Eternal Faith - Book 4 (The Ruby Ring Saga) (17 page)

“Even
when I said goodbye, Victor fought for me like no other. Part of me wanted to
rush into his arms, but the larger part hated him. I was scared of him, for I’d
seen him do such heinous things. What do you do when you’re in love with a
monster?” When I didn’t answer, she continued, “William got me through the pain,
and I was able to walk away from Victor, even though it hurt like a knife
slicing through my heart. Victor was my first and only love, and we’d spent
centuries together. Do you know how hard it was to separate myself from him
when he was my life?” She sobbed.

“I
can imagine.”

“I
know how deeply you love him, and you’ve only experienced it for less than two
years. Imagine loving him that way for centuries.”

“I
don’t think I could’ve given him up like you did,” I whispered, sounding more
accusatory than I meant to.

“You’re
so foolish, Sarah. You can easily say that because you’ve never seen Victor in
action. You’ve never seen him for the monster he was! Why do you think everyone
feared him in every kingdom?”

“I’ve
never seen him like that.”

“That’s
because he put on his best act for you. Ultimately, he became what he was
pretending to be to impress you. How did you do it, Sarah? Even after knowing
him and loving him all that time, nothing I ever did changed him. What did you
do to make Victor such an honorable man? As I said, now he melts my heart
because he’s the Victor I wanted, the Victor I knew he could be, the man of my
dreams.”

“Is
that why you left William? Because you wanted to come after Victor?”

“I’ll
never stop loving your husband, Sarah—not ever.”

“Liz
said you hate him.”

“I
hated the man he had become. I was mad that he had destroyed our love, furious
with the revenge he took on Dornia, my new country. I was even more enraged
that he didn’t change for me, that my love wasn’t enough to lure him out of the
darkness he had stumbled into.”

“I
accidently read a love letter he wrote to you. I found it buried in his
library. He poured out his love to you in the most beautiful way. I know he
loved you then, Della.”

She
sobbed. “It cut so deeply, because I’ve never loved anyone so passionately. He
always promised me he’d love me forever, that we spend the rest of our lives
together. I can still see his face when he stared into my eyes and said, ‘Della,
I love you.’”

Again
the words stung, and I felt the pang of jealousy. I knew it was ancient history,
but the thought of my Victor declaring his love to another woman made my heart
ache. I had almost two years to her centuries, and I had to ask her, “Della, do
you want Victor back?”
My voice
cracked slightly, like it always did when I felt uncomfortable.

She
laughed, as if I should already know the answer. “Yes, more than anything. You
have no idea what we’ve shared and what we’ve been through.”

I
said the dreaded words I’d been afraid to ask, even though I already knew the
answer. “Are you going to make him choose between you and me?”

She
stared into my eyes. “I will leave that choice in Victor’s capable hands.”

I
swallowed hard, trying to grasp the reality that another woman was after the
man I loved. His ex wanted him back, and I had no idea how to respond to that.  

She
wiped her eyes, then met my gaze once again. “Oh, Sarah, don’t be so naïve. We
both know he’ll choose you. Congratulations. You don’t believe in fairytales,
yet you have one right in your hands.”

I
awoke to Della hovering over me and shouting in my face.

“Enough
sleep,” she said. “It’s light out. We must be going.”

“I
slept longer than intended.”

“We
both did.”

“Are
you okay? How’s your shoulder?”

“It
hurts badly. How are you?”

I
bit my lip hard as electricity swept through me. “The current’s getting
stronger.”

“We
must make haste,” she said.

“I
know.” The birds were chirping, and I was thankful for the dawn. I was growing
weaker by the minute, and I was dying of thirst. A wave of dizziness washed
over me, and I had to rest against a boulder until it passed. The climb down
was so steep, a trek through thick brush that reminded me of the rainforests
I’d seen on nature shows and in those old
Tarzan
movies. As I fought
through the leafy vegetation, we wandered past steep canyon walls and through
the twisting trees and granite boulders. Several times, I stumbled on shattered
rocks as my feet caught on big slabs of limestone.

“Sarah,”
Della said, “what’s that up ahead?”

I
strained my eyes and saw flashes of blue and red. Peering intently, I noticed
pitched tents. “Somebody’s camping.”

“Will
they offer weary travelers food and drink?” she said in a hopeful voice.

“That
sounds fantastic,” I said. “Let’s hope they’re hospitable.”

Della
grabbed my arm. “Wait. What if they are Immortals?”

“There’s
only one way to find out.” I stepped forward. “Hello?” I called out, but no one
answered. As I approached, the smell of death and rot lingered in the breeze.
Nausea rose in the pit of my stomach as I glimpsed dead people strewn in the
overgrown vegetation.

“They’ve
been beheaded,” Della said, startled as she stared at the massacre.

“Only
Immortals would do something so horrible,” I whispered in a stunned voice. I
tried to keep myself from puking, shocked at the cruelty of the blue-ringed
Immortals.
How could they kill these poor people?

Della
sucked in a deep breath. “Sarah, we must get out of here as fast as we possibly
can.”

“Maybe
we can find a cell phone to communicate with the outside world.” I blew a
breath. “If we can even get a signal.”

She
immediately began searching one of the bodies. “Perhaps they have blue rings.
If so, we may be able to wear them to boost our power.”

“I
doubt it. The drug paralyzes any kind of power. I heard them say it on the roof
by the helicopter. They said maybe the drug wore off and didn’t work on
Immortals like us. That means it must work like a charm on them.”

She
shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t see any rings on any of them. I bet
the Immortals took them.”

“I’m
sure of it,” I said, and that was when I noticed the gold eagle ring glittering
on one of the men’s fingers. I couldn’t stop staring at it.

“What
is it? Did you find something?”

“I’ve
seen this ring before, worn by a gang who surrounded my car and warned me to
get out of town. They said they were the good guys, but they sure didn’t look
like it. Their leader is named Jackson.”

“They
didn’t harm you or threaten you?”

“No.
They just warned me to leave town because the blue-ringed Immortals had marked
me, so we heeded their warning.” I put a hand over my mouth, wondering if
Jackson was among the deceased.

I
started to gently frisk the bodies for a weapon or a phone. My gun was out of
bullets, but I could bluff if I had too. I was hoping to find a radio or
anything that could be of use. I searched the pockets of the victims but didn’t
find anything useful.

I
opened the flap of a weathered tent and walked inside. I tossed the blankets
around and went through the backpacks. I saw canteens, a lighter, kerosene,
clothes, sunscreen, and plenty of survival supplies. I grabbed the lighter, kerosene,
and other important supplies, then stuffed them into a backpack. I also collected
the jewelry and watches from the bodies and put them deep in the backpack. I
planned to return them to loved ones who would surely be missing the men. 

“We
can make a smoke fire if we have to,” I said, flinging the backpack over my
shoulder.  

“No
fire!” she said. “It’ll bring every Immortal straight here. I say we keeping
moving down the mountain.”

“I
agree.”
If anything happens to my baby out here...
I took the biggest
breath ever.
If anything happens to little Alexander, I’ll never be able to
live with myself.
We needed to keep going.

As
I dug through another backpack in the tent, I found bottled water. Jackpot! I
threw one to Della, and then opened mine. My throat was parched and nothing
tasted better. I guzzled down the entire bottle and then packed a few more I
found.

“I
found a diary,” Della announced, “but it appears the pages are wet and falling
apart.”

I
carefully flipped through the journal. Some pages were unreadable, but I was
able to make out enough to learn that they were an elite team sent to rescue
some of the people being held hostage in the lab. “Do you know what this means?”
I asked Della.

“That
this was a rescue mission that went horribly wrong.”

“More
than that, it means there are some blue-ringed Immortals who are on our side.
They were heading up that mountain to save
humans
. There are some good
ones out there.”

Della
cocked a brow. “So Jackson was right. He was one of the good guys.”

My
mouth dropped opened, but no words came out.
Is Jackson leading a rebellion
against the blue-ringed Immortals? Will his rebels be willing to make an
allegiance with us?
I was dying to give Victor the information.
Maybe we
should relocate to where the rebels are. It’d be a lot safer,
I thought,
having no desire to be snatched up again for another go at a pre-mortem
autopsy.  

“Sarah,
this is great news,” Della said. “We just have to find these allies.”

“I
didn’t see any wallets or identification, but I’ll bring the notebook with us.
Maybe it will help us figure things out.”

“These
bodies have lain here for less than a day,” Della said. “Why haven’t the
Immortals disposed of them?”

“They
probably thought no one would notice. The mountain is very isolated, and not
many people hike or camp this far up. Maybe they got startled or distracted
before they had a chance to get rid of them. In any case, I bet there’s more to
this story, and I’m sure they’ll return to the scene of the crime sooner or
later.”

Della
and I picked colorful wildflowers and placed them over each dead body, then said
a quick prayer. I felt like it was the right thing to do, and my heart went out
to them. The horrible way they’d been butchered made me think of how ruthless
the Immortals on the mountain were. They had no problem hitting and beating me
when they knew full well I was carrying a child, and they’d destroyed the men
mercilessly. The thought made me shudder.

“They’re
sure to kill us if they find us!” Della said in a panic.

“The
Immortals think we’re dead, remember?”

“Perhaps.”

“Try
to stay positive,” I said.

“All
these Immortals failed to defeat them. What makes you think we can?”

“I
don’t think these Immortals have the extra gift we have.”

“How
are visions and invisibility going to help?” she asked sarcastically. “Those
gifts seem relatively worthless now, all things considered.”

“Worthless?
Della, your gift of invisibility got us out of there in the first place.”

“What
if they figure out some other way to track us? You know how smart they are, and
they have all that modern technology.”

“We’ll
be fine...unless they track us by a thermal heat signature.”

“A
what?”

I
let out a long sigh, in no mood to give her a science lesson. “Long story.”

“It’d
be real nice if you could have one of those visions right about now,” she said.

I
bit my lip. “It’s not like I can whip them up on command.”

“The
Immortals aren’t going to kill you,” she said. “They want you alive.”

“But
that will mean the death of my baby,” I retorted.

She
lifted a brow. “They’ll kill me right on the spot.”

“No,
Della. I won’t let that happen.”

She
started to slowly spin around, worry flooding her features.

“What
is it?” I asked, watching her eyes shift back and forth and noticed the
insecurity on her face.  

“Bad
news,” she said, swallowing hard.

“What?”

“We’ve
managed to trap ourselves like rabbits in a fox den,” she whispered.

“What
do you mean?”

“We
made a crucial mistake.”

I
glanced at the towering walls all around us. And then it dawned on me. We had accidently
hiked straight down into a gorge. We should’ve went around the gorge and kept
hiking downward to the desert floor, but we had screwed up big time. “How could
we possibly have done that?”

“We
are unfamiliar with the terrain and this area,” she said. “It was impossible to
know that we weren’t climbing down a mountain but into a gorge.”

“I
don’t know how we will climb back up those steep walls we foolishly shimmied
down. Coming down, every step was like a mini avalanche of rocks. Still, we’ll
just have to fix our mistake. We strayed off the path, but we’ll jump right
back on it. We’ll climb out of the gorge and keep hiking downward.”

“This
isn’t good.”

“I
know it’s a big setback, but let’s just find a way out as quickly as possible,
then keep moving downward.”  

She
rubbed the sweat from her face. “I fear a fever is setting in. I feel dizzy,
and I’m too weak to climb out.”

“I’ll
go,” I said. “I’ll climb out, find help, and come back for you. I swear I will,
Della.”

She
shook her head fiercely. “You can’t leave me with all these dead people,” she
said vehemently.

“I
know you’re very superstitious, but don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. I have to
go on my own because I can’t possibly carry you.”  

She
gripped my hands. “Please don’t leave me here.”

“You
know I normally wouldn’t, but we can’t sit around here and wait. They’ll be
back anytime to clean up the mess, and we can’t be caught here. You just need
to stay out of sight and be quiet. Find someplace safe, where you can rest.”

She
leaned against a rock. “I’ll find a place to hide. Just get us some Immortal
help.”

“Are
you referring to Victor?” I asked.

She
didn’t answer straightaway, and I realized I’d never seen her so pale before. “Any
Immortal not associated with the mountaintop will do,” she whispered as she
slid to the ground.

“I’ll
be back, Della,” I promised.

“I
hope so,” she said.

I
suddenly doubled over and let out a long moan as pain seared through me.

“Sarah!”
Alarm filled her voice. “Are you okay?”

I
hunched over. “I-I’m not sure. It’s just...something’s horribly wrong.”

She
swallowed hard and straightened up, sudden realization shining in her eyes.
“Are you going into labor?”

I
squeezed my eyes shut. “I-I don’t know. I hope not. Not here! Not...now.”

“It
is far too early, isn’t it?” she said frantically.

I
swallowed the lump in my throat “We need to find a way out of here so I can get
to a hospital.”

“It’s
the medicine,” she said. “You haven’t had your pills, so your energies are
unstable.”

“Yeah,
I’m definitely out of whack. Without those pills, I would’ve already been dead.
They’re the only thing keeping me alive.”

“The
unstable energy is creating havoc in your body.”

“It’s
throwing me into early labor, Della!” The pain ceased and I was able to think
for a mintue. I stared at the steep wall. “I bet...hmmm. I bet I could climb it.”

“Let
me,” she said.

“Your
shoulder is messed up, but I think I can do it.”

“I’m
fine,” she insisted.

“No,
you’re far from it,” I retorted. “Just let me do this.”

I
lifted my gaze. I’d have to climb up a sheer vertical wall towering hundreds of
feet. There was no way we could do it without killing ourselves.

Della’s
gaze swept over the wall. “You don’t have the hiking gear I saw on television.”

“We’ll
just have to find another way.” It might’ve helped if I’d thought to bring
along a Mount Everest climber’s guide. 

Just
as I was about to turn around, a zigzagged crack snaked its way up the granite
rock to the top. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.

“I
can do this.”

“No,”
she said. “You’re pregnant.”

“Desperate
times call for desperate measures.”

I
started climbing and easily was able to make it up one fourth of the way. But
then the rock became weak and brittle with a chalky-colored lichen growing all
over it. As I climbed, I began to kick rocks and could hear them crashing to
the bottom. Taking a deep breath, I gathered my courage and kept going. I
shimmied and squirmed up a couple steep rock steps, trying to get to a ledge
with some trees in it. I climbed up hand-over-hand when I lost my footing and
felt myself falling back. I had to fall about three stories. I sucked in a
painful breath and collapsed, pain shooting through my side like a spreading
bush fire.

“Sarah!”
Della screamed. “Are you okay?”

“I
know I shouldn’t have tried. But what other choice did we have? I’m not dying
down here. I refuse to let that unstable energy win.”

Della
examined me and had me move all my extremities. I hadn’t broken anything, just
twisted my ankle and broke a few ribs. After I screamed through the pain and
rested, we started to look for another way out. The other towering walls were
even steeper. I had no idea how the hell we were getting out of there.