'So far,' he thought, 'it's all going to plan.'
Moments later, the priest uttered the final word and Richie's whole body fell back into Peter's safe hands. As he caught her, quick as a flash he tugged the ring off her middle finger and slipped it back onto his ring finger. It fitted perfectly. As gently as he could, he carried her still body over to the sofa and delicately put her down, before arranging the cushions to make her as comfortable as possible, all under the inscrutable gaze of the priest and his guards. Without the guards seeing, he pulled out Richie's phone from his back pocket and slid it carefully under the sofa. Then he leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her forehead before getting to his feet.
"It's time to leave," ordered the priest gruffly, thinking that this might be when any problems would occur.
But he couldn't have been more wrong. Squeezing past the two burly guards, Peter didn't even bother to look back, having done everything he'd planned to do. It was now out of his hands... or not, so to speak.
Leaving Richie's flat, he closed the door behind him and, looking sadder than he felt, headed off on foot into town, knowing that somewhere nearby dragons were watching his every action. All he wanted to do was act like they expected him to. Figuring walking into Salisbridge and then back home would throw them off a little, if it didn't... then so what? All he was going to do was go home, sit at his computer and... WAIT! He might have to wait for weeks, months even, or longer, he just didn't know. But what he did know was that he'd have his friend back. If he had to move the earth to do it... he'd have her back!
22
A Rude Awakening
Startled awake, her fuzzy brain tried to process what exactly was going on. Trying to sit up, a sharp pain erupted across her shoulders and up the length of her neck. Then it occurred to her where she was.
'I've slept on the sofa... all night!'
Sitting up straight while stretching her neck left and right, trying hard to shake the kinks out of it, she wondered about the source of her irritation. Apart from her knotted muscles, a blaring noise was blasting out from somewhere unseen. More annoying was the fact that it was the sound of someone blowing a raspberry, over and over again, constantly getting louder and louder. Standing up, she lurched forward, the twisted muscles around both knees causing her great pain. Frantically scrabbling around on the floor, her head pounded. Reaching as far under the sofa as she could, something sleek and solid fell into her grasp.
'There,' she thought, extracting nearly her entire arm. Instantly she hit the cancel button to stop the racket coming from the alarm on her phone. 'I don't remember even setting the alarm,' she mused, 'let alone adjusting it to that awful noise.' Placing the phone on the arm of the sofa, she flopped back down on it, letting its plump cushions engulf her, all the time rubbing her neck and shoulders.
Puffing out her cheeks and blowing out a deep breath, she wondered exactly what had been going on, unable to remember a thing from the night before, no matter how hard she tried; she thought that she'd gone to work yesterday, but even that was a bit of a blur. After a few minutes of concentrated recollecting, without getting much further, she gave in, leapt up, strolled over to the curtains and pulled them wide open. The view from this particular window was stunning, one of the reasons she'd chosen this flat in the first place. In the distance she could just make out the spire of the ancient cathedral, watching over the natural wonder of the water meadows like a towering stone guardian. And this morning with the sun pouring onto it, the spire looked particularly splendid.
Abruptly a cold, biting sensation, emanating from the pit of her stomach, started to gnaw at her very being. Before she had time to contemplate what it was, a rush of emotion swept over her, almost bringing tears to her eyes. Confused and confounded, images of young children and warmly wrapped babies zipped across her consciousness as a mixture of feelings threatened to consume her. In the blink of an eye, they were gone, returned to normal, if that word could ever really be used to describe her.
Basking in the sun, she counted herself lucky to be alive on such a day and to live amongst such stunning beauty. Pulling back from the view, she decided that her muscles almost certainly needed the benefit of a long, hot shower, all the while cursing the minor blips in her memory.
As the hot, steamy water pelted her aching muscles, providing at least some relief, she focused on the day in front of her, wondering just how much training there was to be done at Cropptech. Smiling at the thought of it, she felt blessed to have a job she enjoyed so much. Life at the moment seemed just right.
23
Captor Captured
For her the tiniest piece of information would have done, would have resolved some of the worry, some of the angst. But not so. The nagas looking out for her in the room next door had disrupted her broken and disturbed sleep to inform her that they'd had word. At that very moment, she'd jumped to her feet, ready to join in and take her rightful place in this brave new world. But it couldn't be that simple, could it? Containing only three words, the message did little to quell the thoughts inside her.
'It has begun!'
Rolling the words over and over inside her head, she discarded the hastily arranged covers on her poor excuse for a bed, curled up into a ball, and sought the sanctuary of sleep, hoping once again not to be dragged back into the past. It wasn't to be.
Darkness faded. A brighter, whiter kind of light swam into view. A harsh pounding in her head tried to keep to a rhythmic beat, much to her annoyance. Gingerly, she sat up. Her head spun. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Wrestling with it momentarily, she then attempted to fight it off with just a little power from within. Strangely, nothing happened.
'That's odd,' she thought, head in hands. Concentrating on her breathing, she tried to remember what had happened. The last thing she could recall was being in that damn barn, about to unleash her power. But then the girl, that's right... that damn girl, had injected her with something, and done it so quickly she'd simply had no time to react. Rubbing her eyelids, the whole sorry mess came slinking back.
'Why didn't my troops come in and save me?' she wondered briefly. 'Of course. It was a trap, and had no doubt been a long time in the planning, given the efficiency of it. No matter. Escaping from here should be child's play, wherever here actually is.'
"Plotting and planning already?" a husky voice whispered from somewhere just the other side of the metal bars opposite her, shrouded in darkness. "Impressive indeed. But if it's thoughts of escape, then let me assure you, you're wasting your time. We've had time to prepare. Rest assured... you're going nowhere." And with that, the sound of footsteps echoing down a corridor, followed by a very heavy door slamming shut, brought home the reality of her situation, well... a little anyway.
Casually, while concealing her hands in case anyone else should be watching from the darkness, she wove a couple of tiny patterns with her fingers, over and over again, and then attempted to run a smidgen of her power through them. NOTHING! Once again she tried, figuring she was still a little off balance from being unconscious for all that time, and it must have been some time indeed, given just how rough she felt. Again, NOTHING, not even a sliver of her hidden ability.
'They can't know what I truly am,' she thought, 'not with all the castings the nagas laid on me. They must be guessing, trying to figure me out. It does mean that the dragons are probably involved somewhere along the line though. That will make things more than a little difficult,' she thought, lying back on the flimsy wooden bed, the pathetic excuse for a pillow leaking feathers as her head hit it. Closing her eyes, waiting for them to come to her, she wondered what, if anything, had happened to her husband.