Take Her to HeVan

by Lucy Kelly

  “Marla Jones has disappeared from her bachelorette party this evening. Someone took her.”

  Jake O’Brien laughed. He let himself fall forward so Jim Tucker wouldn’t see the absolute glee in his eyes. “She dumped him, too? Oh, that’s rich; it’s priceless. Why’d she dump his ass; did she catch him cheating?”

  “She didn’t leave under her own steam, Jake; she was kidnapped. And right now you have the best motive for making her gone. Are you going to let me search your house?”

  Jake stepped back and waved his hand. “Sure thing, Sheriff. Go right ahead and look. She’s not here.”

  Jim took him at his word and looked all over the house from cellar to attic. When he came across Jake’s dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, he turned to Jake and looked his question.

  “I thought I’d shower, sober up a little, and go to bed. The plan didn’t take. When a man loses the woman he loves, he’s entitled to get drunk. As you can see, Marla’s not here so why don’t you skedaddle and leave me in peace. Why don’t you ask that foreigner she’s shacking up with where she is? I bet he’s done something to her.”

  Jim left the house but he didn’t let Jake close the door without getting permission to search all of the outbuildings. Jake had given him permission so fast; he knew he wasn’t going to find Marla on the property. Still, he had to look. As he walked toward the nearest barn, he wished he could have bagged up Jake’s clothes. Any particulates found on them might help pinpoint where Marla was. Because like Karlo and Charl, he believed Jake knew where she was and he prayed she was still alive.

  *****

  In her hotel suite in Boulder, Becky was using her laptop, she never went anywhere without it, to compile a list of possible locations for Marla. Amy had only been able to give her minor details. She was going to try for another vision, only she had been so shocked by what she saw that she went into labor. They had not taken into account how linked they were to their unborn infants. So it wasn’t so much her shock as the combined shock of both her and her baby. Now she and her Ankida were being treated in the hotel room by Markus.

  He was doing his best to halt the labor. It looked like he would succeed.

  “Okay, I think we stopped it in time. No more visions for you, Amy,” Markus said with a smile. Turning to her Ankida, who were very anxious for her, he gave them a smile of reassurance. “I think a nice massage would help Amy to relax and sleep.”

  He packed up his medical bag and left the bedroom. The massage would help Amy and have the added benefit of helping her Ankida get over their anxiety by taking an active part in seeing to her care.

  Markus then went to check on Tammy and several of the other women to make sure they were all okay. Most of the women were sleeping in their rooms with one of their Ankida watching over them. The other men were all gathered in Karlo and Charl’s suite waiting to begin the search. They only waited on Becky to give them locations. Tammy was just hanging up the room phone when he came in.

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you more information,” Charlotte said, looking around at all the warriors’ faces. She had connected with Marla only briefly with her astral projection. “Let me rest for a short while and then I’ll try again. I’m just so tired from the long night and Marla is also unconscious. Once she’s awake, I’ll have a much better chance of connecting now that I have the thread.”

  Both Karlo and Charl made a point to thank her for the information she had given them and then sent her off with both her Ankida. They wanted to make sure she rested. After seeing them to the door, they rejoined the others.

  Nyal and Ishme were concerned for Becky’s health. She was carrying twins, but they both knew she would not accept any recommendations to rest and she wouldn’t stop looking.

  An hour later, she leaned back from the tiny portable keyboard she was using and groaned. Nyal instantly put his hands on her back to massage her sore muscles. Ishme turned her and lifted her feet into his lap.

  “I’ve marked all the locations I could find that fit the criteria we have so far. It’s a lot of them, but at least you guys can go out and look. While you do that, I’ll rest up. By the time you get back, I’ll have some more ideas,” she said.

  “Thank you, Becky; we’ll coordinate a search right away. Now go with your Ankida,” said Karlo.

  Ishme and Nyal exchanged a look. Markus had been there for them when Becky had been hurt and they wanted to pass that forward. “Nyal will stay with Becky. I will help search.”

  Charl nodded his thanks and turned to Markus. “Stay here with Tammy; you can take the extra bed. One of the other women may need you.”

  “Don’t worry old friend; I have faith you’ll find her.”

  When the men left the hotel, they were surprised to see both limos standing outside. “I’m sorry, did we forget to pay you?” he asked the two drivers.

  “No, we’ve been paid. Actually, we overheard you were planning to search for the bride. We don’t understand how you found out where she could be but we’re willing to drive you wherever you need to go,” said one of the two men.

  “Thank you. We have a list of addresses throughout the city. If you could drop us off in groups, it would speed up the search,” said Charl.

  “We can do that,” said the driver.

  “We can help, too,” said a voice coming from the left. The warriors turned as a group and saw Brad, Gary, and another three men from the gay bar in Denver standing there.

  “I called the hotel to check on you guys. You seriously overpaid on your tab. I spoke to a lady named Tammy and she filled me in, so I rounded up some friends to help. We each brought a car,” Brad told them.

  He wasn’t a fighter, he was a waiter. Gary was a landscaper, and the others were a florist, a chef, and a hairdresser. But paired up with Nephilim, they could help.

  “Thank you, my friend. We accept your help gladly. All of your help,” Charl said, looking each man in the eye. “Each of my friends has a list of addresses that have been texted to their phones. We’ll split up geographically and cover more area that way,” said Charl.

  That said, they were quickly split into groups and pairs and were on their way in minutes. It was past three in the morning; they didn’t know how much time they had to find her.

  Jural and Gary approached an abandoned office building. Reading the sign on the fence, it was due to be demolished in a few weeks. A broken lock on the gate meant someone had been there. He approached the building with caution. No longer did they charge into the unknown. Ishme and another warrior had discovered a drug lab in one building and had to fight their way out. They were out of the search dealing with the police and the aftermath of their actions.

  Gary stayed glued to Jural’s side. After hearing about what had happened to two of the other searchers, he was re-thinking this whole situation. They quickly cleared the first two floors of the office building. When they approached the third floor, Jural detected the faint glow of light coming from under a door along the hallway. He approached the door but couldn’t hear anything coming from the other side.

  Motioning Gary to the top of the stairs, just in case, he raised a foot and kicked the door in. Rushing into the room he barely looked around when a form covered in rags flew at him from the corner brandishing a knife.

  As soon as the form made contact, he realized it was female. But it was too late to stop his defensive move from dropping her to the floor. There was another scream and a small child ran over and kicked him in the leg, and kept on kicking him.

  “Don’t you hurt my mama! I’m not going to let you hurt her!” yelled the child. Jural quickly subdued the youngster, he didn’t want to hurt him or her, he couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sorry, I’m looking for a friend who was kidnapped. I apologize for hurting your mama. I’m going to let you go now so I can make sure she’s alright.” Jural looked up into the corner of the room and could see the frightened eyes of a second child.

  When he bent over the woman, she was just
becoming alert. She had knocked her head against the floor.

  Linda Samuelson looked up at the huge man and wondered if she had escaped her stalker only to be killed by a thug from the streets. She pushed herself across the floor and gathered her children under her arms. “Get out, mister, leave my children alone,” she said bravely.

  Jural was impressed with the woman. But this was no place for them, it wasn’t safe. Still, like the other warriors, he had been trained by Sarah, Becky, and Tammy on what to say. Each of the Nephilim always carried with them a pack for such situations. While the search for Marla was crucial, so was saving this woman and her children. All women were important.

  He pulled out a small tablet computer, an extended battery, a charger, and lastly some protein and candy bars. He laid them down on the floor in front of the woman. Then reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a roll of money, peeled off ten one hundred dollar bills, and added a business card to the pile.

  “Sarah Kline, the famous computer expert, retired from business to open a sanctuary for women and children. It’s in Wisconsin and it’s simply called ‘The Sanctuary.’ You can look her up on the tablet or use it to find refuge closer to here. It’s a last resort place for women to go to who need to completely disappear from those who are abusing them. I apologize again for being so rough; I would never intentionally hurt a woman,” said Jural.

  Linda gasped when another man appeared in the doorway. Gary had crept up from the stairwell when Jural hadn’t come back.

  “Gary won’t hurt you. He is a landscaper from Denver who volunteered to help us search for Marla when she was taken from her bachelorette party. We need to search the rest of this building and then we’ll leave you in peace. If you want help right away, Sarah is here in town for the wedding; you can call in a few hours and talk to her. I’m not going to give you the phone number for the hotel.” Her eyes sharpened when he said that.

  “I think you would feel more comfortable if you looked it up on the tablet. That way, you would be assured I wasn’t luring you into a trap.” He could tell she hadn’t thought of that. Finally, he pulled a tool out of the bag.

  “If you slide this under the edge of the door, no one will be able to break in again.”

  “Including you?” she asked and he had the grace to blush. He stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. Moments later, he heard the tool sliding into place.

  “Come along, Gary, we still have four more floors to search in this building. The odds are against Marla being here, but we can’t afford to overlook anything,” said Jural.

  “Hey, man, you had all that stuff ready. Do you do this a lot? I mean, helping people?” he asked.

  “We are always prepared. On our island, there are so few women. Without women, there is no future. They deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. While the wives of our men set up the Sanctuary and run it, we support it with our wealth. There are too many to help them all, but we help whom we can. You are the same,” he said, looking over at Gary. “You could have gone home to your bed. Yet you came to help. This world needs more people like you, Gary.”

  “Even though I’m gay and will never marry a woman?”

  “Whom you love isn’t important, Gary; it’s only important that you love,” said Jural as they went up another flight of stairs.

  After searching the rest of the building and not finding anything, they headed back downstairs. Jural was delighted to see the woman and her two children standing beside Gary’s truck. As a landscaper, he needed to carry his crew from site to site so he had a large crew cab truck.

  “I decided to trust you. The man who’s after me has a lot of skill. He always finds us. I looked up that Sarah Kline and read about her writing facial recognition software to help the police find criminals. I think he’s using something like that. A thousand dollars might get us to Wisconsin, but he’d only track us there. I’d hate to lead a man like that to your Sanctuary.”

  Jural put his hands on his hips and thought what to do. He took a long look at the industrial area. Linda was just about to give up when he spoke. “Okay, then this is what we’ll do. Get into the back and the three of you lie down. We’ll drive to an all-night store like Walmart and I’ll go in and get you some cleaner clothes to change into and some luggage. Then we’ll head over to the hotel. I’ll phone ahead and Becky and Sarah will temporarily blank out all the security, they can do stuff like that. There are no cameras at the Sanctuary; you’ll be safe there.

  “Becky, Sarah’s sister, used to work for the CIA. She’ll create a new identity for you going back generations. Then you can learn a new skill, something unrelated to what you’re doing now.”

  Linda interrupted him, “I don’t have skills. Since my husband died, I’ve been waitressing. That’s where I met the creep. I thought he was the answer to my prayers and he turned out to be a devil. I sure hope you’re not another devil, mister. If I wasn’t so desperate, I wouldn’t trust you. But we really need to get out of Boulder.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll give you training. Maybe to be a teacher? There are lots of tiny towns with small populations all over the US without cameras. We’ll find you one that doesn’t even have an ATM machine. Teachers are always welcome. Now how about we get going?”

  He didn’t step forward; he still let the woman make the decision. That final gesture decided her. “Okay, you’ll have to unlock the truck.”

  “I gotta say, buddy, hanging out with you is never dull,” said Gary.

  Jural gave him a quick grin before placing a call to Markus at the hotel. He wanted Becky to get started on her magic. He reported the empty building and let the team know someone would have to cover the next one.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Everything went precisely as Jural said it would. Even better, Sarah Kline met them in the lobby and Linda recognized her from the picture on Wikipedia. Only the Wikipedia article didn’t mention anything about Sarah being married and pregnant. She took them to a suite at the top floor of the hotel with three bedrooms. She had been sharing it with Becky and her Ankida. She offered the third bedroom to Linda, who still hadn’t shared her name, and then turned to Jural for an explanation.

  “Can we offer a bed to Gary? He’s been up all night with us searching. I don’t want him to get into a wreck driving home,” said Jural when he saw Gary getting ready to leave.

  “Of course; we rented the entire floor. Here, Gary, the room number is on the card. You’ll find a robe and other amenities in the room. A meal is being served in the banquet room downstairs whenever you are ready. We had intended to spend the morning decorating for the wedding; now it’s our search command,” she said with a sad smile.

  After a bemused and amazed Gary left to catch some shuteye, Tammy turned to Jural for the whole story.

  “Is there any news?” he asked, worried about the lack of results.

  “No. Other than knowing he carried her off over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. We’ve had no luck finding where he’s stashed her. The sheriff drove out to his ranch and he didn’t find her there either. Of course, after Charlotte’s brief visit, we know she’s in some kind of brick derelict building. Charlotte is going to try again to get a lock on her but it sucks so much energy—and being pregnant makes it even harder for her.”

  Neither of them noticed the door to the spare room open. Little Sara Samuelson wanted one of the oranges on the table. She was really hungry and mama was washing Andi in the tub. She felt safe because the nice lady’s name was Sarah, too. Her daddy used to sing her a song about Sarah smiling. Maybe it was about this lady; she had a nice smile.

  She was about to go to the bowl of fruit, when they started talking about a bad man. It scared her until she realized they were trying to help the lady the bad man hurt. When they said the part about the bad man carrying the lady like a sack of potatoes, she gasped out loud.

  Tammy and Jural turned at the sound.

  “I’m sorry, honey, did we scare you?
You’re safe here with your mama; no bad men can get you. Do you need something?” Tammy asked her in a quiet voice.

  “Can I have an orange, please? Mama’s washing Andi. She’s gonna pop me in next, she said.”

  “Why don’t you take this bowl of fruit into your room? Maybe your mama or Andi would like something too,” said Tammy, carrying it to the door. She knelt down on one knee and gave the bowl to the girl who held it with both hands. Sarah and Jural waited by the couch. They didn’t want to overwhelm her.

  “He took her into the banana building. Like a sack of potatoes,” Sara whispered.

  Tammy tried not to let her excitement show. “Oh, did you see?”

  “Yes, we were walking and I saw. Mama was busy with Andi; they didn’t see, only me. He had a truck. Not big like Gary’s truck, just a regular truck. And he put the lady on his shoulder just like a sack of potatoes and carried her into the banana building.”

  “Does your mama know where the banana building is?” asked Tammy.

  “Well, of course she does. We were walking by it every day,” said Sara matter of fact before she took the bowl of fruit and went into the bedroom. Her mother was calling her.

  Tammy got up and went back to Sarah and Jural. “Did you hear?”

  “I sure did. Let me call Becky and she can start looking. We may need to have them show us the way. Do you think they could come down to the banquet room?” asked Sarah.

  “No, it’s too dangerous. They would be seen on the cameras in the halls and elevator. Have Becky come here,” said Jural.

  “Of course, you’re right. I forgot for a minute there that our little family needs protection too,” said Sarah before she picked up her cell to call her sister. They decided not to contact Karlo and Charl until they had something more solid. They didn’t want to get their hopes up.

  Fifteen minutes later, Becky and her Ankida entered the suite. She was carrying the small laptop computer she took everywhere. It might look like a simple tablet but Jalen, one of Grace’s Ankida, had souped it up for her. It had the processing capabilities of a supercomputer.