“There are two envelopes on the foyer table. You’ll find payment for your services inside. I expect you on security detail now with the others. The two of you may go.”
“Yes, thank you, sir. Let’s go.” But as Wheezer turned, he hesitated and scratched his head, appearing unsure of which way lead out.
“You’ll find a light green border along the floor that will lead you to the front door. If you find yourself following a red border, you’ve gone down the wrong hallway.”
“Follow the green border to the front door. Thank you, sir.” He coughed nervously, and grabbed Steve by the arm to haul him out of there. Dr. Chappo closed the door to the suite as soon as they left.
“So here you are at last, my precious goddess,” he crooned, his voice filled with emotion, his eyes wide with wonder. “It’s a dream come true.”
He wheeled his chair closer to the bed, leaned forward carefully, and gently touched a lock of hair that lay on Serena’s shoulder. It pained him so to move this way, but he figured it well worth the trouble, for the mere touch of her hair against his gnarled hand sent shivers of hope throughout his entire body.
“I’ve been searching for you for so long, and now that you’re finally here, I almost can’t believe it. There’s so much to tell you and share with you, I hardly know where to begin. But, forgive me. You’re not even awake yet to hear any of it. No matter, I can wait. I’ll send in Nurse Roberta to tend to your necessities. When you awaken from your slumber, I shall explain everything. If you can hear me through your drugged sleep, though, know that you are worshipped by me as a goddess should be. Until later, my dear Sirona.”
Dr. Chappo wheeled himself out of her room, and instructed his nurse to tend to the list of chores he’d made for her regarding Sirona. She nodded, pushed a few buttons on the keypad by the door, and entered.
***
“Damn it! You’d better be all right, Serena. And if you are, I’m gonna kill you when I see you,” Raphael muttered to himself as he flew over the mountains toward Michael and Emma’s house. “Why did you have to run? Why couldn’t you stay and hear me out? I could have kept you safe.”
The D’Angelos lived near the base of the Superstition Mountains in Prophet’s Point. From their house, it would only take about a half hour or forty minutes to get to the area where Dr. Chappo lived. By air, about a minute. It took all of Raphael’s willpower to keep from flying straight there. There were two things that stopped him. He didn’t have the exact location of Dr. Chappo’s estate, and he knew Gabriel spoke the truth. Going alone right now would ensure failure and put Serena’s life even more at risk. So he’d settled for following through on the directive: go to Michael’s and get his head on straight. Not an easy task in and of itself.
It wouldn’t take him three hours to get to Michael’s, but it wasn’t instantaneous either. Raphael found he had plenty of time to think about things. To think about Serena and what she’d come to mean to him. To know for certain that he could not live his immortal life without her in it. After getting his powers back, he’d come to learn and know so much about her. At times his heart broke for her, having lost her mother to lung cancer at such a tender age as ten, to watch the light in her father’s eyes die along with his wife, to have to live with an irresponsible, dangerously impulsive brother, and to care for the remains of a family torn apart by illness and death. It was a wonder, he had marveled, that she still found joy in her life. And she had agreed, saying that the land had saved her. It kept her believing in the impossible and rejuvenated her spirit when bombshell after bombshell had been dropped at her feet. She had confided that she wouldn’t have known what she would have done if she hadn’t had her Jeep tour business giving her unlimited access to the Arizona desert and vortexes, buoying her after her father’s stroke.
Knowing all she had been through, and seeing her reaction to her attacks, he now really knew what she meant when she claimed her behavior was not like her at all. It truly wasn’t. Had she been in total control of herself, she would have picked herself up once again, dusted off her boots, and marched on, without any thought of vengeance or retribution for what had befallen her. But Sirona had gotten in the way of that. His wife had gotten hold of her soul, altered the personality of a survivor, and turned her into a scared little mouse at times, a raving lunatic at others. To what end? he wondered.
Did Sirona think she could simply usurp someone else’s soul so that she may live, and that it would be okay? Understandably, she would have been angry when she realized true immortality would not be hers. Hell,
he
was angry. But to attach herself to another, a mortal no less, so she may live on, seemed so un-goddess like to him, so out of character for her. And yet, through Serena’s past life regression, he had learned a lot about Sirona that he hadn’t known before.
He’d discovered how unhappy she had been needing guards around her day and night. But that couldn’t be helped. Her gift could be considered a blessing and a curse, with every lowlife nearby anxious for a taste of immortality. She took her role seriously, and never wavered in protecting her gift, sacrificing herself in the process. And he learned how ruthless she could be when cornered. She not only cursed the heathens that had murdered her, but she had cursed herself, as well, by proclaiming her soul’s eventual reincarnation.
For the many centuries Raphael had lived, her soul had been entombed, buried under the ground, until Jared uncovered and stole the relic from Dr. Chappo. How long she had been trapped! It could have driven her mad. When Serena held the soul-laden statue in her hands, Sirona finally found a most suitable host. And the rest is history, or the present, as it were, with Sirona coaxing Serena to exact revenge for both of their misfortunes. The question remained how to separate the two. And what would happen if and when they could?
Raphael arrived at Michael’s with nothing encouraging to report. He hadn’t felt his connection to Serena take hold again, and that’s what made him most anxious. What if she already…he couldn’t even think or say the word. Emma welcomed him into their home, offering a cool drink of iced sun tea and scones. Although evening had come, the heat had not abated, and Raphael was grateful for the refreshment.
“Raphael, you look horrible, if you don’t mind me saying so. Now sit down and cool off. You’re all hot under the collar and it’s not just the heat if my senses are correct.”
He sat down on a kitchen chair and rested his elbows on his knees. His stomach had seized like a blown engine, and could barely get the tea passed his lips.
“Emma, she’s gone. I betrayed Serena’s trust, she ran off, and now she’s been kidnapped by those apes who nearly killed her in the first place. I tried to protect her, but instead, I pushed her right into their grubby little hands. If anything happens to her, I’m fully to blame. I can’t lose her, Emma. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I really don’t.” He shook his head in his hands.
She walked over and put her arms around him. “Raphael, I’ve no doubt that you and the other Brethren will find her and get her back to safety.” She stroked his hair to calm and sooth him. “You and she will work out whatever needs to be worked out between you. Funny, but I distinctly remember someone telling me a while ago that love heals. It just needs time. Do you remember that, Raphael? Wise words from one, who at the time, could recall nothing of having ever been in love himself. But I believed you, you know. And you have to believe me now. Whatever has come between you and Serena, if you both have enough faith in your love for each other, in the end, it will heal.”
“Thanks for throwing my words back at me. Any other suggestion for one who is currently living in the doghouse?”
“Well, having lived in said doghouse myself, I can tell you that saying I’m sorry doesn’t work so well at this point, but groveling goes a long way. There’s always the forlorn puppy look. That works well, too,” she joked, and continued more seriously, “Then, there’s the eternal promise to never do what you did again. You must make that promise to her and keep it. That always wins them over, because after all, eternity is a very long time.”
“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to win back her heart and faith.”
“Never a question in my mind, my dear. Oh! I think I hear the men coming. I better cut them off at the pass. Don’t want them waking Hannah or the babies!” Emma left the kitchen with Raphael following behind completely at a loss. She skittered in her slippers to the front door, only to be met by her husband, Michael. After a quick peck on the cheek, he opened the door and immediately hushed all the men with a stern look.
“If you wake my kids, I’m gonna have to kill you. Now come on in and go to the study. We’ll meet in there.” The men did their best to tiptoe through the house and got approving looks from Emma.
“You got here fast. I left you putt-putting down the road a long ways back.” Raphael shook Gabriel’s hand and sat down on an oversized chair.
“Hey, we’re worried, too, brother. We wanted to get here as soon as possible.”
“All right. So is everybody here? Michael, Gabriel, Nathanael, Kemuel, and me. Where are Urie, Zadkiel and Cassiel?” Raphael asked.
“They were called overseas. A delicate matter requiring a delicate touch. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Those words came straight from Cassiel’s mouth. We should be fine with who we have, Raphael.”
“Yeah, well I’d feel more comfortable if we were all available, but I appreciate all of you for being here and helping. I’m afraid Serena’s life is dependent on us finding her quickly and taking care of Chappo.”
Using Michael’s laptop computer, Gabriel called up the schematics needed to begin working on a plan. “God bless Google earth! Okay, do you see that blank area right there?” He pointed to a spot on the satellite map. “It looks out of place, right? Like a piece of the satellite image didn’t come through. Every time I’ve called up this map, the same thing happens. And when I go to any government mapping site, the same thing happens. I’m thinking that Chappo’s got some masking technology that’s making his estate, for all intents and purposes, invisible. That’s what I’m betting and that’s where we’re headed.”
“Great, now do we have any idea how many men Chappo has fortifying the place and surrounding land?” Raphael asked.
“Not a clue, but we can assume that the crazy doctor probably has a full complement of security both inside and outside the estate itself. I wouldn’t put it past the guy to have buried technological security all around the perimeter, as well. Obviously, we’ll know more when we do our initial flyover and reconnaissance.”
Kemuel took over the briefing at that point. “Yeah, I figure Michael, Gabriel, and I can scout ahead, relay to you what we find, and plan our infiltration and extraction at that point. Michael, you’ll handle technological security detection and diffusion. Gabriel, you and I will survey the area, count up the grunts, and locate all possible entry and exit points.”
“Sounds good. Let’s get to it. We have a madman to bring down and Raphael’s women to save!” Kemuel gave him a quick swat across the back of his head.
Gabriel shrugged his shoulders. “Ow! What?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Serena groaned, and with her eyes still tightly shut, brought her hand up to swipe at invisible cobwebs about her face.
This is the worst hangover in history
! Her mouth felt drier than the desert itself. Sand and dirt were all she could think of as she tried to swallow, and she coughed madly. As she gagged and took in raspy breaths, something cool and moist relieved her parched lips and droplets trickled into her mouth.
“Easy there, ma’am, easy,” a soft voice coaxed. Someone gently wiped her lips with a wet rag and squeezed water into her mouth. Serena opened her mouth a bit wider, wanting more and more of the precious fluid.
As awareness began to form meaning, it became clear that hangovers like this weren’t the typical at all. In fact, she now remembered that she hadn’t been drinking. But what exactly caused her head to feel as if it weighed a ton and her eyelids to be stuck closed? Fear mixed with confusion. Swirling, distorted images of Bull’s, Wheezer’s, and Steve’s faces mixed with a sour belly, all serving to make her sick to her stomach. As she retched, strong arms rolled her deftly to her side and held her steady. Those same arms rolled her back in place when she was through and wiped her face clean.
“Open your eyes, ma’am. Come on. It will do you well.” That same soft voice from earlier had spoken again.
Serena willed her eyes to open, and through narrow slits, she could make out a blurry image of a woman’s pale face surrounded by a curtain of black hair.
“Come on, just a little more. Open wider now.”
She obeyed, blinking slowly, trying to focus on something, anything. Her heart thrummed out of her chest as she tried to speak.
“Who…who are you?” she managed to whisper.
“I’m Nurse Roberta, Dr. Chappo’s personal nurse. I’m here to look after your needs until you’re back on your feet again.”
Icy tendrils of fear and dread crept through her veins as Chappo’s name teased through her brain. “Wh…where…?”
“Where are you? You’re at Dr. Chappo’s estate, ma’am. Don’t worry about a thing. You’ll be fine in a little while. Now, have some more water to drink.” But Serena held up her hand to protest.
Dr. Chappo’s estate
?
Holy shit
!
How the hell did I end up here
? Memories were clouded by a pounding in her head. The only clear thought she had—get the hell out of there, and fast.
“You’ve got to help me,” she begged as she tried her best to get out of the bed. “He’s going to hurt me, you see? I didn’t walk in here on my own. Please, help me.” But Roberta firmly pushed her back down.
“You just lay yourself back down, ma’am. Dr. Chappo warned me you’d be a little muddled in the head for a bit. Now calm down. You’re safe here. Dr. Chappo’s estate has more security than Fort Knox. He’s not here to hurt you. Why, he said he noticed on his cameras that you were left by the front gate, bound and gagged and unconscious. He sent his men out to get you and bring you back here to recover. Oh, but you’ll remember it all soon, and won’t you feel silly for thinking Dr. Chappo could ever harm you?”