Birth of Jaiden (31 page)

Damion shook his head and
stayed firm. “Nope, we have priorities.”

Once again Alex could feel his
anger rising. “Our
priority
is to the human race.”

“
Alex,” Danielle interrupted,
“we are the great council; we are here to make the laws and create
a balance of supernatural which will make it possible for humans to
stay dominant.
That
is our mission. Jaiden is the only one we need to make sure
to get out of there.”

“
What about Isabella and
Stewart?”

“
If one of them or one of
us dies in the process, then so be it. We knew this job was
dangerous when we agreed to take it. Isabella knew she would be in
danger and Stewart took an oath to the council; they both knew the
possibilities.”

“
I won’t leave either of them,”
Alex told her firmly. “I
will
ignore the fact that hundreds of innocent people
will be killed in this process but I will
not
leave our own behind.”

“
Neither will I,” Damion
stated.

Deanna looked up from
inspecting the bandages on her arm.

“
Me neither,” she told
them.

Victoria and Jeremiah
looked at each other, shrugged and both mumbled, “Me
too.”

Alex glanced at Michael
and regretted how he had felt at first about having to hang out
with vampire slayers. He decided to invade the privacy of Michael’s
mind and discovered that Michael was actually impressed with the
amount of loyalty the council held for each other and for innocent
people.

He snapped out of it
quickly and directed his attention back to Cameron.

“
People, I cannot impress
upon you how important the timeline is going to be. You need to
find your friends and get out of there, no messing
around.”

Victoria had more
questions to ask. “Who is going to go in and plant those things?
And also, I never actually agreed to do this.”

“
Well,
will
you?” Michael asked her.

“
I’m old. It will take me
an entire night to do that.”

“
Don’t put more pressure
on yourself than you need to. We know they won’t hurt the baby so
we just need to hope Stewart and Isabella are alive. If it takes
you all night, then it takes you all night,” Michael
said.

“
And we, the slayers, will
be planting the bombs.”

“
Well, if I do this, I
don’t want to hear anyone complaining about how slow I
am.”

Michael raised his
eyebrows. “So, you will?”

“
Yes, but only because
it’s my duty to do it.”

Alex smiled. As hard as
she tried to fool everyone, they all knew she was a good person.
She couldn’t be part of the council if she wasn’t.

Michael rubbed his hands
together. “Well, then, the first thing we need to do is to find
this mountain. We can work on the details of the plan on the
way.”

“
Wait.” Corrine stood.
“Before we go, there are some very important things in this house
that need to be moved. We can’t leave them here now that Levine
knows where I am.”

Alex was confused. “You’re
coming with us?”

She nodded. “Do you really
think I am going to stay here? That would be a terrible
decision.”

“
I’m glad you’re coming,”
he told her.

Deanna’s eyes met
Corrine’s. “Well, I’m not; you should go somewhere
safe.”

“
Sweetheart, there is
nowhere safe in this world anymore. I have a gift and I need to use
that gift to help Jaiden, just like I helped you.”

Alex knew Deanna had been
abandoned as a child and that she had somehow ended up with
Corrine. Maybe it had just been chance but maybe God had given them
each other, just like he had given Stewart to Jeremiah and Jaiden
to him.

Alex rose from his seat
and helped Corrine who began raiding her book shelves. She picked
them out quickly, without even looking at the titles, and carefully
set them into boxes. She seemed to have put the boxes there earlier
when Michael had been talking because he hadn’t seen them
before.

She looked at the rest of
the group. They stood around looking like they wanted to help but
didn’t know what to do.

“
Deanna, down in the
basement, there are several shelves full of charms and talismans.
Can a couple of you put all of them into boxes and bring them
up?”

“
What can we do?” Damion
asked her.

“
In the kitchen, in the
glass cupboards, I have a lot of ingredients for potions. Would you
run them down the garbage disposal?”

“
Sure.” He started toward
the kitchen.

“
Damion,” Corrine called
out and he turned to see what she wanted. “Be careful not to mix
them together when you dump them out.”

“
How will I know which
jars are the potion ones?”

“
Oh, you’ll know.” She
smiled.

Michael gathered his
slayers. “We are going to start prepping some of the
lights.”

After they had left, Chris
carefully lifted the book. “Where do you want me to put
this?”

Corrine looked up at
Chris. “One of us must have the book at all times. We should never
let it out of our sight. So just hold onto it for now.”

Victoria sat on the couch
and watched everyone work. “Corrine, what about all of your
documents from the previous council members, and the records of
births and deaths?”

Amazed, Alex thought,
Is Corrine our
librarian? How come all of the council’s records come to
her
?

“
They are in the special
vault I have which protects very old documents. I will show you
where it is in a bit.”

They worked quickly.
Clearing out Corrine’s home was of utmost importance. If the bad
guys got their hands on any of that, it wouldn’t be a good time for
any of them.

A loud explosion shook the
walls and a cloud of smoke rolled out of the kitchen.

“
Oops.” Damion rushed to
the doorway. “Don’t worry, everything’s ok.”

They all laughed, even
Alex.

33

Once again, the caravan
traveled down the open and mostly empty highways. The moonlight
radiating down from the clear sky helped to light the way for
them.

Alex tapped his fingers
impatiently on the wheel as he drove. That time, instead of
Isabella and Jaiden, he carried Corrine, Danielle and Chris with
him. As they were one hummer short, all of them had to ride in the
only two which were left.

Alex wondered how in the world
they were going to pull this off.
Please let them be ok, please,
God.

Because the semis had the
GPS system, they led the way. Damion’s hummer followed directly
behind them and Alex brought up the rear. The estimated time of
arrival was early morning which left Alex wondering what he and
Chris were going to do when the sun rose.

They will probably make us sit
in the trucks with all those vampire slayers.
He shuttered at the
thought.

The silence in the vehicle
seemed appropriate for the time being. Each and every one of them
faced their own demons with the battle; all had their own reasons
for wanting to conquer Malcolm.

Alex suddenly realized
that his own reasons had recently fluctuated. Being long time
enemies, he and Malcolm had fought many times while he had served
on the council and Malcolm had seemed to make Alex his arch enemy
for no apparent reason except that Alex was the only vampire on the
council.

Alex could vividly
remember one particular encounter where Malcolm had tried to tear
out his heart with his bare hands.

The memory caused a
vicious jolt of pain to sear through his chest.

He took his hand off the
wheel and gently rubbed the spot. Because of that moment, Alex
would kill him. His growing love for Jaiden and Isabella only
reinforced his urge. Never in his life, save when his family had
died, had he wanted to kill someone so much.

For the others, it was
also personal. They each had some reason to want Malcolm out of the
picture and it was those grudges which drove them hardest when
facing the enemy.

Chris was the only one of
them who didn’t have a particular reason except for his loyalty to
Alex and the council.

Though it pleased him
immensely that Chris would always be there to back him up in any
given situation, he didn’t like it one bit that Chris, another of
his loved ones, would be facing dangers that might bring him more
loss.

He knew that that type of
reasoning was true for the slayers as well. To be a vampire slayer,
you needed to be born with some driving need to defeat the forces
of evil, an ache to do something for the good side. Or, you simply
wanted revenge.

Alex moved his head from
side to side as if trying to shake out the thoughts.

He glanced over at
Corrine, who sat in the passenger seat.

“
Are you ok?” he asked her
when he saw concern embedded on her face.

“
Yeah, I’m fine. I just don’t
think any of us really understands just how powerful Levine
actually is.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if
she
knows
it.”

“
Well,” he responded,
“maybe she underestimates us too.”

“
I hope so, but did you see what
happened back there? It was all of us against only her,
and
she got
away.”

“
Oh Corrine, don’t tell me that
you are starting to lose faith. You just got through telling me to
trust my
fellow
council members more.”

From the back seat, Danielle
spoke up. “Maybe we should all try having some faith in
God
right
now.”

Alex took his eyes off the
road and looked back at her. “True.” He faced forward again. “But,
you know how hard it is to remember your faith when danger is
knocking on your door. It’s like you know it’s there but for a
moment, just for a moment, you forget and you feel as if you’re
facing it alone.”

They contemplated that in
silence while the dark outline of the mountains grew larger and
larger as they drove on.

The thick forest of
tamarack and pine trees spread all the way down the mountains right
up to the side of the road. For a while, they drove alongside a
river. Calm and still with the moonlight reflecting off of it, Alex
couldn’t help but feel a wave of peace wash over him.

“
It’s beautiful up here,”
he said to no one in particular.

“
That’s why I love this
place so much,” Corrine told him. “There’s just something about it
that gives life to my soul.”

Glancing over at her, he
calmly told her, “Nothing can give life to my soul.”

“
You would be surprised,”
she answered him just as calmly.

Eventually, the caravan
started to slow to about ten miles per hour.

“
I think we are almost
there,” Chris said. “It looks like they are looking for a
turn.”

“
Yeah, I think so too,”
Alex said while he tried to keep a good pace with them.

Soon, they turned off onto
a road worse than Corrine’s. Alex watched in awe as the trucks
maneuvered slowly over the gigantic bumps and ruts, tipping
drastically from one side to the other.

“
It looks like they are
going to tip over,” he heard Danielle say from behind
him.

“
Amazing,” Chris
added.

Finally, the line of
vehicles came to a complete stop right in the middle of the road
because there was nowhere else to pull over. Alex cut the engine
and jumped out of his hummer.

He joined everyone as they
gathered near the second semi and stared at the mountains before
them.

“
There it is.” Michael
pointed.

I guess it really isn’t quite a
mountain
,
Alex thought. Compared to the others around them, those were just
small hills, but still large enough to accommodate a massive army
of vampires.

Michael had pointed toward
their left; there stood a medium sized mountain that was completely
round on the top. Alex knew his vision was better than most of them
and it looked to him like the tip was void of any trees.

A perfect way for them to
identify their home from a distance
, he thought.

Damion had turned to
Victoria.

“
Are you ready?” he asked
her.

“
Of course I’m
not.”

“
Well, it’s
time.”

Alex knew she was angry
about having to do this, but at the same time, she was so mean to
everyone all the time that it was hard to feel sorry for
her.