Pulse of Heroes (51 page)

Michelle fumed when she heard that Haden
hadn’t returned to take care of his sister, but underneath that
concern, she was also hurt that he had obviously gone straight to
some other woman’s bed after he tried to get with her. She couldn’t
believe that she almost let him kiss her!

After she hung up the phone, Michelle found
her parents in the back yard hanging laundry with Eranka. The radio
was blaring tunes in Hungarian and everybody seemed to be in a
great mood. “I don’t understand why you guys aren’t tired?” she
asked, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

“Maybe its because we’re so young,” her
father teased. In truth, her parents had only gone to one club the
night before and were safely tucked away in a romantic hotel about
an hour later.

“We’ve decided to head out to Austria for the
weekend. I’m sure you’ll love it,” her mom said while shaking out a
large sheet. They were planning to take a train across the Austrian
border to Vienna, as it was only a three-hour trip, and the next
day they would head over to Linz. They had completely forgotten
about the weekend festival that Michelle wanted to go to.

“Don’t you want to see Austria?” her mom
asked.

Michelle wasn’t going to lie. “Not really.
And besides Eranka is staying here. It’s not like I’ll be all
alone. Eranka was not going to get involved. She told Michelle’s
mom that she would be fine one way or the other because she had
lived alone for many years. Michelle also pointed out that the
girls had decided to attend the festival for one day only, meaning
that she wouldn’t spend the night anywhere and would be back that
same evening.

Later that afternoon after eating a strange
meatloaf with hard-boiled eggs in the middle of the slices,
Michelle went up to her perch to rest. While going through her
duffle bag she found the tiny charm bracelet that Eranka had sent
for her when she was born, and decided that it would make her happy
to see that she had kept it all those years.

Michelle found Eranka in her bedroom doing
crossword puzzles. Her door was only cracked and Michelle wasn’t
sure if she should knock and disturb her. “You come in, Michelle,”
Eranka said, her back still to the door. Michelle quietly stepped
into the bedroom. It was the only room in the house that she had
yet to see. There were two matching twin sized beds in the middle
of the room and, not surprisingly, every possible surface was
covered in quilted fabric. Even the lampshades looked like
doilies.

Eranka sat in a large armchair with at least
five crossword puzzle books on her knees. She took off her glasses
and placed them back in their holder. “Do you do puzzles like
these?” she asked, looking up. Michelle sat on the edge of the
closest bed and opened her hand to reveal the tiny red string of
the bracelet. When Eranka saw it she clasped both her cheeks in
amazement, much like a little girl would do. “Let me see it,” she
said, reaching out her hand. Eranka scanned every tiny detail of
the bracelet. “Yes. They are all still here. I almost forgot this,
can you believe? Do you know how many generations these have been
in our family?” she asked, handing the bracelet back to Michelle.
Michelle looked at the cute little animals and the other
charms.

“You mean they’re not newish?”

“Oh no,” Eranka said, this time quietly. “My
father gave it to me because I was the baby of the family. He told
me he got it from his mother, who got it from her great
grandfather. They are all real gold, the duck and the turtles,
everything beside the string. I bought it to replace the old
one.”

“Wow!” Michelle exclaimed, “Maybe I shouldn’t
wear it then?”

Eranka told her that she should definitely
wear it because it was meant to bring good luck. “What good would
it do anyone sitting in a box?” she asked. Michelle put the
bracelet on and smiled. Eranka told her that she didn’t think that
the actual gold had too much value, but that the charms were
ancient; that’s what her father had told her when he gave it to
her. Michelle was reminded that Rion had also been very interested
in the bracelet. Could he have seen something like it before?

“Where did it come from, originally?”
Michelle asked. Eranka waved her hand in disregard.

“I hear many stories through the years. One
was about someone in the family winning it in gambling, and one
time I hear that it was always in our family and people give it to
whoever they feel is very special.” Michelle blushed.

“But Eranka, you gave it to me and you didn’t
even know me. Maybe I should give it back to you to give to someone
else in the family?” Michelle asked, feeling unworthy of the little
gift.

“No! It’s yours. Why you think I can’t tell
you’re special because I’m far away?” Eranka looked at the bedroom
door to see if anyone was in the hallway, and when she was
satisfied that it was empty she turned back to Michelle and
whispered, “We have special gypsy blood in the family. The real
Gypsies, not the ones we have today that come from everywhere.”
Michelle’s eyes grew big and she leaned in a little closer so she
could hear Eranka’s words more clearly.

“Some women in our family have very strong
minds. Do you know?” Michelle shook her head. Her mother had warned
her that Eranka might try to say something about gypsies and told
her not to pay attention to it. Everyone in Hungary has some story
about gypsies in their ancestry, her mother had explained to her,
telling Michelle that Hungarians were basically just insanely
superstitious. Michelle guessed that Eranka wasn’t any different,
but she certainly wasn’t going to hurt her feelings by belittling
her stories. Gypsies or not, Eranka had given the bracelet to her
with good intentions and she was going to wear it with pride.

When the black Audi pulled up outside of
Eranka’s house Michelle’s heart skipped a beat. What if Haden was
in there? Oh please God, she prayed, don’t let him be there.
Michelle kissed Eranka goodbye. “I promise I’ll call,” she said to
her, “and besides, look at what I’m wearing, nothing bad will
happen to me,” she said, showing Eranka the bracelet on her left
wrist. Before getting into the car Michelle took a deep breath and
prepared herself to act cool, just in case. But Haden wasn’t in the
car, and neither was Marika. It was just Vilna, wearing huge
sunglasses and smiling from one ear to another. Michelle thought
that she looked like a praying mantis.

“Marika got grounded because she didn’t
return home like she said,” Vilna explained. “I think she went home
with that guy. Marika sometimes does stupid things, but I love her
anyway.” She pulled the car onto the highway and headed east. While
Vilna went on about Adi, again, Michelle scanned the car to see if
it bore any evidence from two nights ago, but she didn’t pick up on
anything. Maybe things weren’t as bad as she had thought and what
took place was just a normal interaction. Haden was foreign and
older than her, so who knows how those guys act?

“Do you have your own car?” Michelle
asked.

“Yes. You’ll see it when we get there. It’s
not as nice as this one, but it’s pretty good.” Michelle didn’t
understand what Vilna meant about seeing it when they got there
until about two and a half hours later when she started seeing
signs reading ‘Romania’. “It’s where I’m from,” Vilna said
nonchalantly when she saw Michelle eyeing the highway signs. “My
real home is there, where I lived with my mother.” Michelle still
didn’t understand.

“We’re going to a different country?” she
asked nervously.

“Just cross the border, no problem. Your
parents took a train to Austria. Europe is like in the United
States, but here we cross countries. Is no big deal.” When Vilna
explained it like that Michelle felt a little better, but she still
wanted to know about the apartment in Budapest. “It’s Haden’s. He
does a lot of business in the city and I also stay there when I go
to school. He decided to buy a place rather than throw money away
on hotels, and he can leave his stuff there.” Michelle asked what
Haden did for a living. “He invests money and has many meetings to
go to all around the world. He lived in America for a few years
also.” Michelle immediately tried to imagine what Haden would look
like in a smart business suit, then felt guilty for thinking about
him at all. But Haden was very good looking; it was hard for her
not to conjure up his image. Michelle thought about Elliot, and
then about Tim, whom she obviously had no chance with anymore. In
her eyes Tim was boyish, not a man. Elliot was definitely a man,
and so was Haden. Was she growing up too fast, Michelle thought.
How could she ever go back to normal guys her own age after
this?

Rion had been wandering around the damn
festival for hours and he was getting pretty tired of the whole
scene. To him, most of the heavy metal bands sounded the same these
days. It wasn’t that he didn’t like rock music or even metal, he
was just pickier than the rest, especially since he had the
opportunity to listen to the best. But in Romania, one couldn’t be
too selective. It was a poor country in the modern era and they
could only afford so many big names. He had been to the
Transylvania Rockathon one time before, when he was dating a
beautiful Greek girl. She loved the music and Rion had treated her
to tickets and they spent the whole weekend out there. But now he
didn’t have a beautiful girl next to him, even though there were
plenty to choose from. He was on a mission, and his mission was to
find Michelle and warn her to stay away from Hadeno.

Rion was already in Europe gathering weaponry
when he was contacted about the photograph that Samantha had
dropped off at
Hekademos
just a few hours earlier. Somehow
Hadeno’s men had traced Elliot to Willow’s Creek. And even worse,
they knew where Michelle lived.

It happened on Saturday when Samantha went
out jogging and saw two young guys hanging out by the Andrews’
front door. She told them that no one was home, so they handed her
an envelope to give to Elliot, something that obviously caught her
off-guard. They said that they were Elliot’s friends and just
happened to be visiting the area. But when Samantha tried to
explain to them that Elliot had moved and she had no idea where to,
they asked her to keep the envelope, just in case. At first,
Samantha didn’t think anything much of it, but she quickly realized
that there must be something amiss. How did these guys know where
Michelle lived unless Elliot had told them? And if Elliot was in
such close contact with them, wouldn’t they have already known that
he had moved away? So she doubled back and ran towards
Hekademos
instead, and dropped the envelope into the
Learning Center’s large green mailbox that stood outside the iron
gate.

What Samantha didn’t know was that Elliot’s
friends were keeping watch on the school regularly, and that day
Kahl watched her drop off the envelope, unmarked except for
Elliot’s name written on it. Kahl drove to deliver it to Elliot
personally.

When Elliot opened the envelope and looked at
its contents his skin turned white as a ghost’s, and Kahl knew
immediately that something was very very wrong. Elliot was staring
at a printout of a photo and in it were the images of Michelle and
Haden together in some car and they were obviously about to kiss.
Elliot crumpled up the picture and shouted in anger, “Hadeno has
Michelle!”

After that Elliot just about went crazy and
raged around the house, throwing stuff and slamming doors. He told
everyone that it was obvious that Hadeno wanted him and was using
Michelle as a bargaining chip; he was going. But Xander pointed out
that he had no idea where Michelle was, let alone what it was that
they were really after. That was when Elliot decided to call
Rion.

No one knew Hadeno better than Rion. They
were from the same part of the world. And Rion was completely
flabbergasted that Hadeno had surfaced again after so many years.
Although the two of them were never close, they had fought on the
same side battling the advance of the Turkish Ottomans into Eastern
Europe. It was also then that Rion had met Ando, who had enlisted
many of his own Scandinavian troops as mercenaries in Hunyadi’s
army around 1460 AD. Ando was full of hate for the Ottomans. They
were enslaving foreign women into their harems wherever they went,
and after his own son in law was murdered, his daughter and
granddaughters were carried away from as far away as Iceland. Ando
had thought that they would have been safe that far north, but the
armies of Sultan Mehemet II were given free reign on the women and
children of the conquered. And after they had emptied most of
Eastern Europe of its women folk, they paid slave traders to travel
north to find more. The more exotic the women looked, meaning
yellow hair and blue eyes, the more money the Sultan and his
officers were willing to pay. Ando fought valiantly to save his
people; nevertheless, his entire family was lost. It was this grief
that brought Rion and Ando together, and they had remained friends
ever since.

On the phone with Elliot, Rion suggested that
Francesca Bianchetti might know where Michelle was because Michelle
was very close to her. Elliot immediately wanted know how it was
that Rion knew something like that and he didn’t. But Rion snapped
back that he needed to quit with that ‘crap’ because he had more
important things to do than berate him over the phone.

“This is all your fault!” he yelled, and
Elliot was forced to hold the receiver away from his ear. “We both
know how Hadeno is,” Rion continued. But Elliot argued that he
wouldn’t hurt Michelle, because he was the one that Hadeno was
really after. “That depends on what you consider ‘hurt’, Elliot.
You know he can damage the girl in more ways than one!” It was then
that Elliot confided that the photo showed them kissing. “Shit,
Elliot! You might as well say goodbye to her because she’s already
gone.” They were well aware that despite Hadeno’s hatred of the
Turks, he had no problem keeping his own harem of women. He
collected them, and they always fell for him. It was easy for one
of their kind to do.