breathing sickens me! The sound of your voice causes bile to churn in my gut!”
“What in the hell do you think you are doing, Carl?” Mr. Evens, his boss, had snuck up on them
from behind.
He knew that being caught red-handed manhandling and threatening Angela meant that he would be
fired, but he did not care. Not even a little. His job had served its purpose of preoccupying his time and
allowing him to find the right woman to complete his collage. Plus, he had plenty of money saved up and
stored in his walls. He had a small fortune thanks to the inheritance his mother had unwittingly left him.
There was so much to be done and time was running out. He needed to focus his attention and energy on
preparing his home to be a suitable and secure dwelling to confine his bride.
Rather than release her right away, he leaned down and press his forehead against hers and
whispered, “Just because you pretend God does not exist you cannot escape the dark fate that awaits you.
You will never be able to outrun the holy vengeance of God Almighty.”
“That’s enough, Carl!” Mr. Evens shouted. But he was wrong.
“You will suffer for each of your many sins against God. You will spend all of eternity rotting and
burning in Hell!”
As he took a step back he was grabbed from behind and pushed to the side. He tripped over his feet
and fell down onto his hands and knees, but he got right up to protect himself just in case his boss decided
to fight him.
“Go home, Carl, and do not ever come back or I will call the police and have then haul your ass to
jail! You’re fired!”
“Just because you call yourself a Christian does not mean it’s so. You are a hypocrite. You will
suffer God’s wrath along with her for allowing her… a lewd nonbeliever, to work for you.”
“Do not push me to make the call.” Mr. Evens held up his cell phone and waved it around as if to
prove he would call the authorities. Carl knew that the self-serving man would never do it because having
police cars parked in plain sight would give people long lasting negative opinions about him and his
business. The moron had a constant obsession with maintaining the appearance of being perfect. “I told
you to leave. We both know that you do not have anyone to bail you out. Do it now, Carl, or else you will
spend the night locked up in a jail cell waiting for morning to come so you can explain your idiocy to a
judge.”
“I need to get my things from my office before I leave.” He did not care about any of his belongings
inside the building, but he could not resist the urge to prove that he would not intimidated by empty
threats.
“I will gather them up and have them sent to you.”
Carl took his cell phone from his pocket. “I am not leaving here without my stuff.”
“Who are you calling?”
“The police. I am sure they will agree to escort me inside so that I can retrieve what is mine.”
“No. There’s no need to involve the authorities. I will give you ten minutes to get your belongings.”
“You can’t let him back inside,” Angela stated.
Mr. Evens shook his head and gave her a stern look. “It isn’t up to you to tell me what I can or
cannot do.”
“But…but Mr. Evens, you can’t just act like nothing happened and let him go back inside. He not
only assaulted me, he threatened to kill me!”
“Just stay out here until it’s done, Angela.” He opened the door and motioned for Carl to go through
it. “Hurry up, get your ass inside. You have exactly ten minutes to remove all of your shit from my
property. Anything left behind will be destroyed and thrown out.”
Experiencing a great deal of amusement over the situation Carl could not hold back the laughter
bubbling up in him as he walked by Angela to go inside. He didn’t rush. Not even close. He slowly,
continuing to laugh out loud, made his way toward his office. The instant he sat down at his desk he
realized that he had made a huge mistake with the power to ruin everything by losing control of his
temper.
Why? Why did he allow himself to go off on her? He was strong enough to handle Angela. He
should have ignored her and walked away. If only he had not told Brianna where he worked the mistake
would not have been so big. Why did he tell her? What purpose did it have, when he did not have any
intention of waiting for her to come to him? He had to get to her right away rather than her getting
spooked and going into hiding. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not after he had put so much effort into
finding her.
In a panic he got up from his seat and rushed through the building to get outside as quickly as
possible. He heard his boss shouting at him, but he did not even bother to attempt to make out what he
was screaming. It did not matter to him. His one and only concern was getting to Brianna before there
was any chance of her talking to Angela and hearing the unpleasant details of what he had done and
threatened to do.
Once outside he stopped running to avoid being noticed. He didn’t want to stand out to anyone
considering the fact that he planned to take Brianna from the boutique and bring her to his home. It wasn’t
the ideal time to do so. He hadn’t had a chance to prepare for her, but escaping would be nearly
impossible thanks to her inability to see. In time she would learn to rely on him to meet her every need
and desire. She would be too afraid to do anything to lose his leadership over her, but not until he had
taken the time to properly make her gain a godly fear of doing or saying anything to defy him.
The moment the boutique was within sight Brianna walked outside, but rather than walk away as he
had anticipated she stopped to talk to a giant of a man. He was several inches over six feet tall. He
immediately thought about her claiming to have a stalker and wondered if it was him.
While many thoughts raced around in his mind, Carl studied the thief attempting to make off with his
appointed spouse. Since receiving an ass kicking wasn’t something he wanted to experience, he quickly
decided that it would be foolish to make any effort to rush him now and attempt to use bare hands to kill
him. It was plain to see that he would not succeed in taking him down. His rival was wearing blue jeans
and a plain black t-shirt that was tight enough to reveal the impressive muscles of a man who spent
several hours every day lifting weights.
In all honesty, other than on television, Carl had never seen a man with such a flawless and
intimidating physique. He needed to work out plan. No, not a plan. To kill the man he simply needed to
do it with a weapon that would allow him to remain out of his reach. Figuring out which one to use didn’t
take a genius. It was obvious that using a gun to put a bullet between his eyes was the best option to go
with.
He watched them walk away until they were no longer close enough to see them clearly unless he
followed them. Of course he was tempted to do it, but he knew better. He could not afford to allow them
to try his patience anymore. His earlier encounter with Angela and Mr. Evens taught him that he needed
to be more careful to avoid anything that might trigger his temper until he had gained more control over
it. Eventually he would master it, he had no doubt of it, but for now he would be cautious to prevent
another outburst.
Turning to walk in the opposite direction he began to make his way home. In about two to three
minutes he remembered finding a gun. It just so happened to be that right after he dug up a grave to bury
his mother in her basement that curiosity got the best of him. He had spent several hours going through
boxes and totes to search for something that revealed his father’s identity. He failed to find anything with
even a small clue, but he discovered a gun and bullets hidden inside an old box that was labeled cleaning
rags. He had never felt the need to use a gun so he left it there with the rest of her things.
After a few weeks an unrelenting bout of curiosity he was compelled to return and search once more,
but he never got the opportunity to look for anything. He fled the house within the span of no more than
five to possibly ten minutes of his arrival after his mother’s ghost attempted to murder him. She snuck up
on him from behind and shoved him all the way from the top to the bottom of the cement staircase that
led to the basement. He was scared shitless but he was not shocked at all. He should have known better
than to expect or even hope for a single second that she might simply cease to exist after he had taken her
life. Forgiving and forgetting were two words that were not even in her vocabulary. It was only natural for
her to refuse to move on until she satisfied her hunger for revenge by taking his life. An eye for an eye
was her favorite phrase to repeat over and over again after she felt someone had slighted her in any way.
Knowing the extent of her ruthlessness he never even dared to contemplate taking another step onto
her property until that instant. A few years ago, following an encounter with a lawyer that had screwed
him over, he ended up being forced to endure a mandatory forty eight hour stay at the county mental
health hospital. The moment he was to be released a county deputy picked him up and took him straight
to the court house where he waited for nearly five hours to have his fate decided by a judge.
The hearing was a joke. The judge refused to hear Carl out. He was ordered to pay fines to the state
and a much larger amount of money for restitution that supposedly went to the lawyer to cover repairs
costs to his office and a handful of medical bills. But the judge did not stop there, thanks to the lawyer’s
impressive ability to play the role of a victim.
By the time he left the court house he had lost a few thousand dollars and his right to have a gun. At
the time it had happened it didn’t bother him having that privilege revoked. Now that he had no other
option than to risk his life to retrieve the gun in his mother’s basement, it really pissed him off and made
him consider using the gun to kill the judge and the lawyer before going after the man attempting to take
Brianna away from him.
~Six~
THE DECEIVINGLY STAGNANT atmosphere was becoming increasingly hot and muggy. Far-away
flashes of heat lightning that were scarcely visible on the western horizon indicated that the conditions
were ripe for the development of a thunderstorm. The putrid stench of a corrupted vampire, notably worse
than when Nikolas had first become aware of the disturbance several hours ago, had become nearly
intolerable. It did not take the wisdom an ancient to figure out that the vile creature was near, but
pinpointing its exact location had proved impossible.
Normally doing so would have been an easy accomplishment for a ten thousand year old demon such
as he, but the blood sucking parasite was not alone. It did not have the ability to harness and manipulate
the energy gathering around them. Another ancient demon, Demetri Demidov, was lending a hand to the
abominable insect. Though it was the last thing Nikolas wanted to admit, the time to face the fact that
stopping the rising had come and gone hours ago. It takes less effort to start a rising initiated by means of
a tainted vampire’s blood that has been enhanced with a demon’s power than it does to sort out and
unweave the spells accompanying it.
Side by side with Haden he stood on the edge of a weathered cliff that overlooked the Pacific Ocean
in Astoria, Oregon near his home. While they joined their powers to hold it back, Nikolas had studied the
hell out of the supernatural elements being used to strengthen it, but despite giving it his all he could not
unravel it. The longer he had tried the more clear it had become that he was not going to figure it all out in
time to do any good.
“We are doing nothing but delaying the inevitable. Every second we spend trying to counteract
Demetri’s moves we are intensifying his strength. He is absorbing and utilizing the power we are
releasing to hold the rising back.”
“How is that possible?” Haden asked.
“I am not sure. I have heard about it happening in battles long before I was born, but I have never
encountered it before today. He is using ancient spells that have been long forgotten by most of our kind.
They have no shortcuts so they are more complex and solid than the modern day powers we have learned
to invoke.”
“I guess that means we are about to get our asses kicked for progress.”
“No. Not for progress, for laziness and lack of common sense. If I had listened to Demetri when I
was still young we would not be in this predicament. He tried like hell to get me to study and practice our
ancient ways of warfare. He warned us all that this would happen. Not that he would be the aggressor of
course. He claimed that a fellow demon, learned and skilled in our old ways, could turn against our kind
and wreak havoc amongst us because we would be incapable of defending ourselves. I laughed at him.
Many of us laughed at him. Our old-fashioned ways seemed incredibly time consuming and physically
draining when compared to the new ways being taught to us.”
“If that is true we should have the advantage over him. We should be faster and stronger, should we
not?”
“The shortcuts initially seem to save us time and energy, but they create holes and weak spots in the
incantations we use. We waste a great deal of time and energy trying to manage and restore the
deficiencies we create.”
“I suppose as soon as we are done getting our asses kicked we should consider finding another who
still practices the ways we have forgotten and lost.”
“That is my plan, but convincing him to get involved will not be an easy matter. He has purposely
lived apart from us for many centuries following the mysterious disappearance of his twin sister, Amber.”
“Are you talking about Tobias Daniels?”
“The one and only.”
“Oh hell no! There must be someone else. We all know Amber did not vanish without explanation.
She ran off to get a chance to experience adventure and love. She was over three thousand years old and
he would not allow her the space to breathe. He knew it but he was just too damn stubborn to admit it. He
hunted her down for years. He would have hauled her ass back kicking and screaming all the way to the
ranch, locked her up and thrown away the key if he had ever caught up to her. You will never convince
him to lift a finger to help us. I have heard that after he failed to find her he developed a serious drinking
problem. He is so messed up that he has not stepped foot off of his ranch in over a hundred years now.”
“You should not listen to, or repeat rumors.”
“Are you saying that none of it is true?”
“Not at all. I am saying that you should not take part in spreading gossip for any reason. First of all it
is very unattractive. Second of all imagine how you would feel if people gave heed to the rumor going
around that you have an inability to control the side effects your temper has on the elements of nature
during stressful and emotional situations.”
“I do not have a problem controlling a damn thing!” As if to mock him the ground, accompanied by
a deep groan, quaked beneath their feet.
Nikolas laughed out loud. “No more than Tobias has dealing with his sister’s need for a little action
and romance or with his thirst for aged whiskey.”
“Let’s just get back to figuring out what the hell we are going to do about Demetri and this damn
rising.”
“I suppose that seems to be the most sensible thing to do.”
Right then a muffled moaning noise echoed all around. As its volume amplified and pitch sharpened
it seemed to be originating from a disturbance deep below the surface of the ocean. After it continued on
for several seconds Nikolas looked at Haden.
“What? Stop looking at me.”
Nikolas shrugged. “I just thought you might want to rein it in a bit.”
“I am not doing…”
“Hold on.” Everything was abruptly and completely silent and still. Even the waves went unnaturally
still as a thick blanket of fog that spread out for miles developed directly above the water and then slowly
rose until the sky darkened to a pitch black. “Look at that.” Nikolas pointed south where patches of
reddish orange and blue flames in the form of a dragon illuminated a large portion of the sky.
“That’s magnificent. It’s a real pity we didn’t bring lounge chairs and popcorn.” Haden replied with
a sarcastic drawl. “It’s so considerate of him to make use of his spare energy to do a little artistic
showboating for us.”
After having spent several hours pushing against one wave of power Demetri sent after another their
power was seriously waning. It was infuriatingly obvious to Nikolas that the other demon was not even
close to breaking a sweat. No doubt it was a perk of his ability to steal and make use of their energy. “The
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