As if he had read her mind, Michael covered her hand with his and whispered fiercely, "We will make it through this. We will get more time. I swear it."

She nodded and hid her face in him. He was the first to fall asleep, one hand buried in the soft, loose ma.s.s of her hair.

She supposed his being horribly pragmatic had its moments. She tried to follow his example. After she faked it for a while, she managed to fall into an uneasy doze.

All of her dream images were filled with fire.

Chapter Twenty-seven.

MICHAEL WOKE UP.

He couldn't put a finger on why, but he was patient as he tried to pinpoint the reason. Pragmatism had certain benefits. It meant he never did anything without a reason, not even waking up.

He hadn't awakened because he felt refreshed. Tiredness had acc.u.mulated to the point where he could use a week of good sleep. No, something else had disturbed him, something like his earlier niggle. Easing away from Mary's sleeping figure, he climbed out of bed.

The digital alarm clock read half past three. He slid one corner of his curtains open and looked out the window. Moonlight flooded into the room, gilding him with silver. He could see a portion of lawn, the dark edge of the bordering forest and a corner of Astra's chicken coop. The night sky was draped with sullen gray. He guessed that ash made up a good portion of it.

Mary had curled into the s.p.a.ce he had just vacated, one hand on his pillow, but she hadn't awakened. Careful not to wake her, he ran his fingers through the soft, loose ends of her wild, s.e.xy hair. He sensed the trouble in her spirit and knew she wasn't completely at rest.

But that wasn't what had awakened him either.

He left the room, silent as moonlight and shadow.

The cabin's large common area was empty of both physical and spiritual creatures. He glided from doorway to doorway, pushing doors open to scan the contents inside each room. All was quiet, dark and peaceful. Just as it should be.

When he reached the door to Astra's bedroom, he hesitated only a moment before easing it open.

Her bedroom was empty.

Usually when she roamed the psychic landscape for information, she let her body rest in bed.

Michael didn't like it when things weren't the way he expected. He didn't care for surprises. In his harsh life, surprises had hardly ever turned out to be good.

What are you doing, Astra? he thought.

Moving to the center of the cabin, he stood for a moment with his hands on his hips. He glanced at the stairs to the loft but didn't bother to climb them. He could already sense that the darkened room upstairs was empty.

Barefoot and shirtless, he strode outside. The spring night air bit into his skin. The cold heightened his sense of urgency. He scanned the clearing, then made a swift circuit around the outside of the cabin. Astra's presence wasn't in any of the outbuildings.

He frowned. The clearing was only a small part of the island. Astra literally knew every inch, every broken rock, every nook and cranny of land. Going in search for her physically would take time and energy that he wasn't willing to spend.

Centering himself, he expanded his awareness. He touched Mary's presence in the house, the sleeping fowl in the henhouse, chirruping nightlife in the tangled foliage beyond the clearing. His awareness swirled through the forest, over the wetlands at the southern end, a ghost riding on the wind.

His senses kept trying to tell him that everything was as it should be. Astra was in bed. He knew that was an illusion. She wasn't in the house. He could find no sign of her energy's signature anywhere else on the island.

But he did detect other human presences.

Many human presences, in every direction. They quietly poured off several boats moored around the island, and moved fast toward land.

Shock gripped him in iron jaws. While his body stood frozen, his mind raced to the inescapable conclusion.

Astra was not on the island. She had either been taken or she had left. And she couldn't have been taken without him knowing it. So she had left voluntarily, without telling him or Mary.

She might have discovered something she needed to act on. She might have decided to make a grand, self-sacrificing gesture. If so, he would have said, Okay. You sure you don't need help? Good luck then. Make it count.

And she had known that. The old b.i.t.c.h had known that.

She should have awakened him so that he could resume watch on the island. She didn't do that. Staying silent had benefited her in some way. She was like him. She never did anything without a reason.

And she would do anything if she thought it would take the Deceiver down.

She was making a grand gesture, all right, but he and Mary were the sacrifice.

"You Judas," he breathed.

He found that he had room to be amused, both at the ruthlessness of her decision and at himself. While he had known she was capable of something like this, he had still been fool enough to trust her a little too much. He must have, to feel this sense of betrayal.

He hoped that she would make d.a.m.n good use of the sacrifice. He, for one, had no intention of going out like a lamb to the slaughter.

He lunged inside the cabin and to his armory.

At the same time, he said telepathically, Wake up, Mary. It's bad.

He heard her cranky mutter from the bedroom as well as her voice in his head. Of course it is. It's always bad. He knew the moment she realized he was not with her and came fully awake. Her telepathic voice speared him. Michael?

He didn't bother to be quiet. He flipped the light on, threw open lockers and armed himself. He called, "I'm in here."

She appeared in the doorway. She held one shoe in each hand, her face crisscrossed by the pillow, her eyes wide and stricken. She sucked in a breath when she saw him. Her expression settled into a doctor's calm. Her voice turned brisk. "What can I do?"

He smiled at her. "G.o.d, I love you. I love your scent and silliness, your too fine sense of ethics and your crazy, s.e.xy hair."

She returned his smile with a joyous one of her own. "We're not going to talk about my silliness. I'm glad you think my crazy hair is s.e.xy. My ethics are not too fine, no man should tell a woman she smells, and I love you too."

He laughed. "Fair enough." He grabbed items from a locker and flung a Kevlar vest in her direction. She dropped her shoes to catch what he threw at her. He bent to finish yanking his bootlaces tied. "You're not that much bigger than Astra. That vest should fit. Put it on."

"Where is Astra?" She stomped her feet into her tennis shoes without untying them and pulled the Kevlar vest on, all her actions designed for optimum speed.

"Astra's gone." He tossed a black hooded mask at her. "Cover your face and hair." He jerked one over his head as well.

She obeyed. Her shocked face disappeared. "Gone?" she said, her voice m.u.f.fled. "I don't understand."

"She left us, Mary. The island's surrounded."

He slapped an explosive, complete with a timer, on his computer tower and keyed it to detonate in five minutes. He didn't want anybody getting their hands on the contents of his hard drive, especially if he and Mary managed to make it off the island alive.

The explosive was designed to do maximum damage in a five-yard radius. When it went off, it would ignite other items in the armory. He straightened and swept the room to make sure he had everything he wanted, because they weren't coming back. He turned his attention to Mary.

Worried blue eyes blinked at him from two lopsided holes in a black mask. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steered her through the darkened cabin. She asked, "Why would she just leave?"

"She didn't see fit to inform us." He forced his voice to remain calm and even, to keep his rage contained. He paused in the doorway to scan the clearing. "But I think we're bait. We have to make our decisions based on what we know, and I've f.u.c.king had it. I'm voting us off this island. I don't see any reason why we should die without knowing why. Do you?"

"h.e.l.l no. Let's get out of here."

"They're going to have night-vision equipment," he whispered. Precious seconds trickled away so he spoke fast. "But the equipment has to be monitored by human minds, and we can fool those. I'm going to cloak us. Stay right with me and as quiet as possible. You can help me avert their attention if you focus on something inconsequential and natural. Pretend you're a mouse, or a squirrel, and keep that image fixed in your mind. All right?"

"Does it help you to know what I'm pretending?"

Pleased, he squeezed her tight. "Yes."

"I'm a mouse."

"Good. No talking and no telepathy," he warned. "Remember, mice don't talk." He paused to think of his hawk friends and the pack of wolves that had been guarding Mary when he had found her. "Much."

She shook a little. Incredibly, it was a chuckle. "Got it."

He took a few more seconds to fix the null s.p.a.ce around them. Then he pulled her out the door. He thought through their options. One of their boats had been moored in the small bay, so taking the path to the pier was impossible. Within the next few moments, the path would become the setting for an ambush, or at the very least, they would have disabled-or sabotaged-the boat.

The island was shaped like a human foot without the toes. West and south would take them to wetlands that covered the heel of the foot. Not ideal, but then again, it wouldn't be ideal for their enemies either.

He steered Mary across the open area of the clearing, grateful she responded without question to his silent prompting, her small, compact body moving in concert with his.

They reached the forest. He let his arm fall from her shoulders and took her hand. Then he continued at a slower pace, picking a path through the dark.

Mary gripped his hand so tight the tips of his fingers throbbed. She tried to move with his stealth but couldn't quite manage it. He slowed further to help her pick her way more quietly.

The cl.u.s.ter of pines bordering the clearing gave way to deciduous trees. They reached a large tangle of underbrush and fallen tree limbs. They would have to circ.u.mvent it. A couple of stealthy figures approached and were sneaking around one side of the tangle. He touched Mary's mouth with a light warning finger and pulled her in the opposite direction.

He thought ahead to their next challenge. The men came to the island on boats, and they could no longer use theirs. They would have to commandeer one from their uninvited guests. There would be one or two guards left on the boats for just this kind of eventuality.

The cabin exploded. The night roared with a concussion of heat and light.

He had accounted for the explosion and had dismissed it. It had already become a part of his past, so he didn't react other than to note that it blew right on schedule.

But what he hadn't accounted for was Mary's untrained reaction. He had forgotten to warn her.

She gasped and stumbled.

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.

Michael had loved that old fourteenth-century poem as a small boy. He had discovered it when he had written a school report on Ben Franklin, who had quoted it.

For want of the shoe, the horse was lost, and so on, in an escalating series of catastrophic events, from horse to rider, to message, to battle, to the war being lost, and all for the want of a nail.

Just like the poem, Mary's stumble was really a small thing. But what she stumbled over had deeper connections in the pile of rotted tree limbs, ivy and sticker bushes. Something rolled and shifted. An entire four-foot section of ivy jerked in a way that was not at all natural or mouse-like, and suddenly where they were standing became the subject of intense scrutiny.

One man straightened. As he brought up his a.s.sault rifle Michael flung a throwing knife that embedded in his eye.

The second man had stayed crouched behind cover. That was unfortunate.

Michael dropped Mary's hand and launched toward him. Even as he broke the man's neck with a perfectly executed kick, he knew he was too late.

Because if they had night-vision equipment and too many men surrounding the island, then they probably had . . . He bent to grope at the dead man's blackened face and found what he was looking for, a small wire and earpiece now mangled by his kick.

s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t.

They had a comm link. With so many in their group, they would have a centralized communication point, one person to coordinate maneuvers and relay orders, often nicknamed "G.o.d." That person would be tucked safe away from any fighting, probably on one of the nearby boats.

s.h.i.t.

As he spun back toward Mary, he caught sight of something streaking through the air toward her. He thought, I can't believe it. Did she just get shot again?

He was both right and wrong. Even as he took comfort in her bulletproof vest, the something unfurled into a nylon net that settled over Mary's head and shoulders, and she reacted in the most natural way in the world. She fought to get it off of her. The net had been designed to tighten more as the captive struggled.

He threw himself forward as another net streaked through the air. In that flash of an instant, he knew he couldn't get to her in time. He would risk them both getting tangled in the nets.

He had to stay free to maneuver. He switched course and dove. The weighted edge of the second net brushed his thigh as he rolled.

A third net shot through the air. It wrapped python-tight around Mary's staggering figure. She groaned, lost her balance and fell to the ground.

Michael's attention snapped to the person who shot the nets. He shot the man twice in the neck.

He loped over to the dying man. After reaching down to carefully remove the man's slender headset, Michael shot him in the temple to give him a cleaner death.

From twenty feet away Mary said in a quiet, flat voice, "I am not okay with this turn of events."

He kept his reply easygoing and rea.s.suring, the quality of which alone should win him an Oscar. "Don't worry. At some point we would have had to stop sneaking around and fight."

He slid the headset on and adjusted the earpiece.

A strange young man said, "She'll have something to worry about soon enough. h.e.l.lo, Michael. If I can hear you, I'll bet that you can hear me."

Michael knew who was at the centralized communication point. Well, who else would it be? How it must amuse him to play G.o.d.

"h.e.l.lo, Lucifer," he said.

At the same time, he thought, if I get my hands on Astra, I'm going to kick her a.s.s. Why the f.u.c.k couldn't she have warned us?

For want of the message, the battle was lost.