Wings In The Night - Bloodline Part 11

"It would have been much better if that's what I was doing."

"No doubt," I said, pouring sarcasm into it. In fact, I didn't doubt it. We would be good together, he andI. We would be explosive. We'd been explosive when we'd done no more than kiss, and now I could hardly wait to have crazy-mad s.e.x with him.

"I was looking for a tracking device." I frowned, but he went on. "I've been thinking about what you said before. About how if they have some way to track you, it has to be something on the inside. And it makes sense. After I escapedafter James and I escaped, I mean"

"If he did escape."

"After I escaped, then, they might have decided to find a way to keep tabs on any future runaways.

Maybe they implanted some kind of microchip or something." He frowned, searching my eyes as thoroughly as he had been searching my body. "You said you remembered me. What else do you remember?"

Frowning, I thought back. "I lived in a room with another woman. Her name was" I squeezed my eyes tight. "G.o.d, I can see her face. She was a strawberry blonde, with freckles just across the bridge of her nose, and blue, blue eyes. What was her name?"

Ethan's hand covered my clenched fist. "Don't try to force it. Just let it come, holes and all, and tell me about what comes to you."

But it infuriated me that I couldn't remember her name, when I could so clearly remember her face. Even her voice. "She had the brightest smilewhen we were younger. I remember noticing that she smiled less and less as we grew up. By the time I decided to escape, she was like like a"

"I know. I know."

"We bunked together. There were ten rooms in each of the little painted cinder block buildings. Two of us to each room. Ours was called Cabin Ten. It was yellow. The twenty of us had a little kitchenette, a tiny living area, a television and some easy chairs. There were two bathrooms, one at each end."

"Sounds just like my cabin. Twenty-one, other end of the compound. There were barracks, too, with two rows of cots and just enough s.p.a.ce to walk between them. We'd spend thirty days in the cabins, then thirty in the barracks."

"I don't remember that."

"Anything else hitting your memory just yet?"

I lowered my head and thought of the dream, of the old man, but I couldn't bring myself to talk about that!. Not yet. So I pushed it aside and searched elsewhere in my mind.

"I remember martial arts cla.s.ses. I remember that's where I was going when I used to pa.s.s you every day. And I used to look forward to that as if it wereI don't know, a highlight of my existence. The way you would always look at me, right into my eyes, the way you would hold my gaze and how it made my stomach knot up and filled me with joy, just joy. And hunger. And" I stopped talking there and bit my lips, because the memory was so real and so vivid that I was beginning to feel those things again now.

Drawing a breath, I steadied myself.

"It was the same for me, Lilith. Don't ever doubt it." "It can't have been," I said softly. And I felt a burning in my eyes that I was sure was a very rare thing for me. "It can't. Because I never could have left you behind in that place. Not in a million years."

He averted his eyes, but I felt the rush of guilt that filled him then. Clearing his throat, he started to speak, then seemed to change his mind.

Sighing, I went on. "What I do not remember is someone implanting me with any microchip or tracking device."

I sat up slowly, looking around the house, my eyes pausing on the windows, my senses suddenly picking up. "They weren't implanting anything before you left, right?" I asked.

"No. Not that I know of, and I a.s.sume if they had been, they'd have found me long before now."

"So if your brother found us by means of a chip that wasn't in use until after he left, then"

"Then he really has been working for them all this time." He rose to his feet in a rush of motion. "But that doesn't make sense. If he's working for them, why would he help us? He helped us, Lilith."

"Did he?" I asked softly. "Or did he just set us up for a DPI trap?"

He went tense, his eyes flaring just a little. There was a moment of silent intensity, in which I knew he was scanning the night for any sign of someone else, friend or enemy, vampire or mortal, nearby. I knew it because I was doing the same thing. And feeling nothing.

Yet.

"I don't believe he would do that," Ethan said softly. And then he fetched my clothes, or the s.h.i.+rt that pa.s.sed for clothes, at least, and handed it to me. "But I think it would be a good idea for us to leave here, just in case."

"I think that's wise." I rose, unashamed and unembarra.s.sed, and dressed. "We'll find a better place to rest, and if we get there early enough, I'll finish inspecting myself for any lump or b.u.mp that might be a subcutaneous bit of electronic gadgetry."

"I really don't mind doing it for you," he said. And he said it without changing his inflection, so that in the midst of the tension, the fear that we were sitting in the jaws of a trap that might spring closed at any moment, the remark truly made me smile.

"We'll see," I promised.

He handed me a gla.s.s filled to the brim with something red. "Here. James told me there would be sustenance here. He was honest about that much, anyway."

"Aren't you afraid it might be drugged?"

"No, since I drank some almost an hour ago."

"That's rea.s.suring, at least" I told him, and downed it as Ethan quickly moved through the house, probably in search of any other items we could use. Within moments he rejoined me, a small bundleunder his arms.

We left the house, moving quickly to a large shed in the back, where I felt Scylla and Charybdis's presence before I heard or smelled them. They were alert already. Aware we were coming, I wondered, or sensing something elselike impending danger?

As we walked, it was as if I could feel eyes on me from the woods around us, from the house itself, as if we were surrounded by our enemies and would be attacked at any moment.

And yet I knew that was not my preternaturally sharp senses talking. It was my own fear.

We opened the barn door, and Ethan quickly reached in for Charybdis, speaking soothingly and walking the ma.s.sive stallion outside. As soon as he was out of the way, I gripped Scylla's halter and led her out, as well, swinging myself onto her back the moment she reached the open, where there was room.

Let's go slow and silent, Ethan said to me, speaking to me with the power of his mind.

How, when everything in me is telling me to launch her into a full gallop?

He rode directly beside me, on the right, and his eyes met mine, his smile, as rea.s.suring as it could possibly have been. Patience.

Even the horses wanted to run, though. I could feel it. They were sensing exactly what I was. Picking up on my fears? I wondered. Or was something more substantial about to take place?

And then I felt it. And I knew he felt it, too. Something was coming, and it was coming from above.

Ethan shot me an alarmed look just as the warning bells rang in my mind. And then he clenched his knees on his stallion's sides and shouted, "Run!"

We took off, the horses, magnificent beasts that they were, nearly flying through the night, their hoofbeats pounding so loudly that at first, I didn't recognize the sound of the helicopter blades slicing the very fabric of the night sky. But then the spotlights poured down from above and there was no more mistaking them. Even in the darkness, I could see the logo on the side of the three black insect-like helicopters. A white-hot lightning bolt piercing a blood red crescent moon. And suddenly something flashed through my mind, and I realized I knew that symbol well. I'd seen it often enough on The Farm. It was stamped on everything, from the labels of the clothes they gave us to wear to the boxes, cans and wrappers that held our food and drink, to the furnis.h.i.+ngs, the bedding, even the light bulbs. Everything bore that same symbol. One I now equated with captivity and pursuit and danger.

How could the idiots still living on The Farm not see the things that Ethan and I had seen? How could they be content to live a life imprisoned?

Gunshots shocked me from my thoughts. They were firing at us from the choppers! Ethan gripped Scylla's halter and veered Charybdis toward the sheltering trees. As if I wasn't going to follow at a full gallop! I smacked his hand away and took control of my mare, as we raced in a zig-zag pattern across the small patch of open ground toward the trees and the mountains beyond them.

We galloped as if competing in a raceand maybe we were, a race for our livesand we crouched low over the horses' necks as they ran. I held to Scylla's mane for dear life and hoped I wasn't tugging too hard as her powerful stride jostled me from one side to the other. All the while I clung as hard as I could with my legs. Finally we pierced the forest wall and dove into its embrace. Deeper and deeper into the forest we went, while the three choppers circled overhead. But not right overhead. After only a few moments, they were buzzing this way and that, and I realized they couldn't see us anymore. But soon enough they would.

They would cordon off the forest and send in searchers. Somewhere their fearless leaders might very well be organizing that already.

"We've got to make for the mountains," Ethan called to me. "It's our best chance."

Maybe, I thought, our only chance.

Chapter Ten.

Ethan began leading the way through the woods and toward the rugged mountains beyond. The sight of them frightened Lilith. He knew that. She had no idea how they would survive in the wildernessmuch less how she would, if something should happen to him.

He felt her eyes on him as she tried to read his thoughts, a skill he knew she hadn't yet perfected. If she had, she would realize that he wasn't thinking about their situation at all, nor about those in pursuit of them, the ones they had temporarily left behind. His mind was indeed working overtime. But it was focused on something else, something that hurt to think about.

"You're so quiet," Lilith said to him at length. "But I can feel the darkness coming off you in waves, Ethan. What is it? What's wrong?"

He looked at her and could barely force the words out, but knew he had to. "We're going to have to leave the horses," he said at last.

"Leave them? We can't just"

"We have to," he said. "It's the only logical thing to do. In this terrain, we can move faster without them.

We need to get beyond the boundaries of this forest before it's completely surrounded, if that hasn't already happened. When we do, we need to keep our options open, take a car if one becomes available.

We couldn't do that with them depending on us. This is best possible place to turn them loose. We have no other choice."

Lilith was still for a moment as she seemed to scan the woods, her senses sharp. She was learning fast how to use them, he thought with no small amount of admiration. And yet he knew she felt responsible for thisfor all of it. Intended or not.

"It's my fault, isn't it?" she asked at length. "It's my fault you no longer have a safe place to live, my fault you've got to give up your beloved horses." She lowered her head, her body moving in a gentle rocking motion in tandem with Scylla's careful plodding gait. "I'm sorry I brought all this down on you. Maybe you should just take the horses and go your own way. It's me they're somehow tracking. If I go off alone, I'm the one they'll follow."

He looked her up and down, and he knew she was terrified of being on her own. Not that Lilith was a needy, dependent, clinging female. She wasn't. Never had been. But she barely understood her ownnature, and there were unimaginable forces hunting her down. In those circ.u.mstances, anyone would feel better in the company of someone else.

"I have a better idea," he said softly. "If there's a tracking device on you, let's find it and get rid of it.

Otherwise, it's not going to matter where we go. They'll follow us to the ends of the earth."

She shook her head as if she couldn't care less about that. "What about the horses?" She leaned down over the mare, stroking the velveteen neck. "What will they do on their own?"

"They'll be fine, Lilith," he told her, and he hoped it was true. He honestly thought it was. "They'll wander, they'll graze, they'll drink. Maybe they'll even find their way back home. They could, you know.

We're not more than twenty miles away."

She pulled Scylla to a halt. Charybdis, sensing it, stopped, as well, several paces ahead on the trail.

"That's the answer, then," she said.

Ethan turned to look at her. "What is?" But she was already jumping down and, to his utter astonishment, peeling off her T-s.h.i.+rt. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

"We need to find it, Ethan. The tracking device. Now."

"We don't have time."

"We don't have time not to. Listen, we find it, you cut it out"

He grimaced at the very thought of it, at the same time remembering that he'd found a knife at the house and taken it. An icy chill actually shot up his spine.

"and then we attach it to one of the horses. They wander to wherever, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds chasing us think they're still on track. Until they catch up, that is. And by then we'll be long gone."

Ethan sighed, because she was right. He couldn't have come up with a better evasion technique if he'd tried for a month. "That's a very good plan, Lilith," he told her with a firm nod. "If we can find it. If a tracking device even exists."

"If it doesn't, then how do they keep finding us?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

She nodded hard. "Come on, Ethan. Let's get on with this." Already she was running her own hands over her body, the nape of her neck, the front of her chest.

He dismounted and walked to where she was. When he stood right in front of her, she met his eyes, and her hands went still. For a long moment they just stood like that, only a few inches between them. Her, utterly naked in the middle of the forest. Him, more aroused than he'd ever been in his life. And he couldn't stop his eyes from exploring her, moving up and down her magnificent body.

"Ethan? As flattering as the fire in your eyes is right now, we're in a hurry. Remember?"

"Yeah." He cleared his throat, gave his head a shake. "Yeah. Uh, I already checked the front of you fairly, um, thoroughly. Here, turn around." "All right," she said, matching her action to the words. The horses stood nearby, not impatient, not pawing, just nibbling on the plants that grew alongside the game trail they'd been following, and blowing gently now and then.

Night in the forest was fragrant. He could smell every plant that grew, along with the scent of warm horseflesh and the stream nearby. And he could smell herthe feminine, unique scent of woman.

Again he stared. His eyes traced the gentle line of her shoulders, the length of her back, the curve of her backside, the little dimples just above her it, on either side of her backbone. Girding himself, he moved closer and pressed his fingertips to her spine, following the line of it down to the hated tattoo at the base.

A bar code, very much like his own.

And then he halted, because that was when he felt something. A hard little knot beneath her supple skin.

A b.u.mp that didn't belong.

"Ethan?" She craned her neck to look over her shoulder at him.

"There's something here," he said. "I think."

"Got a blade on you?" She said it without a single tremor in her voice, without hesitation. Without even a tremble of fear as far as he could sense.

"I found one back at the house." He went to Charybdis and undid the makes.h.i.+ft pack he'd put together, digging around until he found the jackknife he'd tossed inside. And the entire time, he was feeling more and more physically ill at the thought of what he had to do to this woman. A vampire's senses were heightened. All of them.

She would feel ten times the pain a mortal would feel in the same situation. More than that, perhaps. It could be debilitating. So debilitating that he could lose her.

"If you don't do it, you'll lose me anywayand die along with me, more likely than not," she said softly.

He looked at her in surprise. "You're eavesdropping. Reading my thoughts."

"Just practicing my skills," she told him.