Silk and Stone (76 page)

“Would you say he was a moody person?”

Charlotte nodded wearily. “But he had a side to him very few people saw. He really
cared
what happened to my sister and me. He’d show up when we least expected it, and if we were upset about something, he’d give his ear.”

Ben coughed loudly, then winced. Charlotte turned her attention to him anxiously and helped him ease down on the desk again. “About your sister,” the reporter began.

“My sister?” Charlotte fumbled with her shirttail and stared blindly into space. “My sister”—her voice trembled—“tell your readers that my sister always puts family first. That’s why she got in that plane today. Maybe it was a foolish thing to do. But Sammie’s never turned her back on our aunt.”

“Just one more question.”

There was a small commotion outside, and the office door burst open. Clara was entranced by the sight of another black man, this one grizzled and stout and rumpled, marching into the room. There were plenty of white and red people in the mountains, but not many black ones. Now there were two in the same room at the same time. It must be a sign.

“One more question, Charlotte,” Bob Freeman repeated, glancing at the newcomer curiously. “Do you think it’s strange that your brother-in-law disappeared at the same time the wrath of God, so to say, descended on his wife’s family?”

Charlotte whirled toward him like a ferocious cat. “Every word I wasted on you is the truth. And so is this—Jake would never do
anything
to hurt the people Sammie loves.”

“What’s this about Jake?” the newcomer thundered. He plowed through the crowd, a towering, angry old bear of a man. “Y’all wondering where Jake’s been? He’s been with me since early last night, and any jerk-tailed man who thinks different is callin’ Detective Hoke Doop of the Durham police a liar!”

Charlotte made a hoarse sound. “Where is he now?”

Detective Doop strode to a wall and thumped a section of a topographical map where the ridge lines tangled together like threads on a twisted skein. “There. Hunting for his wife and her kin. God help him.”

Lost
. The word had never had real meaning to Jake before. To become suddenly blind, deaf, paralyzed—he had always been able to
imagine
how those limitations would feel, but not this. He couldn’t tell if he was moving instinctively toward Samantha or only wandering.

Muddy, wet, aching from the jump and the long, steep miles, he was doing little more than pushing one foot in front of the other. He scraped against tree trunks and stumbled over the jutting crowns of submerged boulders; he had put the flashlight away to save its batteries, and even his woodsman’s skill at traveling had deserted him.

He was missing a piece of the puzzle; there was a blank space in his mind’s eye.

The fog and darkness made an impenetrable screen at the end of his outstretched hands. He read the land solely by the slope under his feet—climbing, descending, flattening into narrow plateaus and fading into thin valleys,
where he heard the gurgle of small creeks and felt them pouring over the toes of his boots.

He reached another crest, hesitated to take one reviving breath, then lifted a foot to make the next step. Suddenly pain shot through his leg, shooting, burning into the bone, spreading up that side to his arm. It brought him down like a sledgehammer, and he curled into a tight ball, gasping and half conscious.

This was what Samantha felt
.

The realization made him groan. He had done this to her. His secrecy and revenge had sent her out, alone, to punish Alexandra.

Alone and unsuspecting.

No hard lesson had taught her to keep what she knew to herself. She didn’t understand that ravenmockers killed the ones who recognized them.

The pain was ripping him apart. His hands convulsed against his thighs. The ruby made a hard kernel inside a leather pouch tied to a belt loop of his jeans. His fingers closed on it as recklessly as they had when he was a boy. He tore the pouch free and raised it in his shaking fist.
Take me
, he said aloud.
Take me and save Samantha. That’s all I want
.

The pain vanished.

A new, calm strength flowed into him. He sat up, shook the ruby into his palm, and breathed the miracle of redemption.

The fog and darkness still surrounded him, but he wasn’t lost anymore.

And he knew how to find Samantha.

The plane’s wreckage shifted again. Sam moaned helplessly as the vibrations jarred bone and muscle. The netherland between sleep and shock was her only refuge. Her brief periods of consciousness were filled with silent battles. She argued against faith, hope, and survival.

Jake won’t find you this time
.

I have to believe he will
.

Don’t think like that! You did the right thing. It has to end this way
.

She couldn’t see anything, and sounds seemed magnified in the eerie void. She was forced to listen to the wind, the creaking of tree limbs, and the slow, raspy hiss of Alexandra’s breath. When nightmarish panic won out, Sam imagined a hideous, hungry
thing
watching her patiently from its lair.

This plane was on the verge of tumbling down the mountain. Sam accepted that fate. She hoped the fall would kill her before she felt the nightmare creature’s hot breath on her skin.

It was coming toward her
. Sam tried to lift her head. The effort made her dizzy, but through the sickly ringing in her ears she heard twigs snapping under its feet.

Alexandra would eat her alive, then slip away in the mist. Sam had failed at the only act of love that could set Jake free.

Grief and defeat made her cry out.

“
Samantha.
” Jake’s answer, a hoarse and exultant shout. Light crept over her face. She struggled to look up. His dear and familiar hand followed the light, frantically exploring.

A gust of wind rocked the plane. Sam moaned. “Get away, it’s too late.”

She hurt too much to notice whether he answered. Every bone seemed to be grating against its neighbor. The light went away. She knew when he took his hand from her face; the loss upset her.

She heard the metallic creak and scrape of metal, felt Jake’s arm brush against her as he reached inside the broken, crumpled door. He lifted her left hand and pressed something into the palm, then gently pushed her fingers shut over it. The unknown gift was oddly comforting. “Hold on to that,” he told her.

She did. Even when he jerked violently on the door frame, and pain washed over her in blind sheets.

The next thing she knew, his arms were under her, and he was easing her legs from the mangled cockpit. “I know it hurts,” he said hoarsely. “You’re almost out.”

But there was a popping sound. Pine branches brushed her face; the limb that pierced the cockpit had
cracked. The wreckage slid a little, then stopped. “You’re almost out,” Jake repeated. Her head bobbed against his chest. “I’m sorry, I have to pull hard now.” He had both arms under her.

“No. My hand,” Sam said. “
She’s got my hand.
”

Alexandra’s icy grip tightened like a claw. Jake uttered a soft, furious sound. Sam realized he couldn’t let go of her to pry Alexandra’s fingers away.

“You can’t take her,” Alexandra whispered weakly, as if all her strength were focused on holding Sam.

A tug-of-war. Her aunt would fight him, with Sam caught in the middle, just as she’d always done. Strangling fury rose in Sam’s throat. “You’re not going to get him. I won’t let you drag Jake down with the two of us.”

Jake’s chest heaved against her cheek. “I’ll come back for you, Alexandra,” he said. “Let go of her. I’ll come back in a minute and get you out too. I swear it.”

She killed your family
, Sam thought. She made a mewling sound of protest.
Don’t you understand? She’ll kill you too
.

Alexander’s fingers dug into Sam’s wrist. “Lying.” The word gurgled. “You’ll never … help me. No one has ever … helped me.”

A convulsive shudder went through the plane. Jake said loudly, “Open your hand, Samantha.” Sam was dimly aware of obeying. “Take it, Alexandra,” Jake continued. “Even if you don’t believe I’ll come back for you, you
know
I’ll come back for the stone.”

Sam’s feeble, shocked attempt to close her fingers over the ruby wasn’t quick enough to stop her aunt from taking it. The instant Alexandra released her hand, Jake lifted Sam from the plane. The pain found new routes through her unfolded body, and all she could do was slump in his arms, gasping. He climbed a few feet up the precarious slope, then sank to his knees and laid her down gently.

He ran his hands over her. She heard his guttural sob and tried to move, tried to show him she could. He took her face between his hands. The damp, cool night
hid him, but his touch was infinitely caring. “I love you,” he told her. Sam tried to speak, but he placed a finger against her lips. “I love you,” he repeated. “Alexandra doesn’t have to die for me to love you again. I never stopped loving you.”

He rose and walked back to the plane. Sam called desperately for him to stop. With her last ounce of strength she pushed herself up on one elbow and watched.

Jake anchored the flashlight in a jagged hole, then wedged his upper body into the cockpit. Alexandra stared back at him with fading blue eyes, her face stark and pale as the light. Pine boughs framed her softly; the only defiance was the fist she had curled against her throat. “You came for the stone,” she said. Her voice was fading too.

“No. It won’t bring my parents and my sister back. It’s served the only purpose it was ever really meant for. I don’t need it anymore.”

“Then, why … why care whether I—”

“I don’t want Samantha to suffer anymore for what you did. There’s been enough revenge. I’ll get you out of here—not because you deserve to live, but because it’s the right thing to do for Samantha. And for me.”

Jake began snapping the easy branches, clearing a way toward the bigger ones that enveloped her. He felt Alexandra watching him, but neither fear nor hate had any power over him now. “I am still … extraordinary,” she said, her voice ragged. “You’ll see why.”

Jake bent a limb back. It was matted with blood. What he saw behind it made him gag.

The tip of the main limb had skewered Alexandra through the stomach. The mountain had pinned her to earth.

His gaze rose slowly to hers. Her thin smile taunted him and the rest of the world. “I … was raised to … endure …”

The wind kicked up. The roof of the cockpit began to buckle. Jake watched, helpless and repulsed, as the limb sank deeper into her. Uncle William. Mother, Father, Ellie. Whispering his own humanity to him. He had
walked the path for them. There was no dishonor. He grasped the limb and pulled it free.

Sam screamed his name.

Alexandra threw her head back and writhed. “Go to her. I’m dying. I give her to you.”

“Not yours to give,” he said between gritted teeth as he struggled with the jammed latch of her seat belt. She cursed him, thrust her fist into his hands, and pressed the ruby into his palm, slick with her blood. Alexandra released it into his keeping. Her eyes bored into his with their last glimmer. “What good is anything precious,” she whispered, “unless you’re willing to die for it?”

Jake shoved himself backward as the plane tilted and began to slide. A jagged edge of metal caressed his cheek like a talon.

Suddenly he was sprawling beside Samantha, finally free.

The night consumed the falling body of a ravenmocker.

Chapter
            Thirty-Four