Ghost With Cats ~ Book of Eloh #1.Draft

After their passionate kisses, Tal traced Annie’s cheek and lips with his fingertip. She could only stare at him wide-eyed. They were both too intoxicated to be to doing this. She should have stopped him when he kissed her, but she wanted it and more, so much more. For this first time in almost a decade, she wanted to be held, to be touched... Her rules did not allow for this.

’I have to stop this, it's just the drugged wine.′ Her mind argued.

‘But it’s so nice,’ whispered her heart.

“I wish you could come back with us and I could keep you forever,” Tal murmured, leaning in to smell her hair. “Then I would bite you, ink you, and all would know you were mine forever.”

He swayed dangerously. She held him up while the rail at her back held her up, wondering exactly what he meant by bite her, ink her, her mind couldn’t make sense of it. She vaguely remembered something about tattoos for married couples... maybe. That couldn’t be right they weren’t even the same species!

‘Does it matter?’ the small voice whispered again. It didn’t, but it did. It. Really. Did.

“Tal...Tal!” She steadied his face in her hands, looking at his eyes instead of in them, they were completely dilated. She knew hers were too, she had to focus, “You are really drunk and you are kinda creeping me out. I need you to focus so we can escape.”

“But then Bries would be our big, shiny head brother, with his 799 brothers, and you could be their sister because they need someone to love them,” he said so seriously as he touched her face again.

“Tal, you are not making sense,” she frowned, but he was in a weird way. Annie knew those who were made, like Bries, had nobody to love them. Tal wanted her to love them, to love him.

“Be joined to be me, and come back to Eloh, and be their sister and the younger ones’ mother, we need you, I need you, I.. I.. ” Quickly he turned away to throw up over the rail. Annie just stared at him.

Vorn and Boaz rushed out the door, another countdown was loud from the Time Square Broadcast. Had it already been an hour since she first realized they were drugged? How long did she and Tal kiss? It was taking way too long to get them to safety. Annie struggled to process the amount of time that has passed. She was sure it hadn’t been that long, but she heard the other countdown.

‘It has been an hour! Focus on the RULES, gawddammit Annie!’ She yelled at herself.

“What happened?” Boaz asked horrified.

Tal was still vomiting. He has never seen a grown man get that sick. Annie looked paler than she did when she had to sew up a bleeding wound. Boaz wondered if she was going to start vomiting too.

“I think he just proposed to me, and then he started puking.” Annie groaned, fighting the urge to join him.

Vorn shook his head, saying quietly, “My lady, we have movement on the other side of the river and to the south, we need to start now.”

Rule #2 for surviving : Always have a plan, another plan,and an exit strategy.

“Take him inside. They are south too? Dang, tell Bries forget the Museum. He needs to head cross country. Tell him to go north to the old church on Fisher Rd in town, we’ll pick them up tomorrow.” She ordered as she swayed slightly. “I guess we’re heading back toward Colorado.”

Vorn caught her arm, he looked concerned. “Are you going to be okay, Lady Annie?”

She nodded, watching Boaz half-carry Tal back inside. Bries would take Tal and slipped away into the darkness through the scrub trees. The flickering of the fireworks would help hide his movements as they escaped.

The neighbors called out, “Hey, is he okay?”

Annie called back, “Yes, it’s just every time he tries to propose, he gets so nervous, he throws up.”

The elderly woman laughed, “Sounds like you, Joe. It took him eleven tries over five years, to get it done.”

“My brother is going to take a lot longer at this rate,” Vorn called back. They laughed together but Vorn and Annie felt no amusement.

“So you folks from New York?” the old man called out.

“Only my wife,” Vorn lied, trying to stall the attack he knew was coming. His Cypher’s intuition was going crazy with the need to get Sharon and Annie to safety, now that his master was away. “We’re from up north. We decided wanted a warmer New Years. Our friend’s dad used to own this place, she got us a deal. So, we all came down to thaw out after the Christmas blizzard.”

“Oh yeah, we saw that on the news. We knew the Doves. Good folks. So did Anneliese come with you all?” the woman drawled.

Annie glanced up at Vorn for a second and said back, “Anneliese said she was headed overseas for a family illness, her grandfather has cancer, but I can give her a message when she gets back. My cat sitter is keeping her cat too.”

“Just tell her, Mr. and Mrs. Adams say hi.” They said cheerfully.

“Okay, Happy New Years, Mr. and Mrs. Adams.” They chorused back and went inside, closing the door and curtains.

“We gotta go now!” Annie said desperately.

“Why?” Vorn asked. He could feel that Bries was already halfway to the old church miles away with an unconscious Tal over his shoulder.

“Because Joe and Dee die the year after my parents in a boating accident.” She said. “They must think I don’t know that because I was in Yemen when it happened. Old Man Crassy who owned the Bait Shop sent me the funeral notice, he died a few weeks later.”

Uri and Sharon were both conscious again. Uri was cursing in some weird mix of Yiddish, Hebrew, and a language Annie didn’t know yet. Sharon was shaking, she had thrown up at least twice. Annie gave her some juice then took her upstairs and changed them both quickly out of their dresses into jeans and hoodies. She was trying to tie Sharon’s cross-trainers but her hands kept shaking. Suddenly, the power went out. Downstairs, they could hear Uri and Boaz swearing in the darkness.

Vorn was at the door, “The entire canal has gone dark, my lady.”

“They’re coming. Get Sharon to safety. I’ll lure them away,” Annie retorted sharply.

“No, you can’t Annie, not by yourself.” Sharon insisted. “And I can take care of myself.”

“Sharon, I have some training for this, you have none. Vorn is a trained protector, if I know he is protecting you, then I won’t be scared for you. Tal is safe with Bries, Uri and Boaz can fend for themselves, drugged, drunk, or not. I need you to do this for me. I need you to let Vorn protect you. Please, Sharon,” Annie begged and hugged her, “I don’t have any other real friends.”

“You’re the only one I have, too.” Sharon responded, hugging her back, “Be careful, please. I... I can’t lose you too.”

“I’ll meet up with you at the St. Mary cottage tomorrow noonish?” Annie asked Vorn, who nodded. Then gunfire erupted downstairs.

Sharon froze and Vorn pulled her against a wall, Glock drawn. He was glad Annie had insisted on taking all the weapons from the men who had attempted to attack them in Colorado. It had provided them with a small arsenal. Annie stepped out first and dropped the two coming up the stairs, waving at them to go. Vorn saw no one between the house and the river. They escaped, he held Sharon in his arms as he jumped down the two stories from the balcony, thanking the light for the weaker gravity on this world. Sharon squeaked in surprise and hugged his neck tighter as he bolted for the boat for the small boat on the river with faster than human speed.

Annie put up a huge show of resistance, drawing the attackers to the house next door. The elderly couple that was next door pretending to be the dead Adams had vanished. Between Annie, Uri, and Boaz attacking those swarming the house. No one noticed Vorn take a small boat with a quiet motor upriver with Sharon. Annie whistled shrilly twice, and she, Uri and Boaz escaped on motorbikes out the garage door and went in 3 different directions. Their attackers hesitated trying to decide who to pursue before chasing Uri and Boaz.

Annie stopped and set off a dozen 20 lb pyrotechnics stashed along the canal road over the bay to obscure any satellite thermal imagines and abandoned the motorbike in the brush. She put on a mylar-lined thermal poncho and jogged the rest of the way to the old church. It was a strange deja vu, she was a ghost again. She saw more going pyrotechnics going off and smiled. Uri and Boaz had escaped, one to Matagorda Beach and one to the old town harbor district. Fireworks were going off all over the area. A few cars passed but none noticed her off the road. She was safe for the moment, she hoped the others were too.

^..^

“Bries?”

Annie whispered the sword pet’s name as she opened the door of the old baptist church, he didn’t answer. It was dark downstairs, but she could see his bulky form, leaning against the wall. The jog upriver to the town had sobered her up but she still felt shaky, and worse, she felt panicky. She heard and saw a lot of traffic, she attributed it to the holiday but she knew that some of it was looking for them. She was glad to make it to Fisher Street undetected. Sharon’s car was at the St Mary’s house, but Annie seriously doubted any of them could drive, she had almost wrecked her dirtbike twice and she had ridden it less than 3 miles, she had abandoned it in favor of surviving the night.

“You okay, Shiny Head?” she whispered in the darkness.

“Wine make Bries sick, worse than coffee,” he groaned.

“I know, the wine was drugged. Drink some water and eat some crackers, and go to sleep, I’ll keep watch.” Annie told him, giving a bottle of water and package of soda crackers to a very ill-looking giant.

She felt bad for Bries as he ate and drank, before he fell asleep on the floor. She wrapped a blanket into a pillow and placed it under his head. He squeezed her hand as she held it, she knew he was built for war, but in her heart, she felt like he was the kid brother she never had and he shouldn’t be in this situation, running for his life from trained mercenaries. He was still a child. Only seven years awake.

Tal was asleep on a fold out bed in another room. Annie knelt next to him, feeling his head, he was feverish and shivering. It was odd because he had told her that temperature changes didn’t affect his people. She frowned and pulled another bottle of water out of her pack. Whatever was in the wine was affecting the Eloh far worse than the humans. She hoped Vorn was okay with Sharon.

“Tal, Tal?” she whispered.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, she brushed his hair aside. “Can you drink some water? You need to hydrate.”

He nodded, gulping from the bottle, and coughing a little. “I feel so sick.”

“The wine was drugged. I puked twice already. We thought you were going to toss up your toenails before you passed out. Vorn did some Cypher thing to beat it. I think he and Sharon got away. Uri and Boaz split up, I don’t know where they are exactly either. But they got the pyrotechnics set off to blind the satellites. We sent Bries to bring you here first. I am so sorry, we shouldn’t have gone to Sharon’s party, the people next door weren’t who they said they were,” she explained.

“I don’t remember.”

“That’s normal,” she tried to reassure his, she had no idea what a normal reaction for him would be.

“Annie, I didn’t try to hurt you, did I? You would tell me if I did?” He sounded so worried, so concerned.

She frowned in the dark and wiped his forehead with a paper towel, wondering why he would ask such a thing. It scared her a little. ‘He wouldn’t really hurt me, would he?’

“Nope, you just ask me to come home with you, be everyone’s mother and sister, then threw up a lot.” She said with a nervous laugh. She didn’t want to tell him he had kind of freaked her out. She stood up and started to turn back to check on Bries who was snoring.

Trembling, Tal reached up and pulled her onto the mattress with him. He was incredibly strong. At first, she thought he was just going to hug her for a while, but then his weight half-crushed her. As they lay side by side, she could feel his arousal as he rubbed his body against hers and she began to have a panic attack. She needed to stay calm, and rational, but her fear was winning.

“Tal, you need to rest, let go, so I can get up,” she said as calmly as she could.

“No, I need to hold you, I need to be close to you,” he murmured, and gave her ear a small nip as his arm tightened around her as she pushed against them.

“I have to keep watch. Let go,” she begged. Her heart was starting to hurt it was pounding so hard as she panicked. Her fear was taking over. She was losing control.

“No one is near. Stop moving and lay still.” He was nuzzling her hair by her ear. She could feel his breath on her neck, as he licked her, and his body pressing heavily down against the length of hers, his leg and arm over her. “You are so soft. Sooo sweeet...” his words slurred as he passed out again.

She was trapped, she wasn’t strong enough to push him off of her, she tried but he was too heavy. She could see how pointed his nails had become and she trembled in fear. She realized what one of the drugs in the wine must have been, or at least the effect it was having on Tal. It was the Lottery drug given to the Eloh males to force the urge to mate. Her paranoia went crazy as she struggled to just breath normally. The one she loved was going to hurt her, just like before. Only it was going to happen this time because he was not going to be able to stop himself, he had been drugged to cause it to happen. She couldn’t fight him, he was too strong. Her worst nightmare was about to begin again. A small sob escaped her lips.

Terrified, she whispered over and over, “Please let me go.”

When he didn’t, she closed her eyes, tears came. and she retreated into her mind, like last time, because she had no other way to escape. Time stopped as her memories of that week flooded back into her mind. She was lost and all she could do was wait for it to happen again.

^..^

As his awareness returned, Tal became very still. He was holding Annie’s rigid but trembling form against him. Even in his drugged state, he realized the extent of her terror. Suddenly, he also realized what one of the drugs that was in the wine must have been. He ran his tongue over his inside of his gums and teeth, and he inhaled sharply. He could see his hand, see his nails, and swallowed. No wonder she was so afraid, he had changed into his predatory form. He knew exactly what she feared he was about to do to her. He couldn’t make himself move, he fought to regain control of his body, doing everything Vorn had taught him about resisting the Lottery Drug’s effects. Slowly, his body became his own to control. He did not know how long they had lain like this. Him crushing her, trapping her after he had lost consciousness but he knew in his heart that she feared the worst would happen.

“I would never do that to you. Even now after they gave me the lottery drug, I would not. Do you understand Annie?” he said.

She didn’t answer.

He could feel that her entire body trembling with fear. “Anneliese, answer me, please.” He begged and managed to raise up to look down at her, it made the room spin. “I promise I will not hurt you. I will never hurt you. You are the light of my soul. I love you. Please, look at me.”

She had obviously been crying, tears were dried her cheeks, but she didn’t move or respond, just clutched her hands on the shoulders of her hoodie with her eyes clenched shut. Her fear was overwhelming her, her fear of him, he could feel it, and it hurt like physical pain.

Tal didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have Vorn’s training to reach her mind and bring her back. He couldn’t even feel Vorn for the first time since he was 15. He pushed up off the bed. Free of his weight, Annie contracted into a ball. It was almost like a spasm. Their enemy had set him up to attack her. If he had not trained to resist the drug given to the males during the lottery so he could fight and survive, he might have. The thought made him trembled.

He spat, the taste in his mouth was horrible. He wanted to be joined with her more than anything, and he wanted to ink her even more than that. He reminded himself, he was not an animal, over and over. Instead of mating, he had to find a way to rescue her from her fear and himself from his drug-induced desire. They were in trouble if they were attacked now because they could not defend themselves.

He stumbled up the stairs, they were in a church. The windows were tall and arched, but it was obvious it wasn’t what it had once been. He needed Vorn. But he needed Annie to take him to Vorn, because he didn’t know where he was and he couldn’t feel his Cypher to summon him. He was so confused, his head was spinning. Tal knelt in front of the altar and prayed to the “One Who Created All” as his brother Truh had taught him . Forcing himself to focus on the truth of his situation to know what to pray for.

His name was Vanth Tal and he was One of the Twelve Defenders of the Kingdom of Eloh, the youngest to ever be made an Admant, the greatest warrior of his people, undefeated in battle, but at this moment, he was weak and helpless under the influence of intoxicants of two worlds, defenseless. He was afraid for those he loved and himself . He continued to pray, it was all he could do, he had to have faith in the plans of the One Who Created All and this was the only way he knew to find it and the answer he needed.