“I’m sorry. They tell me so little.”
“I understand. Can you at least assure me a few minutes of privacy after I leave your mind? I need to contact someone else.” She was planning to give Josh a download of everything she’d seen in the auction.
“I can delay, but I can’t promise how long.”
“Do what you can. Keep this exchange a secret.” She released him from the link and glanced at him.
A mere ten paces away, he squinted and looked at her to verify his experience had been real.
She put her finger to her lips and nodded. Yes, it had been real, and it had taken much less time in the material world than they’d sensed together in their disembodied conversation.
A knock on the door completed Dianne’s sensual grounding in reality. The latch clicked open, the auctioneer with shoulder-length black hair entered, and he spoke in passable Arabic of the Syrian dialect. “You did very well on stage, ladies. Now it’s time to move on. This way, please.” He swung the door back, exposing armed escorts behind him.
Per his agreement, the unarmed guard marched across the room and engaged the auctioneer. After a dismissive nod, the long-haired man departed, but the door remained ajar.
The guard stood next to Dianne and spoke in broken Arabic. “One minute. Maybe two.”
Tapping her dagger, the empath made quick work of contacting her brother, who accepted the information.
As the auctioneer returned, his attempt to hide his contemptable role in subjugating women with politeness angered Dianne, but she since she knew the truth, she kept him on her list of vengeance. Unlike the guard the dagger had chosen to spare, the auctioneer would find no pity.
But his presence meant one thing–it was time for her to leave.
Moving with confident silence, she stood, gestured at Nadine’s sister to join her, and walked towards her armed escorts.
CHAPTER 32
Envy swelled within Edric as he watched the wealthy bidder drive away with the tall and beautiful Iraqi he’d wanted.
Although the wraith had three women to the winner’s two, the other bidder had spent more money and had earned the privilege of leaving first.
But leaving second required little patience, and as he followed his three new possessions and their escort towards the parking lot, he sensed he’d done his Master’s bidding. He sensed his dagger’s spirit approving his purchases, guiding him, and protecting him.
Protecting him… as he approached the exterior door.
His escorting guard twisted the knob and opened the way to the warm summer air. Dusk was settling, bringing the concealing darkness the wraith preferred.
Though he found the outside atmosphere alluring, he received a defensive trigger he knew came from his domineering spirit. He slowed his gate and scanned the parking lot. Then he raised his gaze to the convenience store. Continuing his search for danger, he stuck his head through the doorframe, looked to the left, and saw two amorphous auras of azure and blue pulsating atop the bridal shop across the street.
Fifty years.
After half a century of safety, the gunmen who had hunted him in Israel had reappeared.
He’d considered them dead, killed by soldiers during the raid in Beit She’an, but then he remembered they were mortals who needed to replenish their ranks.
Dead or alive, they would always find ways to make themselves reborn to come for him.
A short buttress around the shop’s roof concealed their human silhouettes, but to his eyes, their pulsating energy fields were as obvious as a full moon in a dark sky. Before granting his supernatural enemies an easy shot at his head, he stepped back and formulated an alternative exit plan.
Sharing the news of the enchanted hunters was impossible. The seller and his staff would doubt the paranormal story, and if they bothered to give him the benefit of doubt, they’d probably hand him over for a possible reward.
He groped for a believable reason to change his departure, and the idea came. “Can I arrange to grab a sandwich on the way out and have you meet me in the front with my van?”
The guard scowled at him. “All exits are from the rear.”
“Yes, I’m not an idiot. I know the women need to leave from the back to be hidden under the awning, but I personally wish to get dinner and leave from the front.”
“I said it’s not allowed.”
“For a two-hundred-lira tip perhaps?”
The guard’s tone softened. “This is highly unusual.”
“But you understand why I can’t stop and order food elsewhere any time soon, not with my cargo.”
“I understand that, but I didn’t say I felt a need to help.”
“But I’m sure you could make it happen for three hundred liras.”
“You want me to personally load the ladies into your van, drive around front, and wait for you?”
“I wouldn’t want you to wait with the women on the public street. That’s too dangerous. I would have you wait in the parking lot until my sandwich is ready. Then I’d call you and have you meet me out front.”
The guard smirked. “That’s all you want for four hundred liras?”
Edric pushed back on the price hike to hide his desperation. “I’m not that hungry. The final offer was three hundred.”
“Let me see what I can do. Wait here.” The guard marched by the wraith and the three blindfolded Iraqi women, back into the main building.
Their wrists bound in tie wraps behind their backs, the women began talking in that accursed unbreakable code-like language known only to Iraqi Christians.
He snapped in the best version of Iraqi Arabic he could form. “Silence!”
Minutes later, the guard reappeared with a menu and an assistant.
Edric’s spirits rose. “I assume this means we have a deal?”
“It’s your lucky day. The food is complementary, provided you have the tip in cash.”
The wraith had learned the value of having money in his pocket. “I do.”
“My colleague and I will load your cargo. I’ve done it before, and I know how you like it. Just head to the front bar and order what you want, and then call me when you’re ready.”
Edric got the man’s phone number, left him his vehicle’s keys, and walked to the bar. Admitting his hunger to himself, he ordered a sheep’s head sandwich. While awaiting his dinner, he considered the surprise threat.
The hunters’ presence felt obvious now, like a lowering of barometric pressure before a violent storm. Tapping his memory of his drive to the restaurant, he recalled a feeling of normalcy, other than his confusion about his purpose at the auction. It was likely they’d arrived after him, and it was therefore possible they were unsure which vehicle was his.
He needed to hope they remained unsure, since he lacked a second vehicle for carrying his women, and he couldn’t leave them on the premises for a later pickup without generating suspicion from the seller. He’d consider himself fortunate enough if he could escape out the front with a sandwich and his life.
A waitress brought his dinner in a plastic carton, and then he called the guard to deliver his van. He watched the street through a window until his van appeared, took a U-turn, and parked outside the establishment.
He stuck his head out the door and looked for the bluish auras of danger. Relieved to be free of their spying in the building’s front, he placed his dinner on the passenger seat and then followed the guard to the rear for an inspection of his cargo.
The sentry cracked opened a door. “They are secured to your liking?”
Shackles held three bound Iraqi women to the floor of the cargo bay. “Yes.” The wraith closed the door and locked it shut.
“Good. Then I believe this settles our arrangement.”
Edric took to hint, dug the cash from his pocket, and paid the man his tip.
“That was easy money. If you want to do this next time, I’m your man.”
“Of course.” As the man departed, the wraith walked aro
und the other side of his van looking for the obvious GPS tracker that the hunters may have flung against it. He then stepped onto the front tire to give himself a view of the roof, which he also found void of obvious spyware. Delaying a deeper search in hidden areas for probing gadgets, he sank into the driver’s seat and turned a tight U-turn to avoid exposing himself to the hunters atop the bridal shop.
Once pointed away from danger, he met rush hour traffic. The lethargy of movement was fine with him, since he assumed some form of tracking device sacrificed his position to the enemies he’d left behind, and he aimed his vehicle in the opposite direction of his warehouse.
As the first traffic light brought him to an extended stop, he popped open the hood, scurried in front of the vehicle, and examined the engine compartment. Nothing stood out as a tracking device, but then he realized the folly of his first impulse to search around the engine since the underside of a piece of flat metal was a horrible place to hide a radio frequency transmitter.
He slammed the hood and returned to the driver’s seat in time to flow with traffic to the next light, where he darted from his seat and inspected the underside of the nearest tire. Nothing.
Repeating the stop-and-inspect process at successive lights, he saw a block-shaped plastic device under the leaf spring of the left rear tire. Terror gripped him as the knowledge of being hunted became an undeniable truth, but opportunity beckoned as he detached the tracker and took it with him into the van.
Thinking how to optimize the new tactical advantage in his hand, he continued driving away from his warehouse until he saw his next move. Ahead of his path, a bus with an advertised destination far from his home was loading passengers.
He stopped next to it, turned on his hazard lights, and stepped from his van. Despite the honking protests of the angry motorists he trapped behind him, he walked to the side of the public vehicle hidden from the drivers behind him and found a flat surface in a wheel well to mount the GPS tracker.
Ignoring the curses from enraged commuters, he returned to his van and drove behind the bus carrying the device he hoped would lure away the hunters.
At his first chance, he doubled back towards his warehouse. As he relaxed and bit into his sandwich, he silently prayed the bus would allow his safe return home without further interference from his enemy.
CHAPTER 33
As his father fought the Kurga through commuter congestion in pursuit of the wraith, Liam watched the GPS tracker on his phone.
Connor stole a glance towards his son’s hand. “Is the signal still strong?”
Liam was enthusiastic about his prospects. “Yes. We’ll follow him all the way to his lair. This is looking favorable.”
While his father followed the signal he expected connected him to the wraith and his three Iraqi captives, a phoneline kept them connected to Nana, Nadine, and Josh in the Fiat 500X. Connor raised his voice to the cabin speaker.
“Nana, I still have a strong signal, following the van to the east. How are you doing?”
The Chaldean grandmother sounded chipper. “I’m still following Dianne to the north.”
The empath had clarified to Josh that she could see through her wealthy captor’s eyes and was waiting for a hidden stretch of road to make him stop and do her bidding. She wanted to avoid witnesses.
Liam wondered, however, with everything going to plan, how had the wraith escaped the auction building unnoticed?
Dianne had seen him in the audience, but he and his father had missed his exit. It was possible he’d paid a driver to deliver his purchases while he’d walked out the front door, but it was unlike a wraith to trust others.
With Connor able to push the smaller Kurga through traffic faster than the van, the hunters had reached three quarters of a mile from their target, but it remained out of view. “Traffic is a challenge.”
“You’re driving well. I like how you ignore traffic laws when needed.”
“It helps to be old and foreign, sometimes. For example, watch this.” The elder hunter whipped the wheel to the left into oncoming flow and passed a slow meat truck.
With angry oncoming motorists honking, Liam feared for his life but appreciated the effort.
After another pair of high-risk maneuvers, his father placed them within half a mile of their target.
Liam expected more difficulty. “I don’t like this. We’re catching him too easily. I’m sending a drone.”
“For what purpose?”
“To make sure we’re chasing what we think we’re chasing.”
“A drone would be a dead giveaway and negate our advantage of surprise.”
Conceding, Liam countered. “That’s true only if I send it close enough for him to see. I’ll send it high but keep it distant.”
“Does a drone have the speed and endurance to come back to you?”
Traffic had slowed to a crawl. “It will in this congestion.”
“Go ahead.”
The young hunter glanced in the back seat at the charging drones and found the one closest to its full battery capacity. He identified it on his phone’s controller application, set it to fly fifty meters above ground, and programmed it to return to his phone’s coordinates after its mission. He pulled the hovercraft to his lap as the car lurched forward. “Next stop light.”
“That won’t be long. There are plenty of them.”
As the car slowed, Liam rolled down his window, balanced the drone on the sill, and used his free hand to order the aircraft’s flight. Its rotors spun to speed, and he released it.
“You’re sure that’s legal?”
“It’s no worse than your driving.”
“I thought I was impressing you with my tactics.”
“You are, but the point still stands.” Liam ordered the airborne camera to point towards the latest incoming GPS coordinates, and grunted as he disliked what he saw.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t see the bloody van.”
“Are you sure? This is a unique perspective.”
Liam understood the inaccuracies of GPS, but within several meters of the latest feedback from his tracker, he saw a bus, passenger cars, and a furniture delivery truck. “Something’s wrong. I don’t see any bloody vans nearby, nothing that even closely resembles what we should see.”
“Perhaps he just turned.”
“GPS struggles with turns, but that would have a minimized effect. The accelerometers in the tracker would compensate for it.”
“So, we’re wasting our time? We’ve been foiled.”
An idea made the young hunter feel stupid. “Father? Did we expose ourselves to him?”
“We were perfectly hidden.”
“I mean to his supernatural view of us. He can supposedly see us as something different, like we can see him. Perhaps that allowed him to see us behind the roof’s wall.”
“It’s possible, yes.”
“Then why weren’t we wearing our amulets that protect for that? Bloody hell, Father. Were we stupid?”
The elder hunter shook his head. “We indeed forgot nothing. I thought of using them, but what you need to learn is that the amulets are only good for twenty-four hours per use. Once we put them on, that’s all we get until they’re blessed again by our order.”
The young hunter realized the wraith had seen him and his father on the rooftop. “I don’t feel as stupid as I could, but don’t you think that’s something we could have discussed ahead of time? We could have had a kill shot.”
“I doubt it. Whether he saw us or not, didn’t you notice the loading procedure with the first group of women?”
“Yeah, Dianne and Nadine’s sister.”
“Didn’t you see how the trafficker’s used the ladies as human shields against a shot from this roof? The truck protects them from the convenience store roof, and they use the women to protect themselves from the bridal shop roof. There was no kill shot to be had, even if the wraith had gone out the back.”
Liam wanted to s
cream, but his father’s composure helped him stay calm. “We’ve been outsmarted by an immortal killer. To me, that’s the makings of a bad day.”
“If the wraith knew of our GPS tracker, he may have warned the others at the auction.”
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as honor among these thieves, Father.”
“But he wanted to purchase Dianne and was outbid. It’s possible he knows where her buyer operates and is seeking her there.”
A pit formed in the young hunter’s stomach. “We need to get Dianne into action. She can’t wait any longer.”
From the cabin’s speakers, the grandmother’s voice crackled. “I hear you talking. This is bad news. Josh knows to tell her next time she contacts him.”
“That’s good thinking, Nana. I’ll turn us around to come join you. There’s no more sense in us chasing the wrong vehicle.”
“Hold on, Father. I’m going to see if I can just be sure which vehicle has our transmitter.”
“How?”
“Since I no longer care who’s looking, I’m going to overfly the coordinates and look straight down, just to be sure I didn’t botch this up somehow.”
“Go ahead.”
In the crawling traffic, Liam needed two minutes to place the drone above the latest coordinates. The downward view included one vehicle in common with the prior video. “That’s why we’ve been gaining on it. He stuck my transmitter on a bus.”
“Can you set the drone to follow the bus a bit longer to be sure?”
“Yes, I’ll do that. It’s got some time left before it needs to come back. But you may as well turn back and head towards Dianne.”
The Chaldean grandmother’s voice filled the cabin. “She just contacted Josh. She’s going to take over her truck. What do I do?”
Impressing Liam, Connor remained calm. “Liam will send you address where to meet. When she’s done, pick up Dianne and Nadine’s sister and we’ll regroup together.”
CHAPTER 34
Dianne sat with her legs crossed on the floor of the dark cargo hold of the delivery truck. Filled with hanging garment bags of dry-cleaned clothing, the space was hot and stuffy. She wiped sweat from her brow and welcomed the moment to liberate herself. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
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