But not this time. Not over this.
She was going to make sure that her family were safe. With or without him.
With an air of resignation, he said, ‘Explain your plan to me. I’ll do what I can to help.’
Chapter 17
The day that she was taken, Martha had packed a bag. It was not for the exact reasons that the police apparently later deduced but because she had made a decision that she had been mulling over for a very long time. She had been leaving; not Marytown, only her parent’s home. It was time. She could not justify staying there any longer and needed to put her own needs first.
Unfortunately she had never reached her intended destination, the small walk across town abruptly ending in a way that she could never have imagined mere minutes after it began. Martha thankfully had very vague memories of her abduction, the horrors that followed stealing any true sense of recognition from her mind. Since that extended period of abuse, she had taught herself how to compartmentalise her recollections of that time. It was the only way she could continue to survive and move past what had happened. Now, many years had passed and in many ways, she had moved on. However, stepping through the gates into Marytown Park, she felt as though she was seventeen years old again. On that bright summer’s day that changed her world forever.
Forcing the feeling away, Martha drew in a deep, shaking breath, adrenaline making her shaky to her very core as it tried to coax her into a fight or flight response that was more than understandable. It was as if her body knew that it was not simply bad memories that she was about to face and it did not like her plan any more than Stefan had. However, it was not up to either of them to make it happen or not happen. Martha had assessed the risks and deemed them acceptable when the only other outcomes involved her family getting hurt or worse.
She could handle this. She was much stronger now.
The spot where she had been taken was pretty much right in the middle of the park. She kept her head held high as she marched towards it, not allowing herself to stop and take in her surroundings. Martha knew the park like the back of her hand and it was extremely unlikely that much had changed. The whole of the original one hundred and thirty acres of Marytown were a protected Heritage site. While a certain amount of modernisation was inevitable, it maintained everything that made it an attractive homestead back when it was founded.
Nothing changed here. It simply flourished.
It was a little bit bizarre to Martha that there was no sort of marking on the wide, flower-lined path to indicate where the most important moment of her life had occurred. It felt like there should have, at the very least, been a small plaque affixed to the crunchy gravel below her boots, with words along the line of, ‘Here lies the innocence of Martha Ford, forever lost and never to be regained’ etched into the shiny polished silver. It was simply a path that many, many feet had travelled along since that day, oblivious of her history. So extraordinarily mundane.
Locations have the power to hold the remnants of their tragic pasts however and Martha knew that Marytown was a prime example. If this particular geographical spot remembered what had happened to the young, naïve girl who had walked of her own volition to this point in her life then it was likely muddled up with a lot of other energy signatures. If she wanted to create the opening that she sought, then Martha would have to tap into those remnants and announce that she was back to all who would listen and there was one thing that she knew would definitely bring her some of the attention that she sought.
Reaching around to the small of her back, she unsheathed her blade, curling her right hand around the decorative yet functional copper hilt. It was a perfect fit for her slender grip, having been crafted specifically for her by the male who taught her to use it. The ridges of the decorative design felt comforting, familiar and while she was not a natural fighter, her skills the result of hard work and intensive training, she felt much more confident with her blade in her hand. This dagger had saved her life on more than one occasion and she would continue to wield it with pride until she could carry it no longer. That day was hopefully a long way into the future yet and tonight, was about Gale. Martha could not deny that it felt like an honour to be finally able to use her blade and skills in her mother’s name.
Holding her left hand out, she swiftly dragged the slightly curved blade across her palm. The sting of the cut was immediate and painful but she had no time to flinch or feel sorry for herself. Tightening her hand into a fist, she turned it and watched the pooling blood seep out and drip in the direction that gravity intended. Down onto the path. In the exact spot that she had been standing in when she was grabbed.
Martha would not consider what she had just done to be magic but she knew the power that blood had in ritual incantations. Rather than speaking out words or chanting, she simply cast aside her defences and, for a solid eight seconds, not only left herself open and defenceless but cast out a recurring metaphysical beacon that would let anybody who was interested know that she was there and she wanted attention. And her blood was the key. For it genetically was a lot like that of the male who was waiting out there in the woods for her signal.
The results were not immediate. There was no howling, no rush of attack. Martha stood on the path and gazed around, relying upon her physical instincts rather than her psychic talents to assess the area and watch out for what she really hoped was incoming. She did not doubt that her plan was going to work but the delay was worrying as it could mean that rather than leaving an opening, her interceptor might send somebody else for her or worse cover the gap in the border that they would leave behind. The latter outcome would be a problem. She knew that Stefan could and would exploit any opening that was created, even if it were just a millisecond of negligence. He would not however attack a vanguard without provocation and risk an open fight.
That was too risky. He was not a fool.
That side of the plan was not her responsibility though. Martha could trust that her ally would do whatever he could to help her and in the meantime, she would hold up her own end of the plan. She just needed an enemy to show their face in Marytown Park so she could do what needed to be done and the longer she was made to wait, the more frustrated she felt.
There wasn’t time for this.
Just as she was beginning to worry that her plan had failed, she sensed a movement over by the stone water fountain and boating lake in which she used to play with Amanda when they were merely children. It may have been an innocent, a civilian, but she doubted it. Crossing the grass, she made a beeline for the pool of water. Something had taken the bait, she knew it, but she still needed to keep her wits about her. Lord knows she did not want to get ambushed.
Something moved behind her. She turned swiftly, but was met with only empty space which only made her angry. The fiend was playing with her and she was in no mood for it. Not tonight. Not when there was something so important at stake. Mentally she sent out a quick call to Stefan, hoping that he was alright and on his way. She knew that his task would not be easy. He needed to find the opening in the border and get through it, without being spotted and the surrounding hills were vast, the spots in which vanguards lurked numerous. The only reason she had not taken on the task herself was because Stefan was faster than her, he had been doing this longer. She had been trained by the best and had proven that she could get through the border repeatedly unseen but she was not as quick. Her humanity tethered her to the mortal plane.
If her new little friend wanted to waste the time that it took for Stefan to locate and reach her playing hide-and-seek than that was fine by her but eventually it would show its face because it would want to engage. And it needed to die. There could be no physical evidence that Stefan had entered Marytown and Martha was damn sure that there wouldn’t be. It was the sort of self-confidence that had developed over time naturally with her training. She knew that she could fight, and fight well, if she needed to. She knew she could eliminate one cowardly, annoyingly still non-corporeal
vanguard. Frustrated, she spoke out loud, ‘Come out… wherever you are.’
The fiend did not do as it was told. Of course it didn’t. That would be too easy. Instead, a disembodied voice laughed, deep and far too baritone, viscerally reminding her of the fiend that stole her, making her stomach tighten hard. A haunting chant began, repeatedly calling her a little girl and telling her that she shouldn’t be there. It was scare tactics. The fiend was trying to disorientate and distract her so that when it finally attacked, it could catch her unaware. She was not going to let that happen though. Her sense were sharper than they had ever been.
Deliberately turning her back on the fountain, towards the direction in which the voice was calling from, she silently counted down the seconds and so when the atmosphere rippled in response to the vanguard moving out from its hiding place in the ethereal plane to attack her from behind, she was prepared. In fact, she had intentionally played it that way.
Training with and around males who were over twice her size, she had been forced to develop self-defence techniques that complimented her size and the likely larger frames of her enemies. A strong hand came over her right shoulder, going for a choke hold similar to the way she had been grabbed all those years ago. She was ready for it, grabbed on tight to the guard’s forearm, pressing it down against her collarbone. Stronger than she looked, she was able to hold the male’s muscular arm in place while she moved enough to attach her other hand above the elbow and then quickly, in one strong and determined movement, swung her entire body around using the joint like a hinge to get out of the hold and leave her attacker open to counterattack.
She wasn’t afraid to fight dirty when her foe was so much bigger than her. Gripping the vanguard’s shoulders she kneed him hard, square in the groin, causing him to double forward, giving her another opening which she was happy to take. Taking her dagger back out of its sheath, where she had returned it in order to keep both hands free for the inevitable fight, she leapt up, straddling the fiend’s hips as if she were a child giving him a cuddle and sank the blade into the side of his neck, ripping it back out to expose the gaping wound and allow its tainted blood to flow freely and flow fast. The vanguard gasped, all but shoved her away, clutching at his throat but it was never going to be enough to stop the inevitable.
He was going to die and the evil bastard knew it. The growl that escaped his blood-filling mouth was animalistic as he launched at Martha in a last ditch attempt to take her down with him but she was quicker, moving herself out of reach before he hit the ground, gurgling, gasping.
Dying.
She was standing there over the corpse, breathing hard and feeling relieved that her plan had gone as well as she could have hoped, at least on her own end, when her over-confidence was proven to have been somewhat foolish. A second vanguard emerged from the ether, also attacking from behind and this time she was not even remotely prepared, turning only in time to be greeted by a back-handed smack across the face that sent her hurtling to the ground, tumbling over the fresh bloodied body of the fiend that she had killed, blindsided and stunned.
Once down, a foot went in, landing fierce, angry punts to her midsection which made her scream as she tried to twist away and get free enough so she could fight but it was so relentless that she knew that there had to be more than one of them and now that they had her down on the ground, they intended to keep her there.
Feeling powerless to stop the assault, Martha resigned herself to covering her face and head with her arms to protect them. Somewhere between the pain and the strange, happy thought that at least nobody was trying to abduct her this time, it made her realise that the brutality of the counterattack was most likely payback. Not for the single vanguard that she had just stabbed in the throat but the many who had been killed all those years back because of her. They knew who she was. They wouldn’t have come running to her call if they did not. Back then she might have thought that she deserved it but now she simply saw them as enemy combatants and swore that, if she survived this, she would make it her mission to add more of their ilk to her kill list.
That was the way it worked, after all. An assault for an assault. Simple mathematics.
The atmosphere didn’t so much ripple but violently shift and from somewhere out in the darkness there was yelling, in a commanding male voice that was so familiar and brought a tear to her eye. The kicking abruptly stopped, her attackers focusing their attention on the new threat that had joined the fray, systematically and expertly engaging them in a fight that he was more than capable of winning. Martha, hurt but luckily still conscious, lowered her arms and took in the scene, momentarily mesmerised by watching her mentor in action once more.
His hands, arms and clothing were already splattered with the blood of their enemies and the sight was really rather breathtaking but now was not the time for admiration. She needed to get up, find her dagger. She needed to… do something.
Moving onto her hands and knees was not as difficult as it ought to have been. If she had been completely human, their assault would have killed her. There was no doubt about that. As it was she probably had some bruising to her ribs and she found it painful to take the deep breaths that she needed to compose herself but she managed. When she was able to sit back onto her haunches, she touched her cheekbone with her fingertips, unsurprised but irritated when blood came away. Damn it. The only thing she hated more than getting injured was getting injured somewhere that she could not easily cover it up and pretend that it never happened.
Glaring at the dead body which lay beside her on the grass, she felt at least a little bit vindicated. The bastard’s cohorts may have gotten some payback on her midsection but at least she was still breathing and the presence of Stefan, who was all about done making the second wave of vanguard’s – of which there were three – pay from laying boots on her meant that he had been able to cross the border without major incident. She felt guilty that he had been forced to fight the moment he had gotten to her but there he was. The beating was totally worth it.
As she was pushing herself to her feet, Martha reclaimed her dagger from the ground, thinking that she would have really liked to have sunk its blade into the one that had hit her in the face but by the time she was upright, they were all dead. Oh well.
Stefan stared at her, extremely unhappy but he would not yell. It was not his style. She held her hands up and out as if in surrender and stated for the record, ‘Ambush’ which he seemed to accept and no more was said about what had happened. If Stefan North was anything, he was pragmatic and he would be more than aware that extra bodies meant extra work. Prepared to take care of that little problem himself, he instructed, ‘Go along to your family. I shall be with you in a little while. Once I have cleaned this mess up.’
She nodded obediently but asked, ‘How long do we have?’
‘Long enough if I work fast. Go, Martha. I do not need the distraction right now.’
Trying not to take his words personally, she did as instructed, turning and heading back through the park as quickly as her aching midsection would allow. When she briefly glanced over her shoulder to make sure he was alright, both Stefan and the bodies had already vanished.
Chapter 18
Entering the house through the back door, Martha worked as quickly as she could. Getting back over the locked gate into the garden had been more than a little bit painful but she had taken it because she needed to. Besides, she had gotten very good at tolerating pain.
The first and most important thing was to get clean so that she could get her mother out of the house the moment that Stefan arrived, aware that there were not many more hours until dawn and if she remembered anything about her Aunt Esther, the woman would be up with the birdies. Heading straight up to her old room, she quickly and efficiently stripped off her clothing and washed her arms, chest and face down in the sink. The cut that she had taken was raw and looked painful but it would heal quickly enough if left alone. Her ribcage was bruised but that too would heal
fast and it wasn’t like she had any intentions of taking her top off in front of anybody again so it was not a big deal. It could have been so much worse.
Martha redressed in clothing from her old wardrobe. Blue jeans, a soft, white cotton t-shirt and a hoodie that she had actually left behind when she had packed that bag all those years ago but now actually decided that she liked. It was blue and black, checked with pockets on the breasts like a shirt and a wide, oversized hood. She didn’t know why she hadn’t packed it away to take with her. Probably because it had been a tad baggy back then. Regardless, it fit now and being in her own clothes felt rather comforting. And she was going to need comfort.
By the time that Stefan had taken care of the grisly extraction of their enemies’ bodies and seemingly gotten himself cleaned up, she was waiting for him in the back doorway. He swiftly entered the Ford residence and for a breathless moment, once Martha had sealed the door behind them, the two of them stood there, simply gazing into each other’s eyes. Neither put into words that they were glad that the other had made it and they did not need to. As battles went, it was a simple fray. That Martha got injured was her own fault for taking too much pride in her one kill. They both knew it. Nothing else needed to be said.
‘She’s upstairs,’ Martha informed him, keeping to the facts of the matter at hand. ‘Back bedroom on the right hand side. Older woman. Looks a lot like me.’
He looked at her for another charged moment, seemingly sensing that she was starting to find it hard to control her emotions now that her mother was going to be protected. In his usual, assertive tone however he implored, ‘Show me to the room.’
Sins of the Father (Bloody Marytown Book 1) Page 12
