by Dani Dundee
Their male voices rumbled through the room, chanting verses that they all knew, or at least picking up the words and muttering through the ones that they didn’t, vibrating the wood paneling on the walls.
Rae curled herself more tightly around her stomach, breathing slowly.
They chanted, “Jesus commands you to get out!” which was close to the Catholic rite’s chant of, “For it is the power of Christ that compels you,” but not quite the same.
Rae breathed deeply, trying not to shake or let herself get upset.
This would be over soon.
They would get bored or realize what a stupid charade it was.
She turned her face to the pillow again, wiping away another tear.
Craigh let go of the blanket and stood. “This is ridiculous.”
Rae opened her eyes.
Craigh said, “She’s not possessed. Look at her. The Devil can’t stand to hear Bible verses.”
Rae’s father grabbed him by the arm. “Her soul is in danger! If we don’t cast this demon out, she’s going to Hell!” His voice rose, frantic. “I can’t let my baby girl go to Hell! She’ll be tormented for all eternity in the lake of fire! Look at her! Look at how she’s letting us exorcise her because she wants to be free of The Devil!”
Well, compliance had backfired. Rae sighed.
She pushed her arms against the floor, but two of her large cousins were still holding the blanket down, pressing the rough cloth over her arms and chest.
Craigh shook his head, turning away. “She’s not possessed. I’m done.”
Rae yelled after him, “Call Wulf and tell him I’m all right!”
He walked out of the room, but he wouldn’t meet Rae’s eyes when he left.
She put her head down on the pillow. He wasn’t going to call anyone.
Her other cousins tightened their hold on the blanket, cramming it down on her. She could breathe, but she couldn’t wiggle. However, there were only two of them holding the blanket down now. If things started going wrong, she might have a chance of fighting her way out.
Reverend Stoppard raised his hands, preaching loudly about how worldliness invited demons in by opening your mind to the Devil. He spoke for what seemed like days—more yelling, more screaming, more Bible verses and mangled theology—though the tiny clock high on the wall had only moved a total of three hours.
She should have already been at the airport.
Wulf must be frantic, probably in a very quiet way.
Rae sucked in a deep breath. It would be okay. They could refile the flight plan and go tomorrow or the next day. The suppers and things could be rescheduled.
Unless Wulf thought that she had ditched him.
Unless the baby inside her died.
Unless this went really, really wrong, and Stoppard and these large men killed her. She had read about that happening during amateur exorcisms. Her dry throat rattled when she coughed. Sometimes these types of exorcisms went on for days, and it was usually something like dehydration or asphyxiation when they shoved the blanket over their head that killed the person.
She curled more tightly under the blanket, locking her arms and knees around her stomach.
Minister Stoppard glared at her, incensed at something she had done. Veins bulged in his forehead and neck as he hollered, “The Devil is writhing in pain at the sound of the Word of God! Hold her down, boys! Get that blanket over her head and smother the evil!”
Levi and her other ogre of a cousin flipped the blanket over her head.
The air trapped under the thick cloth heated against her face. The sourness of fear bloomed in the suffocating blanket.
Dread roiled in her head. This was it.
As much as she didn’t want to die, imagining what her death would do to Wulf made her chest cramp. He would descend into his own icy cold, unmoving, until he just . . . stopped. “Let me up.”
“What?”
The growling voice that Rae heard through the blanket belonged to her cousin Levi, who was never the brightest of the clan.
“Let me up. This has gone on long enough.” Exhaustion weighed her down almost as much as the blanket. She shoved her arms up and pried the blanket away from her face. Cool air washed over her cheeks. “Just stop this nonsense.”
“Now the demon is talking!” Stoppard shouted.
“That’s not a demon talking. That’s the sound of common sense,” she said.
“Begone you devil from Hell!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she muttered.
“Yes, praise his name!” Stoppard shouted.
“Just stop this insanity! Just stop it all!” Rae grabbed the pillow and threw it at Stoppard. He dodged it. “You’re the evil one here! Maybe you’re possessed!”
Her father gasped. “You shut your mouth. We do not talk to men of God like that.”
Rae ground her teeth. “I’m not talking to a man of God. I’m talking to Stoppard.”
She started inching forward, wiggling out of the blanket.
Heartbeats
Wulf rode in the passenger seat while Dieter drove the black SUV. Summer sunlight glittered on the cars and trucks blocking them in and flashed bright sparks in his eyes. The clock ran through the time, so much time since Rae had walked away from her security.
Life could change in a heartbeat.
So many heartbeats.
So much time.
Theophile Valencia’s friend Noah had described the car that Rae had gotten into to his network, and he had gotten word back in under an hour that the car had been spotted in a parking lot of a hotel known for drug deals near the university.
Wulf’s phone rang again, blinking Theophile’s contact number. He answered with, “Do we have more information?”
Wulf watched the traffic out the front windshield while Theo said, “Noah’s contact says that a group with the last name of Stone rented a small conference room on the ground floor.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have enough people? I can send a few.”
Wulf glanced behind the headrest at the five men in the two rear seats behind him, including Dieter, Hans, Luca, and Friedhelm, and at the other SUV trailing them. Black duffels lay at their feet. Everyone except Wulf wore black fatigues.
He turned back to the front, squinting in the sun’s glare off the chrome from the other cars packed around them as they sped through the hot afternoon. “I think we have sufficient manpower, but thank you again.”
The Strength of Ten Men
The large men on both sides of Rae crammed the blanket around her, swaddling it tightly around her shoulders, but she shoved and kicked to loosen it enough to claw the carpeting with one hand and crawl forward.
Stoppard’s scowl twisted into rage.
A gap in the coarse blanket allowed her to get one arm out, but she kept the other hand down to protect her stomach.
Stoppard shouted, “She has the strength of ten men! This is proof that she is possessed!”
“No. Your stupid blanket method just doesn’t work.” Her sweaty hair clung to her face.
“Keep her down! Begone demon!”
She spoke directly to Levi, who was hanging onto her right arm, “You know that this is ridiculous. Get them to stop it.”
“Get thee behind me, Satan,” Levi said. He glanced at the minister. Rae thought that she saw a flash of indecision, but he shook his head. “It’s not ridiculous,” he said. “Your father wants to save your soul from Hell.”
“You kidnapped me!”
“You got in the car yourself,” he said.
“You’re kidnapping me now. I want to leave, and you’re holding me down.”
“It’s for your immortal soul.”
“My immortal soul is fine. Let me go.”
He whispered, “I can’t.”
Because Stoppard would turn people against him.
Stoppard had a stranglehold on her whole family, that bastard.
Rae shoved the blanket down her chest wi
th her free arm and writhed, pushing with her hips and swimming with her legs to wriggle farther out of the blanket.
“Hey!” Her father jogged toward her, his ranch-strengthened hands coming at her.
Damn it. This could go south very quickly.
She pointed at him. “Stay back. Don’t you touch me.”
He hesitated, which was enough time for Rae to slither out of the blanket to her waist.
Levi grabbed her arm, but she was prepared for that and twisted hard toward his fingers, snapping her hand away from him. His nails scratched her wrist as she broke his grip. Lines burned on her arm.
He slapped her arms, trying to grab her again, but he had let go of his side of the blanket.
Rae kicked, flipping the blanket off herself while her other cousin tried to grab her, too. She jabbed her feet at both of them as she crawled on her arms, trying to scramble away from the blanket and the two looming cousins.
Levi grabbed her arm again, and this time, she couldn’t break away.
“Lay down,” he snarled. “Lay down so I don’t have to hit you.”
She shoved harder at his hand and blasted a scream from her throat, praying that someone outside the conference room could hear her.
“Stop!” Levi lunged at her, his hand flying at her face, trying to cover her mouth now rather than grab her arms. Footsteps clomped as more people ran over to help him.
“No! Stop!” She had to get away before they hurt her or the baby. “Let me go!”
Levi scrambled, falling on her, pinning her to the floor and trying to cover her mouth. He clamped his hand over her mouth, cutting her screams down to whines.
Rae tried to suck air, but Levi’s hand was over her nose and mouth, and his weight pressed her chest.
She couldn’t breathe.
God, please God, not the baby.
She snapped her teeth, trying to bite his palm, but his hand was bowed and she couldn’t reach his flesh.
Stoppard materialized above her, screaming something. Spit flecked out of his mouth and sprayed her face.
Rae blinked hard. She got one arm loose and batted at him, trying to knock him away.
He slammed his palm into Levi’s hand over her mouth. Pain dug into her cheek and jaw, cracking on her teeth. The tang of blood filled her mouth.
A crash, and Levi’s eyes went shocked-wide as he careened sideways.
Stoppard’s face snapped around, and a fist took its place.
Black forms swarmed into the room, streaking toward her father and uncles, yelling “Get down! Get down on the floor!”
Rae sucked air as Wulf swam into view, a snarl twisting his mouth and rage narrowing his dark blue eyes. His hand reached for her, grabbing her arm, and she was off the floor and leaning against his strong back as he walked backward, a small gun in his other hand.
She peeked over his shoulder. Hans, Friedhelm, and other men were standing over her cousins and the other guys lying on the floor, pressing pistols to the backs of their heads or covering several men by weaving their guns through the air, aiming at one of her prone uncles, then another.
“I’m okay,” she whispered to Wulf. “It’s all right. I’m okay.” She pressed the side of her face against his back, the fabric of his suit soft against her cheek.
He kept her behind his back with one arm as he trained the pistol on one of her family, then another. His voice was calm as he asked her, “What was going on here?”
“It was just a thing,” she said.
“A thing?” His voice rose slightly from its rumbling, deep-bass timbre.
Stoppard’s voice was muffled because Hans was mashing his face flat on the dirty carpeting with his boot. “This is assault! Let me go.”
“Let him up,” Wulf said.
Hans stepped back, holding his handgun in both hands and training it on the minister.
Wulf called over to him, “Explain this.”
“She’s possessed by a demon!” Stoppard shouted again, pushing himself up on his arms. “We were trying to free her!”
Rae wished she could melt into a puddle on the floor and soak into the carpeting to hide.
Wulf’s gaze swept over the ritual candle and bell on the floor, and he turned his head toward Rae, though he kept his gun pointed at Stoppard. “An exorcism?”
“Yeah,” she sighed.
“She’s possessed by demons!” Stoppard yelled.
Rae pressed her hands over her eyes. Exhaustion weighed on her.
Wulf asked, “Did they hurt you?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Your mouth is bleeding.”
“I’m okay,” she insisted.
“I heard you scream.”
“I was just scared. I’m okay now.”
Wulf’s glare suggested that he didn’t believe her in the slightest. “Dieter,” he said, looking over at her cousins. “Take her.”
Rae looked up, staring around, until she found him. Dieter was there, the fluorescent lights glinting on his blond hair and solemn purpose filling his gray eyes. He took his boot off the back of Levi’s neck and trotted toward her. He stood beside Wulf and reached for her, gathering her behind him, still watching the situation.
Rae let him transfer her. Wulf must have a reason. She just wanted to leave.
Wulf said to Dieter, “If anyone moves toward her, shoot him.”
“Should I warn them first?” he asked.
“I just did.” Wulf glanced back as he walked toward Stoppard, who struggled to his feet. The cold anger in Wulf’s dark blue eyes scared her.
Rae steadied herself by laying one hand on Dieter’s back, and he stepped backwards toward her, his arm swinging back to shield her more.
Wulf clicked the safety on his gun and shoved it in the back of his waistband under his suit jacket while walking over to Stoppard, stepping around her cousins sprawled on the floor. A livid red mark flamed on the side of Stoppard’s face.
Rae whispered to Dieter, “We should go. I just want to go home.”
“One minute,” he said, still watching Wulf and the other men. The safety was still down on Dieter’s gun, and he aimed it beyond his toes.
Wulf reached Stoppard. “You thought to exorcise devils from her?”
“She’s possessed,” Stoppard hissed through his teeth. “We’re trying to save her.”
“There is nothing to save her from,” Wulf said, stepping back. “This farce is over. We’re leaving.”
“You can’t!”
Wulf strode back toward her, his jaw bulging at the sides.
Rae sagged with relief. They could leave now. They would all leave and everything would be all right. Her other hand still rested on her stomach.
Stoppard yelled, “You have to leave her with us! To finish the exorcism!”
Rae watched over Dieter’s shoulder as Wulf neared them. Dieter aimed left of Wulf, at the minister.
Stoppard pulled his lips back from his teeth and yelled, “Even your family thinks you shouldn’t marry her!”
Wulf stopped walking, and his dark blue eyes slid sideways.
Rae called, “Wulf, don’t listen to him. Let’s leave.”
Even Your Family
Wulf turned back, his shoulders tense in his black suit jacket. The dank conference room stank, rank with angry male sweat from hours of screaming at his wife. He rounded on Stoppard. “What did you say?”
“Even your family—” Stoppard repeated.
Wulf strode back, his heels hitting the carpet hard. “What did you say?”
“—thinks you shouldn’t marry her!”
Wulf grabbed Stoppard’s collar in both his fists, their faces inches apart. The harsh overhead tube lights glared on the grease on Stoppard’s face. Wulf swore that he could smell bacon. He growled, “What did you say about my family?”
Stoppard said, “They think she’s a slut and a gold-digger, and they’re right.”
Wulf dropped the minister’s collar. The sick rage that
had boiled in his belly since he had seen Stoppard standing over Rae uncoiled and raced through him.
Stoppard shouted, “She’s only after worldly things and—”
Wulf slammed the hard bones of his fist into Stoppard’s mouth.
The minister fell to his hands and knees, his head weaving.
Blood trickled on Wulf’s throbbing knuckles. He had been tempted to punch the man in that church a few months before, and it was satisfying to finally feel the minister’s bones and skin crunch under his fist.
Only civility restrained Wulf from kicking the man while he was on the floor. He growled, “Stand up.”
Stoppard spat blood on the carpet and said, “They called her father and told him to do something to stop the wedding.”
Wulf grabbed the back of the minister’s collar with one hand and dragged Stoppard back to standing. “Who called you?”
“I don’t know! They called her father!”
Wulf dropped Stoppard and found Rae’s father, Zachariah, laying on the floor with Luca straddling him, his gun pointing at Zachariah’s head.
Rae called Wulf’s name again, and he glanced over. Dieter had reached behind himself with one arm to keep her safely behind him.
Wulf hauled Zachariah Stone off the flat carpeting and held him by his collar, perilously close to strangling him. “Who called you?”
“He said he was a relation of yours,” Rae’s father said. “And he said your name was Wulf, not Dominic. You lied to us.”
Wulf’s neck and face burned with anger. “Did he give you his name?”
“Philipp.”
Wulf’s temples pulsed in time with his heart.
His own father.
Wulf’s father had contacted Rae’s family and foisted his poison on them.
How the hell had he known where to find her family?
He forced his hands to unclench and release Zachariah though he was tensed to punch him.
Zachariah Stone stepped back, rubbing his throat. Luca shoved Stone’s shoulder until he was on his knees again.
Wulf walked back toward Rae and Dieter. Her sweet brown eyes were huge as she looked over Dieter’s shoulder at him. “I can’t believe it,” she began.