Voice Of A Troubled Angel

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Battle of Love

   Christiana slammed the whisk straight into Ray's crotch and shoved the flat end of the pan down against the back of his head, leaving him howling in pain. She shrieked as the gun fell out of his pocket.

   Unsure of what else to do she jammed it into the kitchen sink and turned on the garbage disposal before running into the woods in search of Erik.

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   Erik swiftly glided through the snow covered grounds. He was deep inside the woods of his home and had not yet found a sign of any intruder. Perhaps the hunter had left already.

   Maybe he should turn back. The thought of Christiana waiting for him, warm and tempting was a delicious thought that definitely swayed his decision.

  He would take a wide swing back, covering more area hile heading in the direction of his home. Hopefully she had stayed in that attic and not budged.

    Of course even if she had, he would not be angry with her. He loved her too much to be upset with her.

   The wintry wind swirled around him, cold and crisp, smelling of the night, or darkness and trees.

   He wandered, lost in thoughts of the woman he loved.

   But soon he heard twigs snap and he froze. Easily sliding behind a tree, he waited.

  "Erik!" Christiana's loud whisper broke the stillness.

  "Christiana!" He scolded her with difficulty. His heart was about to palpitate - what the hell was she doing out here?

  She was across the clearing, coming towards him.

    He began sprinting to her, horrified she was out in this weather. And at night. And in the cold. Without a sweater. At night. When it might not be safe and there was a stranger on his property, possibly. Good lord, he had quite a list of things to discuss with her once they were together.

  But their joining was interrupted as Ray flung himself down on Christiana who let out a vocal-chord busting scream.

   Erik's pace quickened as he watched them struggle, Christiana's light hair being splayed out in the snow, her pale skin catching flakes as she tried to get the man off her. Erik knocked him off easily, but he did not anticipate Ray whipping out a knife to gouge him. Erik laughed at the unsteady lunge. He was such an amateur that the term amateur would be offensive to other amateurs if he referred to Ray as that.

   Ray stood and Christiana backed away quickly.

  "I've no fear of knives my dear, even when they are wielded by untrained idiots who are so stupid they injure themselves accidentally," he called to Christiana as he stared into Ray's eyes. This was going to be fun for him.

   But arms attacked Christiana from behind, just as Ray lunged at Erik, distracting both of the good parties.

   "No!" Christiana was dragged away by skinny arms as the love of her life, a ghost of a man flitting here and there as if he were dancing to avoid the feeble lunges of the blade, fought the man she hated.

   But once her captor was in private with her she was let go.

  "Mother?" Christiana said in awe.

  Mrs. Dame stood with a gun in hand, cold, thin, and pale as ever. Her eyes were gaunt and lifeless and her lips were twisted into her signature grimace -the grimace that was her version of a smile.

  "Christiana," she said. "You've been a very disobedient daughter. Have you anything to say for yourself?"

  "Yes," Christiana said, for the first time in her life, completely unafraid and ready to challenge her mother. "Damn you. I was happy and damn you for momentarily blocking me from my happiness." Erik would be proud when he heard that line.

    Christiana's mother wailed. "Oh, my poor daughter! The devil has taken you at last. That evil man has corrupted the child I raised so flawlessly, the silent daughter who heeded her mother's warnings." She shook her head. "Will you not apologize? Think of your father, he would be so ashamed. And this man, do you really think he could love you? You've not much for a rich man to find appealing, you know this, and you know I would not lie about these things. My actions are out of love."

   Christiana faltered. "I... I... I have nothing t-to be sorry for. And Dad would have wanted me to be happy."

  "Too much happiness is unhealthy for the soul and mind. Are you sure?"

  "Yes." Christiana's reply was warily given.

  "Then you leave me no choice." Mrs. Dame came towards her until they were only three feet apart.

   "I must end this thing you've so ignorantly deluded yourself into becoming. Starting with him." She cocked the gun and pointed it towards where the two men were.

  "No!" Christiana's ragged scream shattered the night.

   Her mother watched her, expressionless and benign. "So you do love him. That is a shame. He must have taken you. Dirtied you. I warned you he would. But you are nothing to him, and I must perform one more motherly duty." She nodded once, as if confirming her own beliefs. "Tonight I will save you. My daughter shall not sin any more. She will not succumb to disease but die in youth. Not waste. I will be destroyed as well tonight. But in waste."

   "No!" Christiana begged. "Please!"

   "Will you or will you not come back with me, forget him, and forget this dangerous pleasure?" Her stone expression never wavered.

   Something hardened inside Christiana then. Funny thing too, because she always thought she'd snap, break, not harden or become steelly.

  "No."

  "Tonight you will die. Tonight he will die," Mrs. Dames finger slid over the trigger and started to pull it. "Tonight -"

  "NO!"

And it was over before the shot fully rang out.

   Mrs. Dame, for the first time in many years, had an expression on her face. Wide eyed, confused, shock. It remained as her statuesque body stiffly fell to the snow.

   The cold metal was embedded in her heart. The knife's handle stuck out of her chest like a flag.

   Christiana gasped. But she felt nothing towards this mad woman who never loved her. Who kept her locked up and friendless for more then twenty years.

  She went to the clearing and found Erik brutally pulling on a rope around Ray's neck. Ray's face turned blue and Christiana's glare was the last thing he saw.

   Erik knew she feared him then. He had gruesomely strangled someone in front of her with ease and skill. She saw the cuts and gashes on Ray's body and Erik's own perfectly clean state.

   It was the worst possible time for him to tell her, for something certainly was wrong, but it blurted from his lips anyway.

  "I was an assassin for twelve years."

   Sirens blared in the distance.

   "RUN!" Christiana shouted. "Run! Go, I killed her, they won't take me though. Erik, run. Get away from here!" She shoved him to get going.

   Christiana would say her mother died trying to save her from Ray and she choked him. He had kidnapped her and kept her in the woods, tied to a tree. She would wipe her finger prints from the knife in her mother's chest.

   She would protect Erik. After all, it was he who showed her how to protect herself.

   Now where was that whisk?