Dark Ghost

by Christine Feehan

  Teagan stopped and examined the wall of rock directly in front of her. Her stone was somewhere inside the rising tower of rock. She slipped her palm over the small boulder. The fog was even thicker up here and she literally felt her way around the mountain. Her hand abruptly slipped off and she realized instantly she had found an opening.

  She stared into the darkness for a long moment. She was small enough to fit inside if she took her pack off and carried it. Her heart pounded. Wild animals could live in the cave. Still, if nothing else lived in it, she could rest. The chances of Armend finding the cave were slim, and she desperately needed to go to sleep. More, she needed to try to calm the swelling in her face and take a look at her stinging lip.

  "Courage, Teagan," she whispered to herself. "You've come this far for Grandma Trixie, are you going to fail because you're scared?"

  She often asked herself that question. Was she going to fail because she was scared? She might be afraid of a lot of things, but she never once had allowed fear to stop her from doing anything she wanted to do. In fact, often times, that fear spurred her on, because she was so determined not to allow it to rule her.

  She started to slip into the narrow opening and something stopped her. Something completely invisible. She put her hand out and felt the barrier. A shield. It seemed to be constructed of notes, like the music inside her body. She'd never encountered such a thing before, but her mind was all about puzzles and patterns. She loved to boulder because that was a world of puzzles and patterns. She could see a problem in front of her and her mind feasted on it, needing to solve it.

  She didn't know if nature had spun that tight netting, or if something else had done it, but she knew she had to solve it. The compulsion was on her, and there was no going back from it.

  She sank down in front of the opening and lifted her hands into the air, closing her eyes and tuning herself to the invisible threads of what she saw as a harp in her mind. The strings of the harp were all knotted, forming a tight net. She simply had to unravel them and set them straight again.

  It was a complicated pattern, and she found herself completely absorbed, forgetting Armend and the sorrowful notes in the fog and everything else, even the pain in her body while she worked to sort out the strings of the harp. Everything had to be reversed and she had to do it by sound alone. There was no visible shield, just a song she felt in her body.

  It took her two hours, she knew because she'd looked at her watch. She was shivering with cold, her clothes damp from the thick fog by the time she'd straightened out all the strings and knew she could walk through the entrance. Feeling triumphant, she got to her feet and, pushing her pack ahead of her, slipped inside. The moment she did, the despairing notes faded away, left behind in the thick mist.

  Darkness swallowed her instantly and with it came the thud of her heart. Loud. Scary loud. She jerked out her flashlight and carefully examined the way ahead of her. The tunnel was narrow, but still, she could walk upright through it. She scrutinized the ground carefully for tracks of animals. She couldn't see that the dirt had been disturbed. She was fairly certain that if wolves occupied the cave, there would be evidence, like a pack surrounding and eating her.

  She pushed forward. Her heart continued to pound, no matter how hard she tried to breathe away fear. She moved down the narrow passageway, realizing she wasn't only going deeper into the cave, but downward as well. The angle wasn't terribly steep, but she became aware of the heavy rock over her head. The cave had high ceilings and the farther she went into it, the higher the ceiling became. She stopped every few feet to shine her flashlight in all directions. She wanted to see the walls surrounding her and the ceiling above her.

  There was no sign of wolves or any other animal, and she was becoming excited that she might have found the perfect base camp to hunt for her stones without Armend or his friends finding her.

  The narrow passage abruptly widened and she had a choice to go left or right. She listened to the song in her veins and chose right. The tunnel was short and opened almost immediately into a wide chamber. It was beautiful. The walls sparkled when she shone the light over it. Something drew her toward the very back, and she followed that need.

  Teagan placed her backpack against the farthest wall beside another opening that, when she shone the light there, appeared to be an entrance into another chamber, just a bit smaller. She stepped inside to look around.

  The dirt had been moved recently. She could see that, and when she flashed the light over the freshly disturbed earth, she spotted drops of dark red blood. Lots of it. And it was definitely recent. Her heart stopped pounding. Stopped beating. She was so certain her heart stopped that she put her hand over her chest and opened her mouth to drag in air. Blood. Right there in the cave with her. What now?

  2

  Teagan found herself following the trail of blood through the small chamber, down farther into the earth. The cave was far warmer as she went deeper. It should have been cooler, and that made her wonder if there was volcanic activity beneath her. The thought made her pause, but the compulsion to follow the blood trail was too strong to ignore.

  She knelt down beside a particularly large splash of dark red blood and touched the substance with shaking fingers. It felt sticky, as if it had congealed there a few hours earlier. The moment she touched it, something inside of her answered. Opened. Needed. She should have wiped the blood off her hands in the dirt, but she couldn't make herself do it. Instead, she curled her fingers tight into her palm, as if holding him there. Instinctively she knew the victim was a man, and she had to get to him. She had to save him.

  Teagan found him in the fourth chamber. It was a small room, completely dark, and he looked to be in an open grave. Her flashlight caught the edge of his body, lying in the ground about two feet deep. The dirt had filled in around his body, but his face and chest weren't covered. Her mouth went dry and her throat closed. It was impossible to breathe for a brief moment. She couldn't run and she couldn't move forward. She could only stand still, praying, the flashlight shaking in her hand.

  She stared at him, her heart continuing to pound as the song in her veins burst into a crescendo, as if somewhere on or beneath this man was the very stone she needed to cure her grandmother. She stepped closer, although she was reluctant, afraid he truly was dead, and she couldn't bear that. But if he was still alive, she needed to help him.

  Teagan forced her feet to work, moving to his side, dropping down to her knees to feel for the pulse in his neck. The moment she touched him, the terrible dread in her increased. She needed him to be alive more than she needed anything else. He had to live. She waited for his heartbeat. Prayed for it. There was nothing at all. Not even the faintest thread of a pulse.

  A small moan of fear escaped. Not of him. For him. For her. She knew, deep down, that she'd come to this place to save this man, but her injuries had slowed her down. Slowly she laid her head over his heart. Strangely, his body felt warm, although if he were dead, and had been for a few hours, he should have been cold. She pressed her ear to his chest and held her breath to keep from making the slightest noise. There was no discernable heartbeat, although she felt the heavy, defined muscles in his chest.

  His shirt was bloody and torn. There were terrible gashes in his chest. Open wounds. Wounds that she knew should have killed him and probably had, but still, she needed him to be alive and she had no idea why, but the need was so strong she shook with the force of it. More, there was evidence of old wounds. Four of them. One in each shoulder and one in each side. Circular scars that were a good two inches in diameter. This man had seen battle.

  She closed her eyes, sorrow crushing her chest. The need to wail with grief rose in her like a tidal wave, coming out of nowhere, but so strong another sound escaped, an agonized cry that seemed terribly loud in the silence of the cave. She didn't know this man, but the blow was tremendous. She placed her hand in front of his mouth to try to feel air.

  "Come on, sweetheart," she said
softly. "Don't be dead. Unconscious is okay. I can deal with unconscious, but you need to come back to the land of the living." She dared to press her lips against his ear, needing him to hear her. He was so warm, it seemed impossible that she'd lost him before she'd had a chance to save him. "Stay here with me. Don't go. Come back to me." She didn't know why she structured her plea that way, but the compulsion inside her, the one that couldn't let him go, forced the wrenching words from--not her heart--but her aching soul.

  His skin was pale, and hers was darker, a soft mocha latte, her grandmother had always described her. Her mother was African American but her father was Caucasian. He had been a businessman who had pursued her mother and then dumped her the moment he learned she was pregnant. Technically, her three sisters were half sisters, but never once had they ever acted like she wasn't part of them. They called her their heart because Grandma Trixie always called her that.

  She could heal. She'd always had an extraordinary gift to do so, but not if someone was already dead. She couldn't raise the dead. Her throat closed in protest. This man couldn't already be gone, out of her reach.

  She leaned down again, trailing her fingers gently over his chest as if the small sensation could penetrate deep to his heart. "Seriously, open your eyes right now." She tried to make it a command. Instead, it came out a plea. Tears burned her eyes as she stared down into his handsome face.

  He was beautiful. Even in death, he was beautiful. If she'd been an artist, he would be the man she would want to sculpt. To draw. To put into any medium to preserve.

  His lashes fluttered, and her heart fluttered right along with them. The breath rushed from her lungs. She stared at him. His eyelids remained closed. Had that been an illusion? She'd planted her flashlight in the ground, the light beaming toward the ceiling, casting a glow over him, but most of him was in the shadows. It had to have been an illusion. But still . . . Her heart began to pound all over again.

  Whether he was dead or alive, she wasn't leaving him in this state. "Listen, handsome, I'm going to run back and get my pack. I can clean you up. That's the least I can do for you." Even as she spoke to him, whispered into his ear, her hand went to his chest, directly over his heart. Hoping. She was still praying. She needed him to be alive, but there was no indication whatsoever.

  Pushing back a sob, she jumped to her feet, wincing when her leg protested--when her face told her the swelling hadn't gone down at all. She glanced at her watch as she hurried back through the various chambers to the one she'd left her backpack in. Sunset was approaching and hopefully, since Armend and his friends hadn't found her yet, they wouldn't as night fell. She'd be able to rest.

  Andre only had one dream in his entire existence, a recurring one, and it was a nightmare--or more precisely, a memory he wished to forget. He slept the sleep of Carpathians. Heart stopped. Breath gone. Essentially, by human standards, dead. A paralysis settled over them and they couldn't move even if their minds were still active. But he had to be dreaming.

  A soft voice--a woman's voice. His lifemate. The whisper of a touch against his skin. The little plea that touched his heart even though it wasn't beating. He dreamt in color. Bright, vivid color. It was so beautiful, so real, each color distinct, not bleeding gray into it, but there behind his eyes, in his brain. Blues and greens and vibrant reds.

  He struggled to lift his lashes, to open his eyes to see. He hadn't buried himself completely in the soil as he should have. He'd lost far too much blood and he knew his safeguards were strong. The vampires would have gone to ground as well. All of them were wounded, including Costin Popescu, the master vampire. He knew he was safe enough and he was just too tired to do anything but lie down in the fresh, clean soil.

  He lay there now, his heart beginning its slow revival. He took his first breath, drawing her scent into his lungs. She was real. He didn't know how to feel about that after centuries of hunting for her. Centuries of giving up on her. Centuries of being so alone he didn't know how to be with anyone else, or even how to be civil.

  The brief moment when he'd managed to beat the paralysis and open his eyes just enough to glimpse her had to be real, not a figment of his imagination, because he saw her in all her glorious color. Still, how had she gotten into his sleeping chamber? Into his cave? He had put up safeguards. Intricate safeguards, not based on mage guards, but ones he had devised himself over the centuries. Guards that shouldn't have been penetrated.

  He had to be dreaming. But in color? Nothing made sense. The moment his heart began to beat, blood began to stream from the various wounds on his body. Hunger struck. Clawed. Pain had to be shut off. Automatically he repaired the internal damage to his body, even as his mind went over every detail he remembered of the brief glimpse.

  His lifemate had been very slight, very small, but he could see the steel in her. The determination. She was beautiful, more beautiful than any woman he'd ever seen--that in itself should tell him he was dreaming. Her skin was amazing, a dark soft expanse that any man would have a difficult time resisting touching. But she'd been covered in bruises. He could see blue and black in the mixture of color along her cheek, up by her eye and along her jaw. Her face was swollen, her lip torn.

  She had a beautiful mouth, tilted at the corners, an inviting bow, her teeth small and white. Her eyes were a dark, dark chocolate. The lashes surrounding them were full and very black.

  Her hair was long, a luxurious gleaming black, not dull gray, done in intricate cornrows and then swept back in a ponytail of small braids. The ponytail was easily as thick as his arm and fell to her waist. When she walked away from him, she was limping. He had to have been dreaming, because how could she be real after all the long centuries? And how could she have gotten past his safeguards?

  He stayed very still, absorbing the feel of the cave. His senses told him he wasn't alone. He smelled her. There was a mixture of fresh air, fog, the mountains, sweat and something else, something that called to him, like a particular scent carried on a summer wind. Almost like the earth smelled after a fresh rain. He needed more of it. He wanted more.

  He heard her then, the soft running as she returned to him, just as she'd promised. She thought him dead. He'd heard the sorrow in her voice. She had asked him to stay. To come back to her. Had she come to find him? Had he been close to dying? He doubted it. He had work to do. Several vampires to kill. He wouldn't have left them alive to harm others.

  She dropped a backpack that was nearly as tall as she was onto the floor beside the entrance to the small chamber. She had a flashlight in her hand, the light dancing along the walls as she hurried toward him. He could see the colors of the wall. The rich veins of various minerals and the few gems that sparkled in the light. The edge of the light caught a crystalline rock jutting out of the wall. He remembered the formation from his youth, and was shocked that he hadn't noticed it again until her dancing light spotlighted it for him.

  Her scent enveloped him. This time he recognized the interesting mixture of wildflowers and rain. He inhaled her. The moment he did, she cried out and dropped to the ground beside him.

  "You're alive. Oh. My. God. You're totally alive."

  Her hands ran over his chest. Her touch was featherlight, but everywhere the pads of her fingers touched he felt heat and something else, something that penetrated deep, right through his skin. He recognized the touch of a natural healer. She had immense power. He stayed very still, listening to the musical cadence of her voice. The sound of her struck an answering chord in him.

  He realized she spoke English. Not just any English, but American English. She wasn't from the Carpathian Mountains. She didn't feel Carpathian. But she belonged to him. Absolutely belonged to him. He turned his head and locked his eyes on his prey. Seeing the swelling in her face hurt him. An actual pain. He couldn't leave her like that. He refused.

  She was an amazing healer and should have seen to herself before recklessly running into a cave. What was wrong with her that she didn't see the danger to hersel
f even now? Because she was in danger. Didn't she feel it? He was starving. He'd lost too much blood, and there she was, bending over him, her throat exposed, her pulse pounding, her heart calling to his. He could hear the ebb and flow of her blood. Smell it even, through the wound on her mouth. The tear.

  Someone had hurt his lifemate very recently. A male. He could smell the testosterone on her. Her shirt was torn, exposing the curve of her breast. She was tiny, but he could see the small, beautiful curve and he ached. The ache wasn't enough to hold the beast at bay. Someone had attempted to harm her.

  He lifted his hand to her face, his thumb sliding gently over the bruised swelling. "Who did this to you?" His English was good, but he had an English accent. He was unfamiliar with the American accent. His first words to his lifemate. He spoke softly, his voice pitched low, but there was a distinct growl, a note that made her entire body go still.

  She pressed her lips together and then winced. "Let's concentrate on you. Your wounds are horrific. I'm Teagan. Teagan Joanes."

  "I do not want to invade your privacy by taking this information from you, but I refuse to argue. Give me his name."

  Her long lashes swept down and then back up. She sank back on her heels, wincing as she did so, as if that movement hurt as well. He saw trepidation in her dark eyes, the beginnings of fear. He knew what she saw. He'd been alarming humans for centuries--and she was definitely human. He'd alarmed his own species. He wasn't a man to trifle with. But his first obligation was to the safety and health of his lifemate, not the other way around. Fear or not, he would get his answer.

  "Armend Jashari," she replied, her voice a whisper. "He's somewhere behind me. He told me he had friends camping nearby and they were going . . ." She trailed off.

  He scowled at her and decided to take the information from her. He wasn't the coaxing kind. This was too important. He needed to know what this man had done and what he intended to do. He needed to heal his woman and decide a course of action. Her dithering wasn't helping the situation at all.