Part 14 (2/2)

”No. When I was in Europe, right after I escaped him, I saw him all the timea”on the train, in the restaurants, on the beaches. Iad see some man from behind, notice his walk, the color of his hair, or the movement of his hands, and I would just freak.” Karen started to lift the beer to her mouth, then brought it back down. ”But it was never him.”

”Youad look again, and you were wrong,” Dika said. ”Then, as days slipped into weeks and weeks into months, you relaxed and didnat see him so much.”

”Right. Once, about six months in, I even dated a guy who reminded me of him. This guy was actually a lot better-lookinga”how could he miss? he actually shaved on a semiregular basisa”and then he kissed me. I was so bored I almost slipped into a coma.” That was a memory shead just as soon forget.

”Your other mana”his kisses were not boring.”

”He was a lot of things, but never boring.” Karen took a long drink of b.i.t.c.h beer.

”But you donat know what he looks like in the face? You donat remember? You think Mr. Wilder has changed his looks? His eyes?”

Karen told her about the beard and the hair, and the name of the computer game, and finished with, ”Mr. Wilder doesnat have Warlordas intensity.”

”Yet you, who are a sensible woman, fear that this is the man.”

”Sounds dumb, I guess.”

”No. Your instincts tell you to be cautious. I believe you should be cautious. This could be a brother or a flunky, someone sent to spy on you.”

A chill crept up Karenas spine. She looked around. ”I have to go,” she whispered.

Dika put her hand over Karenas. ”All the more reason you shouldnat go. Here you have security men who can defend you. Friends who will believe you when you say a seemingly normal man is a threat.”

”Yes . . .” What Dika said made sense, and the clawing sense of panic, the desperate need to take flight, faded.

Dika viewed Karenas relaxation and smiled. ”Yes. Good. Let me tell you a story. Almost forty years ago my tribe suffered a great tragedy.”

”Your tribe?”

”I am Rom. Romany. Gypsy.”

”Oh!” Karen studied Dikaas brown eyes, her swarthy complexion, her compact body. ”I didnat know the Rom lived in the Ukraine.”

”The Rom have wandered across the world, and about a thousand years ago my own tribe made the mistake of wandering into Russia.” Dika made a face. ”The Russians made persecution into an art form. But we didnat have real trouble until almost forty years ago, when our most precious possession was taken from us.”

Karenas mind immediately sprang to the icon. Her icon. ”What is your most precious possession?”

Dika sighed. ”It was a girl, the one chosen to see the visions that guided us. Our Zorana. When she lefta””

”She left? I thought you said she was taken from you.”

”The stories differ.” Dika shrugged expressively. ”The old folks change their tales. All I know is that the luck wead enjoyed for so long vanished. Our axles broke, our babies died, our young men were killed. My father disappeared into one of the Russian prisons. I was eleven then. In the Ukraine, the militia could be very bad, very corrupt. They took what they wanted, they killed, they burned. My mother taught me to hide when they came, and I always did, until one day when I was fifteen, the general saw me before I could get out of sight. He threatened to burn the wagons if the Rom did not give me into his keeping. So they did.”

Incredulous, Karen asked, ”How could they?”

”It was me or their own children, and so they sacrificed me.”

A ghost of memory slipped through Karenas mind. The child sacrifice . . .

Dika looked down at the b.i.t.c.h beer clasped in her hands. ”I never saw my mother again. I was with Maksim five years. The whole time he was mad for me, and eventually, I think, just mad. He said I slept with other men. He accused his soldiers, his brother, his best friend. He beat me, kicked me, made it so I could not have children.”

”I am so sorry.”

”So finally I did sleep with another man, a powerful man, and when the general came for me I gave the order to have him shot like a dog in the street. Then I came here.” Dika looked up, and deep lines etched her upper lip and between her brows. ”Even now, sometimes I see Maksim in my nightmares.”

”You make me ashamed to complain.” Because Warlord had kept her against her will, but he had promised not to ever hurt her, and even now she believed him.

”No. Donat be ashamed. Be proud of yourself that you got away. I thank G.o.d every day that I used my strengths to fight Maksim, and I remember with pleasure giving the order to have him killed.” Dika lifted her chin. ”Miss Karen, you donat want to run forever. If this isnat the man, then you are where you want to be. I will tell the staff to watch him, and if he is the one I will personally fix the sheets to make him break out in a terrible rash and have to go to the hospital.”

Karen laughed, and relaxed. ”Youare right. Iave got to stop running from a memory. Iave broken the old bonds.” And, interestingly enough, she meant the ones holding her to Jackson Sonnet, not the ropes Warlord had used to fetter her.

In truth, her break with the man shead called her father had made her realize how alone she was in the world. She had had no friends, because she had worked too much and didnat have time for them. She had moved from place to place and had no home except the dark, cold, depressing mansion in Montana. And shead spent her life afraid she was unlovable because of one manas unattainable approval.

So she had changed her life. She traveled. She got pedicures. She made friends, sang songs, drank fine wines. Sometimes she missed the old life; she had been a d.a.m.ned good project manager, and there had been satisfaction in completing the work.

Yet the only true dark spot remaining on her horizon was her fear that Warlord would emerge from the shadows of her old lifea”and she remembered all too clearly the legend head relayed about the Russian villain and his descendents, d.a.m.ned for all eternity. She remembered the way his flesh had sizzled on contact with the icon.

Dika was right. If Mr. Wilder was Warlord, Karen would have little chance to escape him if she ran. So it was time to face her fear. ”Iam strong. Iam self-reliant. Iam not the same person I was two years ago. So . . . Iall stay.”

”Good!” Dika patted Karenas knee and stood. ”My people have gathered again. We have a stake in this struggle against the devil and his minions, and we will help you, Miss Sonnet. So be wary, yet know you have friends at your back. Now I need to go to work.”

”Me, too. Iave got a buffet to supervise.” Karen stood, too.

”Who knows, Miss Karen?” Dika sounded positively perky. ”If this Mr. Wilder isnat your lover, then perhaps the demon is dead.”

Karen ran her tongue over the inside of her lip. Sometimes, unexpectedly, the taste of his blood filled her mouth, and she saw with his eyes, felt with his heart . . . anguish, darkness, violence, and a deep, desperate, clawing longing. ”No. He is most definitely not dead. Heas out there somewhere . . . waiting.”

As the two women went inside, the stranger stepped out of the shrubbery, dusted himself off, and waited as still as a statue.

Karen left first to supervise her buffet.

Dika worked for a half hour; then she left also, locking the doors behind her.

He climbed the fence. Once within the privacy of the patio, he knelt by the door, picked the lock, and let himself inside.

The cottage smelled of disinfectant. Feminine touches decorated the room. Karen Sonnet had made this place her own.

But shead been ready to abandon it at the first sign of trouble.

Her bag and backpack were still tossed on the bed.

He started toward them.

She should have run while she could.

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