Simply Irresistible Part 34

But Dex hadn't returned. She had thought he would be back by now.

Part of the problem was that she wasn't staying busy. If she stayed busy, she wouldn't obsess about Dex.

She'd finished Dex's Sprite. She needed something else to drink. She turned toward the kitchen and stopped.

Sadie was sitting by the door, a frown on her doggy face. For the first time since Vivian had met her, Sadie seemed uncertain, as if she couldn't decide what to do next.

The dog's appearance startled Vivian. She had thought Sadie was with Dex.

How long had she been sitting there?

"What's going on?" Vivian asked.

Sadie whined and looked over her shoulder, as if she saw something down the corridor. Vivian went to the dog, her thirst forgotten.

"Show me," she said.

Sadie led her down the corridor. Everything seemed the same as it had when Vivian arrived. Animals were scattered in various rooms. The ferret had made its way around the room with the giant computer and was asleep on top of the punch cards. Portia was curled on her side in her hospital room, her paws twitching with a dream.

Vivian didn't linger at any of those places. Instead, she hurried with Sadie toward the main room. Vivian knew Dex wasn't here--because she could sense his absence--but the fact that he had left Sadie behind disturbed her.

The computer screens were all on, but the sound appeared to be off. SECURITY BREACH, SOUTH LAWN still scrolled across the center screen. Hadn't Dex fixed that breach? Had he even made it there?

The other screens acted like closed-circuit televisions, showing various parts of the house and yard. Sadie went to a side screen and pawed it.

Vivian had to come close to see what was going on.

Dex was lying on the floor in the hallway, his arms at his side, his feet pointed. He almost looked as if he was preparing to go down a water slide, except that his arms weren't crossed over his stomach.

Beside him sat the woman Vivian had seen in Quixotic, the woman she'd seen murder her Aunt Eugenia. The woman appeared to be waiting--and Dex was clearly helpless.

They had to be waiting for Vivian. The scenario Dex most feared had happened. He would be forced to tell Eris where the Fates were to protect Vivian's life.

Vivian touched the screen, wis.h.i.+ng she could touch Dex without Eris knowing. Only once before had Vivian felt so helpless--and that had been Eris's fault too--the night Aunt Eugenia had died. Vivian had had to watch that, through the filter sent by Eugenia's mind.

She wouldn't watch again. She would rescue Dex.

And then she slipped into his chair. The impulse was n.o.ble but misguided. He had more magical powers than she could dream of. And Eris appeared to have defeated him in a moment.

There was nothing Vivian could do--except watch and hope that someone else would ride to the rescue and save them all.

*Chapter Twenty-six*

The one thing evil bad guys all seemed to have in common was their tendency to yammer. As if someone cared about their horrid little plots to take over the world.

If you'd heard one megalomaniacal speech, you'd heard them all. At least that was the conclusion Dex was coming to. Eris was telling him-- apparently trying to impress him with her brilliance--about the skills she'd acquired since the Fates let her go, and how she had used those skills to create KAHS and her own Erika O'Connell personality.

Pretty soon, he was sure, she was going to explain to him how she would conquer the world, and why it was necessary for her to be the one to do so. She'd probably follow that with an evil laugh-- something that would sound like 'Bwa-ha-ha-ha', since evil people rarely had normal and pleasing laughs--and then she'd find a new way to torture him.

He could practically write her dialogue for her.

He'd heard it in enough bad movies, read it in a thousand comic books, seen it on a million television programs. She thought she was original, but she wasn't.

That was the problem with these supervillains; they all wanted the same thing. One day he'd like to run into a megalomaniacal nut with the dream of taking over all the newspaper recycling businesses worldwide, or conquering the ice cream industry. Or wait--that plot had already been done in a delightful little Scottish film called 'Comfort and Joy.'

Dex had stopped trying to move. Moving only seemed to make 'the' binding spell tighter. He didn't have real telepathy--not with anyone except Vivian, or so it seemed--and that was his own fault. He could have worked on his telepathic skills, but he never saw the point. He liked keeping his thoughts private--or he had until he met Viv.

There was no way to contact her. The rock and protection spells guarding the bas.e.m.e.nt made that impossible. And he couldn't send out a warning to anyone else. He didn't know any spells that could be cast with the mind alone.

Until he could get Eris to release his mouth or his hands, he was doomed to lie here like a two-man luger whose partner had fallen off the sled.

And this, to Dex, was complete torture. Eris probably knew that, just like she knew the droning of her voice was torture. She was delighting in his pain, waiting for Vivian.

At least Vivian hadn't come up--not yet. Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she would wait long enough for Eris to become restless and make a mistake.

That was their only hope now. It was up to Eris. She had to make one of those colossal supervillain blunders or Dex and Vivian were doomed.

Because Dex wasn't about to turn the Fates over to Eris, not even to save Vivian's life. He wasn't dumb. He knew there was no bargaining with people like Eris. She might promise to let Vivian go if Dex gave up the Fates, but in the end, Eris would kill them all.

At least with the Fates still around--and their cell phone in hand--they might eventually contact someone else to help them. They might solve this Eris problem long after Dex and Vivian were dead.

He hated being so pessimistic. It wasn't his usual style. But he'd never been out of options before. Or, more accurately, his options had never been this bad.

And he'd only had to worry about himself. Never before had he had to protect someone he loved.

That made his job a thousand times harder. It made his job impossible.

Vivian was on her feet, investigating the Packard, before she'd even realized she had stood up. The problem with waiting and hoping, she'd discovered, was that she had never been very good at either. And she didn't like the idea of being rescued.

She just didn't make a convincing damsel in distress.

The Packard was in lovely condition. If Dex hadn't spelled it down here, then there had to be a way to drive out. Vivian figured it would take some exploring, but she would find that way--or maybe Sadie would show her.

The problem was that the Packard had no gasoline in it. Dex had followed the rules. He hadn't stored a vehicle filled with a flammable chemical in his bas.e.m.e.nt. Normally Vivian would have applauded such good sense, but right now it irritated her.

Why did he have to be so squeaky clean? A few rough edges would have been good at the moment. Some kind of bad guy image--something she could use.

Next she checked out the weapons closet, and nearly put her fist through the wall. The weapons weren't weapons at all, but collectibles. 'Star Trek' phasers (who'd've thought he was a Trek geek?), high-end light sabers, and every comic book villain's weapon ever drawn. The only thing that was close to a real weapon--which probably was a real weapon, come to think of it--was a kitana that had come from the 'Highlander website'. Apparently Dex was a Duncan McCleod fan as well.

Nice that they had so much in common. Now if Dex would only live so that they could enjoy each other.

Sadie had followed Vivian everywhere, and Vivian could feel the dog's urgency. Or maybe it was her own urgency mingling with Sadie's.

There wasn't a phone down here, and there seemed to be no radio equipment either. Nothing that connected this little bomb shelter prototype to the surface.

Except the elevator--which led directly to Dex and Eris.

Vivian walked to the elevator, put her hands on her hips, and stared at it. Sadie whined, as if she disapproved of this train of thought.

But Vivian felt like she was getting somewhere. After all, who was the expendable one here? Certainly not Dex, who was the only person who knew where the Fates were. It was Vivian, and she might be able to use that to her advantage.

She'd been hearing it all day. In fact, Dex had said it not a few hours before. Vivian could do anything she put her mind to. Anything.

The Fates had shown her that by making her envision that gla.s.s jar. She'd encased an entire building, cutting the spell that threatened it off at the laiees--or the feelers, to be more accurate.

Her heart started pounding, hard. If she could get high enough in that elevator to get past Dex's magical prohibitions, then maybe she could use her mind to give Dex a few moments of freedom, just enough to get away, or to hurt Eris, or to find help.

Vivian would have to trust him to do the right thing. Somehow she would have to convey to him that she was the expendable one without having him realize that she truly meant to sacrifice herself if that was what was needed.

All of that would take a lot of mind control for a neophyte. But she could do it.

After all, she could do anything she put her mind to.

She just had to believe anything was possible.

And, after the day she'd had, believing was the easy part.

*Chapter Twenty-seven*

Sadie insisted on accompanying Vivian into the elevator. In fact, Vivian doubted she would have been able to get the elevator doors closed if she hadn't permitted Sadie to join her.

Sadie gave Vivian comfort, even though the dog was pacing and looking panicked. Vivian had the sense that Sadie might actually bolt from the elevator and chew Eris into teeny, tiny pieces.

It was a great image, but not a realistic one. Eris would probably do something to Sadie long before the dog got near her.

Dex was going to be really angry that Vivian had brought Sadie along.

Oh, well. That was the least of her worries.

Vivian clutched the hand railing and closed her eyes. Timing was critical. She had to wait until she felt the barest hint of Dex's presence. That meant she was out of the magical protection zone and into the main part of the house.

The elevator moved slower on the way up than it had on the way down. Or maybe it just seemed that way. Vivian wanted it to zoom to the top, and she wanted to spring out, do her battling and hurry away--or suffer the consequences, depending on what faced her.

Timing. It was all about timing.

And luck--although she refused to believe in luck. If she believed in luck, she'd have to believe in bad luck, and if she believed in bad luck, she might fail.

So she would believe in timing and- --she felt him, just a hint of him, like elevator music imposing itself on her conscious mind (only much more pleasant). And that was enough.

She envisioned a solid stone box made of the same s.h.i.+ny black rock Dex had used to line his bas.e.m.e.nt hideaway; the rock he said wouldn't allow magic to penetrate through.

She made the box two feet thick on all sides and shaped it so that it would fit around Eris. She had to leave the bottom open for just a moment, and she hoped that moment wouldn't be too long.

Then Vivian pushed the box away from her, just like the Fates had taught her, and visualized it scurrying down 'the' hall--like a Borg s.h.i.+p in deep s.p.a.ce--and slamming down on top of Eris.

The box left Vivian with the force of a sneeze. At least she had done part of this right.

The elevator still hadn't stopped. Vivian kept concentrating--and hoping that her vision would work.

Dex sensed Vivian very faintly, like perfume left behind as a beautiful woman walked past. She was on the elevator, a third of the way from the top.

She was coming to rescue him.

'No, Viv! No', he sent. 'That's what she wants! Stay away'!

But he didn't get any answer. He didn't get any answer at all.

The elevator finally lurched to a stop, and as the door opened, Vivian pushed her way out. The secret panel was open, and so was the linen closet door.

She hurried through it, trying not to visualize all that could have gone wrong (Eris and Dex, squashed by the cube: Vivian arriving to see their toes curling under like the Wicked Witch of the West's curled under the house in 'The Wizard of Oz;' Dex smashed; Eris cackling, her hands reaching out...). Vivian made herself concentrate on holding that cube down.

When she reached the hallway, she turned and saw Dex sitting up in surprise. The floor was crumbling away from him, and the stone box Vivian had created around Eris was sinking into the wood.

Immediately, Vivian visualized a bottom on that box.

The wall was buckling and the ceiling was starting to come down around them. Chunks of plaster and something that looked suspiciously like asbestos were raining down on Dex.

"Is she inside?" Vivian asked.

"She must be," Dex said. "The spell she put on me is broken."

Vivian's head was aching, just like it had with the gla.s.s jar. She was feeling dizzy, and she knew she would pa.s.s out a lot sooner this time.

"She's fighting back. You have to do something, Dex."

Sadie joined them, running to Dex and licking his face. He put his arm around the dog but looked at Vivian. "I've only got one idea," he said. "You'll have to concentrate like you've never concentrated in your life."

Tears were running down her cheeks. Her head hurt so bad that she could barely think. It was taking all of her strength to hang on to this vision.

"Okay," she said.

Dex waved his free arm in a circle and said into the air, "Take Eris, me, Vivian, and Sadie to the Fates!"

And, for the second time in her life--the second time that day--Vivian fainted.

She woke up sprawled on the floor of a huge library. The tile hadn't been cleaned in generations and the dirt was all over her clothes. Dex was standing near a sorting table, talking to three teenage girls who sat on top of it.