Hope (Other World Protection Agency Book 1) (5 page)

Closing her eyes for a second she
imagined a deadly weapon that would defeat them. Opening the door way she
grabbed what was there. Closing it she gave one to Paul.

Looking down he sighed. “A
sword?”

She looked in her hand and yes,
there was a sword. It was not even a rapier, more like a broad sword. From the
looks of the blade, it was a dull broad sword. “I called for a deadly weapon
that would stop them.”

“Next time think kill them. Also
think machine guns, AKA’S and other things with more ammo.”

“Aww a lovers quarrel. Too bad
neither will be around to finish it.” They began to advance as one.

One came at Paul as the others
stopped and waited, as if they were going to enjoy a good show. The Demos
raised his hand and produced a lethal looking lightning bolt and flung it at Paul.
He raise that sword and managed to knock it out of the way. Then not knowing
what to do, he brought the sword around and caught the Demos on the arm, when
it moved a little too close to him. It cursed up a storm and jumped back. The
sword in his hand lit up as with fire. That’s when things got serious.

Tara and Paul, were charged. The
bolts of lightning came in fast and furious. Paul seemed to be all over the
place knocking them down while, she worked on getting small cuts on the Demos
while they were focused on him. They kept this up for what felt like hours, but
had to be only long minutes. Swords swinging, knocking bolts out of the air,
while small cuts were being given. The more they fought, the more they realized
no one was winning this battle.

“Looks like no one is dying
tonight.” Her grim smiled screamed I don’t like you.

“You are dying tonight human.”

“Not if you can’t do any better
than that.”

“You’re stronger than you should
be. Were you by chance in the Tea Room?”

“This one with the closed sign on
its door?”

They had stopped battling now. They
were just circling one another. One by one the Demos seemed to take a doorway
and disappear, until only the one from the hospital remained.

“Tara, once again you live. You
say you pray for death, but you fight when it comes for you. Would that be you
or what lives within you?”

“Raimel, you promise death yet
you never deliver. Mayhap you have a soft spot for me?”

He growled like an enraged animal.
“I will kill you yet and whoever has decided to help you.” With one look at her
he disappeared and reappeared behind Paul’s car. I have a present for you. It’s
more of a present for myself.” With one move he pulled the blonde hair perky
nurse up by her arm. Her limp body showed that she was unconscious as well as
tied up. “Wonder what I will do with her?” Then he simply disappeared.

“I bet you want to save her?”
Tara was upset, all she had to do was stay away from the hospital. Why couldn’t
she do that?

“Of course we have to save her.”

She just turned to look at him,
her expression telling him that he was foolish.

“Don’t you want to save her?”

“No,” she limped off to the car
not bothering to look to see if he was coming or not.

It had been a tense night. They
had driven back to the warehouse in silence. Once there, they had walked around
each other on egg shells. One would open their mouth to say something, then
just close it. There was nothing to do so, eventually they feigned sleep. Finally
after much tossing and turning, sleep finally came for them.

Now they sat silently waiting for
either Charon to come and break the silence or their own words of anger or
helplessness to do it for them.

“I have had enough of this.” Tara
had never excelled at the quiet game. Her mom had beaten her every time they
played it. “Didn’t we tell her to leave the hospital and not come back for a
while? Didn’t I already save her life once? Now you want me to do it again? Why
should I be her savior when she can’t even follow simple directions? What part
of me trying to die did you not understand?” Her voice had risen until she was
now screaming.

“What part of innocent bystander
are you missing?” Paul’s voice was quiet. “What part of a doctor who saves
lives are you missing?” His voice was even quieter. “She doesn’t deserve to die
simply because she has been caught up in something she knows nothing about. No
one deserves to die. You say you want to die, yet you still manage to live.
Even in the hospital you defied the odds.”

Pushing his hands through his
hair he stood and walked over to her, gently turning her around with a hand on
her shoulder. “All I hear about is this mysterious something in you that won’t
let you die. Well in the hospital I didn’t see that something. I saw you. I saw
a miracle lying in that bed who refused to give up. That something was asleep
and all there was, was you. You refused to die. So run it past me again how you
want to die and leave this world of wonder.”

Closing her eyes she saw herself
out there adrift on a tiny log that was barely big enough for one. She was
close to the falls and she knew it. She had been aiming for them for a long
time. If only she could reach them, she could go over. Simply sink into herself
and never be heard from again. Everything had changed. Now there were two
options. When had that happened? There he stood on the shore, which was much closer
than it had been in a long time. It would be so simple to move her body on the
now larger piece of drift wood and start to change her course. Still, that soft
voice summoning her to turn around meant fighting for herself. She would also
have to fight for him and to fight for those who needed protection from the
things that went bump in her night. With a sigh she changed positions even as
the falls finally came into view. Maybe it was time to woman up.

“Let’s say you’re right and for
some reason I don’t really want to die. Why does that mean I have to save the
perky blonde nurse?”

“She has a name you know.”

She held up her hand to stop him.
“If you even want me to think about saving her, we will call her the perky
blonde nurse. Mostly because it makes me smile.”

Shaking his head he laughed at
her. “Alright, I am good with that. She was calling you Tiger, even after I
told her your name.”

“Don’t get too happy. I am pretty
sure the nurse is dead. The Demos are evil. Raimel did not even try to trade
her life for mine. I am pretty sure he simply tortured her and killed her for fun.”

“I have seen evil, Tara and
usually there is a reason for it. No one is wholly evil. He expects us to come
after her. Why else would he take the time to show her to us? Definitely not
because he thought you would be guilt ridden over her capture.”

“Maybe because he thought you
would be guilt ridden. Or he might have thought to separate us because I
wouldn’t want to go after her. Besides where would we go? Do you know how to
get to his home world, because I sure don’t?”

Again he ran his hands through
his hair. It was a definite sign of frustration. “I have no idea, but we have
to try and save her.”

“Glad one of us is Polly
positive.” With a deep sigh she joined him in thinking. “Hey we could go back
to that Tea Room.”

“Or,” Charon said popping in the
room. “You could come with me.”

They just stared at him. He had
been gone when they came in last night and although they had tried to call him,
albeit tentatively, he had been a no show. His popping in was not filled with
feelings of glad tidings.

“Where were you last night?”

“Morning to you too, Tara.” 
Charon gave her a cocky smile.

“So are you interested in finding
Raimel or not?”

“You know what happened?” Tara
ignored his question. Maybe self-preservation was finally kicking in she
thought holding back a cynical laugh.

“If you mean do I know he has the
perky blonde nurse.” He stopped to                            smirk at Tara. “I
do and I might even be able to find her for you, or not.  That’s the risk you
take. I can definitely find Raimel. Well?” He stood slowly spreading his wings
looking more like an angel of death than a Good Samaritan.

“We want to go.” Paul was looking
determined, they would be going.

Tara nodded her head knowing she
was not going to win this one.

“Come on boys and girls its field
trip time.”

Taking them both by the hand they
disappeared. Not through a door, but simply gone one minute as if everything
stopped, to reappear the next sitting in the back of a car. It was an older
model four door car. The driver was a young man. He had to be early twenties Tara
was thinking. The girl in the passenger seat was around his age.

“They can’t see us. And all we
can do is see them. Which means there can be no interaction and no interfering
with whatever happens.” There was a look on Charon’s face that was unreadable
and hard.

“Why are we here?”

“Watch and see.”

“Everything is going to be
alright. You’ll see.” The young woman had turned to face the driver giving Tara
a good look at her face. She was definitely early twenties with a very pregnant
belly. She had green eyes with very pale skin and a short mop of red curls. She
was cute. She would never be a cover girl, but she could break a couple of
hearts if she wanted to.

Stopping at the red light, he
turned to face her. “We deserve some good baby. We have gone through a lot. It
looks like junior here will be fine too.” His hair was dark, more of a black
and he possessed nice brown eyes. They made a cute couple that seemed to be
just starting out.

She held up her hand. “Soon I
will be Mrs. Johnson.”

He smiled with such joy that Tara
almost felt like a letch, watching something that was not meant for public
consumption.

“I love you so much baby. I can’t
wait.” They were already rolling again and the happiness in the car was
overwhelming. Looking both ways he merged on the parkway taking them away from
the city.

Tara cast Charon a puzzled look. He
simply smiled and mouthed just wait.

They young mother- to- be placed
her hand over her child. “Our bundle of joy. Our future. Our hope.” She rubbed
her belly in soft circles before the car lurched for no reason. He jerked the
steering wheel getting control of it again.

“I think we better have this
thing checked out.” The future Mrs. Johnson said still smiling happily.

Tara had stopped listening. Standing
on the hood of the car was Raimel. He could see her, just like she could see
him. With slow deliberate movements he brought his sword out and over his head.

Tara and Paul tried to move. They
were frozen, unable to move anything besides their mouths.

“What the hell is he about to
do?”  She roared the question at Charon.

“Stop him!” Paul screamed still
unable to move.

“I told you there was nothing we
could do, but watch.”

“Watch? Are you crazy? We have to
do something. We have to stop this. What good is being some almighty door, if
there’s nothing I can do?”

Tara watched him smirk as the car
continued to pick up speed until he looked at the young mother to be. His smirk
disappeared and hatred blacker than any she had ever seen crossed his face.
With one swift downward swing the sword entered the car’s engine causing it to
halt.

Faster than Tara would have
thought, there was a major accident on the parkway. Cars were swerving and
hitting each other. The car they were in was hit at 70 miles an hour from
behind and shoved into the car in front of it. The man was unconscious and the
woman was screaming. Raimel stepped down off of the car, much like a kid at the
amusement park getting off of a favorite roller coaster with a look of let’s do
that again. He gave Tara a mocking bow and then disappeared.

“Let me help them. At least until
the paramedics come.”

“I can’t. It will change how the
time line should be.”

“I don’t give a damn about the
time line. I am a doctor and I am here. That means I was supposed to help them,
so let me go.”

Paul was outside of the car as if
he had just walked up. Tearing off the car door, he started working on the
young mother first.

“How could you?” She still sat in
the back seat, an invisible spectator to this very real scene of horror. “How
could you let that happen?”

“The better question is why
couldn’t I stop it? It’s called free will. You humans know all about that,
right? There was no stopping what happened today and my hands were tied. I
broke the rule by letting your man help the woman. So don’t give me that “you’re
so bad look” as if I got a kick out of what happened.”

“He’s evil. He tried to kill them
for no reason.” She was just talking now. If I can just talk, I can be calm.
This over whelming horror will not take over. Desperately she wanted to cling
to that placed she had discovered years ago where nothing bothered her and she
felt nothing. Every day it seemed to retreat further away, as she woke up more
to the horrors of the world.

“Forget him being evil.” She
screamed at Charon. “You’re a monster. You knew this was going to happen and
you let me see it any way. You knew he was going to try and kill them. Try and
kill that unborn child and you brought me, us here. Why would you do that?’

“To wake you up. You’re on your
high horse, so intent on ending your life, that you couldn’t take the time to
look around at anyone else’s life. You who thinks so little of yourself that
you cannot acknowledge what you may mean to this world or even to that man who
is fighting for the life of that child. I needed to get you out of your selfish
funk and give you a reason to live, to fight. Maybe the real monster here is
you. The person who refuses to fight for what life has given her.”

Just like that, she was gone. She
had no idea if it was seconds, minutes or hours before she realized that she was
absolutely still. There was no movement and no sound. she was totally alone. No
one and nothing surrounded her. There was just, total light. She shuddered
acknowledging that this light was not a blessing, it blinded her as much as the
darkness would have and she could see nothing.

Was this death? The absence of
all life? She couldn’t even feel herself. She wasn’t sure she possessed a body
anymore. She could hear no sound, so it was possible she wasn’t breathing.
Where was the peace? There was no peace here, only a long laundry list of what
she hadn’t accomplished. That wasn’t the worse part. She now yearned for food,
even bad food, to fill her nonexistent belly. She wanted to see Paul’s face one
more time. She wanted the kiss she so rightly deserved. She wanted to yell at
Charon and tell the perky blonde nurse “I told you to stay away.”

She finally got what she wanted
and now all she wanted was what she had. How ironic was that? She tried to stop
doing that only thing she could do, which was think. Her mind stalled on one thought.
She had let Raimel win. Finally, she understood what hell really was.

Tara’s body collapsed on the
warehouse floor as she choked, greedily gasping for air.

“Welcome back.” Charon said, as
he made a production of stepping over her limp body.

“Tara, are you alright?” Paul ran
to her side kneeling down and running his hands over her as he checked her out.
“You’re breathing to fast, Tara. Look at me! Slow down. You don’t want to pass
out.” He smiled at her as she forced her breathing to match his exaggerated
slow breath. “Good job” he murmured as he stroked her hair.

“Come on, let’s get you up.” He
led her over to the couch that had been doubling as their bed.

“I am so happy to see you.” Tara
said laying her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around him. She had
been so sure that it was over. No more chances for her. Now she was faced with
the prospect of life again. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she
was going to do something. Grow a backbone, maybe, as long as she never ended
up where she had been again.

“Where were you? What happened to
you?” Paul’s questions made her smile as she listened to the concern in his
voice.