Flame Unleashed (Hell to Pay) (22 page)

Excellent question. And difficult to answer, since all she’d done for the past 150 years was avoid him.

When in doubt, best to answer a question with another question. “Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a man with such power and grace?” Even her words tasted like bile and dishonesty.

“That’s true. But you’ve hated me for so long. Why change now? Is it because your Barnaby is gone?”

“Only partly. After we left New Orleans—”

“We?”

Oh no. Her heart rat-a-tatted like a wild snare drum beneath her ribs.

“Odie flew me back up here and, um, then returned to Louisiana. He probably wanted me to himself, but I sent him away. How could he compete with a man like you?”

“There’s no contest, really.”

“None at all.” Little did Jerahmeel know.

“So prove to me you want me.”

How she kept her face bland while revulsion plowed through her like a steamroller was a miracle. Prove it? He would know how much he repelled her the minute she touched him.

Maybe she could use her past to help her future. She poured on the antebellum charm.

“My lord, I’m still a genteel woman of polite society, despite the years of service to you. Any courtship and displays of affection must be in proper order and with decorum.”

He immediately exuded an oily, obsequious manner and even sketched her a courtly bow.

“Of course,
mademoiselle
. But surely you wouldn’t withhold a small taste.”

A taste?

He smacked his blood-red lips together.

Fine. A taste, but not of her mouth.

She kept the knife in her hand and sliced her arm again. With an avid expression in his black leer, his tongue darted out like a red salamander. Probably equally pleasurable to kiss.

With bony fingers, he grasped her arm on either side of the cut and dragged his hot mouth across the gash. The rasp of his tongue on her skin made her shudder.

“So, you like,
ma petite
?”

She swallowed hard to hold back what she truly wanted to say. “Mmm. How could I not?”

“Your skin, your blood. So sweet. I want more than a taste.”

“In good time, my lord. Don’t we have all the time in the universe?”

Slowly, so as not to give the wrong impression of her enthusiasm, she pulled her arm back and ran water over it, patting it dry on a towel. The cut no longer bled, thankfully. At least she wouldn’t ruin her white clothes. Not that it mattered in the long run, but thinking about stains kept her mind off the fear clutching at her shoulders.

She then carefully cleaned and resheathed the knife, all the while aware of Jerahmeel’s scrutiny. She tried to put as much reverence into her care of the weapon, knowing that in some phallic way, this blade and her handling of it signified much more to Jerahmeel.

“Well?” She forced herself to meet his lifeless stare.

“Shall we?”

Without waiting for her response, he yanked her flush to his bony frame. His head stopped at the level of her nose and she fought not to recoil from the thick scent of his oiled hair. Thin fingers dug into her ribs right below her breast. Her bland smile froze in place.

Her heart thudded as the brimstone smell increased.

Wood paneling blurred. The ticking grandfather clock faded to silence.

Nothing. She existed in a place with no sound, no light, no gravity. Had Jerahmeel let go of her? She had no sense of his hand on her chest.

Nothing.

Darkness and disorientation swamped her until a wan, unearthly orange glow illuminated what looked like an ice cave. The soles of her feet registered hard ground.

“We’re home,
mademoiselle
.” He slid away from her.

She turned in a circle, taking in the bleak setting. Winking crystals of light punctuated rough, gray, pockmarked walls. Cold, lifeless air settled over every inch of her body.

Where was she? How in blazes would Odie find her here?

More importantly, how would she keep Jerahmeel’s amorous salvos at bay until Odie arrived?

At the edge of her vision, she saw Jerahmeel stagger and put a hand to the wall to steady himself.

Good. No advances from him for a while. One problem solved for now.

Not as all powerful as he gave himself to be.

She’d try her best to exploit that weakness.

Until ...

Damn it, the snow was deeper than Odie had expected. Not enough time and not enough progress. How could he have known that an early winter storm had dumped feet of snow in the high reaches of the peak?

Mount Shasta City, a quaint tourist village of alpine and craftsman buildings, felt welcoming, even on this overcast day. He had arrived there just after two, right on time, and stopped at a local outfitter. Despite the clerk’s attempts to dissuade Odie from heading up the mountain so late in the day, Odie managed to stock up with alpine and survival gear.

The clerk tried to convince Odie that
randonnée
skis would be far superior to snowshoes. But Odie knew himself. This Cajun did not ski up or down a mountain, and he had no plans to start any time soon. Besides, he had no idea what sort of state Ruth and he might be in, if any, upon exiting the lair. He had no idea of the terrain they’d have to cover. He wanted the simplest way to travel. So, snowshoes it would be.

He stuffed the gear—coats and warm clothing, oversize sleeping bag, base layers, dehydrated food, a bivy sack—into a large backpack then lashed an extra pair of snowshoes to the outside. These supplies should sustain them for a time after any escape.

If she was up there.

If they could escape.

What the hell was he doing, attempting to destroy the most evil creature in the universe?

At least he would have tried. At least he had created some meaning from his cursed existence, from the horrible choice no parent ever wanted to make. He would sacrifice part of his being if it meant no one else would have to experience hundreds of years of hell on Earth.

Satisfaction was knowing that he’d found an amazing woman to cherish, even for a short period of time.

Satisfaction was knowing that he could govern some portion of a life that had been filled with helplessness.

High reward, higher risk.

Unfortunately, that risk involved Ruth. He had wanted to order her to stay home and not attempt to attract Jerahmeel’s attention.

But the only way this plan would succeed depended on his tenuous plan and her power. No other options existed.

In the loaner sedan, he headed up the only road on the mountain, a narrow road full of tight switchbacks. As he climbed from the base elevation in town of 3,000 feet, he scowled at the drizzle that turned into thick, fluffy snowflakes. After a few miles, the snow built up on the road, challenging the stamina and stability of the vehicle’s front-wheel drive. Normally he wouldn’t care, but he could scarcely afford to waste time dealing with a disabled vehicle. He skidded through the snow, working hard to keep the vehicle on the road.

Finally arriving at an open parking area at 9,000 feet on the flank of the mountain, he discovered that a forest service gate blocked the way. Five feet of snow piled up on the road beyond the gate. He would have to travel the rest of the way on foot, through the forest and in deep snow, in the waning late-afternoon light, to reach the lair entrance and find and extricate Ruth.

It seemed like such a simple plan when they hatched it in Louisiana.

He was wasting time. Time he didn’t have.

Time he and Ruth and every other Indebted didn’t have as their killing urges grew.

Once someone killed, Jerahmeel would regain enough power to fight back.

How long could Ruth keep up the farce with Jerahmeel before forfeiting her soul, her life, or her family’s lives?

Hurry.

Scowling at the massive amount of snow, Odie strapped on snowshoes and slung the backpack over his shoulders. He needed to find Panther Meadows, a large natural spring area on the mountain. Easier said than done, since the springs would be covered in snow. From there, the entrance to Jerahmeel’s lair shouldn’t be far beyond.

If his research was correct.

If he had picked the correct vortex.

Damn the word “if.”

Striding up the mountain, he ate up the additional miles he had to travel on foot. Instead of following the blocked road, he cut straight up the mountain to where the GPS indicated Panther Meadows’s location.

He struggled to focus on the GPS readings, but he kept imagining Ruth by herself in the devil’s den.

Ruth, his fierce, sensual woman. Such an enigma, from controlled caregiver to sexual wildcat. Her appetite for him—and vice versa—had been near insatiable, and Odie liked her that way. He would gladly spend a lifetime or more devising ways to satisfy this woman.

A lifetime? Like a brick to the head, that unspeakable emotion slammed into him.

Later. He would examine his feelings later. If there was a later.

There hadn’t been time to see if her interest reflected his, either. If she survived, he’d bet on her staying in Oregon with her newfound family, and that didn’t include him.

Disappointment hit him like a kick to the gut.

How selfish could a guy be? The woman had discovered that she had surviving family. She’d committed to risking her life to save them all. How could he fault her for wanting to spend time with them?

He refused to press her. If, after this was all over, she wanted nothing to do with him, he would let her go. It would hurt like having his guts ripped out and stomped on, but he’d do it to bring her happiness. Odie would be damned if he’d ever betray her trust as her bastard husband did.

Which was why Odie stepped up the pace to climb the mountain in the increasingly deep drifts and waning light. He’d made a promise to come get her, and he intended to fulfill the promise, no matter what it cost him. He would do anything to keep her safe.

He almost tripped over the trail sign for the turnoff to the upper meadows as he stepped right on it. Kneeling in the snow, he dug it out to confirm, then punched in the coordinates on the GPS.

Following the directions, he traveled past the first set of springs to the upper meadow and then deeper into the woods. Caved-in pockets of snow indicated the path of each flowing spring, burbling water muffled beneath the thick blanket of snow. He passed the main springs, looking for a smaller, hidden spring that marked his proximity to a particular opening in the Earth.

Mount Shasta enticed numerous sorts of people to visit. Some folks loved the year-round adventures here, but others came for the vortex, the spiritual energy emanating from the mountain. Still others traveled to the mountain to discover the Lemurians, a mythical race who reportedly had hidden villages inside the mountain. According to legend, the Lemurians sometimes came down to the town below and swapped mortals for their kind, leading to the idea that these creatures walked among humans and influenced events on mortal Earth.

If people only knew that these sightings and legends all had to do with Jerahmeel’s activities on this mountain. Over the years, the native peoples worshipped this site as the source of their spiritual power. Yet
they
—in fact, all humans—provided power to the corporeal form of Satan. But the legend grew and took on a life and mythology of its own. Thankfully at this time of year, Odie didn’t have to dodge tourists or spiritual wanderers to reach his destination.

Hearing a new tinkle of water, he walked up a steep hillside. Here, the fir trees were twisted into unnatural, grotesque shapes. Again, it was said to be due to the vortex’s energy warping the life fields nearby. That much was absolutely true. The power of Jerahmeel’s travel would change the structure of any life form if exposed long enough.

Digging in the snow, Odie saw the water coming out of a breach in the rock. Close. Very close.
Mon dieu
, please let this be the right vortex.

Voila
! There, a small slot in the side of the rock face, twenty feet away from the spring, exactly as his notes had described. There was barely enough space for one person to fit, so he stashed the pack under a nearby contorted spruce.

He squeezed through the entrance and paused.

There was little data as to how far into the mountain he would need to travel. No one had gone this far before and survived. But he could leave a trail. He tore off a piece of neon orange duct tape every ten feet or so and pressed it to the wall. As long as nothing else disturbed the tape, he would find his way out, hopefully with a light, but if need be, he could feel his way from piece to piece.

The thin passage widened to the width of two people. Rocks littered the floor, some as big as a hope chest. The wall sparkled with water seeping through the rock. Shining his light upward, he couldn’t see a ceiling.

At a rumble under his feet, he froze. The sound of rock fall in the distance had cold sweat stippling his neck. Despite wanting to check his escape route, he gritted his teeth and continued onward.

After walking for an hour through the damp darkness, he heard a chuckle.

Odie stopped dead in his tracks.

Crouching down, he turned off his flashlight and let his vision adjust. A faint glow of light filtered back to him. He resisted the urge to sprint headlong toward the laughter. If Ruth was anywhere near, his rash actions could risk her life.

But hope leapt in his heart, and he slunk toward the source of the evil laughter.

Ruth had ended up in a red dress. Not just any red, but a fires-of-hell red.

She hated red clothing. Never wore the color. Black, brown, maroon even, any pigment but red. But when Jerahmeel had invited her into the bedroom and insisted she pick out something more comfortable to wear, she couldn’t refuse the request. At least if she mooned over fashion selections, she could get away from Lord Slime for a few minutes.

Damn, she had done everything imaginable to stall his disgusting advances.

First, he gave her the grand tour of the cavern, hewn from within Mount Shasta’s volcanic rock itself. Mount Shasta. Upon hearing that tidbit of information, she almost cried.