Night Finds

by Amber Lynn

  “You know my thirty seconds has already past. Are you looking for a finger or a toe?” Frank replies.

  “You sadistic son of a donkey. I am on my way, leave the appendages in place.” I go ahead and start walking. Him and Sebastian can continue their discussion on someone else's time.

  “She is in labor, Frank. I will carry her if you want my hands to keep busy, but I need to be there to help. We haven't checked down below, but the contractions are coming every couple of minutes now.”

  Nice of someone to tell me about that. How in the world is that even possible? Just a little bit ago he said they were spaced out quite a bit. Now, all of a sudden, they are ganging up on me. Not cool, Sophia. You were supposed to wait until we got home.

  I hear Aaron pretending to talk again and I don't even try to make out what he is saying. I am a good twenty yards away from everyone in my group now. I can vaguely see a cabin and some shadowy people standing around.

  “Might as well come along, deYork, but you better watch yourself. My men wouldn't have the foggiest idea about what to do if the baby comes, so we will leave that up to you. No one else though.”

  Sebastian is next to me in a second grabbing on to my hand and lifting me up. Great. I am a pregnant invalid. It takes all my dignity of being a martyr away.

  Sebby speeds us over to where Frank is standing with a knife to Aaron's throat. Daddy has some dried blood caked to his head from what looks to be a bash to his left temple, but nothing else that is obvious. His eyes go from murderous upon seeing me, to caring when he sees my belly, and back to murderous when our eyes meet.

  “Surprise,” I say cheerfully, even though my face remains glum. “Let's go ahead and let him go meet with the others, so we can get on our way.”

  “Did you really think I would just let the one person who could bring down the Collective go?” Frank asks and I see his knife dig into Dad's throat. “What kind of idiot do you think I am?” It is probably best that I don’t answer his question right now.

  Sebastian tenses under me. I want to glance around to see where Frank's troops all are, but I cannot make the effort.

  “I wouldn't do that if I were you. I am two shakes from becoming a full angel and these new powers have a way of manifesting themselves at the oddest times. You know, like when someone really pisses me off,” I say hoping to bluff us out of this.

  I don't think it has the desired effect because Frank starts laughing; at least he is the only one. If the whole group started up, I really would do my darndest to make my prophesying come true.

  “Not only are you about to burst like a water balloon, but now you think you are an angel. I have seen your blood work and have known you since you were a baby. There is no way you are part angel. If you claimed to be part demon, I would take a second to think it over, but an angel is next to impossible,” Frank says in between his laughs. He needs to watch how he is pushing on that knife. I can see Dad trying really hard not to wince, but the blade is making contact.

  “If I can prove it to you, will you let Aaron go home with Alex?” I ask.

  “Why would you believe me if I said yes? I told you I would let him go before and I have already mentioned I find the notion too dangerous,” he replies.

  “Because of the man that showed up to scare Candace off. I am pretty sure that was Gabe, my angel tutor. He was with us up until he heard there was a succubus in the woods and he took off. If he elicits that much fear in a demon, just imagine what I could do to the likes of you.”

  Yes, I am still trying to act my way through this. I hope I am not pushing things too far. They may see me as more than the pathetic pregnant woman being carried around by her mate. I would love to be pictured as anything else at this moment, but being bound and gagged for fear of me hitting them with some whammies is not in my plan.

  “How do you plan to prove yourself? I think it would be stupid for me to allow you to attack us.”

  I don't think he has noticed that if I am as powerful as I am claiming to be, I could have just created a hole in the ground underneath him to swallow him up. I probably wouldn't really do that because the forest is already pretty diseased and eating Frank would give it indigestion.

  “Let me heal Aaron,” I suggest. “My vampire and werewolf parts cannot do something like that by just touching him.”

  “The witch is with you, I have already heard her loud mouth. She could have given you something to try to trick us.”

  “She doesn't have her full arsenal here and we didn't have time to plan anything when you only gave me thirty seconds to hand myself over. Let me heal my dad and you will see that it is all me.”

  “If he allows this, you guys will want to keep down,” Alex advises. I meet Aaron's eyes and he is too busy plotting horrific punishments for me that he doesn't see my signal. That's fine. I will make sure he keeps out of the way.

  “Go ahead and heal him then. Wave your magic little angel wand,” Frank taunts. What an idiot.

  “First, I need to touch him for this one. It makes it easier for me to see what needs healed,” Sure it does. Hopefully that sounds logical. “Second, with his head being the injured body part, he really needs to be lying down. I haven't magically grown since the last time you saw me.”

  “DeYork, why don't you put her down so I can get a good look at her? You make any move for your bag, and not only is Aaron dead, but the vampire standing behind you with a knife poised to chop your head off will also make his move,” Frank instructs. Why he is afraid of the big, scary baby diapers, I don't know. They aren't even used. Now if Sophia had done her little business in one of them, we very well might have a weapon of mass destruction.

  “Careful,” Sebastian whispers as he moves me.

  When my feet touch the ground, a pain radiates out from my stomach and it clenches up. “Holy crap. They are definitely getting worse.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. They are not really fun for me anymore.”

  “Do you think you will be able to walk out of here before the baby comes?” Frank's voice holds a lot of doubt and if that contraction was any indication, I highly doubt it myself.

  “The sooner you let me heal Aaron and let him go, the sooner we will find that out,” I retort.

  “I have changed my mind and I am just going to kill him so we can move on,” Frank moves his hand to drag the knife across Dad's throat.

  “No!” I scream and focus all of my energy at them. Well, at Aaron anyway. He is kind of a shield for Frank at the moment. Not satisfied that screaming at them will be enough, I raise my hands out towards them. My hands seem to be the key in this angel business. I can feel the energy jump from them.

  Muted gasps and other sounds flow around me. My only concern is trying to do something for my dad. I have closed my eyes, to help focus, but it is hindering me from seeing if I am actually doing any good.

  My body is gently tossed down to the ground. I am sure it is Sebastian's doing because no one else would have the tenderness I felt. He also situates me on my back so Peanut doesn't become a projectile firing out my vagina.

  “I think we should keep you down here for just a second or two,” he says quietly in my ear.

  “But my dad, I have to get him out of here.” I try to struggle against him a little. It does no good. He must have had an extra big breakfast while I wasn't looking.

  “The reinforcements will take care of things. With your rules about Sophia not witnessing violence, I don't think you want to look. There is a lot of blood.”

  More deaths in this stupid war. The Collective needs to be stopped. Yes, I realized that months ago; however, we cannot keep going on like this. We need to be able to live our lives without looking over our shoulders. When we get home, assuming we all return, our next move is going to be a topic discussed immediately. I am not waiting around for the next time they want to try to kidnap someone I love in the hopes of getting a hold of me. I am really not that special, no matter what everyone says.

  “It
will be worse with the baby. They will be after both of you.” He leans down to kiss my cheek. “We will figure out where to strike and do it quickly. Sophia is not going to live in fear any longer than she has to.”

  “If you are done necking with my daughter, I would like to have a word with her. I am seriously deliberating on whether or not to put her over my knee and give her a few good swats.” I see a pair of legs appear out of the corner of my eye.

  “Do you think if I close my eyes he will disappear?” I ask Sebastian.

  “You already made him do that once. I don't think he would like to go through it again so soon. Good to see you healthy, Aaron.”

  “It is good to be healthy. I was hoping you and Alex would have a little better handle on Nyx by now. Allowing her to even come to Faerie was beyond idiotic. I thought I instructed Walt to buy her some special handcuffs to keep her out of trouble,” Aaron rants.

  “With all due respect, you are kidding yourself if you think getting her to do anything other than what she sets her mind to do is even possible. I will love her until the end of time, but she is the most cantankerous woman in the world. It would take most of us to strap her down to her bed and it would have the effect of waving a red flag in front of a bull.”

  “It almost sounds like you have weighed the pros and cons of doing that and even figured in the manpower behind the hostile takeover. Bad mate. No kisses for you,” I say and pretend to pout. Sebastian counteracts by letting me feel the full force of a contraction.

  Oh sweet chicken teriyaki. He should really be cursing. I would almost lift my no swear ban in a case like this.

  “They are all yours from here on out. Jonas looks to be just about done hacking Frank into little bits, so we should be able to get out of here.”

  Words pretty much mean nothing to me. The contraction is still tying me up in knots and unless I just all of a sudden like became incontinent, something in my nether regions just broke because my pants are feeling mighty moist. I would really love to hear what happened in the outside world, but my priorities are elsewhere right this moment.

  “Oh. Hmm. Yeah. That might be an issue,” Sebastian says and the contraction that will never end finally lessens. “Aaron, do you mind if we use the cabin for a few minutes?”

  “Please tell me you guys aren't thinking about getting freaky.” Not funny.

  “If he has even an inkling about coming near me with his one eyed monster, I would chop it off,” I grit out as another wave of pains and twists starts up.

  “Her water has broken and Sophia is coming now. I don't think the hanky panky would be enjoyable for either of us right this second,” Sebastian replies and quickly picks me up. He still has the duffle bag around him and it looks like I am going to finally see just what Alex thinks is necessary in this situation.

  Chapter 17

  Sophia Rose, meet your mother

  Sebastian doesn’t stand around waiting for any more replies and carries me into the little cabin that is onsite. In between trying to find a way to smite Sebastian for doing this to me and fighting the urge to push, I see Dad’s digs are about as bad as the forest surrounding them. Just how long has he been living here?

  I am gently set down on a cot. Yes, it is a cot, not even a semi-comfy bed. If we weren’t in the middle of a nasty forest, I would request to have the baby outside.

  “She was doing so good about waiting. We would have been able to make it home within an hour,” Sebastian says stepping away a little. I grab on to his hand to let him know that he got us into this mess and he is going to be staying for the show. “I was just going to grab the females amongst our group to give a little assistance. I don’t think I want to have the full experience of watching Sophia being born.”

  I should make him do it anyway, just for fun. “I don’t know if Phee should be allowed in here. There isn’t a lot of room and she would probably be scarred for life.”

  “Too bad, I am here to party. Let’s get that little nutter out of you, so her Auntie Phee can teach her to shop,” Phee says entering the room.

  “Don’t worry, Nyx. I have been a midwife for years. This will be a piece of cake,” Hilda says joining in. Only one of the comments from the two was comforting. Can you guess which one?

  “I don’t like cake,” I say ready to be done with the pain. “If everyone was expecting that I might go into full on labor soon, did anyone bring a magic epidural?”

  “Nah. You will be fine. Sebastian, why don’t you help remove her weapons and hand me the bag?” Hilda commands taking full control over the situation. “Alex, get in here.”

  “The bag has everything I could think to grab. Does this place have fresh water, or at least water not swimming with bacteria?” Alex asks.

  I don’t bother to look around and see where everyone is and what they are doing. My eyes are glued shut. That might not be a great idea because I envision giant forceps coming out of the bag to pluck Sophia out of me. Eek. Not happy thoughts at all.

  “Let’s keep all talking about the baby coming out to a minimum and work on keeping me distracted. What happened outside a few minutes ago?” Killing two birds with one stone sounds good to me right now.

  “First, is there anything we can do for you?” Alex asks joining Sebastian on the head side of the cot. Chickens. The second Sebastian took my knives away; he was back at his post. Someone is playing strip Nyx out of her clothing, but I know it isn’t either of the guys, and I pray to God another male hasn’t made their way in and is helping out.

  “You can invent a time machine that will take me back to a month and a half ago, so I can make sure Sebastian, at the very least, pulled out. We could have figured out another way to reconnect.”

  “Okay, moving on,” Sebastian says not liking my idea. “You started doing your weird angel thing, which we really need to discuss with Gabe. Your dad just disappeared. I had no idea where you sent him, but the next thing I knew a large knife was embedded into Frank’s heart. That wasn’t your doing. Jonas has evidently been practicing and is really wicked at distance throwing.”

  “He has been waiting a while to avenge his brother and he didn’t know which weapon would work best, and of course situations vary, so he practiced killing Frank just about every way imaginable,” Alex adds. “He had the added bonus of throwing right as Aaron manifested beside of me. Thankfully, he had already let go so it didn’t bother his aim.

  “About a split second after the knife was in the air, Jonas took off Viking marauder style pulling out knives as he went. I won’t go into detail about what exactly happened after that, but rest assured Frank is no longer of this world. Well, maybe he is. I think he was in enough pieces that the ground just sucked him up. It was something you would have really enjoyed seeing. I think Jake tried to record it on his phone for posterity reasons. Not sure if his data plan reaches Faerie though.”

  I cannot help but push when the next contraction hits. It is like my whole body is now being controlled via a third party. “That’s fine. I think we are getting close to that point anyway,” Hilda says sticking her fingers where they should not be. “Yup, she is moving down nicely.”

  “What about the rest of the Collective’s people. Did you just massacre everyone?” I ask when I can breathe again.

  “Would you believe they didn’t put up a fight?” Alex replies. “Jake convinced Hilda to wake Ryan back up. I was dead set against the idea, but I figured it would be more fun to kill him when he was conscious, so I allowed it. He let us in on the fact that he had a mess of antidote grenades packed and ready to use to try to calm the troops down. After we discussed he wasn’t allowed to look at you or share air with you, we sent our guys around to key points surrounding the place and launched them the second Frank was down.”

  It sounds way too clean cut for me. No mission goes that smoothly, even with me running it. I don’t think I had Frank distracted enough that he wouldn’t realize what was going on.

  “Okay, so it was the Fae that did the
bombing. The little sneaky bastards move like the wind. There may have been a couple of other things going on, but we are going for the short version here. You are in the middle of having a baby and don’t need to hear everything,” Alex says sighing.

  “For distraction purposes, long versions are the way to go,” I yell back at him. Why am I yelling, do you ask? I will give you one guess.

  “We are really getting into it now,” ever-helpful Hilda claims.

  “Is it supposed to look like that? I don’t think that is right. It is like something you watch in a sci-fi movie. Usually the aliens just rip right out of your belly. Why is this one taking a different path?” Phee queries.

  What a great thing to hear in the delivery room. I have always wanted to give birth to an alien. Two weeks ago, I was Hell bent on not giving birth at all and look where that has gotten me. Fate and I are still not on speaking terms.

  “Pipsqueak, unless you want me to slice you up after we are through here, I would keep comments like that to yourself. I may also tell Sam about you checking out the Fae Knights butts earlier. You know how cranky he gets about those things.”

  “Thanks to you, he isn’t satisfied just commenting on them either. He spanked me for winking at a human at a mall last week. Can you believe that? What am I, five?” I am glad she is easily sidetracked.

  “You really only have one more push. This is going much faster than the births I have attended previously. Ten minutes of pain and you will be all done. Alex, I think things may be looking up for you to get your offspring wish granted,” Hilda declares.

  “Over my dead body,” I bellow out as that final push begins. If any of the soldiers that fell victim to Hilda’s sleeping spell were still sleeping, they aren’t now. Pain isn’t that big of a deal for me usually, but this isn’t pain. This is certain death. The remark earlier about my body feeling like it was turning inside out is spot on. I think even my organs are somehow reshaping themselves.