Dark Time: Mortal Path (40 page)

Ten feet away. Just ten feet more feet and she could rest and wait for rescue.

A flashlight played over her. “Stop right there.”

Maliha froze. She recognized the voice. It was the head of security, Chief Clark.

W
hen Maliha had ordered Hound to stay behind, he’d chafed at it. She was paying a good price for his service and he didn’t like going against a client’s order. He could get a bad reputation that way.

Still, this wasn’t just any client. He wasn’t in the habit of sleeping with many of his clients. None of them, in fact, except Maliha.

Without thinking a whole lot about it, he found himself in the helicopter with Glass waiting for the pickup summons. The copter was in the air just close enough to keep the building in sight through 133 z 138

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binoculars, and he saw the flare of orange leaking from windows on ShaleTech’s third floor.

“Blast on level seven. I think that’s our pickup call.”

Glass nodded. She took them back to the barn and hovered the copter while Hound rappelled down.

He was at the door of the barn when he heard a voice that wasn’t Maliha’s. He dropped down and crawled in silently, taking up a post inside the door. He could see Maliha in the man’s flashlight, and she looked bad. Really bad.

“The boss is dead and that fucking bodyguard is in a million pieces,” the man holding a gun on her said. He was waving a radio, and was in touch with someone inside the ShaleTech building. “You did a first-rate job. Ordinarily, I’d try to hire you, but as much as I hate to admit it, you’re a step or two above my ability, and I never hire anyone better than me.”

His voice chilled Hound. It was the voice of someone who liked to see people suffer.

“That means I have to kill you. If I let you get away with this, I’d never get another top security job.

Gonna be hard enough after that piece of work you did in there. ’Course you look three fourths dead on your own, so this is kind of a mercy killing.”

Enough of this shit.

Hound pulled a gun and plugged the guy in the back three times. Then he walked up and put a couple more in his head, just to be sure.

He picked up the flashlight.

“It’s me, Hound. I’m going to get you out of here. You owe me extra for that kill.”

When the light hit her, he could see relief in her eyes. Then, from one breath to the next, she was writhing on the floor, her face contorted in a mask of terrible pain, clutching her belly. He’d seen it before, in the fields of Vietnam.

Dying!

He ran forward and knelt at her side, looking for whatever wound was sending her into death throes.

To be at her side when she died.

What he saw shocked him almost as much as her death would have. She’d ripped open the front of her outfit. In the flashlight’s beam, a parade of small figures was moving across her belly, leaving a raw trough of burned flesh in their wake as their tiny feet moved. There was an animated scale on her body and it was tipping as he watched the figures climbing up into the taller of the two pans.

Maliha screamed as the last one dragged itself into the pan. He reached out to grab her shoulders, but she shimmered in front of his eyes as if something was pulling her away. His eyes couldn’t quite focus on her, and his hands went right through her like she wasn’t in the barn with him. He wanted to pull her up into a fierce hug, to keep her there with him, to make whatever was happening stop, with the force of his will if nothing else.

When the shimmering passed, he sat back on his heels, keeping a hand on her to make sure she was there with him.

Damn. This woman’s stranger than I thought.

I
t had been nearly three weeks since the death of Subedei.

As Maliha’s body healed, Hound told her what he’d witnessed. With no way to hide her true nature from a man who’d seen her belly scale in motion and watched her slip out of normal time, Maliha told him everything. It was a lot for him to absorb, and typical of Hound, he told her he’d get back to her on it.

When Yanmeng held a mirror up for her to study her face, there were noticeable wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and a generous sprinkling of silver hairs mixed into the black—but not too much different from the way she’d looked after saving Samantha Dearborn, when she’d taken a leap in age of about three years.

Maybe another couple of years this time.

She placed her age at about thirty. A slightly old-looking thirty. There was something else about her 134 z 138

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face, especially her eyes, that said she was on her way to wisdom as well as advancing in years. Her eyes reflected back at her the decision she’d made that risk be damned, she was going to live every day fully.

Rabishu said my aging would be uneven and that Anu would decide. Only two years for saving
potentially millions, with a huge difference in the balance of the scales. Anu has favored me.

She wondered if Grandfather had prayed to Anu for her, and that this time his prayer was answered.

She’d never know, but whatever the reason, she’d taken a big step toward denying Rabishu his plaything.

“G
ood evening, Ms. Winters.”

“Same to you, Mr. Henshaw.”

Maliha rode the elevator to the forty-eighth floor. It was late, and she was tired, but the thought of getting home propelled her at a good pace. At the door to her haven, she placed her palm against the biometric sensor and used the other hand to cover her eyes tightly against the brilliant light about to assault them. The door slid back. Stepping forward, light leaking in between her fingers, she crossed the foyer in an instant and slapped her hand against the switch on the far wall. Darts did not rain down upon her from the ceiling.

I might have to recalibrate that sensor as I get older and slower. I don’t want to look like a
pincushion. Bad for the complexion.

The spotlights snapped off and the door closed behind her.

“Lights, low.”

She let her eyes rest on the soothing pastel painting in her foyer as they adjusted to the lack of spotlights. As she waited, she sensed that something wasn’t right. This was her place that she knew intimately. Something, a light scent of…what?

She moved her hand through the air, waving it toward her face. She felt a little dampness, and smelled it, and soap, too. Yet she hadn’t been here in nearly a month. It was as if someone had…

Taken a shower? Gotten in!

Maliha crouched. Her internal alarm was blaring. She was in a bad position, trapped in the dead-end hallway, and with the flash of the spotlights, she’d announced her presence big-time. She hesitated, then backed up toward the door. She could reach up and hit the switch to open the door, then dive out into the hall. Better to leave now, if she could, and return better prepared. The safe house had a large armory.

“You can come out now.”

A familiar voice. Jake’s.

Relief swept through her. Maliha straightened up on legs that became limp as the adrenaline rush dissipated. She leaned against the wall while her thoughts whirled in a pleasant orbit with the two of them at the center. Then she spotted the switch on the wall of the foyer and it reminded her of exactly where she was. As fast as her elation had arrived, it now fled.

Jake was inside her safe haven.

Why didn’t he trigger the darts? Why is he still alive?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Maliha Crayne, her circle of friends, and her quest for redemption are concepts that have been stirring in my mind for several years. As any writer knows, thinking about something is a long way from seeing it realized in print. Without the help of others, you wouldn’t be reading about Maliha and her adventures.

I’d like to thank my agent, Jill Marsal of the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, for her vision in seeing a worthwhile story in
The Mortal Path
, and for patiently working with me to get an early version of the manuscript ready for prime time. Diana Gill, Executive Editor at HarperCollins, provided invaluable suggestions and comments to improve this book, helping me rework it and bringing it much closer to the 135 z 138

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idealized version that exists in my mind’s eye.

A reader’s first connection with a story is through the book’s cover. Art Director Tom Egner drew on his immense talent to create the stunning artwork that graces this cover.

Copyediting is invisible to the reader, but writers recognize its value. Ellen Leach copyedited this book and did an excellent job. She wielded her red pen as delicately as a photographer’s airbrush to improve the readability of this book.

To F. Lit Yu, filmmaker, screenwriter, and writer extraordinaire, it’s been an honor to work with you. My thanks for your friendship and support, and for the whip sword.

My husband, Dennis, has been wonderful, celebrating the happy times and encouraging me when the words just wouldn’t come. He’s not only a sounding board for some of the ideas that brought this book to life, but a source of them as well. As for my college-aged sons, Tom and Tim, they think Maliha kicks butt, and they’re waiting for the movie.

About the Author

Growing up in a converted 1890s funeral home, complete with blood gutters in the basement floor, fueled Dakota Banks’ interest in the paranormal. She’s no ghost whisperer, but she keeps an open mind. She’s fascinated with both archaeology and the paranormal, especially when the two intersect, as they do in
Dark Time
.

Dakota is a member of the Horror Writers Association and International Thriller Writers. She lives in a St.

Louis suburb with her husband, two sons adopted from Peru and Ethiopia, and a couple of cats who keep her writing on track.

Visit her website at
www.dakota-banks.com
.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

DARK TIME

“Part immortal, all human, Maliha is a heroine who will leave readers breathless and craving more.”

New York Times
bestselling author JAMES ROLLINS

“Edge of your seat, breathtaking action…a must-read supernatural thriller.”

DAVID DUN, author of
The Black Silent

“A passionate, fascinating story packed with action and history.”

DAVID MORRELL,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Brotherhood of the Rose

“Food for thought on every fascinating page. Dakota Banks is firing on all cylinders.”

STEVE BERRY,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Charlemagne Pursuit
By Dakota Banks

Mortal Path

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Credits

Cover art by Don Sipley

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DARK TIME. Copyright © 2009 by Dakota Banks. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189269-1

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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United States

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