Dark Oracle

by Alayna Williams

  She drew the card that she, on some level, knew she had no choice but to draw: the Lovers. In a sunlit field of lilies, two lovers gazed into each other’s eyes. It was a card of testing, of deciding whether to be ruled by one’s heart or one’s head.

  She blew out her breath. She was decided.

  She slipped the card under her bag, pulled back the blankets, slid out of bed. Her heart hammered as her toes clutched at the shag carpet, as she stepped into the hallway to Harry’s door, silent as a wraith.

  She opened the door, tiptoed inside. She could see the waxing moonlight outlining his shoulder, the curve of his arm under an unzipped sleeping bag, the zipper glinting in the light. She closed the door, leaning against it with her hands behind her back. Surely he could hear her heart thundering loud enough to wake him?

  It seemed she stood there for hours, watching the moon track over the planes of his face, his shoulder, running through his hair. She was jealous of the moon, the way it caressed his body, how it felt the rise and fall of his chest.

  She approached the bed, crawled in behind Harry, and wrapped her arms around his chest. She felt his chest expand as he inhaled, the quickening of his pulse beneath her hands. Tentatively, she pressed her lips to the back of his neck, felt his sharp intake of breath as she did so. His hands laced in her fingers, and she molded her body to his, feeling his delicious warmth down the length of her body.

  “You came,” he sighed.

  He turned over, pulling her into his arms, and kissed her deeply. The kiss drove the breath from her and ignited long-dormant desire. Her hands slipped under his shirt, feeling the hard muscles of his abdomen tensing as he moved. She seized the chance to pull his shirt over his head and splay her fingers against the heat of his chest.

  Harry buried his lips in her neck, trailing the neckline of the old flannel shirt, covering the scar crossing her collarbone. The fingers of one hand slipped up the small of her back, delicately exploring the fine white ridges crossing her flesh, while his other hand moved up to cup her breast.

  Tara wanted to cry out, to let him know how his touch affected her, but she bit her lip to keep from waking Cassie and Martin. His thumb circled her sharp nipple, while his mouth covered hers, stealing a soft groan from her and pressing her into the pillows and blankets. He plucked open the buttons of her shirt and laid her chest bare to the dim light.

  Her breath caught, fearing his judgment. But none came. Instead, a slow shower of kisses began at her collar, crossed over her ribs in the white feathery pattern of the scars. She wound her fingers in his hair, feeling his lips insistent on the scars, which seemed more sensitive than ever before. He turned his attention to her breasts, seizing a nipple in his mouth. Arching her back, she silently scraped her fingernails through his hair.

  He didn’t judge her. He worshipped her with his mouth and hands, delicately skimming her flesh with the lightest of touches with his fingers and the firmest gestures of his mouth. His hands teased the sweatpants below her hips, kissing the hip bone exposed to the pale light. He pulled the rest of her clothes away, his attention riveted to her body, his hands sliding up the lightning-white scars on her legs, over the swell of her hips. In this light, they were not nearly as awful as she believed them to be in the day.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured against her ear. “Like the Snow Queen.”

  He gasped in her ear when she reached to stroke him through his pants before she unbuttoned them. She craved his hardness inside her, grasping his firm buttocks to guide him.

  But Harry wasn’t having any of her impatience. “Not yet.”

  He kneaded her muscles with his hands, sliding his touch over her stomach, over her hip, and parted her legs. Tara inhaled sharply as he buried his fingers in her warm wetness, teasing, exploring, withdrawing to work her clitoris until she wrapped her legs around him. She clutched his shoulder, pressed against him. She was certain she’d come if he so much as breathed on her.

  “Not yet,” he whispered.

  He teased her flesh with his mouth, down her breasts, over her navel. He parted her thighs, tenderly kissing the soft flesh inside, cupped her buttocks in his hands. . . and stroked her with his tongue so relentlessly Tara buried her fingers in the sleeping bag and her face in the pillow. When orgasm overtook her, she clenched her teeth to keep from crying out, trembling in a current of desire that left her gasping for breath.

  Harry slid on top of her, his warm skin heightening the tremors that spasmed through her. Gathering her in his arms, he slowly worked his way inside her.

  It had been years since she had made love, but Harry was incredibly gentle. Though she could feel the taut desire in his body, he restrained himself, sliding into her inch by inch. Winding his fingers in hers, he began to thrust, slowly, evenly. . . Tara could feel his restraint, his fear of hurting her.

  “You won’t hurt me,” she whispered. Tara took his buttocks in her hands and moved against him. Breasts pressed against his chest, hips moving below him, Harry lost all concentration, thrusting into her. . .

  Tara arched her back as the second orgasm flooded over her. She wrapped Harry’s body with her legs and arms, clinging to him as he embraced her with one arm and clutched the headboard with the other. At last she felt him buck inside her, felt the explosive exhalation of breath on her shoulder as he came.

  He raised himself on his elbows, looking searchingly into her face. “Are you okay?”

  “I am. . . much better than okay.” She grinned back at him.

  He tucked her hair behind her ears, kissed her. Harry rolled over, spooning her against his chest. She felt safe, protected. And that was a very rare feeling for Tara.

  When she drifted off to sleep in Harry’s arms, the moon had set and plunged the room into darkness. Her sleep was entirely without dreams.

  • • • •

  HARRY WOKE EARLY, BEFORE THE SUN ROSE. TARA HAD LEFT, slipping back into the bed she shared with Cassie. He’d been reluctant to untangle himself from her arms and the sleeping bag, wanting to bask in her warmth for as long as possible. He wanted to stay here, to put aside the next phase of the search for Magnusson, the misstep that could land him in harm’s way. These last hours had been glorious, and a twinge of fear twitched in his chest at the thought of losing what he’d just gained, this sense of serene wholeness.

  But there was no stopping time.

  Finally, he left the bed and trudged toward the kitchen to make coffee. Maggie lumbered along in his wake, her claws clicking on the linoleum.

  On the couch, Martin awoke to the steam and hiss of the coffeepot. He turned over and fixed Harry with a bemused glance. “You never used to make coffee.”

  “It’s definitely an acquired taste.” Harry grimaced as he took a sip. “And your taste in coffee takes more acquiring than most.”

  Martin harrumphed. “That’s the good stuff. I ordered it from Australia. It’s made from fruit bat guano. The bats eat the cocoa beans, and then they collect the guano. . .”

  Harry stared into the cup. “You’d better be pulling my leg.” He looked at the label. It was, indeed, from Australia.

  “Maybe.” The old man crossed his arms. “Maybe not. You got something against fruit bats?”

  Harry set down his cup. “Look, Pops, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. I realize I put you in a bad situation. . .”

  “You’re family, Harry. Anything I can do for you, you know I will.”

  “There might be some people coming to look for us. You might want to take a vacation.”

  Martin stubbornly waved his suggestion away. “This is my vacation. I’ve got it all under control. It’s you I worry about.”

  “Everything’s gonna be fine with me, Pops.”

  The old man looked under his tangled eyebrows at Harry. “Maybe there’s hope for you, yet.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Tara. She’s a good woman. She’s different from you, and that’s good for you.”

  H
arry rubbed his eyebrow. Shit. Had the old man heard them last night? “Is that what your book says?”

  “That’s what your Pops says.” Martin picked up a coffee mug. “Differences can create conflict, if you let them. Or they can be complementary, and you can use them to compensate for each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It’s the law of the universe. . . the harmonious attraction of opposites. Yin and yang. . . dark and light. . . peanut butter and jelly. . .”

  “Pops, I appreciate the thought, but it’s way too early for the cosmic ruminations. . .”

  Martin wagged a finger under Harry’s nose, slurping his bat guano coffee. “You think your Pops doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But I’ll have you know, back in the day, I was quite the lady’s man. Do you remember your friend Tom’s mom from across the street?” The old man’s face split into a craggy grin. “Well, let me tell you about Mrs. Cloverfeld and the hot tub. . .”

  “Urk.” Harry fled the kitchen, trying to scrub the mental picture of Martin and Mrs. Cloverfeld from his mind. Passing the bathroom, he heard the hiss of the shower and Cassie’s off-key rendition of the latest emo hit from the radio.

  He cracked open the door of the back bedroom to wake Tara. The gray morning light picked out an expression of soft contentment on her face as she slept, one arm crooked under the pillow. Her breath was deep and even, and he wondered what she dreamed.

  Harry knelt beside the bed to drink her in, this early morning peace, the rise and fall of her pale shoulder, the buttons on her shirt in the wrong buttonholes. He smiled, remembering their lovemaking, wishing for more time with the Snow Queen, to thaw more of that ice she’d buried herself in.

  He reached forward to caress her cheek to wake her, when his knee bumped something on the floor. Tara’s purse. He shoved it away, paused when he spied something underneath it. A piece of paper.

  No. . . something else.

  He picked it up. It was an elaborately decorated card depicting two people in a passionate embrace, titled The Lovers. He recognized the image from when he’d been shuffled to the occult crimes unit several years ago, busting a phony psychic bilking retirees out of their savings. It was from a deck of Tarot cards, the kind used by fortune-tellers to scare their victims into forking over more cash.

  The edges were well-worn. It had been in Tara’s hands often. . . and it dawned on him that perhaps this was the key to her intuition, that she made countless critical decisions based on what a deck of cards told her to do. That she had decided to come to him last night, based on what a random card had told her.

  He looked up to see her looking down at him, her smile dissolving when she saw him holding the card.

  He tried to keep his tone even, failed. “What’s this?”

  TARA OPENED HER EYES TO SEE HARRY, AND SHE SMILED. BUT the expression drained from her face, her heart crumpling as she saw what he held in his hand, at the hard set of his jaw. She could see the hurt, the anger in him, and she instinctively recoiled from it. How could she have been so careless?

  “Harry, I. . .” She forced herself to reach out and touch his sleeve. “This isn’t what you think.”

  He seemed to want to believe her, but doubt clouded his eyes. He didn’t move to take her hand. “Then what is it?”

  She wanted to have this conversation with him, someday, but she wasn’t ready now, didn’t have anything that made sense rehearsed. She blew out a nervous breath and waded into the churning water. “It’s the way I organize and focus my thoughts. I pull a card at random, and reflect on how I feel about the symbols on it.”

  “And then, what? You do what it tells you to?”

  “No. I do what I feel is—” She broke off, hearing the unmistakable staccato slice of helicopter blades overhead. Maggie galloped into the room, ran across the bed, and crammed her nose through the blinds. Her barks obliterated anything else Tara might have said.

  Harry swore and leaped to his feet. He charged to the window, peering through the blinds over the dog’s head. A tan UH-1N helicopter stirred the soft branches of pine trees, turned left, and wheeled away in the sky, searching for a place to land. The Huey could hold up to fifteen people. It was primarily a personnel mover in domestic operations, and that meant Gabriel’s men were coming for them, in force.

  “We’ve got to get out of here, now.”

  Tara rolled out of bed and scooped up her purse and her shoes. Harry charged into the hallway, pounding on the bathroom door for Cassie to get dressed. The Lovers card lay on the floor, forgotten. Vision blurring, she picked it up and stuffed it into her purse before she bolted from the room.

  Cassie was dripping wet in her coat, clutching her father’s laptop, trying to get her shoes on. Harry was arguing with Martin. “We have to go. You’re coming with us.”

  The old man stubbornly shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere. You kids get moving.”

  Harry stabbed his finger out the window. “We’ve been found. . . and we’re not leaving you behind, Pops.”

  “I’m not going.” Martin parked his backside in his recliner. “That’s the end of it.”

  “They’re going to come, ask questions. . . We don’t know what they’re going to do.” Harry’s voice was desperate. Tara wasn’t entirely certain he wouldn’t pick the old man up and throw him in the trunk.

  Martin rocked back and forth. “Let ’em come. I’ll tell ’em some of my best stories. Time’s a wastin’, kiddo.”

  Harry growled in frustration, but gave the stubborn old man a hug. Tara saw the old man’s eyes glisten. “I’ll tell you how it went when you get back.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Tara buckled on her holster, peeked out the door. No aircraft or people in sight, though the forest was too dense to be certain. Sunlight glittered on snow melting from the trees, the bits of ice rattling through the canopy casting false shadows of light and movement.

  Harry tossed her a set of keys. They had to be the keys to Martin’s truck; the key ring was decorated with the hood ornament of an old Cadillac.

  Tara looked at Harry, and a lump filled her throat.

  “Be safe,” was all he said. His eyes were dark with pain, and she ached for being the cause of it.

  “You, too.” She raised her hand to touch his arm—

  He was already at the door, weapon unholstered, eyes scanning the clearing. Ever the chivalrous knight, she thought bitterly, as he slammed open the screen door and strode into the still day. She flinched at the sound of the door hitting the side of the trailer, harsh as a gunshot. Harry crossed to his car and unlocked it. He stood behind the door, gun raised, and motioned for the women to follow under the cover he provided.

  “Cassie,” she whispered, and the girl was at her elbow, holding on to Maggie’s collar with one hand, backpack in the other. Maggie’s ears were lifted, listening. Tara, Cassie, and Maggie clattered down the porch steps to the side of the trailer, where Martin’s beat-up old Chevy pickup sat. Tara popped Cassie’s door first, and crossed to the driver’s side with her gun in her grip.

  The key stuck in the cold ignition. It had been a long time since the truck had been started. She cranked the engine over, and the sound of it roared through the silence like a growling bear. She flipped the wipers on, dusting snow from the windshield.

  She glimpsed Harry through the glass. He nodded at her, started his car, and disappeared down the switchback dirt road. The frost kept down the dust, and there was no evidence he’d ever been there.

  She followed, but as fast as the truck bounced over the unpaved dirt, she could not catch sight of him again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HARRY TRIED to put as much distance between himself and Martin’s nest as he could. Once he’d seen the old man’s truck rattle down the driveway, he gunned the engine, allowing the trees to enfold his view in the rearview mirror. He hoped that whoever was watching them would see him first, take the bait, and leave the old man, Cassie, and Tara alone.

  His heart was l
eaden, seeming to slow his progress and drag his thoughts back to what he’d left behind. It was heavy for Martin, fearing what interrogation he might face at the hands of the men who’d tried to kill Cassie. Martin was a formidable foe with the shotgun, but these men were beyond the solitary poachers and teenage burglars Martin was accustomed to dealing with. His knuckles were pale on the steering wheel, praying they wouldn’t hurt the old man. Martin was harmless, and there was nothing he could tell them. Even Martin didn’t know where they were going.

  His heart was heavy for Cassie. He was beginning to believe, more and more, that her father was dead. He wouldn’t admit it to her, wouldn’t admit it to anyone but himself, but there was no evidence yet suggesting he’d survived. He’d left messages for his daughter, riddles for her to solve, but there was no concrete proof he hadn’t died in the destruction of the particle accelerator—whether it was an accident, act of sabotage, or murder—and been devoured by one of his black holes. If Magnusson had been eaten by one of his own monsters, the probabilities of keeping Cassie safe for any prolonged length of time dwindled. He’d asked Tara not to tell him where she was taking Cassie. Where Harry was going, that knowledge might become a distinct liability.

  Sun splintered through the branches of spiky trees, and Harry’s tires finally hit paved road. It would be many hours before he would be back in New Mexico to meet DiRosa at Bandelier National Monument. He looked east and west on the two-lane highway. No cars.

  He blew out his breath. He wasn’t being followed so far. He hoped that boded well for Cassie and Tara.

  Tara. His heart was heavy for her, too. . . and confused. To go from the peace and certainty he’d felt last night to the mixed feelings of doubt and uncertainty he’d confronted her with this morning. . . It was like swallowing concrete mix and trying to digest it before it solidified. He feared that last night had been a random draw of a card, that she had been leading him and this investigation based on signs and portents dictated by a deck of cards.