Chapter 3
“Hmm, this is not going to be easy,” Blake smiled. His smile, she was sure, broke quite a few hearts. It was precious, comforting, and contagious. His whole face smiled, like nothing he would say could possibly be untrue. Uh huh, she thought. He shared this smile with his brother and between the two of them, she thought they must leave quite a wake of women behind them.
“The thing is, there is a huge part of the story that I think should come from Devon. It should be his choice/burden to give the details about us. But I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.”
She raised her eyebrows as if agreeing, doubting it would go well. “All right! Who is the Van Helsing guy?”
“His name is Max Porter. He’s a hunter.”
“Uh huh! A hunter – that’s vague. A deer hunter? A lion hunter? What?”
“A hunter of a specific kind of person.”
“A person hunter? Yuck!” she said and then, as if a light went on, she continued, “You mean like an assassin? A terrorist with a crossbow?”
He rolled his eyes and grimaced. “Somewhat like an assassin, but for a very, very specific kind of person.”
“This is getting annoying. You mean like a, I don’t know, a bounty hunter? A vampire slayer?” she laughed.
He went white as a sheet. “Yes, very much like that,” he said.
“I see! So this Max was hunting your brother?”
“And me,” he said.
“Yes. So Max is a software engineer slayer?” she joked.
“Well, not exactly, but let’s go with that for the sake of time.”
“Okay, Max the Van Helsing wannabe, is a software engineer slayer and came to kill you and your brother, because your software stinks?”
He laughed. ”Yeah, I guess so.”
“So are there more of these software engineer slayers out there?”
“Yes. Not a lot, but enough.”
“And their plan is to take out all software engineers, everywhere?”
He tried to hold a laugh back, ran a hand across his lips, and said, “Yep.”
“So is there a hierarchy of software engineer slayers, or was Max just a rogue?”
“Umm…I don’t know if there is a Grand Pooba of software engineer slayers, but Max was sent by someone above him. His name is Terrence Paine. Max was one of his thugs.”
She shook her head. “Okay, now we are getting somewhere. How many thugs does Pooba Paine employ?”
“Including Max, there are three, including Olaf Obert and Norman Beoff.”
“All right! If Max doesn’t check in, then Pooba Paine will send Norman and/or Olaf to find out what happened, right?”
“Probably.”
“If that is the case, how much time do you think we have before the others come looking?”
“Well, my guess is that Max was a scout, and may or may not have told them specifically where he was. If that is the case, then I would estimate a week, maybe two at the most.”
“Hmmm. Your brother won’t be healed by then.” She pursed her lips and thought a minute.
“My sister and I have a cabin about two hours from here. Our parents left it to us. We haven’t been up there since we were kids, but maybe I could take Devon up there and you could stay in this house. That way you could be on the look out for any more software engineer slayers that come knocking next door. That may give us a little more time. Of course, I’d have to contact my sister so that she doesn’t freak out if she comes home and finds some handsome guy has taken over the house. Although somehow I don’t think she would mind meeting you!” She smiled. “What do you think?”
“I think it is a better plan than we have, since we have no plan and my brother is unconscious.”
“True, he can amend it if he wants to when he is better, but for now it will give us some time to figure out what to do. So what is this beef Pooba Paine has against your family – I mean aside from your stinky software?”
His face lit up with a huge smile again – Darby thought it was nice to see him relaxing a bit. “Umm…not exactly sure, but it had something to do with our father. Terrence Paine and his entourage were responsible for the deaths of both our parents.”
“Do you have any family that might be able to tell us specifically what the squabble was about?”
“None that I know of; maybe Devon knows of someone.”
“What about any family records or paperwork, or diaries that might have recorded some such thing?”
“I couldn’t say for sure. Devon took care of all the family belongings when our parents were killed, but I believe we have a storage locker of stuff we thought we should save. Family heirlooms, things like that.
“Good, good...that would be a great start. So where does Pooba Paine reside? Or reign?”
Blake laughed again. “I believe he resides in Maine, but I’m not absolutely sure.”
“So the fact that you are not sure of quite a few of these facts, I take it that Devon takes care of most of this kind of stuff?” His face went stone cold and stern; she knew he was offended.
She continued, “Don’t get me wrong, Blake, it’s the same with me and my sister. She is the free spirit and I am the grounded one, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, we sometimes fight about it, but it’s who we are. She’s like our Mom and I’m more like Dad. She helps me to try to be more spontaneous and live a little, whereas I try to help her see the benefits of what a wee bit more responsibility could do to enhance her life. You know…we’re symbiotic.”
He smiled and nodded. “Yes, I would say that our relationships could be viewed as very similar. Too bad, if I hadn’t just met this amazing girl, I would be very anxious to meet your sister.”
“You will, I’m sure. It’s funny though, when I checked my messages today, she had said that she too, had met a special guy. What a coincidence! Fate throwing her a special curve ball, I suppose. Well, I suppose that’s more information than I can process in one day, so I think I will shack up on the couch. I think you should grab some things from home and sleep in my sister’s room. It’s messy, but clean.”
“I couldn’t do that. Max is not going to be sending anyone tonight and besides, what if your sister comes home?”
“Hon, it’s 11:30, if she’s not home now she won’t be coming home; besides, I told you - New Guy!”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“You don’t know for sure that Max didn’t come here with the other software engineer slayer. Plus, since I am filling in for your grounded brother, I know he wouldn’t want you to take that chance. Just sleep here; I’ll feel better, I know your brother would feel better, and no harm done. Please!”
“Okay, but only because you insisted. Oh, shoot! Is it really 11:30? I was supposed to meet this girl an hour ago.”
“I’m sure with those eyes and that smile, she will forgive you anything. Call her and tell her something came up. That way, you didn’t stand her up. Believe me; girls don’t like to be stood up, not by their sisters, and definitely not by potential boyfriends.”
“Yeah, I will. Hey, ummm…thanks for everything, the advice, the plan, my brother, and, oh yeah, Max. By the way, we still haven’t discussed what you did or how you did what you did.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to block that out of my memory. I don’t have a clue how or what happened. I just felt all these emotions after seeing your brother on the ground. I didn’t want anything else to hurt him. I just wanted it to stop and then Pow! Everything went white and Van Hels... I mean, Max, went flying. I didn’t mean to kill him. The tree, you know, that was an accident. I didn’t aim him for the tree. I just wanted Devon to be okay.”
“Well, remind me not to ever make you angry,” he teased.
“Ha! Ha! Very funny! Go get some clothes and go to bed,” she said, pointing to Rowan’s room.
“Okay, okay! I’ll call that girl as I’m grabbing some stuff and I’ll be right back. And by th
e way, I think my brother would be very upset if he felt he kept you from sleeping in your bed. You two are adults, I’m sure you can control yourself,” he smirked. “I’ll bet you will sleep much better in your own bed than on the couch.”
“Okay, little brother, you win. And yes, I can control myself, thank you very much. As for your brother, well, he’s passed out, but even so, he is too much of a gentleman to be anything but embarrassed by the situation.”
“I think you might be surprised. He’s a gentleman, yes, but he is a guy and you are, well, gorgeous.”
She blushed deeply and smiled. “Well, thank you, but I’m not.” She continued to smile as she went back to the bedroom, slightly tickled by the compliment.
She set the change of clothes Blake had brought for Devon on the chair. She grabbed a pair of flannel shorts out of the dresser drawer and went into the bathroom to attend to her nightly rituals.
As she finished up in the bathroom and turned out the light, she tiptoed to the bed. She checked her patient, and gave him a new, cool rag for his head. No temperature yet, but it was still too early to tell. She’d check his bandages in the morning. In the meantime, Harry was taking up the whole rest of the bed. He was on his back as if mimicking Devon. Harry’s head was turned in what looked like a very uncomfortable position. He had one fuzzy arm over his eyes. It looked like a fainting damsel pose. She laughed and pushed him over so she could have some of the bed and Harry slept between them. Lights out. She wasn’t sure if her head even hit the pillow before she fell asleep.
The Hunted (Blood Series Book 0) Page 5