Larkspur (18 page)

“
But then, Mike
said . . .” Jill nodded as if she had made her
point. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew they were
totally lost. “So here.”

She pushed the photo album toward her
mother. Anjelika looked at the album and then at Jill.

“
What is it?” Otis asked
in Russian. His confusion was so clear that even Jill knew what he
was saying.

“
It’s my ex-husband’s
photo album,” Anjelika said. “He never went anywhere without it. He
even brought it when . . .”

Anjelika’s right hand stroked the top of the
album.

“
What is this?” Anjelika
asked. “You brought this back from Costa Rica when you were a
child.”

“
Yes. I mean, you
said . . . I . . .” Jill gave them a
frustrated glare.

Jill yanked the book from her mother and
turned it around. She flipped to the middle of the book and began
yanking photos off one page. Six-by-eight glossy pictures flew in
the air and landed on the floor. Once the page was clear of photos,
Jill pushed the album back at Anjelika and Otis.

Anjelika gasped. Stunned, Otis clutched his
heart. Bruno stood from the couch. He gave Jill a wary look and
took the photo album from her.

“
Many bearer bonds,” Bruno
said. “Where you get?”

“
My father gave them to
me,” Jill said.

“
Roper?” Otis
asked.

“
No, Perses,” Jill said.
“He gave me the album and told me to take it home with me. You were
there. You saw him do it.”

“
He wanted you to have the
pictures,” Anjelika reached down and picked up an old photo. “They
would remind you of your life. You were so traumatized. You could
barely speak.”

“
You mean you didn’t know
those . . . things were there?” Jill
asked.

Anjelika shook her head.

“
I thought you knew,” Jill
said. “I thought you wanted me to bring these home, you know with
General Hargreaves. I’ve just . . . kept
them . . . all this time.”

Jill looked from her mother’s confused face
to Otis’s pinched features. Her grandfather was counting the pages
of the photo album.

“
Why do you think he
always kept this with him?” Jill asked.

“
I thought he wanted to
remember happier times,” Anjelika said. “There are pictures of him
and my brother in there, you kids,
I . . .”

Anjelika shrugged.

“
I guess I needed to
believe that he cherished something more
than . . .,” Anjelika took a breath. For a moment,
she held her breath. When she sighed, she looked heartbroken.
“ . . .revenge.”

Jill kneeled down and hugged her mother.
When she heard Otis say something to Bruno, she looked up at them.
Otis touched Anjelika’s shoulder. She looked up at her father, and
he said something in Russian. She shook her head and repeated the
words he’d said. For the first time since Jill had met him, Otis’s
face showed real human emotion. He looked crushed.

Anjelika let go of Jill and hugged her
father. They were crying and talking at the same time. Jill sat
down on the edge of the armchair where Scooter was sitting. She
watched as the walls created by decades of mistrust and deception
crumbled between them. Leaning back, she snuggled Scooter and
looked away to give them privacy. After a few minutes, her mother
laughed.

“
He thought, even now,
that I had these bearer bonds, used them,” Anjelika’s wet face
smiled at Jill. “He forgave me even though he thought I had
. . . I had betrayed him . . . and
”

“
I am a fool,” Otis said.
“So much suffering because of . . .”

Otis waved his hand over the photo album and
Jill nodded. He wiped his wet face with his aged hands and looked
at Bruno. His life-long bodyguard smiled at him.

“
Is good,” Bruno said. “Is
very good.”

Otis reached out and hugged Bruno.

“
Do you still need to pay
this back to . . . them?” Jill asked.

Otis nodded.

“
Debt like this is never
forgiven,” Bruno said. “Only accepted; never forgiven.”

“
What will you do?”
Anjelika asked.

“
I will think for a
while,” Otis said. “I have much to make up to my Angel.”

Anjelika leaned forward, and they hugged
again. Jill smiled. Bruno tugged on the photo album, and Otis let
it slip from his hands.

“
I go make safe. I’ll be
back in
no time
.”
Bruno emphasized the American saying. Jill smiled.

With the album tucked under his arm, Bruno
left the loft. Otis cast a worried eye after him, and then turned
back to Anjelika. Smiling, Jill stood to go to the kitchen. She was
halfway across the loft when Bruno rushed in the door. The yellow
lab, Sarah, and the ugly dog, Buster, zoomed in after him. He
slammed the door and leaned against it.

Otis said something in quick Russian.

“
Men,” Bruno said in
broken English. “With guns. In house.”

“
What?” Sandy’s voice was
heard over the others.

Jill took another step and whoosh, her water
broke. Jill gasped and grabbed her belly. The girlfriends and
Yvonne ran to her.

“
They are here for the
babies,” the smallest gargoyle said in clipped British
English.

“
Why is he speaking
English?” Tanesha asked.

The gargoyle smirked. Tanesha got to Jill
first. She put her arm around Jill to hold her up. Jill crumpled
forward with a contraction.

“
Who is here?” Heather
asked. Sandy went to the other side of Jill.

“
The Celts,” the smallest
gargoyle said. “They have come for the children.”

Chapter Two Hundred and
Fifty-
nine
In the Irish Sea

“
One had a name on
shirt . . .” Bruno said in breathless broken
English. He pointed to the top of his breast pocket. “Experiment
Genetics, Latin.”

“
Experiri Genetics,” Jill
grunted.

“
They want Jill’s babies!”
Sandy gasped.

“
What do we do?” Noelle
was suddenly standing right next to them. With hand in a cast and
her bruised face, she looked like a brave child soldier ready to
fight for the cause.

“
We will confuse them,”
the gargoyle said. “They will be lost in the house.”

“
I will stay here,” Otis
said. “Ward them off.”

“
I’ll stay with you,”
Anjelika said.

“
You’ll
miss . . .” Otis started.

“
Jill is surrounded by
love,” Anjelika gestured to the girlfriends. “I will not leave
you.”

“
What can we do?” Charlie
asked.

“
You can help us,” the
smallest gargoyle said.

“
No,” Sandy shook her
head. “They are children.”

“
They want to help,” the
smallest gargoyle said. “They can be very useful to us.”

“
They’d better not be
injured in any way,” Jill grunted.

“
Non nocet ad eos,” said
the older gargoyle, as he appeared next to the English speaking
gargoyle.

“
What did he say?” Sandy
asked.

“
No harm will come to
them,” Bruno translated.

“
Get her to the birthing
area,” the smallest gargoyle said. “The children will help us. We
cannot birth the babies; we can only take them if the mother dies.
Go now before bad things happen.”

“
Mom!” Jill said. “Aren’t
you . . .?”

“
Go,” Otis said. “I’ll be
fine. Bruno will stay with me. We have fought in many wars
together. This is merely a battle of the minds.”

“
Mom, we have to get the
babies,” Tanesha pointed to the nursery where Mack, Jackie, and
Rachel were sleeping. Yvonne and Anjelika went into the
nursery.

With Tanesha and Heather on either side, and
Sandy to open doors, Jill and the girlfriends made their way down
the stairwell to the kitchen. They were almost to the ground floor
when a gargoyle appeared.

“
Hush,” the gargoyle
said.

They saw three men move through the kitchen
and into the living area.

“
Haven’t we been here
before?” one of the men asked.

“
I haven’t,” another man
said.

The girlfriends waited a moment before
racing through the kitchen and up the stairwell to the second
floor. They were just at the door to the old medical offices when a
man appeared in the hallway. A gargoyle pushed them through the
door. They heard the man run by.

“
These Celts are
desperate, and capable,” the smallest gargoyle said. “You must be
very careful.”

“
You do what you need to,”
Tanesha scowled at the gargoyle. “We’re going to have some
babies.”

There was a sharp bark at the door. Sandy
opened the door for Scooter. He trotted in as if they’d been
waiting for him. They moved Jill into the larger exam room where
she’d wanted to have the babies and helped her onto the table. A
few minutes later, Yvonne and Anjelika appeared with Rachel, Mack,
Jackie, and a bleary-eyed Katy. Unaware anything was going on, Katy
climbed onto the table with Jill. She leaned her head against
Jill’s belly.

“
Mommy,” Katy gave her a
sleepy look. “My brothers are
very
scared. They didn’t want to come out now. They
aren’t ready.”

“
Celtic magic,” the
smallest gargoyle hissed. “They made her go into labor.”

He disappeared.

“
That’s okay,” Tanesha
said. “No problem. We just need to slow things down. Jill, you
remember your breathing?”

Jill nodded.

“
Come with me, Katy,”
Anjelika said. “We’ll find a place to rest.”

“
No.” Katy shook her head
vehemently. “My brothers need me here.”

“
Katy, you need to rest,”
Jill said.

“
What about here?” Sandy
pointed to the comfortable old armchair sitting in the corner of
the room. Jacob had moved the chair there so Katy would have a
place when Jill had the boys. “Katy can rest right
here.”

“
Okay,” Katy said. Sandy
helped the little girl climb down and settle in the chair. Scooter
lay down next to the chair.

“
Does your cell phone
work?” Tanesha asked Heather.

Heather nodded.

“
Can you
call . . .?” Tanesha started.

“
Already did,” Heather
said. “Blane said he can talk you through what you need to do to
slow things down. He wanted to be prepared in case the babies came
suddenly, so he left some of his supplies in the cabinet in the
lobby.”

“
Can he come?” Tanesha’s
voice rose with desperation. Heather shook her head. Tanesha
nodded.

“
Are we ready?” Sandy
asked.

“
We’d better be,” Jill
panted. “I don’t think I can slow this down.”

“
Yes, you can.” Heather
moved to Jill’s side. She took Jill’s hand and gave her cell phone
to Tanesha. Sandy moved to Jill’s other side.

Tanesha took one last look and went out into
the lobby.

“
Blane?” Tanesha
asked.

~~~~~~~~

Valerie led the way out of the storm drain
and stopped just inside the opening of the concrete sewer junction.
Jacob and Sam stood next to her. A small, sandy beach lay at their
feet, and the Irish Sea at the shore. The light from the nearby
lighthouse flashed across the entrance of the sewer pipe. Jacob
walked onto the sand and turned around. They had come from under
what looked like an ancient brick and stone masonry boat launch. On
the other side of the beach, a stone walkway led to the
lighthouse.

“
I thought it was
daylight,” Sam said.

“
I think it’s supposed to
feel that way to us,” Jacob said. “What time is it?”

“
If we’re in one time, it
would be about three in the morning,” Celia said at the same time
Valerie said, “Around three in the morning.”

“
One time?” Jacob
asked.

“
I don’t know what time
we’re in,” Celia said.

“
Mom wonders if we’ve
jumped time,” Jacob said.

“
Gosh, I hope not,” Sam
said. “I only speak English.”

Celia smiled at her Sam. The only thing Sam
cared about was connecting and communicating.

“
Did your mom make a
joke?” Sam leaned in to Jacob to ask. Jacob shook his head. Sam
continued, “She’s thinking it.”

Sam put his shoulders back and said in a
loud voice, “I like people. In whatever time we’re in, there’s
gotta be people I’m gonna have to talk to them, Celia.”

He nodded like they’d had this conversation
before. Valerie looked at Jacob, and he shrugged.

“
Your mother thinks I
should be more disturbed by all the oddities of our life,” Sam
shrugged. “How is the fact that you can move things with your mind
any more miraculous than the fact that you were born at all? We’re
surrounded by such an incredible world; why would I be more in awe
of your talents than everything else?”

Jacob patted his back in agreement.

“
Do we have any idea where
we are?” Valerie asked.