Hope (Other World Protection Agency Book 1) (4 page)

BOOK: Hope (Other World Protection Agency Book 1)
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Chapter
Four

 

 

 

 

“Exactly what do you expect us to
do?”

They had gone to the water planet
yesterday. As hard as it was for her to believe, there was no way that could
have been faked. She had seen the children and had even been given a chance to
play a game of tag with them. Lia had pointed out the plant life as well as the
variety of fish not seen on Earth. They had met her friends and even been given
a tour of her home. When Charon had brought them back, they had collapsed on
the couches he had provided and slept the night and most of the next day
through.

“I don’t expect you to do
anything, Tara. Ok maybe I expect you to eat since you slept for so long.”

 He sat on the couch with two
plates of food across from him. He had pulled it out of the air the same way he
had pulled the furniture out. Now that’s the kind of power she wanted. It would
be more useful than opening doors to other planets. She had never wanted to be
an astronaut, but she had dreamed of being Uhura as she watched old reruns of
Star Trek. Come to think of it, the new Uhura was kick butt and she got Spock.
Maybe she should start looking for her own spaceman.

“Tara, let’s eat. The two of you
can have a staring contest after we are done.” Paul sat down and started to eat
followed by her.

After eating everything on her
plate, she eyed Charon again and waited. “It’s time for me to go.” Paul said
standing as he looked at his watch. “My shift starts soon.”

“No.” Tara and Charon said at the
same time. Tara shouted hers in panic, while Charon said his with authority.

“You can’t go back there, Paul.”
Charon’s voice was matter of fact.

“Of course I can go back. I work
there.”

“You’re right. You can go back,
because that’s where they are looking for you. Why don’t you go back there and
see if your shield will hold up under the attack of three Demos.” Charon tried
to hide his growing impatience as he patiently explained the facts to Paul.

“Why would they be looking for
me?”

“Because you were with her.” He
said pointing at Tara. “Now you are a marked man. There’s a bounty on your
head.”

“How do you know this?” Paul
queried.

“Some of us did not sleep all
day.”

“So you think we can stay here
forever and be a happy little family of three?” Charon frowned and shivered
when Tara said that. “Or do you think we will just go exploring and never come
back?”

“No, I don’t expect you to hide
out here forever. I simply don’t expect you to admit defeat and walk to your
doom either. If either of you go back there, you will be dead. If one of you dies
let’s just say the other is not too far behind.”

“I don’t understand. They want to
kill me because I am a door? That’s ridiculous. If they kill me, what’s to
prevent someone else from being born a door? Will they kill them too? Why did
they not go after Paul before he ever worked at the hospital, since he was a
shield?” She was ignoring the part about if one died the other would. Why?
Because she was still convinced Charon was slightly off his rocker.

“They do not want to kill you,
because you’re a door. There are thousands of doors on your planet right now.
There is always a shield for a door. Sometimes more than one shield. Your
planet is developing nicely as far as that goes.”

“Then why me?”

“Because you’re more than a
door.”

That caught her attention. What
could be going on that she knew nothing about? In the back of her mind she
could hear her mother’s voice whispering something to her. No matter how she
tried she couldn’t increase the volume on that whisper.

“What am I?”

“Now there’s the real question.
When you discover the answer let me know.”

She advanced on him, directing
all her anger and frustration on one target. She was going to have black wing
angel soup tonight. Paul caught her around the mid-section and lifted her off
the floor as she kicked and flailed her arms.

“He will not always be here to
protect you.” Charon almost fell on his butt he laughed so hard.

“That’s what I love about you
humans you’re so entertaining.”

“Let’s go for a drive.” Paul said
putting her down away from Charon. “You can call me off in the car.”

With one last glare at Charon she
turned and headed for the door.

“Kiddies,” Charon called after
them. “Stop in the Tea room on Penn avenue.” Your second lesson is waiting for
you there. He said before they were out of range.

‘Hi may I speak to Dr. Michaels?”

“Speaking.” The deep voice on the
other end of the phone managed to get her attention for a minute.

“I am calling to say Dr. Paul
Charles will not be in for his shift tonight.”

“Why isn’t Paul calling?”

“He’s under the weather and just
woke up enough to have me call him off. He wanted to come in tonight, but I
think he has something that is catchy and I wouldn’t want him to pass it
around.”

“Have him call in later when he feels
better.”

“Will do. You have a good night.”

“Btw, tell him I am glad he found
a woman, but I never realized it was catchy.” He hung up on her with a laugh.

“Did you hear that?”

“I did. I never realized it was
catchy either.” They are laughing at me. She tried to be mad, but a smile tried
to creep onto her lips.

“You realize this is not funny.
What if they came back for you and killed innocent people. That would be
catchy.”

“I totally agree with you. It is
never funny when death is catchy.”

Turning in her seat she glared at
him and put her arms over her chest. She burst out laughing catching herself by
surprise. “I guess you don’t say catchy in the medical field?”

“No Miracle, we do not say catchy,
but if you keep smiling like that I will start a campaign to change that fact.”

She sat back with a silly grin on
her face, reminding herself that she did not like him. Heck, she didn’t like
anyone including that pompous fool Charon. She should have been dead by now.
She had tried hard enough. She even managed to ignore that voice in the back of
her head that said then she would have not met the hot Dr. Paul.

“Where are we going?”
Conversation was better than listening to her oh so reasonable voice. Who had
let that voice out of her sound proof cell anyway?

“Nowhere really. I just thought a
drive would make things better.” Closing her eyes she nodded. Getting out was a
good decision.

“Tara, have you met any aliens
that are good?”

“Yes, I have met some. At the
time I refused to believe they were aliens. In fact I thought I was losing my
mind.”

“Tell me about some of them.”

“There’s this race with a name I
can’t pronounce, so I call them the rocks. They look more like big boulders. It
seems impossible for them to be intelligent, but they are. I stumbled onto
their world one day when I was looking for escape. It may have saved my sanity,
even as I was questioning it.”

“One day you will have to take me
there.” He pulled up to the curb and stopped with a sigh.

“Where are we?”

“The Tea Room.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Seems I did not have a choice. I
would say I was compelled to come, but that’s not right. There was simply no
choice. No matter what I did I could not change our course. So I went with it.”

“You think someone wants to kill
us?”

“Well, trouble does seem to follow
you. Come on, let’s go fight for our lives.”

The Tea Room sat on a very
popular street, although that street was deserted for some reason. It was a
simple and unassuming store front painted in pink. The sign was white with pink
swirls in the corner. There was a five star rating in the corner of the window,
stating it was safe to eat there. They walked in and saw that there were
several booths and a door to the kitchen. The other door seemed to be to the
unisex bathroom. The walls were dingy and the booths had seen better days, but
the place seemed to be clean.

A woman stuck her head out from
the kitchen. “Take a seat. I will be with you soon.”

“Pick a booth.” He smiled at her
as she picked one against the wall. “Why didn’t you pick the one closest to the
door?”

“I thought about it. I figured if
I could pop in anywhere, I would make sure the door was cut off. Then I would
have my friends pop in behind the poor unsuspecting human. With our backs
against the wall, we have a better chance of fighting our way out.”

“Good strategy.”

The waitress came out and handed
them some menus.

“Can I bring you something to
drink while you look at the menus?” The waitress asked with a smile.

“I just want a cup of tea.” She
tried to hand the menu back.

“I insist you look at the menu.”
This time the waitress’s voice was not friendly.

“You think she doesn’t get any
business or is she just that rude?”

“I think you have to look at the
menu.” She looked up to see Paul’s head stuck in the menu. Reluctantly she
opened it.

This was definitely not a menu
meant for the normal human. It was filled with specials. There was the special
for the door. The special for the shield as well as specials for other things
that seemed interesting. What caught her attention was the specials for the Demos
of destruction.

“We are neutral. We cater both to
the good and the bad. We take no sides. We simply watch.”  The waitress came
back into the room looking as if she had never left.

Tara took her time looking the
waitress over. On first inspection, she looked human. She was about five foot nothing
with slightly slanted eyes and straight black hair. She looked oriental in
origin, until you looked at her eyes. They were brown, but they seemed to go on
forever. She acted as if the human skin she wore was a disguise, not a good one,
but a disguise none the less.

“You should order fast. Order
now.” The waitress’s voice had turned urgent and demanding.

“I will have a gatekeeper with a
healthy portion of doorway with the Saturday surprise.” The more she talked the
bigger her eyes got.

“I will have the shield combo
with a side of badass. I will chase it with forever.”

The smile on the waitress’s lit
up the room and the dingy walls shimmered for a minute with brightness that made
Tara feel uncomfortable. Two steaming cups of something appeared in her hands.
Her shape had briefly changed as she acquired the cups. The look Tara caught
was definitely not human.

“Drink now.” Not knowing what
else to do, they drank it down. They choked it down. She would not be recommending
this place to any of her nonexistent friends.

“You must come back again, but
now we are closed.” She ushered them out of the door quickly, turned her sign
to closed and disappeared.

“What the heck just happened?”
She looked at Paul.

“I have no idea. Maybe we
offended her?”

“Offended her! Did you drink that
tea? I thought she was trying to kill us.” There was the sound of laughter
nearby, but it wasn’t pleasant.

“Did you hear that?” This time
she looked at him hoping he would say no.

Shaking his head yes he looked
around for the sound. There were three shapes in front of them and three
behind. The street was still deserted and three of those shapes stood between
them and the car.

“You think they are here for
tea?” There was a cocky half smile on her face. So this was how it all ended,
she thought, maintaining her smile even as she grieved for Paul’s life.

Stepping out of the shadows was
the Demos from the other night. He looked just as scary as the night before.
“Seems the Tea Room is closed, so we will settle for you. The time has come to
permanently end you human.”

“Aren’t you tired of trying to
kill me? You never succeed. I don’t even succeed when I try to take my own life.”
This was really getting old, the wish to die combined with a never decreasing
life force.

“You could just make it easy for
me little human. Lay down and let me separate your head from your shoulders.
That will work.”

Tara and Paul, were back to back
as they watched the Demos inch closer to them. There was no way out and she
knew it. Would they let Paul go free if she surrendered her life? Why did she
even care about what happened to him? He was an innocent in all of this. She
could feel his back pressing against hers, but could not get a sense of what he
was thinking. She could die. That should be a relief. She could finally have
the peace she sought, right? Yet for some reason, the thought of dying was no
longer appealing. She sighed, it was awake and it refused to go peacefully to
the grave. Although she hated to admit it she was in agreement with it.

BOOK: Hope (Other World Protection Agency Book 1)
9.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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