Lethal Cure

by S A Gardner

  I didn’t feel the sting, just a sickening expansion—the rush of fluid squeezing between my muscle fibers. I looked up. Jake had shot me with my tranquilizer. He looked down on me in regret.

  “As much as I would have loved to see you finish them, I had to stop you. I’m sorry to sedate you, but I want you with me in this historic moment and I just don’t have time to talk this through, to convince you that you don’t have to fight me.”

  Two questions burned holes in my fogging mind. Damian. And how he’d survived, in Russia. I asked the second.

  He stroked my cheek, bent to carry my going-limp body. “I survived by understanding you. I anticipated you’d try to stop me, even if you had to kill me. I expected you’d use the last poison you used on our common enemy. I was ready with the antidote. And a few others, in case you surprised me. I pretended I’d shoot to kill, forcing you to do the same. It was the only way to break the stalemate. But my gamble was very precarious. You really gave me a lethal dose and I was barely able to take the antidote before convulsions robbed me of voluntary movement and my heart stopped. I nearly died of exposure as I recovered. The whole ordeal left me with an even more intense appreciation of you.”

  I moaned. “Oh, Jake…” Why did you have to be so hopelessly warped? Such a perfect devil? Try to kill me already! Give me cause for peace of mind when I kill you again….

  Absurdities frolicked at the periphery of my vision, my consciousness. Heralds of la-la land. Blotches of darkness replaced those, encroaching from all sides, vying for my center.

  The last thing I felt was cool, soft sensations. His lips. Like that first time they’d ever touched me. Gentle, worshipful, at my pulse—my slowing pulse.

  Thirty-Two

  Something hard and dry was impacted in my mouth.

  A running motor sputtered in my chest.

  My tongue, my heart.

  Antidote side effects. Plus the sarin’s lingering effects. Still way better than the alternative.

  I tossed on my side, bound, overheating, dry mouthed and skinned, in my captors’ hurtling truck.

  The crashing waves of my physical symptoms were parting, a tide no less brutal rushing in. Relief. Damian. He was alive.

  And he hadn’t charged after me. Thankfully. Only he could get the others to safety. Yet—leaving me to my fate must have been hard for him. I could only imagine how it must be tearing him apart. Damian—my ultimate protector…

  Then agony supplanted all. Di—her gaiety, vitality, genius—gone. Extinguished in a second. Hadn’t even been able to spare her a look as she died. And the others—Rafael, Al, Savvy—how bad were they?

  I’d never know. But the answer I needed now was not who these masked men were, or why they’d attacked us, but why they were keeping me alive. Did they want something from me? What? I’d find out.

  First, I’d get more comfortable.

  My hands were tied—in front. I curled on myself, pretending distress. No one bothered to look at me. Good. It was also good they’d kept my boots on. Wouldn’t have reason to suspect them. Fisk had designed them too well.

  No wonder he’d been the Magnificent Fisk, the greatest magician since Houdini. Should still be. I should just be thankful fate had let me find him in that alley before he’d bled to death. Ever since, he’d bestowed on me the magic that had saved my life and those of others a hundred times over.

  I felt for the edges of my boots, pushed in the right places in the right sequence, extending the hidden blades. My hand ropes went easily. Had to remove the blade to do my feet. Took a while. Far longer than on Damian’s restraints-escape watch. A whiff of nerve gas coursing in my system with atropine dousing its fires hadn’t been a factor then.

  Too long later, the rest of my weapons in hand, still curled, I prepared, ordered my senses, analyzed.

  Those men were no local garden-variety mercenaries. They dressed the part, sure, but I knew high-end assassins when I saw them. So were they the ones who’d held the paras’ strings, and then had cut them? Had they been back to check their handiwork and burn the place to the ground, stumbled on us, decided to leave no witnesses behind?

  If so, were they still pursuing my team to complete the cleanup? Damian had already wiped out a decent number. But what if they’d been too many? Would they overwhelm him, with him injured, losing blood…?

  What will you fight for, go back to, if he’s gone?

  Ice spread, deadening my will— No.

  He’d taught me about that, too. Fuel your anger. Never let the enemy win. No reason needed to keep on fighting beyond that.

  Now think!

  If they hadn’t wanted witnesses, why take me? Their bosses liked to play with women hostages? Hmm, unconvincing, but what else was there? Time to ask.

  I called out over the truck noises. “Hey! You speak English? What do you want with me?”

  Silence. Not encouraging. Had no time for coyness. Maybe some goading? “Is this about your buddies? So how many of you have I killed? I counted five outside the ML, but didn’t get the number inside it. Won’t you be nice boys and tell me the real numbers—killer to killer?”

  One exploded to his feet, charged, kicked me hard between my scapulas. The dim truck turned black. I think his colleagues dragged him off. I lay gasping, waiting out the breaker of pain.

  So he spoke English. So I had gotten them ticked. But not talking. Well, no info, no reason to stay.

  Keeping my untied hands between my knees, I took inventory. Three men—every one as big as Damian, guns held loosely, eyes on me now. Had to wait until they looked away. Had two blow darts left, a few bo shuriken. No way would I get the three of them. Had no room to dodge gunfire here.

  But if I could get two, in silence, with darts, engage the last one—or maybe wait until they’d taken me wherever—no. Finding me untied would buy me inescapable shackles, and a thorough search and stripping of my means of escape and weapons.

  Do it now.

  The moment their eyes turned away, I blew the first dart.

  Then it all went wrong.

  The damn guy cried out, and they all turned on me, guns first. Their fingers were already on triggers as I got another one, got the bo shuriken lodged in the last’s throat.

  They were all as good as dead, just too far from dying. And I was too close. They’d still pull the trigger and I’d be dead.

  Explosions ripped into my eardrums, reverberated in my flesh…. Was this how dying felt?

  But no—this jarring combo of sound and sensation was not bullets exploding my insides. This was a shock wave, a real explosion, close enough to rock our truck, blowing it on its side.

  Damian.

  It had to be him.

  I hurtled into one enemy with the heaving and crashing of the truck. Another hit me as we all slammed down on the sidewall. Damian—he’d bought me a reprieve. No—he’d saved me.

  He was outside the truck, bellowing in Spanish. Bet he was telling them to let me go or else.

  Problem was, the one on top of me couldn’t comply, was going spastic, starting to convulse, as was the one beneath me. I struggled, shoved his deadweight off somehow, found the one with the throat injury on his feet still, facing the now sideways door. It was opening. He’d shoot Damian the moment he appeared.

  I exploded into a run, rammed him in the back just as Damian opened the door and took our hurtling bodies right in his face. Or rather, on the point of his gun. He was ready for an attack, used our momentum, threw himself backward, hurled us over him in a huge arc. I doubted he realized my and the enemy’s current Siamese-twins state….

  I cushioned the mercenary’s landing, my bones pureeing my flesh, the jarring impact paralyzing me. Still my mind was streaking, screaming—move.

  Before I could, Damian was on top of us, then blood gushed on my cheek. He’d finished my job, slashed the mercenary’s throat, rolled him off me, dragged me up.

  Then he dragged me behind him to the vanguard trailer, an upright one—formerly
Rafael’s. Damian had already disposed of its new occupants. We climbed over their bodies, shoving them out. Damian took the wheel, threw me two guns and a remote control—more detonations? He’d rigged the rest of the convoy? I looked in the side mirror, saw them catching up with us. In a second they’ll realize exactly what happened, would pursue us.

  His grim “Give ’em hell!” answered me.

  I did.

  Thirty-Three

  “You enjoy sending me to hell, don’t you.”

  It was night. At least, I thought so. Hard to tell this deep in the Andean foothill jungles.

  And I’d just been congratulating myself that we’d shaken off our pursuers, the few who’d remained, and were now untraceable.

  Wanna bet this yell would change that fast?

  I blinked with the force of Damian’s up-close, sudden fury.

  “Steady that flashlight if you don’t want your ear sewed into your scalp!” I grumbled. “Is this about suturing you up without local?”

  His answering growl dissolved on a hiss when my needle dipped another talon of pain into his ripped, inflamed scalp.

  No wonder I’d thought his head had burst. With one of the body’s richest blood supplies, scalp wounds were veritable fountains. His was bad. He’d lost a lot of blood before he’d stemmed the hemorrhage. Thank God every vehicle in our convoy was equipped for stand-alone survival, from extensive supplies to a complete emergency kit.

  Uh—not so complete. Lidocaine was inexplicably missing, therefore this unintentionally sadistic situation.

  “You went kamikaze on me, again.” A string of apoplectic Spanish through clamped teeth, then more hissed English. “Dios—you used the sarin gas on them, didn’t you. On yourself!”

  “It was a calculated risk. I’m fine, am I not? And cut me some slack—I offed enough for you to get away.”

  His tirade went on. “You incapacitated yourself, made me watch them take you, forced me to protect the others, to leave you behind. Dios, hell is probably a better place than the hours it took getting the others to safety.”

  He’d told me everything. Uh—I’d wrung it from him. Al and Rafael had multiple injuries. Thigh, shoulder, chest, abdomen. Nothing fatal. If only because they’d made their escape in the STS, had had access to top-flight doctors and facilities. Anyone else would have died.

  They’d had another minor raid, an unrelated one, which Damian had dealt with, with excessive force. Our enemies hadn’t pursued them. Because of Damian’s presence, I was certain. They’d found out how lethal he was. Could be they’d taken me to keep him at bay. Stumbling on the one thing ensuring their fate was sealed, really.

  “Then came driving back, planning my attack, going insane wondering…” His hand shot out to mine, the one with the needle holder. “Did anyone lay a hand on you?”

  I extricated my hand, placed the last suture, tied, cut, going through the motions, bandaging his wound, injecting him with antibiotic cover and tetanus toxoid, upping his fluid replacement.

  His hand convulsed around my arm, demanding an answer.

  “And you’re asking why? So you’d kill them? You already did, if you remember. I did, too, by the way.” And now that survival was no longer driving me, the memories, the lives I’d snuffed, no matter how deservedly, twisted inside me. I turned from him, nausea dragging me under.

  “Madre de Dios, they did touch you!”

  A giggle choked me at his grotesque misinterpretation. “As if I’d let a man touch me—when he’s not trying to kick me, or kill me—other than you… Hey!”

  He ripped the cannula out of his vein with the fluid delivery line, reached for me. Then I was all over him.

  Yeah, me. I pounced first, straddled him. Hard. Then we were fighting together for a faster descent, a deeper surrender, a fuller invasion.

  I could have lost you. An inch and you would have died. Again. All it’ll take is an inch and I’ll lose you—and I can’t….

  I cried out as his mouth collided into mine, feeding me his anger, his dread and hunger—his life. My blood thickened, rolls of thunder propelling it in raging rapids in my arteries.

  Had to hide him, inside me, keep him from harm, forever. Had to burrow into his refuge, safe from anguish and fear and helplessness. No limits, no barriers.

  I tore my lips away from our fusion, keened. Needed an outlet. He gave it to me, freeing me from clothes, shackles, doubts, savage hands closing on fistfuls of my flesh, silencing the screams. I squashed myself into his palms, tore at him, bore down onto his thrusts, felt him almost inside me through our clothes.

  I struggled with him, offered him my body, snatching at his, panted it all to him, wept it. “Want you—inside me, Damian, always inside me—if I lose you, I don’t want to live….”

  It rose off him like a tidal wave, blasted through me, the brunt of his reciprocated addiction. The mirror image of my messy, scary need.

  Couldn’t survive it. Couldn’t survive without it.

  I opened my eyes and let him flay me with that need, all the compartments of my being melting into one chaotic space.

  This love business was torture. An abyss. Permeating, unremitting, endless. I hurled myself, no longer me, a giant need, a driving frenzy to shelter him, own him, cede all to him.

  Yup, I’d made it. Gone nuts. And I’d called him crazy once, called those who chose to love fellow warriors so. It was sheer psychosis, inviting it, surrendering to it, living with the acrid taste of torment, of dread, existing with incapacitating anxiety lacing every breath, tainting every thought, polluting every moment.

  Welcome to the ranks of the lovesick, St. James.

  His hands convulsed in my bruised flesh, his litany of adoration in my battered heart. Who was I kidding? I’d joined them long ago. There hadn’t been a time when I didn’t go insane thinking he might go where I’d never reach him.

  My hair was free, flowing around us. He tugged and caressed the waves, drowning us both in stimulation, in frenzy, his hands and teeth savaging me with pleasure.

  I rose, quaking, tearing at the last barrier, his pants, and he crushed me to him, filled his mouth with my breast, filled me with his fingers.

  Ignoring my “No—you!” he kept me still, suckling, probing me, knowing just how, where, how fast and hard, twisting the pleasure tighter. I struggled, a lost battle, every thrash another bolt of stimulation. Then his thumb whispered sure circles on the knot where all my nerves converged and I imploded on screeching torment, swell after swell of release buffeting me.

  I collapsed around him, raw, jerking in aftershocks, lost, enervated. Mad.

  A wavering hiss finally escaped me. “If I locate my voluntary controls—you’re dead meat.”

  He pressed me onto his erection, thrust at my flowing heat. “You’re killing me just fine.”

  He was, too. Relief didn’t even slow the pangs. I hadn’t needed release. It was the final invasion and captivation that I needed. The admission.

  “I haven’t done anything—yet!” I staggered off him, released him, captured him in shaking hands and mouth, groaned at his magnificence, at the intimacy, having him throb and buck and writhe in my care, my power, my hunger. Then he pushed me away.

  Trembling, stunned, I looked up, found his eyes squeezed, his teeth bared. Ouch. He looked in real agony.

  “¿Está usted loco, hombre?” He barked a laugh at my Spanish attempt. “I’m feeling and doing what you always say you want me to. Not to mention you’re bursting out of your skin.”

  What was I talking for? I pounced on him again. He roared, his hips flexing, plunging him deeper into my mouth. Incredible. Experiencing him, all his power and lust and dependence made hard flesh, filling me in a no less profound way. And how I needed his surrender, his pleasure.

  This time, this way. Next time, the hard way. The hard ride. He’d better make it rough.

  All I got was a rough heave spilling me off him.

  “I don’t want relief,” he grunted. Yeah, right. “O
kay—I do, and if it was any other time, I’d take it this way.”

  I punched his arm. “You never take it that way, never give it to me, not back in Russia, not before this mission.”

  “I want to be inside you, feeling the pleasure tearing through you around me, real-time. You arouse me too much for oral sex. And I don’t want you returning the favor.”

  “Favor? You think driving me to orgasm was one? What exactly didn’t you get in ‘dead meat?’”

  Before he could move, I mounted him again, wrapped both hands around his shaft, slid him along my slick, swollen flesh, absorbed his shudders, vibrated to their frequency. I rose to scale his length, rammed him at my entrance, cried out with the sensation. The concept. Never could get over the sheer basic brilliance of it. The dependence. The fusion.

  He still kept us from having it all. His arms trembled as he stopped me sinking down on him.

  He was panting now, the man who didn’t even breathe hard after a ten-mile run. “I may be loco—but you think I’d stop for—any reason other than—your safety?”

  What did he…oh! Protection. Never even occurred to me.

  He slumped, his hands releasing me. “Local anesthesia isn’t the only missing emergency article. I could kill myself for not carrying some condoms. I probably already did just that. Guess I despaired of anything happening….”

  “You mean anything like this?” I rose, bore down on him, engulfed his shaft within my body on the next labored breath.

  Pain at his abrupt, passive invasion ripped through me, a spiked cry shredding my throat. It felt like the first time. I’d been ready then, was readier now. Still not ready for him.

  Him. This time for real. No barriers. Beyond description. His bare flesh in mine. So this was how it felt.

  How could I ever have it any other way?

  He went mute, motionless, breathless. I bore down on him harder, pierced myself with him, my mind overloading. “Damian, do it—love me….”