A groan drew him back to the tunnel.
Ashanda’s eyes fluttered open, her head lolled back, as she struggled to regain consciousness.
“She was trying to protect us,” Kai said.
Painter suspected that her altruism was meant more for Rafael than for anyone else—but maybe not. Either way, they’d all benefited.
“She did protect us,” he agreed.
Even now, he watched the woman’s clothing on the side closest to the blast begin to lose color and drift down in flakes of fine ash. The dark skin beneath grew speckled as if it had been sprinkled with fine chalk—then those dots grew bigger, spreading, beginning to weep blood.
She was contaminated, whether by Chin’s nanobots or some other corrosive process. Using her own body like a shield, she had blocked the rain of particulate corruption from reaching them.
But the tunnel would not be safe for long.
The choke point at the end had begun to crumble, the rock turning to sand and sifting away.
“It’s happening much faster than in Utah,” Chin said. “A nano-nest of this size will likely grow exponentially from here.”
Painter pointed up the tunnel. “Grab Kowalski. You know what you have to do.”
“Yes, sir.” Still, Chin’s eyes looked longingly at the sight of the process as it began to spread, eating its way through all matter, his expression at once fascinated and horrified. Then he shoved around and headed up, collecting the others and herding them ahead of him.
Only Jordan refused to comply. He slipped under the geologist’s arm and came back down. “Are you okay?” he asked Kai.
She lifted her tethered arm.
Painter returned his attention to Rafael. “Give us the code for the handcuffs.”
But the Frenchman’s gaze remained fixed on his woman. She had regained a dazed, weak consciousness, her head leaning crookedly against the wall, staring back at him. Her breathing was shallow and rapid from pain. Blood flowed down her contaminated side, which was missing skin now, showing muscle.
“What have you done, Ashanda?” he murmured.
“Rafael, we need the code for the handcuffs.”
The bastard seemed deaf to Painter’s pleas, but Ashanda lifted her good arm a trembling fraction of an inch and let it drop, her desire clear.
Painter remained silent, knowing he could offer no better argument.
So he waited, watching the world slowly dissolve around him.
6:07 A.M.
Shattered on the stone floor, Rafael gazed into Ashanda’s eyes. She had sacrificed all for him. All of his life, he’d fought to prove himself, to others, to his family, even to himself—to rise above a shame that was no fault of his own. But in those dark eyes, such effort was never necessary. She saw him, watching in her silences, always there, always so strong.
In this moment he finally truly saw her.
The knowledge shattered him worse than any fall could have done.
“What have I done to you?” he whispered to her in French.
He reached to her cheek.
“Be careful,” Painter said, sounding far away.
Rafael was beyond such concerns. He knew his injuries were severe, that he was growing cold and slipping into shock. He tasted blood on his tongue with each breath, coming from a ripped lung and fractured ribs. Both legs had multiple breaks, likely his hip, too.
He was done for, but he would last long enough.
For her.
He brushed his knuckles along her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw, touching the hollow of her throat.
Her eyes closed ever so slightly.
Her lips shifted into a ghost of a smile.
Oh, my love . . .
He pulled her gently into his arms, felt the hot blood along her back, the tremble of agony. She tried to push him away, ever protecting him.
No, let me be the stronger one . . . just this one time.
Whether hearing his plea or simply too weak, Ashanda collapsed with a sigh against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes looking up at him with a joy he’d never seen before. He cursed himself for denying such simple happiness to her—and to himself.
A voice nagged in his ear.
To be done with it, he spoke five numbers, the code to the handcuffs.
A shuffling followed. He heard two young voices, hopeful and intense and full of such raw affection. Then they took that brightness and fled away.
Once alone, he leaned down and gently kissed those lips. He felt them quiver under his. He held her this way for an eternity, feeling each breath against his cheeks . . . growing slower, slower . . . then at last nothing.
He felt the same corruption now eating into him, through the palm that held her, the shoulder that supported her, even the lips that kissed her. But it was a wonderful pain. It came from her, and he would have it no other way.
So he held her to him.
A voice intruded. He turned to find Painter still there at his side. He thought the man had left. What had seemed an eternity must have been only minutes.
“What do you want, Monsieur Crowe?” he whispered coarsely, feeling parts of himself drifting away.
“Who are you?” Painter asked, crouched a few feet away like some vulture.
Rafael leaned his head back and closed his eyes, knowing what the man truly wanted. Though his body was spent, his mind remained sharp.
“I know who you seek, but they are not me. Nor my family.” He opened his eyes to stare at Painter. It hurt to talk, but he knew he must. “What you seek has no name. Not formally.”
“Then what do you know about them?”
“I know your oldest families here in America have roots that trace back to the Mayflower. That is nothing, mere hiccups in the march of history. Off in Europe, families have unbroken roots that go back two, three, four times as far. But there is a handful—a chosen few—whose heritage goes back much further. Some claim to be able to trace their lineage to the time before Christ, but who knows? I do know that they’ve been gathering wealth, power, knowledge, while manipulating history, hiding behind shifting faces, always changing. They are the secret within all secret societies.”
This seemed to raise an amused croak inside him—painful as it was to emit.
“Others have named these bloodlines les familles de l’étoile, the star families. I hear they once numbered more, but now there is but one, the True Bloodline. To stay strong, they seek to rebuild from younger families, like my own, families of the upper echelon.”
“Echelon?”
“A ranking system among the younger families who seek to join the Bloodline. First tier is designated by a single mark: the star and moon of the oldest mystère. The second adds the Freemasons’ square and compass. Another énigmatique order, non? And for our service in America, the Saint Germaine clan was granted entry to the third level. We were chosen—I was chosen—because of our knowledge of nanotechnology. An honor.” He coughed thickly, tasting blood. “Come see.”