by Sandra Cox
“They’re backing off,” Bella said chancing a quick glance in the rearview mirror.
Maureen pried one eye open and looked behind her. “You’re right. They are. Johnny didn’t waste any time getting hold of his contact, whoever that might be.”
Bella jerked the steering wheel to the right and they went flying onto their exit ramp, tires screaming. “Watch for a road on the left.”
“Who could see it,” Maureen cried out. “We’d be five miles down the road before it ever registered that blur of brown was a road. Bella, you’ve got to slow down.”
Bella obliged and dropped it down to ninety. “There it is. Dammit, there’s two cars coming in the opposite lane. Hold on.” She pulled out in front of them knowing she’d never stop in time to wait for them to get by before she turned.
The little compact coming toward her missed her by a hair’s breadth. Thank the gods the truck behind the compact wasn’t tailgating. She could feel cold beads of sweat popping out on her forehead. She let up off the gas and brought it down to seventy on the narrow two-lane, glancing around looking for a dirt road.
“Can I open my eyes now?”
Bella risked a quick glance at her friend and grinned. Maureen’s face was crunched up her eyes tightly shut. “It’s okay, shug.
“There it is. And thank the gods nothing is coming in the other direction.” They squealed onto the dirt road and hit a pot hole that sent the Lamborghini into the air.
“There, there, baby, you’re all right,” Bella cooed.
“I feel like every bone in my body has been disconnected.”
“Not you, my car.”
“Of course.” Maureen heaved a sigh and touched her amulet. “Ah, better.” She leaned over and touched Bella.
“I’m fine, shug. Thanks anyway,” she lied, tense as a board. The amulet relaxed her enough to loosen her death grip on the steering wheel. “We should start looking for a rockslide.”
“Slow down then.”
“Right.” Bella eased it back to fifty.
“Bella, look out!”
“Jesus Christ.” A buck with a large rack of antlers leaped gracefully across the road. Bella swerved left and the deer right. He disappeared into the woods his white tail flashing, his small hooves leaving the ground as he sailed through the air.
She threw on her brakes. Her tires fought for purchase half-on half-off the road. The little car fishtailed then screamed to a halt. She laid her head on the steering wheel, her heart pounding, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. “Sorry, Maureen.”
There was no response. Bella lifted her head. Maureen was looking out Bella’s window. “Maureen?”
Maureen didn’t answer. She clicked open her seat belt and swung open the door.
“Careful, sugar, there’s a fairly steep drop.”
Maureen shut the door and eased around the car, grabbing a pine tree for balance then walked to the back of the car and stood on the road, shading her eyes from the sun.
Bella got out and went to stand beside her. Squinting, she peered upward. Higher up the mountain rocks and boulders littered the terrain, just barely visible from where they stood.
Maureen pointed. “It’s almost a solid wall of rock. We could be in the vicinity, Bella.”
“Get in, shug.” Bella hurried around the side of the car, Maureen scrambling behind her.
Bella pulled out, this time at a sedate pace, her gaze sweeping the area.
“Bella, look!”
“I see it.” Up ahead, rocks lined the roadside as if a bulldozer had been through and cleared the road. Two or three tree saplings lay uprooted alongside the mountain.
“I’m going to have to go further up and find a place to pull over.” They crawled along another quarter of a mile before Bella found a place to pull off.
“Have you noticed there’s no other cars around?”
“We’re on private property. Didn’t you see all those ‘no trespassing’ signs? Morelly must own half the mountain.”
“Gee how could I have missed them? I must have been too busy praying we didn’t go tumbling over the side,” Maureen said sarcastically, getting out of the car as Bella killed the motor.
Bella got out and looked back at the wall of rock. “Let’s go.” They walked along the gray knee-high rocky wall, made up of rock and boulders, peering around.
“Sabina,” Maureen called out. Sabina, Sabina, Sabina, echoed back eerily.
They walked the entire quarter mile, scrambling over rocks calling for Sabina. When they didn’t find her, they did it again and again. Finally, Bella scrambled onto one of the boulder and sat down panting. “She’s not here.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Maureen protested.
Bella touched her amulet. Creativity shot through her. She nearly tumbled right off as she straightened. “Come on, Maureen,” she grabbed her friend’s arm and began to run.
“Stop, stop, what are you doing?” Maureen dug in her heels and pulled her arm free.
“It’s a trick. That damn bitch has tricked us to keep us from finding Sabina until it’s too late. Hurry, goddammit.” Bella raced for the car.
“But she couldn’t do this,” Maureen protested panting as she ran alongside Bella.
“If she has the power amulet she can do any damn thing she wants,” Bella said grimly.
“Oh my gods.” Maureen went sprinting by her. They reached the car in record time.
Jumping in, Bella had the motor started and pulled out before Maureen closed her door. They drove in grim silence for another ten minutes. Both saw it at the same time. Another rocky wall lined the dirt road, this one higher. Again downed saplings lined the mountainside.
Bella pulled the car off the road and cut the engine. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Sabina.” She heard a flapping and looked up to see a hawk rise from the trees. “Sabina,” she called again.
Maureen was already clambering over the waist-high wall of rocks. Pebbles and rocks rattled and went bouncing to the ground as Maureen climbed over.
“Be careful,” Bella said sharply then scrambled over herself, slipping as a rock the size of her foot rolled to the ground. The mountain rose straight up on the right side of the road but on the left where they stood it leveled out about a hundred yards then gradually started dropping down.
“Oh gods, Bella.” The sound of Maureen’s voice made Bella’s hair stand on end. She looked over to see Maureen clutch her throat, her face dead white. She looked in the direction Maureen was staring and her breath lodged in her throat. With a whoosh, she pushed it out and started scrambling over rocks.
They reached Sabina at the same time. Bella stood staring down, taking in air in deep gulps afraid she would faint. Victoria had been right. Sabina was a mangled mess. Bones pressed against her skin at awkward angles and her flesh, in many places, was flattened. Her head tilted at an awkward angle. She lay still. As still as death.
Bella tried to speak and couldn’t. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Is she alive?”
Maureen tore her gaze away from Sabina and stared at Bella her eyes huge and dark in her white face. “I don’t know,” she whispered back, then knelt awkwardly as if her bones were too rigid to bend. “I’ve never seen anyone this bad, even Jack when Victor gave him a poison that destroyed his motor skills.”
Her fingers extended, Maureen reached out her hand, hesitant, as if afraid to touch the woman lying motionless on the ground. She bit her lip then pressed gently on Sabina’s out-flung arm.
Bella squatted down beside her. She arched an eyebrow, afraid to voice the question. Is she alive?
Maureen shook her head. “I can’t find a pulse.” She placed her ear against Sabina’s chest and shook her head again. Tears were coursing down her face. She grabbed Sabina’s wrist with one hand and the amulet with the other and blinked.
“I think a part of her spirit is still with us but it’s trying to flicker out.”
Bella lifted her chin and straighte
ned her spine. “A part is all we need.” She cradled Sabina’s broken hand. “Maureen,” she said in a calm voice. “Take Sabina’s hand. Give me your other.”
Maureen smiled at her through her tears. “The power of three.”
“Or two as the case may be.”
The women joined hands. Bella felt a current spring between them. “Now let’s hope it’s enough to recharge Sabina,” Bella muttered as her hair began to rise away from her face. She glanced over at Maureen. Her long hair lifted off her neck and shoulders as if a wind blew it straight behind her.
Bella turned to Sabina and concentrated every ounce of her being on the broken woman. She sat with eyes closed, frozen in place. For how long she had no idea. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Then she felt it. A faint flicker of a pulse beneath her finger tips. She heard Maureen moan softly.
“She’s coming back,” Maureen said her voice harsh and raspy just before she screamed. She began to writhe but held on to Sabina’s hand. “Pain, pain. I’ve never felt such pain,” she whimpered.
“Oh, honey,” Bella whispered tears running down her cheeks. “What can I do?”
“Figure out a way to get us out of here,” Maureen ground out, rocking back and forth moaning. She bit her lips together so hard a small trickle of blood ran down her chin.
“Maureen,” Bella said fighting to remain calm, ignoring the tight knot of tension in her chest, “just hold on long enough to make sure her heart is beating then let go.” She looked at Maureen’s clenched jaw. “Honey, go slowly. You can only take so much pain.”
The amulet would shoot its healing power down Maureen’s arm and into Sabina and in return would pull the pain out of Sabina’s body and into Maureen’s. It was a high price to pay to be the guardian of the healing amulet but she knew Maureen counted herself lucky to be able to save lives.
Bella bent down and felt Sabrina’s pulse. It was erratic but stronger.
I can’t help her with the pain but I can at least get her more comfortable.
“Maureen, let go.” Eyes closed, Maureen winced, biting down on her bloody lip.
Bella reached over and pried her hand loose. Maureen tumbled backward and winced again as she sat down on sharp stones. She put her head in her hands, her hair falling over her face and sat panting.
“Five minutes on, five minutes off. When her heart is stronger we’ll head for the cabin.”
Slumped over, Maureen nodded but didn’t speak, as if she were husbanding her strength.
Bella kept a sharp eye on her watch as she held Sabina’s wrist, monitoring her pulse, which seemed a bit fainter to her. At the end of the five minutes, she said, “All right, Maureen.”
Maureen straightened and grasped Sabina’s hand and moaned.
Bella again checked her watch and at the end of five minutes she pried Maureen’s hand away. She repeated the five minutes on and off for an hour. Each time Maureen touched her, Sabina’s pulse became a little more regular.
“I think we can move her without killing her,” Bella said pushing back the bloody matted hair from Sabina’s forehead.
Maureen didn’t bother to ask where, just sat panting.
“Maureen.” When Maureen didn’t respond she said her name again this time louder. “Maureen.”
Maureen lifted her hair. Bella felt a chill. Dark circles ringed Maureen’s eyes and her skin appeared bruised. Oh gods and its barely begun. “Can you make it back to the car?”
Her friend gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Sabina,” she whispered.
“I’ll take care of Sabina.” Though, I have no idea how. But something will come to me. She touched the amulet.
Maureen took a step and swayed. Bella grabbed her and put her arm around her waist. Maureen slipped her arm around Bella’s shoulders and Bella half dragged, half carried her to the car. She deposited her in the passenger seat and pressed a button to tilt the seat back. “Just relax, sugar.”
Maureen nodded her eyes closed.
Getting in the trunk she pulled out a black and red plaid wool blanket. “I can do this,” she muttered to herself, heading back for Sabina. She touched her amulet and felt creativity and beauty flow through her and for once could not have cared less about her appearance.
Reaching Sabina, she felt her pulse. It was erratic—not strong but okay. She looked down at the broken body of her friend and bit down hard on her lips. “Okay, sugar, bear with me.” Squatting, she spread the blanket next to Sabina then rolled her onto it, cringing as Sabina’s bloody flesh shifted.
She tied the bottom half around Sabina’s thighs and the top half around her own waist making a makeshift litter and dragged her over the rocky ground. She strained against the blanket like a husky pulling an overloaded sled.
Her heart hammered against her chest. She stopped and readjusted the blanket tied around her waist. The stone wall was only a foot tall where she and Maureen had knocked rocks off it when they crawled over. She shoved against them with her feet causing them to tumble to the ground. One good sized stone landed on her soft leather loafers. “Dammit.”
Sweat rolled down her body. She gasped in a lungful of fresh pine-scented air. “Okay, shug,” she told Sabina who lay unconscious in her plaid wool cocoon, “we are almost at the car. Five more feet and we’re there. Too bad that five feet feels like five miles.”
She grabbed the blanket at her waist and started forward cringing as Sabina’s body bounced against the rocks. One more thing for Maureen to heal. Gods she hated to see Maureen go through this but there was no choice. No choice at all.
With one hard tug, she and the blanket went slithering across the rocks and into the road. She opened the side door. Maureen lay against the white leather seat, making little snoring sounds, the skin so tight over her cheeks the bones stood out.
“My poor sisters.” Bella shook her head. “We’ll get through this together. Easy for me to say,” she muttered as she hauled Sabina into the passenger seat and placed her on top of Maureen.
Going around to the driver’s side she got in and turned the key. Her pride and joy purred to life. She hit the seat button and lowered Maureen’s seat another couple of inches.
“First lane on the left,” she mumbled and swung onto it. She’d gone about five miles when she saw another lane leading to the left. She turned onto it and bumped along the road for another couple of miles before she came out in a clearing.
If she wasn’t so darn worried about the two women in her passenger seat the view would have taken her breath away. Nature’s colors were overwhelming. A large tawny-colored log cabin set near a crystal clear lake. Emerald green grass tinged with brown bled into dark green pines, the trees accentuated by the cerulean sky. Some cabin. Our mafia king has quite the Norman Rockwell setting.
She gunned the car and pulled it up to the garage. “Of course everything is locked,” she mumbled to herself. She turned off the motor, got out of the car and walked up the steps to the porch. She lifted the welcome mat. Nothing there. She stood on tiptoe and felt around the doorsill. Damn. Where could it be? There’s got to be a spare here somewhere.
Perplexed, she glanced around the huge porch. A green ceramic frog grinned at her from his spot beneath the picture window. She grinned back. Surely not? She strolled over, shook him and heard a clinking sound. She pulled on the tiny lily pad between his two front legs and the key holder slid open.
She patted the ceramic frog then unlocked the door. With a quick glance around, she walked through a huge living room and into the kitchen. She opened the door on the far wall. This should lead to the garage. Bingo. She stuck her head in. There were three car stalls, all of them empty. Staring around the garage she found the garage door button and pushed. With a hum, the garage door opened.
She hurried through the garage, pulled the Lamborghini in then walked back in the house to look for the bedrooms.
Walking into the kitchen, she glanced up and sighed. Oak stairs linked to a catwalk that ran the length of the house. Of course, th
e bedrooms would be upstairs. How in hell do I get Sabina, not to mention Maureen, up the stairs?
Trailing her hand along the honey-colored rail, she trotted up the steps. She opened doors and looked quickly inside. There were four bedrooms, all with adjoining baths.
The bedroom at the end of the catwalk was larger than the other three, a thousand square foot easily. It had a huge walk-in closet and a bathroom to die for. What’s that small door on the far wall? Opening it, she grinned. Thank the gods and bless Johnny Morelly. She punched a button and a tiny elevator door opened.
She stepped in, pushed another button and in seconds walked out into his study on the main floor. The room had a convenient exit door at the back of the house. No doubt, in case unwanted visitors showed up.
Perfect. She rubbed her hands together. Now all I have to do is get Maureen and Sabina into the house. She turned and trotted out of the study, down the hall to the kitchen and into the garage.
“Maureen.” Bella opened the door.
Maureen’s eyes stayed closed.
“Looks like I’m on my own. Here goes.” Bella took a deep breath, grabbed the edges of the blanket Sabina was wrapped in and pulled. A ripping sound echoed in her ears. “Dammit that was a hundred dollar blanket.” She saw the tear across the length of it. “Must have gotten caught on a branch or sharp rock.”
Her heart began to pound and acid poured into her churning stomach. She hated touching Sabina, feeling protruding bones under mutilated flesh. “I can do this.” She reached for Sabina, despising the way her hands trembled. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed Sabina’s shoulders and pulled.
Sabina’s head wobbled like a rag doll’s. She shifted Sabina awkwardly then turned her where she could put her arms under Sabina’s and lock them across Sabina’s breast. Her stomach jumped into her throat as she felt pieces of bone instead of a breastplate. She swallowed hard and pulled.
Miraculously, Sabina had one sandal still on but both her feet were mangled and bloodied. Sabina’s eyes remained closed as her heels thumped against the concrete floor. That more than anything worries me. She’s not responding to the pain.
