Forever: A Novel of Good and Evil Love and Hope Read online

  But Adam had no more time to dawdle. In what he was sure was preparation for his taking of the mirror, there was a leather satchel draped from a hook on the wall. Grabbing the bag, Adam dropped the gold-framed mirror into it; then, with his back turned to her, he surreptitiously removed the other mirror from under his shirt and dropped it also into the bag. When the satchel was on one shoulder, he bent and slung the woman over his other shoulder—no mean feat, considering that she was nearly as tall as he was.

  He had been at the top of the staircase down to the first floor when all hell broke loose as a big red car came tearing through the house.

  Adam gathered up the satchel and the woman, then stood up again and looked down, seeing the top of Taylor’s head leaning on the steering wheel. Such an act by Taylor could only mean that time had run out. The staircase was ruined, so Adam couldn’t get down that way. He had no time to hesitate. With one great leap, he jumped onto the top of the Range Rover, then carefully put the woman down on the roof. She was glaring at him hard and desperately trying to say something. But Adam didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Was she telling him that he’d be sorry for taking her? Or was she going to thank him for rescuing her? Right now Adam didn’t have time to find out.

  He scrambled down the side of the car, opened the door and roughly pushed Taylor into the passenger seat. Right now he didn’t have time for niceties.

  But what was going on? Adam wondered. Even though the side of the house had been smashed, there were still no alarms going off. But, worse, there was no Darci shouting in his head that he had to get out. No Darci telling him what he needed to do to get out. Where was she?

  Adam pulled the woman off the roof and put her across the backseat, then he got into the car behind the wheel. Please go, he prayed. The engine was still running, so maybe there was a chance. He put the car in reverse and it moved. “Thank You,” he whispered, eyes skyward, then he backed the car over the debris and out of the hole as fast as it would go. The tires were scraping something in front that had been smashed, and he could see smoke coming from under the hood, but the big car was still going.

  When he reached the top of the hill, Adam leaped out. There was no longer any need to remain quiet, so he shouted up into the tree, “Darci!”

  Here, came the weak reply. I’m—”Eiiiiiiiiiiii,” she screamed as she fell. She had awakened at Adam’s call, but she’d lost her balance and slipped off.

  Adam caught her, but the force of her hitting him made him fall back against the ground hard.

  “Adam, darling,” Darci said as she put both hands on the sides of his face and began kissing him. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he managed to say. “But we have to go. Can you get in the car?” He was woozy from the impact of her hitting him, but he didn’t want her to know that. But when he stood up and took a breath, he thought that a couple of ribs might be broken.

  “You’re hurt,” she said.

  Adam saw the way she was listing to one side. She, too, was hiding injuries. “Can you get into the car?” he repeated. “We need to get out of here. Fast.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “In the back,” Adam said, holding his side as he opened the door for her. “And be careful. She is in there.”

  For one horrifying moment, Darci thought Adam meant the boss, the witch, but then she looked into the car and saw the bound-and-gagged woman lying across the seat. Instantly, Darci knew that there was no evil coming from this woman. She didn’t think twice before gently lifting the woman’s head and putting it on her lap. Darci knew evil when she was around it, and this woman was not evil.

  As quickly as he could, Adam got into the driver’s seat. Taylor had regained consciousness and was sitting up. “Where are you going?” he asked hoarsely.

  “As far away from here as I can get,” Adam answered. “I have what I came for, so I’m leaving.”

  “She will retaliate,” Taylor said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Let me out here.”

  “What?!” Adam said. The car was badly damaged and wouldn’t last much longer, so they needed to get away as fast as possible.

  “She will want someone to take revenge on, so let me out now!” Taylor said more forcibly. But the effort took his strength, and he leaned back against the leather seat and closed his eyes.

  “I’m getting us all out of here,” Adam said quietly.

  “She knows who Darci is now,” Taylor said, his voice barely a whisper but urgent. “Darci will never be safe again in her life. No matter where she goes, the woman will come after her.”

  “And you are going to stop her?” Adam asked. “How can you do that? You don’t even know what she looks like. And you’re injured.”

  “But I do,” came a voice from the backseat, a voice that neither Adam nor Taylor had heard before.

  “You took the gag off of her?” Adam said in horror, looking at Darci in the rearview mirror.

  “It was hurting her,” Darci said defiantly.

  “We don’t know anything about her. She could be—” “But you know everything about me, don’t you, brother?” the woman said, then, with Darci’s help, she pulled herself upright and looked at Adam in the rearview mirror. “I can help,” she said. “I can help bring her down, but I cannot do it alone. It is nearly dawn now. We must rest. Is there somewhere we can go to rest? Tonight is the time. If she is not stopped tonight, her power will double.” The way she spoke was odd, every word carefully pronounced, as though she’d learned to speak by reading, rather than by hearing other people talk.

  “Why?” Taylor said, turning around to look at the woman. But he was in too much pain to turn fully, so he couldn’t see her face. “How? What has she planned?”

  “She knew of this. She has seen some of it. I saw all of it, but I lied to her, as I often do. But she has others who can see in the mirror now, so she validates me. You do not have the true mirror. She has it. She has children locked up, and tonight she means to sacrifice them. I must stop her.”

  “You won’t be alone!” Taylor said, then had to lean back against the seat to get his breath.

  “And I will help you, too,” Darci said softly.

  “Oh, hell!!” Adam said angrily.

  “Don’t curse,” Darci said at the same time that the woman said,”Do not curse” then the two women looked at each other, and in spite of the situation, they smiled.

  In the front seat, Taylor smiled too, but Adam didn’t. If he had been alone, he would have readily agreed to go back there after that evil woman, but now he had Darci. And, he thought as he looked into the rearview mirror, he had a sister. And, glancing at Taylor, who was obviously in pain, Adam acknowledged that, with Darci’s father, he now had a family, his own family, not one where he was an outsider, an intruder.

  Now that he had everything he’d ever wanted in his life, he was going to have to risk losing it all in one night.

  16

  “I GUESS THIS IS AS SAFE as we’re going to get,” Adam said in resignation as he pulled the severely damaged Range Rover into the back of the parking lot of a cheap motel. He parked off the gravel, under a tree, where the car could not be seen from the road or even by someone driving through the parking lot. Leaving the others in the car, he woke the owner of the motel and paid cash for one room with two queen-size beds.

  While he was doing this, he was thinking about what he could say to Darci to persuade her to not participate tonight. Adam knew that he would be going into the tunnels or wherever “it” was to be held tonight—the mention of the children had decided him—but he didn’t want Darci involved. As long as he had breath in him, he’d do what he could to prevent another child being hurt, but he didn’t want Darci or Taylor or even this new person, his sister, involved.

  As for his sister, all he could see when he looked at her was that room with the tower painted over the bed. Considering how she had been raised, for all he knew, the woman could be as diabolical as the witch she’d gr