Mary said in his head, Michael?

Yes? His reply was as calm as hers was shaken.

The third man twisted to dive for cover in thick underbrush. He spun around and shot the man in the temple before he'd taken two steps.

Mary said, I heard shots. Are you all right? I'm sorry. I know you must be busy. I shouldn't be bothering you, but- Her fear beat at him through the telepathic contact. He kept his mental voice unhurried and soothing. I'm quite fine. We can be overheard. Don't say anything telepathic that should be confidential. Just keep doing what you're doing.

Okay. I'm sorry. G.o.d. Her stress strained their connection.

Mary, he said. He scanned the area for signs of the other problems. I haven't even broken into a sweat.

Yet.

Yes. I'll go now.

She sounded so perfectly wretched he pitied her. He would be in as bad or worse shape if he were in her shoes, hearing gunfire in her vicinity and unable to do anything. But she was going to have to deal with it. He didn't have any more time to spare for her, because something was ama.s.sing from the direction of the black vehicle.

It was an amalgamation of power, like the towering buildup of a funnel cloud.

He put one hand on the trunk of a nearby tree and leaned on it. Neither side had yet been surprised except, perhaps, for the three dead men and Mary. The black vehicle held his real problem. His real problem had thrown those first men at him as cannon fodder, just to tickle him to see if he was paying attention.

The form of a young, dark-haired woman shimmered into place beside him.

He turned his head and looked at Astra's crystalline form. She looked both furious and terrified.

They stared at each other. He gave her a resigned shrug.

She snapped, I told you that you shouldn't have stopped moving!

He could have said a lot of things in reply.

He could have said that he had been tired and the s.e.xy blonde had flirted with him and had said pretty please.

Or he could also have said that even if they hadn't stopped, their enemy still might have found them. Michael had found Mary so late in the game, while the Deceiver had been so close behind them.

Each statement contained a facet of the truth, and none of it mattered anymore.

And, really, there wasn't any point in arguing with Astra or kicking himself since somebody else already wanted to do it so badly.

I'll do what I can to help, Astra said grimly.

Of course you will, he said.

He knew exactly just how much stock to put into that. Astral projection from such a long distance was a ma.s.sive drain on her reserves, and here, while she might join in the fight, as disembodied as she was, she could only wield a fraction of her strength.

Then, when the fight got too dangerous, she would vanish. She would have to. Just as Michael was too valuable to risk in helping Nicholas, Astra was too valuable to risk helping Michael or Mary.

The funnel cloud of power built and built until the land itself seemed to skew out of balance from the compressed force.

"'By the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs . . .'" Michael muttered. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. Beside him, Astra visibly braced herself.

Something wicked this way comes.

It approached with a confident and unhurried pace.

The dark cloud was aimed at them, and released.

Chapter Twenty-five.

MARY WAS GOING to remember that d.a.m.n forest path for the rest of her life. Her lives. However long any of them might last.

Her body couldn't keep up with her adrenaline-spiked mind. Every step she took felt leaden and slow, as though she ran through waist-deep mud. In contrast, the ghost of Nicholas floated effortlessly in front of her, while her kestrel flitted at an almost leisurely pace from branch to branch.

When she heard that first staccato percussion of gunfire, she stumbled to a halt.

Nicholas swung around to face her. Don't stop.

She shook her head at him. Terror made her leg muscles go watery.

Terror not just for Michael, but for whatever abomination might be sent after her, like Sport Coat and Spring Jacket with their dark, smudged auras. The dinginess clung to them like pollution belched from a coal-burning plant, telling a tale of spirits that had become skewed or perhaps had died. Those bizarre smiles had never left their faces even as the hawks had torn them to shreds.

One ghost and a small, fierce bird would not be able to stop a creature like those two men.

She shuddered even as she called Michael, frantic to know if he was all right. He was. His calm reply soothed and chastised her.

So she started running again. The hand that clutched the gun hung at her side. The other pressed at a st.i.tch that gnawed just under her ribs.

Follow the path. Skirt around the lake then go north again. It was afternoon, so she should keep the sun to her left. None of this was rocket science either. Even someone who was directionally challenged couldn't screw that up, right?

Michael probably came with an internal GPS system already installed. He would find her. She just had to have faith and follow orders. She had to trust his expertise, because, surely to G.o.d, she didn't have a clue what to do next.

He had trained his whole life for this conflict, whereas so far she had managed to avoid bleeding to death. Not that she wasn't glad of the result. She was, but let's face it. She had only achieved that much by asking for someone else's help.

She had life-altering realizations to ponder, and a powerful deadly danger to avoid, and Michael to fret about. But in her panic, she had managed to yank on her old socks, the ones she had washed in the bathroom sink and dried on the water heater. They felt stiff and rough, and blisters were forming on her heels. Soon the raw pain consumed her attention until each step felt like a jolt from an electric socket that shot up her calves.

She hated this path. She hated these woods. She hated this gun.

As soon as she could, she was going to shoot her socks.

She was so consumed with her own internal misery, the rest of the world slipped out of focus for a heartbeat.

Nicholas rushed at her. Her attention snapped to him. Even though he was not corporeal, instinctively she jerked out of his way.

Get down! he hissed at her.

Far be it from her to question him. She dropped like a stone, cheek to the ground and gun hand protectively covering the back of her head.

He rushed away. A few moments later, she felt a nearby snarl of violent energy. Still a step behind events, she switched her focus from her physical surroundings to the psychic and tried to glean details of what was happening just a few feet away.

Nicholas had tangled with a transparent darkness that seemed to have no form at all, yet it wrapped around the ghost's brighter form and flexed, as if squeezing him like a boa constrictor. His presence blazed with a savage fury and dislodged the dark form. He took hold of it and ripped it apart.

Then he came and knelt beside her. Cautiously she lifted her head and stared at him. What the h.e.l.l was that?

One of his spies, he said. A greedy little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If I'd been weaker, it could have drained me completely. Watch out for creatures like that. They could drain you too, if you become injured badly enough.

Thank you, she said.

He tried to put a hand on her shoulder then seemed frustrated. Keep your senses sharp for any more of those. We can't let any of them take word of our position back to the Dark One. Come on.

She pushed to her feet. There seemed to be a lesson every minute these days. If she could be affected by creatures in the psychic realm, like the dragon or this formless, dark creature, then she could affect them too. Maybe she could tear them apart like Nicholas did. She had to remember that, in case it ever became necessary.

Then she sensed something in the distance behind her, something so strange and wrong she stumbled over a tree root and would have shot a sock while it was still on her foot if she hadn't kept the gun on safety.

She stopped, turned and scented the air like a bloodhound. Her kestrel flew around her, dive-bombing her head as it tried to shepherd her into moving in the right direction. She ignored it.

A ma.s.sive black ma.s.s teemed and buzzed in the distance. She fumbled with her rediscovered abilities. She had none of Michael's prowess. She swiped at her sweating forehead as if it would help her to see, but the ma.s.s wasn't a physical one. It existed in the psychic realm, like the dragon or the dark creature, and it seemed to be coming from the direction of the gravel road.

What could it be?

She longed to be with Michael, or to at least feel able to contact him telepathically. But she didn't dare to interrupt him a second time.

What IS that? she whispered to Nicholas.

That is a lot of creatures like the one I just killed, he said. He sounded grim. Thousands of them. Come on. We've got to go.

At a loss for anything else she could sensibly do, she turned to start running again after the ghost.

Behind her, the black cloud reached critical ma.s.s. It shot toward the cabin.

She jerked to a halt, made a noise and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. If that many creatures attacked Michael, could they do any damage? He was whole and strong, and he shone like a tower in the backdrop of the psychic realm.

But according to Nicholas, if he were injured, those creatures could feed on him. That would weaken him further and expose him to greater injury, which would then in turn make him more vulnerable to their attack. Sometimes battles were not won in any dramatic, decisive move, but through the force of sheer numbers grinding the opposition into dust.

"Do as you're told," she whispered. Her voice was a ragged mess, but she was so scared and lonesome she said it out loud just to hear the sound of someone's voice. "Don't do something stupid. Don't be a TV heroine and go in the bas.e.m.e.nt where you know the vampires are."

Nicholas seemed to look back at her, but he didn't say anything.

She turned the statement into a marching rhythm and trudged, not ran, away.

Do as you're told.

Do as you're f.u.c.king told.

Would she know if he died? Were they attuned enough to each other so she would sense his pa.s.sing? If she did, how would she bear it? They had just found each other. She'd barely had one day of feeling whole and sensual. One day of feeling the most astonishing and necessary pa.s.sion.

One day of feeling real, not like a shadow of a person.

Give us a chance, he had said. But what if their chance was taken from them?

She remembered the final images from her last life. After an immeasurable endurance of pain, she had opened her eyes to find him bending over her. He had looked different, of course, but all she'd had to do was look into his gaze, and she had known him. They had only had time to exchange those few precious sentences, their only contact in almost a thousand years. Her chest felt constricted with something hot and hurting.

Just in case there was a G.o.d, and he had some time to spare, she whispered, "Why did you do this to us? How are we supposed to bear it? Or did we do it to ourselves? Is all of this our fault? It's not my fault and it's never been Michael's. We've only tried to help."

A sickening, vertiginous lurch clutched at her. She felt as if she were falling, followed by a sharp shock of impact. Gasping, she went down on one knee and struggled with disorientation.

Nicholas knelt in front of her. What happened?

She held up a hand and managed to articulate one word. Hush.

The ghost fell silent, watching her.

The feelings disappeared as quickly as they had come. She whispered, "Michael's taken a bad fall."

Even as she said it the spray of gunfire sounded again, several staccatos at once.

That was when she gave up all pretense of trying to reach the lake. She turned around to face the direction of the cabin and sent all her desperate attention toward him. The physical world dimmed as she concentrated on what she could sense in the psychic realm.

Images slammed into her. The air was thick and black with innumerable dark spirits. They swirled and swooped on two figures that blazed with light. One of them was tall and masculine. Michael had already regained his footing from the fall. The other was smaller and feminine. Even from that distance, Mary recognized Astra in her astral form.

Astra's figure never appeared to move, but the dark spirits that swirled to attack her sizzled away to nothing, like moths encompa.s.sed by a pure, lethal flame.

Michael's blazing figure wielded a bright spear of light that slashed through attacking dark spirits even as, in the physical realm, he killed the men that rushed him.

Pride and fear for him locked her throat. To fight like that in multiple realms at once . . . he was incomparable. But there were too many spirits, and too many men who were suicidal with recklessness.

As she watched, Astra's bright figure flickered. Mary thought she heard the other woman call, I cannot stay any longer.

Then Astra disappeared from the scene. She blinked out of the scene as abruptly as if she had never been present.

Her departure left Michael all alone.

They battered him to the ground by sheer force of numbers.

Approaching the battlefield at a stroll was a black diamond man. Mary wanted to vomit out this reality but she was helpless to stop what she witnessed.

Then the black diamond man bent over the radiant one, and Michael was taken.

Chapter Twenty-six.