“Not really. It is just a bit different, not quite what I’m used to.” Ivo pulled the tablet from his inner coat pocket. “Perhaps I will ride it later, but first, I must contact my bankers to release funds. Then there are decisions to be made about our future.”
“You might want to consult Minerva before you make those decisions,” Christian said, his lips oddly stiff.
Ivo eyed his friend’s uncle, wondering if he was having some sort of mouth spasm. “Naturally, I will take her wishes into consideration. But she is a woman. She has been alone, yes, but now she has me to take charge of her life and see to her comforts.”
Christian nodded, and made an odd choking sound as he turned away, his shoulders shaking.
Finch climbed the stairs to get a few hours’ sleep. Ivo availed himself of the telephone in Christian’s library, making several calls after using his tablet to find the information he needed.
Thus it was that two hours had passed before he emerged from the castle, one of Christian’s brown leather fedoras on his head to shade him from the weak autumn sun. It was a short stroll down to the north meadow, and thence to the small poetry stage that was located next to where Minerva read cards.
“The fire in your eye lights the cold embers of my soul,” he said as he strode toward the area, mentally composing a few lines of praise for Minerva, since she obviously loved his poetry. He looked forward to providing her a lifetime of such treats. “And your breasts delight my heart, my mind, my thighs ... blast. Where is she?”
“Hello. Are you here for the poetry—oh, it’s you again.” The woman who had appeared yesterday with a clipboard looked pleased to see him. “Excellent. We haven’t had much action, so if you’d like to take the stage—”
“Another time, I would be happy to. But I am looking for Minerva,” he told her, his gaze straying to the stage. He would very much like to recite his second-best poem, but Minerva would undoubtedly wish to be there to hear it.
“Who? Oh, the card reader? You just missed her. She went off with a couple of big bulldogs.”
“Dogs? She has dogs?” He searched his memory, but didn’t recall her mentioning that she had dogs. He wished she had—he was very fond of animals, and would have liked to meet hers.
“No, not those sorts of bulldogs. The human kind, with no necks, and squinty little eyes. I think they were Austrian.”
For a moment, Ivo could have sworn that his blood had turned to ice; then he was running, racing away from the Faire, his mind focused on one horrifying thought—the strongmen who sought Minerva had finally found her. What did she call them? Thief takers? “No one touches my Beloved,” he ground between his teeth as he dashed into the stable block that served as a garage, and a minute later spun an arc of rocks as Christian’s motorcycle leaped between his legs, the roar of the engine almost as loud as the chant that was currently filling his head. Not now that I just found her, not now that I just found her ...
He wasn’t aware of anything as he drove down the hill, the Faire and stages a blur as the wind whipped tears from his eyes, his fingers white where they gripped the handlebars. Ahead, he saw a panel van turning from the small town onto a road that no doubt led to Brno. There was very little traffic leaving the town; most of it was pouring into the fields set aside for festival parking.
Ivo hunched low as he remembered how to shift, sending the motorcycle rocketing forward at a speed that left everything a blur except the white van.
By the time he caught up with it, his face was grimy with dirt, his eyes streamed nonstop, and his fingers hurt with the strength of his grip. He swung out around the van, narrowly missed smashing himself on the front of an oncoming automobile, and had only a glimpse of startled faces in the van before he pulled in front of it, spinning the motorcycle around with an unearthly scream of tires that was echoed when the driver of the van slammed on his brakes. The van fishtailed as Ivo remained still in the middle of the road, one foot on the ground, watching as the van took out a signpost before coming to a shuddering halt.
Then he was off the motorcycle, jerking open the driver’s door and pulling one of the strongmen out of the seat.
“What the—” the man squawked, but Ivo had no time for explanations. He simply ripped away a flat black belt that crossed the man’s chest, and pulled the man from the van before flinging him over the verge, where he rolled down an incline to soggy pastureland.
“Minerva!” he yelled, leaping into the van, twisting in order to land a kick on the second strongman, who was trying to unbuckle another chest belt. His foot connected with the man’s jaw, snapping his head back with enough force to crack the glass of the window.
“Mmrph!”
He lunged past the man to the dimness of the van, his heart beating madly as he grabbed the flailing form barely visible.
“I found you!” He held the struggling form to his chest for a few seconds, breathing deeply of her, ignoring the unpleasant scents of oil and mud and rust from the interior, and glorying in the fact that his Beloved, his Minerva, was alive and well, and had not been taken from him. “Are you well, sweet? Did they harm you? If they did, I will see to it that they never harm another.”
The thug in the front began to groggily swear in German, shaking his head in a manner that sprayed blood all over the front of the window.
“Never fear, I will see to it that no further harm comes to you,” he promised the oddly twitching form of Minerva. It struck him then that she was also unusually quiet, emitting only assorted grunts. He decided that it would be best to remove her from the van so that he could attend to any hurt she had suffered by the kidnapping. Then he would punish the strongmen. “Come, let us leave. I will attend to you in a safer location.”
A dull rumbling sound could be heard from the other side of the van as Ivo yanked open the side door, and emerged from it with Minerva in his arms. Honking from in front of him drew his attention momentarily. He glared at an auto that was clearly upset with his motorcycle being parked in the middle of the road, and said loudly, “My Beloved has been injured. Cease making that noise so that I might see to her. Then I will move the motorcycle.”
“Mmrrr!”
Ivo glanced down at Minerva as he gently carried her to the grassy verge. He was momentarily startled to see a wide silver tape covering her mouth, her eyes all but spitting anger at him. “Sweet?” he asked as he set her on her feet. “What is this?”
“MMR!” she said, hopping up and down. He peered behind her and noted that her hands had been bound with a narrow bit of white cording that poked out stiffly. Nothing about her seemed to indicate that she was injured, however, which allowed him to take the first full breath since the Faire woman had told him she’d been taken. “MMMH!”
“Yes. I see. You are uncomfortable. I will remove your bindings. ...” He patted his pockets as if he was expecting to find a knife. “Unfortunately, I did not know I would be called upon to cut anything today, so I don’t have anything sharp upon me,” he told her.
She stamped her foot, drew her eyebrows together, then stomped hard on his foot.
