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One Last Time RPG

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07/18/2018 01:01 PM 

A New Day Will Come ; The Story Continues

In the three weeks following the FBI's incursion upon Middletown, Maine, the citizens of the small town have turned their attention and efforts towards cleaning up and rebuilding the wanton destruction exacted upon them. The town council, comprised of Solomon White [Saruman], Merlyn Grey [Gandalf], Edward Nightingale [Elrond], Grace Goldbloom [Galadriel], and Christopher Goldbloom [Celeborn], have gathered in the town hall to discuss rebuilding efforts as well as what recourse Middletown will take upon the United States Government for their grievous overstep.

As fortunes would have it, Guardian Angel's Hospital remained relatively undamaged and Leo Forrest [Legolas] has been moved there where he remains in a medically induced coma. Ever vigilant and watchful at his side is Adele Nightingale [Arwen] who has not left his side since his surgery. While Leo Forrest [Legolas] appears to be resting peacefully, his spirit wanders through Middle-Earth on a quest given to him by the White Lady, Galadriel. The Dark Lord has dispatched the Nine to find Legolas, led by the Witch-King of Angmar. who is eager to please his master after a failed attempt to turn the Lady of Light to the darkness.

In the absence of her brother, Tara Forrest [Tauriel] has stepped into his shoes as Middletown's Sheriff. Her first task is into the investigation of the two attempted murders of Leo Forrest [Legolas]. The primary suspect in both attempts is none other than Mai Summers/Orton [Merenwen] who was already in custody prior to the FBI's incursion and is suspected of playing a prominent role in the second attempt. Alex Orton [Azog] has posted bail for his adopted daughter/niece who is remanded to house arrest pending her trial. As Mai Summers/Orton [Merenwen] struggles to grapple with her newfound consciousness thanks to Melanie Slovenzky [Meldainiel], Bradley Orton [Bolg] is tasked by his father, Alex Orton [Azog], with ensuring that Mai Summers/Orton [Merenwen] remains compliant with her house arrest.

The tension between Trenton Forrest [Thranduil] and Alexander Orton [Azog] have reached new heights. Now that Trenton Forrest [Thranduil] has peaked beneath the veil and seen the faces of his enemies, he stands at the ready to oppose Alex Orton [Azog] who seeks to seize the opportunity to sew further chaos amongst Middletown's residents, attempting to turn against those who were entrusted to protect them from outside threats.

POST ORDER: Melanie, Edward, Grace, Leo, Witch King, Mai, Alex, Trenton, Adele, Tara, Byron

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✨ Ꮙ𝖊𝔫𝔲𝔰 ✨

 

Oct 11th 2023 - 2:15 AM

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[Melanie, Edward, Trenton, Leo]

https://youtu.be/nG-fya3vutQ

Somewhere in the cold, dark depths of the upper atmosphere, a lone spark flickered to life. It was fragile, tenuous; its very existence threatened by the mighty riptides of the vast universe that created it, and it quailed beneath the heavy mantle of night. Whispered breaths of anxious prayers feathered over the tiny flame, coaxing it from the embers of nothingness. The stirring winds would not allow that little spark to die. It flared brighter, dimmed slightly, then flared again. It was a single orange star gleaming among a host of white pinpricks in the heavens, like a newborn babe in the company of ancient, graceful fairies, hidden from the world below by a gossamer veil of pale clouds. Each intermittent flicker was stronger than the last, and the relentless prayers flowed over it until finally the little flame surged forth into a bold beacon of golden light.

With a muffled explosion, the hot orange flashpoint ignited at the hidden threshold between two worlds. Lightning snaked around an oval, as if framing an invisible mirror that hung in the sky. Desperate spirits below unconsciously pulled upon it, calling to it, willing it into being; silently pleading, reaching into the unknown for hope, for help, for intervention.


The lightning struck again, repeatedly, and each whip-like strike burned the frame more fully into the universal plane. Those anguished cries would not be lost in barren space; the formless words would not fall upon deaf ears.

Long-dead lines that ran across the universe blazed with white light. They snapped and sizzled, twitched and leapt in erratic patterns, shocked with the blinding force of immeasurable power. Suddenly the lines burned out like trails of black smoke, which lingered in sudden stillness with the acrid stench of scorched ozone. But the urgent messages they carried across the meridians raced at the speed of light, a mere millisecond ahead of the silent dark.

In the world below, the gathering storm darkened the skies over the two vehicles that raced down the empty highway. Red and white lights flashed in chaotic rhythm as the sirens wailed. Ominous thunder rumbled in the distance, and bolts of lightning stabbed at the diminishing spaces between the boiling clouds. The very air tensed and trembled beneath the coming onslaught. Even in the closed space of her car, between shattered breaths and tightened fists on the steering wheel, Adele could feel it. Beyond the searing pain in her mutilated heart and the violent storm that raged in her chest, she could feel it.

Beyond the cold cage of glass and steel, she sensed the change in the weather. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and invisible electricity rippled through her body. Stagnant tears clung to her lashes and pooled beneath the burning intensity of her violet gaze, and she sent the moonstone BMW after the boxy ambulance like a white destrier galloping mightily over the winter roads, flanked by the dark wall of the oncoming storm.

She could not feel him. Rapidly she closed the distance between her car and the ambulance, but she could feel him. Her heart clenched painfully and hammered with terror. Those monsters had stolen him away from the hospital, and there was no telling if they’d hooked him up properly to the proper machines at the proper time. Time… time was her enemy. Because time was his enemy.

A harsh wind blazed through the forest on her right, beyond the passenger seat window where Landon continued his desperate entreaties — all of which fell on deaf ears. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign language. She heard none of his words, aware only of her quarry straight ahead and the blast of winter’s fury that rushed down the steep mountainous cliffs like an icy army of invisible soldiers. Yet she felt them as plainly as if she could see them. She stared past Landon, watched the pines and leaf-bare birches swaying and flailing, and then…

There was a sudden shift, as if her spirit left her body. Or else her spirit finally inhabited it…

A heated rush of energy swept through her entire body, throwing her back against her seat and sparking at her very fingertips. The atmosphere charged; the road ahead wavered. She gasped as if she’d been struck by lightning. On pure instinct, Adele shoved her foot to the floor and slammed on the brakes. Rubber tires screamed against cold pavement and black ice, drowning out Landon’s shouted protests, and the BMW bucked and fishtailed under her fierce grip just as a massive tree cracked loose from the bank with a deep groan and crashed down onto the road ahead. A wall of blinding white snow and winter shadow exploded from the fallen giant, then rose into the air and engulfed the ambulance, but Adele knew exactly where it was. Releasing the brake, she yanked the wheel to the left and threw it into park.

She lunged for her purse, seized her Glock, and pushed open her door into blinding whiteness. In one fluid motion, she leapt toward the overheated hood of her car and rolled on her right shoulder, catapulting to the other side. She landed on her feet in a dead sprint, charging straight into the spray of loose snow with the cold searing her face. Powerful hurricane-force winds rose against her back, lifting her from her feet until she was running in midair, sweeping her toward the ghostly gray silhouette of the ambulance — and nearly past it.

At the last second, Adele twisted her body and threw out her left hand, catching the driver’s side door handle. Her momentum spun her around and sent her back crashing against the side of the engine. With an angry holler, she immediately surged forward again and slammed the hilt of the Glock hard against the window, startling the two male paramedics inside.

“Where IS he?!”

She struck the glass again, and then again, but it didn’t break. Her hair whipped around her enraged face like black flames and her voice rolled forth like a feline snarl.

“Get out!”


Before the men could react, Adele planted her feet on the ground and pulled against the door handle. Perhaps the driver was preparing to leave the cab and assess the unexpected roadblock before Adele’s sudden appearance, because the door was unlocked, and it swung open in a mighty arc. Wild with fury, Adele lunged forward again, stepping up onto the running board and seizing the paramedic’s collar. The startled man’s hands were already halfway raised in a gesture of surrender, but she cared not. In a single smooth motion, she flung him onto the ground like a sack of potatoes and stood over him, gun aimed directly at his face.

“Where IS he?!” she growled again.


“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I-I don’t know anything!” the terrified paramedic stammered, cringing under the line of fire and shaking all over.

A shadow moved behind Adele. She whirled around, the Glock aimed directly at Landon’s head.

“It’s me,” Landon said without flinching, his Beretta locked on the second paramedic in the passenger seat. The second paramedic sat frozen, his hands raised; he looked young and frightened and, therefore, fully cooperative. At least for the moment. With a twitch of his gun and clipped orders, Landon directed the passenger to exit the ambulance and walk backwards toward him while Adele kept her own gun pointed at the driver on the cold ground.

Landon moved behind the young paramedic, then shoved him forward. His low voice was cold steel. “If this is a trap, you’re a dead man. Open the back, now.”

Holding his hands up and cowering beneath Landon’s gun, the shaken paramedic did as he was told. He preceded Landon to the back of the ambulance, took hold of the frozen silver latch, and flung open the doors.

Adele stared hard at Landon’s face, her gun never wavering from her own hostage. Landon looked into the back of the ambulance; his posture lost a little of its tension and his brow furrowed with a puzzled expression that Adele recognized all too well. Glancing at the man who sat on the pavement with uplifted hands, she carefully backpedaled toward Landon, already knowing what she would find… but needing to see it for herself.

With a quick sweep of her gaze, Adele took in the pristine details. The ambulance was empty — and perfectly clean, the stretcher in its place and all of the medical supplies neatly organized along the ambulance wall. A full IV bag hung from a bar on the ceiling. No patient was there; no patient had ever been there. Not recently.

Furious, she glared at the young paramedic. “Where IS he?!” she demanded.

His raised hands were shaking. “There’s nobody here!”

A frustrated growl caught in Adele’s throat, and her voice rose. “What have you done with Sheriff Forrest?”

Confusion swept over the frightened paramedic’s expression. “What? Nothing! We—” The barrel of Landon’s gun flinched against the man’s neck, and he hastily concluded, “We didn’t do anything to him, I swear!”

Adele gritted her teeth, her frayed temper pulling at the last threads of her fragile restraint. “Where is he?!”

The man blinked rapidly, and he looked ready to cry. “I… truly, I don’t know! He was never here!”

The realization that the paramedic wasn’t lying broke over Adele in an icy wave. She knew… she’d known that Leo wasn’t there. So that’s why she couldn’t feel him in the ambulance during the chase. It wasn’t because he was fading… he simply wasn’t there. The frantic chase had been in vain.

Sensing that he’d marginally reached the deranged woman, the young man gentled his voice. “P-please don’t hurt us. We didn’t do anything wrong. I have a wife and kids, and… I really don’t know where Sheriff Forrest—”

Her gun shot up in an instant, and the man quailed before her smoldering violet gaze. He realized, too late, that mentioning the sheriff’s name was a grave mistake.

“Tell me what you know,” she snapped. When the man hesitated, she jerked the gun hard. “Everything! Now!”

“Okay, okay! Look… I don’t know what’s going on, okay? Some guy paid us to drive—”

Adele latched on to that fragment of priceless information — a trailing thread that might lead her in the right direction. “Who?” she demanded. “Who paid you?”

“I don’t know!”

“You’re LYING!”

The paramedic’s expression crumbled entirely, and he rapidly shook his head, his trembling words jumbled together. “I swear! Honest to God, I’ve never seen him before in my life, I swear!”

“Adele—”

She clenched her jaw, ignoring Landon’s entreaty but suddenly reminded that they had a second prisoner. “If you don’t talk, I’ll kill him,” she warned abruptly, whipping her gun in the direction of the terrified prisoner on the ground.

“Adele!”

“I don’t know, I swear! I swear on my life, I never saw the guy before! I don’t know!

“Adele—!”

“STOP LYING!”

The paramedic dissolved into tears. “I don’t know, that’s the truth, don’t kill my partner—please! I’ll give you the money… you can have it all… don’t hurt us. I-I’ll do whatever you want…”

“ADELE!”

She glared at Landon then. “What?!”

Holding his worried hostage by the back of the collar with the Beretta’s muzzle pushed against the man’s neck, Landon met her furious gaze evenly. “They’re not lying.”

Adele’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “They know more than they’re saying,” she countered.

Her words fell like a muffled explosion in the winter silence. Landon and Adele stared at each other, suddenly aware of their surroundings — the faint whistle of the desolate wind through the bare trees, the utter quiet of the snow-capped peaks that towered above them, the soft sobs from the young paramedic. The driver sat with his head bowed; he showed no sign of resistance. The ancient mountains looked down upon them, as if mourning the fallen oak on the road that had stood on that precipice for more than two centuries.

Somewhere in the distance, a faint rhythmic hum beat the air. The hum grew louder. It was coming closer. The pavement beneath their feet began to vibrate; heavy vehicles were approaching — several of them. Landon and Adele simultaneously paled. They were out in the open — the two of them armed, but alone; utterly alone in the vastness of the world.

“It’s an ambush,” Adele breathed.

The darkening of Landon’s eyes was answer enough.

Adele’s desperate gaze darted over the bleak landscape. On the right side of the road, where the fallen tree had once proudly stood, the cliffside rose upward at a horrendously steep angle. On the other side of the road, the mountainside sloped downward at an equally devastating decline, lined like a massive fur cloak with heavy white snowdrifts. Her breath escaped in a frantic rush, swirling around her like mist, and she looked toward her BMW — still running, doors open, churning out heated puffs of exhaust that disappeared into the gray. If they tried to race back the way they’d come, with the enemy closing in behind them, they wouldn’t stand a chance. She whirled and stared at the ambulance in the middle of the road. It wasn’t going anywhere; the fallen tree effectively blocked them in, and they had no hope of turning it around and driving through a military convoy of any kind.

“It’s a death trap,” Landon said, his voice deadpan. Adele looked up at him and saw him studying the ambulance as well, and she realized that he’d already considered the strategic advantages of holing up in it and rejected the idea. The thick metal truck would offer a measure of protection from enemy fire, but it would be short-lived, at best. They both knew it. Their ammunition was limited, they were almost certainly outnumbered, and a breach was inevitable.

Adele drew another shuddering breath to steady her nerves. They were out of options, and the only way out was hardly ideal. But it was their only chance.

“We have to run, now,” she said.

They moved at the same moment. Landon pushed the startled young paramedic past the ambulance and herded him toward the side of the road while Adele rushed to the driver and grabbed his arm.

“Get up,” she urged, pulling at him.


He lifted his vacant gaze and stared at her, resigned. “If you’re going to kill me—”

“I’m trying to saveyou!” she cried. “We have to go. They’re coming, and they’ll kill you, too! Do you reallythink they’ll leave any witnesses alive?”

The driver studied her intently, the truth of her words dawning upon him. With a short nod, he took her hand and rose to his feet, and she hurried him toward the side of the road. For a grim moment, the four fugitives stood there where the pavement ended, staring over the edge of a steep drop — a merciless slope threaded with trees and pockmarked with snow-covered boulders. The rising hum of engines and the heavy beat of the helicopter overhead only grew louder.

“Let’s go,” said Landon. Gripping the paramedic’s jacketed arm, he scrambled over the edge, half-pulling the other man with him into heavy snow. The driver and Adele were close behind them, and Adele sat down on the icy ground as the momentum and the harsh angle of their descent caused her to slide, picking up speed — but only for a moment. She planted her left foot against the base of a tree, pushed off of it, and sprang upward, landing on her feet in mid-stride and already running; picking a sideways path to control their descent and prevent a headlong tumble down the hill. The paramedics grunted and pushed through the powdery snow, fighting to stay upright and lunging and ducking between the trees, while Landon and Adele sprang alongside them — almost running on the surface of the snow, shepherding the paramedics with their guns in hand and their keen eyes searching for the first sign of trouble.

They left a wide trail of deep-snow tracks in their wake; it couldn’t be avoided in the wintry woods. They pushed forward, past the point where the huge tree still blocked the road, hoping that the fallen giant would halt the convoy and buy them a little time — time to cover more ground, or perhaps to find shelter; she didn’t know which. The terrain would determine their next move. Landon quickly recognized that the struggling paramedics would become a liability; he and Adele were forced to slow their pace so the men could keep up.

As they ran, Landon slid his free hand into a jacket pocket and found his phone. Adele’s phone was still in the car; there’d been no time to retrieve it, but at least they still had one lifeline to the outside world. Never breaking stride, he punched in the code to unlock his phone, then thumbed open his contacts and pressed Edward Nightingale’s name.

As his sharp eyes darted through the trees, he brought the cold phone to his ear, waiting impatiently for the cycle of rings to end.


Edward’s greeting was short. “Yeah.”

Adele’s heart leapt into her throat at the muffled sound of her father’s voice on the other end of Landon’s phone, and her spirits sank into the pit of her stomach. Her steps faltered, and she sank into the snow a little, but she kept running.

“We need help,” Landon said, without preamble. “Enemy convoy inbound. We’re on foot, heading east through the woods. We left her car and the ambulance behind a downed tree. Adele is with me, and we have…” He glanced aside at the paramedics, who slogged determinedly through the snow. “Two… paramedic… hostages… with us. We need backup and a place to go. Awaiting instructions…”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Landon heard the screaming creak of his chair as Nightingale leaned forward and planted his boots firmly on the linoleum floor, and he heard him punch the button on the long-distance walkie talkie. His address was succinct, his voice tense. The message went out to all parties on the air.

“Code Red, Red Alert. All stations, Code Red. Four friendlies on the move — Alpha-Delta-November, Lima-Foxtrot, plus two hostages. Bogeys inbound on their location — I repeat, bogeys inbound. All available units, converge on the last-known coordinates of the ambulance. All stations, report!”

His sharp voice pierced directly into Landon’s ear next. “Stay on the line, no matter what. We’re coming for you.”

Landon’s response was laced with gratitude. “Yes, sir.”

Yet they were a long way from being out of the woods. He glanced back at Adele; her drawn expression and somber violet eyes reminded him of the way she’d looked as a young student in her school uniform, standing outside her father’s office, her clammy fingers clutched around the subpar grade card that she’d had to present.

Hot color flushed her cheeks, even as she ran for her life. Units were scrambling and men were preparing to put their lives on the line… to save them. And it was her fault. It was all her fault. If she survived long enough to be rescued, there would still be hell to pay… one way or another.

Worst of all, she was no closer to finding Leo, or saving his life.

“Adele,” Landon called to her, the phone still pressed to his ear.

She looked at him, dark shadows lingering in her troubled vision. The message in his voice was clear: they had to focus. She glanced aside at the two paramedics, who tried their best to keep up.

“We need cover,” she said, looking over her shoulder. There was no sign of movement from the road — yet. She couldn’t see the helicopter — yet. But she could hear them. The roar of approaching engines nearly shook her senses. With the paramedics falling behind, their only hope of survival was to find some manner of shelter until help could arrive.




Silvertongue

 

Apr 6th 2023 - 6:12 PM

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[PART I]

[Beda, Trenton, Leo, Edward, Adele, Elena, Solomon]

https://youtu.be/RZ2omdkdk2k

The cell phone was buzzing. Again.

Grayson’s bony knuckles tightened on the steering wheel of his old brown Cadillac, and he glanced at his briefcase in the passenger seat, annoyed. Damn that phone. He should have remembered to send it off with Dr. Grimaldi before the man returned to the airport and blew his brains out in Boston, but he’d been preoccupied with other particulars of his complicated plan. When he’d originally confiscated the phone off the unconscious neurologist’s person, he’d tucked it into his briefcase and forgotten all about it.

Every other detail was impeccable. Grayson’s left eyelid twitched, twice. Every detail, except for the damned phone.

Its absence was unremarkable and easily explained away. Perhaps it had fallen off the bridge where the doctor shot himself. Perhaps the doctor, preoccupied with his impending suicide, had simply misplaced it. If anyone cared to trace the phone, however, they would discover that it wasn’t in Boston.

His jaw hardened. Whether the examining authorities considered the missing phone inconsequential didn’t matter. Even the tiniest fly in an otherwise flawless ointment angered him. He was all about flawless execution, especially when it actually pertained to an execution. In this case, however, it was a suicide — in the eyes of the rest of the world.

His dark eyes sparked. Apparently someone hadn’t yet heard the incredibly satisfying news that Dr. Grimaldi was deceased. Why else would they be calling the late doctor so incessantly?

Well, it was time to fix that.

Right at the border between the wild backwoods of northwestern Maine and Middletown, there was an old narrow bridge that ran across a violent, frothy stretch of the Androscoggin River. The area was so remote that it was a miracle, or possibly a sweeping tribute to the progress of modern technology, that cell phone signal reached so deeply into the mountainous forests. Grayson braked his sedan in the middle of the bridge, threw it into park, and dug through a mess of papers and medicine bottles and glass vials in his briefcase until he unburied the phone.

He turned over the small, sleek piece of technology in his hand. The late doctor must have been something of a modern-day Luddite, to have carried around such a primitive flip-phone. The ridiculous thing was practically a fossil. Grayson was not impressed. He snapped the relic in half, cranked the heavy old-fashioned window handle down, and tossed the bits into the air. He sat for a moment, watching the broken remnants sail over the rusty guardrail, and he heard the pieces splash into the Androscoggin rapids below.

His minor task complete, he gripped the handle and rolled up the window with a smirk. Not that anyone would come looking for it — certainly not out in the sticks. The neurologist’s suicide was already an open-and-shut case anyway. Too many passersby had seen him pull the trigger, and all of his own accord. There was shaken eyewitness testimony aplenty. Nothing and no one had compelled him to exit the mortal coil prematurely. Nobody had threatened him into relinquishing his life. He hadn’t been under duress. Not visible duress, at any rate.

With a pleased bob of his dark head, Grayson shifted his Cadillac into drive and resumed his course. Half an hour later, the first buildings of Middletown came into view — a few of the buildings that remained intact after the recent incursion. Ongoing business demanded his attention; not even an invasion of Feds could keep him from his appointed rounds.

Grayson kept track of the news reports as they hit the internet. As he’d predicted to Dr. Grimaldi himself, once the initial traumatic shock of his untimely passing wore off, nobody seemed terribly upset by his death. The furor subsided with unprecedented swiftness. Already his children were squabbling over the assets of his substantial estate. Hell, Grayson figured he’d probably done them all a favor: he’d put Dr. Grimaldi out of his slow, simmering misery, and the man’s kids would benefit from all his years of hard work. Maybe the world was a better place without Dr. Grimaldi in it, after all.

 



Silvertongue

 

Apr 6th 2023 - 6:07 PM

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[PART II]

https://youtu.be/4VeRO2eE1iU

At precisely 5:30 AM, an annoying cyclic beeping caused Grayson’s dark eyes to snap open. He slammed his hand down on his alarm clock and tilted his head against the thin pillow, his mind already seething and alive in the heavy silence. With a sinewy, reptilian movement that seemed impossible for a man of his age, he crawled out of bed and shuffled across the threadbare carpet toward his small bathroom.

He started his morning in the darkness, while most of Middletown was still fast asleep. The sharp aroma from a stiff pot of Folgers soon filled his shabby apartment while he selected a basic suit and a gray cotton tie from the thin wardrobe selection in his small closet. A single palmful of gel slicked back his lank black locks and offered a modest shine — a semblance of professionalism, as it were. A splash of cologne, slapped rapidly against his neck and cheeks, and he was ready to face the day. He poured straight black coffee into a silver thermos and made his way out into the early morning, closing the apartment door behind him.

It was still dark at 6:05 AM, when Grayson arrived at his psychiatric office. Leaving his old brown Cadillac at the front of the parking lot in his reserved spot, as always, he shambled toward the brick office building while carrying his black leather briefcase and his thermos. He deferred to his usual habit and squinted around, his suspicious eyes probing the shadows as his fingers withdrew the rattling keys from his pocket. Seeing no movement in the vicinity, he turned his back on the cold world and shuffled through keys until he found the right one. He jammed it into the lock, turned it, and pushed open his office door.

Suddenly, both of his arms were seized in an iron grip. His frail body jolted as if from an electric shock, and he struggled ineffectually against the unyielding strength of his captors.

“HEY, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!” he screamed, flailing and kicking the air as two large men hoisted him clean off the floor. “NO NO NO NO NO, LEGGO, GET OFF ME!”

The keys dropped in a ball of metal near the door as they slammed him unceremoniously into one of his own client chairs. The office door drifted shut, and the only sound in the darkness was Grayson’s anxious gasping.

They stunk. He knew that now; it was a wonder that the smell hadn’t alerted him to their presence in the shadows. Now, in the closed space of his office, the strong odors of manly sweat, rotten meat, and gasoline dizzied him. His frenzied eyes slid between the men, seeking details and finding only monstrous silhouettes.

“How dare you! Who are you?!” he shouted at them, quivering all over.

The only answer was an ominous creak, alerting him to a third presence in his office.

Half-hidden in the shadows, a menacing figure sat behind Grayson’s oak desk, occupying his chair. HIS chair. Fear and rage warred within him at stranger’s audacity, and his beady eyes darted about as his head whipped back and forth, trying to take in the dark faces around him all at once.

“Who are you?!” he demanded again, hating the way his voice shook. “What do you want?”

The stranger leaned forward, the pale light catching on his smirk as he rocked forward on an uneven leg of Grayson’s chair. “You know. As much as you quacks charge, you’d think that you could afford some decent chairs.” He rested his elbows on the edge of the desk, staring hard at Grayson. “So, what’s up, Doc? Been kinda busy lately, haven’t you?”

Despite the rapid pounding of Grayson’s elderly heart, fury caused his crooked teeth to grind in a snarl. “My chairs are FINE, you ass, you bastard, you—” He cut off his own tirade and twisted around again, seeking to identify the shadowed figures who lingered in the dark. “Who the hell are you people? I’m warning you. I’ll call the police! You’re not welcome here!”

A low laugh threaded through the darkness. “That’s real cute, Doc.” He leaned back in the rickety chair and kicked his muddied boots onto a pile of papers there, his heels placed right onto a really nice picture frame. “Don’t play coy with me, you damned worm. You already know who I am.”

Slack-jawed, Grayson stared in horror at the muddied boots that carelessly soiled his precious business papers. This was too much! This outrage, this… this violation of his space, HIS office, HIS…

The stranger waved his hand a little bit, pulling open Grayson’s side drawer, peeking down into it, flipping through more papers — causing Grayson’s temperature to rise. “I mean, honestly, who do you think you are? Using your Jedi mind tricks on anyone in this town — or anyone that has anything to do with this town? That’s the real question.”

Grayson broke out in a sudden cold sweat. What did the stranger know of his work — the true nature of it? Too much, it seemed. Thin wisps of hair escaped his gelled coif and hung like black claws over his pale face as his icy blue eyes slid back to the insufferable creature who made himself at home behind his desk.

Orton. Father Alexander Orton. Middletown’s shepherd of the local church flock. Yes, he recognized the man now.

Casually picking up the phone, however, the self-assured pastor held the receiver toward Grayson. His voice gained a taunting sing-song quality as he dangled the phone from his fingers. “I know a real pretty detective that would just loveto hear how you were the little birdie that whispered into the life-saving neurosurgeon’s ear, the one who was supposed to save her big brother’s life, right before he blew his brains out.” He gestured with the phone. “So, call them.”

Chalky lips drew back, further exposing Grayson’s yellowed teeth as his gaze darted between the phone that Alex offered him and Alex himself. His expression twisted with frustrated fury as Alex called his bluff.

Grayson snarled like a feral animal. In a sudden motion, he shoved his arms wildly across the desk, sending the phone and a smattering of wrecked papers flying straight back at Alex.

“What do you know about that? I didn’t, you damned preacher!” he spat, every hissed breath seething behind his crooked teeth.

Instantly, one of the burly brutes placed a meaty hand on Grayson’s scrawny shoulder and slammed the little psychiatrist back into his chair. So great was Grayson’s fury that he paid little mind. He scowled across the desk at Alex, like a leashed junkyard bulldog growling at an intruder who stood just beyond reach of his chain.

With a low whistle through clenched teeth, Alex leaned down to the floor. With deadly calm, he retrieved the phone. He hung it up again with a clacking sound.

Clearing his throat, Alex sighed and dragged his heavy boots across the desk, knocking the rest of Grayson’s papers to the floor. He planted his feet firmly on them, and Grayson could hear the papers crinkling beneath those boots. His dark eyes glittered with hate.

Alex scooted forward in his seat. Slowly he leaned forward, putting his hands together, elbows resting on the wood as he stared at the small man from across the desk.

“Careful there, Sorcerer. I know exactly who you are and what you do.”

His already pale face whitened a shade further when Alex referred to him by his true title. How did the pastor know that?! But rage eclipsed good sense. The furious psychiatrist didn’t know when to quit.

“Lies, lies! You… YOU…” He aimed a knobby forefinger at Alex and shook it furiously. “You know NOTHING. You take those lies and cram them right back up your filthy ass! What do you want with me? Why are you even here?”

Quick as a striking snake, Alex snatched Grayson’s hand in an iron grip and slammed it down on the desk, forefinger still extended.

“AHH!” hollered Grayson, momentarily blinded by searing pain. He wailed like an animal and cowered in his chair as one of Alex’s men pinned him. Alex nodded at the man, who produced a large hunting knife and pressed the cold steel against Grayson’s outstretched finger.

Alex’s voice was deadly calm. “Wave that in my face again, and I’ll cut it off, you hear me?”

Tears of frustrated fury gathered in Grayson’s reddened vision, but Alex’s tone turned his blood cold and he dared not protest. One wrong move, now, and he’d lose a finger; that threat came through loud and clear.

“If that boy dies,” Alex went on, “I’ll cut your head off, because you see, I have a lot more invested in all of this than you do.” He leaned back again, assessing Grayson as if he were some manner of distasteful rodent. “That’s not my only problem with you. Several long years ago, you were supposed to get rid of some DNA evidence and doctor up a death certificate. Do you remember that?”

Pale flames of recognition ignited in his angry eyes. Father Alexander Orton he was; and yet, he was not. He was more. Far more. Slowly, Grayson tilted his head to the side, and then drew his head upright to face Alex fully.

“Yes,” he hissed at him. “You. I knowyou. There was…”


His crazed eyes darted back and forth, as if he were reading invisible texts that hung in the air between them.

“I did,” he breathed. “I was told to… and I did. That was a long time ago.” His gaze snapped to Alex again and fastened on him, searching his shadowed features in the dim light. “What of it?”


A low growl rumbled from the other side of the room.

The hairs stood up on the back of Grayson’s neck. Still pinned under the musclehead’s steel grip, he marginally turned his head and caught sight of the huge white wolf that stretched like a huge cat. Calmly, she crossed his office floor like she owned the place, and she took her position at Alex’s side. She stared at Grayson with wise yellow eyes, her ears pricked forward. Even seated, she was nearly as tall as Grayson.

“I think your tone offended her,” Alex observed, dropping his right hand to scritch Millie’s ears. Staring at the vile creature across the desk from him, Alex shook his head. “Get a load of this guy, will you. He has a huge sack, am I right?”

Grayson could scarcely drag his gaze away from the massive animal, even as Alex thoroughly insulted his ill-advised audacity. Alex’s thug scoffed; Grayson shot him a swift glare.

The psychiatrist went too far. He figured that out the second Alex’s fist slammed into his outstretched hand.

“OWWWOOH — GAH!”

A maddened howl tore from his chest, and he hopped in his chair and writhed in agony under the thug’s unrelenting hold and the bite of the blade. Alex twisted his wrist the wrong way, wrenching it up toward the ceiling and halfway back to the desk, and the sorcerer screamed and kicked his feet, unable to form intelligible words.

“What of it?” Alex repeated threateningly as Grayson whined. “What… of it?” He scoffed and dragged him across his own desk until their faces were far too close for comfort, and Grayson was also very aware that he was now much closer to the enormous white wolf. “Because of your f-cking incompetence, it’s now on record that it was all one big lie, you f-ck face! In a court of law. Now tell me, what would youdo if you were in my position, Doc?”

Whimpering from the pain of his twisted wrist, Grayson dragged agonized breaths into strained lungs, gritting his crooked teeth under Alex’s rapidfire accusations. Struggling to muster his shattered dignity, he stiffened his quivering lips and fought to bite out each syllable.

“I… am not… incompetent.” He paused again, gathering composure past his physical agony. “I did it… just right… AAH! Everything—! I did it… all… brilliantly. It must’ve been… s-sabotage…”


He trembled under Alex’s twisted hold on his wrist, but he did not fight it. Not now. Few knew what failure — even unintentional failure — truly meant, for those in service of Anatol. His eyes skittered sideways as he wracked the dark corners of his tortured brain. If someone had betrayed him, then… who? Who could have done this to him?

Alex’s gaze shifted left and right, studying the man, before a sardonic smile spread over his lips. With a low chuckle, he leaned back a little, settling his weight back in the chair.

“Do you boys hear that? Sabotage.” He scoffed. “That’s what they all say. It wasn’t them, it was someone else.” Tightening his jaw, he applied steady and even pressure to Grayson’s twisted arm while staring hard at him, still. Millie whined a little with a huge yawn, clearly feeling the tension from Alex.

Between the continued throbbing of his twisted arm and the wild scrambling of his maddened mind, Alex’s menacing laughter and sarcastic rambling faded to a dull hum in the background. What had gone wrong? Now that the idea finally occurred to him, he couldn’t shake it. It burrowed into his psyche like a determined tick, and he couldn’t get rid of it. Who, indeed, had sabotaged him?

“Humor me,” Alex went on. “Who sabotaged you? Grimaldi?”

Grimaldi? Hell, no. Scowling in suspended anguish and tormented thoughts, Grayson twitched out two quick headshakes. Grimaldi was an out-of-town doctor and a hostage, nothing more. Aside from disembarking from the plane and reboarding it on his last trip back to Boston, everything Grimaldi had done was, in fact, Grayson in disguise. It was Grayson who had stolen his identity, Grayson who had infiltrated the hospital, Grayson who had crushed hopes and destroyed dreams with his foreboding prognosis.

“Why did you kill him?” Alex demanded. “What purpose did that serve you?”

Alex flung the hapless psychiatrist toward his two goons, who caught him — like catchers in some demented baseball game. Grayson gasped and grabbed at his own wrist.

“Because I could,” Grayson bit out, rubbing his achy wrist. He narrowed his eyes at Alex — glad to be free of him, for the moment, yet resentful nonetheless.

Alex leaned back the chair, and another low laugh broke from his lips. “Now see, that. That, I can respect. I kill a lot of folks that don’t like. Kind of like you. I don’t like you at all.”

The heavy pounding of Grayson’s heart skipped a beat. Alex was grinning at him in a way he didn’t like.

Hastily Grayson forged ahead. “I killed him, too, because… he was a witness. I don’t leave loose ends.”

Alex snorted. “The hell you don’t. You did, and you aregoing to pay for it.” Grayson’s nervous gulp was audible in the darkness of his office. “But first, you’re going to tell me exactly what you did and how you did it, who was involved, and what the f-ck went wrong.”

What hadgone wrong, indeed? Mentally he forged his way back in time, poring over the details of the task that landed on his desk, courtesy of a certain lawyer. No, he needed to start at the beginning. Right from the first phone call, and the meeting that followed.

Alex watched him, growing impatient. “Or, you know, tomorrow’s headline is going to read…” Raising his hand, he painted the air like the front title of a newspaper. “ ‘Beloved Psychiatrist Missing. Town Baffled.’ Or… ‘Second Doctor Dies by Suicide Within the Span of a Week.’ ” He glanced at his men. “I kind of like the sound of that one, don’t you, boys?”

Alex’s men chuckled, darkly, still holding Grayson suspended between them. But it was the flamboyant painting of the headline in the air that grabbed Grayson’s attention and held it, and the horrible revelation emerged.

“She… she… her…”

And yet, even as he arrived at the most likely possibility, he rejected it. Every fiber of his being revolted. It wasn’t… and yet… it was. It had to be.

Bitter bile roiled behind his throat, and he shook his head, further loosening his thin hair. “No,” he whimpered, more distraught now than he’d been when Alex had seized his wrist. Hot tears glittered in his dark eyes, and he turned away, his lower lip quivering. The answer… it was right there. He had to give it, or his life was forfeit… or worse. Or worse, before it was forfeit. One way or another, they would find out.

“I had… an assistant,” he admitted.


Locked deep in his anguished wrestling, Grayson quickly shook his head and trailed off again, struggling internally. If he named her, he knew what would happen. Although now, now that he knew, it was inevitable. They would find out. They would take her away. When they did, the things they would do to her…

It was a fate unimaginable.

Alex was watching him. Every move, every flicker of emotion — nothing escaped him.

Stiffening his expression, Grayson brought his tortured gaze back to Alex. “Don’t do this,” he bit out. “I’m begging you. It was… a mistake. It canbe fixed,” he added, although that last part… he knew, good and well, that it was a massive stretch, at best. Alex was right. It was revealed to be a fraud… in a court of law. It could not be undone.

The flames burned brighter in his eyes, and he turned the full force of his radiant persuasion on Alex then — every ounce of his raw power, unaided by any drugs or artificial substances of any kind.

“She’s mine,” he snapped, his voice vibrating with deeper volume.

Alex’s smile died. Grayson’s eyes turned pure black until they gleamed like dark mirrors, and he locked his gaze with Alex’s hard stare.


“She was promised to me. She’s mine. No one will take her from me.”

He made it absolutely clear that it wasn’t negotiable.

What little light there was in the office seemed to gather around Grayson’s form, and then flee to the darkened corners as he pushed it all outward. Thick blackness enveloped the office. Grayson melted into the shadows, shrouded in darkness, and yet still he spoke. His was a disembodied voice, melding into thoughts that were intended to mimic the sound of Alex’s own thoughts in the solitary depths of his own mind.


“What is done, is done,” he intoned then.

As Alex’s stare grew more menacing, the other half of Grayson’s persuasive powers kicked in — soothing the demands with something more… enticing. He only sought to find a crack, one slight chink in the armor — one that he might bend to his advantage. It was his only hope of survival now.

“What is it that you want?” he asked, appealing to something — anything — in Alex’s nature where there was an unfulfilled want. Then he moved beyond that, attempting to probe into the secrets Alex kept, seeking to find a desire — specifically, one that he could fulfill.

Millie had already started growling, the hackles on the back of her neck standing up, ears flattening on her head. The hair on the back of Grayson’s neck prickled with warning at the danger signals coming from every direction. Intensifying his focus on Alex, he tried to ignore the gathering tension in his surroundings.

With a slight serpentine tilt of his head, he studied Alex, his dark eyes searching deep into his. “I’ll do anything you ask of me. This… this sheriff, for example.” The tip of his tongue emerged briefly, tracing a thoughtful line along his pale upper lip. “You want him… to live, yes?” His head tipped in the opposite direction, and his unwavering gaze never left Alex. “What elsedo you want—”

Standing up swiftly, Alex leaned across the desk and backhanded Grayson hard across the face, causing the man to yelp in startled pain. “Who the actual f-ck do you think you are?”

The spell was shattered, and so was Grayson’s nose. Darkness fell from the ceiling and slowly drifted around them like shards of a broken mirror, scattering fragments of light in every direction before the artificial shadows faded. Within seconds, the room was back to normal, and Alex dragged Grayson atop his own desk and tightened his heavy hand around the man’s scrawny neck, hatred burning in his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to break his neck and stomp on his cold, dead head.

“Who do you thinkthat I am?” Alex snarled.

Struggling for breaths of rapidly diminishing oxygen, Grayson kicked his feet in the air and clawed ineffectually at the steely fingers that imprisoned his throat, but he was no match for Alex’s strength. Lines of blood ran from his nose and the corner of his mouth, staining his bared yellow teeth red. Still he glared at Alex, but his power was broken, and whatever remained of their war of wills was the last stand of a losing battle.

Nevertheless, Alex chose to answer.

“You want to save your girlfriend? You want to save your life? Then don’t f-ck up this time.” His lips twisted into a sardonic smirk. “You’re going to help me fake his death so that he’s moved out of the hospital. Get past that bodyguard that sits with him all the damned time. Beyond that, what I want or don’t want with him is none of your business.”

Grayson gulped against the unyielding grip of Alex’s hand. Darkness gathered around the edges of his vision and wavered hard, and he kicked outward, connecting with only empty air. Dizziness consumed him.

“I don’t screw around with parlor tricks,” Alex warned. This time, it was Alex who maintained eye contact with Grayson. “I’ll break every bone in your body. Let you live to feel each one snap.” Grayson grimaced and stiffened in terrified protest, shuddering hard. “Then I’ll find your assistant,” Alex continued, “and I’ll make you watch while I chop off every single one of her fingers and feed them to the wolves.”

Grayson’s expression subtly smoothed. For a moment, he ceased to struggle. The idea that she would suffer prolonged terror and pain at the hands of heartless monsters before she took her last breath elicited little response from him, if any.

His lack of expression elicited pure disgust from Alex, however. Scowling at the man, the pastor dragged him a little closer. “The next time you decide to whisper sweet nothings into my ear, buy me f-cking dinner first.” He stared at him hard. “And if you ever try to do it again, I’ll cut your damned tongue out.”

Wheezing as the coppery taste of his own blood filled his mouth, Grayson could only manage a jerky nod. However, it seemed to be enough to satisfy Alex… at least, for the time being.

“Next Tuesday, you will have it done. Got me?”

Mustering his strength and drawing a thin wisp of air into his strangled lungs, Grayson managed a husky, labored response.

“Consider… it… done.”


With a harsh shake that elicited a strangled whimper from Grayson, Alex finally released him and tossed him back into the chair like a sack of potatoes. Grayson gasped harshly and keeled over, coughing and grabbing at his bruised throat. Air… he needed air. Greedily he dragged huge draughts of oxygen into his starved lungs, over and over, until he was nearly dizzy with the overcompensation.

“Good,” Alex was saying. “Don’t think you’re off the hook over the previous screw-up, either.”

Even as he breathed heavily, Grayson sent a wary glance in Alex’s direction. That bothered him, that Alex would not release him from such responsibility. Almost, it would be worth turning her over to them, he thought — just to clear his debt in their eyes. And yet, he would not. She belonged to him, and him alone… even if she did not know it yet.

Alex stood up at last, sliding the chair out from behind him and straightening his clothing. He jerked his thumb toward the men who stood behind Grayson. “Give him something to remember me by.”

Grayson’s blood turned to ice, and he shivered, shrinking into himself as if he wished to disappear into the chair. Judging by the throaty chuckles behind him, the order pleased the brutes mightily. Grayson grimaced and twisted uncomfortably in his chair, and as their huge hands seized him and lifted him out of it like he weighed nothing, his pulse tripled in panic. His powers were useless now. He knew what would come next, all too well. A protest and a plea for mercy trembled on the tip of his tongue, and yet he would not give voice to it. He knew better.

As the shivering psychiatrist hung suspended between the two muscleheads, Alex watched him. “You’re not the only one who can move in the shadows, Slick. So watch your f-cking self.” Clearing his throat, he delivered the coup de grace. “And break the finger that he pointed in my face.” Walking past Grayson, he paused to look at him. “Because it’s rude and disrespectful, and someone needs to learn some motherf-cking manners.”

A whining cry of despair slid from Grayson’s throat before he could catch it, and he bit his lower lip to stop any other forms of protest. Every muscle in his tense body trembled uncontrollably, and his clammy skin broke out in nervous beads of sweat. If he didn’t want to worsen his punishment, he’d better stay quiet and take whatever Alex meted out to him, without question. Still… a broken finger?!

“I need it!” he gasped out — a last-ditch effort to keep that part of his beating at bay. “I need my hand… intact! I can’t… complete the mission… with broken bones and bruises. They’ll lookat me! It’ll draw attention… I can’t operate that way!”

It wasn’t a plea for mercy, exactly. He wasn’t wrong…

Stepping around to the side of the desk, Alex folded his arms over his chest and leaned his hip against the desk, regarding the pathetic creature with pure disdain. Then he laughed out loud and jerked a thumb toward him.

“He’ll die from a f-cking broken finger. Do you hear this joker?”

Alex’s jeering would’ve singed the egos of most men. Grayson, however, was not like most men. His nickname, Wormtongue, was well-earned. He flinched and grimaced and twisted in the grip of the two thugs like the worm that he truly was.

The boys huffed and chuckled, equally amused, as Alex addressed the psychiatrist again. “Have some dignity, asshole. You screwed up; now own it like a man. I’ve had children who didn’t snivel as much as you do.”

Dignity — now, there was an idea. Grayson’s downcast eyes shifted longingly toward the door — then beyond it, toward the shadowy place where he knew his car was parked beyond it. What he’d have given to go back in time and call in one of his sick days. Nevertheless, he’d not get his hopeless wish, and he had little dignity to speak of. He never had. He cast his eyes to the floor again and waited for Alex to determine the sense of his request.

Alex regarded him in silence for a long moment. “Fine,” he said at length.

He stepped toward the door, and Grayson’s watery little eyes slid after him. A gasping breath escaped his pained lungs before he caught it. That’s it? That’s all it took — a bit of groveling? If Alex would let him off the hook, he’d grovel, all right! He’d grovel upon the floor of his office, across the parking lot, down all the streets of Middletown — whatever would appease the dangerous Orc. Anything…

And then Alex paused. He stood before the door, a hulking silhouette that blocked out the breaking of a cold gray morning. A horrible cloud of doom descended over Grayson, and his heart nearly stopped.

“He doesn’t want to have his bruises and scrapes seen,” Alex remarked in a thoughtful tone, glancing back at his men, “then hit him where they won’t see the bruises. He can walk around with half a dozen broken ribs just fine.”

Grayson whined again, collapsing under the weight of a far worse punishment. The muscleheads were outright laughing at him, gleefully. Turning his torture and his beating into fine art — now THAT was their favorite hobby!

There was no escaping it this time, and he knew it. Shivering all over, sweating profusely, Grayson went limp and gave up. His wrinkled face crumbled in on itself and his frail shoulders trembled as he wept.

The two soldiers closed in on the sobbing psychiatrist like a pair of hyenas preparing to play tug-o-war with a hunk of meat. The first punch that slammed into his ribs felt like a battering ram, and it resulted in a powerful snap in his side. Grayson roared in pain and crashed to the floor in a shivering pile of bones and agony. His pathetic cries escalated to high-pitched screams as the beating continued, and the men seemed in no hurry to hasten his sentence. Tears streamed down his face, and his disheveled hair flew with every heartless blow. The breath jarred out of his body, and he made a pitiful attempt to crawl away — only to be dragged back into their iron clutches, over and over and over again.

Dazed with paralyzing pain and blinded by his own infuriated tears, Grayson managed to look toward the door. Alexander Orton was gone.




Silvertongue

 

Apr 6th 2023 - 6:06 PM

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[PART III]

https://youtu.be/NPGiOyXV_x4

Two hours later

With one long groan and a steady pull of his forearm, Grayson dragged his wounded body off of the pavement and shakily clawed his way into the driver’s seat of his car. Sore and broken, he leaned forward just enough to grasp the handle of the old sedan door and pull it shut with a heavy clunk. Then he slumped in his worn vinyl seat, gasping for breath, aware that his fine suit was wrinkled and dusty. With his black hair straying every which direction at once, Grayson looked like a mad scientist who’d narrowly escaped an explosion in his own lab.

Weakly, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills, which rattled when he tipped it. Ibuprofen. Those demented jackasses had a sick sense of humor, to throw a bottle of Aleve at him before they left him lying in a tangled heap on the carpet of his own office. Funny. That was real damned funny, alright.

Stupid Orcs… Mindless, meat-headed minions…

None of his inner curses found a voice in his shredded throat as he popped six little blue pills, gulping them down with an effort. Aleve wouldn’t cut it. Not even close. With his injuries, ibuprofen was merely pissing on a bonfire. Those dickheads had dislocated both of his shoulders, along with several other joints, and roughly reset them; they’d made a contest of breaking his ribs and broke seven instead of six. A bonus, they’d called it, and then they’d jostled each other for the right to dislocate the finger he’d pointed at Alex. Each and every joint of that particular finger.

Damn those assholes. Damn them all the f-cking way back to Mordor…

Grayson groaned and gritted his teeth, glaring through bloodshot eyes out the grimy windshield. No doubt they expected the psychiatrist to limp back to his apartment and spend the rest of the day convalescing in bed, if they cared to dwell on his condition in the aftermath of their thorough beatings. More likely, they wouldn’t give him a second thought.

Never mind them now. He had more pressing matters to attend. No thanks to his uninvited guests, he was late. But he would not be kept from his appointed rounds. Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night, as it were. Nor torturous beatings from local thugs.

First, a phone call. Drawing his cell phone from the front compartment, Grayson selected his top contact. While the call connected, he squinted at the side and rearview mirrors to ensure that the coast remained clear.

He reached her voicemail. It was still early. At the beep, he grimaced and attempted a light, casual tone.

“Uh, hey. It’s me. Listen, I’m under the weather, so the office will be closed today. Reschedule all of my appointments for any openings later this week. As for you…” He paused, narrowing his eyes, and he tilted his head at an uneasy angle as he pondered what to do with her. “Uh, take the day off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He tossed the phone aside, choosing not to give her another thought. He didn’t need the distraction.

Kicking his Cadillac into reverse, Grayson backed out of his parking space and crossed the parking lot, pausing briefly to look for traffic before turning right on the main road. The slight drop between the parking lot entrance and the road set his crooked teeth on edge. Damn, that hurt. Everything hurt. Gingerly holding the steering wheel between shaky fingers hurt. Even his moth-eaten soul felt bruised to the core.

At least he didn’t have far to go. He pulled onto a side road, cursing MaineDOT to a fiery hell for every pothole and bump and patch in the pavement, until he arrived at a nondescript gray building surrounded by black debris-speckled piles of plowed ice and snow. He parked and shut off the engine, leaning back with a shuddering sigh. Perhaps he should’ve invested in a newer vehicle with decent shocks and power steering, he thought belatedly — and perhaps one with thicker cushions in the seat.

His relief at stopping the car was short-lived. Now he had to get out and walk. Groaning, he pushed his achy body out of the seat, dragging his briefcase after him. Every step felt like another beating from Alex’s men all over again. Yet as he approached the filmy glass door, the intense pain subsided under the heated glow of satisfying revenge.


He pushed open the door and stepped inside. Just as the outside of the blocky building was dull and gray, the interior was white and faintly yellow — perhaps with age. The whole place smelled of old puke and stale urine and harsh chemical disinfectant. Grayson paused in the entryway to draw a deep breath of the awful atmosphere into his sore lungs. A twisted smile of sick satisfaction curled across his reptilian lips.

“Morning, Doctor. You’re a little late, aren’t you?”

Stiffly, Grayson turned to face the scruffy redheaded fellow, who was seated behind the front desk in a squeaky office chair. With his large build, thick chestnut mustache and beard, and his long hair pulled back into a straight ponytail, the man resembled a Viking in a security guard’s black uniform. He dwarfed the office chair, and his large hand made his coffee mug look like a Dixie cup.

“Ah, morning, Hammer. Car wouldn’t start,” grumbled the psychologist.

“Aye. This damned cold.” Hammer took a deep pull of his steaming coffee, as if to ward off the very chill he spoke of. When he surfaced from his drink, he plunked the mug on the desk in a wide arc, as if it were a flagon of ale. Dark brown droplets clung to his beard. “Seems interminable.”

“Right,” muttered Grayson, glancing over his shoulder through the glass door out of renewed nervous habit. “So, uh, all quiet here, I trust?”

“Aye, nothin’ to report.”

“Good, good.” He shifted his weight, seeking to alleviate the thrumming pain in his bruised bones. The attempt was futile; there was only pain and more pain, and it wouldn’t let up. Presently he became aware that the guard was staring at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows — a thunderous look that would’ve intimidated most commoners. Awkwardly, Grayson’s narrowed eyes slid from one side of the yellow hallway to the other.

“So then, is your shift ending soon?” he wondered, at a loss for anything better to say.

“Mm.” Hammer shrugged with a light dismissive gesture. “Couple more hours.”

“Ah.” Grayson nodded, frowning a little. “You’re on night shift this week?”

The Viking’s expression hardened. “Every other week, trading off with Gambit, same as always. You know that.”

“Ah.” With a sick little smile that barely cloaked his annoyance, Grayson absently nodded. Hammer and Gambit. The two security guards had perfectly ordinary names — Benjamin Hamill and Carling Grant — but they referred to each other by their nicknames instead, like a pair of wannabe superheroes. Not that Hammer didn’t bear a somewhat passing resemblance to Thor…

Hammer was still staring at him.

“I’ll, uh.” Grayson managed a weak gesture down the hall. “Go see to the patients, then.”

Hammer grunted and seized his mug again, his hard gaze following the psychologist’s shuffling gait as Grayson slithered away.

______________


https://youtu.be/6oSx0JOAXX0

With the swipe of his photo badge, the automatic card reader flashed green, and the locked door clicked. Grayson nearly groaned aloud as he pushed the heavy door open, and all of his bruised muscles screamed in protest. Blinking back the mist that gathered in his vision, Grayson hobbled further down the hallway, which had morphed into a long row of locked doors on either side.

He stopped before the last door on the right. Pushing open the cover on the viewing window, he peered inside.

In a plain windowless room, nearly hidden in the dim lighting, a decrepit old man sat on a threadbare hospital bed and stared blankly at the opposite wall. Grayson grinned toothily, his hands shaking with sudden eagerness as he used his badge to unlock the door. Hastily he pushed the door open and faced the wrinkled, white-haired creature with a huge smile.

“Well good morning, Judge Marshall. How are we feeling today?”

The judge didn’t move.

Grayson slid inside the dull little room and settled his briefcase on the hard bed, craning his head sideways to study the old man’s frozen expression. Seeing that frail creature helpless and imprisoned in a dark cell might’ve moved an ignorant observer to pity. Some might’ve protested that his abhorrent living conditions were tantamount to elder abuse.

Little did they know the pure evil that Judge Marshall was capable of. A more crooked judge rarely ever blackened the office, and countless were the innocents who had suffered under the heavy yoke of his greedy, heartless rule. He was racist to the core. He furthered his own selfish agenda at the expense of entire communities for whom he cared nothing. They stood in his way; human trash who occupied prime land that he desired, like wild horses galloping freely over emerald plains that fat, rich cattlemen desired for their own herds. This fertile land had once belonged to his people, and to their distinguished ancestors, since the dawn of memory.

Grayson’s jaw clenched as his dark eyes flashed with absolute, unadulterated hate. Judge Marshall and his cohorts had betrayed and broken his proud people, burning down their homes and scattering them like chaff before the oncoming storm. Their rich culture and their glorious spirit were little more than faded memory, now. Were any left alive? Did they skulk on the sidewalks and shelter under concrete bridges, searching rank dumpsters for enough edible food to keep them alive? Did they languish in prison, or labor in eternal servitude to the invaders, enslaved in a new system of nefarious design?

Releasing a long breath in a low hiss, Grayson leaned down to the old man’s level. In comparison to the mountain of his misdeeds, death was far too kind a sentence for the miserable judge. It was for the benefit of all that remained, of all that was left, that Grayson wrapped Judge Marshall in his coils and refused to let him go. His heinous crimes would never be prosecuted in a court of law; rather, he’d been publicly lauded, and he was still held in some regard in certain circles. A crippled ruin was rendered incapable of harming anyone else — if, indeed, there was anyone or anything left to protect. While the judge slowly crumbled in that deplorable place, popular opinion would fade and memory would wane. In due time, he would be forgotten.

With a slow blink, the judge’s vacant eyes flickered with faint recognition. An incomprehensible mumbling rolled from his throat before he finally formed a single intelligible word.

“Doc... tor,” he whispered.

“Ooh,” crooned Grayson, oozing with sympathy. He tipped his head in the opposite direction, his dark eyes drifting left and right as he stared hard at the judge. “Not too good today, are we?”

The old man’s sunken eyes slowly closed, and he faintly shook his head.

Grayson clucked his tongue, moving to open his briefcase. “Now, now, that will never do. Let’s see if we can fix that,” he soothed. “I have your medicine, right here.”

Judge Marshall seemed resigned. He sat on the bed with his eyes closed, as if he’d fallen asleep.

Glass vials clinked together as Grayson’s thin fingers rolled through them. As a mere psychologist, his access to certain medications was supposed to be limited. Nevertheless, he had his sources. Expensive sources, to be sure, but they produced results. Therefore, the excessive bribery was worth it — as were the other means that he employed to acquire those substances.

“Here we are,” he purred at last, his dark eyes gleaming as he held up one of the larger vials, which was filled with a cloudy white liquid. That vial contained another of his original concoctions, with each of its ingredients selected and measured with great care. His recent experiments on Dr. Grimaldi factored into the minor adjustments he’d made to the formula, and the results from Dr. Grimaldi’s experiment further proved that he was on the right track.

He fetched a hypodermic needle from his briefcase and, with a practiced motion, he shed the paper and plastic packaging around it. “There’s nothing at all to worry about,” he assured his motionless patient, plunging the needle into the vial and lifting the plunger, his eyes following the rising line of milky solution as it filled the small barrel. “This will all be over in a moment, and then you’ll feel better. So very much better.”


Withdrawing the syringe from the nearly empty vial, Grayson reached down and gripped the judge’s frail forearm, raising it upward. For a moment, the sharp needle hovered over the papery white skin like a silver viper’s fang, and Grayson’s dark eyes gleamed. The tip of his pale tongue slid over his yellowed teeth, and then his hold tightened. With a swift motion, he jabbed the needle into the judge’s arm.

Judge Marshall didn’t flinch. His eyes remained closed; his breathing steady and even.

Hovering like a spider over a helpless fly, Grayson grinned in bitter triumph as he depressed the plunger and emptied every last drop of the potent venom into the old man’s purple veins. Finished, he collected the empty packaging and the syringe in a plastic sandwich bag and tucked it away into his briefcase. Even though he had no reason to believe that anyone had cause to trail his movements, extra caution required that he dispose of the trash at his own place — not in the sharps container or the trash can, where there was a chance, however slim, that they might be recovered. He prided himself on covering his tracks.

“There, you see? We’re all finished with that… unpleasant business,” Grayson remarked, closing up his briefcase again. Leaning close, he lifted each of the judge’s eyelids in turn, studying the dull and unresponsive pupils beneath. “Hmm, yes. You’re looking much better already. How do you feel now?”

A slow groan was the only answer. It might’ve been a low snore.

“There, you’re resting nicely,” uttered the psychologist with barely repressed glee. He rubbed his thin fingers together, stepping backward and straightening up. “That’s what you need, is rest. The treatments are working well, are they not? You arefeeling better. Judge Marshall,” he went on, his voice hardening into a commanding tone, “tell me that you’re feeling better.”

The judge’s thin body twitched, as if he were dreaming. Without opening his eyes, he groaned again. A longer breath lifted his bony chest, and his lips trembled with the effort of complying.

“Mm… f-feel… ing… betterrrr,” he slurred.

Grayson grinned, pleased. “Excellent, yes. Very good, Your Honor. Now, tell me. Has anyone been to see you, aside from me?”

There was another pause. His pale forehead lightly jerked, and his closed eyes shifted beneath the snowy lids.

“Hhhh… ammm… errrr,” he groaned the answer at last.

Grayson tipped his head, puzzled. “Hammer? The security guard?”

The judge’s head lolled forward — a single nod.

A quick scowl seized Grayson’s sharp features. “What business did he have with you? Was he checking on you?”

His head leaned backward, and his mouth dropped open. “Mmm,” he groaned, affirmatively.

“Did he really. What did you tell him?”

Judge Marshall’s lids flickered open, ever so slightly. “That… I’m… betterrrr.”

The answer pleased the psychologist. “Good, good, because you are. You’re improving more and more, every time I come to see you.”

The judge’s gaze steadied, just enough that he could look at Grayson. “Mmm,” he agreed.

“So then what happened, Your Honor?” Grayson prodded. “Did he leave you alone?”

At that, the judge closed his eyes and faintly shook his head. “No. H-he… interrrrrupted… my nap. I… sent him… away.”

“Ha!” Grayson chortled suddenly, and then he grimaced as he jarred his recent injuries. “Gah. Oh. Yes. Good! Yes. You must always send him away. He needs to stand guard. That’s his job.”

Wearily, the old man nodded, just once. “Must… send him… away,” he repeated. “Good guards… stand guard.”

Grayson uttered another laugh, but more carefully. “Of course, yes, that’s true. An excellent observation, Your Honor.” Recognizing that Judge Marshall was slipping deeper under the influence of the medication and, thusly, becoming more susceptible to suggestion, he added, “Now, you must listen. We have a few more important items to discuss…”

______________


https://youtu.be/kI8VDkhMctg

After spending more than an hour in the judge’s company, Grayson was once again on the move. He cursed the local construction crews for shoddy roadwork all the way to Guardian Angels, and he roundly cussed his Cadillac while he was at it. For years, he’d religiously saved his money for the purpose of purchasing a mini-pharmacy’s worth of medications that he could legally access and bribing his way into possession of those he couldn’t; yet at that moment, he seriously considered busting one of his proverbial piggy banks for an upgraded automobile.

Upon managing a painful exit from his parked car, the first detail he noted was the heavy security presence surrounding the hospital. Armed military men patrolled the parking lot, the ambulance bay, all of the entrances, and even the roof. He presumed that, once inside, he would find more guards occupying every floor.

The moment his shoes hit the pavement, he became aware that sniper rifles followed his every move. His approach had been immediately noted when he drove into the parking lot, and two stern-faced guards descended upon him long before he reached the front doors. Cool pleasantries were exchanged as they confirmed his identity, patted him down for weapons (causing him to wince and grit his teeth throughout the process, silently cursing Alex and his men to the shadows of Mordor for their heartless cruelty), and cleared him to proceed.

Two sets of automatic doors parted before him — one of Middletown’s technological marvels that reminded him of Middle-earth magic, although he felt rather alone in that opinion — and the indoor warmth enveloped him as he emerged from the winter cold. He shuffled toward the front desk, eyeing the pretty redheaded nurse who sat behind it. Immersed as she was in some manner of paperwork, and she didn’t immediately acknowledge his presence.

He folded his arms atop the desk, and his breath caught in bruised lungs as he leaned against it. With an effort, he released his held breath with a pained sigh and managed a smile. “Good morning, Ava.”

Her head came up, and a pair of striking emerald eyes pinned him. “Hello, Doctor Verlangue.” Her guarded tone was a sharp contrast to his own overly familiar greeting. “Can I help you?”

A sly smile crept over his lips as his dark gaze lingered on her soft, well-defined features. Could she help him, indeed. At any other time, he might have answered her professional question in an entirely different fashion, laced with a little unholy persuasion. His jaw slowly drifted from side to side as he toyed with the tempting idea.

Unfortunately, at that moment, pressing business came first. Accursed Alexander Orton.

“Yes, you can,” he answered in a smooth tone, still smiling. He tilted his head, his hypnotic gaze holding hers. “You see, I’m not feeling all that well right now.”

She arched a shapely eyebrow at him. “Really? What seems to be the problem?”

The red hair color was dyed, he realized now, marveling as he studied the beautiful nurse up-close. Her slender eyebrows and her long, thick eyelashes were dark brown, nearly black. She was in fact a stunning brunette, and the burnished red she’d chosen for her hair was a shade or two deeper into the burgundy tones than nature would’ve bestowed upon ordinary redheads. Her manner with him was cold; she was utterly repulsed by him, which only intrigued him further. He wondered whether he could charm her into lowering her instinctive defenses, weaving her under the dark spell of his magic powers…

“I fell down the steps outside my apartment this morning,” he replied presently. “Slipped on the ice. Right at the very top.” Raising his uninjured hand, he pantomimed falling down a flight of stairs and then collapsing like a dead pancake at the bottom.

She flinched and rose from her chair. For the first time, genuine concern softened her wary expression. “Ouch. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He uttered a mild chuckle, waving the same uninjured hand dismissively. “Ah. Happens to the best of us, I suppose.”

Gathering up her clipboard, Ava stepped out from behind her desk. “How bad is it, do you know?”

His smile took on a bitter edge. “Just a batch of bruises, I think,” he lied. “I’ve been through worse.”

She glanced over her shoulder, sympathy gentling her green eyes. “Why do you say that? Were you a bullrider in the professional circuit?”

He chuckled at her light humor. “No, no. Actually, I was the clown.”

This time, Ava was the one who laughed. She led him down the hall toward the ER, which surprised Grayson into inquiring about it.

“Certain wings of the hospital are cordoned off, for the time being,” Ava explained. “It’s been that way since the invasion.”

“Ah, I see.”

Grayson had to smile again. How perfect! How flawlessly the misshapen pieces of his fragmented plan were falling into place. Guardian Angels had streamlined his path for him. If he played his cards right, there would be less ground to cover.

Ava led him into a brightly lit room and directed him to sit in a chair beside the white hospital bed while she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his upper left arm. As she asked him the usual questions about his pain level on the number scale and collected his vitals, Grayson’s mind leapt ahead to his forthcoming objective, constructing his plan and refining the particulars.

“Only a three or a four,” he answered absently.

“Did you hit your head?”

Grayson blinked. His vacant stare snapped sharply into focus, and his dark eyes latched onto the nurse. “What?”

“When you fell,” she clarified, pressing her stethoscope to his thin chest. “Did you hit your head?”

“Ah. No, I did not.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Okay.” Withdrawing her stethoscope, Ava straightened. “Your blood pressure is slightly elevated, but that’s to be expected after an accident like that. It’s not serious. Wait here, and the doctor will be with you in a few minutes.”

He nodded, his dark eyes skittering away as Ava left the room. He listened intently to her retreating footsteps on the hard floor, fingers thrumming impatiently on the arm of his chair as he silently counted in his head.

She was gone.

With inhuman swiftness, Grayson rose. His muscles seized up and his broken ribs shivered in protest, but he paid them no mind — not now. He slithered to the doorway and peered out. Ava was nowhere in sight, and nobody else knew that the man in the suit and tie had been admitted as a patient, not on official business.

Straightening up, Grayson strode out of the room with a purpose, nodding cordially to the first armed guard he passed. He acted as if he belonged there, and he was therefore accepted without question. His knowledge of the hospital layout helped, and his adventure as Dr. Grimaldi had given him the opportunity to learn exactly where the sheriff was recuperating. He made straight for the ICU.

Another armed guard stood watch outside the room. Grayson hesitated, curses already forming in the harried recesses of his frustrated mind. But at that very moment, a second guard stepped off the elevator and spoke briefly with the first. The two men headed down the hall, and Grayson eased forward just enough to watch their progress without openly staring. They disappeared into the breakroom.

He didn’t have much time, but a few seconds was all he needed. He casually walked up to the door and peeked inside. The patient was still there, buried under tubes and machinery. Grayson ignored him, searching the room for other occupants. At once, his dark gaze locked on the hulking form seated in a chair beside the bed, and he froze.

Oh… HIM. Dammit. Not HIM.

Grayson’s head quickly ducked back into the hallway, and he continued on his walk, fighting to calm his pounding heart as his brain exploded with a thousand thoughts.

A Beorning! Of all the… What is HE doing here?!

THAT was the guard who “sat with him all the time,” as Alex had said? Trust an Orc not to offer up such crucial information! No doubt he hadn’t wanted the psychologist to renege on his mission, or even to hesitate as he contemplated whether it was a worse fate to be torn apart by several Orcs or one angry Beorning.

Dazed, Grayson turned his achy steps down the corridor, intending to circle back to the ER and return to his room. A Beorning. A damned Beorning. That changed everything. That complicated the hellout of everything.

“Dr. Verlangue?”

The shy male voice abruptly stopped Grayson in his tracks, and such a horrendous wave of pain crashed through the psychologist’s tormented body that it nearly sent him to the floor. Darkness smoked the edges of Grayson’s vision, and for a second, he was certain that he’d blacked out.

Determination overpowered the foul effects of Alex’s punishment. Turning gingerly, Grayson’s tortured gaze landed on a young dark-haired orderly in a lab coat. He looked even younger than Landon, if that was possible.

“I thought that was you,” the young man continued, his smile hampered by obvious confusion. “What are you doing here?”

Real urgency seized Grayson. Glancing in every direction to ensure that they weren’t being watched, he hastily advanced on the orderly, whose confusion rapidly gave way to alarm. Nevertheless, when Grayson reached him and gripped his shoulders and shoved him into an empty supply room, the young man offered no resistance whatsoever.

Grayson wasted no time. Splaying his bony fingers wide, he placed his hands on either side of the young man’s head, and the sheer explosion of his power blocked out all the light and engulfed the entire room in darkness. Despite the darkness, Grayson could see him perfectly in the shadows.


“Jamison,” Grayson addressed him through gritted teeth. “You never saw me today. We never had this conversation. Do you understand?”

Inky blackness warred with the green around Jamison’s enlarged irises. “Y-yes, Doctor,” he answered shakily, unable to even blink in the face of such overwhelming power.

“Good. You’ve done well,” he reassured the young man. “Have you been compromised?”

“No,” came the soft reply.

“Excellent. Dr. Adele Nightingale is still gravely ill. Continue to put the medicine in her coffee, but without raising suspicions. She has a long road to recovery ahead of her.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Now, listen to me. The guard who is watching over the sheriff is also unwell, but he does not know it. Nobody needs to know that he is unwell; such a secret would be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Jamison nodded faintly, his dumbfounded expression turning sober. “Yes.”

“Good. He needs medicine for his unfortunate condition, but it must be administered quietly, same as Dr. Nightingale.” He paused briefly, wracking his mind. Then an idea sparked behind his dark vision. “Does he eat or drink while he’s here?”

“Yes,” Jamison confirmed. “I bring him his breakfast tray in the mornings.”

A low chuckle rattled through the psychologist’s strangled throat. “Excellent. That is excellent. What does he prefer to drink?”

For a moment, the orderly lapsed into silence as he tried to remember. “Orange juice,” he said at last.

A wicked grin spread across Grayson’s pale lips. “Then listen carefully to my instructions. On Tuesday morning, at precisely 6:25 AM, meet me in the ER. Bring me two bottles of orange juice, the same kind that you usually deliver on the breakfast trays. Can you do this?”

Jamison nodded again. “Yes, Doctor,” he murmured.

“Good. Keep his diagnosis a secret. Tell no one of his treatment, and don’t let anyone see you.”

Concern flickered across the man’s features, like wind rippling the surface of a calm lake. “I want him to get better,” he whispered, but with feeling.

“And because of you, he will,” Grayson soothed him. “But it must absolutely remain a secret, or his life could be in jeopardy. We don’t want that, do we?” When the orderly looked worried and gently shook his head, Grayson went on. “Good man. Now, forget that all of this happened, but remember my instructions well. Do not miss your next appointment at my office.”

Grayson released Jamison’s head and clapped his hands instead. Jamison immediately closed his eyes and collapsed on the floor, and the shadows in the room vanished. Quickly Grayson gripped the door handle and eased it open, ensuring that the corridor was empty, and he exited the room as swiftly as possible. Jamison would be awake and moving in only a moment, so there was no time to waste.

Heedless of the intense pain, Grayson hurried back to the ER. Ava was standing in the doorway, looking baffled by his absence. Her clouded expression abruptly cleared when she saw him.

“I beg your pardon,” Grayson apologized to her, trying to disguise the fact that he was a little out of breath. “I had to use the bathroom.”

Ava lifted a dismissive hand. “It’s alright,” she assured him. “It happens to the best of us, as you say. Before the doctor gets here, I need to know if you have any allergies that I should be aware of.”

Grayson mentioned his sensitivities to peanuts and shellfish, but his brain blazed ahead of the mundane conversation like a supercharged comet. If he had to deal with a Beorning, then so be it. He would have a special concoction ready by Tuesday, designed specifically for the creature’s rather unusual physiology.




Silvertongue

 

Apr 6th 2023 - 6:04 PM

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[PART IV]

https://youtu.be/YO10vDH95u8

When darkness fell on Monday evening, pale yellow lamplight found the psychologist pacing the cramped living area in his shabby apartment, pausing only to stare out the grimy window glass into the dark streets below while he mentally rehashed the details of his plan from start to finish. A full set of beakers, syringes, green vitamin bottles, labeled orange medicine bottles, and three hefty books about bears were arranged upon his heavily dented kitchen table, which was rarely used for the consumption of actual meals anyway.

The coffeemaker produced a full carafe of Folgers that he gradually drained throughout the waning hours. He spent a sleepless night reading the scientific research about bears, then refining his strategy and scribbling down calculations for his recipe. It would work. It had to work. There was neither time nor opportunity for a test run. He could not afford to overlook the smallest flaw.

The powerful mixture he created was designed to be swift and affective, even to the point of slight overkill. He began with a base combination of melatonin and insulin — both of which triggered hibernation in typical bears. He added a hit of Midazolam, a strong sedative that induced sleepiness and soothed anxieties, with occasional amnesiac and hypnotic side effects in certain cases. Known as Versed, it was typically used to sedate patients before surgery. In this case, Grayson would use it to sedate a Beorning.

According to Grayson’s extensive research, hibernating bears showed an increase of progesterone. Accordingly, Grayson slipped a touch of Crinone gel into his potion. His thin lips twitched with amusement. The thought of the massive, butch, muscle-bound Beorning soldier succumbing to a predominantly female hormone struck the cunning psychologist as comical.

With a few more ingredients, quiet incantations, and a trace of orange extract, Grayson finished his work. He swirled the clear liquid around a beaker and sniffed at it. There was no detectible smell, save for a hint of orange. Satisfied, he poured his concoction into four glass vials via a funnel. He labeled the four vials with round orange $1 yard sale stickers and hid them in a back pocket of his briefcase.

Before daybreak on Tuesday morning, Grayson was again on his way back to the hospital, his frail headlights skittering across white patches of snow and ice that littered the slick pavement. Sleepless guards silently observed his progress as he chose a parking spot near the door and abandoned his Cadillac there.

Briefcase in hand, he navigated the usual security checkpoints and entered the hospital. This time, he found Ana seated behind the nurse’s desk. He drew a quiet breath. No turning back now.

“Good morning,” he greeted the nurse.

Ana’s smile was warm, if not a little wan with early morning sleepiness. “Good morning, Dr. Verlangue. You’re here awfully early.”

“I have a follow-up appointment scheduled for this morning,” he explained. “I’d like to get it out of the way before heading to my office — you know, so I can be the patient before I become the doctor today,” he quipped.

His implied irony sailed over Ana’s red head; she was tired, her coffee hadn’t yet taken effect, and her focus was on the appointment book. Like Ava, she’d dyed her hair red; unlike Ava, Ana was a natural blonde. Her platinum roots were just beginning to show through, streaking the red, and her long golden lashes and delicate eyebrows lent her a naturally softer look than Ava.

Working his sharp jaw slightly, Grayson tilted his head, his dark eyes taking in the details of her fine features. Was that softer look merely an illusion, or was she a spitfire like Ava? What was the true nature of that inner fire? What was the source of that bright golden glow, that relentless burning? Under the influence of his hypnotic persuasion, which one of the Guardian Angels nurses would put up the fiercer fight?

“It looks like your appointment is later this morning, at 8:15 today,” she remarked presently, unaware of Grayson’s dark scrutiny.

“My first therapy appointment is at 8:00 today,” returned Grayson smoothly.

“Ah, haha.” Ana looked up at him, her sea blue eyes luminous with mirth. “I see the problem. I guess that would be awkward, right? Fortunately, we’re not busy right now, so let’s go ahead and take care of this for you before that happens.”

“I’d appreciate that,” said Grayson, already congratulating himself on a flawless infiltration of the hospital. The first step of his plan was already complete. “So will my patients today.”

Including patients who were not technically under his care.

Ana situated him in a typically clean, bare hospital room and took his vitals, and Grayson placed his ever-present briefcase on the floor near his chair before allowing her to wrap the blood pressure cuff around his arm. He drew a measured breath and released it in a sigh, determined to maintain his focus. When she was finished her routine preliminaries, she assured him that the doctor would see to him soon, and then she left him alone.

Cringing like an exposed cockroach under the overbright lights, Grayson turned his head aside, studying the simple geometry of his austere surroundings to ease the gathering tension in his strained nerves. The sterile silence closed in around him, and he straightened in his chair and checked his watch. 6:24.

Time to strike.

In one sleek movement, Grayson was out of his chair. He picked up his briefcase, set it on the small sink counter, and opened it, sweeping aside the top layer of papers. An array of glass vials, syringes, and other strange supplies littered the lower portion of his briefcase. Grayson helped himself to a pair of blue nitrile gloves from an open box on the counter, and he pulled them on before he plucked a small awl from among the odd contents of that briefcase. He pressed his fingertip against the metal half of the awl, testing its strength and finding it satisfactory.

A soft footfall in the doorway and the scuff of a sneaker on the linoleum floor alerted him to Jamison’s presence. A venomous grin twisted over Grayson’s lips.

“Right on time,” he remarked without turning around. “Do you have what I requested?”

“Yes.”

The young orderly approached, shyly presenting two bottles of orange juice. Grayson turned then and took the bottles, looking them over. Both bottles appeared perfectly ordinary. They would suit his purpose exactly. Yet he only needed one of them.

Taking the awl, Grayson worked the sharp tip beneath the lower ring that locked the juice lid into place. Then he applied pressure, puncturing a tiny hole in the neck of the bottle. Next, he opened a new syringe from his briefcase. He inserted the needle into the tiny hole and tipped the bottle over the sink, emptying a small amount of the orange juice into the barrel and then squirting it down the drain. That way, the orange juice level inside the bottle would remain exactly the same.

Grayson stuck the same needle into one of the yard sale-labeled vials that he’d mixed only a few hours before, and he flooded the barrel with the clear liquid. It was odorless and tasteless, yet Grayson had taken the precaution of adding a dash of orange extract to further disguise any lingering flavor. One could never be too careful with a Beorning.

Humming the familiar melody of the “Rock-A-Bye Baby” lullaby under his breath, Grayson eased the tip of the syringe into the tiny hole. Then he depressed the plunger, effectively drugging the orange juice, and withdrew the needle. He lightly shook the bottle to ensure that the medicine was well-mixed into the juice. With the lower ring of the lid settled into place once more, the tiny hole was completely hidden. Almost undetectable.

“Down will come baby, cradle and all,” muttered Grayson.

“What’s that?” asked Jamison, stepping closer.

Grayson ignored him. “Take this,” he instructed instead, handing the orange juice bottle back to him. “You know what to do with it.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

Jamison shuffled away as Grayson peeled off his gloves and collected the trash into a small bag, which he stashed in a compartment of his briefcase. He tucked away the second bottle of orange juice as well — a backup, in the event of some unforeseen catastrophe with the first. Lastly, he slipped another vial of straight Versed into an inner pocket of his suit jacket.

He turned on the sink water and let it run to rinse every last trace of orange juice down the drain while he snapped his briefcase shut. Finished, he washed his hands with copious puddles of soap and sanitizer to further cleanse the sink basin. Then he turned off the water and dried his hands on a paper towel, which he wadded up and tossed in the trash. Totally innocent. Nobody would think anything of it.


He checked his watch. 6:29. Only four minutes had elapsed.

Excellent.

So far, everything had gone according to plan. But there was no time to revel in the pleasure of his small successes just yet. The hardest part was still to come. Drawing measured breaths and releasing them in a steady rhythm, Grayson stood before a poster on the wall — a medical diagram that revealed the internal workings of the human body, complete with a detailed drawing of the cardiovascular system and minute identifiers for each organ and artery. Grayson forced himself to read every word of the tiny type, occasionally checking his watch.

6:31… 6:33… 6:35… 6:36… 6:37. Time to strike, again.

Gliding across the room, Grayson checked his step at the doorway and peered out. With a sharp glance down the hall to ensure that no solitary soul observed his unsanctioned departure, he was on the move, swift as his own shadow on the walls, burning with dark intent.

A flicker of sound wafted past his ear like a whisper of smoke, and he paused. A lilting female voice brushed the edges of his hearing. Slowly, as if hypnotized by the melodic syllables, he eased forward until he approached the corner of the hall.

There she was, standing just outside the closed ICU door, cell phone half-hidden by her long red hair. It was the other nurse, Ava. Despite the lightness of her tone, the delicate tremor — nearly imperceptible — betrayed her.

“Leo has some rales and I thought maybe a follow-up CT scan would be appropriate,” she was saying. “Do you want me to put in the order?”

In the pause that followed, Grayson held his breath. A CT scan! It was almost too good to be true. No doubt Dr. Edward Nightingale would grant permission for the diagnostic. Fate Itself was taking a hand, and all the invisible gears rolled together in perfect harmony. Without knowing it, the entire hospital staff was playing right into his waiting hands, effortlessly delivering his quarry to the right place at the right time — neatly packaged and ready for pick-up.

“No, he’s fine otherwise,” Ava continued. “Blood pressure is a bit low. It’s 86 palp and his heart rate is a bit tachy, but I don’t want to worry the family.”

Low blood pressure, huh? That’s interesting.

While Ava checked her watch and scratched information onto the patient’s chart, Grayson hovered around the corner and considered his next move. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. All of his senses sparked a warning, and his dark eyes darted to the end of the hall. Half-hidden in the shadows was the hulking form of Beda himself.

Shit. He hasn’t eaten his breakfast yet?! SHIT.

Instantly he ducked around the corner, desperately hoping that Beda hadn’t seen him and silently cursing. Had that fool Jamison delayed the breakfast delivery? Beads of sweat broke out across his prominent forehead. If Beda didn’t drink his tainted orange juice, and quickly, it would screw up the delicate schedule that Grayson had designed for Alex. Every minute mattered, and every minute that the Beorning was still awake threatened to tank the entire mission.

He seriously doubted that Beda had noticed him. The Beorning’s attention was locked on Ava and her soft phone conversation with the doctor. He listened intently as the nurse concluded the call with Dr. Nightingale, and there was another pause — a tense silence. Hidden around the corner, Grayson visualized the scene. She’d noticed Beda watching her, Grayson concluded. There was the softest rustle of clothing, as if the nurse had shifted her weight — a little unsure of herself, a little guilty for her candidness with the head doctor. And then she moved, her shoes initiating a steady rhythm on the floor as she walked away with a purpose.

There was another long hesitation in her absence, and Grayson held perfectly still, sweating with his back pressed against the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Go away, damn you. Get OUT of here.

Barely breathing, he strained his ears for any sign of movement in the corridor beyond. Even his eyelids were beginning to sweat, and he could hear the thumping of his own heart against his thin chest. Every second that Beda stood there cost Grayson another year of his miserable life.

Aren’t you hungry?! Don’t you have a raging metabolism? GO EAT YOUR BREAKFAST!!!

His combat boot settled upon the floor, and Grayson silently shuddered. Finally. With a grace and lightness that seemed impossible for a man of his size, Beda strode into the sheriff’s room — resuming his guard duty, Grayson assumed. And, he hoped, eating his breakfast. And washing it down with orange juice.

Grayson slumped against the wall, willing his shattered breathing back into a natural rhythm. His bony fingers swept across his clammy forehead, then pressed back against the headache that was just beginning to throb in his temple. Not now. He couldn’t afford it.

Stepping into the hallway once more, he trailed after Ava. He found her in one of the supply rooms, picking at a small bottle of antibiotics. She started in alarm and stared at him with widened eyes, and then she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Doctor Verlangue! You scared me—”

Grayson rushed her, clamping a hand firmly over her mouth and pushing them both into the supply room. “Shhh,” he hushed her, his power roaring to life all around them and blocking out all the light. He bit out stinted words between gritted yellow teeth. “Don’t… scream. You mustn’t… scream.”

He searched her brilliant green eyes, watching the luminous orbs flare and cloud over. Good! Good. Jamison had done as he was instructed. The coffeepot in the breakroom was adequately drugged. Even Ava was far more susceptible to suggestion than she might’ve been otherwise.

There was no time to toy with his prey — no time at all to lose.

“I was never here,” he intoned in a low, urgent voice. “No one must ever knowthat I was here. Do you understand?”

There was a faint internal struggle — he could see it in the flickering light of her eyes. But it was faint; easily overcome and rapidly vanquished. After a moment, she managed a stiff little nod.

“Yes, good,” Grayson crooned, his gaze shifting to the tray of antibiotics. Then he released her mouth and reached into his jacket pocket instead, retrieving the small bottle of Versed. “Here. The sheriff needs our help to get better. You said he has rales and low blood pressure, right?” When she nodded again — more readily that time; the desire to help her patient in every possible way quickly overcame any lingering reticence — and Grayson handed her the Versed. “Give him this. It will bring his blood pressure back to normal.”

Ava’s delicate fingers wrapped around the bottle. She stood there for a moment, as if absorbing his words. Then she looked up at him again.

“Thank you,” she whispered, with heartfelt sincerity.

An incredulous grin spread over Grayson’s lips. She was thanking him! Actually thankinghim! Now that was a first!

“You can thank me later,” he assured her with a dark stare, and he grasped the curve of her shoulder for a moment. She offered no resistance at all. “But now, you must go and give him this medicine. His life depends upon it.” He paused, preparing to release her from the spell, but he had one more demand to place upon her first. “And make certainthat Beda eats his breakfast, without delay. He needs to eat and drink to maintain his good health. It is critical.”

Ava nodded intently, and Grayson slid his hand away from her shoulder. Still clutching the bottle of Versed, Ava walked out of the supply room, the smoky haze slowly clearing from her mind as she neared Leo’s recovery room.

Looking both ways, Grayson stepped into the hallway and turned toward the ER again. Ava would complete the mission for him, now, and he’d never had to get close to the sheriff to do it. He checked his watch again. 6:51. Twenty minutes, he estimated — maximum. If it worked, he would know by then. Ava would inject a double dose of Versed — likely through IV. Total pandemonium would break loose, and the Beorning would blissfully sleep right through it. Assuming his formula worked.

It would be up to Alex’s men to reverse the effects of the Versed with Narcan. They would have a limited time to accomplish just that, but that wasn’t Grayson’s problem. He’d done his job. He’d done everything Alex ordered of him, and with panache.

He slithered back into his room in the ER, his gaze sliding from one side of the hall to the other. Nobody seemed the wiser for his absence. He checked his watch again. 6:54.

He tore another paper towel from the roll, folded it up, wet it with a little cold water, and patted his damp forehead with it as he paced. He crossed the room and reread the entire cardiovascular poster a second time — slowly and in detail. He threw away the used paper towel. He glanced out the doorway again, for no particular reason.

“Rock-a-bye-baaay-beeee, on the treetop,” he hummed to himself. He stopped, his gaze drifting to the tiled ceiling. A treetop baby? Did the song refer to an Elven child?

“Hmm.” He looked at his watch. 6:59. Clasping his hands behind his back, he ponderously crossed the room, continuing in a singsong voice. “When the wind blows, the cradle will rock…”

He drifted over to the next poster, which displayed a colorful advertisement for a prescription flu drug. The enlarged photograph depicted a happy family of four, with the smiling father in casual beach attire wrapping his arm around the shoulders of his laughing blonde wife in a red swimsuit draped in some sort of white netting material. Their two children skipped beside them in the sand, accompanied by a big yellow dog with longer fur. A golden retriever, Grayson thought the animal was called, if he remembered right.

“Re-triev-er,” he muttered, testing out the word. “Re-triev-errr.” He narrowed his eyes. Strange name for a dog. He studied the shaggy creature, half-humming to himself. “When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall…”

Utterly demented, singing such a tragic verse to little children while they were trying to sleep.

Mentally, he transformed the satisfied, successful beach bum into a vision of his own self, with his arm draped easily around Elena — his wife, with that same laughing expression; pleased to be his spouse and the mother of his two children. Maybe she’d look at him that way if he married her and took her to the beach, and gave her prescription flu medication, and added one of those hairy yellow dogs to the family. Or, at least, he could project that image into her consciousness and cause her to believe that she was every bit that happy with him, and that she had everything she needed — including the prescription flu medication.

If it didn’t kill them first.

Grayson squinted in disbelief at the list of side effects, most of which appeared to be quite serious. Halfway through the legal fine print at the bottom of the poster, Grayson glanced at his watch. 7:06. Was Beda asleep yet? If the drugs were potent enough, he’d be passed out in his tray before he finished his food, drooling on his plate. Idly Grayson wondered how long the Beorn’s unconsciousness would last, if the concoction triggered an entire hibernation cycle. He huffed, finding the prospect ridiculously funny.

Had the sheriff been taken away for the CT scan yet? He worked backwards through the time frame. He should’ve been in radiology by now.

He’d lost track of his place in the fine print. He backed up several sentences, picking up his place in the lullaby. “Down will come baaay-beeee…”

A sharp clang broke through his disjointed muses.

CODE BLUE. RADIOLOGY.

The clouds parted, and red-hot glee exploded through Grayson. He checked his watch. 7:08.

CODE BLUE. RADIOLOGY.

A wide grin split his face. “Cradle and all,” he said to himself.

With a frenzied rustle of fabric, Ana rushed past his room, the tail of her lab coat flying behind her like a white cloak. Grayson chuckled to himself, calmly leaning down to collect his briefcase. That was his cue.

So much for his appointment. It was safe to guess that no doctors or nurses would be available to complete his checkup that morning; apparently, they were tied up with an emergency. He paused long enough to straighten his suit jacket, then strode into the empty corridor, heading for the parking lot.

The sound of running feet jolted his attention. He spun around a mere second before Adele charged out of an adjoining hallway and slammed into him, knocking his wind out.

“Oof! Whoa, easy there, Princess!” He gasped, chuckling in strained amusement. “What’s the—”

Adele didn’t wait to hear more; she put out both hands and shoved him out of the way, running toward her office. Grayson’s amusement evaporated, replaced by scathing rage.

Princess?!he demanded of himself. PRINCESS?!

What had he said?! What was he thinking?! He’d called her by her true title. He’d dropped his guard, savoring success before he’d fully cleared the hospital. What a mistake!

Idiot! Imbecile! You FOOL!

He slid out of the hallway and loitered casually near the snack vending machines, as if he were debating between a small bag of Cheetos or a Snickers bar. When Adele emerged from her office again, she raced past him without a glance, wild panic radiating from every pore of her being. Grayson stepped toward the hallway again and watched her run toward the parking lot as if the very hounds of hell yapped at her heels.

She hadn’t identified him, and she probably wouldn’t remember his ill-timed slip of the tongue. Even if she did, he could easily pass it off as a charming nickname for a beautiful woman. More than likely, though, nothing would come of it. And he was not about to make any more mistakes.

After a few minutes, he fished a crumpled dollar out of his wallet and selected a bag of salt and vinegar chips. He hated the things; they had a sharp acidic smell, and they stung his senses and made him wonder why anyone would choose to eat them on purpose. No matter, though. The awful taste would keep him alert. He tore open the bag and grimaced as the first wave of vinegary odor slapped him squarely in the face.

Munching on the harshly flavored chips with his mouth open, he ambled out to the parking lot. All was quiet now; the place had been all but deserted, save for a skeleton crew of guards who remained. Everyone else was chasing their kidnapped patient and the unidentified kidnappers.

“Ugh.” He stuffed another handful of chips into his mouth and chewed as he reached into his jacket pocket. His fingers latched onto the keys, and he unlocked the car door, then glanced at his watch one last time. 7:17.

There was still plenty of time to reach his office and settle in before his first patient arrived for the 8:00 appointment. Then he could spend the rest of the morning and afternoon listening to the citizens of Middletown prattle on about childhood traumas and the hidden meanings behind inconsequential nightmares while he internally relived the particulars of his plan and congratulated himself on a flawless execution.

That, and now he had reason to gloat. Father Alexander Orton owed him one.

 



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Feb 17th 2023 - 5:53 PM

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[PART I]

[Trenton, Adele, Grace, Alex]

https://youtu.be/0C-dNgypA5M

Edward settled a pair of emerald chandelier earrings into a small metal tray lined with black velvet, the thin lines of rose gold and lustrous gemstones forming a tiny melody — like the delicate clinking of fairy windchimes. Then he slid the tray onto a shelf of green jewelry. The weekend’s venture had been particularly nerve-wracking; they’d had to switch jewelry from three separate targets at the same red carpet event. Somehow, Ava had gracefully managed to navigate her way into all three social circles, and she’d managed to secure all three items without anyone being the wiser.

Dr. Chancellor had crafted all three pieces to draw fame and popularity toward the wearer. If the rising status of their targets was any indication, the intentions worked.

After the emerald earrings were secured, Edward catalogued the copper leaf pin — a meticulously crafted piece set with two yellow topaz gemstones, interspersed with three black onyx gems. The final item was a silver ring with a shimmering three-sided sunstone, cut to resemble a faceted pyramid. A perfect round moonstone, white as ice with an inner glow of winter blue fire, gleamed atop the apex. An elegant design that reflected the sun and the moon, Edward surmised, with a special emphasis on celebrating the Egyptian actress’s heritage. Edward rotated the unique piece between his fingers, remembering Ava’s effusive declaration that she was a huge fan, followed a handshake that led to Ava glancing down and noticing the ring quite by chance. Ava showered the beautiful piece with compliments, then made a brazen request to try on the ring for herself.

The move was risky. It could have angered the starlet, or offended her; and yet Ava had established enough of a rapport — within mere minutes of delightful conversation — that the lady merely smiled and slid the ring from her finger, handing it over.

“If you take it and run, my costars will hunt you down,” she teased with a dazzling white smile, eliciting a chorus of laughter from her fawning entourage even as her dark eyes sparked.

Ava laughed along with them. “Not that I would get far in these heels,” she replied, sliding one extreme blue stiletto forward and pointing a shapely toe against the red carpet. Ava already had the fake ring hidden in her palm; switching the two rings took a sleight of hand. “Still, can you imagine? What a brilliant way to meet the entire cast! The temptation to abscond is real!”

Ava slid the fake ring onto her own finger and lifted it toward the light to admire the sparkle, drawing everyone’s attention toward the flashing gems, while her other hand secretly tucked the real ring into a secure pocket hidden in the folds of her cobalt blue dress.

“Ooh, it’s breathtaking,” Ava whispered reverently. She studied it for only a few seconds more, and then she slid the ring free of her finger and handed it back. “This is a moment I will treasure for the rest of my life. Thank you so much. It looks better on you than on me, though. It’s like it was made for you.”

“It was, actually,” said the actress, her smile mysterious. She settled the fake ring into place. “It’s very sentimental to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She gestured vaguely toward the door, then stepped away from Ava, oblivious to the sly glint in the other woman’s eye.

Edward huffed and shook his head, staring at the real ring. Brilliantly conceived, flawlessly executed.

Piles of evil gemstones sparkled on the shelves of Edward’s basement vault. That vault, along with the high-level security systems that reinforced protection for the tainted treasures within, was also designed and built by Hollis Erickson — the man whom Edward had appointed as the new leader of the Brotherhood. Hollis and a handful of trusted Brotherhood members reinforced Edward’s vault to jam radio frequencies and block electromagnetic signals of every kind. The complicated programs embedded in the seemingly innocuous gemstones could not be accessed by outside technology, even from inside the vault — effectively rendering them harmless.

Mission after mission ended in success. Much of that success was directly attributable to Ava, who became the face of their operation.

Edward thoroughly researched their targets: personality quirks, lifestyle habits, work schedules, family members and connections, food and drink preferences, medical histories, criminal backgrounds, favorite colors — no detail, no matter how small or inconsequential, could be overlooked. The task ahead of them was staggering; Anatol had quietly sunk his poisoned claws into prominent individuals from nearly every country. Following the late Dr. Chancellor’s meticulous sales records from the Shelburne mine took Edward’s unusual strike team around the world.

His multifaceted reputation was their ticket into a variety of social functions. He was a well-known doctor, a war veteran, a historian, and the former National Security Advisor who maintained connections to President Gideon. Therefore, he was graciously welcomed into formal parties, military and celebrity awards ceremonies, political rallies, charity dinners, and other events that were attended by government leaders and the social elite.

Everywhere Edward went, he was accompanied by an entourage of nameless, faceless gentlemen who comprised his personal security detail. No one paid attention to them; they busied themselves instead with pandering to Edward himself and engaging in conversation with the stunning young woman on his arm.

Miranda was her name. She was a charming companion, mysterious and intelligent, and she intrigued men and women alike. Whether openly or secretly, she wore exact replicas of Shelburne jewelry owned by hosts or their prominent guests — replicas crafted by Hollis Erickson. Hollis and his men fashioned gemstones that were identical in weight, color, cut, and even market value to the Shelburne jewels — or as near to identical as humanly possible.

At some point during the evening, Miranda would conceive of a clever ploy to switch the jewels.

Over the years, their efforts gradually paid off. Until one night, when it almost cost them everything.

______________


It happened at another upscale party, this one hosted at a posh hotel in downtown Reno. Ava had dyed platinum blonde streaks into her perfectly straightened hair, which she swirled into a messy bi-color bun and secured with a bejeweled silver clip. That evening, she looked — and acted — exceptionally young and Barbie-like, draped in a prom-style satin and tulle gown of delicate pink, adorned in far too much Pink Ice jewelry, smirking with sparkly pink-glossed lips and admiring her own shimmering white nails.

When they emerged from the black limo, Edward strode into the magnificent venue with a flighty and distracted “Miranda” loosely attached to his elbow. He barely glanced at her as she broke away from him to mingle with other socialites in her own supposed age group, while he sought out the tech tycoon who would later unveil a state-of-the-art security system at the glitzy event.

Half an hour before the presentation took place in the hotel’s enormous ballroom, Miranda had sidled up to the tycoon’s remarkably young wife. The two women quickly bonded over a shared interest in an up-and-coming pop star named Britney Spears, a topic that caught the attention of four other girls. They grouped together and introduced snippets of enthusiastic speculation about the nature of Britney’s relationship with Justin Timberlake.

“That’s my name,” the tycoon’s wife abruptly interjected.

Miranda gasped and stared at her. “Really? Oh God, no way. Really?”

Flushed and flattered, the girl laughed, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her burgundy gown. “Yeah, really. It really is.”

“So, wow, wait. Your name is… actually… Justin?”

The entire clique shrieked with laughter, and the girl could barely make herself heard over the high-pitched squeals. “No! Not Justin, Britney! My name is Britney!”

Upbeat music pouring from the central stage caused the girls to lean closer together to make themselves heard as they chattered excitedly. They giggled and gossiped, traded secrets on fashion and makeup, and complimented each other’s seemingly matched taste in ostentatious jewelry. They admired oversized cocktail rings and magnificent statement necklaces, showing off their own gaudy accessories to eager oohs and ahs. Within moments, all six women were trying on each other’s jewelry and matching colors with one another’s dresses. Miranda happily participated, contributing her own Pink Ice rings to the impromptu swap meet and offering her most generous opinions on the way each piece caused the girls’ natural attributes to shine.

That’s when Miranda made her move, eyeing Britney’s ridiculously long earrings: twin six-inch waterfalls of rose quartz, cherry ruby, and white pearls that were impossible to ignore.

They would also be difficult to conceal, yet Miranda hatched a plan. An offhand comment was all it took to convince Britney to remove them from her ears and pass them around the eager circle of wide-eyed women. When they finally reached Miranda, she held them up, then subtly glanced past the earrings. She performed a sudden double take and gasped.

“Oh, my, God. LOOK at that dreamy bodyguard.”

All five heads turned and stared toward the stage, where an empty podium awaited the reveal for the new security system. Four well-built security guards in black tuxedos were posted around it, occasionally reaching up to touch the wires trailing from their ears as they stoically observed the crowd.

Bewildered, five pairs of feminine eyes returned to Miranda. They peppered her with questions.

“Which one?”

“What about him?”

“The really good-looking one,” Miranda said, prompting a ripple of fresh giggles from the ring of girls.

“Yeah, okay, that describes like… most of them,” declared Britney.

“That one,” Miranda clarified, transferring both earrings to her right hand and pointing at the bodyguard on the far left. All five heads turned again, like spectators at a tennis match; transfixed by the oblivious guard with gel-spiked blond hair and a chiseled jaw. “Doesn’t he look like Justin Timberlake? Or more like… Chad Michael Murray?”

The five young women resembled a pack of unblinking meerkats that had spotted a lion prowling into their territory. The unknown man had their full attention. With her fascinated companions temporarily distracted, Miranda gave the earrings a practiced whirl around her forefinger and dropped them into her open pink reticule. Just as swiftly, she produced identical copies of the same earrings and clicked the reticule shut.

Britney whipped around and stared directly at Miranda. For a heartbeat, Miranda stopped breathing.

“I vote Timberlake.”

“Me too,” decided another. “Spitting image.”

“Nah-uh, he definitely looks more like Chad Michael Murray.”

“I don’t care WHO he looks like. He’s hot.”

The girl next to her giggled and elbowed her in the ribs. “Oh my God, Andy!”

“He’s super-hot,” Andy went on, undaunted. She stood on her tiptoes for a better view. “Is he married? Can anyone see a wedding ring from here?”

Amid the spirited debate, Miranda steadied her breathing and passed Britney’s earrings on to the next girl, even as she also leaned to and fro in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of the poor guard’s left ring finger. Adding her own smatterings of commentary to fuel the speculation about the guard, Miranda casually collected her rings in quiet preparation for her return to Edward.

Nevertheless, it was some time before she could gracefully extricate herself from the clique. By then, two of the girls had made up their minds to ask the unsuspecting guard to share drinks, with Andy plotting to propose marriage to the fellow before the evening was over. They brazenly crossed the ballroom with their prey squarely in the crosshairs. Britney and her two remaining companions took to the dance floor, bobbing and bouncing to the beat while casting surreptitious glances toward the accosted guard — just to watch the scene unfold.

“Let me know what happens,” Miranda encouraged them. “I’ll see if I can get a closer look.”

Amused by the whole affair, and quite pleased with the success of her mission, a smirking Miranda drifted out of the broken circle. Gripping a handful of her pink skirt with one hand and clutching her reticule in the other, feeling the weight of the pilfered earrings within her palm, she negotiated her way through the conversating crowd to find Edward. She caught sight of him trailing behind a cluster of distinguished gentlemen who pushed toward the stage. Edward’s head turned, and his blue eyes swept the crowd; he was looking for her. Then he saw her. Their eyes met, and she smiled. A slight nod was the only signal he needed.

The ballroom lights abruptly dimmed around the illuminated stage. The music stopped, leaving overloud conversations hanging out in the open. Embarrassed talkers cut themselves off mid-sentence, and silence began to fall over the room — except for protests from the harassed security guard as he held Andy and her eager female companion at bay. Edward held out his hand to Miranda, and she reached his side just as two men approached the podium. The first took the microphone to introduce the tech tycoon, beginning with his impressive list of achievements, credentials, and awards.


People stepped back from the dance floor, and someone jostled Britney. One of her earrings pulled loose and fell with a metallic chink, and she hastily bent down to retrieve it. As her fingertips traced the curve of the hook in preparation to secure it to her ear, she paused. Something wasn’t right. She looked harder at the silver metal, rotating it to better catch the bejeweled strands in the stage lighting.

Suddenly, a commotion arose from Britney’s side of the ballroom. Heads turned as a flurry of burgundy silk rushed onto the stage.

“MY EARRINGS ARE GONE! MY EARRINGS ARE GONE!”

Edward and Miranda looked at each other in alarm as the sobbing woman threw herself into the arms of her husband, who staggered to catch her. He looked around the silent ballroom, ill at ease but forcing a professional smile.

“Not now, honey,” he breathed through gritted teeth. “Now’s not a good time—”

“They’re GONE!” she cried, her voice rising to a hysterical note.

He awkwardly patted her back. “There, there. I’ll get you some new ones,” he soothed.

“You CAN’T!” she burst out, pushing away from him. “Those were the ones you gave me — the Quicksilver ones from that mine place. It’s closed and they’re priceless and they’re gone!”

“But… but you’re wearing them,” stammered the tycoon, confused.

She shook her head wildly, her dark mascara smeared by her tears. “These are fake! The inscription from you — look, it’s missing.” She held out her earring to him, and ice shot down Miranda’s spine. “See? It’s fake! I told you. SOMEONE STOLE THEM!”

Gasps arose from around the ballroom. Edward glanced left and right; clandestine team members stationed around the room stiffened and stared back at him, awaiting his signal.

There was no time to lose. Miranda took silent steps forward, already reaching into her reticule; Andy and her companion stood frozen and the guard’s attention — like everyone else’s — was locked on the drama unfolding on-stage. Secretly Miranda plucked the earrings out of her reticule and hooked them onto the trailing sash around Andy’s waist.

The color drained from the tycoon’s face. He uttered a profanity under his breath and glared at the guards. “Lock this place down! Find my wife’s earrings, now!”

Miranda had quietly slipped back to Edward’s side and gripped his arm, hard. It was only a matter of seconds before the direct accusations came flying her way, and she knew it.

Lights shot up over the ballroom, banishing the comfort of shadows, and the sudden brilliance caused Edward and Ava to squint. The exit doors slammed shut. They looked around, then stared at each other again as panic swept through the restless crowd around them like a chill wind. He firmly gripped her hand, willing her to stay focused, to remain calm. He watched her swallow hard, her widened eyes locked with his and her fingers holding tightly to his own. Ever so softly, she nodded. The storm would rage around them, but Edward would protect her — no matter what. With his life, if necessary. All of his men were prepared to do the same.

But if they kept their wits, it wouldn’t come to that. The hounds were coming after them, but they were still one step ahead, with one ace up their collective sleeve.

The accusations fell through the room like grenades and exploded. The girls who were with her must’ve had something to do with it, Britney said. She pointed out all five of them. The guards immediately responded; one closed in on Edward and Miranda. Miranda retreated, her brows sharply arched and her back stiff with cold indignance. How dare he! Frowning, Edward pulled his arm free of the guard’s grip and protested their treatment, and he ordered the man not to lay a hand on Miranda. She was innocent. They both were. They had rights. Those rights were NOT to be violated, under any circumstances…

A cry of terror and shock arose near the stage, and Miranda closed her eyes in silent pain and guilty relief. Andy had been found out. The lost earrings were there, caught on her sash. Nearly tripping over her own dress, Britney ran down to her and retrieved her precious jewelry, clutching them to her chest, exclaiming that they belonged to her, screaming that Andy was a thief and a liar. Andy screeched and pointed at the other girl beside her: she didn’t steal anything; she’d been framed! By HER!

Chaos reigned, but the rest of the house was quickly cleared of blame. Unsettled guests shuffled toward the doors, and the ballroom steadily cleared out.

Ava didn’t draw an easy breath until they stood in the warm night air on the overbright streets of Nevada, with worried people stumbling around them and angry men demanding their cars to be brought at once. The sudden rush caused a heavy traffic jam in front of the hotel. Suddenly queasy, Ava pressed her hands over her stomach and fought the urge to throw up, right on the sidewalk in front of God and everyone.

Edward gestured at one of his men, who nodded once and vanished. Within minutes, Edward’s driver pulled the black limo around the corner of the next street. Edward supported Miranda’s arm to steady her as they made their way down the block, shepherded by their own guards; leaving the scene of the crime behind. Edward ushered her into the waiting car before climbing into it himself.

They were safe.

Ava exhaled in a rush and collapsed on his shoulder, her eyes closed as she gasped for breath. He wrapped his arm around her back as he gave his driver directions. They pulled onto the road again and made their way through the heavy traffic, and the driver reached back and handed Edward a handheld radio. It came to life with clipped reports from his men. Using code language and predetermined locations, Edward responded to each one as it came, directing the extraction of his entire team. Only when the last ones reported that they had reached secure locations did he sigh and marginally relax against the seat cushions.

“I’m sorry,” came Ava’s unusually small voice.

He silenced her with a gentle pat to her hand, which still clung to his sleeve. “It wasn’t your fault, Ava. You did everything right. There was a flaw in our recon; it had nothing to do with you.”

Grimacing, she shook her head. “All of that aside, Andy will be blamed for this. I made her our scapegoat.”

“You had no choice,” Edward soothed, but troubles gathered like stormclouds in his blue eyes. The truth of her words rankled his sensitive conscience.

“Andy is innocent,” Ava went on, leaning back to look at him. “She didn’t steal those earrings, I did. She was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I took advantage of that. She shouldn’t have to take the fall for this. She came here to party and have a good time, not to play the part of a jewelry thief. She shouldn’t be arrested for that. Neither of those girls deserve it, and I don’t know which one they’ll ultimately blame. Probably Andy, since she was caught in possession of the stolen property.”

Heavy furrows gathered in Edward’s brow as he pondered the gravity of the situation, from all angles. Finally, nodding to himself, he withdrew his cell phone from his pocket.

“I can pull some strings,” he assured her. “Do you know Andy’s last name?”

Ava shook her head and leaned back against the seat, exhausted.

Edward pressed her hand again to offer gentle reassurance, even as he thumbed through his phone contacts. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

Ava rolled her head toward him, her worried gaze studying his profile. “Will the team be compromised?” Then she rephrased her question. “IS the team compromised? After tonight?”

With a mild grimace, Edward shook his head. “Time will tell,” was all he said. He placed the phone to his ear. “But this will be our last mission for a while, regardless. We need to lie low. Perhaps we were too bold—” Abruptly he cut himself off as the ringtone silenced and the other end of the line picked up. “Hello, Christopher. Listen, I need a favor. Can I trust you to keep this matter quiet?”

Whatever reassurance Christopher offered in response was superfluous. For whom could Edward rely upon more in turbulent times than his own father-in-law, the same lawyer who had helped form the independent state of Middletown, and who had subsequently worked with him on many top-secret matters of utmost importance?

While Edward would not divulge all of the details, even to Christopher, he only requested that “the daughter of a friend” — who found herself in deep trouble that night — be exonerated from a theft charge. The item in question was valuable enough that, if she were prosecuted, it would likely result in a felony charge — a terrible, life-altering black mark on a young girl’s record. The evidence against her was circumstantial at best, Edward explained, and the pilfered property was already returned to its rightful owner. His “friend” had explained the entire story, in detail, Edward said; and she shouldn’t be punished for a crime that she didn’t commit. The matter was personal enough to Edward that he promised to cover Christopher’s expenses and any legal fees that she would’ve otherwise incurred.

Christopher agreed. By the next morning, he would be on a flight to Reno, providing solid defense counsel to a young woman whom he’d never met. The lawyer wasn’t aware that Edward led a strike team, nor did he know that Edward and company were in Reno, and Edward didn’t see any reason to enlighten him.


Within the hour, that same strike team was in the air, taking the red-eye flight back to Middletown in Edward’s private jet. They didn’t talk much; they sat in silent thought or slept in their chairs or stared listlessly out the aircraft windows. Trouble lay heavily in the evening sky.

By morning, all of them would be home. Edward and Ava would arrive for their usual shifts at Guardian Angels, and the rest of his men would clock in for work or mow the lawn or otherwise resume the rhythm of their normal lives. It would be as if they’d never left.

But they were all quiet, all watchful. The repercussions of their failure were unfathomable, should their enemy become aware of their clandestine efforts to switch tainted jewels with ordinary gems. While they hoped that the incident would be viewed as an elaborate burglary scheme, and while the strike team had covered their tracks and ensured that there was no surveillance video that night in the hotel, other parties were in possession of duplicate jewelry — duplicates of extraordinary craftsmanship and incredible attention to detail. The duplicate earrings were identical to the genuine articles, save for the inscription that was added after the Brotherhood created the unique jewelry. If the wrong people with too much knowledge examined the jewelry…

God help them.




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Feb 17th 2023 - 5:52 PM

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[PART II]

https://youtu.be/D7NOGOc7KLw

“It will be alright, Eddie,” Celia soothed, situating a new photo frame on a glass shelf of her curio cabinet. It was the most recent school photo of eight-year-old Adele in her school uniform, her childish smile warm and her dark ponytail tied back with a red ribbon. “You covered your tracks well, and Daddy will ensure that this girl, Andy, is released without charges. He’s a very good attorney. You know this.”

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Edward paced the floor, his mind churning back and forth over the previous day’s events like a steamroller over crushed glass. Rain spattered against the windows, as it had all day. Even his private plane had landed on the wet airstrip in the dark.

“Yes,” he agreed with her, but halfheartedly.

“All of the other gemstones are safe in the vault,” Celia went on, her delicate fingers deftly arranging an angel figurine and two seashells near Adele’s new picture. “Nobody was arrested last night, and everyone came home, safe and sound. Your mission was actually a success.”

Edward paused in the middle of the room and sighed, reaching up to rub his forehead. “Yes, it was. It’s just… I feel that I’ve missed something… important. We’ve never had a mission go off the rails like that, and if they find out—”

Closing the cabinet door, Celia crossed the room so swiftly and so smoothly that Edward’s full attention abruptly jolted back to his wife. Had it not been impossible, he’d have sworn that she actually floated across the floor.

“You’re a perfectionist, my love,” she said, her small hands settling on his shoulders as she smiled into his eyes. “The part that bothers you is simply that not everything… not every detail went according to your design. Nevertheless, your team improvised beautifully. You’re all here, safe in Middletown. Nobody was detained, or arrested, or even cast under the shadow of suspicion for more than a moment.”

Edward stared at her, suddenly at a loss for words, distracted by the light of stars that played in Celia’s bright blue eyes. Despite the depths of his concerns, her gentle warmth stole into his frayed senses and smoothed the wrinkles from his broken thoughts. He struggled to remember… to recall what he’d been saying.

“But,” he managed with an effort, conscious then that his hands had settled around his wife’s slender waist of their own accord. He tipped his head to one side, his eyebrows steadily rising as his gaze never left hers. “The… duplicate earrings. That’s the… the clue that we never intended to leave behind.”

She smiled at him then — a glowing smile that warmed the chill in his soul and chased the darkness from his mind. “Can they be traced?”

“No. But they can be fingerprinted.”

Celia laughed, a lilting laugh with a melody that seemed to fill the big white house like the music of windchimes. “Eddie, if I came into possession of a perfect copy of my favorite jewelry, I wouldn’t complain too much.”

A bemused smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “YOU wouldn’t. But you would wonder where it came from, surely.”

“And risk finding out? And perhaps having to return it?”

Edward leaned his head backwards, considering that. “YOU would,” he pointed out.

“Because I would worry that someone had lost something special to them. But these are unusual circumstances, don’t you agree?”

“Very strange circumstances, certainly. Most thieves don’t clone their intended targets, unless they’re pulling off an art heist. Ordinary fakes aren’t as meticulously detailed or valued equally, because what’s the point of stealing an identical twin? Wouldn’t that keep you up at night, wondering why? Why they would’ve gone through the trouble?”

Celia’s golden lashes shadowed her luminous eyes, like a cloud obscuring the stars. “Maybe, for a little while. But if there were no answers, and no harm was done, the storm would eventually blow over and life would go on.”

Edward studied her intently. “Do you really believe that will happen? That the storm will blow over?”

“All storms pass in time, Eddie,” she responded, the light of her smile steadily dispelling the thunderstorm storm in his own heart. “You’ve done everything possible. What else is there for you to do? What will endless worry and fret accomplish now?”

Edward mulled that over for a moment. An otherworldly golden glow washed over them both as they stood in one another’s arms, and his wondering gaze strayed to the window. The rain had stopped, and pale rays of sunlight leaked through the broken clouds and glistened on the droplets that clung to the glass.

“Hm.” He huffed, but a boyish grin slipped past his defenses. “What if it’s just my nature to worry and fret? What then?”

With another melodious laugh, Celia stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. “Then find something more pleasant to dwell upon,” she suggested.

At that moment, Edward realized that he was holding her as if they were locked in a slow dance. Impulsively, he swayed with her, inviting her to join him — which she readily did, without hesitation; her body warm and soft in his arms. Then he sobered his expression with all the solemnity he could muster, although he couldn’t entirely extinguish the twinkle of mischief in his blue eyes.

“Something more pleasant,” he repeated, giving the matter serious thought. “What could be more pleasant than fret and worry? Hm. Perhaps I could… play the piano? Finish some of my more challenging compositions?”

She was laughing at him, unabashedly — her face glowing more brightly than the sunlight. “What a good idea! But it’s only a place to start. Think bigger, Eddie. Now that your schedule has cleared up, we could… even… go on vacation!”

“Mm!” He laughed with her, adopting a lofty accent. “By George, you’re right. Planning a vacation is a capital distraction. Have you got a specific destination in mind?”

She drew a breath, her face rapturous as she imagined all the possibilities as they opened like flowers before her. “A ski vacation,” she mused at last. “With a cozy log cabin all our own.”

He nodded slowly, grinning at her. “Since we live in a snowy climate already, that won’t be too difficult to pull off. There for a minute, I thought you were going to hit me with a REAL challenge.”

“Oh, I can do that, Eddie,” she promised him, her lighthearted voice tremulous with giddy delight. “As I said, it’s only a place to start.”

Readily he gave in to her teasing, allowing her brilliant mind to spawn beautiful distractions, willingly going along with her ideas and playfully daring her to invent more of them; mesmerized by the golden glow of her courageous spirit as she wove her lovely spells around him. But nothing could truly obliterate his concerns over potential repercussions for his grave mistakes. Mistakes had been made; they could not be fully undone. Unfriendly attention could hardly be escaped, now. In the days to come, he would mull over the conundrum from every angle, trying to foresee the problems before they occurred.

He monitored the airwaves. He checked in with each member of his team on a daily basis. He kept abreast of world news. He read through regular reports from his contacts in Washington. There was nothing — not even a hint of anything.

Perhaps Cecelia was right. And yet, he felt in his heart that she was not.


At night, when his restless mind kept him from sleep, he stood in his dark bedroom and stared out the open window into the black depths of the sky and listened. No creature stirred among the shadowed trees. Crickets and frogs uttered no sound. There was not even a whisper of wind to brush against the edge of his ear. The world was quiet. Mere feet away, in the bed behind him, his beautiful wife lay like a gentle angel upon white pillows, asleep in silken sheets — blissfully unaware that her troubled husband kept watch over her, over the house… over Middletown.

There was only silence, yet it kept him awake.

The silence was a comfort, especially as it extended outward over weeks and months, through the turning of the seasons; and yet — somehow — that particular silence was ominous. It was not the absence of danger — oh no. Not this silence. This silence felt more like a dormant dragon, hidden deep under the ground; one that gathered its terrible strength in secret. One that would wake when he least expected it; one that would strike with the full force of its devastating power. It was only a matter of time.

So he remained watchful, and he listened.

______________


Settled next to Grace’s heavy book, the black briefcase glared at Edward from the passenger seat. Edward scowled back at it between relentless phone calls and speeding the gutless Grand Prix down the winter highway. Reports came in from the military factions around town; Edward collected information and issued directives to each of them. Ava contacted him with an update on Leo’s condition and a formal request to clear him for a CT scan, which he readily approved. Fluid in the lungs was an anticipated side effect with prolonged coma patients — certainly treatable, but concerning nevertheless.

He glanced aside. The black briefcase, with the black trunk locked within, continued to glare at him. He loathed the thought of opening that particular Pandora’s Box — both for the sake of reaping present consequences, and for reliving the wealth of dark memories contained within. Like the tainted treasures in his vault, those memories were better left locked away.

Yet it was the only way. Dr. Grimaldi had refused to treat Leo further, and now he was dead. No other medical professionals or head injury specialists would come to Middletown — not for this precarious case. Adele had contacted them all, to no avail. The local neurologist, Dr. Hedstrom, had done all that he knew how to do for Leo; and now their scant window of opportunity was rapidly slipping away. With every day and every hour that passed, Leo’s chances of waking up decreased. Rales was not the only problem they would encounter as they continued further down that darkening path.

Edward knew that all too well.

His options had dwindled to nothing; he was out of time. Once more, fate had forced his hand.

With a solid grip on the wheel and his eyes hardly leaving the road, Edward thumbed through his contacts and selected another name. Only the space of one drawn-out ring separated the dialing from the answering.

“Arthur,” said Edward without preamble. “Just listen. In ten minutes, I will be locked under radio silence. Until I reestablish contact, coordinate with Esteban and Elemer. Keep your men at the ready.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”There was a brief pause. “Are you expecting trouble?”

“Always.”

“More than usual?”Arthur pressed.

Edward hesitated — only for a heartbeat. His narrowed blue eyes searched between the veiled folds of a shadowed world he could not see, and yet he felt it as keenly as the starched weight of his cotton shirt, resting lightly against his skin. Aside from what he knew, the tense atmosphere crackled with invisible electricity.

“Yes. Watch the roads and monitor the airwaves. Stay alert.”

“Yes, sir. Good luck.”

The line fell silent. Edward pitched the phone into the passenger seat, and it bounced off the briefcase. Once again, Edward glanced at it.

Merlyn’s words echoed in his mind.

“No good can ever come of this, Edward. These things… they are pure evil. This key should have been destroyed years ago.”

Merlyn was right, but what of it? There was no other way.

Despite his warnings, Merlyn had relinquished the second key to Edward. Almost he wished Merlyn had stood his ground, even though Edward had forced the issue and given him no more room to protest. Heaviness deepened the furrows in Edward’s brow, and he glowered at the road ahead. It was done. Like Edward, Hollis was on his way to the hospital at that very moment. Edward had another brief stop to make at the bank, to pick up a certain safety deposit box. The convergence rushed toward him, and he charged headlong into it. Events had been set into motion that could not be undone.

Little did he know that another massive collision with fate rapidly burned through the atmosphere, heading straight toward him at blinding speed with the destructive force of a nuclear missile.

______________

https://youtu.be/s4JudskwgAc

Six months later

Twilight fell over the Black Mountain Resort, and the vast tangerine sky signaled the approaching end of a perfect ski day. Edward and Celia had enjoyed several intermediate downhill runs on that pleasant afternoon, and they decided to take just one more trip before the slopes closed for the night.

Celia was sent up the mountain on the chairlift while Edward was delayed by resort employees, who inquired about his ski pass. Edward graciously answered their questions and allowed them to scan his badge twice while chairs swooped behind Celia and carried her away.

Then the employees temporarily paused chairlift boarding due to weight requirements. At the bottom of the chairlift, Edward watched his beautiful wife, dressed in her navy blue coat and tawny fur hood, sailing out of sight among the dark trees. She twisted around in her chair and waved at him. Edward smiled and waved back.

His delay lasted mere minutes. Once the employees allowed the last group of skiers to board the chairlift again, Edward was first in line. With practiced ease, he sank down into the chair as it approached behind him, and it swept him into the sunset air and soared him over the spectacular ski resort. He looked out over the white slopes and the snow-cloaked evergreens, standing silent as ancient ghosts beneath the fiery orange sky. No wonder the place was so popular, he thought. The view was incredible.

When he planted his skis and slid off the chair at the top of the run, Celia was not there, as he’d expected. For some reason, she hadn’t waited for him.


Mildly surprised, Edward was nevertheless not alarmed. With a gloved hand, he settled the ski goggles over his eyes, then tucked his poles under his arms and pointed his ski tips down the hill. In a rush of white powder and a blast of winter wind that stung his face and burrowed beneath his heavy scarf, Edward pushed off and glided to the right, shifting the majority of his weight to his left boot and riding out the turbulence until his skis caught traction in softer snow. He changed direction to stay on the trail, cutting long, expert S-curves down the mountain in the fading lavender light. It was a peaceful run, with only the whisper of the snow beneath his freshly waxed ski blades and the wind rushing past his ears. Finally, when he reached the bottom of the run and roostertailed to a sideways halt, he pushed back his goggles and looked around, expecting a brilliant smile and a warm greeting.

She wasn’t there.

The first tingles of real worry prickled along the back of Edward’s neck. He knew Celia; she’d never have gone to the lodge without him — unless, perhaps, she’d gotten injured. He looked for telltale signs of recent snowmobile tracks and didn’t see any in the immediate vicinity. There were no red vests with white crosses anywhere in his line of vision, although he could hear some snowmobiles roaring down the well-graded cross-country ski trails somewhere in the woods. Those didn’t concern him; injured skiers were taken to a first aid station near the parking lot, not down the cross-country trails. Those snowmobiles likely belonged to employees who completed their rounds for the evening as the mountain closed.

Edward pushed his poles into the snow, gliding after the last meandering skiers as they exited the run, but she wasn’t among them. The chairlift had stopped, and the individual chairs hung silently over the white mountain, all empty.

“Celia?” Edward called out. But even his strong voice was muffled by the dense snow and the thick evergreens. Had she fallen from the chairlift? Improbable, but not impossible. Where else could she be? His gaze swept the entire area again. “Celia!”

There was no answer.

Edward skied back and forth, searching the flat areas between the runs where idle skiers congregated, but she simply wasn’t there. Finally, he skidded to a stop. Biting down upon a finger of his snow glove, Edward pulled it off and dug his cell phone out of a secure zipper pocket. Leaning on his poles, he activated his phone with cold fingers and tried to call her, gingerly holding the icy metal against his frosted ear. Three times, the phone cycled through the regular ringing until it reached her voicemail. It was possible that she couldn’t hear the muffled ringtone, if her phone were stuffed into an inner coat pocket — as his had been. Still, when she finally fished her phone out of her coat, she would see a notification for his missed calls. He hoped she’d call him right back. Ordinarily, she would…

He tucked his phone away again and glided down to the lodge, kicked out of his ski bindings, leaned his empty skis against the outdoor racks, and clopped into the lodge like a bipedal draft horse in his stiff, heavy ski boots. Drifts of powder snow fell like white dust in his wake. The waterproof fabric of his pants scraped and whooshed with every hasty step as he searched the dining tables, the warm alcove near the electric fireplace, the cozy mini-library with overstuffed chairs and the Christmas tree decorated with white lights and paper toy drive angel ornaments, the busy bar and sports lounge where relaxed patrons downed amber beers and watched a football game on multiple flatscreens, and the waiting areas and wood-and-metal benches outside the restrooms.

There! At last, he saw her. A slender blonde woman in a dark coat crouched before one of those benches, her back turned toward him; but when Edward approached her with heavy footsteps, she whirled around and squinted suspiciously at him. Hers was the face of a stranger. That’s when he saw that she was wrestling thick mittens onto her squirming toddler’s hands.

“Sorry, ma’am,” muttered Edward distractedly, backing away. He plodded down the corridor and never looked back.

He couldn’t find her anywhere. The alarm in his soul rapidly escalated. He tracked down an employee and explained that his wife was missing. Could they send someone into the women’s restroom to see if she was there? Retrieving his phone once more, he opened his photo album and showed them pictures — including pictures he’d taken that same afternoon, with his smiling wife in her navy blue coat with the fur-lined hood. A female employee disappeared into the restrooms. A moment later, she emerged, frowning and shaking her head.

Search and rescue snowmobiles roared off to look for her atop the mountain. Spotlights in hand, they blazed up and down near the ski run they’d last taken, shining lights through the trees to see if she’d fallen off the trail. Edward remained in the lodge in case she showed up there, standing at the window, and he repeatedly called her cell phone, reaching voicemail every time. Another employee radioed the first aid station, just in case. The report came back: no patients were being treated there.

Edward’s mind reeled, then whirled with more horrible scenarios. Growing fear gripped him by the throat and nearly strangled him. He racked his memory for details — when he’d last seen her, the critical moments leading up to their separation, the people who’d stopped him from following her onto the chairlift. The series of inconsequential events that separated them now appeared to be a carefully orchestrated diversion.

Something was wrong. He could feel it in every electrified fiber of his being. Swallowing back a searing panic, he stood in his ski boots near the huge picture windows, watching the tiny cones of light from the search parties’ flashlights pierce through the gathering fog on the desolate slopes. Darkness was falling fast; the entire mountain was shadowed in dark blue and the moonlight white of highly reflective snow. His entire body began to quiver, as if he were freezing cold inside the overly warm ski lodge. Again and again, he called her cell phone.

“Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice message system…”

When the snowmobiles returned emptyhanded, Edward immediately made other phone calls. Minutes later, a chopper shuddered over the resort, with a massive spotlight beam shining down upon the mountain. Search and rescue teams with dogs were mobilized. It would take them a little time to get organized before trained rescuers on snowshoes swarmed the mountain, but Edward didn’t wait on them. He called his sons, brusquely explained the situation, and ordered military teams to the resort. He wouldn’t take any chances when it came to his wife. Another call was placed — this one, to Trenton.

“Trent, it’s Ed. I… what’s that? Oh. Uh, I don’t know if everything’s alright. Celia and I are at Black Mountain, and she’s been missing for almost an hour. Search and rescue teams are combing the area, and I have a chopper in the air, but so far…” He gulped, feeling the hot press of tears behind his eyelids, and his voice scraped against his raw throat. “I hate to trouble you, but if I can call in a favor…”

A snowmobile skidded to a halt in the snow outside the lodge deck, and Edward trailed off. A red-coated ski patrolman dismounted and strode up the deck. Edward stood there, frozen in cold shock as his vague nightmare solidified into devastating reality.

The patrolman was holding one of Celia’s fur-lined gloves.

“Trent,” Edward said more quietly, the control in his voice cracking as his gaze locked on the precious glove. Pure terror sliced into his soul. “They took her, Trent. This is… an emergency.”

There was no need to define who had taken her. They had but one enemy. Cecelia Nightingale had disappeared, kidnapped right off of a blue-rated Black Mountain slope. Every minute that she was missing now could mean the difference between life and death.




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Feb 17th 2023 - 5:51 PM

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[PART III]

https://youtu.be/KwVcBgTyUh8

Metal safety box tucked under his arm, Edward hurried down the bank stairs and strode down the snowy sidewalk back to his car. Just as he ducked inside, his phone lit up, and Keith Urban’s “You’re Not Alone Tonight” ringtone that Adele had chosen for Guardian Angels personnel filled the interior. With a quick brush of his finger, Edward answered it. He poked the screen to activate the speakerphone as he shut the door and reached for his seatbelt.

“Hello—”

Ana’s frightened voice cut him to the core. “Edward, Leo’s coding.”

The breath shocked from his lungs as the world jarred around him. For a split-second, he stared blindly out the windshield. Abruptly he dropped the seatbelt and slammed the car into drive, then smashed the gas pedal to the floorboard and yanked the steering wheel to the left, lurching out of the roadside parking spot and swerving onto the road. Above the labored roar of the engine, he could hear the cold automated alarm in the background.

CODE BLUE. RADIOLOGY.

“Where’s the crash team?” he demanded.

“They’re already here,” she answered shakily. “They’re working on him now.”

“Get his pulse back! I’m on my way.”

Forcing the Grand Prix to the ceiling of its feeble limits, Edward tightened his fists on the wheel. Downtown Middletown flew past at over 100 miles per hour. Moments later, he swerved into the emergency entrance, threw the car into park, and jumped out without killing the engine or shutting the door. From the corner of his eye, he saw two of his guards converge on the car; he knew they’d take care of it. He dashed around to the passenger side, scooped up the book and the briefcase and the metal safe deposit box, and hastened to the closed bay doors with his arms full. Forced to a halt at the keypad, Edward juggled the items to free up a hand.

“Give me the code!”

Edward glanced sideways as Hollis Erickson ran up behind him, leather jacket flapping in his wake, carrying a black case of his own.

“5-2-9-8,” clipped Edward without hesitation.

Hollis reached across him and punched in the numbers. The doors slid open, and both men rushed inside.

“Get that shield operational, NOW,” Edward ordered, bolting toward the E.R.

Hollis immediately dropped to the floor and threw open the case lid, revealing a complex device inside. “On it. Give me ten minutes.”

“You have three.”


Edward turned a corner, leaned down awkwardly, and slammed his elbow into a silver pad. The heavy doors swung open, and Ana rushed up to him, her face a mess of wild terror and black mascara tears.

“She’s been shot!” she gasped, grabbing Edward’s arm. “They shot her!”


He jolted as if he’d been slapped. “Who? Who’s been shot?”

“Ava!”

He checked his stride, feeling as if the ceiling had collapsed and buried him under the weight. His breath shook. “Is she alive?”

“Barely. They’re prepping her now… CT scan…”

Edward willed his body forward again, hastening down the corridor, shaking free of the distraught nurse. “Where’s Leo?”

She choked over a sob. “Gone!”

Edward wheeled around so fast that only a miracle of inhuman balance saved him from falling. “WHAT!” His heart nearly stopped, and the color drained from his face. “He’s… dead?”

“N-no! Kidnapped!”

“My God!”

The broken pieces were coming together, but only just. There wasn’t time for a full debriefing. Leaving Ana to cry in the hallway, Edward hurried down the hall as Gabriel emerged from radiology. Red bloodstains drenched his shirtfront and both blue-gloved hands.

“Talk to me,” Edward clipped, never breaking stride. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

Gabriel fell in behind him, pulling off his nitrile gloves and tossing them into the nearest trash can. “Leo coded; the crash team shipped him out in an ambulance. They weren’t our people. We found Ava in the ambulance bay, shot in the head. She’s in CT-scan now. I can’t stop the bleeding. Leo’s gone. They took him. It was… planned. We were infiltrated.”

Edward dropped book, briefcase, and safe deposit box on the nurse’s station. He stood there for a moment, his head turned aside and his brow furrowed. “Who took him?”

“We don’t know.”

He drew a breath. “Where’s Adele?”

“She went after the ambulance.”

Edward froze, a swift shudder rolling down his spine. “Get her on the phone,” he said, his voice deadly quiet. “Get her back here. Lock the hospital down.”

Gabriel rapidly poked at his contacts while Edward opened the safety deposit box. Inside was a simple, unmarked key. It matched the key Merlyn had given him. Without hesitation, Edward pushed both keys into slots on his briefcase, turning them simultaneously. A lock snapped open, revealing four numbered wheels. Gritting his teeth, Edward rolled the correct four-digit combination into place, and a second lock clicked.

Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, and he closed his eyes, his fingers tightening on the loose case lid. “Now, Hollis,” he growled under his breath, willing himself to wait, to give Hollis a few seconds more. His heavy heartbeat punched out the seconds — each more critical than the last. “Come on, man. Do it!”

He slammed the lid open. At the same instant, a blinding green wave of neon light swept over the whole room like the bar of light inside a commercial copier machine, rushing indifferently over furniture and people alike. The green faded to a soft mint glow that illuminated strange symbols embedded in the walls. The symbols gleamed like white-hot brands and slowly pulsated, as if they burned with an inner fire. A low hum, nearly imperceptible, filled the corridors and thrummed from the very walls.

Edward closed his eyes, desperately hoping that the shield had been activated in time. He grabbed the large amethyst from the case, then turned and strode into radiology.

The scan was still in progress; it felt painfully slow. The churning roar of the machine was so loud that it eclipsed other senses and drummed against his brain. Edward immediately crossed the room, breathing on the amethyst until a faint purple ember awakened inside the gemstone, even as his eyes sought out the sheet-covered form on the hard bed under the scanner. Only her limp hand was visible as it fell just beyond the edge of the sheet, her frail fingers as white as death.

Edward’s intense gaze locked on the amethyst. If it weren’t for her efforts, he wouldn’t even have that gemstone in his possession — along with dozens of others. Edward steadied himself, planting his feet more firmly on the tile floor. He owed this to her.

He wouldn’t wait for the scan to be completed, or for the upcoming emergency surgery that he would soon perform. Between the gunshot wound to her head and the heavy loss of blood, Ava didn’t have that kind of time.


As if sensing his urgency, Edward’s blue ring also surged to life. Sapphire light and lavender glow spun together and mingled around Edward’s form like an indigo energy field, radiating outward, waiting to follow his command. Raising both hands, still holding the large amethyst in his right fist, Edward willed the swirling energy to surge toward Ava’s prone form inside the scanning pod.

“You will NOT die, Ava,” he declared, his voice filled with a conviction stronger than the frail belief which inhabited his soul. “Not today.”

The pale fingers twitched — or perhaps it was his imagination. He leaned forward and looked more closely at her hand. Then, soft as a lonely whisper of January wind, he heard a weak voice. Her voice, it seemed. Disembodied, as if it drifted past the barrier of his overwhelmed ears and brushed through the shadows of his mind.

No…

Edward’s blue eyes flared, the fierce gleam matching that of the blue ring he wore. “Ava,” he growled at her. “You will NOT die—”

A distant sound, like a faint sob, stabbed like a spear of ice into his heart.

Edward… don’t…

A sheen of tears threatened to obscure his vision, and he stubbornly blinked them back. “I won’t lose you, Ava,” he said, stiffening against the tremors in his own soul. “You will NOT die. Not today.”

There was no answer. Perhaps she lost the strength to answer him, or she had fallen into a deeper unconsciousness. It was impossible to tell.

Easing forward, Edward straightened his arms and held the amethyst out to her. Let her argue with him, let her be angry with him… later. For now, he only redoubled his efforts. The radiology room burned with a cold, otherworldly light as the scanner completed its work. Surgery would begin then. The two Shelburne Mine gems would burn all the while, weaving the healing magic of experimental technology, operating secretly under the invisible dome of the energy shield.

______________


Meanwhile, Gabriel had long since finished his phone call to Adele. The energy shield included a dampening field and signal jammer that blocked out all radio transmissions and cellular signals, so there would be no other incoming or outgoing calls until the shield came down.

Frowning deeply, he retraced the path back to Leo’s empty hospital room. That enemies had snatched Trenton’s son from beneath the watchful gaze of Beda, among so many others who were stationed in and around the hospital, bothered him greatly. It occurred to Gabriel that he hadn’t seen Beda since before Leo’s transference to radiology, and it gnawed at him.

He poked his head past the doorway and found the formidable soldier fast asleep in the comfortable recliner that Adele had procured for him. So Beda had slept through the entire event, including the blaring Code Blue alarm. Gabriel frowned again.

Strange…

Then another thought — a horrible thought — struck him with the force of a battering ram, and his breath caught. His gaze sharpened.

“Beda?”

The man’s chest rose, then fell. Good. At least he was breathing. Gabriel stepped into the room and leaned over him, studying Beda’s peaceful face. He was peaceful, indeed. Too peaceful. Drugged, perhaps. If Gabriel had to guess, that depth of profound peacefulness looked like the work of an inordinately strong muscle relaxer, and a solid dose of it, at that.

“Beda! Wake up!”

Gabriel delivered a rapid series of firm smacks to Beda’s cheeks — first the left, then the right. Then he gripped the man’s shoulders and shook him.


“Come on, Beda. Snap out of it! Naptime is over, and there are a few things you need to know.”

But he didn’t want to tell him — not yet. Not until Beda had emerged more fully from the artificial slumbers that had been pressed upon him. Not that there was anything they could do while the energy shield was active, or while the hospital was on lockdown. With concern etched in every feature of his face, Gabriel watched the man. Once Beda heard the story, he’d lose his mind. There was no gentle way to break the news, especially not to a soldier like Beda — one who had faithfully stood guard over Leo, day and night, for weeks.

“Allow me to get you some coffee,” Gabriel offered, although he wasn’t entirely sure whether Beda was coming around yet. “I will return in a moment.”

He left the room and headed into the small kitchen area instead. At once, he saw the broken mug shards scattered all over the floor, along with the coffee Adele had spilled in her hasty departure. Not knowing who or what was responsible for the mess, however, left Gabriel puzzled. Nevertheless, he opened the janitor’s closet and retrieved a broom and dustpan. With the aid of those implements and a handful of paper towels, Gabriel quickly cleaned the potential safety hazard from the tile floor. With a shake of the dustpan, a waterfall of white porcelain pieces crashed into the trashcan.

Finished, he poured a fresh mug of black coffee and brought it back to the room, along with a handful of miniature creamers and sugar packets — in case Beda wanted to tame down the stout brew — and arranged the mini-coffee bar on the table near Beda’s elbow.
If Beda was more fully awake by then, Gabriel decided, he would tell him what had happened — albeit carefully. No sense in sending the huge man charging headlong through an energy shield barrier. If Beda remained in a slumberous state, Gabriel would leave the coffee and let him sleep for a while longer, for he was secure now in the knowledge that Beda was otherwise unharmed.

Either way, Gabriel could not linger. Edward would need his assistance in surgery once the CT scan had run its course. He had only a few minutes more. It was just enough time to deliver a succinct summary of recent events, and to answer any questions, and to assure him that Trenton was aware of the situation and recovery efforts were already underway…

______________


Two hours later

“You may disengage the shield now, Hollis.”

The low, tired voice startled Hollis, who sat in a chair and monitored the shield generator from the ER waiting area. His head jerked backwards and whipped around, and he found Dr. Edward Nightingale standing just beyond the corridor — his shoulders slumped, his hands resting in his pockets, and his weariness deepening his somber demeanor.

“Is the jewel secure?”

Slowly, as if in a daze, Edward nodded. “It is.” He would not disclose more than that. Yet he’d already taken the necessary precautions; the amethyst was locked in its case and hidden away.

“Hm.” Hollis studied the doctor for a moment longer, then leaned forward and tapped several keys on the shield apparatus. With a retreating rush of brilliant green light, the shield powered down, silencing the low buzz that had filled the hospital during its operation. The illuminated symbols in the walls slowly faded and disappeared, returning to their dormant state.

He closed the lid and carefully locked the case, then looked up at Edward again. “Is it over?”

Edward’s unfocused blue eyes rested on Hollis, but his gaze was distant — as if Hollis had spoken in a foreign language that Edward hadn’t understood. The longer he pondered the question, the more the heavy lines in his brow deepened.

“For now,” he replied quietly. “And yet, it is not over. I see that now.”

Fr. Alex Orton had tried to tell him as much, once. Although Edward recognized that the pastor spoke the truth at the time, the full meaning behind his words had only become clearer.

Hollis sat there for a moment, uncertain of how to answer. Finally he gave up. “Will you need the shield again?”

“I don’t know,” Edward replied with raw honesty. “Perhaps. Please stand by, in case I do. Keep your phone close. In the meantime, you’re dismissed, with our gratitude.”

Edward didn’t quite comprehend whatever perfunctory answer Hollis gave in return. The leader of the Brotherhood pulled on his leather coat and wrapped the gray woolen scarf around his neck, picked up his black case, and walked out the sliding doors. Two guards immediately moved to escort him across the parking lot.

Edward bleakly watched the man climb into his car, and then he retreated to his office. Sinking heavily into his chair, he turned on the long-distance walkie talkie and pressed the button.

“Papa November, back in business. All stations, please report.”

It wouldn’t be long before Arthur and his sons gave him their status updates. Still, Edward didn’t wait. He picked up his phone next and typed out a quick text to Adele.

Where are you???

Followed by a text to Landon.

Do you have Adele?

The next text went out to Trenton.

Did you find Leo?

He knew Trenton well; he assumed that the man had already moved heaven and earth to locate and secure his son. Immediately after the first, he fired off a second text.

If you give me your location, I’ll be there with a full medical team.

Exiting that screen, Edward returned to his contacts and selected Merlyn’s name. He typed out another message to him.

Stand down orange alert, but remain at yellow, for now. I’ll be in touch.

The office chair creaked as he leaned back and closed his eyes, pressing his fingertips hard against his strained temples. His phone lit up with a swift reply. When Edward opened his eyes and checked the message, he saw that it was from Merlyn.

Did the boy respond?

Edward hesitated, his forefinger hovering over the screen. Then, thoughtfully, he tapped out a response.

Not yet, but it saved another life. She’s in critical but stable condition, and she’s recovering from surgery now.

Merlyn said no more. Pandora’s Box had been opened. They were both aware of the enormous risk they’d taken, and of the potential consequences.

Edward sat alone in the heavy silence of his office, absently listening to the reports as they began to come in.




𝒢ꭆаcɛ

 

Feb 12th 2023 - 8:29 PM

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[ Trenton, Alex, Leo, Mai ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HltxMawzfnw

"I love you, Trent. I have always loved you."

After decades of keeping the truth sequestered within the darkest corners of her heart, her soul's purest confession erupted from the depths of her, the unadulterated truth finally laid bare before the light of day. Though he needn't speak it, she knew what questions such a confession would ensue: why? The answer to that was hardly as simple or straightforward as it ought to have been. One she stumbled to dance nimbly around and while she was explicitly forbidden from discussing the particulars of her arrangements made with her husband, there was nothing to keep her from sharing what had put them on this path in the first place.

Gently, he lifted her chin. A silent plea for her to look at him. For a heartbeat only, she kept her eyes closed before exhaling a deep shuddering breath and blinking cerulean hues open to meet his gaze. Reluctant as she was to share such raw truths with him, she could deny him – and her heart – no longer. There had been a time, before the war, where they had shared everything with one another. He had been there when she awoke from nightmares, drenched in sweat, sobbing or crying out the names of her brothers. It was he who had consoled and comforted her when nightmares became reality and they died. Through it all, he had been there for her. Inspired hope, courage, and love. Happily had she accepted his proposal and were it not for the war, they would have married and started a family together. Their children would be grown by now, starting their own families and they would be the doting grandparents. Her greatest regret was not marrying him before he left for the war. How drastically that single act might have changed the course of their future, she couldn't begin to fathom.

Lifting her hand, she gently squeezed his forearm as she went on to tell him in broad strokes of what had happened after he went to war. He had known beforehand that she had seen the death of his father, Owen, but not that she had seen his own death. She couldn't begin to count the number of times or the various ways she had seen him die nor could she begin to count how many times she herself had died in those very same dreams, trying to reach him and when she finally would, Grace would find herself besieged by new nightmares. The toll it had taken on her mentally and physically, were it not for Melanie, likely would have claimed her own life as well.

It was within the twisted dark dreamscape of his inevitable death where she discerned the enemy's intent to strike against their families. While the discovery had been early, it hadn't been nearly early enough to save every woman and child – as had been the case for Melanie and Benjamin. Even as he averted his gaze, wracked by guilt and grief, she lifted her digits from his arm to cup his jaw, thumb lightly brushing across his cheek. In no way was any of it his fault. Honorable men would have acted as he had. How could they have known how vile and depraved the enemy was? To target the families of soldiers violated one of the unwritten rules of war. Though they had never spoken about it and likely would never mention it again hereafter, he would never need to utter a syllable of the horrors and pains endured. None of them did. Sad was the smile she offered him as realization and understanding settled its weight about his shoulders: Grace had been in the war with him the entire time.

Just as Trenton had been lost in his own attempts to find Melanie's husband, Aaron, so too had Grace become lost in her own attempts to free Trenton and find Melanie. Her thumb found his lips as he whispered her name, shaking his head in disbelief and horror as she revealed just how far she had been willing to go to save him. The irony of poetic cruelty was not lost upon her: the freedom of one for the freedom of the other. And she would do it again if she had to. In a heartbeat. Life was not worth living if he wasn't in it. He was the reason her heart beat. Always had been.

Trembling, her voice began to fail her as she danced closer and closer to the red tape that kept her bound to her husband and barred her from her heart. It was here where she slipped her hand from his face, fingers tightening about his as she dipped her chin and lowered her gaze, her cheeks warmed by shame and humiliation. He didn't need to see or know what had come next though if he insisted, she would shield him from as much of it as she could. As greatly as it had pained her to see him with another woman, she knew that if he saw how she had performed her wifely duties with her husband, against her will and desire, and how such an act had nearly broken her, there wasn't a power in all of existence that would temper his rage and retribution.

Much to her relief, Trenton did not press her further when she divulged more than intended. It was clear from the fire within his gaze that he not only understood the gravity of her warning, but also the extent of how far those consequences would extend. The life of every surviving marine, including Trenton, would be forfeit. The only question was who would die first: Trenton or Grace? That was an answer she had no intention of ever ascertaining. Half a step forward did she take as he drew her nearer, her own arms wrapping about him in turn. Were they somewhere more private, she might have permitted herself to collapse against him yet she refrained from doing so, knowing that even in the sheltered alcove of the rose garden, there was always someone watching. Intentionally or otherwise.

Eyes squeezed shut, she rubbed her left hand up and down his back while her right found the nape of his neck as he whispered to her. Shaking her head gently, she replied, "You owe me nothing."

If anything, it was she who was indebted to him for the heartache she caused, for robbing them of their future together, for waiting so long to say anything. Leaning her cheek against his, she stilled as his next syllables caressed her ear, and when he drew back, cerulean hues searched emerald, seeking the unspoken meaning behind his words. It was far too late. Decades of a lifetime had already passed and neither of them possessed the ability to transcend time. For a Marine to utter such words almost surely meant impending doom was afoot. Surely he didn't mean to 'take care' of her husband? She could manage that on her own.

Fresh tears welled within cerulean hues as he whispered that he was home and the nightmare was over. Shaking her head softly, she kissed his palm and smiled solemnly at him. While he had been home for a while, the irony of it all was that both of their homes had been burnt to ash and the nightmare was far from over. Brow furrowed slightly, she caught the flicker of a desire, a thought of importance within his gaze, one that was almost immediately washed away by emotion.

"What is it?"

Scarcely had the words left her lips when the sound of a phone vibrating broke their spell that held them rapt, reminding them both that there was a world out there beyond this moment in time and space with one another. Irritation and concern flickered across his features as he withdrew to answer the device. Exhaling softly, she turned her own thoughts inward as he took the call...

-----

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlv2NxO0qVU

The seat belt tightened across her torso and waist as the vehicle came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road, cerulean hues focused upon the man seated to her left as she urged him to turn around. To her relief, he heeded her words and spun the car about, racing towards Haunted Pass Road and turning East a few miles south of the Hill. Eyes closed, Grace focused her attention on keeping her breathing even and calm despite the racing pulse of her heartbeat. It was one thing to dream of war and something else entirely to be on the frontlines.

She exhaled slowly with relief and offered him a solemn nod of acknowledgement as Trent told her to stay close to him. That she could do. In fact that was what she had intended to do all along. Grace was not content to sit in the car or be left behind. Not when she could feel the darkness so close. It had been a mistake all those long years ago to remain at home while Trenton and his brothers marched upon the footsteps of the enemy's door. What difference it would have made had she been there in the flesh and not merely in spirit, she did not know. But now that the Enemy had found its way to their doorway and threatened their way of life once more, she would not run nor would she hide. Whatever fortresses they had built, she would tear them apart, brick by brick.

The distant sound of weapons firing and bullets ricocheting off the Humbees to either side of their vehicle went seemingly unnoticed. Unflinching, her gaze was fixated on the satellite station ahead wherein she could feel the growing darkness fading. Time was running out. They needed to move faster. Jaw clenched, her right hand grasped the Desert Eagle while her left rested on the release button for her seatbelt as the vehicle slowed. Fingers pressed down on the release button and Grace had already popped open her door as Trenton shifted the vehicle into Park. Swiftly, she exited and started towards the compound, stopped by two men who were joined momentarily by Trenton. Taking the offered plate carrier vest, she quickly slipped it on and frowned at the unfamiliar and uncomfortable weight.

She nearly started forward when he snagged her free hand and drew her backwards. Reluctantly, Grace went with him, sapphire hues still fixated on the station where she instinctively knew that they had missed their chance. The darkness that had drawn her here had nearly vanished altogether so that all she could feel was the lingering essence and touch of its presence. Together, hand in hand, they rushed in behind the others who neutralized the opposing forces within. Within the main corridor where the Enemy had stood just minutes prior, her eyes widened slightly to find the familiar features of Father Alexander Orton.

What was his purpose and reasoning for being here? Was he consorting with the very evil and darkness that had not only claimed the lives of millions but continued to plague the living?

Grace levied a look of wary curiosity when their eyes met, however briefly. It seemed there was much about Middletown's Pastor she had been ignorant and blind to. That was something she would remedy imminently. The spell that bound her was broken a few moments later as Trenton leveled his Colt Python at the man, finger on the trigger, and told him that it was over. Her gaze flickered between the two men as Alex cautioned the other against spilling innocent blood.

"Trent," she softly said his name, fingers tightening slightly about his own as she attempted to soothe and placate him. Before she could say more, someone in a room to the right announced that they had found Leo and at the same time, another panicked voice erupted from the right, calling for a crash cart. Sapphire hues turned to the left where, between the rushing bodies of doctors, nurses, and soldiers, she thought she glimpsed the form of Mai. Inexplicably drawn towards the young woman, she nearly started to the room on the left when she was instead pulled to the right, towards Leo's room. Several paces in, the warmth of Trenton's hand left hers as he rushed to his son's bedside. Miraculously, Leo had awoken from his coma and was curiously bound to the bed upon which he laid, his gaze studiously focused not on his father, but on the room beyond, across the hallway from where they had just come from.

Time seemed to slow. Voices grew distant and muffled. The hair at the nape of her neck rose, her sixth sense warning that they were on the cusp of something. Slowly, she turned back towards the hallway where lights flickered and dimmed, bodies lifted from their feet and flung as though struck by a powerful shockwave. One that threatened to do the same to her. Raising her left hand, palm facing away, she felt the energy flow around her, as though she were a rock in the river. Those directly behind her, which included Trenton and Leo, were protected from the blast, while those along the sides of the room were pushed back several steps.

Peripherally, she was aware of Alex yelling Mai's name, fighting to push his way towards the other room. Crossing the threshold, Grace moved into Mai's room as Alex was dropped to the ground. Neither the flickering lights nor dust in the air seemed to bother her as she easily stepped over the bodies of others. As the red emergency lights flickered on, her gaze swept over the young woman's as she laid there, ragged and wheezing breaths drawn between trembling lips. Like Leo, Mai was also restrained.

Unresponsive was she to any who called out her name. Changing the Desert Eagle from her right hand to her left, she raised her right over the young woman's body as lids drifted close. Hand hovering inches above, Grace felt the extent of her injuries without touching her. Multiple ribs were broken and had punctured several organs. Both of her arms had been broken as well. In addition to a concussion, her skull had been fractured as well. Her spirit was rapidly fading. By the time help arrived, it would be too late.

Setting the gun down atop the bed, she settled her right hand atop Mai's breast bone and her left atop her forehead. Much as she had done weeks ago for her brother, so again she did now for the young woman beneath her touch. Face tilted skyward, Grace opened herself to the light, invited it into her, and gently pushed it into Mai. Soundlessly, her lips moved as she sought to save the young woman. Unlike her efforts with Brad where he seemed to convulse and cry out in pain, Mai relaxed and sighed softly, her breathing evening out. Nearly a full minute had elapsed, the light that had collected about Grace and flowing into Mai, began to dim. The elder woman swaying on her feet as exhaustion touched her. Blinking open sapphire hues, she gazed at the blonde haired woman who now looked up at her. Though she had not completely healed Mai from her injuries, the most severe and life threatening ones had been tended to. Bones would still need to be set and mended but the immediate danger had passed.

Her left hand moved from brow to cheek, Grace leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to Mai's forehead. Smiling faintly, she straightened as darkness ate away at the edge of her vision. Once more, she had spent too much energy. Feeling faint and knowing she had but seconds to spare, she called out his name in warning.

"Trent..."

In the blink of an eye, she went from wavering on her feet at Mai's bedside to falling...



»»—ꭆıɢʜɴɘas—➤

 

Feb 10th 2023 - 7:57 PM

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[ Trenton, Trevor ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3QL7B5sgI0

Even now, after everything they had endured, he could still only see her as a child. Helpless. Naïve. She was neither of those things. Hadn't been for a long time. Tara lifted her chin free from his finger and took a defiant step back, emerald hues narrowed at her father as he attempted to caution and sway her from her course once more.

"I know you're scared Dad. We are too. But come on! Can't you see that keeping us in the dark and not including us is hurting and not helping?"

She paused briefly, emerald hues searching emerald hues for any sign that she was finally getting through to him.

"You trained us, our entire lives to fight. If not now, then when? When you die? When Beda dies? When everyone we love and care about is dead? What was the point of all those drills if you're just going to constantly try to keep us out of it?"

Trembling, Tara shook her head at him, blinking away the tears that threatened to fall once again.

"Leo told me not to come to you. With any of this." Pointedly, she lowered her gaze to the box he had extricated from her and forbade her from mentioning it ever again. When she met his gaze again, her own had grown cold, distant, and beneath it all...heartbroken. "But I did anyway. I trusted you to work with me. That you would see, respect, and treat me like an adult."

When he took another step towards her and attempted to reach out to her again, she took several purposeful steps backwards and away from him, shaking her head at him. Though her voice was firm and resolute, it was riddled with bitterness.

"But you win, Dad. Like always. This box and everything inside it doesn't exist and we never had this conversation. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to visit my brother in the hospital before I get back to work."

-----

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icIOlCdj198

Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held fast.
Dragged up the winding stair, into the dismal den,
Within the little parlour – but she ne'er came out again!


Three long, wretched weeks. That's how long that accursed Elven Witch had trapped her within that room carved of stone. Robbing and depriving her of the bountiful feast of starlight. Now the darkness hungered for far more than the light.

What good fortune it was for her when not one but two lonely Elves wandered into her cave this chilly evening. While the first was unfamiliar to her, she knew well of the second: Tara Forrest. A.K.A: Tauriel, the Woodland Princess. How fortuitous indeed! Surely her daughter wouldn't mind sharing such a snack.

Along the ceiling and walls, skirted her lesser children. Through their eyes, she saw the pair cautiously creep further into the cave, waving flashlights to and fro as though searching for something. The first pushed further inward while the Princess lingered near the entry. Ruby lips curled with pleasure, the Spider knowing how to seize an opportunity when one presented itself.

From the ceiling descended one of her children, falling to land on the first's shoulder as he searched the darkness. Crawling to his neck, careful not to touch his skin, the silver dollar sized spider sank venomous fangs into pale flesh. The hand that moved to squash her child came far too late as he soundlessly dropped to the ground a few moments later, flashlight and weapon trapped beneath his weight. Eager as she was to move right in, she waited for the Princess to come searching for her kith.

She didn't have to wait long at all. Exhaling softly, she watched as Tara knelt beside Harold and through the eyes of another one of her children, relished in the sensation of sinking her fangs into the young woman's neck. As was to be expected, the Princess offered more of a fight having experienced this venom several times before. Not nearly as often as her Prince brother. All the same, she too succumbed to the venom's paralysis effects. It was then she stepped forward, coming to a stop just a few feet away from the fallen Elves.

"Well, well," she crooned, a wide smile lifting the corners of her lips. "What an unfortunate situation you seem to find yourselves in."

The chittering of her children gave her pause and she frowned. It seemed that a third would be joining them shortly. Sighing softly with impatience, she retreated back the way she had come, from deeper in the cave where she would remain out of sight. Seconds ticked away into minutes and before long, she heard the low, gruff voice of another. Sniffing the air, she wrinkled her nose with disgust. A Beorning. No no. This wouldn't do at all.

Three more of her children descended from the ceiling, each landing on his shoulders as he knelt to lift the Princess from the ground. Three pairs of venomous fangs sank into flesh and only after he had begun to teeter and wobble on his feet, vision wavering, did she re-emerge.

"I'm afraid you won't be taking her anywhere."

Erring on the side of caution, she came to a stop several feet away, well outside his reach just in case the venom took longer to affect him. Beornings were few and far between these days. Their resilience after all they had endured was evidence enough for her to not underestimate him.

"These two are now mine. You can tell her father that should he wish to see either of them alive again, then he and his son will surrender themselves to me within two days."

Where? She didn't say. She had eyes everywhere and would be watching them both closely. Where there was a will, there was a way. They could figure out how to find her. Or they wouldn't. It didn't much matter to her. One way or another, she would have her vengeance.

Ungoliant waited for the Beorning's head to lull to the side and for his breathing to even out before moving in to lift Tara Forrest from the ground. As she did so, she spoke to the second who joined her from the depths of the cave.

"Be a dear and grab him for me, will you?"

"Of course, Mother," Shelob replied obediently, stooping to draw Harold's unconscious form over her shoulders.

The two women walked deeper into the cave, leaving Trevor's unconscious form behind. When he awoke or when others arrived to find him, whichever came first, there would be no trace nor trail for them to follow. Endless were the tunnels of this cave with numerous exits throughout Middletown.


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