heart pounding like a congo drum, Liz resumed her
ascent, leaping over small rocks that littered the path, ignoring Ankouer's
angry sounds, Maddie's whimpers, her father's breathless warnings. His life was
in danger, her life was in danger, and even the fate of the loathsome Maddie
concerned her.

But greater danger awaited the world if the opal fell in
Ankouer's hands, and she recognized that Richard's warning was not a threat but
a statement of fact.

The figure above stared at her with dark, hot hate.

Gripping the voodoo doll ever tighter, she marched toward
the ledge, toward the opal, feeling a responding hate sizzle within her breast.
Even as alarm bells rang in her head, she vowed to let that hatred guide her
until she sent Ankouer straight back to hell.

* * *

Zach swallowed another nip of Smirnoff's as he pressed
himself to the walls of the cave, and stealthily made his way toward the
cavern. He heard Maddie screaming, heard Frank's hoarse cries, and heard
another voice as grating as a fingernail upon a blackboard. He started to rush
through the opening, then his cop's training asserted itself and he halted,
recapping and storing the flask and furtively moving toward the cavern.

He slipped soundlessly around the jagged edge of the entrance
to assess the situation and saw something horrible and black hovering above a
lake of fire. The sight staggered his mind, which pitched and reeled,
shattering his precarious hold on reality. For a moment his vision went blank.
He reached automatically for the flask.

He had to do something. But what? This wasn't life as he
understood it. This was all his childhood fears rolled into one. This was his
nightmares come to life.

His sight returned as quickly as it had left. He saw Maddie,
bent over as if in pain, screeching toward someone clinging to a narrow ledge.
Frank, he realized, grasping for the one solid fact to save his failing sanity.

Then he saw Liz. Dear God, Liz, leaping like a mountain goat
over rocks and small boulders to the tiny ledge that supported her father.

Suddenly, a man appeared in Liz's path. She stopped short
and waved a dark object about. Allain! Doc Allain was here. Drawing on the
rationale that had guided his choices until now, Zach tried to rearrange these
events into something that made sense. Another accomplice. No, that didn't fit.
A rescue party had arrived. No, not that either. His vision blurred once more,
but he could still hear and, Lord, he wished he couldn't.

"Zacharie is below," the doctor said, chuckling
darkly. "He is your defender, is it not so? Yet he trembles at the sight
of me, the man who spanked his bottom when he first saw life."

The fog cleared from Zach's eyes and he saw Liz look down at
him. Her eyes widened and she seemed encouraged by his presence.

"Take the offer, Izzy," the doctor went on in a
softly seductive tone. "Your defender is a coward. He will not stand
beside you."

"Yes, yes, he will," Frank moaned, rubbing his
chest as though it sorely ached.

The doctor glanced up at Frank with scorn. "Ah, the
fallen one. The failure. Tell Zacharie how it's done, Frank. Tell him of your
impotence during your sweet Ellie's night of reckoning. Tell him how you failed
her by loving another more than her."

"
No . . . non,"
Frank protested. "Do
not listen, Zacharie.
Pas du tout
." Not at all. Then he launched
into a volley of French that Zach understood only enough to know Liz needed
him.

Nothing made sense, and he didn't know how to fight it. Men
slinking in dark alleys, rough bars filled with violent criminals, courtrooms with
slick defense attorneys, boardrooms with arrogant executives, those he could
handle. But what was here? Illusions? Phantoms? Ghosts? What's more, he wanted
to yank off his hand for creeping toward his back pocket against his will.

"See, Izzy, how the soothing liquid calls him. He loves
it more than you. You cannot count on him." The doctor's voice turned
harsh. "Take Ankouer's offer, so you and these puny men will live to see
another sunrise. Refuse and you all die."

Liz's gaze lingered for an instant on the doctor's face,
then slowly moved to scan the cavern. She stopped at Zach. He cringed beneath
her scrutiny. Was the old doc right? Did he love his drink above all else? Had
he really sunk so low?

"I'm here, Liz." But even as he swore it, he felt
the draw of the flask. "What has Doc offered?"

"Our freedom," she said. "Our lives for the
opal. But I've refused."

The opal for their lives? A small price. It was just a rock.
Why did she hesitate?

"Give him the stone, Liz," he said, near to death
from wanting another drink.

She dipped her head. A nod? Had she nodded? Was she
agreeing? As she turned back to Allain, his breath stopped in anticipation.

Liz gazed back at Zach, fearing he meant what he said,
praying he didn't, and knowing deep in her heart that he still didn't
understand the importance of the stone. Standing in the center of the cavern,
beside the deep pool, she looked up at her father, at his ashen face and the
way he clutched his chest and arm. She returned to Allain, taking in his
sardonic expression, doubting he'd live up to the promise, but tempted, oh so
tempted.

The stone for their safety.

A series of booms sounded inside the cavern, and her head
spun in search of the source. Ankouer's evil eyes stared down from above,
appearing to twinkle with mirth.

"No!" With that refusal, Liz extended the arm
holding the doll out to its full length.

Why did Allain regard it so casually, as though it could not
hurt him? The animals had simply curled up and let her pass. Then she
remembered that Richard hadn't reacted until she'd reached for the needle.

"No! I will not hand it over!"

She gave the needle a vicious twist and instantly felt the
sweetness of vengeance fulfilled. Allain gagged, reached for his chest, then
tumbled over. Like the raccoon, he lay panting and staring up at her.

Ankouer howled and lost his human shape, reassuming the
spiral of a cyclone. The fire on the lake flickered and dimmed. Above, beside
her father, the opal sent out sparks of colored light. With her newly honed
intuition, Liz realized Ankouer had been surprised, but that this opportunity
would quickly pass. She circled around the doctor.

"Get the opal, Papa!" she cried, breaking into a
sprint.

Already the flames had regrouped, intensified. Ankouer was twisting
at a fierce speed. Time was running out.

She saw her father reach out, then lumber to his feet.
Clinging to the rocky wall, he inched to the lower landscape. Liz feared his
heart would give out at any moment. She headed upward, ever upward, arms outstretched
and urging him on.

Then Zach was calling to her, running toward her, running to
help, and she whirled to greet him. When he was halfway up, a gale arose. It
ripped at his hair and clothes, and he couldn't run fast enough or strong
enough to overcome the force.

The wind plastered her overalls to her body. Maintaining her
balance took every ounce of energy. For every step forward, the wind blew her
back two more. And above, his shaggy hair so wind-tossed it nearly stood on
end, her father clung to the wall for his life.

Then he turned, supported by a single hand, and teetered on
the brink of the ledge with the opal in his hand.

"Izzy!" he bellowed. "The fire stone!"

The gale instantly stopped. Ankouer whirled in fury, then
dipped and struck her father's arm. He staggered, weaving back and forth with
precarious balance. Just as he tumbled into the pool, he let the opal fly from
his hands.

"Zacharie! Get Frank!" Liz heard Maddie scream,
but there wasn't time to think of anything but the stone soaring in her
direction. She raced to the edge of the pool until she stood on its very lip.

The voodoo doll had been her lifeline, and at first her hand
refused to release it. Nearer the opal came, nearer and nearer, and still she
couldn't force herself to let go. In desperation, she drove the needle
completely through the doll's heart. Ankouer screeched. Her fingers uncurled,
and the doll hit the cavern's stone floor.

Stretching to her tiptoes, she opened her hands for the gem.
It was falling short, too short. She dropped to her belly, stretching out,
straining, waiting. . . .

A small sob escaped her throat as the stone struck her
hands. She clenched them into tight fists and eased back, gasping, onto the smooth
rock. She had it now. She had it.

The shriek that followed turned her blood to ice. She lifted
her head, saw hundreds of black pieces shooting out from Ankouer's spinning
form. Swarming bats instantly filled the cavern. They swooped toward the lake,
where Zach supported her father as he crawled from the pool.

Then the bats were upon Liz, dozens of them, flying at her
hair, at her arms, at the hands grasping the opal. Their sharp little claws
scraped at her fingers, which she clutched with fierce determination. But
despite her will, her grip slowly weakened and the opal slipped away.

"Noooo!"

The fragile gem plummeted over the lip of the pool.

A split second later, Ankouer resumed human shape. He dove
toward the falling stone, a whirling hand thrust out to catch it, new booms
rising from his center.

But Zach had swept up the voodoo doll and even as the opal
fell, even as Ankouer boomed his gallows laugh, Zach twisted the needle in the
clay figure's heart. Again and again he twisted, expressing a violence Liz
found both shocking and gratifying.

The fire ebbed and Ankouer's booms turned into another
shriek. The bats soared back to their source, merging with Ankouer's slowing
spiral. The monster rose toward the hole in the cavern's ceiling. Rising and
rising, fading as he rose, fading . . . fading. . . .

A new flash of lightning crackled just as his spiral faded
into nothing, clearly illuminating his absence.

Liz stared at the empty space with a mixture of triumph and
terror. This wasn't over. Her father was still half in the water with a heart
that could go at any second. The opal had rolled to a stop not far from the
water's edge, and she gave thanks that the fall hadn't shattered it. Its
brilliance had ebbed, and now it looked like any other stone, although the
striations were quite visible under the glow of Zach's lantern.

Liz climbed to her feet and descended the ramp on shaky
legs. Zach was still holding her father's head above the surface of the pool.
Maddie lay on the ground with her hands extended toward him, sobbing. At the
sight of Liz, she got up and rushed forward.

"Help your daddy, Izzy. Help him."

Without a moment's reflection, Liz kicked off her shoes and
made a move to dive in after the men.

"Wait!" Maddie cried. "Do not chance your
mama's book in the water."

"It's survived worse."

"But you are running out of luck, no?"

Liz divided her gaze between Maddie and the men, who were
already closing in on the shore. They didn't seem to need her help. But in case
they did, she might as well keep the journal dry. She reached in her pocket for
the plastic bag containing the book, and as she started to hand it over she
reconsidered.

"Just a second," she said. "Why don't you
dive in and help them?"

Maddie shrugged and reached toward the journal. "Can't
swim."

"Can't . . ." A swamp rat unable to swim?
"What's going on here, Maddie?"

The woman laughed, and before Liz could react, Maddie
snatched away the journal. Liz reached to yank it back, but Maddie whirled
toward the water. In a few long strides, she swept down on the opal, then
turned back and lifted it high in the air.

"I give you the guardian, master, just like I promise.
Take her, take her now."

The opal flashed, and Maddie uttered a small shriek of pain,
but held fast to the stone. Liz charged toward her, reaching to tear the opal
from the woman's clutching hands.