Part 16 (2/2)

”What-me and Colt?” Raja giggled. ”You know how I met him? I was doing a practice ten-k run through the woods, and I lost my trail. Ended up stopping dead in the middle of a clearing. Suddenly I hear some guy behind me say, 'Need a compa.s.s?' And there Colt is, leaning up against a tree. Don't get me wrong-he's hot as h.e.l.l, and in another life I would have liked to wear him like a mink coat. But when your first thought about someone is wondering whether they're some sort of handsome woodland serial killer, it's hard to build an attraction.”

Ashline smiled and looked up at Colt. He had hopped from one log to another and was balancing precariously.

”He does have a habit of sneaking up behind people.”

”Didn't stop me from wanting to go praying mantis on you when, after just five minutes at the bar, he was all 199 over you like the soccer team on freshman orientation.

But I'm over it. Besides,” Raja added, ”I'm finding that my interest is gravitating elsewhere.” Her eyes blatantly tracked up to Rolfe, who had broken off a branch from the fallen log and challenged Ade to a fencing match.

So Rolfe really had slithered under a c.h.i.n.k in her armor.

”Be careful,” Ash warned her. ”You don't want to step on anyone's toes.”

Sure enough, Lily was watching the two boys fight with the sort of glowing, unreserved interest that could only be expected from someone who didn't know she was being observed.

”Who, Flower Power?” Raja asked. ”She may have staked first claim, but she needs to s.h.i.+t or get off the pot.

If she thinks the whole pa.s.sive watch-and-wait thing is going to hook a man, then she should quit love now and stick with botany.”

Lily chose that moment to look over at the two other girls. Ash hoped for her sake that her abilities didn't include superhuman hearing, or Raja's biting tirade was going to leave a slap mark. ”You know,” Ash said, ”seventy-two hours ago, you wouldn't have given Rolfe the time of day.”

”There's no shortage of cute boys in the world,” Raja said unapologetically. ”G.o.ds, on the other hand . . .”

Ash deadpanned. ”You . . . want to jump Rolfe's s.h.i.+t because he's actually a Norse G.o.d?”

”No,” Raja replied quickly. ”I want to jump his s.h.i.+t 200 because he's handsome, funny, and he's actually a Norse G.o.d.”

”Well, I think I'm going to give humans one more shot.”

”Good,” Raja said, tearing her eyes away from Rolfe.

”Because he clearly thinks you're a G.o.ddess.”

Ash smirked. ”If only he knew.”

On cue Colt gazed down at her and smiled.

And then his smile fell and he was grabbing at his neck.

He had time only to pull the dart out of his throat and hold it in front of his face before the light behind his eyes snapped out like a bulb shattering in a dark closet.

He dropped backward off the log and landed flat on his back in the streambed.

As the cold washed over her, Ash started to run to his side, but a sharp voice echoed through the canyon from behind her. ”Do not move.”

Ash stopped dead.

A man in his late fifties stood before them in full camouflage, the same forest green as the canyon ferns. His head was closely shaved on top, and his face was creased and leathery from time spent in a faraway desert.

Ashline's attention, however, was fixed on the rifle cradled in his arms.

”Don't worry about him.” The older man nodded toward Colt's unmoving body. ”He'll wake up in a day or two.”

”You must be friends with the creeps who tried to 201 kidnap a blind girl the other night,” Ade said. ”Birds of a feather, I guess.”

”Langhorn and Willis? Good friends, yes. In fact, they're here to greet you as well, and I know Langhorn really wanted to thank one of you for the nose job you gave him. Boys?”

Behind them, all too late, Ashline heard the footsteps of the incoming soldiers. Twelve camouflaged mercenaries, with rifles to match, spread out across the canyon, blocking their point of exit. Sure enough, Ash spotted among them the familiar, recently broken nose of the man she had clubbed with the walking stick nights earlier. He smiled at her with contempt. His fingers wrapped tightly around the barrel of his rifle.

”The name's Wolfe,” the mercenary said to them with the pleasant air of someone introducing himself at a tea party. ”Pleased to meet y'all.”

”What do you want?” Raja asked him. ”Has the gov-ernment come to collect some science projects?”

”Government? No.” Wolfe snorted. ”A private investor. Fascinated with the science of myth, or some hocus-pocus like that.” He shrugged and squinted up at the overcast sky, as if the weather were of more interest to him than the potentially dangerous students he and his men had surrounded. ”Personally, I'm not an academic; I don't really give a d.a.m.n about science or myth. Money, however, speaks to me. And half a million a head for the five of you speaks loudly.”

202.

”h.e.l.l,” Rolfe said from the back of the pack. ”Your investor could have just paid me half a million to turn myself in.”

”That's the idea,” Wolfe said. ”Number one thing you learn in the military is to keep things clean. Sometimes that means giving up a little to get a lot. So I'll offer you one of two deals. Deal number one: You can walk out of this canyon with us and we'll take a short trip up to the airfield at Crescent City, where my charter plane is waiting to take us to Miami. Ranger Rick over there wakes up tomorrow with a whopping headache. In return for your cooperation, I'll put ten thousand dollars in an account for each of you to access when she's done doing whatever it is she wanted you for in the first place.”

Lily laughed darkly; Ashline gave her points for bravery.

”You want to pay us two percent of the bounty that some psycho investor in Florida is paying you to kidnap us? Two percent? My monthly allowance is higher than that.” Lily dropped to her knees and mock pleaded with him. ”At least offer to pay for my college education, please.”

Wolfe snapped up his rifle so quickly that it could have been an extension of his arm. His hands were steady as he glared down the sights, which he had trained directly between Lily's eyes. ”Option two: I unload a few tranquilizer darts at your head and see if the venom is as potent on you as it is on humans. And if that ain't the case, then we start using bullets and find out later how much you're worth dead.”

203.

Rolfe stepped forward, his face as serious as Ashline had ever seen it. ”Ten thousand dollars sounds nice, but I like my internal organs the way they're arranged now.”

Raja slipped up beside Ashline, who was glancing nervously between Wolfe and the unconscious Colt. ”If it's true that your powers really haven't blossomed,” she whispered so only Ash could hear, ”then when the s.h.i.+t hits the fan, you better make a run for the mouth of the canyon.”

”But Colt-”

”He's worth nothing to them.”

”What's it going to be?” Wolfe asked, his face still pressed to the side of his rifle. ”Come quietly or come very quietly?”

Ade smiled. ”I was never very good at quiet.” His hands shot outward, and thunder boomed through the canyon. As Wolfe went to pull the trigger, the s.p.a.ce in front of him distorted and he sailed up into the air. His tranquilizer dart shot helplessly into the sky. Wolfe came cras.h.i.+ng down onto the hard stone trail thirty feet ahead of them, and lay unmoving.

A chorus of shouts echoed from the soldiers behind them, but Ade spun and held out his hands again. The next wave of thunder deflected away the incoming barrage of tranquilizer darts, and several of the men toppled to the earth in the wave's wake.

Before they could recover, Rolfe had closed his eyes.

From out of the sky several winged creatures woven from 204 strands of light swooped down on the soldiers with blazing talons bared. Immersed in chaos, they fired rounds off into the air at the swarming light creatures. Some of the soldiers had abandoned their tranquilizer rifles in favor of their sidearms, and the bullets began to fly.

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