Ellida (39 page)

I didn’t want those people at Frances
house—whoever they were—to know I’d figured out they were taking me
to Copper Ridge. Not until Henry was safely out of my room.

Heather Kincaid continued with her charade.
“Just five minutes ago. She’s bleeding heavily. Please hurry! What
can I do?”

“Make her lay down. Stay with her, I’m on my
way,” I said and disconnected the line.

I glanced at the man beside the door. By that
time I’d realized what was going on. He was looking directly at me
so I gave up the idea of pressing the speed dial button to reach
Jack or Ahmed.

The kidnapping had been carefully planned.
Frances’s baby was probably fine, but she might not be. Heather’s
call had come from Frances’s home phone.

“Are you ready, Doctor Mohegan?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

I turned to Henry, who stiffly sat in his
chair, his eyes moving back and forth from “his Uncle” to me.

“Henry,” I said to him, “you need to go to
your room now.”

“I’m going… Dr. Mohegan, I’m almost
recovered, right? Can my Uncle bring me ice cream tomorrow?”

My heart stopped. Henry had realized this man
wasn’t his Uncle Mike! Was he was trying to warn me now? Smart,
brave little boy!

“Sure thing,” I said, keeping my voice
neutral. “Now go to your room and stay there. That’s an order,
young man.”

“A big vanilla-chocolate ice cream with
peanuts, Uncle,” he carried on. “My favorite.”

God! A lick of that ice cream would send him
right into anaphylactic shock!

“Ice cream it is, kiddo,” ‘Mike’ said. “I’ll
pick it up after my shift and bring it to you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I moved a step forward, shielding Henry from
the man’s look. I opened my emergency kit, pretending to check its
content.

I found Henry’s eyes, wide open and round as
two green gumballs. I made a slow, discreet shake with my head. No.
Don’t try anything
, I mouthed.

Henry blinked several times and swallowed
hard. “Well, okay then. See you in the morning, Dr. Mohegan,” he
said and slid out of the chair. “Good night, Uncle.”

“Good night, Henry,” the man managed quite a
convincing smile as Henry left for his room. “I’ll come to see you
tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget the ice-cream, Uncle.”

I took a deep breath, hoping that Henry would
be safer here than with me as a hostage.

So Seth would get me, after all, in spite of
all those safety measures and precautions, a literal house arrest,
with my various guards and protectors. In spite of the rising panic
in my head, I almost smiled. No matter how well he’d planned my
kidnapping he couldn’t predict every detail, such as a six-year old
prodigy and his hunch that the moron impersonating his uncle didn’t
have a clue about his allergies. Dear God, keep the boy safe!

“You won’t need that, Doc,” the
above-mentioned moron said when I reached for my phone. “Jack isn’t
coming to the rescue. Every single phone in Red Cliffs, including
Jack’s, is dead at the moment.”

“Jack will be looking for me before you can
say ‘Jack Robinson’.”

“Huh? Jack who?” he asked with an almost
comical expression. “Well, we’re counting on that. We’ll be ready.
In case you’re wondering, Deputy Kowalski is busy with a minor road
accident in another part of town, and your Turk watchdog is lying
unconscious in his office. Aren’t you eager to see your mother?
Seth’s going to get rid of her soon, right after your wedding.
Don’t miss the chance to say goodbye to her. In other words, don’t
get any ideas about escaping.”

An invisible, cold hand squeezed my heart.
They had my mother! How could we have underestimated our enemy so
grossly?

I took a deep breath. It wasn’t a good time
to be paralyzed with fear. Darius was there. Jack would soon storm
Copper Ridge with his troops, Liv’s Tel-Urughs, wizards, Ellida
Morgaine. Everything would be fine… Everything would be fine…

Oh God, please, let everything be fine!

I breathed in and out several times until my
heart slowed down. There was no way back. The game had started, and
for a moment I almost felt relief. Red Cliffs’ Commander-in-Chief
was going to war, although not on a white horse.

Not to mention her army was nowhere to be
seen.

I turned to my kidnapper as we walked me
toward the ambulance. “Just tell me if Frances Colby’s okay,” I
said.

“Oh, she’s fine, I mean her baby and all. But
here we have someone else who wants to meet you. We took him with
us to secure Mrs. Colby’s and your cooperation.” He opened the rear
loading doors and pushed me in. “Here she comes, Bill.”

A young paramedic I’d never seen before held
Graeme Colby in his arms. “Shit!” I cursed quietly and jumped in.
“It’s going to be fine, Graeme.” I sat on the floor and held out my
arms. “Give me the boy,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

“He’s okay, Astrid,” the paramedic said.
“He’s sleeping now. Leave him here with me. Make yourself
comfortable, as much as you can under the circumstances.”

I looked at him and smiled, and a twenty-year
old blond, blue-eyed Ahmed smiled back. “Couldn’t call you,” he
whispered. “The phones aren’t working.”

I nodded.

“Henry,” I mouthed.

Ahmed lifted one eyebrow.

“He figured it out,” he read from my lips.
“Oh, God, they won’t hurt Henry, will they?”

“He’s a witty child. He knows what’s going on
and he’ll be careful, Astrid. Besides, they don’t want unnecessary
complications. Don’t panic.”

I made a movement with my head toward
Graeme.

“He’s fine,” Ahmed said quietly.

I put my finger over my lips. “Don’t talk,” I
mimicked.

“They are humans. They can’t hear us if we
talk quietly.”

“Humans? Oh, God! Nobody expected humans to
be involved in Seth’s plans!”

“Nobody anticipated it. Our mistake. What
happened here?”

I filled him in with the details of my last
fifteen minutes. “They’re keeping my mother prisoner,” I said
desperately. “Seth probably knows she’s betrayed him.”

“Not necessarily. She might be bait, or they
might be bluffing. She’s smart, Astrid; she knows how to protect
herself. Your kidnappers, these two at the front and ten more in
three cars behind us, they are all humans.” He motioned toward the
sleeping child in his lap. “It’d be a piece of cake to take them
down if they hadn’t taken Frances and Rowena.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Why didn’t we think about
humans?”

“We didn’t, and yet humans have been Seth’s
key players. Smart move, I’ll give Seth that. That’s why we didn’t
notice anything unusual. They were able to sneak into town easily.
Who’d notice them in a town full of human tourists? Who knows how
long and how many of them were here, spying on us.”

“Seth’s Trojan Horse,” I said bitterly.

“Look at those three in the ambulance.
Somebody completely changed their appearance and scent. That’s
advanced magic, Astrid.”

“Probably Heather, Ahmed. Maybe she
volunteered, maybe they forced her, we don’t know.”

He let out a frustrated breath. “We’ve been
keeping an eye on her. But we thought her skills were minor.”

“Apparently, she’s advanced, and Seth took
advantage of it. It’s not that difficult to master black magic, you
know. She made that phoney call, pretending to be Peyton, but I
can’t say if she was a willing participant or not. Oh, I hope
Peyton’s all right!”

“She’ll be all right, Astrid. Everything will
be fine.”

“I hope so. Where’s
Bill
, by the
way?”

“In my office, unconscious. He tried to stab
me with a tranquilizer. I didn’t use it on him, there was enough in
the syringe to kill a horse. I knocked him out. He’s going to have
a nasty headache for at least a week. Astrid, sooner or later,
somebody will look for me, or you, and Jack will be in Copper Ridge
in no time.”

“How long will it take them?”

“After they figure out we’re missing, two to
three hours at most. We’ve been ready for a long time.”

“Funny, we were expecting problems with
Seth’s vampires and stray werewolves.”

“We’ll get our chance to deal with all of
them, don’t worry. Now it’s clear. Remember when Darius said how
well they behaved? Of course they did! I bet half of those
‘vampires’ are humans. Controlling humans is easier than keeping
rogue vampires on a leash.”

I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “Conquer
your fear and you’ll conquer your enemy,” I murmured. “They are
ready for us, Ahmed.”

Ahmed smirked. “They won’t know what hit
them.”

The genuine confidence in his voice stopped a
bubble of hysteria rising in my throat.

GRAEME WOKE up and started crying. Ahmed
brushed away his tears.

“I want to go home,” Graeme sobbed. “I want
to see my mom.”

“You will, buddy. I promise. Try to sleep a
little bit more.” He whispered something into the boy’s ear, and he
fell asleep again.

“How many people do you think they left in
the Clinic?”

“I saw six, but there must be more. I guess
they’re werewolves and vampires. It’s hard to tell, because their
scent has been modified. I expect them to be gone by now.”

“What are we going to do when we get
there?”

Ahmed gave me an uneasy look. “I have no
idea. That depends on what we find. And whom. We have to buy some
time. Try not to make Seth angry. Stick close to Darius, if
possible. I’ll keep changing my appearance and stay close to
you.”

His hand reached out and stroked my cheek.
“Astrid, it’s going to be just the two of us for a while, and
Darius, but I’ll do anything to protect you. In return, you’ll
promise me not to do anything stupid, like trying to fight
them.”

My arms instinctively closed around my belly.
“I promise,” I whispered and swallowed tears. “Please don’t get
killed, Ahmed.”

He smiled reassuringly. “I don’t intend to,
Ellida. Fate has grand plans for me.”

After less than one hour on the road, the
ambulance stopped. We’d arrived at Copper Ridge.

THE MOMENT this man had stepped into Dr.
Mohegan’s office, Henry Flanagan knew something was wrong.

First, this
Mike
hadn’t moved his eyes
from Dr. Mohegan, something Mike would’ve never done. Second,
although he did smell like Mike, looked like Mike and wore the same
uniform as Mike, his gun was stuck in the holster on his
right
side, and Mike was left handed and wore it on his left
side. Third, this cheat hadn’t been surprised when Henry had called
him ‘Uncle’, which was something Henry never ever did. If Mike had
heard Henry calling him ‘Uncle’, he would have said, “Do you have a
fever,
nephew
? Why are you calling me Uncle all of a
sudden?” or something like that. And fourth and most importantly,
he and Mike hadn’t done their secret handshake.

At that moment Henry had realized that their
beloved Ellida was in mortal danger and that only he, Henry
Flanagan, could save her. He had to somehow let her know he knew
what was going on, and that she could count on him. He started
thinking really hard and came up with the ice cream idea. This
impostor didn’t blink when Henry asked him to bring him chocolate
ice cream with peanuts. Everyone in Red Cliffs knew Henry could eat
only homemade sorbets because of his allergies.

Henry noticed the Ellida’s face had turned
very pale.
Don’t try anything
, he read from her lips.
Fortunately, that was a
warning
, not an
order
. She
had only ordered him to
stay
in his room, hadn’t she?
Otherwise, it’d be tricky to find a way to help the Ellida without
disobeying her orders. Not impossible, of course, but definitely
tricky.

Unfortunately, a nurse he had never seen
before came to his room after him, and pretending to fix his
pajamas, searched his pockets for a phone, secret communication
devices and his magic wand. After she checked the windows she left
the room, locking the door behind her.

As soon as he was alone, Henry rushed to the
windows. They seemed locked. No matter how hard he tried, the latch
wouldn’t budge. Opening the window wouldn’t do any good anyway,
except maybe if he could yell for help. His room was on the fifth
floor, and the outside windowsill looked too narrow to walk on.

Henry grabbed a chair that stood beside his
bed and hurled it into the window.

Nothing happened.

He could make a fire, perhaps. That would
activate the sprinklers and alert the hospital staff. Henry knew
theoretically how to make fire in the wilderness, even though his
parents never let him join the Scouts—he was also allergic to
grass, trees and flowers.

Unfortunately, the Clinic’s recovery wing was
a far cry from the wilderness, so fire was out of the question.

He sat on his bed and put his head between
his hands. He had to do something. His forehead wrinkled. He
glanced at the wall clock. Those evil people who’d kidnapped their
Ellida would reach Copper Ridge soon.

His ‘ice cream trap’ had been a smart idea.
He had warned the Ellida they were dealing with a dangerous
individual. Now how to warn others that Ellida was in danger?

Yes! Code Blue! He’d seen it once on TV. He
had to raise a Code Blue.

But how?

There was a way, but could he try it? Was it
too risky?

He had to; there was no time for anything
else.

He walked to the foot of his bed and removed
the chart with his surgery information hanging there. It listed all
his known allergies, including allergy to dairy products. He pushed
it under the mattress. It wasn’t likely that the nurse who wasn’t a
nurse would check his medical history, but better safe than
sorry.

He sat on his bed and pressed the call button
that hung on the bedside. After a minute, the nurse who wasn’t a
nurse came in.