Ryan woke from a nightmare, cold sweat streaming down his face, soaking his shirt and the cushion of the Mistral's passenger seat beneath him. He straightened up, then leaned forward and put his head against his knees.
His mind refused to let go of the dream. The pouring rain back at the top of Pony Mountain. The dense forest lit by flashes of lightning, shaken by thunder. Ryan fought Burnout again, but this time, the cyberzombie had gone down before his onslaught.
In his battle rage, Ryan lifted the metal body over his head and threw it against the trunk of the tree. Instead of feeling relief, the sound of Burnout's spine cracking had brought horror, and he'd rushed to the man's side, turned him over, and screamed.
It was Miranda's face looking back up at him.
Ryan screamed, a high-pitched wail that had become the sound of the engines as his subconscious reluctantly released its hold on his mind. Don't need an interpreter to divine the meaning behind that one, thought Ryan.
Ryan sat up in the Mistral's dark cabin, making the deja vu landing back into National Airport in FDC. He blinked away the tears and rubbed sleep from his eyes. Everything was set for keeping track of Burnout. Jane had put together a small group consisting of two mages and a samurai.
Ryan had left the note on the Bison as a last-second whim, a bit of psychological warfare to throw Burnout off balance.
Miranda's death was hitting him harder than it should, he knew that. Runs like this were dangerous and sometimes people died. Maybe I'm going soft. Regardless, he wanted out now. Dunkelzahn's mission would have to take a back seat to Ryan's persecution of Damien Knight.
Dhin's drowsy voice filtered through the cabin. "We'll be on the ground in five."
Ryan nodded. Readied his gear as they landed. The trip from the airport to the mansion was made in a haze. Ryan was dimly aware of the limo ride and of the smell of cherry blossoms, but everything else was clouded by a distant fog.
It wasn't until Nadja stood before him on the mansion steps, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her soft cotton robe pulled snugly about her, that Ryan came back to reality. He tried to ask her about the meeting he had arranged with her and Carla Brooks and Jane-in-the-box.
"Shh," she said. "Tomorrow." Then she took him by the hand and led him into the house, upstairs to the bedroom and beyond into the master bath.
A huge tub full of steaming water waited for him, and as she stripped his clothes from his body, he thought of Pony Mountain in the hard wash of the rain.
Nadja dropped her robe, revealing her tightly muscled stomach, her hardening brown nipples. She gazed into his eyes and led him into the hot water.
As the heat robbed the strength from his muscles, easing the knots even as it stung his crudely bandaged wounds, Nadja kissed him softly. His forehead, his neck, his eyes, his lips.
She kissed him to hardness, and in the lazy liquid, she wrapped herself around him.
With a tenderness he'd never known, she made love to him. Carrying him to sweet oblivion. He let himself forget about Miranda, about Burnout. About Damien Knight. His cares and worries melted into the embrace with the woman he loved, giving him a measure of peace he'd seldom known.
After, he slept without dreams for the first time in his life. 22 August 2057