At first the two girls shook their heads. Frowning, Shelly said, “He’s a bad man.”
“Yes he is,” Omar agreed, nodding his head. “But we can’t get you two back to Leilanie until he fixes the helicopter.”
With Omar’s promise to take the girls to Leilanie, they pointed little fingers at the comatose giant and said, “Push, push, push.”
It took a while, but Samson blinked, and shook his head, like he was wondering where he was for a moment. Then he saw Omar and the girls all looking down at him.
He got up groggily, like he was drunk or under the effects of a powerful drug. Omar didn’t tell Samson why he felt so awful, that a big chunk of his energy was drained, but simply gave him orders to fix the aircraft.
Samson moved like a zombie, getting everything fixed. It had been a hard night for him. First Omar told him to remove the necklaces from the girls. He did it, but each time it felt like he was being electrocuted, just touching those damn necklaces. Then he’d had part of his ear bitten off, and twice he’d been flummoxed by some spell the girls put on him when they chanted something about sucking.
Regardless, feeling as though he’d been thoroughly battered, Samson did the job. It didn’t take long until they were all on the way to another island in the Hawaiian chain. Kauai.
Chapter 28
Michelle woke the morning after Heather and Mike’s wedding to soft, insistent, furry pats on her cheek. Who needs an alarm clock? She resisted smiling or opening her eyes for a while.
When she finally moved, Lucifer, the patter, apparently satisfied, gave an enormous pink yawn, and curled up next to her.
Michelle turned her head, noting that Rod was lying on his side beside her, his left hand on her abdomen, almost as though he was protecting the unborn baby inside.
Her feeling of perfect contentment lasted only moments. The memory of last night’s abduction crashed into her consciousness. Two of her children had been kidnapped. She wondered where they were, and made a note to herself to call Leilanie immediately to find out if Petal had any more information about her sisters. Wherever they went, by now they had surely reached their destination.
They might still be here on Oahu, or maybe Omar did manage to fly them all out to Kauai last night.
As she reached for her cell, she heard a soft buzz, the phone vibrating on the end table beside the bed.
She picked it up, noting it was Heather. “Hi. You must be on the way to the airport,” Michelle said, glancing at the time.
“Well, what do you think?” Heather said. “Omar takes off with two of your kids, and Mike and I are just going to fly away on an Alaskan cruise?”
“But it’s your honeymoon!” Michelle protested. “You’ve been planning it for months.”
“It’s on hold until Shelly and Ivory are back with you and Leilanie. Mike and I can put off turning into popsicles for a while. We can’t just leave when the girls are missing. The professor agrees. He’s going to stay in Hawaii, too.”
Michelle felt hot tears prickle her eyes and didn’t know what to say. How’d she get so lucky to have such good friends?
Heather continued, “We’ll all meet at your place in an hour. Leilanie’s coming too. And Petal.”
“Great,” Michelle said. “Rod and I promised to go to the Honolulu PD this morning. Hopefully, they scrounged pictures of Omar from last night at the Mauna hotel. They want us to see if we can recognize him.”
“We should all go,” Heather said. “The professor got the best look at Omar on the balcony last night.”
“And Leilanie can identify pictures of the two French women.”
Michelle told Heather about Omar taking off with the girls in his tiny helicopter last night.
By that time Rod was awake. “I’ll call my assistant and tell him I won’t be in today.” He got on his phone as Michelle hurried to the bathroom to take a quick shower.
“Wow,” Michelle said, gazing at the large computer screen. “I might not have recognized Omar in that masquerade, even if I’d looked him straight in the face last night.”
She, Rod, Heather, Mike, Vincent, and Leilanie were all gathered at the Honolulu Police Station in a darkened room, staring at the video feed from hotel surveillance pictures the police had gathered from the hotel.
“His face appears totally distorted, and with the beard…” Michelle shook her head.
The policeman handling the video feed, Able Milligan, put two side-by-side pictures together on the screen. One was a mug shot of Omar taken a few years ago, when he’d been charged with abducting Michelle and taking her to Mexico. He was handsome, and had a full head of thick black hair. His eyes were dark, almost black. Right next to it was the picture of him taken last night at the wedding, with blue eyes, a shaved head, and sporting a beard.
“His face looks lopsided because he used the actors’ trick; facial wax inside his mouth and around his gums. You’re sure this is your guy?” Milligan asked, glancing at Vincent.
The professor, standing beside the policeman, nodded, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Now, let’s check out the women who were with Mr. Satinov,” Milligan said. He moved the computer toggle and the screen changed to video. Two women in fancy gowns were revealed, moving down a hallway in the hotel with Omar.”
“Those are the women who followed us in Kaneohe!” Leilanie exclaimed, pointing at them when the policeman froze the screen.
“Let’s bring your daughter in, just to make sure,” Milligan said, gesturing through the window at a policewoman who was standing outside the room with Petal. The policewoman brought her in.
Milligan enlarged the picture so that all the faces could be seen clearly.
“Honey, do you recognize these people?” Milligan asked, bending down to look at Petal.
Petal stretched up on tip-toes and pointed her little finger until it touched the screen. “That’s my daddy. And the two women with him. Well, they upset mommy because they followed us around. A lot! They spoke French. I could tell from the way they talked.”
“They had accents?” Milligan asked her. When Petal nodded vigorously, he added, “Thank you Petal. You’ve been a real help.”
When the policewoman led Petal out of the room again, Milligan said, “We’ll be checking Interpol to find out just who these women are. There will be very serious charges against them for aiding and abetting the abduction of two minor children. I have to warn you though,” he added, turning to look at Leilanie, “Omar might have counter-charges against you, that you stole the children away from their home and father.”
“But Michelle is the biological mother. She wants me to continue taking care of them,” Leilanie said.
This situation was going to get complicated, Michelle thought as the group left the Police Station. The most important thing, though, was locating the missing children. All other considerations could be ironed out after they were found. The problem was, they didn’t even begin to know where to search.
Michelle believed that Omar and the kids were already on the island of Kauai. Petal had received psychic visual impressions this morning from her sisters, Ivory and Shelly. They said it was hard to see anything through the clouds, but they were in a large home high on a cliff, right above a beach.
There were beaches all over the place, since they were in an island chain, but Michelle wondered if it could be the same beach where Omar had flown her and the professor in his helicopter several years ago and then dumped them into the sea. Michelle and Vincent almost drowned making a long swim to reach land.
Even then, Michelle had speculated that Omar had a home somewhere near that beach. A place to comfortably wait out the hours it took for Michelle to swim to shore.
She was so angry at Omar that night, when she finally swam to shore, they had what turned out to be an almost lethal confrontation, physically fighting. Michelle started the attack. She had psyched herself up so that she had a pure intention to hurt Omar badly. What kind of sadist would just drop peop
le in the ocean miles from shore? He was an unnatural evil who would never quit pursuing her.
During the fight, Omar was clearly just toying with her. Michelle was adept in the Martial Arts and she attacked first, never realizing that Omar was a master. After a few minutes, Michelle knew she didn’t have a chance of harming Omar unless she got very lucky.
If she had managed to incapacitate Omar that night, her three precious daughters might never have been born. She’d have to believe fate had something to do with that.
At least now they knew Omar had not taken the children to some hotel. He and the kids were at a home somewhere. Maybe on Kauai. That’s where Sammy, the pilot, had planned on taking them last night.
Petal held her hand tightly in the car on the way home. Her other hand gripped Leilanie’s. Petal’s sadness and fear was almost palpable. She wanted her sisters back.
Omar had brutally ripped the three children’s security from them. Leilanie was their home and sanctuary. It made Michelle feel simultaneously furious and helpless. Four-year-olds needed to feel secure and protected, not torn from the only woman they knew as their mother.
“We should go see that pilot, Sammy, again,” Rod said as they drove back into Waikiki. “He knows exactly where Omar was headed.”
Michelle shook her head. “I don’t trust him. He’d probably lie. He was so nasty last night, even trying to steal my diamond. Maybe we could contact the pilot who took you and Heather to Kauai.”
“Guy Thorner,” Rod said, glancing at Heather. The two of them had followed Samson and several witches flying to Kauai in Thorner’s plane when they had been searching for Michelle several years ago. They had no idea that Omar dropped Michelle and Vincent into the sea and then waited on the beach to see if Michelle could make the long swim in the heaving ocean at night.
For Michelle, it had been the most terrifying night of her life. She’d been afraid she would never make the swim to shore, and the thought of watching Vincent drown in the ocean if she failed was like living through a horrible nightmare. It had taken every bit of her fortitude to make that swim to the small beach on Kauai.
At the time, Michelle realized Omar was testing her to see if she was worthy to be the mother of his child, in some sort of crazy ancient trial-by-water ritual.
As an added bonus, Omar had wanted to get rid of Vincent. It was the perfect plan to get rid of the dogged professor who had been investigating Omar to see if he had any real paranormal capabilities, and if the chilling rumors about Omar were true; that black magic and death followed him wherever he went.
Vincent was a real threat to Omar. He was a world renowned professor in the paranormal world. Dumping Vincent into the sea, knowing he couldn’t swim, was a brilliant solution to Omar’s problems with the professor. But it backfired. Michelle almost drowned pulling Vincent through the water with a looped belt she held clenched in her teeth. So Omar’s nemesis, Vincent, had not drowned, but made it to shore with Michelle.
“Good idea,” Vincent said about contacting Guy Thorner. “He’s piloted Omar to Kauai many times. And I’d trust him to tell us the truth. Not like that slimy pilot, Sammy, from last night.”
They all gathered at Michelle’s condo to make a list of things to do for ‘Operation Rescue,’ as they called the search for the abducted children.
Rod contacted the pilot, Guy Thorner, and arranged for a flight to Kauai. Michelle got on the computer, fired up Google Earth, and tried to figure out exactly where that beach was on the north, or windward, side of Kauai. It didn’t look promising. She couldn’t find an airfield close to where she thought the beach might be, so they would have to rent a Jeep and drive a long way along the coast. She didn’t see how they could make it there until near dark.
Then they would have to try to get the children, who were undoubtedly hidden, right out from under Omar’s nose. Samson was probably there with Omar; a real deterrent to any rescue attempt. And Michelle knew Omar would have some loyal witches from his Hawaiian coven there as well, to defend his home and the children.
Mike and Heather went to their condo and made sandwiches so they wouldn’t have to stop working.
“Unfortunately, Guy Thorner says he can’t take us to Kauai until later in the day,” Rod said, just as Heather and Mike came back with a late brunch of sandwiches for them all. “He’s willing, but we all might have to stay overnight if we can’t get to the kids right away.”
“And that’s if Omar really does have a house where we think he does,” Vincent said. “And if the kids are secreted there. I hate to say it, but we might be going on a wild goose chase.”
Michelle knew that, but they were all chomping at the bit to do something, take some action. The police were already scouring Waikiki for the kids. They couldn’t help with that, so they might as well go for a hunch, rather than sitting and doing nothing when they had a possible lead.
The professor moved over to where Michelle was eating, sitting down next to her. He whispered, “I really think you’re right about Kauai, but we can’t take Leilanie and Petal with us.”
Michelle understood. If they failed in their attempt to get the children, and Petal was there, Omar could steal her permanently away to France with her sisters.
Michelle didn’t even want to think about what would happen to Leilanie if Omar got control of them all.
Omar paced around his home high in the mountains of Kauai, reminding himself that his children were gifted with powerful paranormal abilities. They were valuable. He could teach them to be even more awesome and formidable, given a little time.
Right now, though, they were driving him crazy. Nonstop crying, whining, shrieking, and screaming made him want to hunch over and cover his ears.
He’d tried to placate them, telling his daughters that soon they’d be going on a wonderful trip back to France. And he would bring their sister too, since they mentioned they missed Petal as well as Leilanie.
They cried even harder and Shelly, the one with the green/yellow eyes like Michelle’s, yelled that he had promised to take them back to their mommy.
He sighed mightily. He had found a woman in his Hawaiian coven who resembled Leilanie to take care of the girls. Omar thought they would take to the woman, Nohea, and feel better. Evidently the two little girls saw right through the ruse and kept up the crying. For hours on end.
It was driving everyone bat shit crazy.
On top of that, there was a sudden storm lashing the mansion, with lots of lightning and thunder. Most people stayed inside during similar onslaughts, but Omar took advantage and stood in the rain, arms raised, stoking up on the electrical energy. He could feel himself expanding, his magical energy magnified several fold.
When he got back inside and dried off, his witches bombarded him with worrying reports about his two little girls.
They refused to eat. They wouldn’t play. Even Samson shook his head and covered his ears at the perpetual screaming and crying from the tiny tykes. Their misery was loud.
Leilanie had spoiled them rotten, Omar decided. They needed to learn some discipline. The two were out of control.
When he thought of being confined with them for hours on a plane back to France, he knew what he could do to subdue them. For a while. And he didn’t want to do it now, but he felt he had no choice.
Nohea came into the study where he was hiding, pretending to read and attempting to avoid the gloom that pervaded his beautiful home.
“I’m sorry, Omar, but I can’t get the girls to stop crying,” Nohea said. “They refused to go to the beach below, and they have eaten nothing all morning. Now they’re refusing lunch.”
Omar looked at her angrily. How could such little girls cause so much chaos? He didn’t care one whit about their feelings, but everyone else in his household seemed to. He just wanted some peace and quiet.
“I’ll take care of it,” Omar said, slamming his book closed.
Omar strode to the living room. It was a beautiful space, with oval floor to cei
ling windows overlooking the ocean. The two girls were sitting on a sofa, crying. They both looked up when Omar came into the room.
He smiled at the girls, knowing he was absolutely and irresistibly charming to the entire female gender, even to little girls.
They looked up at him, and surprisingly, didn’t crack their miserable attitudes. Both had red eyes and noses. Snot and tears ran down their faces. He had at least expected them to stop crying when they saw him, but no, it was like they were stuck in profound misery.
He went and sat down next to the girls. “When we get back to France, I’m going to get each of you a pony.”
They looked at him with interest, he thought.
“I want a kitty. Like Lucifer,” Ivory said angrily. “Not a big smelly horse.”
He almost smiled, deciding the girls could be bribed. He nodded, “That can be arranged. You will have a cat. But you both need to stop crying. Right now.”
The waterworks continued.
“I want my mommy,” Shelly shouted.
“Look at me,” Omar thundered.
His shout shut them up for the moment, as both girls were stunned when he yelled. They turned their gazes up to his.
That was all Omar needed. His black eyes were like onyx magnets and they couldn’t look away. He chanted:
In a deep sleep ye shall be,
Remembering not what I hide from Thee,
Magic work let this be,
Let this spell work for me!
Omar repeated the chant three times, watching as the two blinked several times, and finally closed their eyes. Their bodies melted back into the pillows on the sofa. They were out. Asleep.
Ah, peace.
Chapter 29
Michelle smiled, listening to their pilot, Guy Thorner, as he went into his tourist-mode patter, flying them toward Kauai and simultaneously giving facts about the island.
Magical Legacy Page 18
