Another Deception (23 page)

“Oh, he has been summoned by
his
master!”

“His master?
What are you saying? There is someone above this…this devil?”

“I think so, for sometimes he disappears like this, instantly and without warning and when he returns, he is fearsome! There will not be much time…”

     Jacks stopped her. He had no idea if she could be trusted but throwing caution aside, he gambled.

“Listen, I am not sure if I should, but I am going to tell you anyway…what is your name?”

“Jessie, never mind that…!”

“Jessie, I am not going anywhere until I find who I am looking for, so you may as well calm yourself. Do you know if there is a woman, who could possibly be my mother, kept here? She would have part of her little finger missing…I do not know which hand…”

     To his consternation, the woman sat down and started crying.

“Look, I did not mean to make you cry. You said there is little time and I just need your help. That is all. Can’t you help me, please?”

     She looked up at him.

“You have no idea do you?”

“No, no, I only want to help this woman. I want to get her away from him! I have proof that there is a woman who is my birth mother and he has her. I want…need to find her. Won’t you help me?”

     She grabbed his arm.

“Come with me, but we must hurry. He is never gone for very long and he appears as quickly as he goes.”

     She pulled him along a corridor until stopping in front of a door.

“I was trying to tell you back there but you would not stop talking! The woman’s name is Amelia; Millie for short and yes she is your birth mother…she is also
my
mother.”

     She kept talking as she pulled a key from her pocket.

“No, there is no time for talk. You must take her and go. Go quickly and you will escape.”

“What about you? I can’t leave you here!”

“You have no choice. I will not go with you. I have my reasons.”

       Jacks balked.

“No, I tell you. I will not leave you here with that…that…whatever he is! You are coming with us. How are we supposed to get off this island anyway? I have a passport but...”

     Before he could finish, she swung the door open to reveal a lone woman sitting near the window. She turned as they came into the room but then turned back to looking out the window with a blank look on her face. Jessie never slowed down, but taking a small bag from the closet, she began to throw some things in, talking all the while. Jacks went over to the woman and knelt beside her in awe. She was so familiar but surely he could not remember her from the last he must have seen her. She smiled at him, and with her good hand touched his face and looked directly into his eyes. Only for a moment before gazing, back out the window. He stood. He had seen the bandaged hand and was feeling a fierce anger coming on. Time enough for emotions later, for now he had to get her away from the monster, Asa.

“What can I do to help?”

“I am only packing what is absolutely necessary and we do have passports as we travel often. She will be like this until the drugs wear off. He has kept her drugged for forty years but recently doubled the dose, so it may take some time.”

     She pulled a drawer open and took something out.

“Here they both are. Take this one, no, not mine. I will keep it with me, but no worry. If all goes well, I will meet you in Athens. There is no more time to argue. Take her, take this, and go!”

     Jacks tried several times to say something but she kept talking, giving him no chance to oppose her. He took a good look at this woman who had just told him that she was his sister and saw that it very well could be true. She was like him, yet different. She pulled her mother up from her chair and handed her to him. It was the eyes, he decided. It was more than the fact that her eyes looked like his.
There was something he could not put his finger on,
but he felt it was very important. His mind was whirling as he held his mother close and followed Jessie. He had seen both these women before, he was sure of it.

“Hurry!
We have to hurry! The guard could come stop us, hurry! We are lucky the maid and gardener are not here.”

     She took them to a door close to the kitchen, which when opened revealed a stair going down. She shoved him toward the stairs and hustled them all the
way
down, where there was a covered boat dock. A powerboat was close by and Jessie grabbed her mother in a hug, while Millie looked at her and smiled very docile like, allowing Jacks to put her over into the boat.

“Mother, you will be safe with Jacks and I will see you both real soon! I promise!”

     Turning to Jacks, she warned him.

“Stop for nothing or anyone. When you come out at the cove, take a right and keep going until you see the town. You will recognize the harbor from your sail yesterday. Leave the boat and go ashore. Take the first taxi you see and go straight to the airport. It is small, but there is a plane for Athens every hour on the half hour. You should not have to wait long for one to leave. You will not need passports until Athens. Book the first flight out of there to anywhere. You do have money?”

     For the first time, she gave him a chance to respond but barely, for when he nodded, he started to say he also had credit cards but she cut him off.

“Only use credit cards in an emergency. Of course, he will know where you are going but no need to make it easier for him to stop you. Once you are away his power is void and I have a feeling he will not come looking for you again.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because now he has the attention of Lucifer himself and he has been warned too many times about personal vendettas. He is a very high-ranking general, but no one is indispensable. Now go, and Jacks?”

     She reached up and hugged him.

“We have waited a long time for this. Please be careful and take care of our mother!”

    Without waiting, she turned and ran up the stairs, looking back before disappearing out of sight to watch as the boat sped away. Then she ran as fast as she could to the fourth story of the house. If she were lucky, there would be enough time. There was only one guard posted and she had managed to slip something into a cream cake she knew he was fond of, and he was fast asleep.

     God help her if it was too soon, for then her life would be worth nothing.

     By the time Jacks landed the boat at the harbor of Chios, he remembered where it was that he had seen the two women. It was at the stone house back in Jersey. He remembered thinking how strange they both acted and now he knew why.

     He was gentle as he led Millie to where he could flag a taxi. He stared at her as she sat next to him in the car, looking ahead and smiling, without a care.

     He thought she must be at least sixty but the years had been kind to her, for she was still above average as far as looks went. Her very dark hair was pulled back and hung below her shoulders and had streaks of grey sprinkled through it. He studied her oval face thinking that he must have looked upon it a thousand times before he
was taken
to the orphanage. He wondered if she were the one who left him there or if it had been someone else. Not that it mattered but he just wondered. He was thinking,
I have a mother and a sister too,
and it made him smile.

    It was easy once they made it to the airport. Jacks had enough cash to buy the two tickets to Athens and there was only ten minutes before the next plane would leave so he hurried and they
were seated
just in time for takeoff.

    He kept looking at Millie as if she may disappear and she would just smile at him. The flight was only forty-five minutes long and Jacks tried talking to Millie but her response was with few words spoken.

There was once a ‘no thank you’ to the flight attendant and then once she touched his face, as before at the house and for a fleeting moment, he thought she was going to say something, but she did not.

      She fell asleep before the plane landed and Jacks had to awaken her for them to get off. She looked at him when he helped her out of her seat and said,

“You are such a nice man, thank you.”

     It was the first full sentence she had spoken and Jacks felt encouraged. When they were at the ticket counter, she again said,

“You really are a nice man. What is your name?”

     Jacks almost choked when the couple next to them in line gave them a funny look, but he whispered,

“Alzheimer's”

     They then smiled and nodded in sympathy, while Jacks gently said to Millie,

“My name is
Jacks,
of course you would not remember me.”

     Silently he added
I am your son
.

     Millie frowned and closed her eyes. Jacks kept a tight grip on her as he bought tickets to London. He had checked and there was a flight within the next half hour. It was time enough to take Millie for something to drink and when she politely asked for a restroom, he found one close by and stood outside the door waiting for her.

     He kept watching for Jessie, but when time came to board for London there was no sign of her. He could only hope and pray she got away. She seemed very proficient and somehow he felt confident that she did.

     He was right, for as the announcement came to board the plane for the flight to London, she caught up with them almost breathless. She was not alone, for she had a child with her. A young girl, clinging close to her, who if Jacks had to guess, was about twelve or maybe fourteen years
old
.

“We barely made the next plane out of Chios!”

    
Jacks was
curious.

“How did you know this is the flight we took?”

     Jessie laughed.

“Easy, I called from my cell and asked to be seated with my family and I was hoping to be right about London but there were only two choices, London or Spain. I took a chance you would prefer to land at an
English speaking
airport. Oh, and this is my daughter, Abby. Say hi to your Uncle Jacks, Abby.”

     The girl barely said the word,

“Hi.”

“Hello Abby, this is such a nice surprise! In one day, I acquire a mother, sister and a niece! It is almost more than I can process.”

     Turning his attention to Jessie, he asked,

“We never talked about what we would do when we got away from…him. Do you have any plans?”

     Jessie handed the ticket agent their boarding passes before responding and as they walked down the ramp to the plane, she told him that they never thought they would need any plans.

“We have been with Asa, or as you now call him, Garrett, since before you were born.”

     She sighed and waited until they had all taken seats before she said anything more. When she did, Jacks had to wonder if he had not been the luckier of the two after all.    

     It was a long flight to New York and there was much conversation between Jacks and Jessie. She described their mother’s life of being not much more than personal servant to Asa.

“I don’t understand. How could he force her into complying with his wishes?”

     Jessie kept checking to make sure Abby and Millie were still sleeping before continuing.

“Our father Glen Jackson was an only son to the man you knew as Asa. Only, he was not truly Asa, after that thing took over his body. You see
Jacks,
there is a whole other world right here, right now, that most are not aware of. Many entities roam the Earth in search of a physical body to inhabit for they have none of their own. These things worship Lucifer as their god and they obey him. The one who took over Asa was…is rather, very high-ranking and one of the ten horns of power set in line with the age we are living in. When it was time, he chose Asa for his next host I guess you could say. Poor man never knew what happened it was so fast. Anyway, our father knew something was not right and fought to rid his father of this thing. They ended up killing him, but this infuriated Asa for some reason he was important to him. He took my mother, who was expecting you and me who was only a baby
myself
, and my mother has been kept medicated all these years, so she is seldom lucid.”

     Jacks interrupted her,

“Wait a minute. You could have left and got help for our mother once you were old enough to know these things, why didn’t you?”

     Jessie turned her head away from him for she had no desire to see his disgust when she said,

“Because I loved him.”

     There. She said
the words and how she wished they were not true
.

“Not like you may think, but he was my grandfather and the only father I ever knew. I never knew any of this other stuff until just before I was pregnant with Abby. He sent me to the finest schools and I had anything I wanted. I saw nothing wrong with the picture. As far as I knew, he took us in after our father died and did us a favor. Mother was always so ill and medicated when I was home and I was happy he was there to handle it. I never even remembered you being born. Sometimes I think I may have dreamed about you but it is all so surreal.”