By Desire Bound Page 27

  "It doesn't matter where I am," he murmured in her ear, "I love being inside you."

  She shimmied against him, enticing him slowly. "And I love it when you are." She felt the delicious spurt as he hardened still again.

  "You are so wet, so responsive." He nuzzled her neck.

  "I can't get enough," she whispered. Stiffer and stiffer. One more time again. "I love when you take me."

  He rocked against her, feeling the expansion of his power. There was nothing like the dark wet mystery of her. Everything else receded beside it. He wanted to live in it forever.

  He wanted her now.

  He shoved against her experimentally. "Like that?"

  "Ummm," she sighed.

  Harder. "Is that better?"

  "Ah."

  A long hard stroke deep into her core.

  "Perfect," she breathed, and begged for more.

  He pumped her in tight hard steady thrusts, just the way she wanted it, just the way she craved it. Perfect. Tight Hard. Gone. She convulsed beneath him and around him, and took him along.

  They saw Moscow from beside the bridge that crossed the river, under the threat of snow. It was still another city of contrasts, ancient and new, its dwellings clustered near the river that divided the city, and the spires of its numerous churches soaring against the lowering sky.

  Here, Nicholas II's coronation procession down the Tverskaya just a year and a half before. There, the walls of the Kremlin and the vista of Red Square. Market stalls in the Upper Bazaar, and Kuznetsky Street for shopping. They took it all in during the brief two-hour layover, whirling through the city in one of the dozens of cabs that waited at the station.

  And then on their way again in the early evening, with the snow lightly falling.

  And another night, wrapped in fur and passion and fury, laying on the floor.

  They arrived at the Nikolaevski Station in St. Peters­burg the following night, and were transferred imme­diately to the Great Northern Hotel across the way.

  The next morning, they were going to scour the churches again as a starting point. The stone could be anywhere.

  And, as Con pointed out, maybe not even there. "No. I don't believe that. It's here, somewhere— probably in some church."

  She was determined, fired up. She inquired of the concierge the location of the nearest church, and he directed them down the Ekaterinski Canal to Resurrec­tion Church.

  It was a cold day, the snow had abated, but she was thankful for her wool and furs. They hurried down the long residential street divided by the canal, the church in the distance rising up like a benediction.

  "We'll find some answers here," Darcie whispered. "It has to be here."

  They mounted the steps to the entrance and pulled open the door.

  This was a vast church, as different from the plain country church in Nadyl as night from day. The ceilings soared, picked out in gold, with murals and icons all

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  along the walls. Velvet drapes at the sanctuary, and at the doors, and two porcelain stoves heating the nave. The scent of incense permeated the air.

  And a feeling of majesty and reverence unlike any­thing Darcie had ever experienced.

  "Have you come for a blessing?"

  They whirled at the voice behind them, a young aco­lyte, dressed in robes.

  Con translated and answered, "We come to speak with your priest."

  "Father Cyril prays."

  "May we wait?"

  The acolyte nodded. "I will tell him you are here."

  Darcie sank into a pew and just stared. "He cannot corrupt this."

  "He corrupts everything," Con said. "And he is ev­erywhere."

  "We will find him here."

  She jumped to her feet, and began pacing restively.

  "My children . . ."

  Oh no . . . no—no—

  The voice of Father Vasili greeted them as he stepped into the aisle.

  "So—you have eluded death and come this far," he murmured as Con translated. "Blessings on you, clever ones. I will tell you what you need to know."

  "Ask him—" Darcie prodded. "Where is the stone?"

  "Listen to me, foolish ones," he answered in re­sponse. "There is nothing more you can do."

  "I don't believe it," Darcie said adamantly.

  "He has been here since the Neva froze over," Father Vasili said. "He has accomplished much. And there is still more for him to do."

  "What has he done?" Darcie demanded. "What is he going to do?"

  "So impatient," Father Vasili murmured. "But that is the way of the chosen. Only, there is nothing she can do."

  "Tell us then," Con said, motioning for Darcie to con­tain herself.

  "He has mastered the stone. Samael be with you, as he will be with our little Father the Tsar."

  They froze.

  "What does he mean? What can he mean?" Darcie cried.

  "He cut the stone," Con surmised.

  Father Vasili nodded. "Our wise and holy man did indeed cleave the stone—into three beautifully faceted pieces."

  "No ..." Darcie moaned.

  "And through the auspices of a well-known jeweler, and in the name of Samael, he has presented those valu­able stones to our little Father to mark the occasion of the birth of his daughter. One for his sceptre. One for his crown. And one for the Empress to wear on her brow."

  "Oh God—"

  "And now, he whom you call Lazarin, will make his home in St. Petersburg. He will mingle with all strata of society, he will become a man of holy destiny, as he draws ever closer to the Crown."

  "Con—" Darcie said beseechingly, and he shook his head.

  Father Vasili went on: "The time is not right, not yet. But soon, soon. This is the judgment of Samael: that Mother Russia shall come into the holy hands of the monk Rasputin."

  He looked deeply into Con's eyes. "And so it shall be. All your effort has come to nothing. This is the judgment

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  of Samael: there will be no mercy in any quarter. And The Eye of God cannot protect thee. So saith Samael, and so it shall be."

  "We can do nothing more here," Con said.

  "Kill him," Darcie whispered fiercely. "Take venge­ance on him, at least."

  Father Vasili looked at her, almost as if he were read­ing her mind, and he raised his hand. 'Wo mercy. This is the judgment of Samael."

  And he lowered his hand slowly. "So it shall be," he intoned, and when his hand dropped to his side, he disappeared.

  "Oh my God—" Darcie breathed. "Oh my God . . . Where is he? Where did he go?"

  "I believe him," Con said. There wasn't any point wasting time on trying to define what you didn't know.

  "We have to make sure," Darcie said frantically. "We have to check it out."

  "You don't believe it? Believe it. The stone is gone, and there's nodding we can do now. The evil is loose and it goes with the Tsar everywhere he goes. It infects his family. The people. The land. It's too late, Darcie. We got one little piece of it. And it's not enough to stem the rising tide. Rasputin—Lazarin—whatever they will call him—he will be in control."

  "How can you know that?" she whispered.

  "I know. How many times have we faced him, and he hasn't died? You think Kleist is dead and buried a hun­dred miles from here in the snow. No, by now he's res­urrected just like Karun, and he lives in Rasputin's body, and he still goes on. Nor can The Eye of God destroy him, or it would have, just like the stone."

  "What do we do now?" she whispered.

  He gave her a sardonic smile. "Damned if I know."

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  * * *

  It's over. The grand adventure is over. It only remains to return to England so he can reclaim his life.

  She didn't want it to be over. Not ever.

  How could she tell him? What was she but an oppor­tunist of the worst kind? She'
d gotten out of it exactly what she desired. The Eye of God entrusted to her like a baby, and nestled between her breasts.

  And Con. Mustn't forget Con.

  And one of the famous Pengellis diamonds. Oh, she'd made out like a thief this time. Sex and money too. She could live like a queen forever, just as she had planned.

  They walked down to the frozen Neva River, near the Winter Palace, and watched streetworkers breaking the ice, and over to the Academy of Art, with the two Egyp­tian sphinxes guarding the front. And across the broad avenue of Nevsky Prospect, and to the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul.

  And nowhere was there any trace of Lazarin. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. Or it had been he, transmogrified into Father Vasili, just Darcie had seen Lazarin at the presbytery.

  And finally, three futile days later, Con told her: "It is time to go home."

  They travelled again by the railway, this time going south, from St. Petersburg, to Moscow, Tula, Kursk, Kharkov to the terminus in Sevastopol and, to him, the familiar sight of steamers plowing the Black Sea.

  He expended his last diamond in Sevastopol for ex­penses and passage home. They sailed across to Varna, and it was the last thing he saw.

  By the time they reached Bucharest, he was blind again.

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  Twenty-two

  "I don't understand, I just don't understand," Darcie fumed as she paced the confines of their sleeping car. They were stranded someplace outside of Bucharest for the moment, the snow being too high and thick for the train to push through.

  And here was Con, his eyesight utterly gone, for rea­sons that she refused to believe.

  "The judgment of Samael! Honestly, Con."

  "You don't believe it?" Did he? He didn't know quite when he began to notice it: the tired eyes. The blurring. The weariness he just didn't see. After their encounter with Father Vasili? Or before?

  "You do? I think you're falling for all that flummery far too easily."

  "No mercy in any quarter," he quoted mordantly. "What do you think happens when you try to destroy a god?"

  "That's funny. Why didn't Father Vasili just kill you?"

  "For the same reason I didn't kill him, I suppose. You don't kill the messenger."

  But there was something else. It tickled the edge of his consciousness like a spell. Something he knew. Something he'd even said.

  "They used to," she countered acidly. She should

  have done it, she thought She could have done it, with the power of The Eye of God.

  If only she'd taken it seriously, if only she'd really understood that it was hers all along.

  And now, he was in the dark again.

  "It's ironic," he said. "We begin and end exactly the same."

  "No. We don't," she said sharply. "We don't. We've crossed continents. We've climbed mountains. We have the diamond. And—" She stopped short. And?

  The problem was, there wasn't any end. Not until he con­fronted Lavinia, and took back his life.

  "It's not the same," she finished firmly. "And we have to figure out why this happened."

  "The gift was taken back. It's as simple as that. Pen­ance must be paid."

  Yes, he thought, that was familiar too; he'd thought that before, what seemed like a hundred years ago.

  She hated the fatalistic tone in his voice. "I'm not going to let you think that way. There has to be an an­swer."

  He thought that too, but as with everything else in his life, he'd gambled and lost

  "Darcie, the whole thing was a big vainglorious self-aggrandizing risk. Do you understand that? / gave up Pengellis. / let Roger just walk in and take it up while I went on my wild-goose chase. I was so convincing ev­eryone thought it was real."

  "Well, it was," she interpolated.

  "I didn't really know that then. I was going to be a hero, all that fame, all that lovely money to be had from splitting a legendary diamond; and that over and above all the other money we made in London and South Africa. Tell me, Darcie, when does a man get smart? How much does he really need?"

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  She knew the answer to that. "When he makes his final strike."

  "Well, we did that, didn't we? And look at the cost. We haven't moved one foot from where we started. And we haven't gained a thing."

  "Except the diamond," she said. And each other, she didn 't say.

  "We haven't gained a thing," he repeated. "But we have unleashed something unspeakable on the world. The balance must be kept. I knew that. And I arrogandy walked in and changed it. You don't think that calls for a cosmic punishment, Darcie?"

  "I think something's going on that's closer to home." "You're so practical. So sensuous and beautiful. How lucky I am you found me." But his tone was bitter. Mock­ing—and she didn't know if he were ridiculing her or himself.

  Neither was acceptable.

  "Sometimes you can't choose, "she said. "Sometimes things are meant to be." But that sounded fantastic, and fatalistic too, and it wasn't quite what she meant to say. "Well, there you go," he murmured derisively. "It is the judgment of Samael: that he shall from this time forth walk in darkness. And so it has been."

  She wouldn't let it be, she thought fiercely. She would not let him believe in the vengeance of an entity that didn't exist.

  "I wish we had kept the dust," she said suddenly. "Maybe it could have worked for you like what you said about Lazarin—his drawing his power from the dia­mond fields . . . Maybe if you still had a part of the stone . . ."

  Yes . . . that shocked him into awareness. She had de­fined his elusive thought: but not the dust—the shards. The slivers of black diamond he'd carried with him

  from the Valley to Tobolsk. Where he'd sold the second to last diamond, and discarded the pouch.

  Where they'd burned the dust.

  "Jesus, Darcie . . ." His possession of the shards had preserved his sight, and not the capitulation of his soul.

  She wasn't aware of them in Budapest, but she was certain by the time they reached Vienna, Lavinia's agents were after them. Almost as if she had blanketed every train station of every possible route.

  They were at every stop where crowds swarmed, and they were passengers on the train. They ate in the din­ing car, and paced past their door, and there was no way to escape.

  She cursed fate that they were burdened by his sight­lessness. How did you save a blind man from disaster when it surrounded you like air?

  It was coming, as surely as the dawn. Lavinia hadn't given up on claiming her treasures. Or killing Con.

  This was just a different kind of evil. Maybe one from which they could run. They might even have a chance— in Paris—if she could keep them at bay.

  She didn't tell him, at first, but she was so tense, and so unresponsive, he prised it out of her.

  "Lavinia's people are on the train."

  He thought that was interesting. Everywhere she'd seen Lavinia's people, he'd had only her word. And now, when he was doubly dependent on her, they were all around again.

  Darcie had the diamond . . .

  Darcie had the answers.

  Surround him with the enemy, and kill him with what he couldn't see . . .

  Was that what it was really all about?

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  Whom did you trust, when a fabulous diamond was at stake?

  And how much was spit and fairy tales to take advantage of his dependence?

  He felt like he was felling in the dark. It rose up to meet him, slamming him in the eyes.

  Darcie the trojan horse.

  Darcie's allegiance to—who?

  The body that launched a thousand mile quest had seduced him royally. He had fallen like a shooting star.

  And all to return to the crux of the matter, except that Darcie had accomplished exactly what she'd
set out to do.

  The last big strike.

  And he'd handed it to her too. . . . dear God—

  Lavinia was just the diversion so he wouldn't perceive what was going on. And just tike any other man, he'd let Darcie subjugate him with his heart.

  Goddamn, damn, damn—

  "Con? I'm scared."

  Was she?

  He girded himself to amplify the deception, remem­bering the journey out. What was real, what was the lie. "You're not scared of a thing, Scheherazade."

  She looked at his stone carved face, his blank eyes. I'm scared of you.

  "We might be able to elude them in Paris."

  "Why?"

  "More ways to escape; more routes we can take. We know the city. You know the language."

  "You're right," he murmured, "that does make sense." She was masterful, he thought. He had named her exactly right. "But for now, what do you want to do?"

  She'd be a stranger in a strange land, so she wouldn't

  leave him now. But in Paris—she had the means, the motive—she'd abandon him like a sack of rotten wheat.

  "We have to keep to the car. I'll get our food—"

  "Just like last time," he murmured. Was she that clever she thought she could replay the same scenario and he would still bite? "But you shouldn't be carrying the diamond—if the threat is that pervasive."

  "And you can't see our enemies," she retorted. "We're some fine pair. I think I'm better off holding it."

  "And if they attack you—?"

  She didn't like saying it. "It's gone."

  Very good, he applauded silently. Just the right tone. "I can think of maybe one place no one would think to look. Do you want to risk it after all we've been through?"

  "But I can see the danger," she argued.

  "Not from behind. And not if they grab you from both sides. Not if they immobilize you."

  "All right—all right. You have a point. Maybe the thing is, we can't protect it to the extent we should right now. We can only do what we can do."

  "Well then—you must leave it here when you see to our meals. We'll have a password or something and I won't unlock the door unless I hear it."

  He thought that sounded reasonable, and not as if he were suspicious of her at all. A compromise of sorts that for the moment he could live with.