The Dark Gate (11 page)

“Wrong.” He glared at the girl. “You said the worlds were sealed, yet here you are.”

Despite his rough treatment, the girl showed no fear, but looked at him with eyes that seemed somehow old and infinitely sad.

“Baleris stumbled upon a threshold, hitherto unknown, deep in the Banished Lands. One that had never been sealed. If the Lost Stone is returned to Esria as Baleris intends, all the seals will open and the humans will be at the mercy of the Esri once more.”

She was talking nonsense. Fairy tales. But the cop in him demanded answers. “Where is this threshold?”

“I…do not know. It was dark. I did not see.”

“Convenient.”

Larsen grabbed his arm again. “Do you hear that?”

Silence.
Silence suddenly overlaid by the chilling sound of sirens.
Police.

He met Larsen's wide-eyed gaze, his pulse suddenly pounding. “We've got to get out of here.”

“What about the interns?” Larsen lifted her hand from his arm and the noise roared back, nearly buckling his knees.

The sirens came to a screeching halt out front.

“No time.”

“You must hit me like you did Yuillin,” Tarrys cried. “Or I will be forced to follow you until I kill you.”

Jack balled his fist, then stopped, a sudden thought exploding through the screams in his head. David. Henry's son.

“What did you do to the boy when you tried to get in my apartment?”

“The brown boy?”

“Yes.” He shook her. “Tell me what you did to him.”

“Yuillin shot him with…
elfshot.
'Twill turn him to stone from the inside out. Without a cure, he will die.”

“What's the cure? What do I have to do to save him?”

“I do not know. There were once humans with the gift for healing. You must find one.”

More sirens came to a halt outside.

“Jack, we've got to go.”

He needed answers, dammit! But they were out of time.

With a swift upper cut, he clipped the girl under the chin, then lowered her, unconscious, to the floor. The moment he released her, the screams turned back into voices. Loud, frantic, excited voices, but just voices.

He grabbed Larsen's hand and the noise ceased altogether. “We're going out the window.”

She threw him a wide-eyed stare. “It's the second story!”

“You want a broken leg or three rounds through the chest?”

Her jaw dropped, then snapped closed. “Good point.”

As the sound of pounding feet filled the downstairs entry to the apartment building, Jack wrenched open the bedroom window, swung out until he was hanging from the sill, then dropped onto the grass with a bone-jarring impact. When he looked up, Larsen was crawling out the window, an expression of terror on her face.

Come on, angel.
His heart thudded in his chest. Any second, the cops would burst into that bedroom, guns blasting. He shouldn't have left her behind, but he'd wanted to get on the ground first, to break her fall.

She glanced at him and he held out his hands.
Jump,
he mouthed. He couldn't shout, couldn't take a chance on alerting the police they were escaping. With a grimace, Larsen nodded and eased herself out until she was hanging from the ledge.

Come on, Larsen.

Finally she let go and he caught her as she reached the ground, breaking her landing, pulling her hard against him.

“Are you okay?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

“Then let's get out of here.”

But as they ran for the car, his head spun with the girl's—Tarrys's—words.
Elves.
What kind of idiot did she take him for? Elves were little dwarflike people. Fairies were little more than insects. Baleris sure as hell wasn't either. He was a man. Just a man. Nothing more.

They jumped in the car and took off before the cops saw them.

The son of a bitch
had
to be a man. Because if he wasn't, if he honestly had magical abilities…they were in deep trouble.

“I
t's bull,” Jack said from behind her.

Larsen stood at the window of the borrowed apartment, watching the early afternoon sun flicker and flash off passing cars on the street below. They'd made a clean getaway, but she couldn't shake the fear that the cops were coming anyway. She couldn't bring herself to abandon her lookout position.

“There's no such thing as elves,” Jack said vehemently. Since she wasn't arguing the point one way or the other, she could only assume he was still struggling with the idea, trying to convince himself.

She glanced at him, at where he sat on the sofa, his fingers digging into his hair. He wore a pair of jeans and a dark red polo he'd borrowed from Charlie's closet.

He looked good. He always looked good.

Not a minute went by that part of her wasn't remembering the way she felt when he kissed her, the way heat moved through her like warm lava, weakening her limbs. Or the cataclysm of coming apart in his arms.

The intense attraction wore at her. She couldn't figure out a way to shut it off. Leaving him again was out of the question, so her only choice was to suck it up and ignore it. And try to keep Jack from realizing just how attracted to him she really was.

If he knew what he did to her, she'd never be able to maintain the distance she needed. She couldn't let him get that close to her again, close enough to see too much, to learn the secrets she couldn't share. To see the strangeness, the evil deep inside her, the devil's sight she was cursed with.

“Maybe Tarrys was telling the truth.”

“There's no such thing as elves.”

“Why isn't it possible?”

He looked up, his expression incredulous. “You can't honestly tell me you believe that crock.”

She shrugged and stepped away from the window. “I don't know what to believe anymore. The albino does things he shouldn't be able to do, Jack. His being nonhuman actually makes some sense.”

“It makes
no
sense.” Jack scowled. “All you have to do is to look at him to know he's no elf. Elves are—” he held his hand out, palm down “—little dwarflike people.
And they don't exist.
”

“Maybe they're not elves. What if elves aren't real…but the Esri are?” She tapped her fingers on her thighs. “I wish I had my computer.”

“There's one in the bedroom.”

Larsen's eyebrows lifted with interest. As one, they headed for the bedroom.

The room looked like a college dorm room…before the students moved in. Other than the computer and the dark green fitted sheet that covered the mattress, there wasn't a thing in sight that said an actual person laid claim to the space. An old dresser, an equally decrepit desk and a mattress and springs were all the furniture in the room. The walls were white and bare of pictures. The windows covered only by cheap shades.

As Jack turned on the computer, Larsen raised the shades. “I can't believe anyone really lives here.”

“Charlie's a spook,” Jack said. “Or maybe special ops. I'd bet money on it. Either way, he probably only needs a place to stay for a few days at a time when he's between missions and an address to collect mail.”

“What are we going to do if he shows up suddenly?”

The computer screen lit and Jack began typing. “We're going to hope that doesn't happen.”

“Maybe we should hope it does.”

“Why's that?”

Larsen sat on the end of the bed, her knees brushing the back of Jack's desk chair. “Because Harrison and both his kids were immune from the albino's control. Maybe it runs in his family.”

The clack of the computer keyboard ceased abruptly. Jack turned sideways in his chair and looked at her. His eyes narrowed, his brows pulling down in thought. “Maybe, but it doesn't always work that way. The woman I saved at Tony Jingles was there with her daughter. The girl was controlled.”

“Maybe she was adopted. Or just didn't inherit whatever gene we seem to possess in common. The gene that makes us immune to mind control.”

Jack pursed his mouth. “You're right. If Charlie
is
a spook, we could use his help no matter what. Maybe Harrison can get word to him. It's worth a try.”

As Jack pulled out his phone, Larsen nudged him from the desk chair and took his place. Jack left Harrison the message while Larsen typed.

Esri.
Nothing.
Elves.
Too much and most of it garbage.

“Anything?” Jack asked, coming to stand behind her. She could feel his presence like a living thing wrapping around her from behind.

“I've got a list of cures and protections against enchantment.”

“Enchantment?” Jack scoffed.

But a chill skimmed down Larsen's spine. “Mind control. That's exactly what he's doing, Jack.” She read the few things on the list she recognized. “Salt, holy water, iron, four leaf clovers and holly branches are all supposed to protect against elf mischief.”

“Superstition.”

“Sure. But sometimes superstition is based in fact if you go back far enough. We've got to start somewhere.”

“It's hogwash.” His hands rested on her shoulders. “See if you can find anything on the amulet that was stolen from the Smithsonian, the Stone of Ezrie.”

“The one Tarrys said will open the gates between the two worlds?”

Jack grunted. “Duke said there was some legend attached to it. The girl probably read it, too.”

The feel of his hands, heavy on her shoulders, was thoroughly distracting. Her fingers stumbled, but a moment later the screen revealed the news report of the theft and a small picture. The blue amulet wasn't large, about the size of a man's thumb and shaped like a pear.

Larsen squinted and looked closer. “There's a symbol on the stone.”

“A seven-pointed star. See if you can find anything on the legend.”

“There's nothing here. But one of my college roommates works at the Smithsonian. Autumn McGinn. If she wasn't the one Duke talked to, she'll know who was. I'll send her an e-mail.”

As she typed, she heard the mattress behind her creak under Jack's weight.

A minute later she turned in her seat to face him. “Done.” Larsen folded her arms over the back of the chair. “If it makes you feel any better, I don't want to believe he's an elf any more than you do.” She rested her chin on her arms. “What are we going to do if he really has magic?”

For once, Jack didn't scoff. “I don't know.” Then he scowled and raked his fingers into his hair. “I can't believe in elves, Larsen. I just can't.”

“Then don't. That's not what's important.”

His brows dipped low. “I thought you were convinced they're real.”

“No, I'm convinced the albino is real. And I'm convinced he has abilities we can't comprehend. All that matters is we don't deny what he can do. What you call him doesn't really matter. Call him whatever you like. Elf, Esri, bastard…
zoodopper.
”

A funny smile broke over his face.
“Zoodopper?”

Larsen smiled weakly. “That's my point. Who cares what you call him? We know what he can do.”

Jack reached out, touching her hair, trailing his fingers down one thick lock. “You're right.”

He looked at her with eyes that lacked the probing intensity, the distrust of so many of his gazes and were instead filled with a tenderness and understanding that went straight to her heart. This gaze caressed and comforted, lifting some of the suffocating worry and filling her with a strange fluttering lightness like a butterfly on newly formed wings.

Why was she so drawn to him? How could he tear down years of defenses with a single look? She was Larsen Vale. The Ice Bitch. A woman who didn't—
couldn't
let people get this close.

Slowly, the look in his eyes changed, heated. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she knew he wanted to kiss her. Her pulse sped with a sudden longing to be in his arms again.

A longing that scared her. She'd struggled all day to push him away, to put some distance between them. If she gave in to the need to touch him now, she'd undermine everything. He'd never again believe she was uninterested in him. He'd know the truth, that she wanted him, had always wanted him. And he'd get too close, see too much.

Her secrets would never be safe again.

As desperately as she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him until she forgot everything but the taste of his lips and the feel of his tongue stroking hers, Larsen forced herself to unfold her legs, stand and walk away.

 

Jack watched Larsen leave the bedroom without a backward glance. He'd give his right arm to know what was going on inside that head of hers. One moment her eyes were soft and warm, the next they were hidden behind that cool wall.

She wanted him. No, she didn't want him. That was the problem. She was drawn to him but she didn't want to be. For a reason he couldn't figure out, she wanted nothing to do with her attraction to him. Or maybe she just wanted nothing to do with
him.

The thought sank to his stomach like a brick. How would he survive the rest of his life without her, without her quieting touch, if she left him?

“I'm going to make a sandwich,” she called from the kitchen. “Do you want anything?”

You. Just you.
He rose from the bed and followed her into the living room.

“I'll get one later,” he said, picking up the phone and dialing Henry's number. “I want to check on David, first. Make sure he's okay.” He needed to set his mind at ease. The magic, the enchantment, the immortality—none of it turned his blood to ice like the possibility that David might have actually been harmed by the little archers outside his apartment the other night.

“Hello?”

“Sabrina, this is Uncle Jack. I need to talk to your mom.”

“Hi, Jack. Mom's not here. She's at the hospital with David.”

The blood drained from his head, driving him down onto the sofa. “Why? What's the matter with him, sweetheart?”

She made a frustrated sound. “It's that little bald man's fault. He did something to David, but no one's listening to me. You should tell them, Jack. They'll listen to you. I know my mom will.”

His fingers gripped the phone until the instrument bit into his flesh.

“What's the matter with him, Sabrina? What do they think is wrong?”

“No one tells me anything,” she said on a huff. “But I hear things. My mom's crying all the time. Last night she called my grandma who's on a cruise and told her to fly home right away if she wanted to see David again. She said his organs are shutting down, hardening like they're turning to stone. All of them. The doctors are giving him forty-eight hours, tops.”

He felt a knife go through his heart. “Where is he, Sabrina? Which hospital?”

“Children's. Uncle Jack?” she asked in a small voice. “I'm scared.”

“I know, honey. Just do what your mom wants, okay? She needs that right now.”

“I know. Is he going to be okay, Jack?”

She wanted assurances he couldn't give.
Dammit.
Damn the bastard. Damn his little bald minions.

“The doctors are doing everything they can, Sabrina.”

“Okay.”

But what if it wasn't enough? What if David really had been elfshot? Modern medicine wouldn't stand a chance.

He said goodbye to the girl and hung up, the terrible mass of emotion he'd held in check free at last. He surged to his feet and stormed across the room, then back again, pacing at a furious tempo.

“
I'm going to kill him.
I'm going to rip out his heart with my bare hands and feed it to the dogs.”

Larsen came around the counter. “Jack, what's happened?”

Rage burned through him as his feet pounded across the room, roaring in his ears, raising its voice in unison with the voices yelling in his head. He was fighting an enemy he couldn't beat, an impossible enemy who was hurting those he loved.

 

Jack paced the living room like a wounded tiger while Larsen watched, helpless.

“Jack, please, tell me what's happened.”

Her words finally seemed to penetrate the haze of anguish that surrounded him. He sank onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands.

“He's dying.”

“Oh, Jack.” This was all her fault. The archers had come for
her
and hurt David instead. And it was tearing Jack apart.

She went to him, joining him on the sofa. When he didn't respond to her presence, she ran her palm across his back, over and over, returning the comfort of touch he so often shared with her. Finally he dropped his hands and turned to face her, his eyes bleak.