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its purpose by bringing them this far. They passed each other the bloody bits of their kill, unworried
about the black rivulets falling between their fingers or the lack of a fire to cook their meal.
He held his breath. As feeling crept back into his body, he tried to focus for a projection. His thoughts
whirled unsteadily. He had no strength for an attack, the ghost road had sapped him. It would have to
be the hard way. He drew out a blade and a garrote and gathered himself for a leap.
He took out one by landing on it. Its neck went with a pop as the other two were knocked on their
rumps, raw meat flying out of their hands. Thomas sprang, burying his knife hilt-deep in the second
who had recovered well enough to charge him. As the third jumped on his back, he flung the garrote
over his head, found a neck and brought his hands together, tightening the loop as the men atop him
and below him began to die.
He shrugged off the dead weight as the thrashing stopped. He skinned back the grimacing lips to find
ordinary, if somewhat decayed, teeth. He kicked the ashen dirt in their faces, thinking that this trio was
more manlike than he'd grown to expect from Denethan. He cleaned his loop on the dead man's
breeches and replaced it in his collar.
The knife was a little messier to retrieve, but he had no intention of leaving it behind. He cleansed it as
well as he was able to before slipping it into his boot.
He took one last look at the three dead men before turning to Lady. He put his hand inside his vest
where the finger bones seemed to leap into his grip, and his blood went chill.
She was repacking his saddlebags when he came back. She did not seem to have noticed that they had
lost the road and gained it again though she looked troubled beneath the sheen of her sunburn.
"Trouble?"
"Nothing to speak of," he answered. "We need to hurry. We're running out of time on the ghost road."
She turned a disturbed gaze toward him but asked no questions.
* * *
They found one of the landing sites. It was in a lee, on the bluffs overlooking the ocean, its grass
yellowing already in a Spring that had begun dry and would likely get drier. Poppies had been broken
and snapped off by the weight of the paralight. Lady dismounted, picked up a broken stem and twirled
it in her fingers. It spun in her fingers, gray petals and blackened stem. He watched her toss it to the
ground and look up at him, one eye darker than the other, both somehow colorless. He had a sudden
desire to see color in her gaze.
"How long ago?"
He frowned. As he looked out over the meadow, he could see the present or near present images
superimposed on those of the past. He could see Ramos chasing Jennifer across the grass, her white
buttocks still slender as a child's, flashing like a rabbit's flagging tail as she raced away from him. He
wrenched his sight away from the two naked children and back to Lady.
"Yesterday. Perhaps even this morning. What do you think?"
"This morning. The sap still runs in the flower. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it."
He nodded and held the mule steady while she remounted. They rode hard until they crested the bluffs
above Carpin, and he put his hand out to halt her. The twilight revealed his worst nightmare. He took
the finger bones out of his pocket to break the ghost road. His hands were like ice and the thought
struck him for a moment that, if not frostbite, he had chilblains.
With a roar, sound and scent and color returned to the world. It brought the reek of fire.
Lady's lips pressed together thinly as she looked down on the plains, and ocean, and ruins in front of
them. Thin columns of dark smoke rose into the air from twisted shadows at the base of the ruins.
"God," she said. "We're too late."
Chapter 15
"No sunrise this morning," Charlie said, as he reached out and pulled Veronica to his side. The low
hanging clouds showed pink briefly, hiding the errant sun. She had not been sleeping well for the last
few weeks, and he'd gotten out of bed early to trail her outdoors this morning. She stood on the
sweeping expanse of land behind their house, land that had once been groomed as part of the estate.
She shifted uneasily in his arms.
"Missing Jennifer?"
His wife did not look at him, her stance and attention aimed northward. But she answered, "Need you
ask?"
"No. I guess not. I heard last night that Lady Nolan's gone, as well as Sir Thomas." He loosened his
embrace. "The children'll be as safe with them as anyone."
Veronica looked at him. She had aged somewhat but admirably since his first infatuation with her. Gray
brushed her chestnut hair at the temples, but her skin stayed clear and firm. There were fine wrinkles
about her eyes whether she frowned or smiled, though. Her brow arched. "It would have been safest not
to send them at all."
He looked over the expanse, thinking that he disliked the overcast mornings that burned away to too
bright afternoons. He liked the days that started out crisp and clear and stayed that way, even though
the ocean breeze could have a bite to it.
Veronica stirred within the shelter of his arms. "I didn't come out to look for them," she said softly.
"Enjoy the view, Charles. It's likely to be the last sunrise we'll ever see."
He spun her about roughly. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the attack." She smiled gently. "I love you, Charlie. I loved you when I first met you,
and I loved you when you sent Jennifer away, and I love you now. I want you to know that."
Charles staggered back a step. "Who's attacking? When?" He cursed himself for not recognizing the
half-trance of a Seeing. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]