True Believers (3 page)

In minutes she had fashioned a basic harness, sturdy enough to keep him safe. She helped him slip it on and secured his knots.

“Rachel. About the cave incident. I just wanted to say—”

Rachel snugged the knots on the harness, wrapping her arms around his wide waist to make sure the saddle fit comfortably. “Forget it, Doc. It's been a long trip.”

He held her by the wrist, forcing her to look up at him. “You're the most intuitive archeologist in the field, Rachel. The best I've ever known.”

She smiled at him and straightened a knot outward so it wouldn't dig into the old man's flesh. “We made quite a team, didn't we?”

“Because of you we'll probably make every major academic journal in the world. These petroglyphs will make us famous.” His hands fidgeted on the rope harness around his waist. “You know, I planned to retire this year. I'm glad I'll be leaving with this as my legacy. Kind of one last hurrah, if you know what I mean.”

Rachel patted him on the shoulder, feeling unusually guilty for having been so intolerant. Humans regularly annoyed the hell out of her, but she felt more comfortable in their company than around her own kind. That would change soon. Gilgamesh would make sure of it.

She grabbed a hold of the rope and jerked on it again.

“I better go first,” Rachel said to Paul.

Paul took the rope from her. “You're the better climber, Cruz, but I'm stronger. I can hammer the anchors faster than you can. I'll go first and drag the professor after me.” He handed her a map. “Figure out where we are. We might need shelter for the night.”

She couldn't argue his point. Their chances were better with him on the hammer. Rachel's gaze skirted down the narrow ravine. The air smelled moist and woodsy.
Rain, and not far off.
Time was moving against them. She slapped Paul on the back. “Get going.”

Paul sprang against the rock face as if he'd been born to it, hammering pitons with the speed of a jackhammer. He secured several of the rods then gave the thumb's up for Doc to winch himself up. For once the grumpy old man complied without objection, trusting Paul to pull ahead and secure more anchor points.

Paul had reached the top and secured the rope to a scraggly tree. When he was finished, he stretched his back but froze when his eyes caught a glimpse of something in the distance.

Rachel was about to ask him what he was looking at when a stiff wind snatched the map out of her hand and sent it flying down the narrow trail.

She turned to chase after it but tripped on a gnarled root and tumbled to the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of her. A curse-filled scream redirected her attention. Rachel looked up in time to see a piton give way. The old man flailed against the rock wall, kicking and yelping like a charred dog.

“Doc! Stop moving. You'll weaken the pitons.”

Another piton sprung loose, and Doc plunged several feet with a howling shriek. The ricochet of a rockslide pattered down the cliff walls.

Paul grabbed hold of the rope and tried to steady it, but Doc's frantic thrashing dragged him closer and closer to the edge. Paul leaned as far back as he could, his face a muddy red from the strain.

Rachel tried to get up, but her foot gave way as soon as she put weight on the bad ankle.
Damn it. Not now.
Her
na'hala
reacted at once and started the process of regeneration, but there was no time for a full recovery. She had to reach Doc before he dragged Paul off the cliff.

Doc loosened another piton and more of the cliff. A river of rock pelted him like shrapnel. The last piece, no bigger than a baseball, hit him on the back of his head with a sharp crack. He slumped on his tether, like a puppet on a string.

Paul gaped over the edge with his hands on his knees. His chest heaved hard, and he struggled to catch his breath.

“Doc!” he wheezed. “Doc! Answer me.” Paul ratcheted the pulley with inhuman speed when he looked up once more.

Rachel crumpled the map inside a fist, staring at the old man hanging limp on his tether. He was dead.
Aw, Doc. Why didn't you listen?

Doc's spirit oozed out of his body as wet and crystalline as new snow. It wafted toward her, drawn by her energy, his thin voice echoing in her mind.
Get up, Rachel. Get up! It's a flash—

“Flood! Flash flood!” Paul screamed. He waved his arms above his head to get her attention. “Rachel, get on the rope. It's coming this way.”

Rachel snapped to her senses and bolted to her feet. The pain ripped through her, but she couldn’t stop now. She limped, hopping more than walking, focused only on the rope ahead. Her arms spread out to keep her balanced, but she tripped and staggered into Doc's spirit.

They stared at one another in mute regret. Did he realize what had happened? Rachel held out her hand.

I'm sorry, Doc.

He looked at her with a bewildered expression, his eyebrows arching. She tried to speak, but that was useless. There were no words to explain eternal damnation. Rachel touched his face in apology then walked through him without looking back.

She hobbled in short jumps until she reached the cliff wall. Her hands patted down her chest. No harness! And no time. She didn't bother looking back. The torrent thundered behind her, and she could feel the air pressure in the canyon thicken.

Her hands latched on to the rope with all the strength she could muster. She jumped against the rock face with her one good foot and climbed hand over hand. The roar of rushing water blanketed the area. The temperature dropped by several degrees in an instant.

A wall of water raged down the narrow pass. Time was up. It was all or nothing. She looped the rope around her hip and hung on, taking one good breath before the first belt of waves struck and rammed her against the cliff.

By the time she pushed her head above the water, Paul had clamored toward her. He grabbed her by the elbow, fighting the force of the water to get her head above the torrent. “I've got you, Rachel. I've got you.” He took a deep breath and ordered her to wrap her arms around his neck.

“I can't.” Her voice sounded like a far-off squeak as she tried to yell above the roar of the flood, spitting out more water than words.

“You have to. I can't pull you up by myself.”

“I can't, Paul. I can't. Leave me here. I can hold on until the flood goes through.” Her heart felt like it was pumping outside her chest. Fingers locked in a death grip, her knuckles as white as snowcaps. They'd have to cut off her hands before she let go now.

“Are you nuts? Get your ass over here. We're climbing up together.”

Rachel stared up at him. Wind and water slapped his face, and he trembled in the cold. He was scared. So was she.

She wanted to trust him, wanted to obey, but her hands refused to budge. She couldn't swim, and if she lost her grip, she was a goner.

It seemed a stupid design flaw for an immortal to be trapped by the confines of a body, but that was physics. Her corporeal shell was as fragile as any human's. If the body drowned, she'd have to abandon it or remain trapped in its fleshy coffin. That was physics too.

Selfish, maybe. But she wanted to keep her body. They could make it. They just had to hang on until the flood passed.

The torrent crushed them both against the rock face, and her strength faded along with hope. Rachel took a gulp of air and let one hand go, swiping it across the back of Paul's jacket and clamping down on his shoulder. She was about to throw the rest of her body over his when a large whoosh overhead hit them like a gale force storm.

She looked up to see a huge black helicopter hovering above them, its blades chopping the air like a blender. Paul tried to wave them off while Rachel hung on between him and the rope. The rush of wind from the helicopter's blades battered them between rock and water.

Rachel's slick, trembling fingers slipped off the rope one by one.

Heavy black ropes tumbled off the helicopter, and two Marines rappelled toward them. Paul turned to get a better grip on Rachel, but his sudden move jerked her off him. His fingers caught the thick gold braid of her necklace. For a millisecond, she hung in midair until the clasp burst and sent her plummeting into the abyss.

Shit!
Death by stupidity.

***

Paul screamed when Rachel fell, but the shriek sounded like it came from someone else. How could he have lost her? His fingers curled around her necklace and he shoved it into a pocket before releasing the bolt to his carabiner. He was going after her.

Just as he was about to jump in, strong arms grabbed him on either side. One of the Marines pulled out a knife and severed Paul's rope while the other soldier hooked his carabiner to their safety tether.

“Let me go, Goddamn it!” Paul kicked, struggling against his rescuers as he watched the deluge carry Rachel away. Only the churning waters kept her head above the waves—and that couldn't last long.

Paul and the Marines were reeled off the cliff face. Once on board, the helicopter veered into a hard turn, following Rachel down the channel. Paul shivered, his teeth chattering so hard he thought they'd shatter in his mouth. A soldier draped a heavy blanket over him and untied his boots.

One of the foreigners, the one Rachel had called Fancy Braid, leaned out the window and gibbered to his companions. He shrugged off his velvet coat, along with a red sash and a long scabbard holding a jeweled dagger. His gaze swept across to Chavez, the man in charge, before he ripped off the high broad collar of his white tunic.

Gills!
Paul blinked. Was he hallucinating? What looked like a set of pale purple gills puckered then opened and gasped for moisture.

Fancy Braid barked an order to his men, a one-syllable growl that brought them to attention. They rousted up and ran interference for him as he marched toward the wide open doorway of the helicopter.

Every soldier drew his firearm but no one pulled a trigger. Whoever these people were, they held more sway than ordinary dignitaries. The big man's eyes gleamed like emeralds, something else that made him uncomfortably strange. He nodded his head at Paul, perhaps in
reassurance, and then leaned out of the helicopter. Before anyone had a chance to stop him, he gauged his distance and jumped into the water feet first.

Chaos broke loose. Weapons raised, the soldiers surrounded the two remaining strangers. Colonel Chavez bolted toward the pilots and ordered them to pursue. Rescue personnel in full gear stood at the ready as the chopper dove toward the deluge in a fevered search for their reckless guest. Paul felt certain Rachel was the least of their worries. The other foreigners poked their heads out the doorway, pointing and debating while a riled old man in permanent press khakis tried to parley with them.

Chavez's voice boomed over the staccato rumble of the rotor blades. “Find Jessit. Find him!”

Jessit wished he had peeled off more clothes before making this dive. His uniform snagged on every rock and bramble as he body-surfed the thunderous rush of water. The pass narrowed ahead, and he could see the floodwaters rise up past another escarpment. If he didn't find that luckless female soon, they'd both be dead.

What had possessed him to try to save this woman?

The glory meter.
After the initial reading, it reacquired a new signal coming from the direction of the woman. The gods were here. He was sure of it. He'd never been one to rely on luck, but he believed in his hunches. Somehow that woman was involved. Besides, unlike the U.S. military, he couldn't let her drown.

Something ripped his sleeve from cuff to collar, deducting a chunk of flesh as payment. A steady burn raked along the gaping wound.

The deluge washed man, rock and woody brush, funneling them all downstream with little respect. A thick knobby cactus tangled on his pants leg, its sharp barbarous spikes gnawing through his flesh with the determination of a thresher. The more he struggled with the plant, the farther it climbed up his inseam.

Blessed Anu!
This thing was eating him alive. He pried it off, impaling himself with several needles before parting company with the vicious Earth vegetation.

He dove deeper, where the waters were less turbulent. His moisture ducts rippled with relief as the water rushed over them. Double eyelids flicked up and down, coaxing a white membranous film over each eye. He had his water eyes on now, allowing him to navigate the turbulent river with more facility.

Jessit followed the tide of rushing water, hoping to catch a glimpse of the woman. The tumultuous current rammed him into rocks and boulders, sapping what strength he had left. Bruises and lacerations punctuated his body, but the rush of adrenaline pushed the pain aside.

He rode the rapids by instinct alone, pulling up out of the water then diving down again in search of the woman. On his last upward draw, he caught a glimpse of flailing arms. He'd reach her now.

The gods had other plans.

Something clipped him on the left shoulder. Something big. He sucked in a gasp, taking in more water than air. The pain blasted through him as though someone had twisted off his arm with a pair of giant pincers.

Anu's balls, that hurt!
Jessit dropped to the bottom of the riverbed, tucking his left arm in front of him in a feeble attempt to protect it. His shoulder curled, dislocated. He tried to ease the ball back into its socket, but the slightest backward movement shot hot rivets of pain into his very core.

He bobbed up for a fresh swallow of air then forced himself underwater, heading in the direction where he had last seen the woman. Within moments he had found her, hanging on to a log too small to keep her afloat.

Jessit launched forward, his one good arm and powerful legs undulating as fluidly as a sea eel. He came up beneath her and pushed her up, guiding her toward the nearest shore.

In her panic, she let go of the log and turned on him, scrambling up his chest like a swamp rat. The more he tried to pry her off, the harder she clawed him.

Had they not already been soaked, she would've seen a grown man cry. She flailed blindly, thrashing against Jessit's badly injured arm.

Self-preservation took over. He elbowed her in the gut and knocked her off him. The force shocked her, and she slapped the water in vain, but he was already beneath her once more. He buoyed her along the length of his body, his good arm wrapped around her throat.

Jessit growled a single warning at her. “Do that again and I will drown you myself!” He grunted back the pain as he steadied her.

Have you been entertained enough, Anu?
His body burned with exhaustion. If Anu thought to test him further, the Almighty might as well kill him now. The woman stiffened in his grasp then relaxed, her arms bobbing in the water as unguided as debris. He didn't know whether she'd fainted or died.
Was he too late?
With the last strength he had left, he kicked off in the water and drew them toward a shoal, protected by an overhang of gray rock.

Jessit dragged her onto dry land. Was she breathing? He felt for a pulse and found it steady, but she had probably swallowed half the river. With his good arm he squeezed her diaphragm with quick jerks until she gave the river back.

Gasping for a dry breath, she tried to crawl away from him, but he held on.

“You are safe, woman. Do not move.”

He pulled her onto his lap and cradled her head against his chest. She was too weak to resist and lay mewling on top of him. Her breathing slowed and softened, lapsing back into unconsciousness.
For the best,
he thought. He looked down at her leg and noticed her right foot pointed in the wrong direction. Her ankle was broken.

Jessit slid her off him with as much gentleness as he could muster. He'd be useless if he couldn't pop his shoulder back into place. A bone-deep ache clung to every piece of him, and now he had to fix his shoulder. He looked around and spotted a tall, narrow outcrop of stone nearby. It would have to do.

Locking his jaw, he stumbled to his feet, his useless arm hanging in front of him. His vision narrowed, a hazy blackness shrouding his water-slogged footsteps as he staggered to the stone sentinel.

This was going to hurt.

Perspiration poured from his forehead. His lymph gills pouted excitedly as the beads of sweat rolled down.

“Lord Anu, god of gods, give me strength.” He mumbled the prayer several times, blurring the words as he repeated them faster and faster. On the fourth recital he threw his left shoulder into the rock face, popping the ball back into the socket and swearing in five different languages in words so vulgar, some were against the law. Seconds later, everything snapped to black. Mercifully, he collapsed into blessed oblivion.

***

Jessit wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious. He peered out of slitted eyes and watched a strange apparition approach the woman he had rescued.
Was he dreaming?
The brutal throbbing of his arm convinced him otherwise. He spied the languid form bending over the young woman in assessment. It showed concern or at least interest. The woman's body too, seemed to respond to its ethereal touch. A soft blue glow emanated from her and melded with the wraith.

A throbbing burn ratcheted down Jessit's body. His head was ready to explode and he could sense another wave of nausea and tunnel vision coming on.

The ghost touched the woman's ankle. She flinched with a shuddering moan.

“Leave her alone.” He snarled in Alturian, with a voice that barely qualified as speech.

The figure spun around, giving every indication that it understood him. It rose in a filmy glow of dust and sparkle. It drew nearer, staring at him with a puzzled expression. “You speak the tongue of my father.”

It replied in a dialect Jessit hadn't heard in a long time. He had to be hallucinating.

“Are you real?” Jessit tried to bolster himself up on his good arm. His head felt like he had gone through a gravity well without a pressure suit. He struggled to make sense of his circumstances but black walls threatened to close in around him.

He had to focus. This was important.

The phantom studied him as if it were trying to decipher his last words.

The apparition's speech seemed stilted and foreign but Jessit recognized it nonetheless.

Jessit's father, a linguist for the royal court, had insisted that both his sons learn the old tongue. These were Anu's words, holy words. His father would have given anything to have heard them spoken by this strange ghost.

Jessit braced himself on a teetering arm, trying to keep his head up. “You speak the language of Anu and his children. A language only priests and scholars still know. Who are you?” Jessit could feel his grip on consciousness slip away. The blackness seeped through the weakening walls of his awareness. He had to hold on just a few minutes longer.

“Ahh-nuu.” It repeated the word, tilting its head and drawing nearer.

Jessit stared at the wraith, unable to grasp the enormity of this event, but his devotion to the faith demanded one last question. “Are you Anu?”

It was the only important question.

The apparition shook its head. “My name is Gilgamesh, first born of Anu. Who dares speak his name to me?”

Jessit's body trembled before it buckled into unconsciousness once more. He collapsed before he could answer, but in his sleep, he smiled. He had found what he was looking for. He had found a descendent of Anu. The gods still lived, and as their scientists predicted, they lived on Earth. The woman had led him straight to them.

***

Jessit shivered. The cold woke him first, followed by the throb of his shoulder. He groaned as he got up on his hands and knees. Night had fallen and what little he could see of the sky beyond the overhang lay veiled in cloud.

His pupils waxed, dilating until they encompassed the entire visible eye. When he could see well enough, he crawled over to the woman he had rescued. He touched her cheek. She felt of fever, but he had no way of knowing if it was normal for their species. He had left all the particulars about human physiology to his aide, Senit Dante.

Tangled hair covered her face, her clothes pasting themselves like second skin. He felt down her arms and legs to check for broken bones. Other than the ankle, she seemed intact.

Her hat strap had tangled in her hair and he was prying it loose when he noticed blood on her shirt.
Damn.

He ripped the shirt open, tearing off several buttons and revealing firm breasts beneath an urchin's clothes. His breath caught on the intake when her nipples hardened under the thin fabric of a second shirt. The blood, thank the gods, was his.

His street urchin had the face of an angel, but she was in pain, and she moaned softly when he examined the broken bone. Between Senit, himself and the young attaché who
accompanied them, Jessit was the only logical choice for the rescue. He was the strongest swimmer and his military training provided the best chance for survival. Other than fishing her out of the water, he hadn't been much use at all. And now they were stranded.

He winced when he peeled his tunic away from his skin, tearing the scabs and reopening the wounds to fresh blood. They needed help, and soon.

Jessit sat down next to her and unhooked a slim pouch tucked under his tunic. The com-link survived intact, but its tiny screen was stone dead.

If he'd had some tools he might have been able to jar it back to life, but for now they were stuck without contact.

He glanced over at the young woman. “Any ideas, little urchin?”

Her ankle needed a splint, but there was nothing here to make one. They'd have to wait until daylight. He took off her boot and sock. The ankle was a mess but at least the wound was sealed. The best he could do was straighten the foot to a normal position.

Jessit tore a strip of fabric off his shirt and braced the leg above and below the ankle. Daylight couldn't be far off. He sank down next to her, warming her shivering body with his, praying they'd be found soon.

When Jessit awoke, the warmth was gone—so was the woman.

Something shrieked in the skies overhead. He jumped to his feet, his right hand slapping against his thigh for a weapon, realizing too late that he didn't have one.

They had landed in a little cove with a rough trail that meandered around and above an overhang. Aside from the screeching, he was alone.

He picked up a damp, gray sock pockmarked with blood and stuck his finger through a large hole.
How could such a badly injured woman simply walk away?
Jessit gathered his wits about him and dusted off his clothes. He heard the scrape of dirt and pebbles dancing down the narrow trail and spun around.

“Looks like we meet again—sort of.” The voice sounded animated and cheerful with a hint of deviltry that defied the image in front of him.

Her baggy pants and oversized shirt returned her to urchin status. Not even the swell of a breast could be seen beneath her mannish clothes. He would've mistaken her for a boy if it weren't for a mane of dark brown hair and the delicate curve of her chin. Large, doe eyes peered from beneath the floppy hat that shaded most of her face.

He caught a whiff of her scent, the same one he slept with the night before. Her clothes belied her sex, but the scent did not. She was a woman all right. And strangely, one that smelled of heat. He wasn't aware human females had a mating cycle the way Alturian women did. Perhaps they were more alike than he was led to believe.

Jessit's gaze dropped to her sockless foot. Her pants leg was rolled up to the knee and she wore a mud-crusted half boot that had been left untied. The injured ankle sported a crust of dried blood and a raw, angry scar, but the bone seemed whole and mended.

“Your ankle was broken,” he said in his best-clipped English. “There.” He pointed.

She paused for a moment and pursed her lips as if considering her response, throwing a casual glance at her feet. “My ankle is fine. See?” The woman waggled her foot from side to side.

“It was broken.” Jessit felt the veins in his neck throb.
Was it possible the gods had blessed her?

The woman flopped to the ground and slid her right foot across her opposite thigh. She spat into her hand and wiped the dried blood off her ankle.

How crude.
So much for the angelic face.

“I can guarantee you it hurts, but it's not broken.” She gestured for him to sit. “My name is Rachel Cru—”

He ignored her, dropping to his haunches and grabbing her by the ankle. He dragged her ass across the gravelly ground and drew her foot up for closer inspection.

She yelped and tried to pull her leg back, but he held on to it firmly and pulled off her boot. There was a definite scar still speckled with blood, but the bone appeared completely whole, the flesh sealed.

His brow furrowed in frustration. “Impossible. The bone was protruding.”

She jerked her foot away and pulled her knees up close to her chest. “Well, you're wrong, bucko.” Her body relaxed, and she shrugged, daring him to argue with the hard evidence of her non-broken ankle.