Forever...

by Jude Deveraux

  “I don’t know how to do that. I’ve never . . .” she began, then cut herself off as she looked at the faces of the two men. They looked like children who’d been told they couldn’t have dessert. “But I could try,” she said at last.

  “That’s all we can ask,” Taylor said and breathed a sigh of relief.

  15

  “ARE YOU SURE?” Adam asked, looking at the very ordinary house in front of them. True, the house was old, but then this was Connecticut and there were a lot of old houses in the state. And, true, this house was surrounded by acres of mowed lawn, with no shrubs or trees where intruders could hide, but many houses in the state were surrounded by lawns. It was a two-story farmhouse, big and rambling, looking as though it had been added on to several times in the hundred or so years since it had been built. The house did not look as if it was a place of evil. And it certainly didn’t look like a prison. There were no high walls or fences surrounding the property, nothing that a person would expect when thinking of witches and covens and a woman who had been held prisoner all her life.

  “Yes,” Darci said, swallowing. “This is the house.”Couldn’t they feel it? she thought. Couldn’t they feel the evil that surrounded the house? To her, the evil was something she could see, like colors. No, the malevolence was more like flames leaping about the old house. “Yes, I’m sure,” she repeated. “Adam, you can’t go in there. You can’t.” She tried to keep the tears out of her voice, but she couldn’t.

  Darci had easily been able to close her eyes, run her fingers over a map of the Camwell area, and find a place that matched what she had felt coming from the little enamel picture of the slain girl.

  “You’ve done this before,” Taylor said, looking at her hard.

  “Yes,” she answered in resignation.

  “Darci, you know much more about what you can do than you let anyone know, don’t you?” her father asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “It’s just that I’ve never wanted to find out what I could do. I’ve never wanted to be different, and I especially haven’t wanted others to know about me. I’ve never—”

  “It’s okay,” Taylor said, pulling her into his arms, her head down on his shoulder. “It’s all right. Once this is over, you can go home to live with me in Virginia. I have a very nice house, and—”

  “No,” Adam said. “She’s going home with me.”

  “We’re going to England,” Darci said to her father, moving away from him. “Adam’s promised me a six-week trip,” she said over her shoulder as she walked out the door of the guest house.

  “You take her anywhere without marrying her first and I will kill you,” Taylor Raeburne said under his breath to Adam as they left the guest house.

  At that, Adam smiled but made no answer. The truth was that he wasn’t ready to think about what he felt for Darci. He knew that he’d never met anyone like her, and he knew that she had the ability to get to him in a way that no one else ever had. With others from the time he was three years old, he’d kept a protective shell around himself. No one had been able to make him love, or hate, for that matter. After he’d been branded by that evil woman when he was so very young, it was as though he’d closed himself off from all emotion, both good and bad.

  But since he’d met Darci, he’d been able to laugh. He’d been able to tease. And he’d thought of things other than the black side of life. She’d made him want to buy her gifts and show her things. He wanted to show her the world. As he’d told her, he’d bummed around the world, had seen a lot of things and met a lot of people. But he’d never felt any joy in his travels. Once an old man had said to him, “Boy, I think you’re lookin’ real hard for somethin’. But I don’t think you know what it is you’re lookin’ for.”

  The old man’s words had seemed to sum up Adam’s life. And he hadn’t known what he was looking for until one fateful summer day a few years ago when he was watching his cousins play tennis. That day and a casual remark had set him onto a road that led here.

  Here, to Darci, he thought and smiled as he followed Taylor out the door.

  Darci pulled things from Adam that no one else had ever been able to. And, in return, he’d wanted to give back to her.

  He’d tried to make her laugh, and the few times he’d succeeded, he’d felt as though her laughter had been a rare and precious gift. He wanted to protect her and. . . .

  And he wanted to make love to her, he thought with a smile. She’d been angry that he’d known she’d been lying when she told him about her past sexual experiences, but he liked that she’d never known another man. He liked that she could belong to him and only him.

  But all that would come later, he thought. First they had to finish the onerous task that had brought Darci and him together.

  So now the three of them were lying on their bellies in the fallen leaves on top of a little knoll, several hundred yards from the house that Darci said was full of evil. Taylor passed out night-vision goggles to each of them, but they saw nothing unusual. They could see no people anywhere. There were no guards outside, no dogs, nothing that could be thought of as a barrier to their walking into the house. There was only one light on in the house and that was at the top of the third floor in what was probably the attic. There was a round window in the gable end of the roof, and a warm yellow light glowed from there.

  “I don’t like this,” Taylor said, sitting up. “This lack of protection scares me more than anything I’ve seen before in this business. Do you think the town knows that this house belongs to the woman and therefore they leave it alone?”

  “Probably,” Adam said, also sitting up. “But still, it’s spooky, isn’t it? I thought the place would be a prison, with walls and guards carrying guns. If she owns something as valuable as this mirror, wouldn’t she be protecting it?”

  “Do you know who else knows she has the mirror?” Taylor asked.

  “Besides me,” Adam said, “I think there are a number of psychics, and, from what I’ve seen, probably half of Camwell knows. How do you know about it?”

  “A student of mine has a sister who joined the cult, and, as far as I can tell, the mirror is what they base all their hopes of attaining power on.”

  “Psychics and hearsay,” Darci said as she sat up beside Adam. “What you two are saying is that you aren’t completely sure that this thing exists.”

  There wasn’t much light, but Darci saw Adam open and close his mouth a couple of times as though he were preparing to defend himself. But then he looked at Taylor. Finally, Adam looked back at Darci. “Right. That’s about it. I’m not sure about much of anything. I spent years trying human methods to find information, but I couldn’t find out much of anything. So I went to the inhuman side. Or the paranormal side, I guess.” While Adam had been saying this, he had been looking upward into the trees. Near them was an oak tree that had to be several hundred years old. It had thick, sprawling branches.

  “Taylor, old man,” Adam said, “think you could give me a boost up? I’d like to climb up there and see what I can of the inside of the house. Maybe I could see someone or something.”

  “Old man,” Taylor said with a snort. He was only seven years older than Adam. “Come on, child, and I’ll help you up.” Cupping his hands, he looked at Adam.

  Adam stepped into the older man’s hands, then up onto his shoulders until he caught the lowest branch of the oak tree and he began to climb upward.

  Not too far, Darci said to him in her mind. Please don’t fall. I don’t want you to get hurt. If you get hurt— “Quiet!” Adam hissed down at her. “I can’t think when you talk so much.” Carefully, he walked out onto a thick branch while holding an upper one, then stretched out on his stomach, put the night-vision goggles to his eyes, and looked.

  What do you see? Darci called up to him, but Adam didn’t answer.

  “Well?” Taylor asked his daughter.

  Darci shrugged. She could only project thoughts to Adam, not receive them; she couldn’t hear what he was
thinking.

  Minutes later, Adam came down from the tree, swinging on the last branch and dropping to the ground. “There’s someone in that room at the top of the house. It’s a woman, and I can see her pacing back and forth. She moves as though she’s young.”

  “That’s not much to go on,” Taylor said.

  Adam looked hard at Darci. “When I’m up there and with these on, I can see laser beams across the lawn. From this angle you can’t see them. You can’t even see them from only fifteen feet up. You have to be up where I was. It’s a state-of-the-art protection system,” he said. “I’ll give that to her. She has some technology that I’ve never even heard of before.” He paused for a moment, his eyes drilling into Darci’s. “But I can get through it.”

  “How can you do that if you can’t see where the beams are?” Darci asked instantly. “You know what I think we should do? We should call the police and let them handle this. Or, better yet, let’s call your friend in the FBI. The FBI has experience at these things.”

  “And you don’t think that she’d see that in the mirror?” Adam asked softly.

  “If she sees them coming, then she must have seen us too,” Darci said in exasperation, then, “Oh. We have been seen in the mirror,” she said and thought of Susan Fairmont and her dead sister who looked like Darci.

  “Time-wise, Nostradamus’s predictions were never really right on the mark,” Taylor said. “Even the quatrains that people have been able to figure out were off by years. I’m sure that the mirror has shown you to her, Darci, but I don’t think they know the exact date when you’ll show up. And it’s my guess that they expect you at the tunnels.”

  “I think the tunnels might be safer than this place,” she said. “We were in them, and I didn’t feel anything horrible in them.” She rubbed her arms as chills ran up them. “But then, I’ve never felt anything as . . . as unhappy as that house is.” Neither man replied to this but just kept looking at her. She knew they wanted something from her, but she didn’t know what. She ignored them as long as she could, then said, “What?!”

  Adam looked at Taylor, and they silently agreed that her father would tell her. “Darci, you can direct Adam around the laser beams. You need to climb that tree, put on the goggles, and tell him with your mind how to step around them.”

  She set her mouth into a rigid line. “I don’t like high places. I don’t climbing trees, and I especially don’t like anyone going into houses full of very bad things.”

  Adam frowned. “What if you had a sister and she were—”

  Taylor put his hand on his daughter’s arm. “What if Adam were trapped in that house? What would you do to get him out?”

  Darci was embarrassed that her father, this man she had so recently met, could see so much about her. “Nothing,” she said, trying to keep her dignity intact. “I wouldn’t so much as lift a finger to get him out of anywhere. I just met him a few days ago and, all in all, he’s a pain in the—”

  She broke off because Adam put his arm around her lower back, pulled her up toward him so that her feet came off the ground, and kissed her. He kissed her with everything that he had come to feel for her. He kissed her in memory of the first time he’d seen her in her little cat suit. He kissed her in memory of all the times she’d made him laugh. He kissed her for every time he’d wanted to touch her but hadn’t allowed himself to. And, most of all, he kissed her for . . . well, he wasn’t yet sure, but he thought maybe he kissed her for love.

  When he set her back down on the ground, Darci’s body swayed and Adam put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  “Want a boost up?” he asked, and his voice was husky.

  All Darci could do was nod.

  But instead of a boost, Adam removed her jacket, so that she was standing there in just her little black leotard, then he lifted her up to the lowest branch. But as he lifted her, his hands ran up her body, touching the sides of her breasts, moving down her ribs to her waist, then down the side of her little derriere and down her legs. “You ready to help me?” he asked when she was sitting on the lowest branch.

  All Darci could do was nod silently.

  “Good girl,” Taylor said, but he was frowning at Adam. “If you—” he began under his breath.

  Adam turned a cold face to Taylor. “You researched my family. Did you find any history of dishonor anywhere in my family?”

  “None,” Taylor said. “A few tragedies, some failures, and a lot of success, but no stories of betrayal by a Montgomery.”

  “Right,” Adam said, “and I can assure you that I won’t be the first.” He turned back to look up at Darci. “Now, baby, climb up to where I was. Be careful, go slowly, and don’t fall. But, remember, if you do fall, I’ll be here to catch you. All right?”

  Again, Darci nodded; then slowly, she began to climb the tree. She didn’t move with the assurance that Adam had, but she was able to find her way and put her feet where she needed to.

  “That’s it,” came Adam’s soothing voice from below, but she didn’t look down at him, afraid that her fear might overwhelm her. Right now the feel of Adam’s lips on hers, and his hands on her body, were keeping her strong and brave. But if she looked down and saw reality, saw that the ground was about twenty feet below, she wasn’t sure that any memory on earth would hold her.

  Once she was at the branch that Adam had been on, she slowly and carefully stretched out on her stomach, put the big goggles on, and looked toward the house. Sure enough, she could see the crisscrossing red beams of laser light that surrounded the house and protected it. What happened if someone walked through one of those beams of light? she wondered. Did dogs come out and attack the trespasser? Or, did the fire-breathing dragons Sally the smart-mouthed waitress mentioned rush out to devour the intruder?

  “Stop it!” Adam hissed up at her. “You’re thinking out loud—and I do not like what I’m hearing!”

  Darci took a deep breath. It took concentration to avoid sending her thoughts to Adam, and when she was thinking of something else, her thoughts just seemed to go to him naturally.

  “Ready?” he said up to her.

  Yes, she told him, then took a deep breath to steady herself so she could concentrate on the job ahead of her.

  Right away, she realized that it wasn’t going to be easy. There was no pattern to the red beams of light, and, worse, it was very difficult to tell how far they were from the ground. From her perch high up, it was close to impossible to tell if the beams were two feet off the ground or ten feet.

  Stop! she yelled at Adam in her mind. He had taken only two steps and already he was half an inch from the first beam. Left, now right. Now. . . .Wait. Darci had to take the goggles off and close her eyes for a moment. Give me strength, she prayed. Give me knowledge. She put the goggles back on, then looked again at the beams. They were different shades of red! she thought. Maybe it was the way she’d first put on the goggles or maybe, she thought, it was her prayer, but now she could see that the beams were different shades of red. The ones high off the ground were lighter than the ones that were close to the ground. Now she could tell Adam which ones to step over and which ones to snake under.

  Down, she said. Down now. Lower. On your belly. Darci was spitting out orders to Adam, short, staccato orders that she could send to him with a force that made his head ache. Up! she ordered. Stand up and step over. Leg higher. Now stick out your leg. Follow it. Turn left. Sharper. No, go back. Down on your belly. Up. Now! Over. Watch your foot. Slowly!

  On the ground, Taylor could hear nothing. Standing on the little hill, he used the goggles to watch Adam as he did what looked like a contortionist’s dance across the front lawn. Taylor was a bit in awe that Adam could hear Darci’s directions so clearly in his mind. First Adam would stand up and take a high step over an invisible line, then he’d drop down and crawl. He would go forward for three feet, then turn back toward them for four feet. For Taylor, watching, it was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

 
He had been involved in the supernatural for all his adult life. As a child he’d heard the whispered tales of his ancestors and what the women in his family could do. In his family it was something to be proud of, but, at the same time, it was something to keep hidden at all costs. In 1918, many members of his family had been wiped out in the flu epidemic, and the family had never recovered their numbers from it. They had never been prolific at best, but after the losses of the epidemic, it seemed that the number of members in each generation had grown smaller. His mother had told him a thousand times that it was up to him to produce a daughter with the “gift.”

  It was when Taylor had found out that a car accident had rendered him infertile that he’d become interested in the occult professionally. But over the years he’d developed a theory that the most talented of the clairvoyants and other psychically gifted people stayed away from people like him, who wanted to study them and categorize what they could do. In all his years of research, he had never seen anything like what he was seeing at this moment, with this lovely girl stretched out on a tree branch and using her mind to direct a man through a field of laser beams.

  It took Adam nearly forty-five minutes to get through the field, and when he reached the front porch of the house, Taylor was so relieved that he had to sit down. But now what? he thought. How did Adam get inside the house? Did a witch hide a key under the doormat?

  Adam, standing on the porch at last, seemed to be thinking the same thing. Turning, he looked back at the tree where Darci was hiding and lifted his hands and shoulders as though to say, What now? The next second, he nodded, so Darci must have said something to him.

  Taylor could see Adam’s shoulders rise, as though preparing for a blow, as, slowly, he put out his hand toward the doorknob. Then, even more slowly, he began to turn the knob. So far, no alarms had gone off. But as Taylor watched Adam continue to turn the knob, his heart began to beat faster and he held his breath.