Angel's Guardian: A Contemporary Vampire Romance (15 page)

CHAPTER
29

They boarded the yacht in stealth, incredibly fast, climbing over the grappled ropes with almost acrobatic agility. The last man up, Armand, was helped over the railing by Max. After giving Armand a meaningful pat on the shoulder, Max discreetly fell back, allowing Devian and his men to take front stage.

He pulled close to the sheltering wall and followed Armand. As soon as Devian and his men silently spread out, Armand quietly moved to the door that led to the lower deck. He opened it, stepped in, and turned to face Max with a smile. “Please, come in, Sir,” he whispered.

Max smiled widely and stepped in like a hot knife slicing through butter. Where there had been an impenetrable force field before, now there was only empty air. “Find a nice, deep shadow to hide in. I will call you when I need you.”

“Yes, Sir. A hero, I’m not.”

Max looked down the stairs. He reached and turned off the stairway lights. He had perfect night vision, and lighting would only help his enemy. With supernatural speed, he dashed down and quickly turned the landing lights off too.

He was now on a middle landing, a corridor led to his right to what was usually crew quarters. The one to the left was possibly extra cabins and utility rooms. He chose the left, betting that the torture room would be as far away from listening ears as possible.

He listened at the first cabin. Nothing there. He kept turning lights off as he went, and listening at every door. Nothing. There was only one door left. He noticed a thin line of light seeping from underneath the door. He came in slowly and placed his ear to the door...

“Yes, they are,” Jonathan said between choked sobs.”

“Is she at the California house already?”

“Yesss.”

“Good. The men I have on the way will not be making a wasted trip. Now, Mr. Travers, you should not feel bad. You only confirmed what we already knew.”

Fury suffused Max’s mind. Men on their way to hurt his woman, his babies, and he was 3,000 miles away! The door exploded in shards as the mad vampire came through it. The only thing the brothers Felix and Claus saw before their necks were snapped was a flash of movement, a flicking shadow and nothing else.

Then, he stood silent and burning with hatred before Pretto. “Do you know who I am? Do you know what I am?”

“How? How’d you move so fast? How’d you get in here? Who are you?” Pretto looked at his men, lying on the floor, necks bent unnaturally, eyes open but empty. His thoughts raced, looking for a solution to a situation he could never conceive.

“I’m Maxim Denisov. Did you not want to see me? Did you not call to me?”

Max allowed his fangs to lengthen, his eyes to glow red, and saliva to glisten on his lips. He tilted his head and hissed like a feral cat in that terrifying way that screamed “unnatural.”

For the first time, fear showed in Pretto’s eyes. “What the fuck?” he spit out, jumping back, but the vampire was not having it. Reaching for Pretto’s arms, he held them in his iron hold.

“You should have asked that first, before you decided to come within my reach, trying to take back what was never yours. Max struck fast and hard, drinking deeply and savagely, tearing flesh and bone and slurping noisily in a show of furious savagery. When he’d had his fill, he took his blade and cut the man’s throat swiftly and deeply. Max was not one to waste time, and neither was he a lover of torture.

Getting Jonathan down was truly a heart-rending labor. Poor Jonathan was not built for torture. It was a miracle he had survived. As soon as Jonathan was down, and Armand had him, Max zipped up to the deck and pulled out his cell. He was desperate with fear, and he was all thumbs with it.

******

Angel had been feeling on edge for a while. It was the dog. It had begun barking about fifteen minutes earlier and looking out the window expectantly. No matter what she did to settle him, he kept running back to the window, and her brand new curtains were getting abused.  The baby was now awake due to the dog’s barking.

“Here, Nina, hold the baby and give him his bottle. I need to see what Charlie is barking about.”

Strange, thought Angel as she pulled the curtains to the side and scanned the usually quiet and empty street. No one parked along the street, normally. The houses all had driveways and garages. On such a grey, cold, and miserable day, everyone parked as close to the entry as possible.

But now, there was a black SUV with dark tinted windows parked up the street, and it was one she’d not seen before. Obviously, one Charlie had never seen before, and that was why he was barking.

Angel was not clairvoyant by any means, but she had a highly refined sense of preservation honed by the years of running with her husband. He taught her never to dismiss her sense of danger, and now she felt strongly that something was wrong.

She went over to the hallway closet and pulled out Nina’s Jacket. “Nina, put the baby down, and put on your jacket.”

“Are we going somewhere?”

“Do as I say, now!”

Nina’s danger alarms went off. In her very young life, her mother had only taken that tone when bad guys came. Without another word, she placed the baby back on the playpen and took the jacket. Angel took a quilt from the playpen and wrapped little Marco tightly. Nina finished putting on her jacket, then her mother handed the baby back to her.

Angel went back to the closet and pulled out the spare baby bag she kept stocked in case they had to run. She took it to the kitchen and placed a few more things in it. She was about to run upstairs, when she heard the ringing. At first, it did not register in her mind. It took a moment to realize that what was ringing was the emergency phone in the drawer. Angel ran to pick it up.

“Hello!”

“Angel, love, get out of the house and run. Go to a neighbor, the nearest police station, a public place with lots of people. Don’t lose the phone. I will come for you, I promise.”

“Max, I think it’s too late. They’re here. There’s a black SUV with tinted windows parked a block away; one I’ve never seen before.”

“Call 911 and tell them someone is trying to break in. Do it now.”

‘Max, they’ll come in and shoot us before the cops get here. Besides, I don’t trust the police. Never have. I’ll call you when we’re safe. I have to go.”

Angel placed the phone in her back pocket and ran to the living room.

“Give me the baby and take the bag. Come, quickly, and bring Charlie.” She went out the back kitchen door into the misty and damp back yard. Gratefully, most of the back yard was not visible from the street front. She went to the dog house.

“Get inside, baby. Get deep to the back.” Nina looked uncertain, but did as she was told. Angel then handed her the baby. “Give him the bottle. He’ll fall asleep once he’s done, as always. Put the bag to the back, tucked in. Now, call Charlie and keep him in front of you. I will put his water and food out here. If he barks and gets out or you hear voices, you stay in, deep and quiet. You don’t come out until I come back or Max finds you. You understand?”

“Yes, like the other time Max found us.” Nina focused serious, worried eyes on her mom, the memory of that night still haunting her little heart.

“Yes, baby.” Angel’s eyes filled with tears. “I love you both so much. So much. I will lead the bad men away. You must stay very quiet and take care of your brother. Keep him wrapped up. Charlie will keep you both warm. Keep him close.”

“Max will come get us. He will, I know.”

“Yes, baby. He will.”

CHAPTER
30

Angel ran back into the house and got the dog’s dishes and filled them. She placed them by the dog house. She leaned inside and gave her babies one last kiss.

“Keep quiet, no matter what Charlie does or what you hear. There’s food in the bag. Either I or Max will come.”

Once more inside the house, she searched through her closet. She stuffed her wallet inside her jacket pocket. Max had gotten her a small gun which he’d cleverly hidden inside her checked-in luggage. She stuck it inside her boot. She hoped she didn’t shoot her foot off.

She stepped out the door and did not bother locking it. They would break it down if she did. Now, it was up to her to lead them away from the children. She took a left at her gate and began walking towards the SUV.

About twenty paces from it, she did a double take of the SUV, acting as if she’d just realized it was there and recognized it. She quickly crossed in front of it and making a dash to the sidewalk on the other side,  broke into a run. As she reached the corner, she turned right and looked quickly behind her. The SUV’s back lights came on. The chase was on.

Angel ran full speed, knowing now that all depended on her. Somewhere close by, there would be another car waiting for her. She had to get out of the open and find a place to hide. She must also keep the enemy away from her house. She needed to give them glimpses of her to force them to give chase.

As a dark green sedan came slowly down the street facing her, the black SUV turned the corner behind her. She once again ran across the street and scrambled over the link fence into a neighbor’s yard. As she ran through the yard, to the back and over the fence again, she could feel her heartbeat thumping madly.

She did not stop. She kept running and jumping fences, heading for the town’s camping grounds which gave way to a forested area. If neighbors saw her jumping their fences, they might call the police, she worried.

It was after four pm, getting dark, and most people were still at work. School was out, but the day was cold and drizzly, and everyone was indoors keeping warm, watching TV. Every time she jumped a fence, she took a chance that a dog would attack her. Thankfully, on chilly, wet days, most owners kept their dogs in.

If she could hide out until sundown, just less than an hour, she could double back under the cover of dark and get her babies safely back in the house. They could sit in the dark, quiet as church mice, and wait for Max. They may be three thousand miles apart, but that would not keep him away. He would come, she knew.

She jumped over the last fence which backed up to a gravelly, shrubby slope that gave way to a bubbly, narrow brook. She followed it down for about fifty feet until she found a place where she could jump from rock to rock and ford it. On a cold, clammy evening, it would not do to get wet.

She climbed up a short slope on the other side, her breath short and labored, her hands grasping at the long, wet, but still green grasses and headed for the woods verging on the other side. On the edge of the woods, she turned to look behind her. There, between the last two houses, the dark green sedan was stopped, and she could clearly see a man holding what seemed to be binoculars trained in her direction.

She turned and ran into the woods. They knew where she went, and they would quickly find a way around and come for her. In the distance she heard police sirens. Her pursuers would have to dodge those too.

******

The house seemed to be deserted. The two men split up, one heading to the second floor, gun in hand, the other one sweeping out the first. He searched out the kitchen, every covert, every closet. He doubled back and opened the hall door to the garage. It was clean as a whistle, not a car or even a tricycle in it. It was obvious the woman did not drive.

The man who swept the upstairs came down. “Where are the kids? There’s a baby’s nursery and a little girl’s room,  but where are the brats? She did not take them with her.”

“They’re probably with a friend or neighbors,” answered the other one, a burly, dark behemoth of a man with fingers the size of large sausages and a bulbous nose to match. “She was going somewhere when she saw us, to the market or something, and probably had someone babysitting. Maybe she was going out to get them.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it. Once we have her, we’ll get the kids’ location from her.”

“I wish that dog would shut up. If the neighbors get pissed, they’ll call the cops.” Mr. Sausage Fingers looked out the kitchen window at the large, mostly empty yard. He could barely make out the outline of the dog standing just within the dog house, watching the main house and barking.

“We should sweep out the yard, just to be safe,” said his partner.

“Yeah, be my guest. I’ll wait for you here. While you’re at it, I’ll check the fridge and see if there is beer.”

His partner moved to the back kitchen door and opened it. At once, the  dog ran out in the cold drizzle and made a snarling dash for the door. The man closed it immediately. “Nothing out there but the nasty dog. I’d shoot it, but shots would alert the neighbors.”

“Here, have a beer. She’s got a tub of tuna fish salad. I can eat a sandwich.”

They forgot about the dog and the yard, and spent the next half hour drinking beer and eating. When his cell rang, Sausage Fingers pulled it out. “Yeah,” he answered. “No, nothing here. House is cleared. No sign of the kids.” He listened for a few moments, then put his cell away.

“They sighted her as she took to the woods,” he grumbled, none too happy. “We’ve been called in. Looks like we’re going hunting in the woods tonight.”

“Jesus, I could think of a dozen things I’d rather be doing tonight,” answered his partner.

As the two men left the house and got back in their car, they could still hear Charlie barking. “We should have shot him,” grumbled Sausage Fingers.