Then Warlord recognized the source of Innokenti’s frustration. No other man could have lived through a single one of those beatings, yet every month when Innokenti returned, Warlord was working again.
Innokenti would take his rod and beat Warlord, and one day would succeed in killing him, for only another demon could kill a man bound by the pact with the devil.
But not yet. Not yet.
If Warlord hadn’t neglected his duty to his men and spent all his time with Karen, he and his men
would still be free. Yet the memory of Karen was the only thing that kept him alive. When the guards had beaten him with the steel rod, and he could no longer imagine what sunshine and fresh air felt like on his skin, he would bring Karen to his mind.
Karen, glimpsed on the train from Kathmandu.
Karen, in her tent in the depths of night.
Karen, clutching him on the motorcycle as they raced the rockfall.
Karen, dancing in the meadow, kissing the ground, naked under the waterfall.
Karen, tied to the brass bed and writhing with pleasure . . .
Sometimes, she was so close he could smell her scent, touch her skin, hear her voice crooning to him.
That was when he knew he was hallucinating. Karen would never croon to him . . .
In a year’s time half his men were left. They died while blasting the rock. They died in cave-ins. And worse, one by one, they lay down and died of starvation, from the beatings . . . and because all hope was gone. Nothing he said made a difference. They didn’t trust him anymore.
Even Magnus had given up.
He had to lead them out. They couldn’t wait any longer.
He
couldn’t wait any longer.
Because he had given up, too. He didn’t realize how low he had sunk until one of the guards poked him with a steel rod and said, ‘‘Hey, titty-baby.
Guess who’s coming tomorrow? Your best friend, Innokenti Varinski. And you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to beat you half to death. Better get ready to scream, titty-baby.’’
Warlord sank to his knees and cried. Cried with fright, cried for the release of death, cried and begged the guard to kill him, when he knew it was impossible.
The guard laughed and poked him again. ‘‘Do I look insane? If I killed you, he’d kill me. No, titty-baby, I’ll just wait to hear you sing soprano tomorrow.’’
The tears leaked down Warlord’s cheeks all the way through that guard’s shift and into the next. None of his men would look at him. Magnus wouldn’t talk to him. He had let them all down . . . and still he cried.
Then, with the change of the guard, opportunity presented itself. He didn’t recognize it—until Karen’s voice snapped in his mind,
Pay attention!
Two guards instead of the usual four. Both were drunk—somewhere up above the mining company had thrown a party. One guard passed out and never heard the roar of the drill before it pierced his chest. The other fell from Warlord’s swift and slashing chain.
‘‘See, boys?’’ Magnus said. ‘‘He did it.’’ But his voice was weak, and he collapsed when he tried to collect the weapons.
Warlord picked up his friend and placed him in the elevator.
Magnus had shrunk down there. His bones almost pierced his skin, and in the harsh light his lips looked blue.
Thirty-eight men crowded into the elevator.
‘‘I’m going up the stairs to the next level. Give me a couple minutes, then follow. While I finish the guards, you collect their weapons.’’ Warlord leaned in to push the button. ‘‘We need the weapons to break out of here.’’
‘‘Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?’’ Logan Rogers demanded.
‘‘He’s the guy who got us out of there,’’ Magnus said.
‘‘He’s the guy who got us in there, too,’’ Logan retorted.
‘‘Do you have a better plan?’’ Warlord asked.
Logan subsided.
‘‘Then shut up.’’ Warlord looked around at the remains of his band of mercenaries. ‘‘Free the other prisoners, but don’t let them on the elevator. It won’t take the weight. When we’re done with the management, those miners will have their chance.’’
His men nodded solemnly.
‘‘Horst, before those assholes up above realize what’s going on down here, you might want to figure out how to override the controls.’’
‘‘How are you going to take out the guards by yourself?’’ Horst asked in his ponderous Swedish accent.
Warlord looked at the chains on his wrists. He
was emaciated, so thin he looked like a starvation victim. Would the panther be able to slip out of the cuffs? If not . . . well, in this dark they would never see a panther, even a chained panther.
He smiled his first smile in a year. ‘‘They haven’t got a chance.’’
They didn’t. He moved from level to level, silent, invisible, striking without warning. His men arrived behind him and gathered the weapons until every one of them held rods and whips and guns.
At five hundred feet, when someone on the surface got wise and tried to cut the power, the elevator continued to rise. Horst had done his job.
But Warlord was falling behind. He was weak, too weak to run so many stairs. He couldn’t make it.
When his men reached the top, they couldn’t just go running out of the elevator. A single machine gun would mow them down.
He had to stop them before they reached the top.
Then he heard it. Gunfire from above.
Warlord held her in his arms, saying over and over, ‘‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’’
‘‘It’s not all right. I can’t breathe. I can’t . . . it was dark. There was no air. It was hot. They beat me.’’ Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.
‘‘The venom has made you ill.’’ He trickled water into her mouth and onto her forehead. ‘‘But you’re better now. You can breathe. Take a breath now.’’
She looked wildly around the barely lit tent. The weight of the snow made the nylon sag around them and hid the sunlight.
‘‘See? We’re in the mountains. Together. This is now. That time and place is past.’’
‘‘But I saw it.’’ And yet . . . she was here. He was here.
He wrapped her close. ‘‘You were there. I saw you . . . but I figured I’d gone crazy.’’
‘‘I’d wake up at night and it was so dark, and I’d know you were alive somewhere. . . .’’ She was sore in her bones and muscles, as if she had been beaten. ‘‘Oh, God, how did you stand it? All that time with no hope . . .’’
‘‘When you walk through hell, keep walking, ’’ he said wryly. ‘‘A year in the dark in the heat gives a man a long time to think, and I did. I reviewed my life a thousand times.’’
‘‘I know.’’ She had been in his mind every minute.
He gave her the canteen.
She drank.
‘‘At first, when I remembered, I was defiant. I was proud of what I’d done, walking my own path, ignoring my father’s admonitions, being free.’’ He fed her pieces of an oatmeal-raisin Baker’s Breakfast Cookie.
She ate slowly, filling the empty places.
‘‘But at about review three hundred, I started remembering my brothers and my sister, thinking about what it would have been like to know what they were doing, who they loved. I remembered my mother, the kiss she gave me the last time she saw me. I even remembered my dad and every word he said to me, over and over, all the time I was growing up.’’ He mimicked a deep voice with a pronounced Russian accent. ‘‘ ‘Don’t change, Adrik. Keep your heart pure, Adrik. Every time you give in to the panther, you put yourself into the devil’s hands, Adrik.’ I remembered how much I hated all that good advice, and how dumb I thought he was, and the way I swore that when I was an adult I’d do whatever I wanted.’’
‘‘And you did.’’
‘‘And I did. Eventually in the dark I faced the fact that my dad was right.’’ Warlord’s eyes narrowed. ‘‘Man, I hated that. But I also figured it didn’t matter. I had to get my men out any way I could, and if that meant sitting on the devil’s right hand, I would. When the chance finally came, I became a black panther, silent as a shadow, and every time I killed a guard I knew I’d saved a hundred prisoners. And every time I killed a guard, I had the blood of another man on my hands.’’
She knew where she was. She could breathe without obstruction. Yet she still ached . . . for Warlord.
‘‘The closer my men got to the top, the more excited they were. I knew why. I could almost smell the fresh air, and I wanted to feel the sun on my face.’’ His green eyes glowed as he relived his anticipation. ‘‘I couldn’t control them. They got ahead of me. When I heard the shots I wanted to shriek at them for being such fools.’’
She hung on his every word. ‘‘What was it?’’
‘‘Five floors from the top they ran into an ambush.’’
‘‘Which wouldn’t have happened if they let you go first.’’
‘‘I pointed that out later, I can tell you. By the time I got up there they had the guards down, but four of my guys were shot, and it was a hell of a mess. I figured the main attack above would be ready to launch, but I also knew the way the guards drank. Their reflexes had to be off. They had to be in disarray. Most important, they were used to dealing with men too starved and dispirited to rebel. So—it was a mine; we used dynamite every day—we rigged an explosive in the elevator. My men sent it up while I took the stairs and cleared the way. They followed, and everyone was on the surface in time to see the explosion.’’ Proudly, Warlord said, ‘‘I took control of the mine with thirty-eight very pissed-off mercenaries, and we didn’t stop until we’d hijacked a plane bound for Afghanistan.’’
‘‘Innokenti?’’ She shivered.
‘‘I assume he arrived soon after.’’ He laid her flat and tucked the sleeping bag close around her neck. ‘‘I would have hated to be one of the surviving guards.’’
‘‘Magnus. Is Magnus alive?’’
‘‘He is, and living very well for a one-eyed former mercenary with eight fingers and twenty-nine teeth. He’s the consultant for the
Warlord
game.’’
‘‘He likes video games?’’
‘‘He hates them. He always thought it was stupid that players sat and stared at a little screen and exercised their thumbs, so when I was talking about turning the whole experience into a game, he said build it so the action happened in a room all around the player. In
Warlord,
the player has weapons strapped to his body and sensors hooked to his hands, feet, and head, and he has to defend himself against the oncoming threats.’’ His enthusiasm grew as he spoke. ‘‘The higher the level, the more difficult the battles, the more attackers involved. It’s actually a training setup for mercenaries.’’
‘‘A video game in a room?’’ She watched him with an indulgent smile. ‘‘Where will it be played?’’
‘‘Pizza places. Paintball galleries. Burstrom has his finger in a lot of pies, and he’s buying up property to build actual game houses. But in addition, Burstrom and I see potential for training in any kind of fighting and self-defense. Karate schools will build them in. We’ve already started work to modify the idea for training boxers. The preliminary sales have brought in over seventy million dollars.’’
‘‘Seventy million dollars.’’ Her indulgent smile evaporated. ‘‘You’ve got to be kidding!’’
‘‘My cut is only ten percent.’’
‘‘Only? That’s seven million.’’
‘‘That’s just the beginning. Projections for next year are for five times that.’’
‘‘Wow.’’ She had never figured him for a financial wizard.
‘‘As with every venture, there is always a chance projections will fall short,’’ he warned her.
She didn’t see that happening. Not to this smooth-talking entrepreneur.
He continued, ‘‘In addition, I put the money I made as a mercenary in a bank in Switzerland, and with the help of my financial adviser—’’
‘‘You had a financial adviser?’’
‘‘I would have been a fool not to.’’ He let her absorb that. ‘‘So with the help of my financial adviser, my personal worth tops thirty million. That amount is completely separate from the money involved in the development of the
Warlord
game.’’
She was in shock. She remembered how he lived, in a tent with the spoils of a hundred raids . . . and he was worth thirty million? And counting? ‘‘Why are you telling me all this?’’
‘‘I want you to know that if you will do me the honor of marrying me, I will always take care of you.’’
It was a good thing she was prone. Otherwise she would have collapsed on the spot.
‘‘My sins are beyond count. The memory of you was the only thing that kept me alive for the whole wretched year of my captivity.’’ He leaned over her and smoothed her hair away from her face. He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers and smiled into her stunned eyes. ‘‘We have a connection. More than one.’’ He grasped her wrists, brought them out from beneath the covers, and held the gold bracelets between them. ‘‘Look. You wear my badge of ownership.’’
‘‘I wear them to show I escaped you!’’
‘‘You wear them like a wedding ring.’’
That struck home, and she winced.
‘‘You can visit my mind,’’ he said persuasively. ‘‘Marry me.’’
She remained absolutely still, absorbing his words, knowing the truth, but too afraid to acknowledge it.
‘‘Search your brain,’’ Warlord said. ‘‘What do you see?’’
Immediately she knew the answer. But in knee-jerk defiance she said, ‘‘Nothing.’’
But he wouldn’t let her get away with lying to him.
Leaning toward her, he put his forehead against hers. He looked into her eyes. And he placed his hand against her heart.
It was dark. It was cold. And she wanted her mommy.
But her mommy didn’t come.
The servants whispered and looked at her. Her grandpa came in and stared at her, then scowled and shook his head. But mostly she was alone in the dark, cold house, scared and hearing whispers, wisps of words. . . .
Poor child. No mother at all. Lover dead. Jumped off a cliff after him
.
Tears leaked out of Karen’s eyes.
Mommy. Mommy.
Poor child. Dan Nighthorse dead. Mother fell off the cliff, landed on the rocks, and can you imagine? She bled there for a day, her internal organs destroyed, and when they rescued her she screamed.
Karen heard her father come home. She came out of her room and ran to the balcony, waiting for her daddy to visit her. And she saw her grandfather grab her daddy by the scruff of the neck and carry him into the office.
She was with that Indian guide. She’s been with him for years. Do you know what this means . . . ?
The door slammed behind them.
What does it mean? Daddy. Daddy.
Poor child. Five years old. Dan Nighthorse dead. Mother fell off the cliff, landed on the rocks, and can you imagine? She bled there for a day, freezing in the cold, her internal organs destroyed, and when they rescued her, she screamed in agony. Poor child. Her mother died. Poor child. She’s alone.
Forever alone . . .
Karen woke up crying.
Warlord had tears in his eyes, too. ‘‘My poor little girl. My poor little girl. I can’t stand it. You’re not alone. Not anymore.’’
She tried to push him away. ‘‘Stop it. I don’t want this. Stop it.’’
‘‘It’s too late to stop it. You swallowed my blood, and it gave you the strength to fight off the effects of the venom. It gave you a window into my mind. And what else, Karen?’’
‘‘Nothing,’’
she insisted.
Gathering her into his arms, he pressed her ear to his chest, and as she listened to the thump of his heart she fell into another memory.
The sun burned down on her. The horizon stretched forever. And she had one chance. One chance to make good, to make her father see her, really look at her, finally notice how hard she worked, how smart she was . . . one chance, and this was it.
Karen approached the sullen framing crew, two dozen men lounging against a pile of lumber.
They were mad, every one of them. They’d been working Jackson Sonnet’s Australian adventure hotel, they were less than halfway through construction, and their project manager had had a heart attack. They were getting the boss’s twenty-three-year -old daughter as a replacement, and without saying a word they managed to let Karen know what they thought.
One chance, and they wanted to take it away from her.
She smiled, because smiling always disarmed the guys, stuck her shaking hands into jeans pockets, and asked, ‘‘Who’s the crew boss?’’
One man, tall, thin, brown faced, raised his hand. He didn’t stand.
Okay.
One chance, and if she handled this guy right, if she could get him to work for her . . . One chance. ‘‘Alden Taylor. Experienced in framing, plumbing, electrical, Sheetrock, finish carpentry. You’ve been with my father for how long?’’
‘‘Twenty-five years with the mean old son of a bitch.’’ Alden had a pronounced Australian accent, and he was trying to shock her by abusing her father to her face.
Instead he’d played right into her hands. ‘‘Would you say the mean old son of a bitch is given to acts of kindness?’’
Alden snorted.
The other guys grinned and stirred.
‘‘Charity? Generosity? No?’’ Karen didn’t bother to wait for a reply. ‘‘There’s one thing and one thing only my father cares about—getting his hotels built and operational so he can make a profit. Right?’’
This time Alden tried to answer.
She brushed him aside. ‘‘That mean old son of a bitch has had me working on hotels every summer since I was fourteen. I can do everything you can do, plus finish concrete, plus design plans, plus I can talk to the hotshot investors and impress them with my construction management degree. I’m here as project manager because I’m the best Jackson Sonnet has got. He doesn’t care that I’m his daughter; he offered me the same deal he offers everyone else. If I get the hotel in on time and under budget, he’ll pay me well. If I screw up, I’m out of here.’’
Alden’s lips twitched as if he wanted to grin. ‘‘He never changes.’’
‘‘I beg to differ. He does change. He gets meaner every year.’’ She was nervous, talking too fast, but she had everybody’s attention. ‘‘I’m shaky when it comes to electrical, and my finish carpentry stinks. That’s why I asked that you be my assistant project manager.’’ She walked over and offered Alden her hand.
He looked at it, took it, and let her tug him to his feet. ‘‘You promoted me?’’