Destiny

"What brings you up here?" the old man asked.

"La Bête," A

Halting, he peered over his shoulder. "Surely you're joking."

"No."

"La Bête is a myth," the old man stated. "Probably a story made up by a serial killer."

"You would know about serial killers?"

"I would." He didn't elaborate. Instead, he turned and continued up the ridgeline.

"What are you doing up here?" she asked.

"Searching for something that was lost."

"You lost something up here?"

"No." The old man swung around a boulder and kept going up. "It was lost a long time ago. Hundreds of years ago."

"What was it?"

"Nothing you'd be interested in, my dear."

"I'm an archaeologist. I like old things." A

"You?" he asked as if in disbelief. "An archaeologist?"

"Yes," A

The old man blew a raspberry. "You're a child. What would you know about anything of antiquity?"

"I know that old men who think they know everything don'tknow everything," she said. "Otherwise childrenlike me wouldn't be discovering new things."

"Learning about them from a book is one thing," the old man said. "But to truly appreciate them, you have to live among them."

"I try," A

"Good for you. In another forty or fifty years, provided you don't die of a snakebite or a long fall, perhaps you will have learned something."

A tremor passed through the ground.

A

The old man turned around to face her. His face knitted in concern. Irritably, he tapped his staff against the ground. "Did you feel that?" he asked.

"Yes," A

"It felt like an earthquake. This isn't earthquake country."

"Earthquakes take place around the world all the time. Humans just aren't sensitive enough to feel all of them," A

The ground quivered again, more vigorously this time.

"Well," the old man said, "I certainly felt that." He kept walking forward. "Maybe we should think about getting down."

A

"Where are you going?" the old man asked.

"I want to check something out." A

A game trail.

Despite the tremors, A

Foulard's mood hadn't lifted. A burning need for some kind of revenge filled him. The woman, A

He parked his motorcycle beside a new SUV. The five men with him parked nearby.

They dismounted as one, used to working together. Jean had been one of them, one of Lesauvage's chosen few.

Drawing his 9 mm handgun, Foulard took the lead. The other men fell in behind.

They went quickly. Over the past few years, they had learned the Céve

None of them had ever found anything.

Foulard truly didn't believe the woman had found anything, either. He hoped she hadn't. Once Lesauvage saw that she knew nothing, he would quickly give her to them.

Eagerly, Foulard jogged up the trail. His face and arms still hurt, but the pain pills had taken off the edge.

When the first tremor passed through him, Foulard thought it was the drugs in his system. Then a cascade of rocks rushed from farther up the grade and nearly knocked him from his feet.

"What the hell is that?" one of the men behind him yelled.

"Earthquake," another said.

"We don't want to be on top of this mountain if it's about to come down."

Foulard spun toward them. "We were sent here to get the woman," he said. "I won't go back to Lesauvage without her."

The men just stared at him.

The ground quivered again.

"I'll kill any man who leaves me," Foulard promised.

They all looked at him. They knew he would.

Another tremor passed through the earth, unleashing more debris that sledded down the mountainside.

"All right," Croteau said. He was the oldest and largest of them. "We'll go with you. But make it quick."

Turning, Foulard kept his balance through another jarring session, then started to run.

The game trail looked old and, judging from the bits and pieces of it A

The ground heaved this time, actually rising up and slamming back down beneath A

"This way," the old man shouted. "Come back from there before you get yourself killed."

This is insane, A

"Don't be foolish," the old man said.

Frustrated, A

Twenty-four satellites bracketed the earth. Every reading taken by the device acquired signals from at least twelve of them. When she returned to the mountains, she'd be within inches of the exact spot where she now stood.

Returning the GPS locater to her pack, she turned and started back down the mountain. The compulsion within her surged to a fever pitch with a sudde

"Are you all right?" the old man asked.

She wasn't. But she couldn't speak to tell him that.

Without warning, she was no longer on the mountaintop. She stood in the middle of a blazing fire. Pain threatened to consume her.

Her whole life she'd suffered from nightmares about fire but, for the first time, it was happening while she was awake.

"Girl!" the old man bellowed.

"Girl!" he roared again. Panic strained his features. Some other look was there, as well. Perhaps it was understanding.

A

Forced to use his staff to aid with his balance across the heaving earth, he came toward her. He held out his hand. "Come to me. Come to me now!"

Feeling drained and totally mystified, A

Barely staying on her feet, A

"I can't reach you," she said.

The old man pointed, leaning on his staff as another quake shuddered through the earth. "There's a trail. Back that way. Just head down."

Turning, A