DAKSHA PALACE

“I have it.” Brasden strode into Kadmus’s library and threw down a photo on the desk. “I had Mark Nagle, the man who handles your West Coast operations, call his contact at Langley. There was a top secret operation going on in this area. Catherine Ling was to be in the center of it.”

“Catherine Ling…” Kadmus gazed down at the woman staring back at him from the photo. “Beautiful. Fierce.” He read the brief dossier. “And exceptional. You’re sure that she’s the agent who took Sullivan?”

“She arrived in Hong Kong yesterday.”

“Coincidence?”

“I only saw her for a moment in the darkness, but I’d swear it was the same woman in the photo.”

Kadmus couldn’t take his gaze from the photo. He could feel the rage searing through him. Catherine Ling was not smiling, but he could feel the mockery behind that intense expression.

Mocking him? Mocking the fact that he’d not been able to stop her from taking Sullivan. It was irrational, but the thought would not leave him. He had been beaten by a woman and he could—

“Kadmus?”

“Get out of here, Brasden,” he said through his teeth. “Find her. Find them both and bring them back to me.”

“I know you want Sullivan alive. What about Catherine Ling?”

“I want her alive, too.”

Torturing Erin Sullivan had been a necessity, but it had given him a certain pleasure. It would be a pure, intense pleasure teaching Catherine Ling she could not make a fool of him. “I want to spend a long, long time with the bitch before I cut her throat. Maybe watching her suffer will make Sullivan more cooperative.”

“I’ll be delighted to assist,” Brasden said grimly. “I know you don’t want excuses about me being taken off guard by her, but it’s true. Ling won’t ever be able to take me down again.”

“We’ll talk about participation later. First, you have to find them. I want a lead within the next four hours.” He didn’t look up from the photo as the door slammed behind Brasden.

Catherine Ling.

She was as alluring as one of the high-priced whores he paid at that house in Beijing, but he had no desire for her. Her skin was glowing, golden satin, and her lips were full and beautifully shaped and she was all fire … and mockery.

Mockery.

The rage was pouring through him. She had taken away Sullivan and was standing in the way of his reaching the lotus gate. He ruled these mountains, he could take or crush or kill at will, but it was not enough. He wanted more, and he would get it.

The ultimate power.

He reached into the top drawer of the desk and took out the black velvet jewelry box. His fingers caressed the softness of the velvet. He always liked to anticipate before he opened the box.

How many times had Erin offered to give him her necklace? She had never understood why he didn’t want it.

I don’t need it. I have my own lotus necklace, Erin.

He opened the box and gazed down at the eight-sided lotus pendant on the gold chain. There were still faint traces of blood on that chain. He had decided not to clean it after he’d yanked it off the neck of the priest from whom he had taken the necklace. He had found out many things from that fool of a priest but not enough. But this necklace gave him a sense of his own power and a vision of what was to be.

Shambhala.

Just thinking about it brought the heady joy that it had the first time he had found out that it could be within his reach.

And he could still have it.

Erin Sullivan would have given in eventually if he’d been able to work on her a little longer. Then he would have found the Guardian, and he would have been on his way.

And it had all stopped because this bitch had stepped in and snatched Sullivan. It was intolerable. The rage was rising and cresting and rising again as he thought of the things he wanted to do to Catherine Ling.

*   *   *

Kadmus!

Catherine sat upright, jarred from sleep. Her heart was beating hard, and her palms were damp from sweat though the cave was cold.

“Is something wrong?” Erin had raised herself on her arm to look at Catherine apprehensively. “Did you hear something?”

“I don’t know.” She listened. “Nothing.”

“Nightmare?”

She shook her head. “I just felt … I don’t know … I felt as if Kadmus were here. Crazy.” She reached for her water bottle and took a long drink. “Particularly since I’ve never met him face-to-face. I’ve only seen photos of him on my e-mail. I guess I must be thinking about him so much that it—Forget it.”

“Or he’s thinking about you,” Erin said gravely. “I’ve never met anyone who was so intensely emotional when he was focusing on anything. I used to wake in the middle of the night and think that Kadmus was there in the room with me.”

“And was he?”

“No, but he’d show up five or ten minutes later. And it wasn’t that I had any kind of psychic gift or anything. I just think that some people send out such powerful vibes that we unconsciously sense them.” She added, “I frustrated Kadmus, and he became driven.”

Catherine could imagine Erin’s waking, and just agonizingly waiting for Kadmus to come. “Well, you’re free, and Kadmus isn’t in a room down the hall. He’s miles away and, if he’s running around, slobbering at the mouth, and going crazy, good for us for making him do it.”

Erin stared at her in surprise. Then she chuckled. “Catherine, I do like you. That’s the first time I’ve laughed at anything concerning Kadmus since the minute he took me.”

“And I can see why,” Catherine said. “He’s ugly and full of venom and should be tossed off this mountain after going through the kind of torture he put you through. If we get a chance, we’ll do that.” She paused. “But then you have to let him go except to laugh at him. Otherwise, he’ll still be keeping you prisoner.”

“You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.”

“Oh, yes.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did he rape you?”

Erin moistened her lips and didn’t answer immediately. “Yes.”

Catherine could see her agony at those haunted memories. “I didn’t think that he’d leave that ugliness out of his agenda. That may be the hardest wound of all to heal. But you can do it.”

She lifted her chin. “I know I can. I closed that pain and degradation away as I did all the others. I didn’t let it touch me.”

“No? Then you’re stronger than I was when it happened to me. I was only ten years old. It touched me, but I fought my way until I reached the point where I wouldn’t let myself be a victim by remembering.” She repeated, “You closed that pain and degradation away … How did you do that, Erin?”

“I just did it.”

Time to send in the first probe. “Cameron didn’t teach you to do that?”

Erin’s shocked gaze flew to Catherine’s face. “What?”

“Richard Cameron, Erin. It’s time we talked about Cameron. If we’d talked before, I wouldn’t have had such a disturbing episode with the bastard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about for a good deal of our conversation. Most of the time, I was just angry and wanting to deck him. I need you to fill in the blanks.”

She was silent.

Catherine couldn’t expect anything else. Erin had gone through terrible torture and still hadn’t revealed anything about Cameron. “Okay, I’ll go first. Cameron disturbed my nap by a very unwelcome intrusion. At first, I thought that it was a dream or hallucination, but then we talked, and I realized that he was a man capable of mental telepathy and God knows what else. He’s some kind of troubleshooter for an organization that could be corrupt or just the usual bureaucratic conglomerate.” She stared Erin in the eye. “And you’re involved with them in some way. Innocently, I hope. Because Cameron impresses me as one dangerous customer and more ruthless than you could imagine.”