A young paramedic I’d never seen before held Graeme Colby in his arms. “Shit!” I cursed quietly and jumped in. “It’s going to be fine, Graeme.” I sat on the floor and held out my arms. “Give me the boy,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“He’s okay, Astrid,” the paramedic said. “He’s sleeping now. Leave him here with me. Make yourself comfortable, as much as you can under the circumstances.”
I looked at him and smiled, and a twenty-year old blond, blue-eyed Ahmed smiled back. “Couldn’t call you,” he whispered. “The phones aren’t working.”
I nodded.
“Henry,” I mouthed.
Ahmed lifted one eyebrow.
“He figured it out,” he read from my lips. “Oh, God, they won’t hurt Henry, will they?”
“He’s a witty child. He knows what’s going on and he’ll be careful, Astrid. Besides, they don’t want unnecessary complications. Don’t panic.”
I made a movement with my head toward Graeme.
“He’s fine,” Ahmed said quietly.
I put my finger over my lips. “Don’t talk,” I mimicked.
“They are humans. They can’t hear us if we talk quietly.”
“Humans? Oh, God! Nobody expected humans to be involved in Seth’s plans!”
“Nobody anticipated it. Our mistake. What happened here?”
I filled him in with the details of my last fifteen minutes. “They’re keeping my mother prisoner,” I said desperately. “Seth probably knows she’s betrayed him.”
“Not necessarily. She might be bait, or they might be bluffing. She’s smart, Astrid; she knows how to protect herself. Your kidnappers, these two at the front and ten more in three cars behind us, they are all humans.” He motioned toward the sleeping child in his lap. “It’d be a piece of cake to take them down if they hadn’t taken Frances and Rowena.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Why didn’t we think about humans?”
“We didn’t, and yet humans have been Seth’s key players. Smart move, I’ll give Seth that. That’s why we didn’t notice anything unusual. They were able to sneak into town easily. Who’d notice them in a town full of human tourists? Who knows how long and how many of them were here, spying on us.”
“Seth’s Trojan Horse,” I said bitterly.
“Look at those three in the ambulance. Somebody completely changed their appearance and scent. That’s advanced magic, Astrid.”
“Probably Heather, Ahmed. Maybe she volunteered, maybe they forced her, we don’t know.”
He let out a frustrated breath. “We’ve been keeping an eye on her. But we thought her skills were minor.”
“Apparently, she’s advanced, and Seth took advantage of it. It’s not that difficult to master black magic, you know. She made that phoney call, pretending to be Peyton, but I can’t say if she was a willing participant or not. Oh, I hope Peyton’s all right!”
“She’ll be all right, Astrid. Everything will be fine.”
“I hope so. Where’s Bill, by the way?”
“In my office, unconscious. He tried to stab me with a tranquilizer. I didn’t use it on him, there was enough in the syringe to kill a horse. I knocked him out. He’s going to have a nasty headache for at least a week. Astrid, sooner or later, somebody will look for me, or you, and Jack will be in Copper Ridge in no time.”
“How long will it take them?”
“After they figure out we’re missing, two to three hours at most. We’ve been ready for a long time.”
“Funny, we were expecting problems with Seth’s vampires and stray werewolves.”
“We’ll get our chance to deal with all of them, don’t worry. Now it’s clear. Remember when Darius said how well they behaved? Of course they did! I bet half of those ‘vampires’ are humans. Controlling humans is easier than keeping rogue vampires on a leash.”
I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “Conquer your fear and you’ll conquer your enemy,” I murmured. “They are ready for us, Ahmed.”
Ahmed smirked. “They won’t know what hit them.”
The genuine confidence in his voice stopped a bubble of hysteria rising in my throat.
GRAEME WOKE up and started crying. Ahmed brushed away his tears.
“I want to go home,” Graeme sobbed. “I want to see my mom.”
“You will, buddy. I promise. Try to sleep a little bit more.” He whispered something into the boy’s ear, and he fell asleep again.
“How many people do you think they left in the Clinic?”
“I saw six, but there must be more. I guess they’re werewolves and vampires. It’s hard to tell, because their scent has been modified. I expect them to be gone by now.”
“What are we going to do when we get there?”
Ahmed gave me an uneasy look. “I have no idea. That depends on what we find. And whom. We have to buy some time. Try not to make Seth angry. Stick close to Darius, if possible. I’ll keep changing my appearance and stay close to you.”
His hand reached out and stroked my cheek. “Astrid, it’s going to be just the two of us for a while, and Darius, but I’ll do anything to protect you. In return, you’ll promise me not to do anything stupid, like trying to fight them.”
My arms instinctively closed around my belly. “I promise,” I whispered and swallowed tears. “Please don’t get killed, Ahmed.”
He smiled reassuringly. “I don’t intend to, Ellida. Fate has grand plans for me.”
After less than one hour on the road, the ambulance stopped. We’d arrived at Copper Ridge.
Forty-Two
THE MOMENT this man had stepped into Dr. Mohegan’s office, Henry Flanagan knew something was wrong.
First, this Mike hadn’t moved his eyes from Dr. Mohegan, something Mike would’ve never done. Second, although he did smell like Mike, looked like Mike and wore the same uniform as Mike, his gun was stuck in the holster on his right side, and Mike was left handed and wore it on his left side. Third, this cheat hadn’t been surprised when Henry had called him ‘Uncle’, which was something Henry never ever did. If Mike had heard Henry calling him ‘Uncle’, he would have said, “Do you have a fever, nephew? Why are you calling me Uncle all of a sudden?” or something like that. And fourth and most importantly, he and Mike hadn’t done their secret handshake.
At that moment Henry had realized that their beloved Ellida was in mortal danger and that only he, Henry Flanagan, could save her. He had to somehow let her know he knew what was going on, and that she could count on him. He started thinking really hard and came up with the ice cream idea. This impostor didn’t blink when Henry asked him to bring him chocolate ice cream with peanuts. Everyone in Red Cliffs knew Henry could eat only homemade sorbets because of his allergies.
Henry noticed the Ellida’s face had turned very pale. Don’t try anything, he read from her lips. Fortunately, that was a warning, not an order. She had only ordered him to stay in his room, hadn’t she? Otherwise, it’d be tricky to find a way to help the Ellida without disobeying her orders. Not impossible, of course, but definitely tricky.
Unfortunately, a nurse he had never seen before came to his room after him, and pretending to fix his pajamas, searched his pockets for a phone, secret communication devices and his magic wand. After she checked the windows she left the room, locking the door behind her.
As soon as he was alone, Henry rushed to the windows. They seemed locked. No matter how hard he tried, the latch wouldn’t budge. Opening the window wouldn’t do any good anyway, except maybe if he could yell for help. His room was on the fifth floor, and the outside windowsill looked too narrow to walk on.
Henry grabbed a chair that stood beside his bed and hurled it into the window.
Nothing happened.
He could make a fire, perhaps. That would activate the sprinklers and alert the hospital staff. Henry knew theoretically how to make fire in the wilderness, even though his parents never let him join the Scouts—he was also allergic to grass, trees and flowers.
&
nbsp; Unfortunately, the Clinic’s recovery wing was a far cry from the wilderness, so fire was out of the question.
He sat on his bed and put his head between his hands. He had to do something. His forehead wrinkled. He glanced at the wall clock. Those evil people who’d kidnapped their Ellida would reach Copper Ridge soon.
His ‘ice cream trap’ had been a smart idea. He had warned the Ellida they were dealing with a dangerous individual. Now how to warn others that Ellida was in danger?
Yes! Code Blue! He’d seen it once on TV. He had to raise a Code Blue.
But how?
There was a way, but could he try it? Was it too risky?
He had to; there was no time for anything else.
He walked to the foot of his bed and removed the chart with his surgery information hanging there. It listed all his known allergies, including allergy to dairy products. He pushed it under the mattress. It wasn’t likely that the nurse who wasn’t a nurse would check his medical history, but better safe than sorry.
He sat on his bed and pressed the call button that hung on the bedside. After a minute, the nurse who wasn’t a nurse came in.
“May I please have a glass of milk?” he asked in his sweetest voice. “It helps me get to sleep.”
The nurse didn’t say anything, but soon came back with milk. She put the cup on the bedpost and left the room without uttering a word. Henry could hear the clicking of the lock.
He unbuttoned his pajama top and took it off. For a long moment he carefully studied the hospital mobile table beside the bed, with all sorts of machines and monitors placed on its top. He opened the drawer beneath and pulled out a handful of metal discs hooked to the monitors with long wires. He placed them on his chest the same way Nurse Leslie had done it before the surgery so that Dr. Mohegan and Dr. Demmir could monitor his heart.
Then he leaned on the pillow and reached for the cup.
“I must not take too much,” he murmured, and took a small sip of milk then another one.
Almost instantly his skin broke out in hives and his heart rate skyrocketed. A sharp pain slashed across his abdomen and his throat and lips swelled. A series of short, laborious wheezes came out of his mouth.
“CODE BLUE—FLOOR FIVE—ROOM FIVE-OH-THREE… CODE BLUE—FLOOR FIVE—ROOM FIVE-OH-THREE,” he heard the announcement over the hospital loudspeaker system, and smiled weakly at the instant sound of multiple steps running through the corridor toward his room.
Dr. Falkenstein and Dr. Altman rushed in, followed by several nurses. “He’s in anaphylactic shock! Somebody gave him milk! Epinephrine, pediatric dosage, 0.01 mg per kilo, he’s 21 kilograms! Quickly!” Dr. Falkenstein shouted the orders.
Somebody pushed in another mobile table and Dr. Falkenstein prepared the syringe. The moment a nurse lowered his hand to place an oxygen mask over his face, Henry grabbed his wrist.
“They took the Ellida!” he pushed out the words through his swollen throat and tongue. “Call the Einhamir, quickly!”
He felt a needle pinch on his thigh, and heard the loud sound of a fire alarm, more steps running through the hospital, telephones, cars, brakes, and voices yelling and shouting…
“Mission accomplished,” he murmured as his throat relaxed and air finally reached his lungs again.
Forty-Three
Astrid
IT WAS half past four and we’d been missing for one hour.
The rear door of the ambulance opened. My kidnappers were nowhere to be seen. Instead, several uniformed men stood on each side of the door.
One of them stepped out. “Welcome to Copper Ridge, Ellida,” he said, not bothering to introduce himself. “I’m glad you’ve finally decided to accept our kind invitation.” He turned around. “I don’t see the cavalry coming to the rescue! Follow me.”
He looked at Ahmed. “You, take the boy to headquarters and lock him up. Stupid humans, they always go overboard,” he grumbled, irritated. “Why did they take the boy in the first place?”
His hand reached for my elbow.
“You talk too much,” I snapped and jerked my arm away. “And do not touch me. I can walk myself.”
Ahmed threw me a warning look, but to my surprise, the man took a step back. “Move!” he barked, maintaining a physical space between us. “And don’t get any ideas, Ellida, or your mother is gone.” To illustrate his words, he moved his finger across his throat.
I looked at him and took a deep breath, memorizing his look and his scent so that I could find him later.
We walked through the foggy, cold night toward a big white castle that stood isolated on a flat-topped mound. Despite the dire situation I was in, it was impossible not to notice the beautiful stone structure, built as an early medieval castle. It was encompassed with several layers of defensive walls, and sported other middle-age castle features—a gatehouse, towers with arrow slits, the keep, even a chapel—only on a smaller scale. I remembered Jack and James mentioning Seth’s ‘Castle’, which was built two decades ago, but I didn’t expect to find a replica of a medieval structure. It was out of place and time and a testimony of his mental state, yet strikingly beautiful nonetheless.
After a brisk walk through the gatehouse, across the inner yard and through seemingly endless dimly lit corridors and secret passages, we entered the keep, Seth’s residence.
The guard pushed me inside and secured the heavy wooden door from the outside.
I didn’t have time to assess the interior. My immediate attention was drawn to a figure on the floor, curled into a ball. She moaned and lifted her head.
As if in a trance, I walked to her and sank to my knees.
“Mother?”
She parted her lips to say something, but the words stayed trapped in her throat. A soft, painful groan came out instead.
“Shhh, don’t talk,” I stuttered, choking over my own words. I gently brushed the thick locks from her forehead. Her face was a purplish-black mass of bruises and cuts. Some of them still bled. “Did he do that to you?”
She nodded. “It looks far worse than it is, don’t be alarmed,” my mother said and managed a tiny smile. “Astrid,” she whispered in a shaky voice. “Astrid, my baby, let me see you…” Her trembling hand stroked my cheeks. “You’re beautiful! You look like your father, except his eyes were blue. Come closer.” She pulled me toward her and said softly in my ear, “There’s a lot that Seth still doesn’t know, not even about my role in this. He hit me because I tried to stop him from bringing you here. He doesn’t know about my powers.”
“Don’t talk, mother. I know what you mean. Now lay still until I check you.”
She protested, “I’m fine. Let me touch you.”
“Can you translocate?” I asked while my hands examined her.
“I’m not leaving you, Astrid. Never again.”
“Oh, Mom,” I cried out, sobbing heavily. “Oh, Mom…”
She lifted her hand and brushed away my tears, letting her own run down her cheeks.
“Mom, if you can, you must go and bring help.” I tried one more time, although I wasn’t sure that in her present shape my mother had enough energy for translocation.
She shook her head. “No, my love. This building is under the heaviest protection against wizard magic. Even if I could conjure enough power to translocate, that would alert Seth before it is time. Trust me, Astrid, please. Darius will be here soon and he’ll take us out. He knows the secret passages.” She grabbed my hand, squeezing it. “Astrid, Heather’s here, do you know?”
I nodded. “I suspect she has a role in this. We kept an eye on her, but she tricked us all. I supposed she’s regained some of her wizard abilities. Mom, about Seth’s vampire hirelings, some of them are humans. Heather probably used her magic to make them smell like vampires.”
“Oh God! We didn’t have a clue. He kept bringing vampires and werewolves, but he knew he could never send them to Red Cliffs. They would’ve been recognized immediately.”
“Humans were easily sneaked
in. Nobody noticed anything unusual because the town was full of humans anyway. It’s ski-season.”
“We rarely saw them at all. They had their rooms here, in this castle. How come we didn’t suspect anything?”
“That was crucial to Seth’s success, so I’m not surprised he took great effort to hide it. Don’t think about it now.”
I finished the check-up and let out a relieved sigh. The bruises looked horrible, but my mother wasn’t seriously hurt. She was already healing. Her strong blood was dealing with the injuries quickly and efficiently.
“Help me sit. I’m feeling better already. He doesn’t do that often, and I know how to protect myself, don’t fret about me.” She lifted her hand, but stopped in the middle of the movement. “May I?”
I took her hand and guided it to the small, round swell of my belly. “It’s a girl, Mom,” I stuttered before words deserted me. I had so many questions, so much to say, but I couldn’t utter a single word. My throat felt parched, and tears were stinging my eyes.
I couldn’t move my gaze from my mother’s battered, swollen face, beautiful in spite of the bruises.
I pressed my hand against hers, letting my unborn daughter connect all three of us.
“Jack will be here soon,” I whispered after a long, healing silence, interrupted only by our sobs. “I’m pretty useless for fighting, being pregnant. There’ll be enough angry werewolves, wizards and vampires to finish Seth once and for all. Just don’t let anything happen to you. I need you, Mom. I have so much to ask you.”
“You try to stay put. Don’t worry about me. Don’t make Seth mad. Pretend to agree to whatever he says. He’s a pathologically vain person, use it if—”
The door burst open and my archenemy walked in. He slowly walked to us, as if savoring every moment of his victory. Legs slightly apart, hands on his hips, he stopped in front of us.
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