Jean-Claude's fingers closed over her upper arm in a vise-like grip, taking her with him to the center of the room. He reached out to grab the cloth. Vines stirred overhead like great snakes lifting their heads to watch. The air in the room seemed denser, harder to breathe. The Frenchman jerked the cloth from the painting and dropped it onto the floor. His hand slid across one of the jagged pieces of glass embedded in the canvas and came away bloody.
He swore and glared at her, lifting the side of his hand to his mouth. Drops of blood splashed onto the painting, and hit the floor. Beneath their feet shadows moved, stretching across the dark tiles reaching toward the liquid, greedily absorbing the fluid. Shapeless silhouettes emerged from the twisted trunks, amid creaks and groans. Power pulsed like a heartbeat.
Judith caught Jean-Claude's arm. "We have to go. Let's go now."
"Not without the microchip. It's behind the canvas." Shaking her off, he reached for the painting before she could stop him.
He dragged the canvas from the easel, turning the shifting symbols and her brother's name away from him, but she caught a glimpse of those dark shadows rising like wraiths from the layered painting of jagged, painful emotions. The rocking branches overhead picked up the pulsing drumbeat as if a heart had come to life, born there in those swirling darker spirits.
Judith pressed her fingers into her palm, her own heart following that ominous ghastly rhythm. Silhouettes began to take shape, rearing back as the candles leapt toward the center of the room--toward Jean-Claude. The man with no emotions was empty, and energy sought to fill that vacuum. She could see his skin change subtly under the play of purple light, turning his perfect color to a mottled ash.
She tried to project happiness, but fear radiated through the room and the apparitions expanded, coming out of the running black venomous sap and growing as her fear swelled. He didn't notice the shadows running up his arms, his blackened fingers, or the subtle changes in his skin. Every time he turned the painting, trying to rip it from the stretcher bar, the jagged pieces of glass embedded in his skin. Blood fed the phantoms so that they took on monstrous shapes. She grabbed at the canvas, trying to get it out of his hands.
Jean-Claude growled, ripping the painting from her, nearly tossing her to the floor, cursing as he stumbled himself. Blood dripped steadily.
"It isn't there," Judith whispered. "Jean-Claude, please let's go. It isn't there. We have to go, right now."
Jean-Claude tossed the painting against the wall. The crash reverberated through the room, his anger growing in direct proportion to the building violence of swirling emotions. The energy spun madly, like a terrible twister forming from the ceiling to the floor, shooting through the room seeking a target--seeking Jean-Claude.
He backhanded her, sent her flying, her body sprawling across the shadowed floor. Droplets of blood showered down around her. She tried to crawl toward the door, hoping he'd follow, hoping to lead him out. How could he be so oblivious? How could he not feel the swelling demons reaching for him as the purple lights of the candles stretched toward him? Everything in the room, above and below, the cracking branches, the venomous tree trunks, the crystalline tears, all of it extended toward him with greedy delight.
He kicked at her several times, following her just as she wanted. His face, in the purple light, revealed a vicious, building anger slowly boiling until rage erupted and he caught her legs just as she reached the door, dragging her back to the center of the room.
"Where is it?" he hissed, his lips drawing back in an ugly snarl. His teeth looked sharper, his lips thinner. The outer shell of the man, always handsome, seemed to be dissolving right before her eyes, and the inner man, dark and ugly emerged, as if those dark spirits were giving birth. "You treacherous bitch. You sold it!"
She shook her head. "I didn't. I found it and Paul had worked for a computer company. I thought he'd put it there when he stretched the canvas for me. I had no idea there was anything on it. I thought it was his good luck symbol for me. I put it in a cell for my kaleidoscope."
His head whipped around, a hound on a dark scent. He stepped in the middle of the canvas, right on Paul's name, those weeping Japanese letters, the only beautiful thing on the work of hatred and destruction. Glass crunched beneath his boot and the crimson letters layered over with blackened soot as if the burning candles had spread a filmy layer on the floor and it had collected on the sole of his boot.
Jean-Claude waded through the spinning energy as if he didn't see it. The room hissed in triumph as he stepped up to the large kaleidoscope and jerked off the cover.
Judith used her heels to try to push herself to the wall, making herself as small as possible. "Don't," she whispered.
"How does this work?" he snapped, frustrated when the cell remained dark. He looked around the room, and then glared back at her, raising his gun menacingly.
Judith shook her head but pointed to the portable ultraviolet light sitting on the table just within his reach. He snatched up the light, shoved it into the space built into the cylinder and switched on the light. At once images burst toward him, dark and hungry and filled with powerful energy. He saw himself there, as he was inside, and he couldn't look away, held by the whirling emotions, so tightly woven, so alive and strong, they gave birth to the true image, matching the outside shell to the inside substance.
Judith covered her face as the walls streamed black venom and overhead the weeping tears dripped blood. The door splintered. She hadn't realized the shadows had locked it. Stefan shouted her name and his shoulder slammed into the door a second time. Then his boot. The door cracked and he reached inside and thrust it open, rushing into the room, taking in everything.
He bent over her, looking like the very devil--or an avenging angel. He scooped her up and she closed her arms around his neck, burying her face in his neck. "I've got you, Judith," he murmured, raining kisses over her face as he raced out of the room. "Ya tebyA lyublyU. In case you didn't understand me, I love you. I love you with all my heart."
"I can't believe you came for me."
"Always, Judith. I wasn't lying when I told you that you're everything to me. I meant every word." He turned his head to look into the dark room with the strange flickering purple lights, a little diminished now. "I have to get him out of there."
She clutched his arm. "Don't go back in there, Stefan. It's too dangerous."
"We can't leave him in there. I'll bring him out. My defenses are strong. I'll get him, angel, and nothing will prevent me coming back to you."
Judith reluctantly allowed him to step away from her. She slid down the wall, pressing trembling fingers to her mouth. She believed him. There was nothing evil inside of Stefan for those dark emotions to devour. His life had been shaped by the circumstances of his childhood, but he had not been born, nor had he developed, twisted.
He came running out of the room, carrying Jean-Claude over his shoulder. He deposited him gently on the floor beside Judith, removing his gun with that sleight of hand so familiar to her. Jean-Claude's hair was streaked white, his eyes sunken and his skin wrinkled and mottled with dark spots. His eyes appeared vacant, staring straight ahead, pupils dilated in a kind of horror. Judith passed her hand in front of Jean-Claude's face. He didn't blink.
Stefan squeezed her hand and raced back into the studio to rip down the curtains and throw open the French doors.
"Don't! What if . . ."
He shook his head. "The emotions have nearly completely spun themselves out. I'm going to air out the room. There's nothing we can do for him right now. He'll need a doctor and I'm not certain that will do much good."
"The microchip is in the first cell I did for the kaleidoscope. Don't look in there, just grab that first cell and we can open it. I thought my brother had put it there. It's been floating in heavy mineral oil this entire time. I doubt you'll be able to get much off of it after five years in oil." She frowned. "But I suppose it might be possible, although not the best odds."
She knelt up beside Jean-Clau
de and wiped at the saliva dribbling down his chin.
"I don't have to get the information off it, just return it to Russia," Stefan said. He pocketed the cell after he'd opened up the room. "As long as no other country can steal the information, I don't care whether it's destroyed or not." He helped her all the way to her feet.
Judith sagged against him, rubbing her face over his steadily beating heart. "Thanks for coming back for me even when I was angry with you and told you to go."
He wrapped his arm around her and dropped a kiss on her upturned face. "Next time, angel, there's no breathing room for you when we have an argument. We're making a rule right now that you stay in my sight at all times until it's resolved."
Very gently he picked up Jean-Claude as if he weighed no more than a child. "We'll have to call an ambulance. We'll have to say we found him wandering in the yard. He's unrecognizable so if you say you don't know who he is, it will make sense. They'll identify him through his fingerprints and take him to a hospital."
"Stefan." Judith held her breath until he looked down at her.
She drank him in, a tall Russian, with blue-green eyes and scars. He was so gentle with Jean-Claude it turned her heart over. Hers. She gave him a shaky smile. "I love you."
His smile reached his eyes. "I know that better than you do."
21
"YOU'RE certain you want to do this?" Judith whispered to Stefan. She tightened her fingers around his and glanced over her shoulders at her sisters and Lev. "You don't have to do this for me. The civil ceremony we had together is enough. I don't mind being Mrs. Thomas Vincent. I'll keep my name Henderson for my work, because my name's established, but seriously, you don't have to take such a chance just to prove something to me."
Stefan settled his arm around her shoulders. "I have always wanted to give you my name and this is a way for us to be married as Stefan Prakenskii and Judith Henderson. It is legal in the eyes of both our countries, although as I don't exist I suppose our civil marriage is more binding. This man is a friend of mine and he'll make certain this is done properly. Lev wants to marry Rikki the same way and we have arranged for it to be done."
San Francisco in the dead of night was not nearly as busy as during the day, and the cars had easily maneuvered up and down the steep hills. The small church was set deep in the middle of the Russian community. When they had parked their cars, it seemed as if they were the only ones there, but as they approached the steps, the door creaked open and a man in robes stood waiting.
"He is a holy man, a priest, and he's traveled a great distance to come here to America to marry us," Stefan whispered. "We did not use the local priest because if the paperwork is discovered, we don't want it traced back to him and this man is a ghost, such as Lev and me."
She understood what he was saying. The priest had been raised like his brothers, a political orphan ripped from his home and sent to those schools to shape them into killers. Like Lev and Stefan, he'd found a way to escape--different, but still, he'd found a way out.
"We're not putting him in any danger?" She needed reassurance after what happened to Jean-Claude. The man was still incoherent, locked in a mental hospital.
"He wouldn't have come if he'd thought he'd be discovered," Stefan said. "And if I thought he was followed, we wouldn't be here. I wouldn't risk you or my brother."
He glanced back at her sisters, following in a tight knot. Lev brought up the rear. Both men were armed to the teeth, and this time, he'd followed his brother's example, taking care to openly prepare for a small war should there be trouble, right in front of Judith. She had watched him in silence, sliding knives and guns into various hidden compartments in his clothing, but she hadn't protested.
"For your wedding present, moi padshii angel, I will get you a protection dog. Each one of your sisters should have one. Lev and I have agreed upon this."
"Don't think you're going to get all bossy on me," Judith warned. "It isn't happening. We have rules on the farm. All of us have a say."
He laughed softly. "Two Russians versus the six of you Americans? You are beautiful, my wife, but you don't know how hardheaded we can be."
"Is that some kind of warning? You should have told me that before the civil ceremony."
He laughed as they approached the priest. Only a single light burned low in the church and it didn't give off enough light to illuminate the priest's face. Stefan greeted him in Russian, but didn't introduce Judith to him. Rather, she noticed, he kept his body between hers and the holy man at all times. She wasn't certain who he was protecting--her or the priest.
Stefan stepped aside to allow the women to follow the priest inside while he and Lev took another slow look around before following.
Blythe walked beside Judith. "I've been here before," she whispered, her voice uneasy. "And I'm certain that's the same priest who performed the ceremony."
"What ceremony?" Judith asked.
Blythe frowned and shook her head, twisting her fingers together tightly, pressing her thumb deep into her palm. "Are you certain you want to do this, Judith? Rikki, I know is so deeply in love with Levi she would do just about anything he asked her to, but you still have time to get out of this. Now's the time to back out if you have any doubts."
"I have doubts about myself, Blythe," Judith admitted, "but not about him. I can be myself with him. He gets me. I don't have to hide and I need that in my life. He gives that to me, that freedom, and I feel loved by him. He wants children right away, and so do I. I've never thought I'd have that chance and he's giving me so much." She looked at her oldest sister. "I need to know that you can accept him in our lives. He swears it's the life he wants. He's buying the art gallery from Frank and Inez and he'll go with me to the art shows. But mostly, he wants us to live on the farm with all of you and lead a quiet life."
"Quiet?" Blythe said with a small smile. "With how many kids did you say he wanted?"
Judith laughed, the tension draining out of her. "I have no idea what he'll do after the first one is born. We'll see."
Stefan took her hand and leaned down to brush her mouth with his. "It's time, angel. The ceremony will be entirely in Russian."
"And you're certain it's legal?" Blythe asked with a small frown.
"Of course. This will make our marriage undeniably legal." He pulled Judith close. "She won't be able to officially use my Russian name, but she'll have it." He glanced at his brother. "As will Rikki. I have to say, my brother looks very happy."
"So do you," Blythe admitted, stepping back.
Judith listened to the priest as he spoke in low, firm tones, the language magical to her. Her entire wedding seemed surreal, her sisters close, Rikki and Lev standing beside her and Stefan, Stefan's hand tight in hers. She murmured the appropriate responses when the priest prodded her and listened to Rikki doing the same. At no time did she fully see the holy man's face.
Stefan slipped a ring on her finger and she turned into his arms so he could fasten his mouth to hers. Her heart leapt, happiness blossoming through her as she wound her arms around his neck and kissed her husband thoroughly.