In Her Name

by Esther Mitchell

  She snatched the Beretta from its holster at Matthew's hip, brandishing it determinedly. A tight, humorless smile inched across Matthew's face and she knew he wasn't happy about what she'd done. His eyes spoke more eloquently than words ever could have and she saw he was afraid for her.

  "Manara," he tried softly, reaching to clasp her shaking hands as she pointed the gun at him. "Have you ever fired a gun before?"

  "Yes." She expertly disengaged the safety and nearly smiled at his startled expression. Clearly, he'd once again managed to underestimate her. "Percy taught me how. For my safety, he said."

  "Ever used one to kill a man?"

  She drew a sharp, trembling breath, and quietly admitted, "No."

  She raised her head, then. "But that does not mean I could not do it. I was not permitted to, nor did I have cause, before. My blood innocence was as much a requirement then as my virginity. I was to remain untouched by conflict until the reclamation of the Temple began."

  His expression grew worried. "Last night..."

  The hesitation in his voice told her he believed her, in spite of himself, which gave her hope. She smiled as she lowered the weapon. "Was the beginning. It is a long and dangerous journey I have undertaken and no one is more aware of its many dangers than I, Matthew. However, I will not be turned back now, not by you, nor anyone else. To do so now is to admit I am not strong enough, and any weakness now will lose me the temple and the lives of those I love. Matthew, I must go on." She regarded him levelly. "Every step I have taken since I crossed the border has been tied to my temple. This butchery is the work of a mind consumed by evil." She gestured to the bodies. "If you think it is not connected to the demon within the temple, then you have not heard a word I have been saying. Only I can stop this now, Matthew, and I need your help."

  His gaze stayed on her for a long moment and Manara's heart tripped in dread. To have come all this way, only for him to reject her or turn her away... Her heart nearly stopped when he finally nodded.

  "All right. We'll do this thing together."

  Relief poured through her and Manara's knees quaked with the force of her gratitude as her eyes filled with thankful tears. Her hands shook as she held out the gun to him. He studied it a moment, his eyes moving between the gun and her face. Then he frowned and shook his head.

  "Keep it. I have a feeling you're going to need it more than me."

  As he walked away, she realized she would willingly sacrifice her innocence, and her life, to keep him safe. Somehow, in the months since that explosion in Lebanon, Matthew Raleigh breached the defenses meant to keep her blissfully detached from the passions of men.

  Inanna, help me! She pleaded as she realized with a pained heart, that she had fallen in love with a man she would soon have to let go.

  *****

  They were nearing Nineveh. She could feel the energy within her rise, and her power come flooding back. Black Widow glanced at the man driving the battered old jeep and triumph bubbled through her. Once she told Ra'id his slut of a little sister was on her way to Nineveh, she had his complete attention and cooperation.

  "They're on foot, Ra'id," she reminded him wryly as she steadied herself with one hand on the dashboard again. "I think it's safe to slow down."

  He shot her a scowl. "If you had done as you were told and sat in the back--"

  "I'd be laying back there in the sand somewhere. Don't give me that crap about a woman's proper place," she snapped. "This is my proper place. And you don't have to break land speed records to get there. She's not going to beat us to the temple."

  His face twisted derisively. "You do not know these women as I do. Especially not the little virgin. They all have evil powers that they use to ensnare men. They can appear suddenly, far from where you believe them to be, to torment any man they choose. My father told me this."

  Black Widow bit back a laugh. Ra'id believed the Daughters of the Star of Heaven were evil! What would he think if he knew he'd made a pact with the Devil -- a pact to become the Devil?

  "She's not a virgin anymore," she said instead, taking glee in the darkening of Ra'id's scowl. Apparently, the desire to murder one's sister was immaterial when it came to her interaction with the opposite sex. Ra'id looked protective as all hell.

  "How do you know this thing?" He demanded sharply.

  A sadistic smile twisted her lips. She wasn't about to let him know the truth. "You have your spies. I have mine."

  He cast her a disgusted look. "If she is no longer a virgin, then she is no longer a threat."

  "You fool!" Black Widow hissed, sitting upright sharply. "As long as she remains alive, the Poet-Priestess is a threat. Didn't you read those incantations on the tablets?"

  "Fiction," he dismissed her words with a condescending sneer. "All that is of any value in those tablets is the location of the hidden door."

  She laughed darkly. "Keep telling yourself that, sugar. In the meantime, we need to remain alert. Even if you don't believe your sister is a threat, the man who travels with her is."

  His attention snapped to her. "What man is this?"

  "A man you've already killed."

  As Ra'id's face paled, Black Widow sat back, satisfied she'd at last convinced Ra'id she was serious. She needn't tell him she could control Matthew if she wished. Ra'id wasn't going to live long enough for it to make a difference to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The darkness was his ally. He lived here for millennia, and he walked easily through the night hours into the depths of humanity's nightmares. His kind were the genesis of nightmares, the true terror that brought even the strongest of men to their knees.

  However, there were those who could cage his power, and him, if they wished. A deep growl echoed in the dark corridors as he sought the minds of five who could destroy him. Two were far away, one in the grasp of an evil that would aid him. However, three were a danger to him, and one was more a danger than all the rest combined.

  There. Another mind. Hers was powerful, but unprotected from his assault. She came to him, a willing sacrifice. She hoped her purity would destroy him and save the one she loved.

  Foolish child.

  Gold eyes gleamed in the gloom. This woman-child would be his way to freedom. With her blood, he could walk within the light of day and feed freely. Moreover, without her, the Warrior-King would surrender. She was his strength and his source of salvation. The Warrior-King could not see his way clear to live without her.

  With an echoing laugh that rang with the barren horror of Arulla, a terror that could kill stepped from the depths of time and into the dreams of the innocent who was his enemy's only salvation.

  *****

  Darkness wrapped all around her, broken only by the flicker of the tallow lamp in her hand. Her breath sawed through her body in heaving waves and misted on the cold air, as if each exhalation stole her soul away. She shivered, her heart stuttering at the thought.

  Here, deep within the labyrinth's tunnels, she was not safe. This was now Urasat's domain and only her duty bade her come to this place. She must reseal the wards that held the demon chained, so they hold strong for another century. She had failed, and now she must set her failure right.

  A sinister laugh echoed around her, laden with the angry screams of the dead, and cold sweat stood out along her body. She would flee this place if she could, but she could not leave until her duty was done, her sacrifice made. She must pay for her failure, to keep the demon where her lord gave his own life to trap it so many years ago.

  "My morsel has arrived." The voice dripped with the stench of the deepest bowels of Ereshkigal's benighted realm from which he had been birthed. She turned slowly to face her doom.

  This was not a man before her, no matter that it stood on two legs like one. Not even a shadow of humanity glimmered from its glowing golden eyes. It was seven feet tall with the sparse form of disease, belying the power this creature possessed.

  Those eyes gleamed like a hungry cat's in the near-d
arkness, and its face oozed with dark blood and muck. It held no real form, as if it might have once belonged to the corpse of a man, now decayed away. Muscle and skin slid along the bones of its face to hang like so much meat, and the stench that rose up from it was rank and sickly sweet at the same time -- as if someone attempted to cover the scent of rotted meat with a perfume of roses, only to fail.

  "Come, little one." One giant hand, as gruesome as that face, reached toward her, and she shrank away on instinct. "Let me have your heart."

  And, as the sharp talons bit into her unmarked flesh, she could contain her terror no longer, and fought back with a horrified scream.

  *****

  Manara's scream brought Matt instantly to her side, alert for danger. She writhed in her sleep, muttering in a language Matt didn't understand. He wanted to shake her awake, but couldn't dismiss the sense waking her would be unwise. This was no ordinary nightmare. That much, he knew beyond doubt. Her hands froze in a clawing position, occasionally swiping at the air around her, and the tears which accompanied her nightmares the night after they found the two Kurds were eerily vacant from her face now. A determined scowl twisted her face. She looked as if she were fighting for her life.

  Icy fear clenched around Matt's heart as bloody slash marks opened across the back of her hand, as if invisible claws raked her flesh. Whatever she dreamed, wherever she was in her mind, had the capacity to kill her. He had promised them both he'd protect her. But how did he shield her from her nightmares?

  As Matt reached to wake her, Manara suddenly released a long, shuddering breath, and went limp in his arms. Panic seized him as he stared down into her pale, expressionless face.

  Damn it, no!

  "Manara!" His heart clenched in dread, he shook her hard. When she didn't respond, he raised quaking fingers to her throat and nearly choked on his relief as he felt the strong, sure thud of her pulse. Trembling, he gathered her close, buried his face in her fragrant hair and pressed his lips to her warm, steady pulse. That she was alive was the only thing his grasping mind could latch onto. Nothing else mattered.

  "Matthew?" Her sleep-clouded murmur drew his attention to her weary, hollow-eyed features and his heart skipped another beat.

  What the hell?

  Gone was the life-warm beauty that first captured his attention, replaced by the waxy pallor he'd only ever seen on corpses, before. Her eyes, once bright and flashing, were dull and hollowed, sunken into dark pits on her face.

  Through his mind flashed unbidden images with no source he could determine. Images of battles with unseen forces and years of life drained away in a single instant. Visions of this woman -- or one very much like her -- stumbling up from the bowels of the earth in a dress soaked in her own blood, streaming from a wound in her chest no mortal should have survived. The same waxy, hollowed expression hung on her face.

  Matt yanked himself from the troubling images and concentrated instead on the few facts he had available. Manara was clearly ill and getting weaker by the hour, though for no discernible reason. They'd taken refuge in this cave to escape the chill of the night wind for that very reason. He feared she'd stop breathing if she got too chilled, after the last nightmare she had left her skin cold to the touch when he woke her. Now, he wondered if he'd only prolonged the inevitable. Unable to show her his fear, he drew a ragged breath around the fear clogging his throat and smiled gently at her.

  "Yeah, sweetheart?"

  "Why are you shaking?" she murmured, confused, as she snuggled against him. Unbidden, another vision assaulted him, sweet where the last was terrifying and dangerous in an entirely different way.

  She settled across his lap, and he laid his head back against the wall, eyes closed, as a rough sigh of contentment broke his lips, to feel her welcoming heat surround him after so long. He grasped her hips, stilling her when she would have ridden him.

  "Stay awhile, love. I wish only to feel your welcome now."

  Her soft laugh soothed his war-weary soul even as her warm hands stroked his bare chest. "You speak sweet words, My Lord, but they mean naught. I am but a vessel by which you seek pleasure in Her name."

  "You are never a tool, Mukarramma." He allowed her to read the displeasure he felt at her careless remark and reached to skim his hands along the soft flesh of her bare breasts. His reward was her gasp of pleasure and the arch of her body into his touch even as her inner flesh embraced him more tightly. "You are yourself, and all which I desire of life."

  She began to move on him then and he did not halt her. Perhaps, if he lost himself in her sweetness, he could stave off the fear that his words of love would doom them all.

  Matt came back to his surroundings with a quiet oath at the strength of his vision. He found Manara's fretful gaze fixed on him and groaned as her proximity stirred his already painful arousal even more. Damn that dream!

  He eased away from Manara when the warm stroke of her fingers against his face nearly undid his control. Even a blind man couldn't miss the genuine fear and concern in her smoky eyes.

  "What is wrong, Matthew?"

  What was wrong? He groaned quietly as her breasts, covered only by the thin cotton of her tee shirt, pressed against his chest, her nipples already taut. What was wrong was that she was wasting away before his very eyes. What was really wrong was that, merely by being alive, she turned him on, even without the blood-boiling visions. But she was too fragile, too weary. Fearful of discovery by the terrorists and aware of the dwindling of time, they'd pushed on hard, unable to snatch more than a few sweet, stolen caresses in the week since that night in the goatherd's hut. He was dying to lay her out and love her all over, but he was too worried about her. She was so fragile now...

  "Nothing, sweetheart," he lied softly as he slipped his hand beneath her shirt to fondle one breast. Gently, he kissed her lips, then her neck and hated himself for even that one small lie. "You were having a nightmare."

  She moaned softly, pressing against his hand. Breathlessly, she murmured, "Do you think we could...?"

  "I'd like nothing better," he whispered with every breath of honesty in him, "but we need to be ready to move at a moment's notice. Those bastards could be anywhere out there."

  He started to remove his hand, but she covered it through the shirt, stopping him. "Matthew, are you afraid of me?"

  He stilled, his hand against the soft warmth of her skin, his expression frozen. He couldn't let her see how much he feared the strength of the feelings and visions she stirred in him. "Why would you think that?"

  "Because you are. You want me, you may even love me, but you still fear me. You are afraid to do something wrong, something inappropriate. Why?"

  He sighed heavily as his hand slid to rest against the soft dip of her waist. He should know better by now. Hiding anything from Manara was next to impossible. The more time he spent in her presence, the more convinced he became that she could read his mind.

  "Manara, you're an innocent. I'm not. I've done a lot of things, a lot of horrible, bloody things. I know better than anyone that I'm capable of doing worse. I don't want--"

  "To tarnish the image you have of me?" she challenged, vitality flooding back into her face with her rising anger. "That is what you see, after all. An image. You have placed me on some high pedestal of purity and confined me there to make yourself remember that I was a virgin before you. Matthew, by the old laws, no matter what happens, I am still a virgin, as long as I make my own choices. I may have physically been untouched before you, but I was never innocent of the act. My innocence was of blood. Brutality. As long as it is my blood which is spilt, I remain innocent, yes, but it is an act of prophetic necessity, not maidenly virtue." She leaned up to plant a burning kiss on his lips and Matt groaned at the raw passion of it. That wasn't the kiss of a sick woman. That was pure seduction, and he was more than happy to follow where temptation led. "Have you not realized yet that nothing you do is inappropriate to me? I will accept your desire, even your love, but never your guilt." />
  Her next kiss seared through Matt's soul, stripping away any protest he might have mustered. She was right. He let his code of honor and belief in her utter innocence cloud the truth between them. She was raised in a world where all acts of love and desire were sacred acts as long as the emotions behind them were pure. He assumed her virginity removed her from that life rather than placing her at its center. He groaned again as her fingers found and released the buttons on his pants, delving inside to caress burning flesh. Slipping his own hands down to undo her clothes as well, he covered her mouth with his own, swallowing her soft moans as she writhed against his stroking hands. Shifting, he settled her against him so that his hard flesh sank into the enveloping softness of hers. She gasped against his mouth, and then shifted to draw him deeper. Their union was frantic and needy, pulling them unerringly toward soul-splintering rapture. As it rocked through them, their hands and mouths locked with equal force and two souls fused in one awareness.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "They should have been here by now." Matthew anxiously scanned the riverbank in each direction. "Trevor may buck the rules, sometimes, but he's never late. Nor is Pete. They should've been here when we got here."

  "Perhaps they are in hiding," Manara suggested weakly as she settled herself against the remains of a dead tree with a small sigh of relief. Whatever the cause, she was grateful for the respite. They were near Nineveh now. Even if she was unable to see the ruins of Nimrud -- once part of the mighty city -- from here, she would still know. Weariness throbbed in every muscle, and pain lanced every cell of her body. Urasat was restless and Ra'id must be near by now. Stifling a gasp of agony, she stretched out her aching legs and prayed for deliverance.

  Instantly, Matthew's gaze was on her, worry darkening his eyes almost black.