Birth of Jaiden (21 page)

“
What in the world was
that all about?” Jeremiah grumbled.

Alex thought it totally
weird how everyone of them actually sat in silence while they
waited for her to come back. When she did return, she held Isabella
by the hand and pulled her into the room.

“
Deanna
,” Victoria chastised. “This is
a
meeting
!”

“
No, it’s ok,” Deanna
explained. “Isabella, she can find him.” She waved her free hand
toward Isabella.

“
What
?” Isabella stared at Deanna a wide
eyed look, indicating she thought Deanna had lost her
mind.

“
Why does everyone always look
at me like that? Look, Isabella can teleport large objects, she
is
very
good at it.”

“
Find who?” Isabella
asked. “Wait. Wait a minute, do you want me to try to move a person
who I have never met?”

“
Yes,” Deanna said
simply.

“
I can’t do
it.”

“
Yes
, you can.”

“
Deanna, I have no idea
what this guy looks like, I don’t know where he’s at and, most
importantly, it can be very dangerous when it comes to moving
people.”

“
So what.” Deanna threw her
hands in the air. “He’s in danger
now
.”

Isabella sighed. “I am not
telepathic. There is simply no way I can do this.”

Jeremiah stood while
everyone else watched the conversation intently. “Yes,” he said, “I
think it can be done.”

“
What?” Isabella was
shocked.

“
Tell us how,” Deanna
ordered.

“
Well, those of us who
know Stewart can think of him, anything about him. Then, we would
channel it to Isabella through touch and when she gets it into her
own mind, she can try to teleport him.”

“
Look.” Isabella looked really
worried. “Depending on how far he has to go, even if this does
work, it could
kill
him.”

“
Malcolm could kill him,”
Damion stated flatly.

Deanna nodded in
agreement. “It’s worth a shot.”

Reluctantly, Isabella
finally agreed. “All right, I’ll try, but remember, I don’t have a
clue if this will work.”

“
Everything will be ok,”
Deanna assured her.

“
I need to get Jaiden; we can’t
leave her out there too long.” Isabella left the room and returned
a moment later, rolling the basinet in front of her. Jaiden
was
still
asleep. Once Isabella had parked the bassinet in a corner
of the room and took the chair Deanna had ready for her, Alex
stood.

“
Ok then, let’s give this
a try.” He moved to the chair beside Isabella. “The first thing we
need to do is figure out who is going to channel
Stewart.”

“
I’ll do it,” Jeremiah
volunteered.

“
Ok. Then let’s get
started.” Deanna rubbed her hands together.

Isabella’s worried
expression remained frozen on her face as Jeremiah traded places
with Deanna and took Isabella’s soft hand into his callused one. He
closed his wrinkled eyes and began to concentrate. She closed her
eyes as well.

All were silent while they
waited for something to happen,
anything
, but nothing did. Minutes passed in
sluggish silence. Finally, Jeremiah opened his eyes. “I want to try
it with all of us together.”

“
Let’s all stand over
here.” Danielle had moved to an empty part of the room which was
large enough for them all to stand. “Everyone join hands.” She
extended her arms, hands palm up.

The group rearranged
themselves until they had formed a circle.

“
Now,” Jeremiah
instructed. “Everyone close your eyes and think of
Stewart.”

“
What do I think of?”
Isabella asked.

“
You will receive pictures
of him mentally through us. When we locate him, you will know it.
You will see everything we see.”

She nodded.
“Ok.”

Alex shut everyone else
out, closed his eyes and thought of Stewart. Of his face, his cold
blue eyes and the arrogance which lay inside of them. He thought of
the sarcasm in his voice and how he fought when there was no need
for a fight.

Other pictures began to
filter into Alex’s own. Memories that were not his, but those of
the others. He saw Stewart protecting a young girl who had been
assaulted on the streets, Stewart helping Jeremiah in his lab,
Stewart struggling with his magical self, and Stewart’s big smile
flashing brightly against darkness.

Alex suddenly felt like he was
the only one who thought of Stewart as a little punk. He had
completely missed the part of him of which others had memories. How
could he have not seen that part of him, the childlike man who
couldn’t control his magic? How had he missed the bravery displayed
for no reward but, simply, to be
good
?

Guilt found its way into
Alex, slithering in and almost blocking the slide show of memories
which flowed through so many minds at once. He kept trying to think
of only Stewart and not himself. It was more challenging to do so
than he had originally anticipated. He clung to his own memories of
Stewart. The little punk was the only Stewart he knew, and
therefore, they were the strongest ones which surfaced.

Suddenly, a very different
picture formed within the minds of the council. It was Stewart,
clothed only in jeans, chains hanging off his wrists and ankles
while he lay slumped against a stone wall.

Jeremiahs harsh voice rose
above the swirling wind of magic as a soft whisper.
“
Now
!”

Foreign words spilled from
Isabella’s lips and her voice seemed to resound through the room
like thunder. Then, real thunder roared in their ears and Isabella
whipped her hands out of Alex’s and Jeremiah’s.

Alex’s eyes popped open at
the disturbance, as did everyone else’s. Isabella threw her hands
into the air, palms facing upward, and then flung them sideways
toward the dining room table. Her fingers balled into her fists and
then opened again.

The entire room flashed
like the blink of the earth’s eye and Jaiden’s tiny screams pierced
through the magical atmosphere. Then, the long table broke in half
as something came crashing through it, sending splinters of wood
flying in every direction.

There, lying amidst the
rubble of what used to be Alex’s table, was Stewart.

23

Although Stewart was
unconscious, he was a living image of what they had seen in their
minds. A glance at the ceiling told Alex that it was still intact
but his table was totally demolished.

Damion and Jeremiah rushed
to Stewart’s side and Alex immediately turned to Isabella. She had
fallen to her knees, arms hanging loosely by her sides, and
hyperventilated.

“
Are you ok?” Deanna asked
Isabella softly while she squatted down in front of Isabella. She
reached out to touch her and recoiled as if she had been
shocked.

“
Isabella?” Alex said to
her.

“
Leave her be!” Victoria
ordered. “She has exerted herself. We should be lucky that it even
worked. She shouldn’t have been able to do that, yet; I didn’t
think her magic was strong enough.”

“
Well, apparently, it is
strong enough,” Stewart called out from among the remains of his
shattered table.

“
Don’t be snotty,
Stewart,” Danielle said firmly to him. “We need to talk to
you.”

Danielle had gone to
Jaiden’s bassinet and picked her up. She strode back and forth and
bounced Jaiden up and down in order to sooth her.

“
I figured you would,”
Stewart said as he picked himself up out of the rubble and dusted
himself off.

“
Alex,” Isabella
whispered. Her eyes were glazed, not focused on anything. She still
panted and tried to catch her breath. “Help me up.”

He reached down, grabbed
her underneath her arms and lifted her up. She sagged against him
because her legs wouldn’t hold her.

“
I did it?” she
asked?”

“
Yes, there he is.” Alex
pointed at Stewart.

“
Oh. Is he ok?”

“
Uh huh, he’s
fine.”

“
Could someone get me some
water?” she asked softly.

Deanna ran out of the room
and into the kitchen while Chris picked up one of the chairs out of
the pile of what was left of the table.

“
Here.” He put the chair
down next to Isabella.

“
Thanks.”

Alex helped her into the
chair just as Deanna returned with a huge glass of
water.

Stewart still had the
chains attached to his ankles and wrists, only they weren’t
attached to a stone wall. It was as if Isabella’s thoughts had
actually ripped them right out of the wall.

While Alex held the glass
to Isabella’s lips, he eyeballed Stewart from the corner of his
eye. His tanned body was covered in dirt and dried, black blood and
his skin could barley be seen through the scab which covered his
bare feet. His jeans were torn in several places and he had tons of
bruises but his eyes were still filled with the defiance of their
Stewart.

Stewart scanned the room,
taking a survey of who was present.

“
Well, let’s talk then.”
He flicked his eyes toward Isabella.

Isabella was recovering
quickly. “I’ll go.”

She stood up and went to
take Jaiden from Danielle.

“
Isabella…”

“
It
’
s ok, Alex. I understand.”

“
Are you sure?” he asked,
not entirely satisfied with her leaving the room.

“
Yes.” She nodded. “I’m
fine.”

She made a shhh sound and
bounced Jaiden a bit. Jaiden immediately softened her screams down
to a dull cry.

Alex nodded and watched
her leave with Jaiden. He knew she was still exhausted. A person
didn’t look like she did afterward and then just be ok all of a
sudden.

Stewart spoke first. “I
don’t know what has been going on but we don’t have time to go into
it. Malcolm is up to something very bad.”

“
What?” Damion
asked.

“
He’s running a
people
farm
.”

“
What?” Damion asked again
while everyone else only stared at him with confused
expressions.

“
Look
!” He thrust out his arms, revealing
the track marks where they had taken his blood. “They are fattening
all those people up like cattle.”

“
How many people?”
Danielle whispered.

“
Too many to count, and I doubt
I even saw a portion of them. They keep some of them for their own
personal blood banks, and the others, they are feasting on when
they are all plump and juicy. And
that’s
not all! He is breeding them.”

A deep silence fell over
the entire group.

“
This is bad,” Deanna
stated flatly.

Alex stepped forward so he
was in front of Stewart. “Stewart, why did Malcolm take
you?”

Stewart nodded and raised
an eyebrow. “Let’s get it all out in the open, huh.”

Alex mimicked his sarcasm.
“Yeah, let’s.”

“
It’s not at all what you
think.”

“
What
do
I think?”

“
You think I was going to
betray the council.”

“
Yes.”

“
Malcolm’s goons came and
took me one night…they took me to him and he asked me if I would…I
told him no. Then, when I wouldn’t give them information, they beat
the hell out of me and chained me to a wall with razor cuffs!” He
held up his wrists to emphasize his point.

Damion, who was all
business at the moment, asked, “Do you know where he
is?”

“
No, but I’m pretty sure
it isn’t too far. It’s definitely not out of the country. They put
me on a plane, a private plane, not an airline, and it didn’t take
more than a couple hours by my guess. I was blindfolded at the
time, though.”

Alex still wasn’t
satisfied with Stewart’s explanations. “How did you make yourself
so vulnerable to him?”

“
I didn’t! They took me
right off the street in front of a whole lot of people. Obviously,
I couldn’t use magic right there in the street. It’s like…we put
ourselves at risk simply by being around people at all.”

“
A
people
farm,” Chris mumbled under his breath. He
still seemed to be recovering from the shock of the news. Alex
didn’t blame him one bit; it was yet another mission they had to
fulfill.

“
We have to take care of
this,” Damion stated, his teeth clenched in anger.