The Last Safe Place

by Ninie Hammon

  Then Yesheb aimed the pistol at Theo’s head.

  “I warned you, old man.”

  Before he could pull the trigger, Gabriella lunged at his gun hand, threw her whole body at it. He wasn’t expecting a blow, wasn’t braced for it, and she knocked him off balance into the kitchen chairs. The gun spun out of his hand, hit the hardwood floor, slid all the way across it and vanished under the loveseat in the family room. She and Yesheb fell together in a tangled heap beside Theo.

  Yesheb was as quick as a cat. Before Gabriella even thought to struggle, he rolled over on top of her and pinned her beneath him. He raised up to his knees, then, straddling her chest, stared down at her with a look of such naked lust it made her nauseous.

  “Oh, my beloved Zara, how good your body feels beneath me.”

  “Get off me,” she demanded. At least in her head, she demanded. But the words came out barely louder than a whisper—not defiance, just a pleading whimper.

  He didn’t move, just sat there staring down at her, twin flames burning in his eyes like pilot lights. Then, as he had done when he cornered her in the hallway outside her bedroom in Pittsburgh, he retreated, grabbed hold of his runaway emotions and held them in check. She actually heard his teeth grind together. He took a deep breath and let it out.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, my Sweet,” he said, his voice syrupy with feigned kindness. “I mean you no harm, ever. Surely, you know that. I want nothing in life more than to give you everything you ever dreamed of, to grant you a life free of care, a life where no desire of the heart is denied, no want unfulfilled.”

  “Then get off me … please.”

  “Of course, my beloved.”

  He didn’t get to his feet, just lifted his body off hers and sat down on the floor beside her. She sat up and made to stand but he put a restraining hand on her shoulder. Just gentle pressure.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Yes, we do.” She scooted away from him until her back connected with a cabinet and she leaned against it. She kept her focus on him, didn’t let her eye drift to Theo’s body, lying in a puddle of blood.

  Her willingness to cooperate seemed to cheer him and he smiled.

  “Our future lies before us and we have so many plans to make.”

  The eagerness in his voice was almost pathetic. Incipient hysteria threatened to burst out—not in tears but in laughter.

  Does he want to pick out wedding invitations and register our silver pattern?

  She coughed, averted a peal of laughter and struggled to corral the stampede of thoughts in her mind and direct them out in a neat stream of words.

  “No, Yesheb, we don’t have plans to make.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it was all the volume she could generate. “At least not plans … together.”

  The look on his face was alarm, confusion. There was no anger. Yet.

  “I want to make this as clear and uncomplicated as I possibly can.” Despite her best efforts to keep her voice steady, it trembled and quaked with every word. “I need for you to listen carefully and believe me.”

  She took a deep breath, dived off the high board and began to fall, down … down …

  “I am not Zara. I am Gabriella Carmichael. I wrote a book called The Bride of the Beast under the pen name Rebecca Nightshade. It was a novel. Fiction. Made up! Nothing in it was real.”

  His hand shot out like a striking cobra and grabbed her wrist. His grip instantly cut off the circulation to her hand.

  “I am not amused, Zara. The time for playfulness has passed. We are to be one today and we must—”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  The cork finally popped off the top of Gabriella’s bottled up emotions and she spewed out words she wasn’t conscious of formatting into language.

  “How many things can no mean? No, I am not Zara. No, we are not going to be one. No, I will not marry you. You need me to draw you a picture?”

  THE FOUNDATIONS OF the earth shift, rumble, and a mighty plume of fire licks up out of a crack in Yesheb’s other realm. The heat of it sears the back of his neck; blisters pop out on his skin.

  “This. Cannot. Be!” roars The Voice in his head and the volume, force and pressure make blood squirt out of his nose and run down his upper lip.

  “You do not mean that, Zara!” Yesheb’s voice sounds hollow in his own ears, airy and without strength or force. Almost … pleading.

  “I do mean it.”

  He can’t hear her voice over the rumble in his head, but he can read her lips. And every word is an individual dagger that stabs deep into his bowels, impales him so his blood issues forth from a dozen different wounds.

  “I will not be your bride. In the story I made up, Zara has to come to the Beast willingly. I’m not willing. And you can’t force me.”

  The world begins to slide into the flaming crack. He can see it happening as an overlaid image, like looking at a double-exposed photograph. Zara sits before him, so achingly beautiful he can barely breathe and in a filmy image in front of her, his universe is disintegrating.

  “It is over,” says The Voice. Not shouting but dismissive. As if The Voice has better things to do than waste its time with a lowly ruler wannabe unable to control a single, powerless woman. Then The Voice booms, like the sounding of a great gong three times: “You. Have. Failed.”

  Yesheb tilts his head back and emits a cry that is more feral than human, a cry huge and Jurassic that is ripped from the dark, fetid depths of his shattered soul.

  He is hollow.

  And then rage begins to seep into the hollow space like the sea through cracks in the hull of a mighty ship. It gains force, sprays into the emptiness in streams, begins to fill it up from the bottom, rising, rising. The deluge picks up momentum and rips out pieces of him, seawater chewing away hunks of the ship’s hull until finally the metal sides give way, the hull ruptures, and the sea rushes in to sink it to the bottom.

  Yesheb Al Tobbanoft is no more. He exists only as the shell of a man filled to overflowing with a cataclysmic rage.

  He leaps at Zara, actually growls, knocks her to the floor, fastens her slender neck in his hands and begins to squeeze the life out of her.

  WHEN GABRIELLA TOLD Yesheb that she would not marry him she entertained the wild, irrational hope that he would simply get up and leave, a broken man, and never bother her again.

  Then he leaned his head back and howled, the guttural cry of a dying wolf. The sound raised the hair on her arms, set her teeth on edge. It was not a human cry, not a sound that could possibly have come from a human throat.

  When his outcry was over, he slowly lowered his head and she gasped at the sight of his face. His features were twisted in a tortured mask of blind fury, his eyes wells of bottomless hate. The Yesheb she had spoken to, who had chased her across the country, who had demanded she become a party to his delusional madness, was gone. In his place was rage in human form.

  He leapt at her and grabbed her in a stranglehold.

  “I will squeeze through the skin of your neck until your head comes off in my hands.”

  Gabriella instantly saw black spots in the air, the sudden pressure forced blood up into her cheeks and she flushed bright red. She knew she would be dead in seconds.

  Then he released the crushing force but kept his hands around her throat while she gasped in huge gulps of air.

  “Oh, but you must not die before you know the fate of the others. Just as I promised that day in the airport, I will stomp the old man, break every bone until he is an unrecognizable, bloody pulp. And the boy …” He skinned his lips back in a bloodthirsty smile. “While your son squeals, ‘Mommy!’ I will cut his beating heart out of his chest, hold it quivering in my hand … and crush it!”

  Gabriella wanted to scream, to cry, to claw his eyes out. But he began to squeeze her neck again and she knew she would not be able to save Ty.

  Or Theo.

  Or Pedro.

 
The three people she loved.

  THEO AWOKE WITH the worst hangover of his life. He hurt everywhere, like he’d been hit by a truck. He couldn’t remember where he’d been or who he’d been drinking with, but he must have—

  “… will cut his beating heart out of his chest, hold it—”

  Theo opened his eyes. He was on his back on the floor and he could see Gabriella lying nearby. Yesheb was strangling her, his face twisted in maniacal hatred like Theo had never seen before.

  Theo tried to move. Nothing worked.

  You’re stronger than he is, Lord. Help me!

  Two images appeared in his mind as clear as summer vacation slides projected on a wall. The first one was P.D. at the airport, his teeth bared, snarling into Yesheb’s face. The second was Ty running across the meadow toward the trees. Alone.

  Theo understood. He summoned every ounce of strength he possessed and yelled with a commanding voice he could hardly believe was his own.

  Just two words.

  “P.D., come!”

  There was a thundering sound on the stairs, a blur of blond fur shot through his vision and Yesheb flew backward into the kitchen chairs with eighty-five pounds of savage beast ripping at him. He hit the floor with P.D. on top of him, his muzzle already blood-stained from the hunk of flesh he had torn out of Yesheb’s arm. Yesheb screamed, writhed on the floor, tried to beat P.D. off. The dog emitted a rumbling growl as he clamped down on Yesheb’s wrist, fighting his way toward the man’s neck.

  MUFFLED SOUNDS. GROWLING. Screaming.

  Animal Planet, a lion attack with the volume turned down low. Gabriella opened her eyes, saw spots, closed them again. Thoughts and disconnected images spun around in her head but she could make no sense of any of them. And her throat hurt; every time she swallowed shards of pain shot down her neck.

  The volume on the attack gradually grew louder until it sounded like it was right beside—

  She opened her eyes again. She lay on her back on the floor, her head turned to the side. In her direct line of sight, maybe fifteen feet away, a savage beast she hardly recognized as P.D. was eating Yesheb alive.

  Understanding hit her so hard it almost knocked her unconscious again. She turned her head slightly and jagged glass ripped open the inside of her neck. There lay Theo. His eyes were open.

  Theo wasn’t dead! She couldn’t stand, but she managed to slide on her back across the floor to where he lay. His face was next to hers. She started to speak but discovered her voice was gone, her larynx too swollen to make a sound. Theo’s mouth was a mass of blood and broken teeth, but he was able to say all he needed to.

  “Ty … ran away.” He sucked in a bubbling breath. “Find him …” Then his eyes slowly closed again. For good. Theo was gone.

  Ty!

  With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, Gabriella pulled herself to a sitting position, then lurched to her feet, the pain in her neck excruciating. P.D. and Yesheb fought violently a few feet away. Both were covered in blood. P.D. had obviously bitten into something vital. Yesheb would quickly bleed out at that rate. But she couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t think … period. Gratefully she didn’t have to; she knew everything she needed to know. She had to find Ty.

  She staggered toward the back door. She could hear the rain, could see through the window on the door that it was coming down hard. The sensible part of her mind was only connected to the rest of it by a thin thread, like a balloon on the end of a string. But it methodically produced a rational thought that told her she needed a raincoat, so she reached up and lifted hers off the hook by the door.

  Bright flashes of lightning made iridescent shadows that fluttered like dream fire across the floor. Thunder rumbled on top of it. The storm was attacking the mountain again and Ty was out there somewhere!

  She pulled the door open and stumbled out into the rain, dangling her jacket on the wet ground behind her like a sleepy child dragging a security blanket.

  YESHEB DOESN’T KNOW at first what has hit him. Something huge crashes into his side, knocks him off Gabriella and sends him sprawling into the kitchen chairs. Then there are teeth and claws and pain. He cries out, tries to knock the monster dog away, but it clamps its teeth into his left forearm and rips out a piece of it. Yesheb howls in agony, flails at the animal. They tumble over and over. He kicks it, hits it, but it is all over him, biting and clawing, its teeth reaching up, seeking his neck.

  The life-and-death struggle goes on and on; the world is a growling, savage beast with teeth that dig into his flesh. He screams, horrible, deathrattle shrieks and tries to roll away from the dog but it sinks its teeth into his shoulder and drags him back. His kicks and pummeling fists have absolutely no effect on the animal. It will not stop until it kills him.

  He is dimly aware that Zara is gone. He manages to half stand, gets his feet knocked out from under him again and falls into the living room, goes down in a heap, drags a table down with him, scattering a lamp, bowls. He scrambles on his back, tries to beat the dog off when his hand lands on something long. A pipe! No, an umbrella. But it is the only weapon he has so he whacks the dog over the head with it. The beast yelps, grabs the umbrella in its teeth and yanks it out of Yesheb’s hand. Now, he has no weapon at …

  Yes, he does! The dagger is in a sheath at his waist. But it is on the back of his belt and his jacket is buttoned on top of it. He can’t get at it and he is getting tired, so tired.

  You’re going to die now. Die a pathetic failure, your disgrace unavenged, your honor gone.

  It is not The Voice who speaks now. The place The Voice dwelt is a dark, empty hole where a cold wind whistles. This is Yesheb’s own voice.

  You have only one chance to survive. Play dead. Curl into a ball, renounce pain and do not move no matter what the animal does.

  Yesheb obeys. He scoots his back against the cabinet, buries his chin in his chest, wraps his arms around his knees and stops fighting. The dog keeps at him, rakes his claws down Yesheb’s thigh, sinks his teeth into his shoulder and shakes. Yesheb doesn’t respond. He feels the dog’s nose near his cheek right before it bites down on his ear, shakes back and forth and Yesheb feels his ear rip off. The dog steps back, barks. He steps forward again, bites Yesheb’s upper arm and pulls backward, growling. Yesheb doesn’t move.

  He can hear the dog panting, looks out through a tiny slit and a forest of eyelashes. All he can see is a section of blood-smeared floor. And his own severed ear.

  In the silence, they both hear it.

  “Ty! Where are you? Ty, answer me. Ty!”

  At the sound of her voice, the dog lifts his head, turns and bolts out of the room and out the door into the rain.

  Yesheb remains rigid, fears the dog is waiting there, out of sight, ready to pounce at the first sign of life. And Yesheb knows he will not survive another attack. He has lost too much strength, too much blood.

  He forces himself to count to three hundred slowly. Then he inches his eyes open, looks around without moving his head. He can see out the open back door into the gloom below the gray overcast. It is raining again now, but not as hard as before. Through the film of rain, he sees two figures in the distance. He lifts his head to get a better look. Yes. It’s the dog running out ahead and the woman behind it.

  Yesheb uncoils, moans and tries to assess his injuries. He pulls himself to his feet, looks around the kitchen, finds a towel and shoves it over the gaping wound in his forearm. He must bind up his wounds as quickly as possible. And he must find something, a mop or broom handle, to knock his gun out from under the loveseat.

  CHAPTER 18

  A PAIN IN GABRIELLA’S TEMPLES FIRED AGONY IN HEARTBEAT bursts into her head. Her neck hurt with every movement.

  Ty! Where’s Ty?

  She understood on some level that she was staggering around in the rain too disoriented to form an intent and then act on it. But another part of her had gone on autopilot. Like the “danger, danger, danger, Will Robinson” robot, it kept repeating
, find Ty, find Ty.

  “Ty!” The cry savaged her from her collarbone to her sinuses. But she shouted out anyway, ignored the pain. “Ty. Where are you? Answer me. Ty!”

  Wherever he was, she knew he must be terrified. Obviously, he’d seen Yesheb and run from him. If he’d been there, Yesheb would have hurt him, too, like he did—

  Theo!

  Gabriella began to cry. Each sob dragged steel wool across the inside of her throat. How could she tell Ty about his grandfather. And Pedro! What had happened to—?

  She heard something approaching behind her, turned in terror to see … P.D.! He must have heard her calling Ty. The dog raced up to her, tail wagging. His wet coat was splotched with blood that his run through the rain hadn’t washed away. His muzzle was bright red, as were his teeth. Yesheb’s blood. Good!

  She wanted to bellow some yell of triumph, wanted to stand over the homicidal lunatic’s dead body and … Instead, she collapsed to one knee and hugged the dog that had saved her life and killed the madman who had terrorized the whole family.

  “Good dog, good dog, P.D. Good boy!” The dog licked her face, smeared some of Yesheb’s blood on it, but she didn’t care. “Oh, Puppy Dog, I can’t find Ty.”

  The dog barked and wagged his tail furiously.

  Duh! Of course. P.D.! She got painfully to her feet.

  “Find Ty!” she commanded and the dog instantly took off at a run toward the back right corner of the valley. That was crazy. Why would Ty …? She started after the dog, then realized she was dragging her nylon jacket on the ground behind her. She picked it up and shoved her arms into the sleeves as she followed along behind P.D..

  THEO SWAM BACK up to the surface of the water from some deep, dark, cold place. He had dangled beneath the bridge, fallen into the depths and now he was struggling to—

  His eyes opened and he saw an expanse of bloody kitchen floor. And brand new black hiking boots. Yesheb stood a few feet away with his back to Theo.

  Somehow the madman had survived P.D.’s attack!