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  Heather seemed to sense his thoughts. Shit, for all he knew, she was probably hearing them. Her own brave smile parted her lips. He wanted to lean across and kiss them so bad he actually started to lean forward. Instead, Mark swallowed hard and returned her sunglasses to their accustomed spot on her nose.

  “Ready?” Heather asked, standing up.

  “Ready.”

  Mark flexed his muscles as he rose to his full height. One thing he swore to himself as he turned toward the door: he wasn’t going to fucking die before he got to deliver that kiss.

  132

  Having left their cash in the hotel safe, before ditching the car in the nearby barrio, Mark and Heather walked the last mile along the narrow winding road that led to the Espeñosa Hacienda’s front gate. Aside from the curious stares of a few onlookers, no one attempted to stop them.

  Mark had almost forgotten what it felt like to look seventeen, although he felt older than Methuselah. He glanced over at Heather. Young or old, she still looked wonderful.

  To say this plan bordered on madness would have been to give it the benefit of the doubt. When they had first begun to discuss how to rescue Jen, he had envisioned some sort of Rambo assault, bad guys pinned down by his withering gunfire as Heather led Jennifer to safety. There had certainly been nothing in his plan about two seventeen-year-old kids strolling up to the front gate and asking Don Espeñosa to see his prisoner.

  When Heather had first described it to him, he had laughed out loud, thinking she was pulling his leg. It reminded him of the time his basketball coach had drawn up a last-second play for Jacob Mahoney to shoot the ball, on the theory that the other team would never expect it. No kidding. Jacob had been wide open. Right before he missed everything but the kid playing the tuba behind the goal.

  The only good thing Mark saw in the plan was that they wouldn’t have to fight their way in. That and his faith in the little savant who thought it up.

  As they reached the top of the low hill occupied by the Espeñosa estate, Mark inhaled deeply, glancing at Heather once again. No sunglasses and her eyes were normal. Good. Nothing in her savant mind had identified a serious problem with the way things were unfolding, at least nothing wrong enough to force her to go deep. As he refocused his attention on the armed guards beside the massive wrought-iron gate ahead, the words of the X-wing pilot in Star Wars played in his head. “Stay on target. Stay on target.”

  The guards certainly didn’t appear concerned about the two high school kids walking toward them, not reacting until Mark touched the gate.

  “Hey, what are you kids doing there?” the guard on the left yelled in Spanish, not bothering to raise the submachine gun cradled in his arm. “Get away from the gate!”

  Mark responded with flawless Spanish of his own. “We’re here to see Don Espeñosa.”

  This brought a round of loud laughter. “And what makes you think he wants to see you?”

  Mark took another deep breath. Here it was. “Because he has my sister.”

  The change in the guards was immediate, their machine gun muzzles rising in unison. Mark had never before looked directly down the barrel of a loaded weapon, certainly not one gripped with a twitchy trigger finger. Now, with two of those round black holes pointed directly into his face, he decided he didn’t like it.

  The gate opened and one of the guards grabbed Mark’s arm, shoving him face-first against the railing as the other motioned for Heather to face the fence beside him. Covered by his partner’s weapon, the swarthy fellow with the Che Guevara hairdo frisked him, cuffed his hands behind his back with a plastic tie, then repeated the procedure with Heather.

  A quick glance at Heather showed tension in her face, but no white eyes. Everything was still on plan. Wonderful. That made him feel so much better.

  Mark and Heather were pulled inside the compound, and while one guard placed a call on his cell phone, the other pushed them along the driveway leading up to a sprawling two-story house with arches that opened into a central patio area. At the base of the steps leading up to a pair of twelve-foot-tall wooden doors, the guard brought them to a stop.

  “Where are you taking us?” Mark asked, drawing a sharp jab in the back from the muzzle of the machine gun.

  As if in response to the question, the huge doors opened outward, revealing an elegantly dressed man sporting a Fu Manchu mustache and a thick cigar clamped in his teeth. Five khaki-clad bodyguards as big as pro wrestlers moved down to take charge of the prisoners.

  “Thank you, Umberto,” the man said, taking a puff on the cigar as he stepped closer to Mark. “You may return to your post.”

  The guard gave a stiff salute, pivoted, and walked rapidly back toward the now-closed gate.

  Don Espeñosa smiled. “So, you are Mark Smythe. Your sister has told me so much about you. And this must be Heather McFarland.”

  Heather was the first to react. “Where is Jennifer? Can we see her? It’s safe. No one knows we’re here.”

  If anything, the drug lord’s smile grew broader. “Oh, I know. You two have been all over the American news channels. The mentally unstable friend and the distraught brother searching for his runaway sister. Quite a tabloid story.”

  The smile faded from the Don’s face. “Take them to the gym and wait until I get there.”

  Mark felt himself grabbed by each arm as he and Heather were dragged forward, not into the house, but through the arches that led into the beautiful central patio. Mark’s mind whirled. Despite the unpleasant tone he had heard in the Don’s last command, it was still possible that he was having them taken to the room where Jen was being held. Or maybe he had gone to get Jennifer.

  The gym turned out to be a large room on the west side of the patio. Unlike the tile that had covered the entranceway and the walkway under the overhanging porch, black rubber mats covered the floor. Two mirrored walls reflected the racks of dumbbells and Nautilus equipment that filled the right side of the workout room. A chrome bar ran along the left wall, the kind ballet dancers used for stretching their legs, and that part of the floor was clear of equipment. A closed door in the far wall apparently gave access from within the main house.

  Mark felt a metal handcuff slapped onto his right wrist just above the plastic tie. Then his back was shoved up against the weight rack and the second cuff applied, securing him to the equipment. Another drug thug cuffed Heather’s wrists to the dancer’s bar.

  Anticipation hung in the air like campfire smoke, an anticipation that didn’t feel right. The bodyguards looked like kids waiting to open their Christmas presents. Before Mark had time to think about that, Don Espeñosa entered the room, closing the door behind him.

  No Jennifer.

  He walked directly up to Heather. “So, you two thought you could just walk up to my estate and demand to see Jennifer Smythe. I guess word of my fabled good nature has reached your ears.”

  Two of the bodyguards snickered.

  The don lifted Heather’s chin with his hand. “What’s wrong with her? Some kind of fit or something?”

  Mark caught sight of the milky-white of Heather’s eyes. Shit. She’d gone deep.

  “No matter,” the don said, nodding toward Mark. “Kill the boy, then we’ll have some fun with this one.”

  Before the bodyguards could turn to comply, Heather’s brown eyes rolled back into place. With a noisy hawking sound, she spat directly in the Don’s face, the wad of spittle splashing his nose and left eye.

  Don Espeñosa’s lip curled into an ugly grimace as he wiped at his face.

  “Wait!” His command brought the bodyguard who had begun to advance toward Mark to a halt.

  The drug lord turned his attention back to Heather. “So you care about this boy, huh? Okay. Then we’ll let him watch before we kill him.”

  With a grin that became a sneer, the don signaled four of the thugs forward. “Un-cuff her hands and stretch her out here on the floor.”

  To Mark’s horror, the men released Heather’s handcuf
fs, and although she struggled mightily, they pulled her down onto her back, one each pinning her arms while two more spread her legs. Don Espeñosa knelt down between them, reaching forward to rip open Heather’s blouse.

  “Ah, such sweet titties.” Don Espeñosa reached down and began fondling Heather’s breasts. “So nice and firm. You probably never even got to touch these, did you, Smythe?”

  To Mark, the panting breath of the men, the sound of the racing hearts pumping blood into the bulges in their pants, the smell of their sweat, felt like the rupture of hell’s gate, and from that gate poured a firestorm of rage that scorched his brain.

  Mark’s heart pulsed in his chest, sending a massive surge of blood and adrenaline coursing through his arteries.

  With a snap loud enough to spin Don Espeñosa’s head in his direction, the metal and plastic of his double handcuffs split apart.

  133

  “You probably never even got to touch these, did you, Smythe?”

  Jorge Espeñosa’s breath panted out in great puffs as he fumbled with his belt, anticipation making his fingers thick and clumsy. He was going to take his time and enjoy this.

  CRACK.

  What the hell was that? Jorge’s head spun toward the sound, but his mind failed to comprehend what he was seeing. The Smythe boy was loose and moving, a look of rage distorting his face into a werewolf mask of hatred. Then the face blurred as the boy spun toward Carlos, the lone standing bodyguard, his fist moving so fast that the drug lord’s eyes failed to follow it.

  Carlos’ head exploded like a melon hit with a sledgehammer, the force of the blow spattering globs of blood, bone, and brain across the five men crouched over Heather McFarland. Then Smythe was on them.

  As he reached for his Beretta, Don Espeñosa felt the kick break his arm and cave in his chest, the amazing force of the blow sending his body spinning across the room, where the impact with the wall broke his neck. As he slid to the floor, unable to twitch a finger, his face settled into an angle that provided a view of the carnage raging fifteen feet away.

  Even as he hurtled forward, he could hear the wet screams behind him, could smell the coppery odor of blood. Smythe wasn’t just killing the bodyguards, he was ripping them apart, pummeling their heads into a mush that even their nanite-infested bloodstreams had no chance to repair. Impossible. Nobody could move that fast or hit that hard. Nobody.

  Don Espeñosa felt his own unnatural healing process restore the broken parts of his body, weaving his torn spinal cord back together, rewarding him with a river of pain. One thing he knew for certain: if the nanites didn’t hurry, the boy demon was going to finish ravaging what remained of the bodyguards and turn his attention to a more entertaining victim, one he had saved for last.

  His hand moved, a jerky motion that didn’t accomplish anything, but which gave Jorge hope. And with that hope came panic. Just a few more seconds. That was all he needed to get enough control to reach his shoulder holster and put every bullet in his gun into the Smythe thing. He just hoped bullets would kill it.

  As he struggled to move, Jorge’s hand spasmed, but a quick glance toward the center of the room wiped away all hope. Smythe was coming, looking like he’d just finished playing bobbing for apples in a barrel of blood.

  And in those eyes…no pity.

  134

  It was raining, the same bloody rain Heather had seen in her nightmare. Although the vision had ended a minute earlier, it seemed that the nightmare world had merged with the present, leaving her struggling to understand if this was real or just another part of her hallucination. A warm wet blob splattered her face and hair as bodies that had just crouched atop her came apart, sending up great fountains of arterial spray.

  Screams bubbled wetly, dying out as the mouths that uttered them lost all shape. And in the very eye of this hurricane of death, Heather stared up at the avenging archangel that Mark had become.

  “I know what you are becoming.” The laughing voice of the Rag Man echoed in Heather’s delirious mind.

  What Mark had become was what she had made him. She had seen this future, and yet, she had knowingly set it in motion by spitting into Don Espeñosa’s face. It was that or let Mark die.

  Heather struggled to sit up in the slick red pool that covered the floor around her, uncaring that her blouse had been torn away, leaving her topless. She felt sick, not just in her stomach, but in her soul. The image of Stephen King’s Carrie stared back at her from the mirrored wall. Except it wasn’t a bucket of pig blood that soaked Heather. And Carrie hadn’t been covered with all these wiggling globs filled with nanites, struggling to repair the irreparable.

  Heather’s body retched a single dry heave before she managed to shift her memory to the couch on the Second Ship. But she couldn’t linger in that memory. The rain had stopped and Mark was moving across the room toward the crumpled body of Don Espeñosa.

  “Mark, stop!”

  Her voice tugged at him like a jockey trying to stop a runaway horse. He slowed but didn’t come to a complete halt.

  “Mark! Look at me.”

  Mark grabbed the drug lord at the collar, lifting his broken body in one hand, as if it had no more weight than that of a baby. Heather could see Don Espeñosa was healing rapidly, although his arms and legs still only managed short spasmodic jerks.

  “Mark! Look at me,” she repeated, struggling to her feet.

  Ever so slowly, Mark’s head turned back toward her, the rage melting from his face as he stared at her.

  Heather stepped forward. “We need him alive.”

  Espeñosa’s hand twitched upward.

  “I wouldn’t,” Mark said, his grip tightening until the drug lord’s eyes bulged. Don Espeñosa’s hand dropped back to his side.

  Mark’s gaze returned to Espeñosa. Reaching the shoulder holster, Mark removed the Beretta and slipped it into his own belt.

  “And why do we need this piece of trash?” he asked.

  “To take us to Jennifer, for one.”

  Heather noted his eyes moving across her naked torso, the awareness bringing a flush to her cheeks, though it was completely hidden beneath a coating of blood. Spotting a rack of clean towels, Heather grabbed two, draping one over her shoulders while she scrubbed at her face and hair with the other.

  Mark set the drug lord against the wall, standing over him in a posture that indicated his good luck might not continue to hold.

  Heather grabbed more towels, handing some to Mark who began scrubbing at his own sticky body. They certainly weren’t going to come clean, and their clothes were ruined, but it helped.

  “Someone will have heard the screams. They’ll come,” said Mark.

  Heather bent down to stare into Espeñosa’s dark eyes. “They heard, but they’re not coming. People scream a lot in this room. And you don’t like to have your rough play disturbed, do you, Señor Espeñosa?”

  The visions that filled her mind confirmed it.

  Heather studied the drug lord. The rate at which his nanite-infested bloodstream repaired the damage to his body was amazing. Already, he was able to stretch his arms and legs, rolling his neck from side to side as if recovering from no more than a bad crick. The muscles in his chest had worked the broken ribs back into some semblance of their original alignment where they were rapidly being knit back together.

  As incredible as that was, a glance to the mess in the room’s center showed that even nanites had their limitations. It was a fact that the look in Don Espeñosa’s eyes showed he was very much aware of.

  “Okay, enough recovery time,” Mark said, yanking Espeñosa to his feet, the man’s grimace giving evidence that he had not yet completely recovered.

  Heather stepped closer. “Now you’re going to take us directly to Jennifer. Believe me when I say I’ll know if you even consider doing something different than what we tell you.”

  Espeñosa glanced at Mark, then nodded. “Then you’re going to kill me?”

  “You heard what I told Mark. We
need you alive. You just make sure you keep it that way.”

  Don Espeñosa turned toward the inner door. “Walk with me. If we pass any servants, pay them no attention. They know better than to ask questions.”

  The Spanish opulence of the wide room into which Espeñosa led them made Heather feel as if she had just stepped into a luxury resort, the rich tile floor, high ceiling, and huge windows giving it an openness that, under other circumstances, would have made her reluctant to leave. A tiled staircase led up to the second floor, and along this, Don Espeñosa led them. At the top of the stairs they entered a red-tiled hallway adorned with paintings of the conquistadors and standing suits of armor. Stopping just outside the third room on the left, Don Espeñosa rapped three times.

  “Yes?” The familiar voice caused Heather’s breath to catch in her throat.

  “I’ve brought you some guests,” Don Espeñosa said.

  The sound of soft footsteps wafted out. Then the tall door opened inward.

  “Guests?” Jennifer stood there frozen in shock, clad in a beautiful white peasant dress, looking pale and thin but incredibly beautiful.

  Mark pushed Don Espeñosa into the wicker chair. “Don’t move!”

  As Mark closed the door behind them, Jennifer rushed forward, throwing her arms around Heather’s neck, oblivious to the mess she was making of her beautiful white dress, great sobs shuddering through her body. Heather hugged back so tightly she felt they might become one. And as her own tears mixed with those of her lovely little friend, she felt Mark’s powerful arms circle them both.

  “My God, Sis! I thought I’d lost you.” Mark’s voice choked off, his own tears dripping down his cheeks onto their heads.

  For the longest time they just stood there, holding each other in an embrace they wished could last forever, experiencing a oneness Heather had feared they would never again share.