INVITING FIRE (A Sydney Rye Novel, #6) (7 page)

She looked over at me, straightening her back, and smiled. I walked up and scooted onto the trunk with her, facing the dog’s pen. "Where's Blue?" Cynthia asked as I settled in next to her, crossing my legs and leaning back onto the stump with my hands behind me.

"Gave him a head start."

She nodded. Greta, a small honey-colored mutt raised her head and looked over at me, her eyes golden in the low light, reflecting just a shade of television green from the back of her retinas.

"I'm going to miss them," Cynthia said.

I nodded. "Why don't you have a dog?" I asked. "No pets?"

"No, I travel too much."

"I hear you can take them with you," I said with a smile.

"Ha, yes, I suppose I should. Why not?" she sniffled.

Looking over at her I saw that her eyes were shining with tears, but they were staying put, not a drop escaping.

"It's okay," I said.

"I know," she said. "How is he, Blue?"

"Good. We are good."

"He trusts you again." I nodded. "You trust him more?" Cynthia asked.

"Yes."

"So you're a better team."

"It does kind of even out." I thought for a moment, staring into the dog kennel, watching the pack of mutts sleep gently in the wild night. "I don't think he is afraid for me anymore."

When we'd first arrived Blue never left my side. He found any stranger a threat, bringing out his nastiest instincts. Those he knew—Merl, Mulberry, and others—were fine but he could not be trusted around new people. Not even with my okay. They had to prove themselves to him. I knew he no longer had total faith in my judgment. While I didn't remember anything but flashes of fear, lightning, and thunder from our time together in the Everglades, it was clear Blue had ruled. It had taken him awhile to truly release the crown.

"I guess that means you're better," Cynthia said. "If Blue's not nervous about you, you shouldn't be either."

"We are more of a team than ever," I said, the truth of it both comforting and anxiety producing. What if I lost him?

The dark jungle beyond the dog enclosure seemed to be calling to me—it twisted in the wind, like it was a beast itself. The animals and plants all cells that collectively formed the mammoth creature. I looked at my watch. Time to go.

I stood up and brushed the sawdust from the stump off my cargo pants. "I'm glad to hear that," Cynthia said as she stood. "It is important to have strong partners," she smiled.

We hugged, squeezing each other, and feeling the breath in each other's chest, smelling shampoo and sweat. When we let go, I turned away, heading out to watch. "Stay brave," Cynthia said.

I looked back at her. "Stay brave."

It was a saying that people had started after the first round of trainees left. When they returned home to fight whatever battle had brought them to Joyful Justice. It was understood many would die. But that didn't lessen the desire to fight. So we parted with a reminder to stay brave. For some it spoke of faith, for others it was a call to action. For me, it felt like goodbye.

Now that the perimeter was set up Cynthia would be leaving, heading back to her own world. I would miss her, if I let myself.

I
watched the orange dot that represented Blue on the computer map. The blue glow of the screen cast strange shadows into the jungle. When he was almost to my post on the southern perimeter, Blue veered off the path, away from the compound and deeper into the jungle. My muscles tensed and I strained to hear. But the night sounds of the jungle drowned out any detail. Besides, Blue was still too far away for me to hear his movements. But then I heard him bark; it was his "there is someone who isn't supposed to be here” bark.

I activated the camera in his section. The night vision made the trees glow white green. The eyes of creatures sparkled. There was no sign of Blue. He'd gone too deep. Grabbing my walkie talkie I radioed to base. "Maverick here."

The line crackled. "Temple here, report."

"Blue's barking and he is outside the perimeter."

"Roger that."

"I'm going down."

"Wait for backup. It's on its way. Five minutes."

My fingers twitched as I listened to the sound of him barking. "Something is really wrong," I said into the walkie talkie.

"Wait for back up. Four minutes."

I tucked the radio into my back pocket and checked my harness; straps tight, carabiner locked, ropes knotted. Then I heard the sizzle and looked up to see a thick cord of lightning hanging in the air before my eyes. It popped and crackled for a second and then disappeared leaving its shape burned into my retinas.

I blinked several times as slowly the red and green shape faded. When it was almost gone I opened the gate and grabbed the iron rung attached to the trunk that I'd use as a starting point to rappel down to the jungle floor.

I paused at the edge, one foot on the platform, one pressed against the bark. The sound of a trolley came zinging along the zip line. Then a form came through the tree, its headlamp a white point of light in the deep darkness. I turned my gaze away as the figure landed. I heard the clink and rattle of the trolley being disengaged, then the click of a carabiner as it was looped around the security line that circled the trunk of the tree. I glanced up as another headlight flew into view. I didn't wait to watch them arrive before turning on my own headlamp and starting down the tree.

My foot slipped in my haste and my weight wrenched at my arms, but I regained my balance quickly and then leaned back into the harness. I pushed off, feeling the thrill of dropping through space. Bend and push, I reminded myself as I flew down the side of the tree. The call of crickets rose up, blocking the sound of Blue's barks for a moment. I paused, my heart beating in my chest. "What's he doing?" I called up.

"He's moving further out," a voice I recognized as Tanya, answered me. I strained to hear Blue and when the call of the bugs lulled again, I did. He sounded further away and I pushed off the tree determined to help him.

On the ground I disengaged myself quickly, loosening my straps and pushing the harness to the ground. I stepped out of it and pulled out my walkie talkie, moving away from the tree. Tanya landed and began to take off her harness. I drew my machete from the sheath on my hip and started down the path heading to where Blue veered off. Tanya was right behind me. When I reached the point where he had broken through the brush I hacked at the thick vegetation to follow. The sweet smell that lives inside of plants filled the air.

My headlight lit a small portion of the world. "Let me do it," Tanya said. "I've got night vision goggles."

"Give them to me," I commanded. She pulled them off her head and I put them on. The jungle turned into a glowing world of green and black, a ghost world inhabited by shadows and eerie light. It looked like the world of the living dead. From almost every shadow glowed white and beady eyes.

I started forward, hacking at the plants. They seemed to grab at me from every side. The barking stopped and I stilled my arm, suspended over my head, preparing to slice down into the jungle. The cacophony of sounds filling the night beat at my ears while I tried to pick out sounds from Blue.

"I think I hear him running," Tanya said.

And then I heard it, too. I could just pick it out over the whining bugs, the dripping leaves, and the scratches and scurries of other life. There was another sound. "Do you hear that?" I asked, closing my eyes, every hair on my body raised. Was it just the electricity sound that my mind kept producing? "Or a zip-line?" I asked out loud. Then the sound faded. "Where is he?" I asked into the radio.

"On the move. Headed southwest away from the secure zone."

"How fast?"

"Fast."

"He is chasing someone on a zip-line," I thought out loud. I started forward again, watching closely where I stepped, scanning the trees around me. There was someone out here.

"He's turning around," the radio announced.

"They got too far away," I said. "He will come back to where he first tracked them."

"Wow, he's trained for that?" Tanya asked.

I climbed over a fallen tree, the moss thick and its trunk hollow. Termites had transformed its once solid center into mulch. A piece of bark cracked under my weight. Something rustled in the brush to my right. I saw a small, glowing fuzzy body scurry away.

"It's instinct," I said. "What would you do if you were him?"

It was obvious when we got to the tree that Blue had been barking up. He'd left deep claw marks in the trunk. The ground was churned around its base.

"Look to you like there was a person here?" I asked, casting my glowing glance around the jungle, I checked the leaves around the tree, looking for evidence of an intruder but Blue had torn the area up. I saw where he had broken through the underbrush as he pursued the stranger. I craned my neck looking up into the canopy but didn't see any zip lines. However, there were old hand holds in the tree. They'd been there so long that the tree had grown around them, making the metal rungs contort and bend. The first one was too high for even a tall man to reach. I looked at the shape of the tree, backing up to get some distance. Tanya moved out of my way.

Crouching down and digging in my toes I rocketed forward, three strong steps for speed. Left, right, left, right foot onto the biggest root, left foot kicking forward, knee bent, foot flexing to catch the most bark and then jumped with the right leg, extending my right arm, reaching along my entire side body, opening my ribs, releasing my shoulder. The tops of my right fingers grazed the bottom rung and then gravity took me back down to the ground.

Looking up I saw Blue leaping back in our direction. He moved in smooth arches, lifting himself over the plants, landing with his front paws, bringing the back ones down and then bursting off the ground again, clearing the tall leaves, never becoming entangled in the vines, his ears flat to his head, eyes half closed, his lashes protecting against the stinging nettles.

Blue landed in the clearing with us, his face pale green in my night vision goggles, his eyes white and expressionless. I took off the goggles, hating the way he looked in them, like something dead. I waited for my eyes to adjust, letting the shadows define themselves. It was like a charcoal drawing out there. All the same dark black. The only difference was texture. Except Blue, of course, who shone white.

Blue pointed his nose into the tree, then looked at me. He barked in his excitement, in his eagerness to express what he knew. Another frustrated bark was quick on its heels. He was pleading with me to understand. It was vitally important. He flared his nostril, asked me to smell the air. It was the scent of my dream. Blue was showing it to me, the way it curled through the air, vibrating with the hum of the insects. Sandalwood and spice, everything naughty and everything nice. I nodded. Blue looked back out into the jungle, then at me, his eyebrows raised, paws tense, ready to leap into the foliage, to continue the search, if I thought it best.

"He's back," I said into the radio. "Sit," I told Blue.

He licked his lips and tapped his back feet against the ground a couple of times before settling into a sit, his ears slick against his skull, shoulders held low. "There was someone out here," I said into the radio.

Then I heard Merl's voice. "Return to base camp, Sydney."

I thought to argue. To insist that I be allowed to climb that tree, look into the leaves, find the evidence of a person. Evidence of a zip-line nearby. But I didn't.

"Yes," I said into the radio. Then I stooped down, running my fingers over Blue's face, and feeling along his ears. Searching for any cuts, I dove my hands down his neck, feeling his chest, over the scars on his shoulder. I checked behind his legs, along his belly and down his back. Blue stood and I checked his hindquarters, not a scratch on him.

We made our way back to the track and headed toward camp while Tanya turned around to deal with my post. She let me keep the night vision goggles. I set an even pace for our journey back to camp. Blue jogged next to me, his head even with my hip, nostril's flaring. The path was a mix of dirt and stones. At the steeper points logs were laid across the trail, acting as steps. I'd help put some of them in when I'd first arrived. It was hard work, though easy in its exhaustive nature. It allowed my brain to rest, the task at hand complicated and simple enough to lull the parts of me that needed rest while offering exercise to parts of me that needed work. Merl insisted we all take part in maintaining the land we lived on.

As we jogged I listened past the sounds of the jungle and hoped to hear something important. The zing of the zip-line caught my attention and I paused. Blue stopped too, his ears swiveling to locate the source. I followed his cue and heard that the sound was coming from within the perimeter. Where it made sense to be.

I knew there were once more zip-lines beyond the safe zone we'd set up, but I thought we'd dismantled them all. Was someone out there setting them back up? I suddenly felt watched, Blue raised his hackles, the sound of electricity crackled inside my ear. Blue leaned his weight against my leg and I felt for the crown of his head, laying my fingers against his smooth fur. Was there someone watching us? Blue growled lower still, his voice dipping almost below what I could hear. It sounded a little like thunder. He stepped forward toward the edge of the path and I followed a step behind, peering past him into the darkness.

"Sydney? You okay?" Merl's voice came on the radio. I stopped. Blue looked back at me, his face the glowing green of phosphorescent algae.

"Yes," I said, "Fine."

"I'm expecting you soon."

"Yes, sir," I said, and then picked up my pace again, following the trail home, Blue by my side, his nose tapping my hip to remind me that he was still there.

M
erl was waiting for me on the path. He was under the first electric light, largely invisible to me until I took my night vision goggles off. Which I did as soon as Blue gave a short bark of welcome.