by Tefft, Cyndi
“My father was afraid of the mafia, though. He said they were nothing but a bunch of crooks and he forbade me to see Rocky. So I set his damned laundry shop on fire while my parents were asleep in their bed above the store, and I married my mobster. And we were one big, happy family until a little bird told me Tony Maranzano was planning to take out Rocky as a warning message to Lucky for some money he’d been stiffed. I tried to tell Rocky but the idiot wouldn’t listen to me.
“So I followed him one night to the Oasis Motel. When I saw Tony bust in the door, I jumped in front of him and he shot me point blank in the chest. It was a dumbass thing to do really, since I couldn’t save Rocky anyway. Tony stepped right over me and filled him full of daylight three seconds later. I heard Gina Marletti screaming from inside the room before the gunshots started, so it turns out I sacrificed myself for a no-good, double-crossing, cheating whoremonger anyway.”
Her attention had wandered as she recounted her story and Aiden had slowly moved to one side and drawn his dirk without her noticing. When she got to the end, though, her focus sharpened and she glared at him in warning.
“Don’t even think about it, Scotty. I’ll pop her right now. I swear it.” She pressed the gun hard against my head and yanked my hair. I whimpered a little and a muscle at the corner of Aiden’s eye twitched. “Drop the knife and kick it over to me,” she hissed at him and after a moment, he did as she asked.
“You,” she growled at me, “see that cable over there? Grab it and tie his hands behind his back. Wrap it around that pole. Now!” She walked behind me with the gun at my head. Tears streamed down my face as I fumbled with the cable. “Make a good job of it. Any tricks and I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?” she snarled in my ear and I nodded helplessly.
Be strong, Lindsey. We’ll get out of this. Just pray, lass. Aiden’s voice in my head was like cool water to parched lips.
Mona barked out a derisive laugh and broke my spirit again.
“Yeah, pray, lass! That’ll help!” She cracked me in the back of the head with the gun once more for good measure. “Where you’re going, prayer won’t do you a damned bit of good. Now move it.” When Aiden was well secured, she grabbed my wrist and yanked me over to one of the workbenches. She set down the pistol to pick up another length of cable and I seized my chance. I went for her throat and she batted me away like a pesky fly. She struck me hard across the face and her claw-like nails left bloody scratches on my cheek. Grabbing a fistful of my hair, she smacked my head against the table repeatedly until I saw stars and begged her to stop. When I dropped to the ground, she tied my hands behind my back, securing the cable around one leg of the heavy metal bench. She stepped away and admired her work.
“Mona, what do ye want with me?” Aiden demanded, his voice terse and cold. “If ye came to kill me, why not just do it?”
“Oh, my sweet, I didn’t come here to kill you, though I am sure that would be fun. You turned down heaven when it was offered to you, so you’ll go directly to hell anyway.” She batted her eyelashes at him like that was good news. Her words pierced me through the heart.
“No!” I screamed, but she ignored me. Aiden’s face turned to stone.
Unencumbered now without the gun, she sauntered over to Aiden and ran a long fingernail down his chest and over the front of his jeans. Honey oozed from her voice.
“I tried to do this the easy way. You’re the one who’s made this so difficult.” She stuck out her bottom lip in a pout, then put one hand on his shoulder and pushed him down the pole until he was half-sitting and half-leaning against it. She stepped back and unzipped her dress, letting it pool at her feet. Completely naked except for black thigh-high stockings, a garter belt and her heels, she looked spectacular, her skin marred only by the red scar on her shoulder blade where Aiden’s dirk had pierced it.
Aiden immediately turned his head but she yanked his face back with one hand, her red nails like slashes across his cheek. Her voice came out low and husky as she knelt before him.
“I haven’t come to kill you. I could have done that easily a dozen times already. No, pretty boy, I’ve come to take your seed.” He stared at her in disbelief and she chuckled at his reaction. “I know, there’s worse things, huh?” She got up and grabbed his blade from where it was lying on the floor and proceeded to slice open his shirt. Splaying her fingers over his naked chest, she purred like a jungle cat.
“The offspring of a heaven transporter and a hell transporter will rule the realm in between, and my master has claimed the child for his own. When I give birth to the babe, the master will reward me for my devoted service.” Her face took on a wild, animalistic quality for a moment before she locked her normal mask back into place. She stripped off Aiden’s belt and wrestled his jeans down his thighs so that nothing stood between her and her desire.
“If you were sleeping with Micah, how do you know you’re not already pregnant?” I demanded.
“I told him I was saving myself for marriage,” she said, then threw her head back and howled with laughter. “We found other ways to satisfy each other,” she said, then proceeded to show me exactly what she meant.
Blinded by rage, I writhed against my tether, hardly noticing the pain in my wrists. I wished she had killed me, since I felt so powerless.
“Get away from him, you bitch!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, fury burning in my chest.
She turned to me and cocked an eyebrow. “Why, Lindsey,” she said innocently, “don’t you remember I promised that you’d get to watch?” She turned back to Aiden then, chortling to herself and suckled his neck, pressing her bare breasts against his chest. “There’s no reason we can’t enjoy this,” she purred as she ran her hand up his thigh to fondle him.
He turned his head sharply and chomped down on her ear. She made a horrible, piercing cry that reverberated throughout the room and made my teeth ache. She jerked back and hissed at him.
“Do that again if you want her to be a pin cushion,” she said, blood streaming down one side of her neck. Then she grabbed his dirk from where it lay on the ground and flung it at me. The blade buried itself in my upper thigh. I screamed, expecting pain, but felt only shock. Gasping for air, I stared at the knife in my flesh. Then a hot throbbing began in my leg and spread throughout my body, turning tighter and tighter like a crank. Tremors overtook me as my mind grew hazy with hysterical panic.
Have to get out of here. Have to save Aiden. Have to kill Mona. My mind spun in circles like a dog chasing its tail, getting nowhere.
Mona strolled over to me and yanked out the dirk, sending another jolt of agony through me. Bright white flashes of pain exploded behind my eyes.
“Maybe this would help put you in the mood, lover,” she offered in a conciliatory tone. Grasping the edges of my coat and blouse, she ripped them open in one swift motion, exposing my chest. She cut off my bra with the bloody dirk and twisted my nipple with her finger.
“Would two dames together do it for you?”
Aiden roared something in Gaelic, his face contorted with pure hatred. “Enough! Let her be, Mona. You can have what ye want from me.”
He didn’t look her in the eye as she lowered herself before him once again. I didn’t want to watch but I couldn’t look away. So horrified by what I saw, I just sat and sobbed. Mona made a contented moan and licked him all the way up his chest, stopping to suckle his nipples. Straddling him, she flung her head back in ecstasy, her dark hair trailing like a shadow over his white thighs. I heard him groan with frustration and I hung my head, unable to bear any more.
I prayed anyway, since there was nothing else I could do, and wished I could block out the noises they were making. My eyes moved over the shredded remains of my bra lying on the ground and in my haze of pain, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been wearing a bra earlier. We’d come straight from the pool, so I’d just put my shirt on over Jen’s red bikini top.
I stared as the fabric transformed from white to red, complete with gold
hoops.
My mind was racing to try and figure out what was happening when Mona breathed lustily, “You’re just as good as I dreamt you’d be.”
In the space of a heartbeat, it clicked.
The scene in the band room came rushing back, where she’d convinced me that she had me by the throat, her talons sinking into my skin, when in truth, she hadn’t been there at all. She’d grabbed a hold of my mind and twisted it into believing what she wanted me to see.
A flame of hope lit within my chest. She must have taken control when I’d called out to Aiden before the air compressor exploded. In fact, I remembered seeing a piece of metal hit Aiden on the temple a second before I was knocked out, and he didn’t have any blood on his head now. I’d forgotten that detail and perhaps she hadn’t seen it to start with. Even as the thought flitted across my consciousness, a crimson slash appeared beside his brow.
All these thoughts ran through my head in the time it took me to draw one breath. My realization weakened her control and I wrenched my mind out of her grasp with all the rage of a wounded lioness.
The scene around me dissolved and I found myself crumpled up against the metal pole, back in the room where she’d fired the gun. My head ached like I’d been hit with a baseball bat, but I didn’t care.
My eyes flew to where I’d last seen Mona, pinned under Aiden. I’d been completely immobile while she controlled my thoughts, but apparently she’d used that time to extract herself from beneath him. Aiden lay completely still on the floor, his pants unzipped. She was slowly maneuvering to straddle him, her back turned toward me.
I launched myself at her.
Ramming her with my shoulder, I yanked Aiden’s dirk free from his belt just as he came to. Her head smacked the concrete floor and she landed with one leg hooked under Aiden’s body. He twisted around and snaked out a hand, gripping her throat in his fist. In that split-second, I had a vision of Aiden’s youngest brother Willie at the castle.
I knew exactly what I needed to do.
Calling on every ounce of strength I possessed, I thrust the dirk under her ribcage and straight up into her chest.
Her high-pitched screeching filled the room like the sound of a thousand bats. Her face and body transformed before my eyes into the terrifying beast I knew her to be. Her flawless beauty morphed into a grotesque skull with bulging red eyes and leathery, reptilian skin pulled taut against the hollows of her cheekbones. Her putrid stench permeated the room, making me gag. She twisted and writhed as she screamed, and her razor-sharp claws raked my coat, ripping it to shreds. Aiden grabbed her arms and pinned them to her sides. The dirk shook violently in my hand, sending shockwaves up my arm, but I held on to it with all my might.
A new sound like the hum from the rim of a champagne glass began to build in the room until it was so loud, I could no longer hear her screeching cries. Mona’s eyes rolled back in her head and her body seemed to cave in on itself. The vibration of the dirk intensified until the hilt of the weapon grew white-hot in my hand. I gritted my teeth but I did not let go.
The warm, humming sound grew louder still, drowning out all conscious thought. Mona’s skin crackled and tore as a brilliant yellow light exploded from within her. She disappeared into a cloud of oily, black smoke. Wisps of her essence curled around the corners of the ceiling like fingers trying to hold on, but then they were gone as the splendor of the light pressed all the darkness from the room. I squeezed my eyes shut, blinded by the intensity of the glow, and I felt its heat radiating through my bones like the vibrating noise.
And then, like a switch had been flipped, it was gone.
The loss of the light, the warmth and the humming sound was instantaneous. The overwhelming presence left us in the space between breaths. My hand felt paralyzed, but I unpeeled my fingers and dropped the dirk to the floor. I scrambled over to Aiden, feeling my way along the ground since I was still unable to see. He found me and we clung to one another. Blood streamed down his cheek and over my fingers.
A light moan off to the side made me jump.
My vision cleared as I became accustomed to the darkened room once again, and I remembered Ravi. He lay unmoving on the ground and I ran over to him. Aiden tore a strip off the bottom of his shirt and made a tourniquet for Ravi’s leg while I called an ambulance.
Ravi blinked a couple of times and gazed up at Aiden.
“Mona…” he breathed.
“She’s gone. Not to worry, mate. She’ll not be hurting ye again. Help is coming,” Aiden reassured him in a soothing voice.
Ravi nodded and turned to me, wincing with pain. “Lindsey, are you okay? I’m so sorry. I never thought…” His voice trailed off and he took a deep breath, as the shakes overtook him.
I hushed him and stroked his forehead. He was burning up. “I’m fine, Ravi. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I thought of the dead security guard and realized that the police were going to be asking questions. Since Mona was not here to answer for her crimes, the last thing we needed was to have suspicion cast in Aiden’s direction.
“Ravi, do you remember anything at all?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Mona… she tried to kill me but…” His eyes moved to Aiden with a newfound respect and awe. “You saved my life.”
Aiden squeezed his hand. “I never had the chance to thank you for taking such good care of Lindsey when she was in hospital. I guess we’re even now, aye?” Aiden smiled at him and Ravi’s eyes lost focus.
“Are you… her guardian angel?” he asked.
“Something like that,” Aiden responded.
I shook Ravi lightly by the shoulder, trying to keep him awake. “Ravi, stay with us.”
“Bats,” he said, drifting in and out. “I remember hearing bats. And peace, like a warm blanket. Humming…” He passed out again and this time, I couldn’t rouse him. The sound of sirens in the distance brought an overwhelming wave of relief that washed all the strength from my body. I fell into Aiden’s arms and he held me as we waited for the paramedics to arrive.
When we got to the hospital, Father O’Malley stood in the lobby of the emergency room, talking with the nurse behind the counter. Aiden held a compression bandage to his temple. Gauze encircled his forearm where Mona had bitten him. One of the paramedics told the nurse that he needed stitches.
“Aiden! Lindsey! What happened?” the priest asked, worry creasing his brow. The EMTs wheeled Ravi past on a stretcher.
He reached out a hand and answered the priest in a weak voice, “He saved my life.”
Father O’Malley’s eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped open. A barrage of questions flickered across his face, but he clamped his mouth shut and didn’t say anything. The paramedic tucked Ravi’s arm back onto the stretcher and whisked him down the hall.
“I’m going to need your insurance card, sir,” the nurse said to Aiden in a calm, professional voice. He stared at her in confusion.
Father O’Malley snapped to attention then and put his hand on Aiden’s shoulder.
“I’ll be responsible for his claim, Gladys. Send the bill to me,” he said. Surprise flickered across her face, but then she shrugged and handed me a clipboard with the paperwork.
Chapter 36
The next week was filled with tension and stress. A massive manhunt had been undertaken to try and find Mona, and the whole college was abuzz with gossip about the shootings. I visited Ravi in the hospital, and Aiden and I went to the funeral for the security guard, which was heart wrenching. I tried to put everything out of my mind so I could focus on my finals, but between school, answering the same questions over and over at the police station, nailing down the final arrangements for the wedding and dealing with Aiden’s sullen mood, I was at my breaking point.
He’d been testy and irritable all week and I’d tried to give him his space, but my patience was running thin. I wasn’t in the best of places myself, feeling pulled in a thousand different directions, so it didn’t take long before one of us snapp
ed and brought things to a head. We were at his place, packing for the airport, and I asked him for the umpteenth time if he’d remembered his passport.
“For God’s sake, I already told ye! Leave off, Lindsey!” he barked and I reared back. The pressure of the last week finally got to me, and I was ready and willing to fight.
“Well, excuse me! I’m a little distracted. What the hell is wrong with you anyway? You’ve been sulking around for the last week and I’ve had just about enough of it! You were excited about the wedding when I first told you, but lately you’ve been acting like you don’t give a damn.” My words were like a spark to his fuse and he exploded in a roar.
“I don’t see what difference it makes! I’m not even sure we should get married, for what kind of husband would I be when I can’t even protect ye? That wicked she-devil put a gun to your head, Lindsey and I just stood there and let ye tie me up. I should’ve known she was controlling your mind and mine along with it! I should have killed her myself but you had to do it for me!” He threw down the clothes he’d been packing and stormed out the door. I followed him out into the freezing cold, my cheeks on fire with anger and some kind of sick satisfaction about finally having it out with him.
“Is it my turn now? Are you done with this little pity party?” He glared at me. “You had no choice, Aiden. She would have killed me and you know it. God knows I’ve gone over it a thousand times and I can’t think of anything we could have done differently. You did what you had to do and I am sorry that your pride is hurt, but I won’t let her come between us anymore. Who cares if I killed her or you did? We’re alive and we’re together, and that’s all that matters.”
For now.
The unwelcome thought skittered through my mind as I remembered Mona’s declaration that Aiden was destined for hell because of me. Guilt and remorse pressed down on me with a leaden fist and I turned away from him, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. He must have seen the tremor run through my body because he took me by the shoulders and gently turned me to face him. His voice was suddenly soft and close, all the fight gone out of him.
