Seduction of Souls (25 page)

“
MICHAEL CANNOT SAVE YOUUUUUUU
”
  Gideon whirled around the ceiling like a tornado, the momentum tearing the wallpaper off the walls.

Gideon’s spirit began to assault the spirits protecting them, each blow
was repelled and sent him whirling away as he roared with outrage. Flashes of lightening exploded around the room, the brightness making him see spots in front of his eyes.  Ryker was sure the house would rock off of its foundation as the entire room tilted. The candles slid off the table and fell to the floor with the tilt of the floor.  Each time Gideon tried to attack a different spirit, the other spirits rallied and united to protect them.  Ryker could sense Gideon’s power weakening with every strike.  Pride surged through his heart at the valiant efforts of the good spirits.  Out of the corner of his eye, Ryker noticed a very small glowing light.  It was bright and…warm.  Frost melted around the entity and he could hear the drips hitting the floor.

“THE FORCES OF GOOD ARE UPON YOU, GIDEON MERIWETHER.  YOU CANNOT WIN!
  JESUS CHRIST HAS ANSWERED OUR PRAYERS AND SENT OUR SALVATION.”

Ryker could see the look of relief on Everett’s face when he noticed the growing, bright white glow.

“GIDEON MERIWETHER, YOUR TIME HAS COME.  YOUR BATTLE IS LOST.  SURRENDER NOW OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES.”  Everett looked at the others around the table and winked.  “LET US PRAY…OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME.” 

Ryker prayed and watched as the glowing entity confronted Gideon above their heads.  The wind in the room grew violent.  As if in answer, the
ir praying grew louder, too.  At times it was difficult to tell where one spirit started and another one ended.  Gideon and Michael tangled.  Ryker’s heart sank briefly when he saw Michael slam against the wall.  But Gideon was weakening quickly, his black presence half the size it had been. 

“THY WILL BE DONE. ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN…”

Suddenly the room was silent.  Was this a trick?  The glow continued to hover over them for a moment.  Ryker looked around the room, still sensing Gideon’s presence.  Finally he spotted the dark cloud cowering in the corner of the room.  Hiding, the coward.

“
AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL…”

With a final thrust of fury Gideon managed to shatter the glass of the chandelier, spraying glass shards everywhere.  Miraculously, the
good spirits shielded them from the danger as the shards that would have maimed them fell gently to the floor and melted like snowflakes.  The outline of Michael’s sword showed the final thrust into the center of Gideon’s essence.  With a thunderous howl of wind and violent sparks of lightening Gideon’s being shattered into a million tiny pieces and disappeared with a loud ‘woosh’. 

“FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER AND THE GLORY…”

“AMEN.” 

Instinctually, everyone bowed their heads in the silence.  Ryker felt a warm, loving hand touch his bowed head
, and he knew he was feeling the love of God, blessing him.  Tears flowed from his eyes.  He lifted his head and looked around the table.  No one had let go of their grip on the person on each side, but their faces held a serene aura about them.  When he looked around the table everyone had tears streaming down their faces and broad smiles on their lips.  They had been blessed.  A lovely sense of peace consumed the room.  When Everett broke his hold, everyone else followed his lead.  The smell of the room was transformed from the stench of death to the sweet smell of Lily of the Valley.

Ryker grabbed
RayeAnn into a fierce hug and kissed the top of her head.  “That’s why you named her Lillyanna.  It was Charity’s favorite scent.”

“Yes.  She came to me the day you left, before I even suspected I was pregnant, and told me she was giving me a wonderful gift.  That’s why I was acting so weird when I came down to breakfast that day.  I was looking for …something.  When I didn’t find anything I thought I’d imagined the whole thing.  The minute I found out I was pregnant I knew Lillyanna was the gift she had referred to.”

“It’s your favorite flower
, too.”  She nodded her head, her face wrought with emotion.  He saw the love she had for him shining back at him. 

“Well I think it’s a beautiful name.  She’s such a happy
and sturdy little thing.  Just as sweet and fresh as the flower.”  Darcy patted RayeAnn’s hand, understanding shining in her eyes.  Together Ryker and RayeAnn pulled Darcy into their embrace.  Ryker was too overcome to say anything more.  Soon everyone was making their way around the table, hugging each other and smiling.  Men patted each other on the back and Everett wiped his perspiring brow with his handkerchief. The look of relief on his face was priceless.

“Good job, Everett.  How can we ever thank you?”  Ryker put his hand on Everett’s

shoulder and pulled him into a hard embrace.

“I’m sure we’ll think of something.”  Everett smiled.

*********

SIX MONTHS LATER

He sat on the bed with Lillyanna in his lap and winced when he heard RayeAnn vomiting for the third time that morning.  It was terrible enough to listen to, it had to be worse for RayeAnn.  When was the poor woman going to get a break?  She’d been throwing up for the last three days without any letup. 

She came out of the bathroom and walked to the bed while holding onto furniture, one arm draped over her stomach.  It looked like she was trying to hold it down so it wouldn’t come out her mouth the next trip to the bathroom.  She looked terrible.  Her skin was pasty white
, and there were dark purple circles under her eyes.  Her hair was in a tangled mass around her head, the ends sticking out at odd angles. 

He’d had enough.  Like it or not
, he expected his mother any minute so she could watch Lilly while he took RayeAnn to the emergency room.  Enough of this shit.

“Ryker,
RayeAnn, Lilly…I’m here.”  Darcy yelled from the foyer downstairs.  Relief coursed through his body.

“Ray, get dressed.  I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

“That’s not really necessary…”  Her sentence was interrupted suddenly when she shot past him and back into the bathroom. 

“Mom.  Can you come up to the bedroom, please?  We need help up here.”

Lilly started chanting her version of the word grandma.  “Na,na,na,na.”

On chubby unsteady legs she toddled over to Darcy the minute she came through the door.

“Can you take Lilly downstairs and feed her breakfast?  RayeAnn is too sick to get herself ready.”  In a gesture of worry, he ran a hand through his hair, making a face again while his wife tried to purge whatever was making her so sick.

“Sure, honey.  Has she been able to keep anything down at all?”
  He heard the concern in her voice.

“Not even water.  I’m worried she may dehydrate at this rate.
”  He rushed around the room and dressed hastily.  On automatic, he grabbed sweat pants and sweatshirt for RayeAnn, not bothering with any underthings.

“I’m going to get her dressed and take off.  I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.  Thanks for coming on such short notice, Mom.”

“Are you kidding?  A chance to have my granddaughter all to myself is certainly no hardship.  Just go take care of your wife, I’ve got this covered.”

He sped
all the way to the hospital.  RayeAnn sat motionless in the front seat, staring blankly ahead, occasional burping interrupted the silence.  She looked positively green at the gills.  When he skidded to a screeching stop in front of the doors, he threw the car into park and rushed around the car in a flash, not bothering to turn off the engine.  Without preamble he grabbed her under the knees and around her back and carried her through the automatic doors, yelling for help before the doors had fully opened.

“Help!  We need a gurney!” 
He didn’t want to put her down, since she was light as a feather, but he wanted her seen immediately.

Within moments he was gently laying her on the gurney and following closely behind as it was wheeled into a treatment room.

In a rush, he explained the problem to the nurse.  Without comment she nodded and turned out of the room.  RayeAnn had her eyes closed but was sweating profusely again.  He knew what was next and grabbed an empty container.   Holding it tightly, she tried to vomit, but there was nothing left to come up. 
Dry heaves
.  He rifled through the drawers until he located a washcloth and wet it with cool water.  He was wiping her face when the doctor came in. 

The man
stood in the doorway for a moment, reading the chart before looking up and offering a greeting.

“Hello.  I’m Dr. Baumgartner. 
RayeAnn, it looks like you’ve got a wicked case of the pukies.  When was the last time you were able to eat or drink
anything.
”   The whole time he talked he was checking her eyes, taking her blood pressure, pinching the skin on the top of her hand.  He paused and looked at her when he finally realized she hadn’t answered his question because she was still struggling to not throw up again.

“She hasn’t been able to keep anything down for the last three days
,”  Ryker answered for her.

“Well
, we need to run some tests.  Blood, urine.  She’s pretty dehydrated, so we’re going to start an I.V. and get some fluids into her.  The nurse will be in shortly to get the ball rolling here.  Do you remember the last thing she ate?”

“Umm, huh, she had some popcorn while we watched a movie the other night.  Microwave kind.  For dinner that night we just had soup and sandwiches.  Nothing weird or new.
”

“Is anyone else in the house sick?”
  The doctor now directed all his questions to Ryker.

“No.  We have a one year-old who seems just fine.  That’s the extent of the household, I’m afraid.”

“All right.  Hold tight.  Someone will be back shortly to take her blood and start the I.V.  Don’t worry, I don’t think this is anything we can’t handle.”  He slapped Ryker on the back on his way out the door. 

Four hours later, the only thing they hadn’t done was grab her by the ankles and shake her.  Each time she dropped off to sleep, someone would come in, poking and prodding at her again.  Now that she was feeling a little bit better, she just wanted to go home and go back to her own bed.  No matter how much she tried to convince Ryker to do just that, he insisted they stay until the doctor gave them the test results.  Hell, they had even done an ultrasound on her.  What was up with that?

“Ryker, I’m so thirsty.  Can you check with the nurse and see if I can have some water or ginger ale, please?”  She closed her eyes
for a second.  When she opened them again she nearly jumped out of her skin.  Was she having an out of body experience?  A fog hovered in the corner of the room near the ceiling.  Instinctively she knew it was her mother. 

“Mom, is that you?”  The soothing voice of her mother filled her head as the fog drew closer, now right next to the bed.  Chilled
, she pulled the covers up around her neck while she waited for…what?

“RayeAnn, honey, it’s Mom.  Don’t worry about a thing, sweetheart
.
 
Everything will be fine.  You’re fit as a fiddle and so are the babies
.”

“I don’t feel…babies?  What did you say?  There are no babies, Mom.”  Convinced she must be dreaming now, she closed her eyes, sure when she opened them everything would be back to normal.  She was right.  No one was there.

A few seconds later Ryker raced in with a cup of something with a straw sticking out of the top.  If she told him what just happened he’d think she’d lost her mind.  He might just be right about that, too.  Before she could get a sip of whatever
Ryker had brought, Dr. Baumgartner came into the room.

“Well
, we have the test results back.  Let me just take a peek here.”  He read the reports, flipping the pages back and forth a few times before making eye contact with them.  Ryker stood at the head of the bed, his knuckles white from clinching the bed rail so tightly.

“Everything looks very, very good here.  Labs are, at least for a woman carrying twins, perfectly normal.  Extreme morning sickness isn’t that uncommon when
a woman is carrying multiple fetuses.  We’ll send you home with an anti-emetic that’s safe to take during pregnancy, and that should do the trick for you.  Plenty of fluids and small, frequent meals, and you should be right as rain in no time.  Any questions?”

“We’re pregnant?”  Ryker
blurted before RayeAnn could.

“Yes.  I assumed you knew.  According to the blood tests it looks like you’re almost three months along
.  The ultrasound says twins.  Congratulations.”

Wide awake now
, RayeAnn sat up abruptly.

“I don’t believe you.  How could this be?”

Both men looked at her like she had snakes growing out of her head.

“I mean, I know how it happens…how come I didn’t know?”

“When was your last period?”