Evette’s father looked up, “I didn’t sell all of my family Baron, that’s what makes what I did truly unpardonable!”
The Baron looked puzzled at the statement and Evette’s father went on. “I didn’t agree to the deal for the use of Evelyn for either money or the church that you promised me. I hated you and out of hate I got back at you in the only way that I knew that I could reach you. You see Baron, Evelyn is not my daughter, she’s yours.”
There was silence for the space of a second as Evette’s and the Baron’s gazes found each other in shock over what had just been revealed. Cobalt blue eyes met their mirror reflection and other similarities long overlooked now stood out in sharp relief.
A wail of raw pain came out of Evette that twisted my soul into knots at the hearing of it. I knew she still had my knife and I saw her one hand almost subconsciously going to her side, as she stared in horror down the table into the eyes of the Baron.
Kneeling down on one knee beside the table I put my left hand up onto the table palm up before Evette and then whispered loudly, “Evette?”
Her broken eyes turn to meet mine. The words just came to me and I knew that I had to give them voice, “Remember how God thinks of you and how much He loves you! Remember what the Creator’s Son thinks of you! Nothing else matters! Nothing else matters, Evette!”
At my words something seemed to click in the stormy blue depths of her eyes and I saw her nod slightly. She put both of her hands on mine and then bent forward to lay her head on her hands, which rested on top of mine, while I leaned forward and rubbed her back consolingly with my other hand.
The Baron took his eyes off of Evette and turned to stare wrathfully at the parental imposter standing before him.
He barked out, “How is this possible? How do you know that she is my daughter?”
The blubbering individual in front of him sputtered out, “When I was a boy I had a high fever for a prolonged period of time. The doctors said that it would take a miracle of God for me to ever father children of my own; after Evelyn’s mother started going to see you I ceased all physical relations with her. She is your daughter, in truth I swear it.”
The Baron stared at him for a moment and then said, “You let me.....” He said letting the crime of his own lusts left unsaid and then he exploded angrily, “To my own daughter!”
Before Evette’s imposter father could respond there was the sound of a loud cough of air in the room. The bullet struck Evan Hales Edwards between the eyes and he was dead before his body hit the floor.
The silencer on the pistol coughed three more times, as the Baron fired into the lifeless lump of flesh on the floor.
Larc stood up and walked over to me and Evette, as the Baron continued to sit and stare at the man on the floor. I helped Larc get Evette up on her feet and she and Larc headed for the double doors.
The Baron looked up as they neared and said somewhat hesitantly, which was strange for him, “Evelyn I.....” He said floundering at a complete lack for words to say.
Evette cut him off from any more floundering. “My name is Evette.”
“Trenall.” Larc quietly undertoned.
Evette looked up at Larc wonderingly and then at the Baron her father, “Yes, Evette Trenall. I have nothing further to say to you, nor anything I wish to hear.”
Suddenly looking very old the Baron nodded his head in confirmation and remained quiet. The Baron reached beside him on the table and held up the big black book, “Don’t forget to take this. I have no further use for it.”
I’d had no intention of leaving without it and I took the book from his hands. I held it reverentantly against myself, as I followed after Larc and Evette.
Talaric stepped into the room from where he had been covering the Baron with a stolen weapon from one of the dead guards in the hall. Talaric kept the point of the weapon casually trained on the Baron, as he too exited the room pulling the double doors shut as he did so.
The Baron shook his head ruefully, as he acknowledged that Larc has been the one to have all the angles covered one way or another. He glanced at the pistol in his hand thoughtfully.
As we made our way back out of the labyrinth of the mansion, I heard the distinctive but muted cough of the Baron’s pistol and all was silent once more as we headed back towards the secret passageway.
We had almost reached the SUV, when sirens and shouts rang out from the mansion behind us. The sound of vessels firing to life could be heard to. They would be after us within moments.
Talaric was looking at the mansion and I grabbed his arm, “Come on Talaric get in the SUV, they’ll be down on us in a moment! We’ve got to get out of here!”
Talaric reached up and covered my hand with his and turned to look at me. “I’m not going Zevin. The Creator has something He wants me to do here on Earth yet. I don’t know what it is, but He wants me to stay. I’ll hold them off as long as I can and give you the best chance to get away.”
Talaric’s arms folded around me as he hugged me fiercely and I him, “I love you little brother take care of yourself! Tell mother and father that I love them and that I didn’t let them down on this mission. Somehow, God willing I’ll be able to come home one day, if it can be done.”
And then he was walking away into the gathering shadows of night carrying a bag of the Earth style weapons that he had gathered up in the mansion earlier.
“You had better find a way to get home or so help me I’ll find a way to come back and bring you home myself! Do you hear me?”
Talaric lifted one arm in acknowledgment, but kept moving on back towards the mansion.
Larc touched my shoulder, “We need to go Zevin!”
I nodded my head and got in trying to watch the retreating form of my big brother for as long as I could before he was swallowed up by both distance and shadow.
Chapter Seventeen
New Beginnings
Talaric watched as the glow of the lamps of the vessel that his brother and friends rode in grew dim in the distance. It hadn’t been easy to stay. He had wanted to go home and escape the strangeness and dangers of this world as bad as the rest of them had, but last night he’d had a dream, a fantastic dream.
A dream that he didn’t think was so much a dream, but rather a glimpse of something that was going to happen in the future. And then earlier today he had heard a voice that he had verified as coming from the Creator telling him in no uncertain terms that he was to stay and accomplish some task.
What that task was he did not know yet. He was just excited that the Creator wanted to use him for anything so he had willingly made the sacrifice. Turning back to the task at hand he saw that the Baron’s men having satisfied themselves that the perpetrators weren’t on the mansion grounds were beginning to give chase.
At least fifteen vessels were roaring down the road towards his vantage point. Talaric pulled a long barreled weapon out of the bag he had brought with him from the mansion. He may be unschooled in the weapons of this world, but he was a quick study and it wasn’t all that complex really.
Resting the barrel in the crook of a tree he sighted through the crystal glass that brought the distance in closer to him. Aiming where the driver would be in the lead vessel he pulled the trigger. The lead vehicle spun out to the side and crashed into a tree. Talaric kept firing until the weapon was empty. He had managed to take out two more vehicles with the rifle.
One vehicle took out a fourth vehicle, as it spun out of control. The other eleven vehicles kept coming as they swerved around the crashed one. They were approaching a narrow bridge over a stream that ran down the valley. It was time for a different approach to the situation. Putting the rifle to the side he pulled the heaviest item out of the bag.
He had a pretty good idea that if the long string of bullets was any indicator this weapon fired a lot of the deadly projectiles very quickly. Talaric folded out the support legs of the weapon and then laid down on the ground and sighted in on the vehicles approaching the bridg
e. Pulling the trigger Talaric held onto the wildly jumping gun.
Wow!
This weapon was awesome!
The first vehicle blew up right on the bridge followed closely by the second and third vehicles. With the bridge hopelessly blocked the remaining vehicles stopped and their occupants dove to either side of the roadway in search of cover.
The evidence of return fire began pinging off the trees and dirt all around Talaric. Paying no attention to the harbingers of death pinging all around him Talaric concentrated on destroying the last of the vehicles. The weapon clicked empty. Grabbing it up mindful of the hot barrel Talaric scooted back out of view. It was time to go.
There would be no more pursuit of the others for at least a little while. After stashing the weapons back in the bag he then slung it over his shoulder and headed south down through the forest. He didn’t know what may lay ahead of him, but with the Creator’s help he would conquer it and complete the mission, whatever it may be.
Evette was driving and I almost wished that I was instead, as the wheels screeched and the SUV leaned heavy over to one side, as we pulled out of yet another curve in the road.
Evette was driving like she was trying to leave something else behind other than just the pursuers in our wake. Eventually she did slow her pace down some and I think we all relaxed a little. We didn’t stop except to change drivers and fill the SUV up from the cans in the back.
The second evening had us close to the coast once more. Evette was driving, as she looked over at Larc and said, “We can’t go back to the same beach you landed on. They know about it and they’ll have it under heavy surveillance.”
Larc considered what she had said for a moment, “Is there a town near there where we could get a boat from?”
“There’s one just a few miles on up the road, but once we steal a boat they’ll be onto us. We need to create a diversion of some kind.”
Larc nodded and looked back out the window to his right.
What kind of diversion would successfully lead the Committee off our trail? Our means of creating a diversion were severely limited anyway I looked at it. It was going to be a near thing if we managed to pull off this last part of the mission successfully. I became weighed down in my mind as all the possible bad outcomes of this stage of the mission occurred to me in a repeating litany of bad news.
In the need to divert my mind I refocused on the written encouragement and wisdom of the book spread open in Orhanin’s lap. It was everything we had always thought it was. Life itself in written form. Whoever hadn’t been driving had been fighting for a spot beside Orhanin or peering over his shoulder in order to read the book of the Creator’s words.
Orhanin hadn’t let go of the Bible since receiving it and I didn’t blame him, but it was irritating when he kept turning the pages before I had a chance to read it all!
Oh well once copies were made I would have a copy all to myself and I would read it at my own pace.
Late afternoon saw us pulling into a small sleepy fishing town that lay only a couple of miles up the coast from the beach that we had landed on. That felt like it was so long ago now, because so much had happened since then.
We drove through the town down to the wharf district. An old abandoned looking warehouse loomed up before us and we pulled up to it. Thannic and I got out and after first looking to make sure no one was around we opened one of the warehouse’s big doors and Larc drove the SUV inside. We closed the doors quickly.
The warehouse was empty and there was little to do other than wait for night time to come. Tonight was one of the pickup nights. I feared that if we weren’t successful in getting back on the space vessel tonight it was even more unlikely that we would succeed in surviving to attempt it again in four more days.
Once word reached the coast of what had happened in Loch Lynn Heights, the Committee might perhaps redouble their efforts to catch us. It was extremely doubtful whether we would be able to remain unnoticed under that heightened awareness for four more days.
Two hours slowly passed by, which seemed like an eternity to me.
Chapter Eighteen
Broken Glass
Something just didn’t feel right. I was tenser than all get out and I had no reason to be. The others were grouped around Orhanin, all of them reading even the little kids, who I was pretty certain couldn’t read, but were just trying to act like the grown-ups were. Larc glanced at me and I looked back at him.
He shrugged his shoulder as if to say “What’s wrong?”
I spread my hands wide, as if to indicate, “That I didn’t know.”
Larc nodded and pointed up.
I understood. He wanted me to go up into the upper warehouse levels and have a look around. Heading up I walked over to a ladder and started to climb up. The second floor had to be almost thirty feet above the bottom for. When I got to it I saw that it was as empty and devoid of life, as the bottom floor was.
I started to walk along the side of the warehouse facing the ocean. Everything seemed okay. There was a small vessel headed this way, as if it intended on docking on the wharf near the warehouse. I studied it for a moment, but it was still a ways off and I couldn’t tell much about it.
I continued walking around until I got to the other side of the warehouse. Something caught my eye. The reflection of some flashing light off of a window two streets away glinted back at me and then I saw them coming.
What looked to be at least two hundred men dressed in black were making their way stealthily down the side streets coming toward the warehouse. Some instinct, I couldn’t have explained if I had tried to, caused me to look up and to the right.
There on a nearby roof was another of the men laying down and he was aiming something at me. I threw myself to the side only moments before the window in front of me shattered and I felt my right arm jerked hard by something unseen.
The pace of the men in the street had quickened with the firing of the shot. I dimly registered all of this as I turned and half ran and fell at the same time to get to the opening between the two floors. The wine of angry projectiles hitting the warehouse was all around me, as if someone had kicked over a hornet’s nest.
Larc and the others below were piling into the SUV.
“No!” I yelled.
Larc looked up.
“They’ve got the roads blocked off. You can’t get away that way. The only way is to get up here. Now!”
Larc yelled something and the others piled back out of the SUV and took to the ladders. Orhanin and Thannic made it to the top floor first each with a screaming kid in tow. I couldn’t blame the children.
The second floor was a nightmare of shattering glass and whining killer bees. It was a miracle that we weren’t being hit by them. Just as Evette and Larc made the second floor their arrival was heralded by explosions from the first floor, as doors and walls alike were blown inward.
Black clad men stormed into the lower level guns blazing. Drawing the weapon that I had taken from the mansion with my left hand I fired it into their pressed masses and saw several of them go down, as the echo of my shots were duplicated by Larc’s gun, as he too fired.
The men below spotting us on the second floor issued forth a hail of bullets that forced us back from the edge of the overlook.
Choking on stirred up dust and smoke I yelled, “Follow me!” as I ran down the wharf side of the warehouse.
At the far end of the warehouse was an open bay door with a cable that ran overhead through it out over a side alley and onto the roof of an adjacent one story warehouse. Reaching the cable I picked up a piece of old chain and thrust it into Orhanin’s hands.
He knew what to do with it. Flipping it over the cable, with the little girl hanging on for dear life, Orhanin jumped off the platform holding onto both ends of the chain. Thannic and the little boy followed suit moments later. Evette just stood there staring at me like she thought I was crazy, maybe I was.
Larc pushed her forward, as I flung another
chain up and over the cable. She hesitantly put her hands on the chain ends, when I yelled at her to do so and before she was ready or could object Larc pushed her out the doorway.
Evette’s scream of terror sounded out clearly above all the other pandemonium going on around us. One or both of us was going to pay for that.
Larc was handing me a chain, but I yelled pointing at the Bible, “That’s more important than both of us! Go, I’ll cover you!”
With a look of reluctance Larc flicked the chain over the cable and was out the door with the Bible in tow. Awkwardly I flipped the chain I held over the cable above. Finding a piece of metal tubing on the floor I jammed it through the two links of the chain and grabbed a hold of it with my left hand. My right arm hurt too badly to try to hold onto anything like what holding onto the chain ends entailed.
I had transferred the gun to my right hand earlier, which was covered in my own blood now. Grimly I wondered if the weapon would still work. Glancing back I saw that the men in black had made it to the second floor and I managed to lift my arm enough to fire off several shots, the recoil from each shot hurting my arm abominably, but I saw a couple of the enemy fly back into space to crash onto the ground floor below.
I jumped off the platform holding onto the metal pipe awkwardly, as I wind milled around in the air in my descent towards the other warehouse. The place where I had been standing only moments before was riddled with bullets.
I was flying backwards and unable to tell where I was heading and my landing would have been much worse if it hadn’t been for Larc half catching me out of the air, when I was overtop the other warehouse’ s roof.
The others were already inside as I and Larc raced toward the stairway off of the roof. We both saw something then that neither of us had ever seen before. What looked like a giant one eyed bug was hovering in mid air up ahead of us.
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