Scent of Darkness

by Christina Dodd

  Yes, the Cowardly Lion seemed a very sensible character to be. But Jasha said that wasn’t one of her choices.

  Bait or dead meat.

  She trudged after him.

  At once twilight became night. At night, the forest smelled richer; the earth exhaled the scent of last autumn’s leaves; the trees groaned and spoke, spicing the air with pine. She couldn’t see anything, and she stumbled and cursed.

  Of course, what did she expect? She wore Jasha’s hiking boots padded with three pairs of socks, and her feet were big, but not that big. She wore a wide-brimmed camouflage hat. She wore his wide-sleeved silk T-shirt, which on him would be tight and on her flapped loosely, and over that, his camouflage shirt. His camouflage pants were held up by a belt cinched tightly around her waist, and bungee cords cinched the bottoms of the legs against the boots.

  She’d wanted in his pants, but not like this. He’d wrapped a bandage around her hurt hand, then put his gloves on her to protect the bandage. He’d turned up the cuffs on his shirt, and he’d buckled a hunting vest, filled with things like compasses and flashlights, tightly around her. Because no matter how tall she was, he was taller. His shoulders were broader. She looked like a little girl wearing her big brother’s clothes, and when she thought of her plans for long evenings lounging by the fireplace, wineglass in hand, an adoring Jasha at her feet, she wanted to throw something. The canteen that hung on her shoulder strap, perhaps, or the knife he insisted she carry strapped to her leg.

  The most humiliating part was—she wore his underwear. All she’d brought from Napa were lacy thongs, and he had said, ‘‘You are not traipsing through the woods in butt floss. Here.’’ He’d tossed her a pair of serviceable cotton briefs.

  She’d let them fall at her feet while she stared reproachfully at him.

  ‘‘It’s either that or you’re going commando,’’ he’d said.

  So she wore the briefs—and cursed the fate that had sent her here.

  Of course, she knew fate was innocent. Ann had acted on her own dreams and desires; she was the one responsible for the men’s underwear, the trek through a midnight forest, and the realization that merging with a man involved more than flowers and romance. With Jasha, the merging meant that she had adopted his family. She’d longed to be adopted, not adopt! And she’d had to save his life; the Chinese said that when a person saved a life, she was responsible for it. So if they were right, then she faced responsibilities she had never imagined.

  She stumbled again.

  ‘‘Your eyes will adjust to the darkness pretty soon.’’ He put his arm around her.

  ‘‘The middle of my back feels . . . itchy.’’ Uneasily, she shrugged her shoulders. ‘‘No one’s watching us, are they?’’

  ‘‘Unless all of my senses have deceived me, there’s only one cousin in the vicinity. He thinks he buried a tracking device in me—and hey, I do have it right here in this plastic bag—and that he’s got the upper hand. He thinks my father is weak and my mother is a harlot. He thinks my brothers and my sister and I are all happy, bloated fools.’’ Ann heard Jasha’s teeth snap together. ‘‘We will show them the truth.’’

  The truth. She shivered. What truth could she show anyone? She didn’t have extra-special senses or a clever strategy or unique abilities. All she had was a birthmark, a birthmark she managed to forget about . . . most of the time.

  Except now. Right now, for the first time ever, she could feel a faint sizzle under her skin.

  Why? What had changed? What had Jasha done to her while she slept?

  What had she done to herself?

  ‘‘You’re looking forward to a fight,’’ she said.

  ‘‘I’d rather fight than wait, but I can do both.’’

  ‘‘I’m more of a Let’s negotiate kind of person.’’ She cursed the hopeful tone of her voice.

  ‘‘No one negotiates with a Varinski,’’ he said flatly.

  ‘‘What’s a Varinski? Some kind of gun?’’

  ‘‘The family name is Varinski. When my parents fled Russia, they changed their name to Wilder. They wanted a new start in a New World.’’ He sounded frustrated. Angry. ‘‘And they got it, but the Old World has followed us here.’’

  ‘‘At least you’re not a happy bloated fool.’’ She was really working to find the silver lining.

  He chuckled and hugged her. ‘‘I am happy. Can you see better now?’’

  She could. Still not well, but well enough not to fall on her face. ‘‘Not yet.’’ She liked walking with his arm around her. ‘‘Why aren’t you a happy, bloated fool?’’

  ‘‘The children of immigrants don’t dare become bloated. Our parents have plans for us, and heaven forbid we not fulfill them. Talk of the Old Country is enough to motivate any of us.’’

  ‘‘So you’re successful because your parents demanded it.’’

  ‘‘No, because they expect no less. What about you, Ann? Why are you successful?’’

  His light tone didn’t fool her. He wanted to know who she was, where she’d come from, who her people were.

  And she had no intention of telling him. ‘‘I’m successful? I don’t think so. I’m just an assistant.’’

  ‘‘You’re not just anything. With the right staff, you could expand Wilder Wines into a worldwide corporation. That’s the kind of brain you have. So why didn’t you go to business school? Why are you working for me?’’

  Now she was sorry she walked with his arm around her. It was dark; probably he couldn’t see her expression. But it was equally possible he could smell her discomfort, and she feared he could feel her reserve in the stiff set of her shoulders. ‘‘I’m looking for a rich husband, and I thought you were promising. Now I’m not so sure—I’m allergic to pet dander and I don’t like camping trips.’’ That came out more curtly than she’d intended. But she wasn’t sorry.

  She’d told strangers about her past before. Their reactions were always extreme—pity and curiosity. Usually they thought her background gave them the license to interrogate her, and then they edged away, as if bad fortune was contagious, or as if she’d done something to deserve her past.

  Perhaps it was true. Perhaps, just perhaps, she had been marked by God as a warning to others to stay away.

  Perhaps Jasha wouldn’t care. But perhaps he would, and it seemed smarter, or at least safer, to keep her secrets. ‘‘I can see now,’’ she said, then told herself she was relieved when he let her go and walked beside her.

  The Douglas firs were massive chunks of darkness blotting out the dim light, and the cedars scented the air. When she looked up, she could see the pine tops waving at the chilly stars. Funny, how often she marveled at people who imagined the stars were friendly, concerned with human destiny. As a child, far too often, she’d wished on them and had her wishes ignored. The stars were far away and indifferent, and anyone who believed otherwise was a fool.

  She only wished she were still that kind of fool.

  ‘‘As far back as I can recall, I have memories of walking in the woods.’’ Jasha kept his tone conversational, and he seemed unfazed by her detachment. ‘‘Before I could toddle, my father took me in his arms and walked the perimeter of our lands to show me the places where bad people could hide. The next year, I walked our lands all by myself, holding his hand while he carried my brother Rurik. The year after that, he carried Adrik. And finally, ten years later, we took turns carrying Firebird.’’

  She couldn’t help but respond to the affection in his voice. ‘‘Your dad sounds like a great guy.’’

  ‘‘He is. He’s from the Old Country, and he’s a stern disciplinarian who held us to high standards, but he loves us and never for a minute did he let us doubt that.’’

  When Jasha had told her they had to go out and be bait so he could save his family, she’d realized she should have been grateful to be an orphan.

  But when he talked like this, giving her bits of family life that sounded so Brady Bunch, an undefined hunger clawed at
her insides, and she had to bite back her envy.

  Jasha continued. ‘‘Before we turned—’’

  ‘‘Before you turned? What do you mean, before you turned?’’

  ‘‘Ah. Well.’’ He sounded as if he was gearing up for a lecture. ‘‘When a Varinski’s a child, he’s just a child. It’s puberty that brings out the, um—’’

  ‘‘Beast in you?’’ she suggested wryly.

  ‘‘Exactly what my mother calls it.’’ He spoke with humor. ‘‘Like adolescence isn’t hard enough. Pimples, inappropriate hard-ons, and excess body hair. Lots of excess body hair. And a tattoo that appears out of nowhere—and let me tell you, when Miss Joyce got a glimpse of that, she was one cranky teacher.’’

  They were walking inland and uphill at a steady rate, and she thought if they kept going in this direction, they’d have to cross the highway soon.

  ‘‘From the time we could toddle, my father taught us woodsmanship. He taught us to be suspicious of strangers. He taught us to track and to know if we’re being tracked. He taught us everything handed down from generations of Varinskis, and man, was he tough! He was our Boy Scout leader—the guys in our troop could survive on nothing. And prepared! We were always prepared. He used to set traps for us. One time my brother and I were coming home from school, and I stepped into a snare. It grabbed my feet and swung me in the air upside down. I hit the stub of a branch on the way up. That’s what gave me this scar.’’ Jasha stopped, took her hand, and guided it to his cheek.

  Ann was well familiar with that pale scar—she had made up Don Juan-type fantasies about that scar— but she couldn’t resist inching her fingers along its length, and knowing at least the last day’s ordeals had earned her the right to touch his face, feel the texture of his skin and the smooth burr of his just-shaved chin. ‘‘It could have taken your eye out!’’

  ‘‘My mother said that, too. She was mad at my father. I never saw her so mad. She laid into him— he let her, too, and then he said, ‘Ruyshka, better me scar his face than the demons of hell cast his soul into the pit.’ ’’

  ‘‘That’s . . . sort of over-the-top.’’ But she wasn’t surprised. When she’d spoken to Konstantine on the phone, he’d had a deep baritone and a way of making every phrase seem sensational and dramatic.

  ‘‘That’s the trouble. It’s not. He told us over and over the Varinskis would come, and we had to be prepared.’’ Jasha’s voice got gravelly. ‘‘He would say I wasn’t prepared enough. He would say that the long peace had made me complacent, and that I got what I deserved. And I guess he was right.’’

  Shyly, Ann put her arm around Jasha’s waist and hugged. She knew he was thinking about his father in the hospital.

  ‘‘But I’ll never forgive myself for the hurt my negligence caused my family. And you.’’ He hugged her back. ‘‘And you.’’

  ‘‘You didn’t—’’

  ‘‘Don’t lie to soothe my feelings. You came dressed to seduce me, and you got . . . this.’’ She felt him gesture at their surroundings.

  ‘‘The stars are very romantic,’’ she said.

  As if she’d caught him by surprise, he choked, then chuckled. ‘‘Papa’s the reason I have clothes stashed in the forest. Everywhere I’m going to take you, there’s provisions and blankets. You’ll be warm. You’ll be dry. You won’t go hungry.’’

  She was surprised he even brought it up. ‘‘I know you’ll provide for me.’’ That he wouldn’t had never occurred to her.

  He stopped. He kissed her. ‘‘There isn’t another woman I’d want with me on this journey. And— here’s the highway.’’

  They stepped out onto Highway 101.

  ‘‘We’ll go south for a few minutes, then turn inland, ’’ he said.

  ‘‘South? That’s great.’’ South to her meant towns and freeways and civilization and, eventually, California.

  ‘‘For now’’—he walked back into the woods and came out pushing a small motorbike—‘‘let’s give the Varinski a workout.’’

  Chapter 17

  Six hours later, when the motorbike ran out of gas and the feeble headlight died, Ann didn’t know where they were. She knew only that she was sick of hanging on to Jasha’s waist, her butt vibrating as the roads turned to trails and the trails turned to tracks, all leading upward.

  ‘‘That should do it.’’ Jasha sounded satisfied as he helped her off and dropped the kickstand.

  She rubbed her rear and stomped her feet, trying to get some feeling back into her legs, and looked around. It was still night, the longest night in the history of the world, and this place looked like all the other places they’d been: wild, forest covered, and dark. Really, really dark. As in never-seen-an-electric-light dark. Her eyes hurt from staring, and she didn’t know whether they were open or shut.

  ‘‘It’ll take the Varinski two days to track us here, and by then we’ll be pretty close to my choice of Armageddon.’’ Jasha’s deep voice, silken with menace, made her glad he wasn’t hunting her.

  ‘‘You want to choose your battlefield.’’

  ‘‘More important, I don’t want him to know I have chosen it. I want him to think he’s forced the issue.’’ Jasha was only a presence in the dark, but she heard him lift the backpacks off the handlebars.

  ‘‘What if he’s a hawk instead of a wolf? Can’t he find us faster?’’ The farther they traveled, the later the night, the colder it had grown, and when she stripped off one glove and touched her face, it felt stiff, frozen.

  ‘‘You’re beginning to think like a Wilder.’’ A compliment, no doubt. ‘‘But I think he’s got fur. There’s no smell of feathers about him.’’ Jasha sounded intent, weighing the odds, maneuvering like a general with an army of one. ‘‘If he is a bird of prey, that’s to our advantage. He’ll have to cover a lot of ground before he stands a chance of spotting us, and there’s still a good chance he’ll miss us. Camouflage works well against bird eyes. Here.’’ Jasha helped her into her backpack. ‘‘If you can walk one more mile, I can promise you a sleeping bag tonight and a good breakfast in the morning.’’

  One mile didn’t sound like so much.

  On the other hand, one mile uphill in the blackest night . . .

  She would have complained, but walking uphill in his boots kept her conversation to increasingly virulent cursing every time she tripped.

  The sharp point of the crescent moon rose over the horizon and pierced the night sky, and at four thousand feet, its tiny bit of illumination looked like a streetlight.

  That helped, but not enough.

  By the time he called a stop she was both breathless and furious, and rage loosened the restraints she usually placed on her emotions. ‘‘Are you sure you don’t want to walk a little further?’’ She tapped the clown-sized toe of his boot. ‘‘Maybe enjoy a little run through the forest?’’

  ‘‘Here’s water to brush your teeth.’’ He poured her water out of a canteen.

  ‘‘Trip on some tree roots? Take a header into the brush?’’ She ignored the cup in his outstretched hand.

  He placed it on a rock. ‘‘I laid out our sleeping bags on that pile of boughs. Take off your boots and outerwear before you climb in.’’

  ‘‘Maybe we could dig a foxhole!’’ She faked enthusiasm.

  ‘‘Hush.’’ He slid his arm around her waist, bent her back like a great wind, and kissed her.

  She was tired. She was grumpy. She was so, so easy.

  She leaned into him and kissed him back, frightened by the return to passion, yet eager to sample him once more. He helped her stand on her own and whispered, ‘‘I’ll be back soon.’’

  ‘‘What?’’ She forced her knees to take her weight. ‘‘You’re really going for another walk?’’

  ‘‘Don’t wait up.’’ Without a sound, without ruffling the brush, he was gone.

  ‘‘Spooky,’’ she muttered—but then, up here, what wasn’t?

  She stood shifting between one foot and the other, try
ing to decide whether removing her clothes constituted good sense on her part, because the sleeping bag was insulated down to twenty below and she’d be too warm, or bad sense, because Jasha would think she’d obeyed him.

  For all that he was a New World American, the old-world autocracy was bred into his bones.

  She used to almost swoon at his high-handedness, but now . . . well, now it seemed yielding was another word for surrender.

  Then a giant yawn caught her by surprise, almost cracking her jaw, and she decided he could gloat all he wanted. She would be asleep, anyway. She peeled off her clothes, leaving on only the men’s underwear and his black silk T-shirt. She roused when, a half hour later, he slipped into his bag and snuggled against her back.

  She woke enough to ask, ‘‘Where have you been?’’

  ‘‘Catching a rat,’’ he said.

  That woke her. ‘‘The Varinski?’’

  He laughed. ‘‘No. A real rat. Go to sleep. I’ll show you in the morning.’’

  Ann woke to the smell of coffee and cedar, the sounds of birds singing, a holy sense of stillness . . . and something tickling her cheek. Without opening her eyes, she swatted at it—and got Jasha’s hand. ‘‘I hate you.’’

  ‘‘I have coffee.’’ He sounded richly amused and very awake.

  ‘‘Unless you have bacon, eggs, and wheat toast served on a warm plate with a side of pancakes, I still hate you.’’ She was gloriously warm in the cocoon of her sleeping bag, and she didn’t need the nip of the mountain’s cool morning air to alert her that coming fully awake would be painful and primitive.

  ‘‘How about a Baker’s Breakfast Cookie?’’ He crinkled the wrapping near her ear. ‘‘You can have a choice between ginger molasses or oatmeal raisin.’’

  ‘‘It’s bacon and eggs or nothing.’’

  ‘‘Okay, I’m eating the oatmeal raisin.’’

  ‘‘Give that to me.’’ Sitting up, she fought the bag’s zipper down, snatched the cookie out of his hands, and glared. He knew she hated ginger of any kind.

  He was fully dressed and looked disgustingly alert. He offered her the cup of coffee, and she stared at his big hands. For a moment, she remembered that first night—the darkness, the sense that this man had stalked her, possessed her, and now demanded she yield everything to him.