Birth of Jaiden (25 page)

Damion continued.
“Basically, we are waiting for Malcolm to strike, to lead us to
them.”

“
How do we know he will?”
Michael wanted to know.

Danielle turned her head
toward Alex’s black hummer and told him in a soft voice, “We have
something he wants very badly.”

Again, Michael nodded with
understanding. “Shall we go, then?”

As they all began to
return to their vehicles, Damion shouted, “We still have a good
nine to ten hours ETA. When dawn approaches, we need to
stop.”

“
All right,” Michael
shouted back.

Alex saw him pull out a
radio and speak into it before he nodded at Damion and jumped into
his truck.

Alex slid back into the
hummer and found Isabella was staring out the window at the trucks.
He heard Michael start his truck and flip on his head lights. Then,
to his amazement, not one, not two, but three other semis
simultaneously started theirs as well.

“
Oh my,” Isabella mumbled
as she stared with wide eyes.

“
Yeah,” Alex said
unenthusiastically and pulled into formation behind the second
hummer. The four semi-trucks followed suit. Again, they were flying
down the freeway with their headlights leading the way.

27

Every so often, Alex
glanced at the glowing green numbers on the dashboard clock. When
two am passed, he finally began to relax. Dawn would be approaching
soon and he could get some sleep. Maybe resting would take the edge
off.

Isabella dozed lightly in
the passenger seat next to him. Her head rested against the window
and her blond hair had fallen forward, covering her face. She
didn’t snore but her breathing was soft and even. He briefly
wondered what it would be like to sleep beside her, to pull her
body against his and run his cold hand against her warm, silky
skin.

The hummers in front of
him sped up.

The calm faded quickly.
Something was happening; he could feel it. The clear, star filled
sky was lit by an almost full moon and the air coming through the
window was brisk.
It’s
almost too peaceful
.

Due to the hour, their
vehicles were the only ones on the road. The hummers ahead kept
their pace and the trucks followed close behind. Then, without any
warning, the lead hummer carrying Chris, Danielle and Victoria
swerved severely to the left.

“
Son of a…” Alex
uncharacteristically cursed, then clutched the wheel and watched
the second hummer spin out to the right as the first one regained
composure. Alex swerved to the left around the now stalled second
hummer.

Chris was suddenly in his
head.
Someone was in the road. He just appeared out of nowhere.
This is bad, I feel it, Alex
.

The trucks behind him were
shifting gears and screeching their brakes in attempt to slow down
enough to maneuver around the stopped vehicle without tipping
over.

“
What’s happening,
Alex?”

He looked over at
Isabella. She had woken and was sitting straight up in her seat,
looking out the windshield with wide eyes.

“
I don’t know.”

He thought of Damion, Jeremiah,
Stewart and Deanna.
Hey, are you guys back on the road, yet
?

Damion answered,
Yeah, don’t know
what happened
.

Chris says someone was in the
road
.

The trucks had stopped
screeching their brakes and were again in formation with the
hummers.

Alex heard several loud
thumps on the top of his hummer. Isabella screamed and looked up as
if she could see through the roof.

Oh man, here we
go
.

He pumped himself up for a
fight and focused on the hummer ahead of him where he saw six
vampires land on the roof of the vehicle, baring their fangs and
rocking the vehicle back and forth.

Beside him, Isabella
screamed so loud she woke Jaiden, who began to scream as well.
Their hummer was being rocked from side to side like the one ahead
of them.

“
Damn!” Alex forced himself to
keep his calm and keep going. He carried what they wanted and he’d
be damned if he was just going to
let
them have her.

“
Isabella, stop!” She shut
her mouth quickly. “You’re not helping,” he told her in a calmer
voice.

“
Oh my God, Alex, oh my
God.”

They could hear the
vampires on top of the car, screeching with glee as they jerked the
car back and forth.

“
Don’t worry.” Alex tried
to reassure her but just as he was telling her, the truck behind
them, which was also covered in vampires, swerved out into the left
lane and passed them, pulling swiftly in front of the first hummer.
The second truck did the same and pulled in front of
them.

Alex watched as the back
of the truck rolled up and revealed the vampire slayers.

Isabella stopped her
rambling and stared. “Wow.”

This is classic,
he thought. The
slayers stood at the opening of the truck, held crossbows and wore
bandoliers with stakes inserted into them. Weapons were strapped
all over their bodies. The one in the center raised his weapon and
fired.

A loud, painful screech
could be heard from overhead, accompanied by a body falling over
the side and startling Alex when he smacked the window on his way
down. The rest of the slayers followed suit and fired their
weapons. Maintaining speed, Alex kept driving while the slayers did
what they do.

More stakes were released
from their bows as the first body fell to the ground. More
screeching and thumps on the vehicle followed. It was one shot, one
kill.

These guys really know what
they are doing
, Alex thought. Each time a vampire hit the ground, a burst
of flame turned them to ash.

“
It looks like the fourth
of July,” he told Isabella.

She gave him a disgusted
look.

“
Well, I thought it was funny.”
He glanced into the back. Jaiden was still wailing and waving her
tiny fists.
You’re just going to have to wait, little
one
.

To Alex, it looked like
for each vampire killed, another one appeared. They just didn’t
seem to be lowering in number.

“
Aaaahhhh!” Isabella began
screaming again. “Alex. Alex!”

Alex looked over. A pale
face with sunken eyes and an open mouth was staring at them through
Isabella’s window. He stood on the running board, clutching the top
of the hummer.

“
Damn! Isabella, get in the back
with Jaiden!” he hollered at her as he struggled with the
wheel.
One
wrong move and we’re goners
.

“
Ok!” she hollered
back.

While she climbed over the
seats, Alex saw the vamp flailing his arm out toward the back
door.

“
They’re after Jaiden!” he
called back to Isabella, and then he moved his attention to the
slayers. It was like watching a choreographed musical. They moved
beautifully in sync with each other and even though they were
without telepathy, they appeared to read each others’
minds.

Alex heard a loud roar
outside the hummer and the back door on the passenger side swung
open. Isabella began to scream again.

“
Isabella!” Alex yelled,
“Get on top of her.”

Isabella threw her body
face down over Jaiden’s car seat.

The vampire who had opened
the door hung onto the outer edge of the door and tried to climb
around and get inside. Suddenly, the force of the wind slammed the
door shut.

A loud screeching
penetrated their ears. The vamp’s arm and leg were inside the
vehicle while the rest of him was outside of it. Looking back, Alex
saw that the vamp had grabbed a huge handful of Isabella’s
beautiful blond hair. Before he could rip it out of her head, a
woman slayer shot a grappling hook out of a large weapon.
Immediately, the vampire’s hand opened wide, releasing Isabella’s
hair, and his body was brutally torn from the vehicle.

Alex risked taking his
eyes off the road and glanced back at them. “Are you
ok?”

“
I guess.” Isabella was
holding her head but she looked more angry than hurt.

Eyes back on the road,
Alex could see the vampire’s body in front of his hummer. It was
still attached and bounced grotesquely behind the speeding semi.
The body continued bouncing until a stake was shot directly into
the vampire’s heart.

His vision was momentarily
obstructed as the body burst into flames and its ashes, very much
resembling a snow storm, were blown forcefully into the windshield,
and then continued over the top of the vehicle.

But, there was no break in
the attack. Still, more vampires appeared. The top of his hummer
sounded like it was pelted by very large hail.

“
Alex, what are we going
to do?” Isabella still held herself over Jaiden’s tiny
body.

“
Don’t’ worry; we expected
something like this.”

“
But, what are we going to
do?”

“
I don’t know but I do
know what we aren’t going to do.”

“
What’s that?”

“
Let them get
Jaiden.”

Isabella nodded and
continued to hold her position. “I hope you’re right.”

***

Levine restlessly paced
the halls of their underground lair. Her husband was beside himself
to have that child.

She rubbed her forehead
impatiently and pulled her full length fur coat closer around her
body.
How
could they have let that council member get away? I bound his damn
powers. Two steps ahead, they always think they are two steps ahead
of us. Well, not this time.

She paced back and forth
for hours, desperately seeking a solution. Anyone who came upon her
quickly turned and went the other way.

That’s it.
When the answer came to her,
she immediately ceased her pacing and whirled in the direction of
the throne room. Upon entering, the startled guards cowered back.
She marched up to her throne and flung herself into it.

“
Get out
!” she screamed at the guards, who
knew she had been upset about something before and didn’t want to
chance making her any angrier. Levine could be far more dangerous
than her husband and they all knew it.

They hurried out as
quickly as they could.

Levine sat back in her
throne and tried to relax. She closed her eyes, grasped the arms of
the throne and meditated. She thought of the young council member
they had taken, of when she had touched him, connected to
him.

Her entire body began to
tingle, like a limb when it falls asleep. When the cold numbness
began to replace the tingling, she knew she was ready.

A deafening ‘crack’
rippled throughout the throne room and Levine saw only black behind
her closed eyes.

When she was finally able
to open her eyes, she didn’t see the throne room in which she had
sat but found herself in the middle of a moving battle.

She turned her head to the left
and saw a handsome blond man driving. Outside of the vehicle, she
saw her soldiers fighting what appeared to be vampire slayers. She
gasped involuntarily.
They have slayers
!

“
Stewart, you ok?” a
female voice asked her from behind.

It was the little
red-headed witch. “Uh...yeah, I’m ok.”

Levine was shocked by her
manly voice; she hadn’t thought to be prepared for something as
minor as a voice change. When she looked down, she saw her hands
were manly too; they were huge! And her…

“
Damion, we have to do
something,” the little red-headed witch told the driver.

Oh, so this is what our dark
angel gone good looks like
.

Levine knew she must take the
child from them and get back to the lair. She wanted to grin but
refrained.
Then, we will have both the child and the council
member
. She
wished she was in the car carrying the child; it would make her
plan so much easier.

Then, with a visible jolt,
another idea struck her.
These are my soldiers
.

“
Are you sure you’re ok,
man?” Damion was trying to drive while he looked over at
her.

“
I told you, I’m
fine.”

“
Sorry, you just look so
pale, and…weird.”

The old man leaned toward
her. “Do you need to throw up? I know I get the motion sickness
sometimes.”

Why won’t they shut up?
“No, I don’t need
to throw up; just leave me alone about it.”

“
Stewart, they are just
trying to help. Don’t be so rude!” The little redhead just had to
have her say.