Stars of Fortune

by Nora Roberts

  “You were dead, man.” Sawyer hunkered back on his heels while Annika pressed a weeping kiss to Doyle’s head. “As in doornail. That’s no shit. Is this a zombie thing? Because I sure as hell don’t want to shoot you in the head.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” On another painful breath, Doyle pushed up to his elbows. The deep and vicious wound on his chest began—or continued—to heal.

  “Glad you’re back, that’s pure truth. Not a vampire,” Sawyer speculated. “You spend plenty of time in the sun.”

  “You’re an entertaining man, Sawyer.” Doyle shuddered, set his teeth.

  “There’s pain. I can help there.”

  Doyle shook his head at Bran. “It’s part of it. Has to be. It’ll pass. Where’s my sword?”

  “I’ve got it.” When he sat up, Riley put it in his hand. “I appreciate the save, but why aren’t you dead?”

  When he looked at her, Riley hastily swiped tears from her face.

  “I wouldn’t have been, briefly, if you’d reacted quicker.”

  “You blocked me, pal, shoved me before I could draw and fire. If—”

  “You can’t die.” Sasha spoke quietly. “I’m sorry, but I was trying to find a way, some way to help, and when you were . . . between?” she suggested. “You were so open, and it just flowed out and into me. You can’t be killed.”

  “I’m so glad!” Annika beamed at him. “I’ll get you a beer.”

  “You’re a sweetheart, but maybe we can take this inside. In case there are any other stragglers. Not dying hurts like a motherfucker, and I’d like to avoid a second round tonight.”

  Bran rose, offered a hand to help Doyle to his feet. “An Immortal Spell. It’s forbidden,” Bran began.

  “Don’t blame me. I’m no witch. You want the story, I’ll give it to you. But I want that beer.”

  “You need a fresh shirt,” Sasha pointed out.

  Doyle looked down at the blood and gore staining his. “Yeah. I’ll get one.”

  “I need my kit, and something for those burns,” he said to Riley. “And now your hands. We’ll have the story, and then it’s best if we clean the grounds. And go.”

  “Fresh shirt, medical supplies, beer, cleanup. Check. I’m going to touch base with my contact, nail down just where we’re going.”

  Within minutes, they gathered in the kitchen, with Bran tending Riley’s wounds.

  “How’d you cut up the hands?” Doyle asked her.

  “She pulled that thing off you with them,” Sawyer told him. “Just yanked it out, then shot the crap out of it.”

  Over a long sip of beer, Doyle studied her. “Looks like we’re even then.”

  “Since you can’t die, yeah. I’d say we’re even. So let’s hear why.”

  “A witch. Being magickal doesn’t stop insanity. She was mad. She would lure young men, use them, then kill them for sport.”

  “A black widow witch,” Riley said.

  “One of the young men was my brother. Barely seventeen when she took him.”

  Instinctively Annika wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I hunted her. That was my purpose, my only purpose. To save him, destroy her. I bargained with an alchemist, gave him all I had. He created the sword, to end her. When I found her, my brother was near death, beyond the saving. Seventeen, and dying in my arms, he who had never harmed a soul. My grief was beyond even my rage. He begged me to kill him, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do what he asked of me. That is a regret I can never undo. So he died in agony while I grieved.

  “She smelled it, that grief. Savored it. I fought her, blind with it, beyond feeling that rage, certainly beyond fear. When she knew I would end her, she used it, and cursed me with the spell. I would watch everyone I loved die. I would see them bleed and fall in battle, suffer from disease, wither and fall of old age. I would never know the release of death, but only the death of all I touched.”

  He polished off the beer, pushed the bottle aside. “I took her head with the sword, and bore my brother’s body home, to his mother’s weeping. He was the youngest of us, and I the oldest. But I hadn’t saved him, I hadn’t given him what he asked of me at his end. And the curse rooted in me.”

  “When was this?” Bran asked him.

  “In the year 1683.”

  “Man, you’re old.” Even as he said it lightly, Sawyer put a hand on Doyle’s shoulder, squeezed. “Sorry about your brother.”

  “You would regret it if you’d given him what he asked,” Annika said. “You would carry that as you carry the regret of not doing so. It wasn’t a battle you could win.”

  “It’s done, and long ago.” He looked over at Sasha. “You think I should’ve told you this before. You’re the first I’ve been with, fought with, on this quest. The habit of secrecy is hard to break. I can tell you that after tonight, after the battle, I’d decided to break that habit and tell you, as I’ve told you now. I don’t blame you for not believing that.”

  “I do believe it.” She let out a sigh. “And now, we know, each of us, who we are, and what we have. The real unity will come from that. I believe that, too.”

  “Can we take a minute?” Sawyer asked. “To just lay this out. We’ve got a witch, a seer, a werewolf—I like the word, okay?” he said with a laugh before Riley could growl at him. “A mermaid, an immortal, and a time and space traveler. Think about it. We’re like the freaking Avengers. That bitch-goddess is going to lose, big-time.”

  “On that really excellent note—” Riley handed him a piece of paper. “The coordinates for our digs in Capri. Why don’t we do what we have to do—get that boat out of here, get the jeep back, clean up our mess—and head out for round two?”

  “All about it, and you know what? It’s damn well going to work. We’ve got it going,” Sawyer decided. “We’ll close up shop. Next stop, Capri.”

  They saw to the practicalities, the duties.

  In the deep night with its swimming moon, Sasha looked out one last time, over the sea. Bran took her hand, lifted it to his lips in a way she knew would always make her smile.

  “We’ll come back one day, as you said.”

  “I’d like that. I’d like to stand on the promontory with you again, under the stars, on a warm summer night when everything’s quiet, and as far as we can see, there’s peace.”

  “You’re my light, Sasha. My star and my peace.” He touched his lips to hers. “Are you ready?”

  “I am. For everything.”

  Together they went down to the terrace to join the others.

  “Apollo’s snoring inside. The neighbor’s coming to take care of him first thing in the morning, feed the cluckers.” Riley glanced at her watch. “Just a couple hours now. I’m going to miss that dog.”

  “Dawn’s close. If we’re going to do this,” Doyle said, “we should do it now.”

  “Bring it in, everybody.” Sawyer gestured for them to move closer. “Grab hands and hold on to your hats. This is going to be a hell of a ride.”

  Sasha looked up into Bran’s face, laughed.

  And it was a hell of a ride.

  * * *

  In her cave, Nerezza seethed. She’d eased her pain, but no matter how much blood, how much potion, how much will, the streak of gray remained snaking through her dark hair. Lines fanned out from her eyes and mouth.

  She broke another mirror, and cursed. And her tears ran like blood down her face.

  They would pay for marring her beauty. They would pay for defying her. No matter what world they ran to, no matter what magicks they devised, she would follow, she would destroy.

  She would not rest until the stars shone for only her.

  Picking up her globe, she ran a hand over it. There were ways, many ways. She had only to choose another.

  As she looked, as she watched, she smiled. And began to see, began to plot. Began to laugh.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  The Obsession

  by Nora Roberts

 
Available April 2016 from Berkley Books

  Having a houseful of men had some advantages. Xander and Kevin carted out Naomi’s shipping boxes and the smaller box of prints she’d framed for potential sale locally.

  It left her free to carry her camera bag.

  “Thanks. I’ll get these shipped off this morning.”

  Xan tapped Naomi’s camera bag. “Going to work, too?”

  “I am. I’ll take an hour or two before I head to town.”

  “Where?” When her eyebrows raised, he kept it casual. “Just wondering.”

  “Down below the bluff. We’ll see if the rain washed in anything interesting. It’s a pretty spring morning. Boats should be out.”

  “Good luck with that.” He yanked her in for a kiss, gave the dog a quick rub. “See you later.”

  She’d be within sight of the house, he thought as he swung onto his bike. And he’d already had a short, private conversation with Kevin about keeping an eye out.

  Best he could do, but he wouldn’t be altogether easy until they found out what happened to Marla.

  * * *

  Naomi considered taking the car. She could drive nearly a half a mile closer, then take a track down through the woods—since she wanted shots there first—and make her way down to the shoreline.

  But quiet area or not, she didn’t like the idea of leaving her car on the side of the road with her prints locked inside.

  She got the leash, which immediately had Tag racing in the opposite direction. Since she had his number, she only shrugged and started down the curve of road.

  He slunk after her.

  She stopped, took a dog cookie out of her pocket. “You want this, you wear this until we’re off the road.” She held out the leash.

  Dislike for the leash lost to greed.

  He strained against the leash, tugged it, did his best to tangle himself in it. Naomi clipped it to her belt with a carabiner, stopped to frame in some white wildflowers the rain had teased open like stars on the side of the road.

  He behaved better in the forest, occupying himself by sniffing the air, nosing the ground.

  Naomi took carefully angled shots of a nurse log surrounded by ferns and blanketed with lichen and moss—yellows, rusty reds, greens on wood studded with mushrooms that spread like alien creatures. A pair of trees, easily ten feet high, rose from it, the roots wrapped around the decaying log as if in an embrace.

  New life, she thought, from the dead and dying.

  The long rain had soaked the green so it tinted the light. It seduced wildflowers to dance in sunbeam and shadow. It scented the air with earth and pine and secrets.

  After an hour she nearly headed back, left the shoreline for another day. But she wanted the sparkle of sun on the water after the misty damp of the forest. She wanted the deeper, rougher green of those knuckles of land, the strong gray of rock against the blues.

  Another hour, she decided, then she’d pack it up, run her errands.

  Thrilled to be off the leash, Tag raced ahead. She turned onto the bluff trail, one he knew well now. He barked, danced in place whenever she stopped to take other pictures.

  “Don’t rush me.” But she could smell the water now, too, and quickened her pace.

  The trail angled down, and proved muddy enough from the rains that she had to slow again. Considering the mud, she realized she’d now have to wash the damn dog before running into town.

  “Didn’t think of that, did you?” she muttered, and used handy branches to support herself on the slick dirt.

  All worth it. Worth it all in that one moment when the water and pockets of land opened up through the trees.

  She balanced herself, risked a spill to get shots of the view through low-hanging branches with their fernlike needles.

  Down below it would be bright, sparkling, but here, with the angle, the fan of branches, the inlet looked mysterious. Like a secret revealed through a magic door.

  Satisfied, she picked her way down to where the dog barked like a maniac.

  “Leave the birds alone! I want the birds.”

  She scraped her muddy boots on rippling rock, climbed over them. Caught the diamond glint she’d hoped for, and happily, just beyond the channel, a boat with red sails.

  She blocked out the barking dog until she got what she wanted, until the red sails eased into frame. When he raced back to her, she ignored him, took a long shot of the inlet at the twin forks of water drifting by the floating hump of green.

  “Look, if you’re going to tag along, you just have to wait until I’m done before— What have you got? Where did you get that?”

  He stood, tail ticking, and a shoe in his mouth.

  A woman’s shoe, she noted. Open toes, long skinny heel in cotton candy pink.

  “You’re not taking that home. You can just forget about that.”

  When he dropped it at her feet, she stepped around it. “And I’m not touching it.”

  As she picked her way down, he grabbed up the shoe, raced ahead again.

  She stepped down onto the coarse sand, the bumpy cobbles of the narrow strip. Tag sent up a fierce spat of barking, a series of high-pitched whines that had her spinning around to snap at him.

  “Cut it out! What’s wrong with you this morning?”

  She lowered her camera with hands gone to ice.

  The dog stood at the base of the bluff, barking at something sprawled on the skinny swatch of sand. She made herself walk closer until her legs began to tremble, until the weight fell on her chest.

  She went down to her knees, fighting for breath, staring at the body.

  Marla Roth lay, wrists bound, her hands outstretched as though reaching for something she’d never hold.

  The bright, sparkling light went gray; the air filled with a roar, a wild, high wave.

  Then the dog licked her face, whined, tried to nose his head under her limp hand. The weight eased, left a terrible ache in its place.

  “Okay. Okay. Stay here.” Her hands shook as she unlooped his leash, clipped it on him. “Stay with me. God, oh God. Just hold on. Can’t be sick. Won’t be sick.”

  Setting her teeth, she pulled out her phone.

  * * *

  She didn’t want to stay; she couldn’t leave. It didn’t matter that the police had told her to stay where she was, to touch nothing. She could have ignored that. But she couldn’t leave Marla alone.

  But she went back to the rocks, climbed up enough to sit so the air could wash over her clammy face. The dog paced, tugged on the leash, barked until she hooked an arm around him, pulled him down to sit beside her.

  It calmed them both, at least a little. Calmed her enough that she realized she could do the one other thing she wanted. She took out her phone again, called Xander.

  “Hey.” His voice pitched over loud music, noisy machines.

  “Xander.”

  It only took one word, the sound in her voice on a single word, to have his stomach knotting.

  “What happened? Are you hurt? Where are you?”

  “I’m not hurt. I’m down below the bluff. I . . . It’s Marla. She’s . . . I called the police. I found her. I called the police, and they’re coming.”

  “I’m on my way. Call Kevin. He can get down there faster, but I’m coming now.”

  “It’s all right. I’m all right. I can wait. I can hear the sirens. I can already hear them.”

  “Ten minutes.” Though he hated to, he ended the call, jammed the phone in his pocket, swung a leg over his bike.

  On the rock, Naomi stared at the phone before remembering to put it away. Not in shock, she thought—she remembered how it felt to go into shock. Just a little dazed, a little out of herself.

  “We have to wait,” she told the dog. “They have to get down the trail, so we have to wait. Someone hurt her. They hurt her, and they must have raped her. They took her clothes off. Her shoes.”

  She swallowed hard, pressed her face against Tag’s fur.

  “And they hurt her.
You can see her throat. The bruises around her throat. I know what that means, I know what that means.”

  The panic wanted to rear back, but she bore down, forced herself to take careful breaths. “Not going to break.”

  The dog smelled of the rain that had dripped from wet trees, of wet ground, of good, wet dog. She used it to keep centered. As long as she had the dog, right here, she could get through it.

  When she heard them coming, she drew more breaths, then got to her feet. “I’m here,” she called out.

  The chief broke through the trees first, followed by a uniformed deputy carrying a case. Then another with a camera strapped around his neck.

  She couldn’t see their eyes behind their sunglasses.

  “She’s over there.”

  His head turned. She heard him let out a breath of his own before he looked back at her. “I need you to wait here.”

  “Yes, I can wait here.”

  She sat again—her legs still weren’t altogether steady—and looked out to the water, to its sparkling beauty. After a time, Tag relaxed enough to sit down, lean against her.

  She heard someone coming, too fast for safety on the steep, muddy track. Tag sprang up again, wagged everywhere in happy hello.

  “They want me to wait here,” she told Xander.

  He knelt down beside her, pulled her in.

  She could have broken then—oh, it would have been so easy to break. And so weak.

  He eased back, skimmed a hand over her face. “I’m going to take you up to the house.”

  “I’m supposed to wait.”

  “Fuck that. They can talk to you up at the house.”

  “I’d rather do it here. I’d rather not bring this into the house until I have to. I shouldn’t have called you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I called before I . . .” She trailed off as the chief walked back to them.

  “Xander.”

  “I called him after I called you. I was pretty shaky.”

  “Understandable.”

  “I . . . I’m sorry, the dog . . . I didn’t see her at first. I was taking pictures, and I didn’t see her. He had a shoe—her shoe, I think. I just thought . . . I’m sorry, I know we weren’t supposed to touch anything, but I didn’t see her