The Descent (26 page)

Adair lunged for Robin, who stood stock-still, befuddled, and screamed when he grabbed her. He reeled her into him and held her in a headlock. “What have you done to Lanore?” he demanded.

She thrashed in his grasp, struggling against him, whimpering and crying. “It wasn’t us, not really,” she pleaded. “I wouldn’t do such a thing, you know me, Adair, but it was like something came over me. . . . I didn’t mean to hurt her. . . .”

“What do you mean, ‘something came over you’?” Adair demanded, but she gave a frightening howl and went rigid in his arms. Something strange was happening to Terry, too. She seemed to swell, and then rise and hover above the ground. Her expression changed so drastically that she no longer looked like Terry. Gloating and proud, she looked like someone Adair had known a long time ago.

“Do you remember me, Adair, me and my sister?” the voice boomed, shrill and sharp as jagged glass. Her arm floated up and she pointed a damning finger at him. “You wronged us once, many years ago, in the wild fens wood. Took advantage
of two girls on their own. Smashed up our cottage and meant to kill us. We promised we would have our revenge on you and now we have.”

He’d been right all along, Adair realized. It was Penthy and Bronwyn possessing the girls somehow. “Cowards—” he growled at the apparition floating in front of him. “If you wanted revenge, you should’ve come after
me,
not a defenseless woman.”

“This was the best way to hurt you,” the brunette answered with an evil laugh. “To strike at your cold heart. Besides, we’re not alone in this, Adair. We take our orders from a higher power, one that’s not done with you yet.”

Standing with Robin in front of the large window, without a second’s hesitation, Adair smashed the glass with an elbow and then, grabbing the blonde by the throat, shoved her backward over the sill so that she was thrust halfway out and dangling over the edge of a cliff, hanging from his hand.

“Adair!” Robin gasped, wrapping both hands around his wrist.

“You wouldn’t dare! Let go of my sister!” It was not quite Terry’s voice that spilled over her lips.

“If you don’t tell me now what you’ve done with Lanore, I’ll throw her out the window,” he threatened, “and you know I’m not one to make idle threats.”

“Sister! Save me!” Robin shrieked as she stretched out her hand. Blood streamed down her arms and face from the numerous cuts she’d sustained from the broken glass. Her hair and dress billowed around her, whipped by the violent updrafts that circled the fortress, and made her look as though she were flying.

“If you hurt her, I’ll never tell you where that woman is,” Terry swore.

Adair addressed Robin instead. “Save yourself—tell me what you did to Lanore,” he said, shaking her by the throat. When she didn’t speak, he pushed her farther out the window. She kicked and clutched at his forearm.

“The sea!” she rasped finally, shuddering in his hand. “We threw her in the sea!”

He almost let go of Robin in surprise, but his senses came back to him at the last second and he tossed her to the floor instead. He bolted from the room and out the front door, and ran to the cliff closest to the house. If it hadn’t happened too long ago and the tides were right, she might still be close. He looked over the edge of the cliff, but all he saw were waves crashing against the rocks and the floating dock bouncing crazily on the violent water. Not a speck of Lanny’s rose-colored dress to be seen. He ran along the shore, peering over the rim, scanning the frothing water below, but there was nothing bobbing along with the waves. Finally, he came to the black pebble beach and ran into the water up to his knees. The waves wound around his legs and pulled at him like a beseeching lover. But there was nothing on the horizon, nothing.

Impossible. It was impossible that he would lose her now and for all of eternity, like this. He would not let that happen. He could call her spirit back—he was sure of it—but to where? Her spirit would return to her body, and where was her body? Adair didn’t want her to regain consciousness lost on the tide or caught beneath a rock on the ocean floor. His chest heaved with despair, a great weight plummeting through him—but no, he wouldn’t give up. He would move heaven and earth and
ocean
to find her. In his grief and agony, he reached out to the horizon, saying, “Bring her to me. Bring her to me now.”

Suddenly, the clear spring sky turned black and clouds appeared from nowhere, thick and roiling, going from dove gray to steel to near black in minutes. The wind blew fiercely, whipping the sea into violent peaks that danced and churned like boiling water.

By then, the sisters had followed him, running out of the house and down to the water, speechless at the sight of nature turned ferocious. Waves began to pound the island on all sides, rising high as skyscrapers and then thundering down like buckets of water poured on them—offerings brought at his command. Water gushed over the edge of the cliffs and back into the sea below. The waves crashed and retreated again and again, scraping away the moss, then the pine trees, the goats, then the sisters, the latter howling and shrieking with fear. The waves threw Adair inland, onto a high peak, where he clung to a jagged boulder and watched as the sea pummeled the island.

Eventually, he saw her, a small form washed up on shore. He clambered down from the peak and scooped her up, while the wind died and waves subsided nearly as quickly as they had spun up. He cradled Lanore in his lap; how cold she was, and waterlogged, wet as a seal, her hair plastered to her head, her clothing torn by her journey on the waves, caught on who knew what in the middle of the sea. Bubbles formed at her nose and the corners of her mouth—at least she was breathing. And through this ordeal, she was still unconscious. She had drowned ten times over but she would never know it.

Adair carried her into the fortress and laid her on the floor
of the great room. He quickly built a fire, and then stripped off her wet clothing. He wrapped her in a blanket and stretched her out in front of the fire, spreading her hair over the pillow that cradled her head. Then he sat back on his heels, in a puddle of seawater that had run off his own clothing and hair. He didn’t have time to think about what he had done, he only wanted to cry with relief that he had not lost Lanore, not lost her body to the unknown and left her soul in limbo. She had trusted him and he had almost let her down. He vowed that he would not let it happen again.

FIFTEEN

T
he door rose up in front of me. Salvation. With the three demons galloping down the narrow passage after me, fast on my heels, I barreled through the door praying,
Please let there be a bolt on the other side
.
Please let there be a way to keep them out
.

As soon as I slipped through, however, I plunged into an entirely different world. What had been a rough, rustic wooden door on one side was smooth laminated wood on the other. There was a brushed metal lever for a handle, very modern. There was no bolt but there was no sign of the demons, either: no noise on the far side of the door, no jiggling of the doorknob, nothing. I immediately knew by the astringent smell that I was in a hospital.

It was Luke’s hospital room. Every detail was as I remembered it, down to the sour stench of vomit and the odor
of weak cleaning fluid hanging in the air, and the white blanket on Luke’s bed, its surface pilling from many washings. Why had I been brought back to this most painful moment? Hadn’t it been wretched enough the first time, watching helplessly as he declined? What more could I learn from his suffering—if, indeed, I’d been driven into this room to learn something. If I hadn’t been sent here only for a dose of punishment.

I’d never cheated on Luke, but I had been in a continual state of indecision the entire time we’d lived together, unsure if I had done the right thing by returning to him after I’d been completely erased from his memory. While I’d been plagued by nightmares of Jonathan’s unrest in the hereafter, it was only now that I’d seen Adair again—and seen him so changed—that I could admit, even to myself, that it was him I daydreamed of, who I longed for, who I ached for, physically. That was how I’d betrayed Luke—in my desire for Adair. It wasn’t so uncommon, was it? Living with one man while your mind is on another? Being unable to stop thinking of this other man who, for one reason or another, was not the one sitting beside you. Thinking of the way his eyes lit up when he saw you, of his wicked smile and what it was like when he held you, how you responded to the touch of his hands. In solitary moments, you remembered the little intimacies, the feel of his skin against yours, the way he liked to be touched, the velvet nap of his member, the way he tasted. You thought of him even though you could never be with him. His absence nagged like an itch you could never scratch.

Some would say I should never have returned to Luke if this was how I felt about Adair, that it was wrong of me to go
back to him if I had any doubts. But complete fidelity of the heart in a relationship is something that has always eluded me. I have often wondered how these people manage to live such straightforward lives, to keep their emotions so simple and tidy. Do they weed out life’s complications as ruthlessly as they would weed a garden? Sometimes a weed turns into a beautiful flower or a helpful herb but you’ll never know if you pull it too soon. Do they ever allow themselves regret for the things they’ve thrown away? I would ask these self-assured people which of us has the luxury of an iron-clad guarantee? Who can be 100 percent sure of one’s choices in life? How do you know that your beloved will always remain the same, or that you’ll never change your mind? Growth and change are two of the great gifts we get from time. It would be shortsighted to spurn them.

Besides, I did love Luke—I did. But he wasn’t the only one I wanted, and wanting isn’t the same as loving. Just as I knew I loved Luke, I wasn’t sure whether I
loved
Adair. I couldn’t rule out that my attraction to him wasn’t an advanced case of lust, though that’s not to say it was inconsequential. Only a fool would underestimate the power of lust. Kingdoms have been won and lost, men and beasts have battled to the death over it.

Now, if I had been the same girl I’d been at the start of my adventures—the same girl who had loved Jonathan so blindly—I know what choice I would’ve made. I would’ve tossed aside a good man like Luke to take my chances with Adair. And I would’ve been miserable before long, held hostage by Adair’s precipitous temper and erratic behavior, which in my inexperience I would’ve accepted without so much as a whimper. I hadn’t yet learned that it was okay to make demands
of the people we love, that we didn’t have to accept others exactly as they came to us. No one is perfect, after all.

As soon as I quieted these voices chasing each other in my head, I crept toward Luke, lying in bed. I felt queasy and anxious. God help me, I didn’t want to be back in that room. I was glad to have comforted Luke when he was dying, but I didn’t want to relive the experience, not so soon after it had happened. I
should’ve
been happy for this chance to see Luke again, but I wasn’t.

An oxygen line ran under his nose. His wrists were so bony that his identification bracelets hung from them like paper manacles. His bed was set at a forty-five degree slant to help with nausea, but it made his head hang forward at a frightening angle, as though his neck had been snapped. On second thought, he didn’t look as terrible as he could’ve; whatever power had brought Luke and me together at this moment, it had been kind enough to make Luke look healthy, not as wasted by illness and exhaustion as he’d been the last time I saw him. He even had his hair, those unruly sandy brown curls. I was thinking how much I’d like to smooth his hair back from his face—just for the excuse of touching him—when his eyes suddenly opened.

“Lanny,” he said, recognition in his gaze. So he could see me, too, as Sophia had. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me.” I smiled and reached for his cheek, brushing it gently. It felt solid enough.

“Am I dreaming? Your voice . . . it sounds like you’re right next to me.”

“That’s because I am here, Luke. This isn’t a dream. You can trust your eyes.”

We hugged. I couldn’t bring myself to kiss him, however,
and we hung in an awkward embrace. We still had tenderness, but the passion between us was gone . . . unsurprising at the end of a long and intense illness. Worn out by exhaustion and fear, we naturally became numb to physical passion. After seeing Luke ravaged by drugs and madness, I could no more bring myself to feel attraction than he could have mustered the energy to respond.

Lying in his hospital bed now, he didn’t look all that relieved to see me; he seemed preoccupied and not entirely himself. “Where am I? What are we doing back in the hospital?” he asked, alarmed, looking at the tangle of tubes and wires hanging from his arms. “And what are you doing here?” His face drained. “You haven’t died, have you, Lanny? How is that possible?”

“No,” I rushed to assure him.

“Thank God.” That calmed him a bit, though he was still on edge, his gaze darting around the hospital room. “I don’t understand, though, why I’m back here. . . . Why are
you
back here? What’s going on?”