Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) (19 page)

“Stupid girl!” Ignoring his own bid for quiet, he shouted at her. “He sensed the phone! I couldn’t cover the stupid phone! Don’t you EVER disobey a Warrior Chief! Never!”

Beth had no idea how Berwick had sensed a phone, but Kahtar didn’t have to tell her that he was referring to himself when he said Warrior Chief. The anger in his voice hurt her. It dug right into her heart, pushing away every nuance of joy he’d put there earlier.

“Fool!” he continued to rant, but his voice sounded weaker, “and don’t you dare call 911.” Then he let go of her ankle and slumped over.

Beth reached to touch him in the dark, trying to find his injury, her hand slid over his chest, and she couldn’t even sense the newfound touch of his heart in hers. Fear bit through her, terror that he was dead. Her fingers found dampness, blood. She’d shot him in the stomach, and she had no idea what to do about it. His shirt was a heavy quilted material and instinctively she pressed on the wound, but more blood seemed to ooze through, hot and thick between her fingers. Kahtar’s mouth was by her cheek as she leaned over him, and she felt his breath on it.

Thank you, thank you, Jesus! Tell me what to do!

Then she felt around in the hall, it took several long minutes to locate the cell phone, during which the terror of Berwick possibly crashing back in almost drove her to panic.
“Don’t you dare call 911”
echoed into her mind as soon as she ran her fingers over the screen, bringing it to life. She dialed 411 instead, forcing her voice to remain calm.

“Hello? Can I get the number for the Willowyth Police Department? No, it’s not an emergency.”

BETH’S EYES ADJUSTED and she recognized him when the bad actor, with the alternative hairstyle, showed up. He raced down the hallway and knelt in front of Kahtar.

“Hey, Beth,” he greeted her like an old friend. “Ooch, he’s not good but he’ll be all right. Move your hands, I’ve got it.”

The man’s hands pushed hers out of the way. Terrified of what would happen when she moved them, she obeyed, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
How did he get here so fast? It’s only been seconds since I called!

“Do me a favor, Beth? Go down in the basement for a few minutes.”

“What?”
Go down in the basement?
“Why?”

“Please, Beth? I need to get some help with this. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“I know what you are. I know he’s Kahtar, he’s the Warrior Chief….”

“Do you?” The voice sounded cheerful, “Well, I’m Honor Monroe, Beth. If you know all that you ought to know that an Old Guard can’t help me transport him with you here. So if you’d head down to the basement—that would be a big help.”

THE FOOTSTEPS ON the basement steps scared Beth, the weight sounded like Berwick’s. She’d been sitting on top of the brand new, never used, washing machine for hours now, listening to the police walk back and forth upstairs. Not a single one of them had spoken to her when she’d passed them to come down here. She wondered if they realized it had been her stupidity that had hurt Kahtar.

Then there he was, trotting down the steps with a scowl on his face, dressed in his police uniform, and Beth sat staring, wondering if she had somehow hallucinated the entire night. Kahtar didn’t say anything as he crossed the basement, but when he reached her, he put one finger under her chin and closed her mouth for her. She glanced down. He’d used his left hand and there was a huge ugly scar on the back of it—bigger than her entire palm.

“Let me see your hand,” he demanded.

Beth automatically put her left hand out.

“The other one,” he spoke patiently, like he was speaking to a slow child.

Fearfully Beth offered her right hand, she didn’t know how many bones were broken, Berwick was a heavy man, and she was pretty sure she was going to need surgery because all four fingers were useless and it hurt beyond description.

“This will hurt.” Kahtar told her without pity, and then he used both his huge paws to encase her hand and she screamed. Tears filled her eyes as he forced the hand flat mumbling something and holding on tight, while she struggled to dislodge herself.

“It would hurt less if you wouldn’t fight, Beth.”

Finally surrendering, silently plotting eventual reprisal, she stopped trying to escape. The pain was magnificent and she squeezed her eyes shut while it burned. Pain seared through her in waves, and tears ran down her cheeks. After a moment she became aware of the sound of Kahtar’s voice, praying in a language she’d never heard before. She peeked at him and his eyes were closed, when he finally dropped her hand he told her, “There is nothing to be done for the pain, but it will fade soon. You can use it now.”

In disbelief Beth stared at her hand, though swollen it looked almost normal. Tentatively she bent a finger, then another, then all four, repeating the motion several times. When she looked up at Kahtar he again reached his left hand up and used a finger to close her mouth. Then he grabbed an old wooden chair and throwing a big leg over it, he sat on it backwards, facing her.

“I’m tired. I lost quite a bit of blood. I suppose I can’t give you too much grief. You got me on a technicality with 411. Normally we don’t use any means of technology that could risk our exposure—but there’s really nothing normal about this situation we find ourselves in with you. I understand you didn’t know how to get help otherwise, but Honor was already on his way. Don’t look for ways around my orders again, Beth, you risk the entire clan when you disobey me.”

Beth’s mind crowded with questions.
What, how, why, when?
Then she thought to make sure her mouth was shut properly, it was, mostly. She swallowed.

“I’m sorry I shot you.”

“You should be sorry for a lot more than that. Why did you go for that stupid phone in the first place?” Without giving her a chance to answer he continued. “The entire clan is in danger with Berwick on the loose! He killed two of my best men yesterday! It was Berwick who killed that boy at University.”

Beth gasped, she’d read about it in the newspaper, but it said he’d fallen in the locker room, a freak accident.

Kahtar sized her up a couple of moments and added, in a gentler voice, “Berwick killed Brenda, Beth.”

For several seconds she didn’t understand. “He killed Brenda? My Brenda?”

Kahtar nodded, his fierce eyes looked sad, and tired.

“I don’t understand. Berwick went to Carolina after Brenda? Why?”

Kahtar glanced briefly at the floor and she suddenly understood.

“You lied to me? Brenda never went to Carolina? She never ran off with one of your officers?”

“No, Beth, Berwick killed her the day she borrowed your car, threw her body in the lake. We found her washed up on shore.”

Pain lit through Beth’s heart, closing her throat, and tears welled up in her eyes again.
God, no, please? No.
Thoughts of Brenda filled her mind, her lectures on how to run and not run the business, her guileless lack of sophistication, her daughters.
No! No, please, her daughters!

“I’m sorry, Beth. I assume Berwick had been hunting for you, and when he found her….”

“But, why’d he hurt her or the boy?” Tears ran down her face and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Douglas Jeffries had been planning to be a missionary. She didn’t know him, but he had been engaged to a girl from her parent’s church.

Kahtar looked reluctant to explain but he said, “Berwick is not the kind of man who takes disappointment well. Brenda got in his way when he wanted you. Douglas Jeffries drove a cream-colored convertible. He was tall and thin and had long blonde hair….”

Beth covered her face with her hands and started to sob.

THE FRIENDLY WARRIOR, Honor Monroe, was her guard, though no one had actually told Beth that. It was obvious though. He simply sat on the edge of her bed, playing with her old iPod, one bud in an ear and his eyebrows moving further and further up his forehead as he listened to her songs. Beth sat at her desk. Honor had hung the curtain rod, slightly bent, and the blue sheers brushed the floor. The window over the fire escape was still closed and locked. She wanted to shut every window in the big house just to be safe, but Honor had dramatically told her he would rather face Berwick than heat stroke. A faint breeze wafted in through the open window on the far side of the room. Beth kept an eye on it, though she knew logically that short, squat Berwick certainly couldn’t scale the house—at least not in broad daylight.

They’d taken her laptop off of her, and both cell phones, leaving only the old iPod Shuffle. If Honor found those tunes shocking, it was a good thing he wasn’t listening to her newer stuff. Rearranging nail polish and make-up on her desk, Beth kept darting glances at Honor in the nearby mirror. He looked normal. Cute.

“You would kill Berwick if he showed up?”

Honor glanced up at her, looking surprised at the question, blue eyes ringed with dark lashes met hers in the mirror.

“Of course.”

“Without a trial? You’d just kill him?”

“Beth, he killed four people in town and shot me.”

“I shot Kahtar.”

The brows shot up even further.

“Did you?” Then he chuckled. He had an awesome smile, kinda like her Dad’s. “I’d assumed Berwick did it.”

“It’s not funny. I didn’t mean to.”

“No, of course not.” The smile vanished.

“And you just believe me?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

She turned from the mirror to face him in person. He leaned forward slightly, as though quite interested in what she had to say.

“I don’t lie, but how do you know that? How do you know, for sure, that Berwick doesn’t have…extenuating circumstances? Or for that matter that he committed all those murders?”

“We know.” His answer was supremely confident and he stuffed a bud back in his ear. The pretty eyes turned back to her iPod.

“Even if you know,” Beth interrupted him, “Who made you judge, jury, and executioner?”

Honor’s blue eyes were very sincere and serious when he replied, simply, “ilu—God.”

“So you do believe in God?”

The blue eyes went round with surprise.

“Beth? Of course, we’re Covenant Keepers. Our clan is Christian even, just like you.”