Ellida (41 page)

From the corner of my eye, I saw Ahmed
turning paper-white and my mother swallowing hard. Darius kept his
eyes on Seth, whose own eyes twitched while he jerked his head left
and right several times.

I was right. His vanity wouldn’t admit he
hadn’t known about my Vegas trip. He thought he had me under
surveillance all the time, so he
had to
know. Somebody else
had screwed it up.

He laughed nervously. “I knew about your
trip. Heather told me.”

“I thought so. I’m afraid the wedding is
going to be postponed.” I carried on in a care-free voice, as if we
were discussing the weather. I turned to Darius, “Nothing personal,
Mr. Withali.” I smiled and then looked back at Seth. “So, what
now?”

Seth shrugged. “Well, you are soon going to
be a widow anyway. Then you can remarry.”

Okay, I’d bought us some time, but we had to
get out of this castle, into the open, where my people could see
me. I couldn’t hear sounds from outside, and the room didn’t have
windows, but I knew my army was close. They’d probably already
crossed the Copper Ridge borders. They would be in the town any
minute.

Seth’s eyes took on a faraway look before his
maniacal laugh broke the silence. “You saw them in front of the
wedding chapel, you say. Darius, who did I send to Las Vegas?”

Blessed vanity! He was more concerned with a
possible betrayal than with the fact his grand plan had just gone
down the toilet.

“Gunter, Stallman and Lester were in charge
of following Ellida’s every move outside Red Cliffs, father.”

Three bastards par excellence, I would say by
the readiness in Darius’ voice. Three fewer of Seth’s people to
worry about.

“Arrest them. They’ll be executed this
afternoon. In lieu of the wedding. And send that Kincaid witch
here. She’ll keep an eye on Astrid and my dear wife.” He turned to
Ahmed. “You, what’s your name?”

“Tariq Arslan, sir.”

“Arslan… Arslan… Ah, you’re my Chief of
Police, aren’t you? You stay here and help. Heather will watch over
our guest and her mother. Don’t worry, our Ellida can’t use her
witch wand. She’s pregnant. My wife, well, she misplaced hers long
ago anyway.”

He laughed hysterically, apparently finding
himself exceptionally amusing.

I let out a silent sigh of relief. Seth
didn’t know the name of his chief of police, but he trusted him to
guard his most important prisoner. And he indeed didn’t know my
mother had regained wizard powers. Good.

As if we were not his concern anymore, he
turned on his heel and left us to our own devices.

In a few long strides Ahmed was beside me.
“Are you okay, Astrid?”

I nodded. He looked at my mother still
sitting on the floor and knelt beside her.

“Ms. Vandermeer…” His hand reached for her
bruised face, to examine her. It was a spontaneous reaction of a
doctor upon seeing an injured person, but my mother jerked
away.

“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Astrid’s already
examined me. By the way, who the hell are you,
Tariq Arslan
,
for surely you’re not our Police Chief?”

Ahmed’s face and body instantly rearrange
into his own appearance. Standing up, Rowena tilted her head and
raised her eyebrow.

“Remarkable,” she said.

“Mother, this is Ahmed Demmir, my friend,” I
said. “He’s a doctor. He disabled one of the kidnappers and came
here with me.”

Her eyes zeroed in on Ahmed, surveying him.
“I know who you are. My son told me about you.”

“Can you walk? Let me help you,” Ahmed
said.

She declined. “I can walk. I don’t need help.
We should wait for Heather. If they come back with her and find the
room empty, they’ll go after us. We’ll take Heather with us and
maybe buy some time.”

“Ahmed, where are our people?” I said.

“Already here, I suspect. Darius’s men were
waiting for them at the border and let them in. Not that Seth’s
pitiful tribal magic would stop Livia Blake from crossing the
border.”

My mother smiled. “Aunt Livia’s coming? And
Tristan?”

“
Aunt
Livia?” I said, laughing,
despite the grim situation we found ourselves in.

My mother smiled. “When I was very, very
young, I thought Livia was Ella’s sister, and I called her Aunt
Livia. I loved her dearly.”

“No way Livia would miss this,” Ahmed said.
“She’s bringing her ‘quick reaction forces’ with her. I saw them.
Trust me, they alone would be more than capable of dealing with
this bunch of bandits. And then, there are sixty well-trained and
very angry werewolves, who’ve been waiting for this for a long
time. Darius’s people, Ingmar, Ellida, the Nakamuras and fifty of
Winston’s most capable warriors.”

My mother gasped. “Mom and Dad? Are they
coming, too?”

“They’ll be there, Rowena. You’ll see them
today.” He paused for a moment and then continued cautiously.
“Brian’s parents will be here as well. They came to Red Cliffs a
while ago, to help us.”

To my amusement, a warm smile lit my mother’s
face. “I thought they would.”

WE WAITED for Heather to come. I wasn’t sure
it was a good idea, but decided to trust my mother’s instincts.

I sat on the floor between Ahmed and my
mother, holding her hand. I could hear the two of them talking,
their voices no more than a soft murmur. I lost track of time. It
could have been minutes or hours before I heard the door opening
again, letting Darius and Heather in.

“Let’s go,” I said. “How many guards outside,
Darius?”

“Ten, but we aren’t going that way. Follow
me.”

A glance at Heather’s petrified face told me
she’d realized the tables had turned. She frantically moved her
eyes from Ahmed to Darius to my mother. She opened her mouth to say
something, but my mother stopped her.

“Oh, don’t even think about it,” she snapped
and cast a spell. The expression on Heather’s face froze. She tried
to move her lips, but no sound came out.

“Listen to me now, Heather Kincaid! You
committed an unspeakable crime. You betrayed your own Ellida just
to get even with me. You didn’t bother to learn the truth first.
Now let me ask you something. How did Seth convince you I ordered
Hal and Brian’s death? Did he show you the written confessions of
men accused of committing the murder?”

Heather was nodding vigorously nodded, still
unable to talk.

“Of course they confessed,” my mother
continued, angrily. “In front of Seth and for Seth’s own purposes!
Seth has several different confessions, none of them true. Those
men were tortured, they would have confessed to anything. They
exchanged their confessions for an end to the torture and a swift
execution. Oh, they did it, true; they ambushed Brian and Hal, and
I don’t feel sorry for them. But they followed Seth’s orders, you
stupid woman, not mine! Now you know!” She let out a heavy sigh.
“Heather, if he has a chance, he’ll kill you. You know that, don’t
you? You’ve served your purpose. Now, will you keep your mouth
shut? Nod if you agree.”

“Mother, don’t. She’ll call for help,” Darius
said.

“It’s all right, son.” She cast another spell
and Heather coughed softly.

“I don’t believe you, Rowena!” Heather’s
words came out in a hot whisper. “I saw their confessions with my
own eyes! You had him murdered, the only man I ever loved. You
didn’t love him, not as much as I did… I saw the confessions with
my own eyes,” she repeated in a broken voice.

“And why do you think Seth kept that a
secret?”

“To protect you.”

“If there was a kernel of truth there, Seth
would have used it against me long ago, don’t you think? He
couldn’t because too many people suspected he had Hal and Brian
killed. You really believe he would take my blame if he was
innocent?”

“Mother, we need to go. Can you walk?” Darius
said.

My mother nodded. “Of course. Heather, don’t
try anything stupid, I’m warning you. Your idiotic games cost too
many people too much. When this is over, you’ll tell everyone,
including your daughter, your true role in the events of
twenty-five years ago. I’m tired of being the chief villain.”

“Rowena, please let’s go,” Ahmed said.
“Darius, show us the way.”

Darius opened a small, hidden trap door in
the floor and led us through the narrow passage. It was dark inside
and we made many turns, going down, then up, then down again. My
mother didn’t stop asking Heather questions and impatiently forcing
her reluctant answers.

“They made me phone Astrid from Frances
Colby’s house,” Heather stammered. “I didn’t want it to come to
this. You must believe me. I didn’t want to harm Astrid. Seth
promised she wouldn’t get hurt. I knew Jack would come to rescue
her… I don’t know what I wanted… I just wanted you to feel the fear
and pain I’ve been living with since Hal died… Even before, I
didn’t want anybody to get killed. Not Hal! He was my life,
everything to me… I thought he would come back to me once you were
out of the picture. I just wanted him back.”

“Stop talking now! You’ll make me puke,” my
mother snapped. “Try not to get killed today, so that you can
repeat this to James, Betty and Jack.”

I was listening without interfering. Now we
knew the truth, at least a part of it. My mother hadn’t committed
any crime. All of Red Cliffs despised her for Brian Canagan’s and
my father’s deaths, while Heather had continued to live there,
nurturing hatred and anger in her heart.

We were close to the exit. I felt a cold
breeze on my hot face, mixed with smoke. I could hear noise coming
from outside: a cacophony of shouts, screams, swears, orders…
clashes of metal against metal, shattering of glass … The sounds
and smells of battle.

Darius opened a thick, metal door and let us
out.

LIKE THE night before, the early morning was
chilly and misty. I involuntarily shivered, more from fear of what
I was going to see than from the cold and my inadequate clothing. I
was still only in my white doctor coat and pants, and running
shoes.

Jack… Oh, God, was Jack okay? My family? My
friends?

My mother’s hand grabbed mine. “It’s going to
be fine, love. Everything’s going to be fine.” She turned to Darius
and Ahmed. “You two, stay with Astrid. Don’t let her out of your
sight. I can’t cast a protection shield around her alone. I’m too
weak.”

“I can try,” Heather whispered.

My mother turned sharply. “You won’t touch
her if you value your life.”

“Heather, do not talk, do not move and do not
try anything,” Darius said in a low, threatening voice. “If I can’t
go into the battle, I can still kill the nearest enemy.”

“Mom, Ahmed and Darius have to go. I’ll be
okay,” I said.

“No,
tatlim
,” Ahmed said. “We’ll stay
and hope our protection will be enough. Don’t underestimate
Seth.”

Darius took my other hand. “This is only the
finale of my battle that I’m missing. I don’t feel bad about it,
don’t worry. I did my part, and I think I did it well. And I still
have you and Mother to protect.”

We carefully walked forward. As we turned
around one of the castle towers, the noise of the battle became
louder.

My eyes quickly scanned over the battlefield.
The main conflict seemed to be happening in the heart of the town,
on the central square. There the united forces of Red Cliffs and
Copper Ridge fought with the majority of Seth’s mercenaries. I
immediately spotted Jack slashing his way through the enemy lines.
I sobbed in relief: it didn’t look like he was in any trouble.

The werewolves on both sides had started
fighting in their human form. Bound by the ancient werewolf war
codex, they wouldn’t change into wolves, no matter the course of
the battle. Fighting as men, however, meant more wounds and
possibly more casualties.

About a dozen ferocious creatures—Livia’s
Tel-Urugh friends—were engaged with several smaller groups of
Seth’s hirelings. The Tel-Urughs were of similar height, dressed in
the same black clothes and wore the same horrific expressions on
their faces. That was part of Liv’s show. I was sure that in
everyday life they looked and behaved like ordinary people.

But now, beautiful and terrible in their
deliberately accentuated vampire mode, they were fighting fiercely.
Seth’s mercenaries, about a hundred of them, began retreating, only
to stop in front of a sturdy formation of fighters—they had to be
Ellida Ariel’s warriors—who blocked their only escape route.

Winston’s wizards and werewolves stood in
firm rank, arrayed for battle, impressive in their dark blue and
silver uniforms and shiny silver helmets. They let Seth’s soldiers
come closer. Acting as one, the cool, stone-faced Winstonians drew
their long swords and, without making a sound, advanced toward
enemy lines. The mercenaries turned and ran back, in a weak attempt
to push their way back through Jack’s forces, only to be stopped by
the pursuing warriors from Winston.

On the edge of the town square, not far from
the place where we stood among the sparse birch trees that stood at
the park entrance, James fiercely attacked a gang of five of Seth’s
personal guards. I recognized them by their uniforms—the men who
had escorted me from the ambulance to the castle had the same
one—cursing and laughing at the same time. A few yards from him, on
a small hillock, stood the father and son Nakamuras, shooting arrow
after arrow from their bows, each one unmistakably finding its
target.

“I’M BURNING!!!! I’M ON FIRE!! AAAAAHHHH!” A
living torch screamed as flames consumed his red and black uniform,
yet continued speeding toward a small wooden church. “I’M ON
FIRE!!! AAAHHH!!!”

“TAKESHI, MASTER HAYATO! TAKE HIM DOWN! TAKE
HIM DOWN!” I yelled at the top of my lungs pointing at the burning
man. It crossed my mind that the Nakamuras probably couldn’t have
heard me. But they both turned to me, spotted the target, and in
unison, each sent one arrow at him. The man fell and the horrible
screaming stopped.