Of Witches and Warlocks: The Demon Kiss (22 page)

“Do they understand what I’m saying?” I asked
him, unable to tell if they could or not.

“I’m not even sure if they know who they are
right now,” Brad said with a slight grin creeping onto his face as
he fought back a chuckle, trying to remain solemn over the
situation and failing miserably at it.

I turned back to face Vance.

“Now what?” I asked, lifting my hands
uselessly before dropping them back at my side. “I don’t think
anything I’m saying is computing.”

He moved away from the door and walked up
next to me then, before reaching out and touching each one of them
on the forehead once again, this time effectively putting them to
sleep.

“We need to construct a believable scenario,”
he said with a sigh, “something they can wake up to and think
they’d just experienced a horrible dream or something like
that.”

“Like what?” I asked, not even knowing what
kind of believable scenario we could build out of this mess.

“Well,” he said, thoughtfully, “I think we
should call your grandma and have her meet us at the marina first
of all. She can take our lady in there back to the condo with her
and get her taken care of.”

“Yeah, then what do we do?” I asked, curious
about where he was heading with all this.

He looked over my head at the metal
mechanical arms holding the bulging fishing nets on the boat.

“Then we should go back to our original
coordinates that we were at when we were watching the house. We’ll
drop one of the nets back into the water, and we’ll construct an
‘accident’ with the other. I think we could make it look like one
of the arms broke and let the net fall on these four knocking them
out. When they wake up, hopefully they’ll just think it’s all a
crazy dream they had when they were unconscious.”

“But both nets were still in the water when
this happened. And what about when they start telling each other
about the nightmare they’ve just had?” I asked, feeling doubtful
about whether or not this would work.

“I find that the human mind tends to want to
accept the most plausible reason it can find for something.” he
replied. “I’m sorry, but it’s what I’ve got. Take it or leave
it.”

“I’ll take it.” I said, stepping up to him
and placing my hands on his temples. “But we have to get rid of
these red eyes for it to work.”

We told our idea to Dad, and he agreed that
this was probably the best course of action. He called Grandma, and
soon we were on our way back to land toward the tiny marina.

Thankfully all the other boats that were
normally stationed here were either docked and sitting empty or
hadn’t come in yet.

Grandma and Shelly were waiting for us at the
pier. They took our new friend, whose name was Sarit, with them,
and Dad turned the boat around to head out to sea once again.

When we finally reached our original
coordinates, Dad shut the engine down, and we went to work turning
on the same lights, setting out our food, cards, and telescopes the
way they had been.

We dropped one of the large fishing nets back
into the water and made the metal bend and give way in one of the
joints of the arm on the other to look as though it had strained
from serious metal fatigue.

We then moved the men into position, pulling
their bodies around and scattering them about on the deck,
strategically placing fish net over them. We took extra care to
make sure that Enrico and Vance were both completely dry also.

“You guys ready?” Vance called to us as we
all took our places inside the cabin, pretending to be watching the
house.

“Yes!” I called back to him, and he waved his
hand over the men before running back in to lean over in front of
me.

“Ahhh!” I heard one of the men scream loudly.
He grabbed at the fishnet over his body, struggling to remove it
from him.

The others’ voices soon joined his, as they
tried to push up out of the nets, calling out for help.

“Oh my gosh!” I yelled, running from the
cabin. “What happened? Dad, Vance, Brad, come quick!”

The three of them dashed out of the cabin,
pausing for a second to look at the scene ahead of them before
rushing to help, trying to gather the net and pull the men from
beneath it.

When we had freed the men from their
restraints, they huddled together looking confused at us, as Brad
excitedly pointed up to the broken beam in Spanish.

The crew looked up in awe and dismay.

“No! No!” Enrico shouted when he saw the
damage, grabbing his hair in his hands and talking rapidly in
Spanish.

“Ask him what happened?” Vance said,
prompting Brad.

Brad relayed the question, but the men just
looked dazed and confused, shaking their heads as they talked
rapidly to each other, and I was afraid they might be sharing their
stories about us and what they had seen earlier.

Dad stepped up then and asked Brad to
translate for him.

“Tell them we’ll pay for the damage to their
boat since it happened while they were trying to help us out,” he
prompted.

Brad relayed the message, and Enrico grabbed
Dad’s hand, shaking it vigorously out of gratitude.

“Gracias! Gracias!” he said over and over
again, bowing his head down to each of us, happy to know he hadn’t
just lost his way to make his living.

“No problem!” Dad said with a smile as he
shook Enrico’s hand back. “Tell them we’re done with our
investigation and ready to leave whenever he desires.”

Brad passed the communication along.

The men worked to quickly pull the other full
net up and onto the boat. Enrico made his way to the controls, and
we were headed back to the marina once again.

The rest of us packed up our belongings in
the cabin and went back out onto the deck to help the fishermen
load their catch down into the cargo storage hold beneath the
floor.

When we pulled up to the dock, Dad pulled a
very large roll of American one hundred dollar bills out of his
duffle bag and handed it to Enrico.

“Gracias!” Enrico called out again, as he
profusely shook Dad’s hand over and over.

I thought it was funny how they just assumed
the money came from Dad when I knew it was from Vance’s bank
account, but Vance didn’t seem to be bothered one bit by the whole
exchange, not even blinking an eye at it.

We climbed off the boat and onto the pier,
and Miguel handed our stuff over to us. We left the smiling men
waving at us as we walked away.

We quickly threw our stuff in the trunk and
climbed into the car. Vance placed his key in, started the engine,
and we drove off, leaving the smiling men behind us none the worse
for wear.

“Do you think they bought it?” I asked with a
laugh, now that we were finally out of earshot.

“I think so,” Vance replied with a smile.
“They were awfully friendly there towards the end when they saw all
that money.”

“I hated breaking their boat,” I said, truly
feeling bad that it had come to that and hoping it wouldn’t take
long for them to get it repaired.

“Well, we couldn’t let Sarit drown, and we
couldn’t leave them there freaking out like they were,” Brad
said.

“What’s done is done,” my dad added.
“Thankfully it seems to have all worked out. This has definitely
been one crazy night.”

“I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse from
here,” Vance added, growing serious once again.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Dad said echoing
his concern.

The whole coven was waiting for us when we
entered the condo, sitting around Sarit, who was eating a fresh
bowl of hot soup on the couch.

I was happy to see that she was dry, dressed
in someone’s borrowed clothing, and covered in a warm blanket.

“So we’ve all heard Sarit’s side of the
story,” Grandma said, looking us all over. “How about yours? It
sounds as if all of you have had a dreadful experience this
evening.”

Dad began to fill everyone in on the things
we had seen and experienced, though he edited the gory details
extremely out of deference toward Sarit and all she had been
through.

Vance leaned in toward me while Dad was
speaking, looking very tired and worn out.

“I’m going to go get in the shower,” he said
softly. “I positively reek of fishy saltwater.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding my head as he leaned
over to give me a peck on the cheek, before he stood and walked
off.

Everyone was listening with rapt attention to
Dad as he explained the events we had witnessed. I stood up, moving
away, not wanting to hear any more about it and walked into my own
bedroom, thinking that a shower sounded just like the thing I
needed to do, too.

I went to the drawer, reached in to get out a
tank top along with some soft shorts, and headed into the bathroom,
shutting the door behind me.

Once I was in the shower, I let the water
rush over me as I tried desperately to not think about the images
that were trying to invade my mind.

I heard the door to the bathroom open quietly
a few moments later.

“It’s just me,” Shelly said softly, as she
entered.

“Hey, Shelly,” I said, shampooing my
hair.

“Was it awful?” she asked bluntly.

“It was worse than awful,” I replied honestly
as I massaged the sudsy bubbles into my scalp. “Can we not talk
about it right now, though? I’m really tired, and I’d just rather
forget about the whole thing for a little while.”

“I understand,” she said, though I thought I
could hear regret lacing through her voice. “I’m glad you’re all
safely back here, though.”

“Me, too,” I replied to her, meaning every
word of it.

“Are you going to sleep in Vance’s room
tonight again?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Most definitely,” I answered. “I don’t want
him to be alone after everything that’s happened tonight.”

I knew the real reason was I didn’t want to
be away from him after all I had witnessed either.

“Well, sleep good then. I’ll talk to you in
the morning.” Her voice sounded a little bit sad.

“Night, Shell,” I called out to her as she
left the room, feeling bad for letting her down when she was trying
to talk to me about things.

I climbed out of the shower and dried off,
then got dressed for bed. I pulled my damp towel-dried hair into
sections before I braided it into one long single braid down my
back.

Afterward I brushed my teeth, before cleaning
up my mess and returning to the living room.

Everyone had already left our condo, and I
was thankful for that since I didn’t want to face any questions
from the others right now. I assumed that proper sleeping
arrangements had been made for Sarit, since she was no longer here
either, so I made my way across the room and down the hall to
Vance’s room.

I knocked lightly on the door, and I heard
him call out to me.

“It’s open, Portia. Come in.”

I walked into the room to see him lying in
the bed with the covers up to his waist, his chest bare, his arms
resting behind his head on the pillow.

“Come get comfy,” he said reaching over to
throw the covers back on the other side of the bed.

I crawled into the huge bed and scooted over
next to him, laying my head against his bare shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around my back, and I just
lay there next to him in the dim lamplight, reaching out to draw
lazy circles with my finger on his chest.

We didn’t say anything, each of us lost in
our own thoughts, though I purposely steered mine away from any
events of this evening.

“Are you doing okay?” he finally asked,
breaking the long silence between us.

I nodded my head, continuing my absent
tracing of his sculpted muscles with my finger, trying hard to
concentrate only on the beauty of his physique.

He, in return, toyed absently with my braided
hair, seemingly as content as I was to avoid the issues at
hand.

“You ready to go to sleep?” he asked a few
minutes later. He reached down and picked my hand up off his chest
and kissed each one of my fingertips.

I nodded again.

“I have just one request,” I said softly as I
stared into his eyes.

“What’s that?” he replied, looking down at me
questioningly.

“Can we please sleep with the light on
tonight?” I felt dumb to request such a childish thing from
him.

“Yes, baby,” he said, understanding me
immediately and pulling me into the comfort of his arms. He
enveloped me completely within the safety of his warm embrace.
“Yes, we can.”

“NO! Stop!” I screamed into the air as I was
running, my lungs aching from breathing heavily in the
darkness.

I couldn’t get away. The fog swirled around
me as I looked over my shoulder behind me. Damien Cummings stepped
out of the mist and into my view.

“Hello, Portia,” he said, an evil smile
stretching across his face as he stalked toward me.

“NOOO!” I screamed, turning to run again.

“Portia!” Vance’s voice called out in the
gloominess that surrounded me. “Portia! Wake up!”

I could feel him shaking my body as I slowly
came to. I opened my eyes, trying to focus.

I looked around to see that I was still in
his bedroom, the dim lamplight casting an angelic-looking halo
around Vance’s form as he held me, cradling me in his arms, a
worried look on his face.

Grabbing him, I clung desperately to him as I
started sobbing.

“It’s all right now,” he whispered into my
hair as he placed tiny kisses against my forehead. “It was just a
nightmare. You’re safe right here with me. I won’t let him hurt
you.”

He continued to hold me as I cried, and I
could see the wetness of my tears dripping against his bare
skin.

He didn’t rush me, letting me step firmly
back into reality, before he leaned back against his pillows so he
could take a good look at me.