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Bought Chapter 47
Every chair was occupied and still more grim faced men stood around the periphery of the large room, leaning against every wall, a hundred men, and no smiles among them. All eyes were turned to the screen at the front of the room where a tape of the devastating explosion that had riddled the Ellison Compound was being played. Hard jaws became harder, gazes turning bleak.
A low murmur of sound, not quite one of approval but certainly one of regret and pain made the rounds of the room, not loud enough to disturb or overwhelm the sounds from the TV monitor, especially not in a crowd of Sentinels. It was tragedy unfolding, but it was...necessary, too. They had only done what had to be done.
On the monitor fire curled up over the broken stone wall, licking at hefty wooden beams that had at one time held up one of the walls of the great house, now they poked upwards like fractured bones, giant matchsticks charred black.
Further back the family housing, where the Guides would be, the ones hidden from the rest of the world, hoarded away; dozens of Guides said to be all fertile, all young, all pregnant, that area had no damage. That had been strategic, carefully planned. The Guides could not be harmed, they would be liberated from the harem, shared out among the Sentinels who were in this room now. Each man would be allowed his time with the Guides, allowed to lay with, sink his flesh deep within a fertile Guide and spread the fertility to other Guides they mated with.
Only the Sentinels had been harmed, those who had broken ranks, who sought to keep deserving others who were not in power, who were not wealthy, from owning their own Guides.
Rumor had it that somewhere within the Compound, Dr. Sandburg was imprisoned, punished for speaking out, for giving a voice to the struggles of the men in this room. Sandburg, who had shown he understood what it was to be a Sentinel. Who wrote from the heart with blistering honesty on the needs of a Sentinel, of the reality of being a Sentinel in a modern world where it was not animals, not weather, not feeding the tribe that occupied a Sentinel's time.
No, in the modern world it was the struggle to find a niche, a territory within the territory ruled by the more powerful, that made a Sentinel a man rather than a slave, a mere cog in the machine of the more powerful.
There was not one man in the room who had not been touched, soothed, comforted or healed by the knowing, understanding words of Sandburg. Sandburg knew what it was to be a Sentinel. He knew, and he helped every other Sentinel to accept, even celebrate what they were, he let them know they were not animals, driven by instinct; rather a Sentinel was a thinking, rational being, human. Sandburg must be freed to speak his wisdom, his words, to the rest of the world's Sentinels. To confine him was treason against all it was to be a Sentinel.
Every man in the room who watched the destruction unfolding on the screen felt regret that the bombing had been required to achieve their ends. But months had gone by since the last published work by Sandburg. He had made no public appearances, had not been seen at all. Every search had come to a dead end. The last clues, fruitless though they had been, had pointed to the Ellisons.
Some men came forward, saying they had known Sandburg, that he was a professor of Sentinel Studies at Rainier, that he would never speak out in favor of Guide reform. He had been silent on that issue, knowing that it was best left to the Sentinel to decide for the Guide. So, having his pen now raised in support of the new laws freeing Guides...it made men question the truth of what was written. Had he been forced?
And who had seen a Guide on the street since the new laws went into effect? They had all vanished, were rarely sold even in the stalls of the illegal markets where they were once plentiful if expensive. A man had to dig far deeper into his pockets to buy a Guide now, they were scarcer than they had ever been. Brothers and fathers had to share their Guides now. Cousins and friends. All because the powerful had made it legal to claim the Guides for themselves, by granting them freedom of choice. It was no longer the Sentinel's rightful business to decide who a Guide belonged to.
Instead of the almost preternatural understanding Sandburg had for things Sentinel, the writings on Guides and reform were more introspective, thoughts more than facts, wandering ruminations, and there were few in the room here tonight, who could accept that the writings were true, and from Sandburg. The consensus was that they were forgeries and that Sandburg was a prisoner of the Ellison Ruler's Clan.
Sentinels had owned their Guides for as long as any here could recall. Their fathers, their grandfathers, uncles, all had owned Guides. Tales from the far distant past were that, simply folk tales, without evidence that they were true, or better, or even possible. And the idea that a Sentinel must be faithful to one Guide, while that Guide could chose however many Sentinels he wished to mate with? That rang of impossibility, of disaster, of mad imaginings, and not the clear, precise, so insightful way Sandburg wrote on the Life of Sentinels.
The Brotherhood of Sentinels really had no choice, other than to act, and without wasting time. The plan was brutal, but they had to move fast, taking time out for a more elaborate approach put Dr. Sandburg at risk. Those who held him had to be compelled to release him. Dr. Sandburg's captivity was clearly becoming more restrictive. The greatest Sentinel mind ever was being stifled, suppressed, perhaps worse, was being twisted to speak out untruths. He had to be freed to join them, to be allowed to speak his mind, the truth. To speak for them.
No one celebrated the loss of life, the violence, or the destruction. But the cause was a just one, one that transcended what had been done; ~Sentinel~ Sandburg's imprisonment had to end. The action taken this day was only the first step in the plan to win his freedom.
Every man in the room had taken the vow. They would not be stopped until their brother was free.
And may god forgive them what they had to do.
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Stephen had refused food, water or tea until Dahl, fighting his nausea, had come to the hospital and hand fed his Sentinel. Stephen did eat then, unable to refuse the intent look, the pale, drawn face. Andy's fierce scowl had made little impression, but now Stephen nibbled the bread and cheese that Dahl broke off with determination despite the odor of the food sending his stomach reeling.
Bella, his dear sweet Bella, had not yet woken. She was under mild sedation as the scanner moved over her, looking inside her brain for a reason why. Stephen never looked away for more than the time it took to blink. Not even Dahl had been able to coax him from the room to rest. He had followed the gurney from Radiology, to Nuclear Medicine, to MRI, his own injuries bound with fresh bandages after he had not heeded the warnings of his brothers and torn the stitches open in a frantic attempt to get to his injured Guide buried in the ruins.
He would wait by her bedside until she woke, or until the doctor gave him word of why she slept on. Only then would he rest.
Stephen feared he would lose her. She who had been his first choice, his only choice, who was the mother of his children, who had been his heart, his life, his savior, and his very breath. She who had chosen him. He loved her. He could not face losing her. If she did not recover...what would he do? Would anything be worth living for? His shame was great, but he knew his first thought was no. Nothing meant more to him than she did. His Bella.
Andy had managed to get a cot brought into the room, then a second. One for his Alpha and the other for his distressed, pregnant Guide. He was content to sit in the reclining chair and doze.
Stephen allowed himself to be coaxed into bed as long as the cot was drawn up to within inches of Bella's hospital bed. He fell into a fitful sleep. He missed the first twitch of the slim fingers over his head.
Bella's hand trailed off the side of her bed. The delicately polished nails brushed Stephen's golden hair. They twitched again. Andy levered the recliner upright and stared, afraid to hope. Had Bella moved? He watched for long moments as nothing happened. Then there was an undeniable spasm, and the fingers brushed through the exhausted Sentinel's hair. Andy was up out of the chair, one long stride closer to Bella and Stephen, when he heard Dahl move.
He changed his direction instantly, rushing to catch Dahl as the Guide toppled forward off the narrow confines of the cot and was spectacularly sick all over the floor. Stepping with careful haste Andy avoided the spreading pool, and knelt in a dry spot next to his Guide. Dahl's skin was dry, too dry, his eyes listless. Andy reviewed the young man's intake over the last few hours. Not enough he decided. He stepped over to the wall and depressed the call button. If Dahl was conveniently in a hospital, he could just as easily be given some fluids intravenously, and whatever mild medication might be able to calm his stomach without harming the babies. He was too thin and too dehydrated.
Andy was not pleased. He was not pleased with anything that had happened, and if he could just get his hands on whoever was responsible for the bombing, he would happily rip them from limb to limb. In fact he could hardly wait to get his hands on them. He stroked the dark soft hair back from Dahl's milk-pale face. Not even the Guide's normal olive tone gave him any color beyond a sickly beige. He hung limply in Andy's arms.
A noise from the direction of Bella's bed drew his attention. Stephen was sitting up, staring at Dahl and the puddle. He looked every bit as green around the gills as Dahl. Probably too traumatized by Bella's injury to dial down his senses. He swayed as he sat, his hand covering his mouth. Andy threw a blanket over the mess and went to get a cool, wet towel. While in the bathroom wetting the wash cloth, he heard the outer door open. And then a cry.
Rushing back into the room he saw his Alpha on his feet bending over Bella's bed, arched painfully over the railing, the metal of the bar digging into his abdomen as he tried to crawl over it without lowering it. A nurse was attending to Dahl. Stephen had secured Bella's hand in his own, and was holding it to his lips. And Bella...she was looking up at him. Awake at last, if drawn and weak, laying flat on the mattress, exhaustion etching deep lines into her features. She looked old and ill, but she was alive, she was aware.
Andy let out a sigh, sending a grateful prayer to the gods. Bruised, battered and concussed, Bella was going to live, they would be OK. No matter what it took. He lowered the rail and watched the other Sentinel, his Alpha, drag himself up next to Bella. Andy helped by boosting his feet as Stephen struggled to pull himself up onto the mattress with one arm in a sling. Andy tucked him under the covers next to Bella, Stephen's body curled around her, fidgeted, settled. He let out a sigh, and then went limp, his eyes shutting, his face relaxing, finally asleep.
A doctor was supervising a nurse who was collecting the equipment for an IV line. Andy nodded his approval when the nurse and doctor both warily stepped out of his way as he neared Dahl. Obviously experienced working with Sentinels and Guides they waited for his permission before relaxing and quickly sliding the IV into the too flat vein at Dahl's elbow. Andy felt his alarm grow when the Guide didn't flinch as the needle went in.
"The Guide is seriously dehydrated." The doctor ventured with careful caution. "The Guide will need a few liters of fluid before she perks up. And I'd like to run some lab work. Has she been ill?" He waited for the response.
"Yes, do it. He is pregnant, and he has been vomiting." Andy said. "Give him whatever he needs."
The doctor took note of the pronoun, nodded. "We will give him the care he needs. A urinary catheter will help us monitor his hydration, his kidneys...." This was often a difficult subject to broach when speaking to a Sentinel. Not to mention difficult to place the catheter depending how much genital modification the Guide had endured.
"Fine." Andy did not like the idea of anyone but himself, Bella, or Stephen touching Dahl that intimately. But he agreed, for Dahl's sake.
"Do you wish to stay, Sentinel?" The doctor asked.
Andy's growl gave him the notice that short of a nuclear explosion no one was going to pry him from Dahl's side. The doctor's sigh was only a faint sound, as he looked over at his nurse. He read her own resignation in her gaze. Together they set about doing what needed to be done, and working around the hyper-vigilant Sentinel in attendance while they did it.
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The ruins were still smoking here and there. Heavy beams had been shifted by cautious hands and anxious men. The heat was far less, and there were no other live bodies trapped according to Sentinel inspection. The living had been removed. The dead...their recovery was in progress.
Jim rubbed at red rimmed eyes and looked up into the unmarked sky. It was a rare day when there were no clouds in Cascade. This was one of them, and the heavens stretched so blue it almost hurt to look at the color. But it could never hurt so much as not finding Blair or Rafe. They were still not here, he had not found them. His mind sent him a picture of them when he'd last seen them, they had been here, right in this spot as he walked from them. Since then, since that moment, there had been nothing, no sign of them. There was an ache in his chest so profound that Jim Ellison didn't know how he kept breathing through it.
The smoke, oil, charred wood and plastic, superheated metals and other burned scents interfered with the acuity of Sentinels' senses, and as no Guide was allowed so close to the destruction there was no one near to ground them. The Guardians and Alpha Sentinels were moving massive amounts of the ruins, piling them to the side, and under each new piece Jim feared what he would find.
Jim felt it through every fiber of his body when the trickle of scent hit him. He stopped, turned and faced the source, dialing in sight and smell, with a controlled desperation that was pinpoint. His ears caught the sound of the heartbeat he most needed to hear, and a second heart beating close to the first. He felt the skin contract all over his body, his lungs expanding, air, hot, harsh and fouled rushing in. None of that mattered, because it was there again, yes, it was, bright and so exquisitely sharp, slicing through all else that sought to mask it. The sound of a heart, a beloved heart beating.
He was standing, nose lifted, straining at the air, then he was running, hurdling the stacked and smouldering debris as he went, a flash of soiled, bloodied white dress shirt, torn pants, and scratched scuffed shoes. He took the corner at full speed and they were there in front of him. Blair. Rafe. He didn't see anyone else, just his family, the curl of auburn-brown hair, the brilliant blue of eyes, the hand on Blair's arm, steadying him. He sucked in air, a heaving sob of sound. Rafe turned toward him, arm around Blair. Unmarked, unsullied, perfect, and unharmed.
When he reached them his arms went around them. He held them hard, shaking like a child, crying unashamed tears while they held him every bit as tightly, not caring about the filth, the dirt that decorated every inch of his body. Because here was Blair and Rafe, and they were breathing, and they were alive, unharmed.
Belatedly Jim knew that Abrys and his new bond were there, too, further behind his own Companion and Guide. He reached out a hand to touch his friend, felt the steady beat of his heart. Then he stroked Oma's hair, a single, hasty pass over the long, silky darkness. The dominant Alpha of the group he only nodded to, the man not yet on his radar as family, more a rival actually, and he knew the other felt it too, because his greeting was a grunt and nod, nothing more, the baring of warning teeth a struggle to suppress.
Jim's grip on Blair and Rafe eased. At last Jim was able to stand back a little and look them over. His sensitive fingertips, numbed from hours of clawing at wood and debris tingled as they sought out soft skin, he touched Rafe's face reverently, then Blair's, his eyes eating them like the sweetest of candies.
"Where were you?" He asked his Guide and Companion with deceptive quiet, when he was able to do more than simply breathe in their combined scent.
Blair looked slightly uncomfortable, but he met Jim's eyes. "I wanted to go to the hospital. I insisted Rafe take me."
"What is wrong?" Jim asked, once more flipping into Blessed Protector mode, stepping closer despite the many eyes on them in this too public place, running his hands over Blair, drawing the very rounded Guide against his body. His hands mapped Blair's pregnancy, his senses, strengthened by his Guide's proximity, acute. Simultaneously he drew Blair with him behind the only shelter there was from the news cameras and onlookers. The smoking pile hid them from view.
The tiny tripping of the hearts beating under his hands, deep in Blair's womb, all three of them, were regular, and without dysrrhythmia, little feet moved restlessly, as if aware of the momentous upset in the world outside their safe haven. There were no problems he could find other than a flush of heat along Blair's skin. Jim frowned, then he knew what it was. Blair was blushing.
"Nothing. Nothing was wrong with me. I am sorry, Jim, the babies are fine and I am fine. I had heard...Rafe told me...at my request he eavesdropped, listened...there were rumors of...something...going on at the hospital...and I wanted to go investigate. I am sorry. He wanted to tell you, but I didn't want to bother you, or to wait. I was impatient. I am sorry." Blair's gaze let Jim know how true that was, pleading for forgiveness. He never would have chosen to put his Sentinel through this.
"I should have...." It was choked, harsh, Rafe's face was filled with apology, remorse. Jim's hand rose and cupped his Companion's cheek, then his hand went around the back of the bowed neck, pulling his close again. He turned his face into the curve of the Companion's throat. Alive! They were alive. His touch was far gentler than his voice when it came.
Jim straightened, thumb running over Rafe's lower lip, his jaw knotting. "I would," he said, tightly, "have liked to know where you were. I thought, I thought I would find you..." He couldn't bring himself to say it, but his eyes traveling to the bodies gently being laid out let them know what he had feared, what he had gone through. To find them lifeless, broken.... "You and Rafe were there, at the heart of the blast the last time I saw you. I left you there....and then, I couldn't..."
"I can't tell you how sorry I am, Jim." Blair said, holding on to his Sentinel, uncaring of who watched him, and Rafe hung his head, swallowing hard. "I would never want you to go through that. We tried to get to you, to let you know as soon as we heard. But no one would let us in!"
Rafe had known he should have let his Alpha know, he should have found a way, some way to follow Blair and to let Jim know. But he had not. And Jim had suffered agonies for it.
"The main entrance to the compound was destroyed," Rafe said. "We tried to come in through the west gate but the Guardians had set up road blocks a half mile out and were only letting emergency vehicles through. They were worried that the bombing was only the beginning, we couldn't get through, or get anyone to carry a message. Not until they cleared the area, made sure there was no more danger."
"I tried to get through the perimeter patrols," Trent commented, "but I would have had to kill a Guardian or two to do it. I wasn't willing to go that far, so I turned back."
Jim nodded, he was grudgingly impressed that the Sentinel didn't get himself killed in the attempt. An Alpha Sentinel had a hard time taking no from anyone of lesser rank. And until recently, a Guardian had no rank aside from the duties they were assigned. Jim let out a low growl of frustration. Change had not been good to him, to his family, his life. There was no doubt that this attack was because of reform. Was the risk to his Guide and his Companion, to his children worth the change heralded by the new way of life, the laws?
Jim Ellison drew his family close, his hand knotted in the back of Rafe's once spotless shirt, Blair's robes bunched in his fist. Holding and being held. An instant only of peace before the questions fought up to the surface of his mind demanding answers.
Who had done this and why? As if it would matter. When they were found, and they would be, they were dead men. Every last one of them.
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Christopher had finally dragged William into the newest section of the Compound. It was still standing undamaged and ringed with Guardians, he was sure it was safe, not only because he had gone over every room, every closet, and every hall looking for anything out of place. Only then had he let William, groggy from medications and fatigue, be brought here. Maire was an indefinable lump under the covers at William's side. Her presence had calmed the older Sentinel, let him rest.
Bandages were wound around the ruling Alpha, his arm fixed in a tight binder held to his chest. He looked tired and ill, livid bruises painted his flesh, a technicolor of reds and purples, fresh and darkening as Christopher looked. He himself had gotten off relatively unscathed but for a few cuts and many, many scratches that were treated with soap and water, not even requiring bandages or stitches.
The more seriously wounded had been moved on to area hospitals, only William and those with minor injuries remained in the Compound's environs. Dr Ashley had wanted William to go, but he had refused. His personal territory had been violated, his friends and guests killed and his home destroyed in the worst way. Annihilated. People had died on these once safe and honored grounds. He would not flee, he would not give up his territory, he would not let the terrorists win. Not even for a single instant.
He won the argument to stay, but Christopher won the decision of where he would be if he stayed. William Ellison was in bed, in his flannel pajamas, and Dr Ashley was in the next room, sleeping the heavy sleep of the exhausted, but within immediate reach if a crisis should arise. Admiral Bellingham was with him, hovering protectively while quietly directing the operations involved in the excavation and recovery. Guardians came and went. Michael came three times alone then once with a silent, shocked Caleb to check on his father before returning to the rescue effort.
Bellingham was seated next to the bed where Ashley slept, his eye sharp on the fine profile of the other man. From time to time he reached out and stroked a whisper soft caress through tangled gold hair, careful not to wake the sleeping man. The doctor needed his sleep, and Paul Bellingham would see he got it.
It was Bellingham who came to the doorway of William's room, his thunderous expression drawing Christopher to his own feet. A single sheet of paper was in the huge man's hand. Wordlessly he passed it to Christopher.
The text was extremely brief and to the point.
Free Doctor Sandburg, or further disaster will follow.
It was signed by The Brotherhood.
Christopher felt anger pour through his body until it came boiling up out of his throat, and erupted as an enraged howl.
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