In a Dark Embrace (19 page)

“What-what are you going to do to me?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. If he got off on her fear then she would give it to him. Anything to make him come closer. Sooner or later he would touch her.

“I’m going to peel your skin off inch by inch,” he said, approaching her with a long, thin knife. “I’ll start there,” he pointed to her breast with the blade, “and end there.” The knife dropped down to her crotch.

“I was hiking with a group. They’ll be looking for me,” she said desperately, knowing he would see it for a lie but he would expect her to try a bluff.

He chuckled. “Sure they are. Which is why they let you go off on your own to follow the sound of someone crying. Nah. You’re out here on your own. Stupid city bitch. So sure that your cell phone will get you out of any trouble. Yeah. Now where is that phone?”

He started fumbling through her jacket pockets. He found the small flip phone easily, dropped it onto the floor and stomped on it. “Hate to have one of those things go off when it’s just starting to get interesting.” He smiled at her and stroked her neck with the flat of the blade. The knife angled down and sliced through her t-shirt like it was made of cobwebs. It bit into the curve of one breast and she let out a gasp of pain.

“Ahhhh…” He let out a small satisfied sigh. His eyes moved down to watch the blood welling out of the cut.

She could feel the hot liquid trickling down her belly. A jagged excitement was mounting in him. This was turning him on big-time. He lifted the knife again and rested it against her collarbone. His knuckles were almost brushing her skin. She tried to shift so that they would touch but he angled his hand away. The blade bit into flesh again and she whimpered.

The cuts kept coming until Lee found it hard to hold on to her purpose, hard to even remain conscious. Finally it happened. He dropped the knife to undo the closure of her jeans. He yanked her pants down and reached for her panties. Fingers slid against her skin, offering the opening she’d been praying for. Lee dove into his mind. She reached into the darkest corners of his twisted psyche and found his worst nightmare. Ignoring what he was doing to her blood-slickened body, she spat out the spell.

Chapter
Fourteen

Jeremy dialed Lee’s number for the fourth time. He cursed quietly in response to the mechanical voice of the answering service. Dropping into the chair by his desk, he punched the buttons of his phone to replay the message she had left for him, somehow hoping that it would have changed. His scowl grew even deeper. Lee was following her magic out into the middle of fucking nowhere.

“Weren’t you just here a few hours ago?” Eric asked through the open doorway.

“What? Yeah.” Jeremy grabbed his coat and shouldered past the big man.

“Where’s the fire?” Eric asked, following him.

“I have to go after Lee. She’s out in the bush near Golden Ears Park. Left a message nearly an hour ago giving some half-assed directions. And she’s not answering her cell.” Even with the sirens on it would take him half an hour to get to her last position…if he could find the damn place.

“Why the hell would she do that? Hiking in the rain and at night?”

“She’s following some clues to the missing girl.” Jeremy shot his friend a sharp look, wondering how much to tell him. “Lee is what you would call psychic.” Eric’s expression didn’t change. “I gave her some of the girl’s hair and apparently she got a-a reading off it today. The bloody little fool is out there looking for the girl. By herself. In the dark.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah, so I’ve got to run.”

“I’m coming. Your partner isn’t here and you need backup.”

Jeremy didn’t even need to think about it. He slapped Eric on the shoulder and said, “Thanks, man. But I’m driving.”

Eric nodded.

By the time they drove over the bridge Eric looked a little pale. Some deaf idiot in a green minivan had decided to pull over just as Jeremy was starting to pass on the right. He had slammed on the brakes and swerved around the van with only an inch or two to spare.

“Slow down, Jer. I know you’re worried but it won’t do her any good if we end up in the hospital,” Eric said, anger warring with fear in his voice.

Jeremy’s foot stayed on the gas pedal. “Close your eyes if you have to.”

“The hell I will! I want to see my death coming.”

The car skidded sideways on the wet road as they hit the curve of the exit at full speed. Only Jeremy’s fast reflexes kept them on the pavement. He recited Lee’s directions in his mind. An Esso gas station followed by a pizza place. Christ, why couldn’t she just use street names like everyone else? Still, when the gas station came up he had to admit it was an obvious turn. Soon they were following a twisty narrow road through progressively more rural surroundings. Jeremy slowed down. No point missing the next turn.

“Here it is,” he said and swung the car onto a gravel road. The pasture with the dilapidated barn had been a good clue as well.

“You’re sure? I don’t know that this leads anywhere,” Eric asked uncertainly.

“Yeah. I’m sure. Lee’s directions were pretty good actually. There’ll be a fork in the road and we go to the right.”

Sure enough the road split in two. Jeremy grinned with satisfaction. Almost to the spot of her last call.

Gravel flew as he hit the brakes. The car came to a rest beside a low black motorcycle. Jeremy scrambled out of the car and examined the ground around Lee’s bike.

“She went that way,” he said, pointing into the brush. Her path was clear—tumbled rocks, a muddy print, bent grass. He wondered if it would be as easy to follow her once they got into the forest.

“Christ, Jer. We need to call the dog team. They’ll be able to track her.”

Jeremy nodded. “You do that and wait for the team, I’m going in as far as I can.” He could track Lee better than any dog. Hell, he had her smell imprinted on his brain.

“Not much point trying to follow her, Jer. You’ll get lost in there.”

“Nah. I have an unerring sense of direction.”

Eric looked at him with sympathy. “Guess you can’t just sit here and wait, eh, buddy? Go ahead then but be careful.”

Jeremy flashed him a grin and set off after Lee.

The forest was already captured by the deepening gloom of approaching nightfall and the rain had wiped out many of the marks. After a few minutes he gave up using his eyesight. Stripping off his clothes, he tied them into a tight bundle. With teeth clenched against the pain, Jeremy shifted. Clamping the bundled clothing in his strong jaws, he loped off through the brush.

He dropped his stuff, not caring whether it landed in mud or musty leaves, and his sensitive canine nose found Lee’s scent. The ripe peach smell was barely perceptible but the scent of wet leather and motorcycle exhaust was easy to follow. Picking up the awkward bundle of clothing, Jeremy loped along the trail. Every minute stretched into eternity until the trail ended at a boarded-up cabin. Peeling brown paint and moss creeping up the sides indicated that small hut hadn’t been taken care of in a long while. Still, the place clearly wasn’t abandoned. There was a light on inside and he could hear a girl softly crying. He hesitated. It wasn’t Lee crying.

A scream ripped through the air, filled with such terror that Jeremy jerked back snarling, his hackles raised. He dropped the bedraggled package of clothing and launched himself at the door. The decaying wood splintered easily and he landed with a hard thump on the floor of the cabin. The pungent smell of fresh blood surged into him. A girl’s scream rose above the now-muffled shrieks of a man staggering backward, bloody hands raised to his face. Jeremy’s eyes fixed on the woman hanging from a rope, her leather jacket partially covering the angry red slashes across her breasts and belly. Blood had been smeared down her naked thighs.

Consumed by fury, he leaped for the man.

“No! Leave him!”

Lee’s voice rang out while he was airborne. Jeremy managed to snap his jaws shut before he tore the man’s throat out. Still, his weight knocked him over, sending them both down in a heap. Jeremy stood on the man’s chest, snarling. It took every ounce of his control to refrain from savaging the body beneath him. He turned and glared at Lee, silently demanding an explanation.

“Please…go,” she whispered.

He growled at her and raised his lips to show sharp teeth. She would stop him from this kill? The smell of her blood was driving him nearly mad.

“Listen to me, my brave, beautiful wolf.” Her eyes begged him to understand. “He is already dead or nearly so. There is no need to risk yourself.”

Jeremy realized she was right. The man’s whimpering had stopped, the chest no longer rose or fell. With a frustrated snarl he stepped off the man, threw one more agonized glance at Lee and ran outside. Snatching up his clothes, he dashed into a thick clump of brush. There he willed the change to come over him. His hands were shaking as he scrambled into his dirty, wet uniform.

Jeremy didn’t have to pretend shock when he reentered the cabin on two legs. The sight of Lee’s sagging, bloody body hit him just as hard the second time.

“Lee!” Jeremy shouted. He grabbed the knife off the floor and cut her bonds.

She smiled wanly at him. “Welcome back, my wolf,” she whispered.

He enfolded her in his arms, she winced and he released her quickly.

She bent and pulled up her jeans, her movements stiff and awkward. He turned away.

“It hurts but I’ll be all right,” Lee said calmly but he could hear the strain in her voice. “Thank you for coming, Jeremy.”

He nodded, not trusting his ability to speak.

“Give me the knife so I can get the girl down,” she said.

“I’ll do it,” he offered.

“No. Better that it be me.”

Jeremy looked closely at the girl cowering in the corner for the first time. His hand trembled as he handed Lee the knife. She walked across the cabin, skirting around the body on the floor.

“What happened to him?” he asked, glad to have somewhere else to focus his attention.

“He had a heart attack,” Lee said in a voice emptied of all emotion. She sliced through the rope holding up the girl in a quick, sure movement.

Jeremy let out a slow breath. Something had made this man cry out in terror and that something came from Lee. She had killed him. He surveyed the empty husk and then looked back up at Lee. She was carefully easing the rope off the girl’s wrists. He moved forward to help and the girl let out a shriek.

“I think I should do this,” Lee said, not turning to look at him. “See if you can find her some clothing.”

Jeremy rummaged around the shack. There wasn’t much. A smelly, rumpled cot, a small table with two unsteady chairs. His gaze locked on the tabletop. He drew nearer and gingerly put a finger against the edge of a curved blade. It cut into his flesh with only the slightest pressure. He was very, very sorry that the bastard was already dead.

* * * * *

Lee accepted the wrinkled but marginally clean man’s shirt that Jeremy handed to her. The girl whimpered quietly as she wrapped the big shirt around her and eased stiff arms into sleeves. The poor kid was a miserable huddle against the wall. Lee crouched in front of her and took the girl’s hands.

“I hurt too, Elizabeth. I’m bleeding and I’m scared. But we’re alive. We’re going to be okay. We’re survivors, you and me.” She murmured the words into the girl’s ears and even more softly into her mind, willing her to believe.

They really weren’t the same, her experience and Elizabeth’s. Lee had only endured an hour of pain and abuse. Her inner self had been shaken but she had never doubted her ability to endure and eventually triumph. Elizabeth had been tortured for nearly a week. The child’s fragile sense of self was barely clinging to rationality—she wanted only a cessation of pain, her dearest wish was to die. But Lee knew that their experiences could be used as a bridge across to the nightmare in which the girl still wandered.

“Lee, I’m going back to the car. Eric came with me and there are probably some others on the way. You two okay for a bit?” Jeremy’s voice reached her as if from another world. The girl cringed even more tightly into herself.

“Yeah. Probably better for us to be alone for a few minutes,” Lee said, not removing her inner awareness from the girl.

She heard Jeremy’s retreating steps and was surprised by the anxiety that bloomed with his going. He took something away with him, a sense of safety. Lee frowned at her own emotional response. She could take care of herself. Had endured and planned and done what was necessary without his help. Yet sensing him leave she realized that she’d been aware of his presence and had drawn on his savage protectiveness to release the constraints on her powers. She had killed before but never with such utter acceptance. Lee pushed those thoughts aside.

Elizabeth needed her. The dark maelstrom within the girl’s mind was settling under the influence of her subtle mental touch. Lee hesitated, there was more that she should do but it was brutally hard to force herself to endure the girl’s recent memories. However, only by embracing the full depth of her experiences could she affect them. Lee curled into herself and clamped her mouth tight as she dove into the girl’s mind and relived the worst moments of Elizabeth’s captivity.

She would not take the memories away. Such an action would only set a time bomb that at some point could explode and tear Elizabeth’s world apart. Instead Lee reached in and blurred the sharp edges of those experiences. It was what tended to happen naturally over time. She merely gave the girl a head start in coping with what had been done to her.

Distantly she heard men’s voices, Jeremy and Eric. The girl didn’t flinch this time and Lee dared to touch Elizabeth’s chin to lift her bowed head. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“He’s dead?” the girl whispered.

“Yes. He’s dead. And we’re alive.”

“How? How did he die? What made him scream like that? Did you do it?” The questions poured out of her.

Lee answered as honestly as she could. “Something from inside him made him very scared.”

Elizabeth regarded her with eyes that had seen too much. “You did that. And the wolf.”