Touch of Darkness Read online

  At last the chest shifted in her grip, and gradually she managed to inch it up, out of the hole. She held it in her hands, marveled at the workmanship. She wanted to shake the box, like a child with her birthday present, and try to guess from the sound and the weight whether her wish had been granted.

  She wrapped it in her arms, and wondered what was contained inside. For one moment, she closed her eyes and clutched the crusty, hammered gold box in her arms. Was the icon in here? Had she found her proof at last? Was her revenge only the turn of a key away?

  She reached for the key. Dropped it. It hit the stone with a solid clang.

  Her heart thumped as loudly.

  She hardly dared look. When she did, she saw tiny shards of rust scattered across the floor. But the key remained in one piece.

  "It's okay, Sister," she called. "Nothing's hurt."

  With the tail of her shirt, she rubbed at the key, cleaning the teeth, knowing that between the dirt stuffed in the lock and the corruption on the metal, it would take a team of experts to open the chest— and that was if her vision was right, and the key matched the lock. She didn't have a chance of succeeding—but she had to try.

  Placing the chest on the floor, she inserted the key Into the lock. Right away, it stuck on something. She freed the key, wiped it again—the stains would never come out, but she sacrificed the shirt gladly—and tried again.

  It still stuck.

  Picking up the chest, she turned it so the lock faced She floor. She took a breath—she knew better than to do this—and gently smacked it with the flat of her hand.

  A tiny, jagged pebble clattered on the floor.

  This time, the key fit. She turned it.

  The lock clicked.

  Her heart pounded in her chest. She panted as if she'd been running.

  She opened the lid.

  For the first time in almost a thousand years, human eyes gazed upon the icon of the Virgin Mary.

  And the Virgin Mary gazed back.

  The cherry color of her cloak was so rich and deep and glossy, it glowed, and the golden halo around her head glittered in the dim light. Her face was pale and still, her dark eyes were large and sorrowful, and a tear gathered on her cheek. For in her lap, this Madonna held the crucified Jesus.

  Tears gathered in Tasya's eyes, too, and one splashed onto the icon. Hastily, she wiped it away and tried to tell herself she cried because this moment of her triumph meant so much.

  But she couldn't convince even herself.

  The Virgin's sad and tender eyes told the tale. This, Virgin was a woman who had lost her child. She was a woman who foresaw untold suffering. And in her face, Tasya saw her own mother.

  Tasya remembered the flames leaping upward, devouring the drapes, the walls. She remembered the screaming of the servants. She saw anew her mother's torment as she kissed her little girl good-bye and sent her away.

  Tasya had screamed and cried, of course, but she hadn't understood.

  Now she did, and the depths of her anguish deepened.

  Her mother had let her go, not knowing if her daughter would die, but sure her own time had come , . . and that they would never see each other again.

  The pain of that moment, when the bond between mother and daughter had been brutally severed, could never be assuaged.

  Tasya sobbed once, a brutally loud, harsh sound that echoed through the chapel. Other sobs gathered in her chest, but she fought them back.

  She couldn't cry. She never did. She didn't have time.

  Sister Maria Helvig had said time was running out, and Tasya knew it was true. The longer she and Kurik stayed in one place, the more likely the Varinskis would find them. If she was to get this icon back to National Antiquities, they needed to leave before night came, while they could still drive down the road and into Capraru, and catch a train out of here.

  She stood and slapped at her clothes. "I have it, Sister. It was here all along."

  The sun reached through the west windows, and shone on the still figure of Sister Maria Helvig.

  "Do you want to see it?" Tasya hurried down the aisle. "It's beautiful, Sister, and so old and sad. The artist was a master, and—" She stopped and stared at the nun. "Sister?"

  Sister Maria Helvig slumped forward and sideways.

  "Sister!" Tasya slid the icon in the front pocket of her jeans. She knelt beside the old woman and looked into her face.

  Her eyes were closed, her expression serene.

  Sister Maria Helvig was dead.

  Chapter 24

  Rurik paced in front of the chapel. He shifted his backpack. He unbuttoned his duster and made sure his pistol was at one side, a knife at the other, and the switchblade was hidden up his sleeve. He checked his watch. It was three in the afternoon. He'd waited as long as he could wait. He'd scouted out the whole area, looked through the outbuildings, the cemetery, and even the cloister, but he'd found no sign of the icon. Either it wasn't here—or it was in the chapel.

  Didn't that just figure? The one place he dared not go.

  He'd seen no sign of either Tasya or Sister Maria Helvig, and his sense of urgency was growing. He and Tasya—and Sister Maria Helvig, if he could convince her—needed to locate the icon or leave the convent, or both. They'd been here too long already.

  As he stepped into the doorway of the chapel, he smelled the smell of death. He took in the scene in an instant—the old nun slumped in her seat, Tasya kneeling in the aisle beside her, head bowed.

  "Tasya." Rurik stayed where he was, not daring to step inside. She looked up.

  He expected to see her crying. Instead her face was pale, composed, and tearless—and the pain she projected sent him down the aisle toward her.

  He'd gone three steps when the silence struck him. The chapel was waiting for a decision. He stopped and waited, too.

  But nothing happened. The air didn't burn his lungs; the floor didn't burn his feet. He remained a man and not a flame. He started forward again.

  "She's dead." Tasya placed Sister Maria Helvig's hand back in her lap. "We should lay her out and call the undertaker to come and care for her."

  "Certainly we should call the undertaker, but she was ready for this. I found the cemetery. Her grave is dug. Her coffin is waiting. And we need to bury her now." Cautiously, he touched the nun's hand. Nothing. Not even a tingle.

  "She didn't have last rites. Her body needs to be washed. She has to have a proper ceremony!"

  "They can exhume her and do whatever's right, but we can't leave her body for the wild animals to find."

  "What do you mean?"

  He lifted the nun in his arms and headed out the door. "The Varinskis are closing on us. We've got to get out of here."

  He had to give Tasya credit. She didn't ask how he knew. She didn't argue. She simply joined him as he strode down the aisle, Sister Maria Helvig's limp body in his arms. They exited the chapel and made a right, then a right again, and walked to the cemetery set behind the chapel in the shadows of a great old tree.

  Rurik placed Sister Maria Helvig in the plain wood coffin waiting for her. Tasya arranged her hands over her chest, tidied her cowl and her robe, and placed the crucifix over her heart.

  The grave was freshly dug, the coffin clean and dry and resting on ropes, and a shovel was waiting; Sister Maria Helvig had known the hour of her death. Rurik suspected she had known who he was, too, and what was coming for them now.

  That was the real reason he wanted her buried deep. If they could, the Varinskis would desecrate her body.

  "All right." Tasya stepped back and helped him place the lid on the coffin.

  Together, they took the ropes. The coffin was heavy, but once again, Tasya impressed Rurik with her strength and her determination to do what had to be done. She braced her feet and helped him slowly lower Sister Maria Helvig into the ground.

  He grabbed the shovel.

  Tasya stood, head down, hands on hips, panting.

  "Say the prayers you want to say." Every ins
tinct was jangling. "As soon as I'm done, we're out of here."

  She nodded and lowered her head.

  He shoveled and watched her.

  Behind her, the sun was sliding toward the west. The rays tinted her black-and-bleached hair with gold and put a halo around her head. Her skin glowed like fine porcelain, and with her eyes closed, her dark lashes dusted her cheeks. An illusion, of course; Tasya was no angel. But she was a good woman who tried to do her best and help those in need.

  He didn't deserve her. But he wanted her, and it killed him that the end was coming.

  He glanced around.

  Coming fast.

  He finished mounding the dirt on the grave. Tasya looked up.

  One of the stone crosses on the cemetery fence had broken off and fallen to the ground. He pointed to it. "Put that on her grave."

  Tasya picked it up. It was heavy and cool in her hand. She pressed it into the dirt that covered Sister Maria Helvig.

  "Good. Let's go." He picked up his backpack and took Tasya's arm.

  She went gladly. She felt an oppressive sense of danger. His tension had communicated itself to her— or maybe she sensed a nearby Varinski. Were they close? Were they here?

  She still had the icon in her pocket.

  She had to get it to safety.

  "Have you seen signs of them?" Her uneasiness grew.

  "No." He looked up at the trees. He paused and listened. "No. But tracking people is what they do, surprise is their forte, and we've lingered here too long." Keeping her arm firmly in his grasp, he took long, ruthless strides, indifferent to her discomfort.

  Her heart sped up, not only because of the pace, but because he looked grim and worried as they skirted the side of the chapel, walked around the corner—and found three men leaned against their car.

  One slouched against the hood, tossing a set ofj keys.

  One lounged on the trunk, head turned, watching them. One stood on the far side, grinning with his arms

  folded and placed on the roof. West Side Story as performed by Cossacks. She would know them anywhere. She'd viewed photos of them. She'd seen them lingering in their yard. She remembered the choking, horrible feeling they generated in her gut. Varinskis.

  Two had black hair. One of those was stocky. Both were raw youths with sullen faces.

  The one with the keys was blond, older, forty or fifty, and clearly in charge.

  But all were tall, strongly muscled, with broad faces, high cheekbones, and strong chins. In fact, they all looked like Rurik. Her breath caught. She looked between them and the man who held her in his grip. The man who'd brought her to ecstasy. The man she trusted. Rurik . . . Rurik was one of them. Rurik was a Varinski.

  Chapter 25

  Rurik never even paused. He used Tasya's arm to toss her forward, toward his relatives.

  Toward the Varinskis.

  Startled, propelled, she stumbled and fell in the dirt, on her hands and knees. Above the buzzing in her ears, and the shock and pain that made her almost faint, she heard Rurik say, "Here she is. The one you missed."

  She took a long breath and looked up at the thugs.

  The one with the keys stopped tossing them. He straightened. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "Does the name Dimitru mean anything to you dumbshits?" Rurik asked.

  Tasya closed her eyes. She dropped her head. She fought the pain, but she couldn't hide the truth from herself.

  Rurik had broken her trust. No, not just her trust— her heart.

  "I worked the Dimitru case." It was Key-Guy.

  Rurik had courted her. He'd wooed her with every sweet word and every gallant deed. He had worked, and worked hard, to convince her that he was the one thing she'd no longer believed in—a human being on whom she could depend.

  And he'd succeeded.

  "That thing on the ground—" Rurik sounded cool and disinterested. "That is the Dimitru child."

  She'd told him her deepest secret. In her life, she had never told anyone else about her family.

  She'd given Rurik her trust. Hell, she'd given him her heart.

  And for this. So he could betray her to his relatives for ... for what?

  "Impossible," Key-Guy said. "We killed all the children. We burned the house."

  "The governess took her away," Rurik informed him.

  "He's lying." It was one of the other kids, and while Key-Guy's voice was almost clear of an accent, this boy's voice was deep and very Russian.

  "A woman and a four-year-old girl escaped from the big, bad Varinskis. I wonder how the world would laugh if they knew."

  She hadn't realized Rurik could sneer like that. She almost felt sorry for Key-Guy. Until Key-Guy walked over and lifted her chin. She jerked away.

  He grabbed her hair and held her in place. He examined her face—and she examined his.

  He had to be fifty if he'd been on the Dimitru raid, yet he was vital and alive, with hair so blond it was silver, and eyes the color of split pea soup.

  He used her hair ruthlessly, turning her from side to side. He looked into her eyes. Then, most insultingly, he tilted her head sideways and leaned close to her throat. He snuffled her skin, then slid his tongue in a long, slow lick that started at her windpipe and ended behind her ear.

  He stood up and stepped back. "He's right," he said in a flat tone. "She's a Dimitru." With a disgusted gesture, she wiped off his spit. He laughed and used his tongue in an extravaganza of lolling and licking at the air, like a dog gone mad with rabies.

  She didn't care. She was going to die, anyway. "You'll like me soon enough," he promised, and switched his attention to Rurik. "What do we owe you for delivering this? Money? Jewels?" He flipped the keys again. "Or maybe we'll just let you live."

  She dragged herself to her feet. She needed to pay attention. She had to listen to their plans for her, and if Rurik didn't convince them to immediately kill her, she had to figure a way out.

  "You're not going to kill me," Rurik said. "I'm the one with the information you want. Remember?"

  "What the hell information is that?" It was the boy with the black, black hair and pale skin. Rurik lifted his eyebrows at Key-Guy. Key-Guy shook his head.

  "What?" the boy asked. "Are you keeping something from us?"

  Key-Guy turned on the kid, and Tasya cpuld have sworn he gave a real dog's growl. Neat trick.

  Key-Guy said, "Don't piss me off, Ilya, or I'll keep the pussy to myself."

  "The pussy is mine," Rurik said, "and I'll keep her until I tire of her."

  "Varinskis share," Ilya said. "I'm not a Varinski," Rurik answered. "You act like one. You're hunting treasure. You brought along a woman to trade for our goodwill and to relieve you. And, added bonus"—Key-Guy looked her over—"you never told her who you are. She's standing there and she still doesn't know what to think. Does she?"

  "She knows very well what to think." Tasya wished she didn't. Right now, ignorance would indeed have been bliss.

  "Is that what's the matter with her?" The boy with the dark brown hair sounded incredulous. "You lied about being one of us?"

  The Varinskis laughed, all three of them, thugs and murderers.

  "I didn't lie about it. I told you. I am not one of you." Rurik sounded calm and in command.

  Tasya refused to back away as he walked toward her.

  "I'll keep the woman until I'm done with her, and I'll keep the treasure when I find it."

  The treasure. The icon, he meant. The icon that was still in her pocket—and he didn't know it had been found.

  He took her wrist.

  "You make me sick." She twisted in his grasp.

  He turned and walked away.

  She tried to set her heels.

  He dragged her behind him, bigger than her, indifferent to her struggles.

  Then suddenly he shoved her aside.

  As she stumbled away, she heard three hard smacks, and by the time she turned, Rurik had one of the boys flat on his face on the ground with his arm
jacked up straight behind his back and his wrist twisted sideways.

  She hadn't realized. . . . Well, she'd known Rurik was capable of winning a fight, of course. Fool that she was, she'd depended on him for safety. But she hadn't realized exactly how deadly he was.

  She'd worked with him, fought with him, traveled with him, slept with him—and she did not know Rurik Wilder at all.

  Cautiously she ran her hand over the front pocket of her jeans. The icon was still there.

  Thank God. Thank God, and Sister Maria Helvig, that Tasya hadn't thought to tell him she'd found the icon.

  Now she had to figure out how to hide, the icon— or at least put it somewhere a little less obvious.

  Rurik placed his booted foot in the middle of the kid's back. "What's your name?"

  "Sergei."

  Tasya glanced around. Everybody was intently watching Rurik.

  "Didn't anybody ever teach you about a sucker maneuver?" Rurik asked. "Yeah."

  Rurik twisted a little more. "What did you say to me?"

  "Yes, sir. The Varinskis teach the sucker maneuver." Tasya slid her backpack off.

  "And what is the sucker maneuver?" Rurik barked like a drill sergeant.'

  Sergei responded like a raw recruit. "That's when someone turns his back to lure you into attacking, but when you do, he's prepared and puts you down."

  As quietly as she could, Tasya inched the backpack's main zipper open.

  "What do the Varinskis say should be done to suckers?" Clearly, Rurik knew the answers.

  Sergei paused for a long, long time. "That's up to the discretion of the winner."

  Tasya slid the icon out of her pocket and thrust it into the depths of the backpack, and twirled it like a caterpillar in a cocoon of clothing.

  "My father said suckers should be put out of their misery." Rurik was toying with the kid. "So the question is—should I kill you now or give you a second chance?"

  She zipped the bag closed. It wasn't good, but right now, it was the best she could do.

  "Second chance," Sergei said.

  "What?" Rurik twisted Sergei's arm so hard Tasya heard something break.