Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

The sun beat down relentlessly upon the two very out of place figures who wandered the port at Europa Point, the closest port to where Dr Steele’s boat had been found. It was from there that Rick and Andrew had departed by helicopter but Ruth had informed them the pilot was supporting a wildfire in the Catalan region. Sandy and Louise would have to travel using a different medium – something neither of them was too happy about.

Word had soon come after the attack on Home Base that Rick and Andrew’s signals were no longer transmitting and that due to some kind of interference their satellite in orbit had lost a visual link to their last location – but not before a larger (and similarly unregistered) vessel began to approach the area. Though they couldn’t, of course, be sure, Ruth was fairly convinced the New Order had found them.

It hadn’t taken much more than the notion that Rick might be in trouble to get Sandy half-way out of the door on the next plane to Southern Spain, and much the same was true with Andrew and Louise. Ruth had convinced her to stay long enough for them to figure out a rough plan of what they needed to do. Since the attack was now becoming public knowledge amongst some key members of local law enforcement, Ruth found it necessary to stay behind and to run interference, with some help from the detective chief inspector, naturally.

Angel and Ben agreed to set about clearing up the mess and making repairs to the building (something which Ben was surprised to find he still had a knack for – as mundane as it seemed compared to the other revelations he’d undergone throughout the past forty-eight hours). Sandy and Louise had still demanded they be allowed to go to Spain to find out what had happened to Rick and Andrew, something which Ruth wasn’t very happy about given that only one of them was super-powered. The look of upset on Louise’s face when Ruth made such a comment made her deeply concerned but in the end, she relented.

But Rick’s earlier sarcasm had proved an interesting point. Ben didn’t know who he was and Angel wouldn’t be unable to function underwater. At the very least both Sandy and Louise could swim. She had reluctantly allowed them to go and made arrangements with a man she knew down there. Sandy had been picturing a mafia don, some greasy man with broken English but an easy sense of friendly menace. What the two of them got when they finally tracked down Ruth’s ‘man’, was nothing of the sort.

“She did say pier 47, right?” Louise asked her, shielding her eyes from the sun as she squinted at the boat docked there. Although what both Ruth and Rick had said about who they’d be best off sending on a water rescue mission in Spain, neither of them had thought of the wisdom of sending the palest skinned blonde in existence and a red-head half-way to the equator. She was going to burn like crazy in a way she didn’t have dominion over.

Her mood didn’t improve as she surveyed the ‘vessel’ that Ruth had sent them to. She was expecting a sleek white yacht, probably previously owned by a Bond villain or something. Ursula Andrews would soon burst from the water in her skinny white bikini and climb dripping wet onto the slippery boards at the back of the boat. Then again, that was a little closer to the wild side than she cared to get.

The truth was far more mundane and way more depressing. Instead, they were treated what looked like a fishing vessel – the main cabin with paint flaking in the salt air, a tangled net in the back. The whole thing rocked gently on the softly lapping waves. It seemed bigger than the two of them and their captain would honestly need – but at least it looked sea-worthy, just about. The name Sha’re was painted in crumbling white lettings on the bow. There were, however, no signs of life.

“Figures this would be the one time when one of Ruth’s ‘contacts’ let us down,” she muttered to herself. Louise, though, remained cautiously optimistic and she shielded her eyes as she tried to peer through the dirty glass into the cabin.

“Maybe he’s just…out for a walk or something?” Louise queried out loud, “He could even be sleeping, I’m sure there’s somewhere to sleep in there.”

Sandy began to feel like everything was going wrong. Firstly she wanted to wring her friend’s neck for keeping the truth about Janet and Stacey from her, and secondly, she wanted to make sure he was still alive so she could wring his neck in the first place. This on top of her annoyance towards Ruth and the dull concern that remained at the back of her mind about Ben and she was about at her limit. So when a loud thumping sound shook the boards they were standing on, Louise’s shriek of fear did nothing but add to her declining temperament.

“Why do people do that?” Louise hyperventilated as she span around. Her tone and demeanour immediately changed when she saw the situation. “Oh, hello…”

Sandy rolled her eyes and turned to face the source of the sound. The thud had been a large sack about the size of a small child containing God only knew what. It had been thrown by a man, she hoped the man they were there to find.

He was tall, somewhere in his thirties and natively Mediterranean given his features and thick black hair. No doubt Louise would have described him as handsome and rugged, stubble adorning a strong jaw, natural muscle under sun-kissed olive skin. He stood regarding the two women with a lopsided cheeky grin, dressed in a clearly well-loved black vest and pair of loud Hawaiian shorts. Oh God, he even wore flip flops. Sandy suddenly found herself hoping this was not their contact. His very presence already irritated her.

“You are right, senorita,” he greeted them in accented English, “there is indeed a place to sleep but I do not think it will take all three of us.”

“Are you Tomas?” she asked him sternly, business-like. He nodded and picked up the bag once more, chucking it casually over onto the deck of his boat. “You’re late.”

“No, I think you are early, Miss Sellers told me to be here at precisely three o’clock,” he countered, cocking his head and listening as the bells of the nearby church began to chime. “Seems the bells of San Clara agree with me.”

With a return to the easy grin, he unhooked the clasp and released a small door, swinging open to allow them to access the boat. Louise was practically drooling by that point so Sandy made sure to mutter under her breath, “Control yourself, your boyfriend might not be dead yet.”

“God if they are it’s nice to know there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Louise muttered back, eyes fixated as Tomas bent over to unhook some ropes. “I’d cover him in salsa and call him a nacho.” Her eyes widened for a moment and she turned her gaze back to Sandy, “Did I say that part out loud?”

Sandy ignored her and step forward towards the boat. Tomas offered her a hand which she ignored, while Louise lingered far too long when being helped aboard. Anxious, she turned back to their Captain and fixed him with a look.

“Did Ruth brief you on what we need you to do?”

“I believe it is as simple as driving a boat,” he dryly returned it to her.

“Look, ‘Love-Island’ this isn’t a joke,” she flatly told him, “Our friends are out there in the middle of the ocean, we don’t know what’s going on and there are some very bad people involved. People with guns and no qualms about using them.”

“How very dramatic,” he commented dryly while continuing to make preparations to the boat she didn’t understand but which seemed to involve a lot of thick rope that was crusted with sea salt.

She wanted to wipe the casual grin off his face with one fist but fought the urge before she set fire to half the dock. She had recently had her arse pinched in a bar by a crown court judge and when the firemen left they questioned how an entire top shelf of booze could manage to spontaneously combust. Or so Ruth had told her when she’d finished dressing her down – before she arranged to switch out the businessman’s standing Thursday night ‘date’ with Helga, the spank happy dominatrix.

“Yeah, Louise, we’re going this guy clearly doesn’t understand,” she snapped a little too harshly at her. Louise made an audible whine that made Sandy briefly question their friendship. She’d already settled herself onto one of the fishing boxes and was admiring the view quite plainly.

“If that is your wish, Roja,” he threw back, suddenly more serious. “You know, I know you do not know me but you should trust your boss, no? You think for a ‘mission’ such as this she might find someone who not only grew up by the sea but who also spent ten years in the Spanish navy? Someone who owes an English woman a favour, asks no questions and despite dressing for comfort rather than entertaining guests might still be able to take you where you need to go and keep you both safe?”

He finished his speech, longer than she thought capable of, and turned to her. They squared each other up, her looking him deep in his eyes and realising he was, very surprisingly, sincere. If there was one thing she hated more than anything else, it was having to admit when she was wrong.

“I can take care of myself,” she responded and without thinking brought up one hand wreathed in flames to demonstrate. To his credit he didn’t even flinch, he grinned.

“Hot.”

“And don’t call me ‘Roja’,” she snapped at him, before relenting and taking a seat next to Louise on the large storage box.

“Of course not, that would imply femininity.”

Before she could respond he resumed his duties in preparing the boat. The closer they got to departure the more Louise’s mind seemed to wander from her most recent distraction and back to the undeniable truth of what they might be walking into. Her looked clouded, she receded into herself and as the boat pulled away from its moorings and achingly slowly began to head for the clear blue horizon beyond the quiet sea of similar vessels; she asked only one thing,

“They’re going to be okay, aren’t they?”

“Them two? I’d be more worried about them killing each other.”

She hoped it, but hope and belief were two completely different entities and belief she had always found difficult to hold onto. Worst still, when their journey began to close towards their destination she felt a sinking feeling in the depths of her stomach. Luckily, Louise was distracted when, several miles from their rendezvous, Sandy looked out across the distant blue horizon and saw an ominous cloud of black smoke.

Rather than alert her friend, she simply gave her hand an uncharacteristic gentle comforting squeeze.

And held onto hope.