What a waste.
They moved into the workroom area. It reeked of smoke. Whatever chemicals Wilhelmina used on the book bindings might have helped the fire along. What remained of the center block looked almost unrecognizable.
He and Thalya made their way through the rubble. “Do you see any sign of Adam?” he asked.
“No. But I think he was here and so was someone else.”
“Abel?”
“Perhaps, all I can tell is that it was another soulless.”
They stood before the block. Samuel ran his hands along the seams. No way the remaining pieces of the burnt cabinet doors could be closed completely to get the mechanism to work. Samuel ripped them out and pried the bottom of the charred remains of the cabinet off the floor. While he could pull off the wooden parts, the metal beneath it wouldn’t budge. “She’s not getting out this way.”
“Let me try,” Thalya said.
But even with both of them trying to tear the metal covering open, it wouldn’t give.
“What the hell is that made of?” Samuel stated. Straightening, he pulled out his cell and redialed the number Wilhelmina had called from. As soon as she answered he said, “No go, Wilhelmina. The cabinet’s burnt. We can’t get the mechanism to open and whatever the hell kind of metal you have on here isn’t budging without some kind of bomb to blast it open.”
“It would take a nuclear explosion to get that open, so that’s not going to work. Be patient,” she said. “My sister and niece should be there soon. I told them you were on your way to help. They’ll show you where the other entrance is.”
After he hung up the phone, they moved further into the passage leading to the alley to stand and watch from the shadows of the burnt building for Wilhelmina’s family and to make sure no one else tried to search the store.
“You’d think they’d have more than one ready way, in and out of this place,” Samuel commented.
“Maybe, maybe not. You think like a warrior, a tactician. They’re basically librarians. If some of these volumes were old and fragile, they would have to be kept in climate-controlled conditions. When they either built or found the underground hiding place, they might have only been thinking in terms of preservation rather than survival.”
“But preservation is also survival,” he countered.
“True. Wait. Someone’s stopped in front of the door. Two humans.”
They blended even more into the shadows and watched. The sound of the board being removed from the front reached them, and then they heard footsteps moving quickly through the rubble of the store. Light appeared first before two women dressed in long dark gray coats entered the work area and headed straight for the center block.
Samuel stepped out of the shadows, Thalya at his side.
Both women abruptly turned in their direction; the flashlight aimed for Samuel’s eyes.
He found himself looking down the business end of two magnums. One woman had long straight gray hair almost to her waist. Her features were lined, yet she didn’t really show great age, kind of like Wilhelmina. The other woman appeared young, early twenties. Her high cheekbones and fuller lips hinted at a mixed ethnicity. Little lighter in complexion than Thalya, she wore her hair in tiny braids to her waist with dark blond strands threaded through the brown.
He held his hands out to his sides, palms facing them. “We’re friends, Wilhelmina called us.”
“And we know this how?” the older of the two women asked.
“I’m Samuel and this is Thalya. Wilhelmina is hidden underground and the cabinet is broken.”
The women frowned. “But she’s not soulless,” the older woman said.
Thalya stepped forward then. “Soulless no longer.”
The women’s jaws dropped open and their eyes widened in obvious shock, but then they smiled. “Ah,” they both said, lowering their weapons but not the light as they moved back and forth between him and Thalya. Then the older woman spoke, finally lowering the flashlight, “My name is Winifred and this is my niece, Evangeline, who prefers Eva.” Her gaze settled on Thalya and pleasure radiated off Winifred as her lips curled into a smile. “You’ve found your redemption.”
“Wow!” Eva said. “I never believed it. I know I’ve read about it happening but I’d never seen it. Congratulations.”
Samuel relaxed his stance and stepped toward the women. “I called Wilhelmina to let her know what we found. I don’t think she can get out this way so it’s going to have to be the store next door.”
“We were afraid of that,” Eva said. “That means we’re going to have to move the books too. They can no longer stay here. It’s not safe.”
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Thalya said. “Since the place has already been torched, whoever did it might think they’ve destroyed whatever had been hidden here. Not realizing it was safe underground instead of a hidden room. I couldn’t even sense another area under the store.”
“That’s because it’s constructed beneath the subway and that scrambles the senses of your kind. Sorry—former kind,” Eva corrected, glancing sheepishly at Thalya. “Anyway, the metal and all the trash down there gets in the way.’
Samuel nodded. “That’s a good point and I think she’s right. You might actually be able to rebuild here without the soulless bothering you anymore.”
Winfred shook her head. “But once we take out the wall next door, there’ll be no way to hide what we did.”
“Unless we can do it in a way that won’t bring suspicion,” Samuel countered. “And the only way to do that would be to take out the wall then put it back up. Does this wall lead directly into the chamber?”
“Not exactly,” Winfred said. “It leads to a passageway, not directly into the chamber itself.”
“Who owns the building next door anyway?” Thalya asked.
“The family owns it but we lease it out. Right now, it’s just a stationary card and candle store. Some sort of chain. I have the key as well as the alarm code to get in.”
“Good. It’s still quite a few hours before they open. Let me call a couple of friends to help.” Samuel stepped away from the women and called Devlin, who’d stayed in town for an extra day. They had a quick conversation where he outlined what he needed them to do. Devlin promised to get the necessary materials and be there in less than an hour. Hopefully, it gave them enough time to get the wall open and repaired by dawn, or before anyone showed up to open the store.
After he got off the phone, he explained to the women what they needed to do. “One of the hunters is an explosives expert. We’re going to try to blow the wall with minimum damage, then repair it.”
“That’s a good plan, if it works,” Winifred said.
Eva nodded in agreement. “And there are a few books we can take out of there now, for safekeeping until we can get this place rebuilt and access to the chamber from this store repaired.”
“Might I suggest you all take over the stationary store next door and make that an emergency exit you can better control,” Thalya offered.
“Meanwhile, it will be about an hour until my friends gets here. Shall we go wait for them at an all night restaurant or coffee shop? We’d be more comfortable there.”
“And less conspicuous than standing around here. Lead the way,” Winifred prompted, waving her hand before her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They enjoyed a cup of coffee with the women—Thalya in particular—but her emotions were torn because Samuel’s sadness stood between them. Their need to help Wilhelmina provided a momentary distraction from their own problems. She sighed. She couldn’t blame him. The fault lay with her. She hadn’t been clear with what she wanted to do. Other people’s emotions she had no trouble sifting through and dealing with. However, her own newly acquired emotions and Samuel’s she didn’t know what to do with at all. Her feelings for him ran on overload with little time to adjust.
By the time they walked back to the bookstore, Devlin and Ray were already there. Samuel ma
de the introductions.
The stiffness in Devlin’s body language when he saw Evangeline signaled they might already know each other.
Thalya glanced back and forth between them. Shock predominant in both of their expressions and they couldn’t seem to stop staring at each other. After Ray shook Eva’s hand, Devlin stepped forward and held it.
Thalya grinned at them.
“It’s good to finally see you in person. Evangeline and I are online friends,” he acknowledged.
Samuel and Winifred had turned to secure the board back over the store front, so they didn’t notice there seemed to be a little tug of war going on. Eva shifted like she tried to release her hand, but Devlin tugged back seemingly not ready to let it go. Finally, he did. Eva frowned, not looking at all happy as she stared at Devlin.
Thalya found it all amusing. She and Samuel weren’t the only ones with problems.
Winifred led the way to the front of the store next door. They waited while she unlocked the door and disarmed the alarm. She waved them all in and led the way to the back area. The store layout seemed similar to the one next door but instead of books, stationary adorned the shelves and this store had a basement off the back room. Winifred opened the door. “The basement is more of a storage area. So it might be a tight fit,” Winifred said over her shoulder.
The group all followed her down the stairs.
Thalya followed behind Samuel and shifted over to make room for those behind her as Winifred walked over to some boxes stacked against the wall on the right and touched the brick. “This is the entrance that links our underground library to this building.”
Eva stepped aside, so Devlin could move up beside Winifred with a gym bag in his hand. “Is this a common wall?” Devlin asked.
“Yes, it is. This was actually one building made into two. So, all that separates the entrance here are a few bricks, but the entrance to the underground chamber is on this side.”
“Okay, good. Let’s move these boxes and everything else to the other side of the room and stack them to give us more space to work in,” Devlin prompted.
They all began picking up boxes and clearing the area. When they were done, Devlin knelt, sat back on his heels and began to pull explosives out of the duffel bag he carried. Using adhesive, he placed them at strategic places on the bricks. Then attached wires to all five pieces and attached this to a small device. The procedure took all of about four minutes. “Okay, everyone, let’s move back to the stairs.”
They filed in the stair well with Devlin at the bottom.
Samuel called Wilhelmina to tell her they were going to blow the wall and get out of the area. After he hung up, they waited a few more minutes to give Wilhelmina a chance to get clear, then Devlin pressed the charge. They heard a muffled boom and then the sound of bricks crashing to the floor.
A cloud of dust blew through the stairwell making most of them cough. They filed back down into the basement. Where a wall had once been a hole now gaped back at them, wide and tall enough for a man to crawl through. They could see a narrow dark passageway on the other side. The light from the basement didn’t penetrate very far into the interior. Samuel went through first, then Winifred and Evangeline; Ray came up the rear.
“I don’t think we’re going to be able to repair this in time,” Devlin said to Thalya who stood beside him. “The bricks will look newer in this area and the cement won’t be very dry. It will be painfully obvious this wall has been replaced.”
“Don’t worry. The wall will be repaired and without anyone being able to tell the difference. Have a little faith.” She winked at him before stepping into the passage to follow everyone else.
The narrow passageway might be tall enough for the men to stand straight, but they had to walk single file as the path kept angling downward. The flashlight Winfred held provided light as well as the flashlight Ray used, but neither she nor Samuel needed light to see and she suspected Devlin didn’t need much either.
“Hope no one’s claustrophobic,” Ray joked.
“Ray…” Samuel said a warning in his tone of voice.
“Just keeping it real,” Ray said.
They’d traveled about two stories below ground, the area getting cooler as they descended. The way began to widen enough for two people to walk side by side and a faint light up ahead grew brighter the closer it got to them. Then they saw Wilhelmina dressed in a thick blue and green bathrobe carrying a battery lantern, her hair in a braid hanging over her shoulder. With a cry of gladness, her sister reached her first, her niece right behind her.
Everyone gave the family a moment to rejoice.
Wilhelmina looked past her sister at Samuel. “Thank you. I knew I could count on you.” Then her gaze fell on Thalya.
Thalya knew the moment Wilhelmina realized her soulless status had changed.
She stepped out of her family’s embrace and came toward her. “My dear.” Wilhelmina took her hand and squeezed it. “You’ve found redemption.” Then she swiftly glanced at Samuel. “Ah, now you have decisions to make. But I think you already have.” Then she smiled.
Thalya wished she could ask Wilhelmina about that decision because even she wasn’t sure.
“Come on, everyone, come on.” Wilhelmina turned and led the way further down the passageway, as they continued downward the air got downright chilly. They didn’t have much further to walk until the passage opened up into a large cavern, one seemingly to run an entire city block. There were rows upon rows of books on shelves two stories high.
“Well damn!” Ray croaked.
“Yes, indeed,” Wilhelmina agreed. “This is our life’s work.”
“And for the most part, just the accumulation of events recorded here in America, although it may not have occurred here,” Winifred explained. “You should see the vaults in Europe. Those go on for miles.”
“Come on, sister,” Wilhelmina urged. “I’ve already pulled out the volumes I think we need to take with us. These are the ones that need to be copied immediately into our database anyway. I have been unable to access our system from here. I think the fire must have destroyed something. But I’m sure Samuel and his hunters can keep these safe until we can find another secure place to store our charges.”
“It’s cold down here,” Samuel noted. “How did you manage?”
“We’ve housed emergency materials down here in a separate room. The only thing we forgot was a change of clothes and a phone charger,” Wilhelmina smiled when she said this. “But I was fine.”
“Let’s get moving,” Winifred said. “We’ll take those books you’ve set aside but only to get them into the database. There’s no need to move everything. Samuel has a few ideas which I agree with, but we’ll talk about it later.”
They hurriedly gathered the volumes stacked on the floor to which Wilhelmina pointed at. “Since there’re more of you than I thought. I’ll just grab a few more volumes.”
Everyone ended up with at least two volumes of precious chronicles they carried out of the cavern.
When they finally reached the entrance to the basement, Evangeline put her books on one of the boxes. “I’ll run and bring the SUV around to the back door.”
“Here’s the key,” her aunt said, handing it to her. “The alarm should be off there too but if not, you know the code. It’s the same as the front.”
“Hang on. I’ll go with you,” Devlin offered.
It seemed to Thalya Eva might have objected but changed her mind.
They were gone before anyone could say anything else.
“We’re going to repair this wall?” Ray asked in disbelief, looking at the hole in front of them.
“Will we be able to repair this?” Winifred glanced around the room. Dust from the explosion coated everything. “And clean this place up before the tenants show up?”
Thalya smiled. “Yes. Stand back, everyone. Move over to the stairs.”
They did and Thalya stood alone in the middle of the room. She unfurled her wings
and heard the gasp behind her from the women and Ray.
Only Samuel remained silent. His pride in her beat at her back, but his sorrow pounded at her too, over what this would mean. Even he understood her powers were greater than what she had before.
She used those heaven sent powers to put to rights what they had disrupted. Even the boxes were replaced as they had been. When she finished, not a dust moth rested out of place. She turned around to find both women on their knees with their heads bowed before her. “Oh no. You mustn’t do that.” She rushed to help them to stand. “There is only one you kneel to, and He is not before you.”
“An honest to God angel,” Ray whispered in awe.
“Come on, let’s get the books and go upstairs,” Samuel said, bringing them all back to the matter at hand. “As soon as Eva and Devlin pull up we can get them out of here.”
“For now, can you take them to your warehouse?” Wilhelmina asked.
He stared at her.
She simply raised one of those finely painted on eyebrows at him.
Figures, she knew about his warehouse. He sighed. “Yes, and I’ll have a team round the clock protecting them.”
“Thank you.”
They made their way to the back of the store and waited for Devlin to knock.
Samuel asked, “Wilhelmina, do you know who set fire to your store?”
“No. I didn’t see who it was. My family has always been sensitive to the soulless. I just knew one was near the premises and up to no good. I made my way down the backstairs and managed to get to the cabinet and hide before they got to the back room.”
“But what about the volume I found on the floor of your apartment? Why didn’t you take it with you?”
“If I got caught I didn’t want it on me. I had no real place to hide it in my apartment, so I shoved it under the couch and hoped for the best. And I was right. I’m assuming you found it.”
“Yes. I have it.” Samuel grinned.
Angel Rising Page 24
