Realms of Eden: Home Fires B2A2

He reached for the man's wrist, at the same time he clamped his hand over the wound, the pulse was still strong but already beginning to weaken. Concentrating, his hands glowed greenly, heating up, Kelsey moved to block the view of the people that came to investigate her scream and she waved them back. The green of Sydney's hands flashed, dull but strong, it was quick. Some that reported the matter to the policewoman that arrived later were not sure that they even saw it. But afterwards the man that had appeared to be injured screamed.

A sound that would haunt many of those who heard it for many years afterwards. It was the sound of terror as if the man's soul had been ripped from his body in an act of unimaginable torture. "Let me die!" the voice a plea as the big man with dark hair and dark-blue eyes held him tightly as the wound disappeared and the blood with it. Kelsey saw that the knife was gone as well and she stared hard at the men in front of her.

"It's alright Ethan, you're safe with me," her lover said softly. "I won't let them touch you again." The man began to sob, heart breaking, soul destroying moans that came from deep within his chest as his body shook convulsively. Kelsey found herself trembling, her stomach lurched as its contents threatened to eject themselves despite her tightly clenched teeth.

"Good girl, Kelsey, be strong for him, he will need you shortly," Sydney told her as he lifted the man easily in his arms and commanded the people still crowded around the exit of the toilets to get out of the road. The people moved quickly as Sydney walked carrying his burden out of the small room and into the bar area.

"Is there a quiet room I can use for a few moments until my friend feels better, Miss," he asked the concerned barmaid who looked at the pair with wide brown eyes. She beckoned him to follow her and Sydney found himself in the establishment's sick room. A small cot like bed sat against one wall and he placed the man he had called Ethan gently upon it. Kelsey who was following them noted that the man appeared to be asleep and thanked her man in her mind for his kindness.

"What happened Sydney?" she whispered as the barmaid fussed around with the man and placed a pillow under his head. She brushed the short brown hair of the man with her fingers, seemingly just to assure herself that the man was still alive.

"I'm sorry but I already called the police and ambulance, they should be here shortly." She spoke without turning from the man on the bed so she didn't see the look on Sydney's face that would have told her he preferred that she hadn't.

"I saw so much blood and heard the scream. I was sure it was his but there isn't a mark on him!" she exclaimed as she turned to the pair watching her. At that moment the blue uniform of a police constable appeared in the doorway and with a nod to Sydney began to ask the barmaid, Annette, what the problem was.

After telling the policewoman that Kelsey had gone to look for their friend Ethan and had found him unconscious on the toilet bowl, Kelsey shyly told the officer that she had screamed because she had not expected him to be sitting on the toilet when she had gone to use the ladies. Sydney told her that Ethan was a diabetic and they had been worried that he may have gone into a diabetic coma because he wasn't real good with his medicines and he had been drinking a bit today.

Kelsey couldn't believe how easily the policewoman accepted their story and told Sydney so after the woman had left. The ambulance officers gave Sydney a warm smile as he described Ethan's propensity to forget his tablets while he was having a few drinks, coupled with the man's recent loss of his best friend's mother yesterday. He whispered into one of the women's ears and with a small smile to Kelsey the officers left.

"What did you tell her?" she demanded when the women were out of earshot.

"I told them that Ethan had also been a little upset that he hadn't been able to have sex with his lovely girlfriend because she was having her period," he replied calmly.

"Who are you?" the man on the bed asked softly. His bright green eyes were open and he regarded the pair with a little bit of concern, though Kelsey noted he was not frightened of the big man as he came over to sit on the small bed beside the man.

"Friends, Ethan. We have to get you away from here, without the staff of 'Delay Today' seeing you," Sydney spoke calmly, keeping the man's eyes locked to him as he spoke.

The mention of the cryogenics company name did set the man off into trembles of fear. Kelsey ensured no-one came near the door as Sydney spoke again. "They don't know you are missing yet Ethan, though I can't guarantee that for much longer. Someone is sure to notice that their favourite guinea pig has flown the coop soon. We have to move now, are you ready?"

"You should have just let me die," the man said resignedly, "they will find me again, you and," he turned his head towards Kelsey, "legs, over there, will both be killed."

"I couldn't let you die, even if I wanted to," stated Sydney softly. "You and I both know that. Your body would have repaired and they would have found you even if the ambulance officers had taken you to the other side of the island."

The man started, he jumped up and tried to punch the big man on the bed who grasped his wrist firmly stopping his attack before it even began. "Ethan please, we are here to help. We have an Angel in our care too!" Sydney's eyes stared hard at the man who had continued to struggle until Sydney mentioned Bonnie's condition.

The man looked at Kelsey. "Is this true?" he asked her.

"She is my niece," she replied, "and I am fucked if I am going to let some bastard fuck with her just because they want her blood to aid some bullshit studies into limb replacements!"

"Limb replacements!" the man's voice was incredulous.

"Later!" hissed Sydney pulling the man's attention back to him. "First we go, then we talk."

The man nodded then asked, "How? They will be everywhere by now. They have half the police force in their pocket. We will never get away!"

"Trust me Ethan," smiled Sydney. "Even officer Miles, the policewoman who was here before didn't recognise you and she is well and truly in their pocket. Look in the mirror Ethan."

The man turned his head to see the mirror Sydney indicator on the front of the door behind Kelsey's head. He stood as she moved away to let him see. "No! That can't be right!" he exclaimed.

"It is what everyone sees you as at the moment," Sydney said softly as he stood behind the man. "Come on let's go and have a drink, a meal and talk."

Ethan Wainwright could not believe that two of the uniformed employees of Delay Today walked straight past him as Sydney told him not to panic as he firmly gripped the man's arm. They walked out of the bar slowly and back to the table where Sydney and Kelsey had been having their drinks before the drama.

The barmaid passed Kelsey her bag and shoes that she had left behind when she went to the bathroom. With a giggle Kelsey thanked her and asked if they could have another round of drinks and looking at the man beside Sydney asked him if he wanted anything to eat. The man looked hopefully at the bar-b-q that was still burning at the outdoor section beside the bar. Kelsey ordered two steak sandwiches with chips.

As he hurriedly ate Ethan explained that he had been given very little food in the last week. "Supposed to be seeing how long I would survive before my body started to eat itself!" he grunted around a mouthful of steak, bread and salad. "Fucking bastards!" he cursed then sighed as he swallowed the mouthful. He reached for the beer Sydney placed in front of him and swallowed most of the glass in one gulp.

Kelsey passed him a glass of water. "I think this might be better to quench your thirst Ethan," she said softly. The man nodded as he drained the glass and attacked the second sandwich.

"I can't stay here, Sydney," he said as he finished the sandwich and chewed thoughtfully on the chips that he had covered with tomato sauce.

Kelsey could not stop the grin on her face or her musing. "I wonder if all Angels love their tomato sauce so much. Bonnie goes through three bottles of the stuff a week!"

"I think it is the colour, Kelsey," the man smiled. Then with a serious look he asked the woman, "Has she started to drink her own blood yet?"

"What! No," Kelsey paused, "at least not that I have noticed."

"You won't unless you catch them doing it. It takes a lot of control to stop! It took me almost five years," the man stated matter-of-factly.

"Why do they drink their blood?" Sydney asked then turned his head, his body tense, to regard two women in the cryogenic laboratory's uniforms walking around the patrons of the bar showing a picture.

He relaxed and turned to Ethan. "This will prove to you Ethan that you are safe. Those two women there," he nodded with his head, "are going to come and ask all of us if we have seen this man."

Ethan was ready to bolt, Sydney held him with his mind in his seat. "Relax Ethan," he said softly, almost hypnotically, "they do not see you. You have not seen the man either. Breathe."

Ethan smiled at him and took a deep breath as the women approached their table. "Excuse me people but have any of you seen this man?" the first woman asked and she held up a photograph of the man that Kelsey had seen sitting on the toilet.

Sydney took the picture and pretending to study it he asked the women why they were looking for him. Their reason of a patient that had left without permission from the clinic was met with a hard stare from the man as he stood to face the two. "I would be surprised that patients in a cryogenic clinic would be capable of walking out," he said quite seriously.

"He was being prepared and got disorientated," the second woman said quickly. Sydney suggested that maybe the patient had changed his mind. The women shrugged, thanking them for their time and left quickly. Sydney returned to his seat.

"You are fucking amazing man!" cried Ethan. "Those two butchers know my face and body better than I know it! They didn't have a clue it was me. Just who the fuck are you?"

"A very good friend," said Kelsey softly then suggested that it was time to go. Sydney nodded.

They walked along the beach back towards the motel where Sydney and Kelsey were staying, their talk continued. "The reason we drink our blood," started Ethan, "is because it never dies!" The pair beside him told him that they knew that but why drink it.

"Because it makes us high!"

"Oh no, Sydney!" Kelsey cried. The big man nodded, he understood immediately what her concern was. Bonnie had definitely been drinking her own blood, her bouts of depression over her nightmares had been strangely interspersed with periods of high excitement, unbounded energy.

"The night and morning she couldn't get enough of either of us," Sydney said quietly as they stood together at the entrance to the path that led to their room. Kelsey nodded, her face flushed at the memory of the thoroughly enjoyable experience of Bonnie pinning her hands to her sides as she sucked her to orgasm after orgasm.

"The play, the outbursts about Kevin and Maria, the giggling and laughing when she had hardly slept a wink!" Sydney continued.

"Has she started menstruating?" Ethan interjected softly. The sad faces on his new friends worried him but he wanted to help. He knew all about female Angels, his mother had been the first one found.

"A few months ago," Kelsey confirmed.

"At least she won't be cutting herself, yet." the man sighed as they continued up the path to their door where Sydney keyed the room open.

As Ethan gratefully accepted the offer of a shower and a bed, Kelsey pondered the problem of her niece until Sydney interrupted her thoughts. "Kelsey I am going to send him to Jo and Patrick. You go with him and get him to talk to Bonnie. I will arrange the flight for early tomorrow." Kelsey nodded in agreement of the plan.

"What are you going to do," she could not help the shiver in her voice as she finished her question, "Warrior?"

"What the warrior must do whenever he finds unacceptable evil, Kelsey," he met her eyes with his dark-blue eyed stare.

She found herself hotly returning his gaze. Her heart thumped and despite her dislike of messy sex during her cycle, she desperately wanted him as she found herself extremely aroused at the thought of the kills he would carry out in ridding the world of these scum.

"No little one," he grinned as he read her reaction. "Ethan has good hearing as well, no matter how loud you think the shower is!"

She groaned in frustration as for the first time ever since their first aborted attempt at making love, he knocked her back.

The memory triggered the other question she wanted to ask him and it burst from her lips before she even considered his reaction. "I killed myself didn't I?"

He stood looking at her for such a long time that Kelsey fervently wished she could take the question back. It was said now and she didn't need him to confirm her knowledge that she had buried deep down inside her heart. "It is ok Sydney, I don't need you to tell me, I know," she tried to smile. "I am sorry." Her tears fell down her cheeks as he gently pulled her into his chest.

"it was a confusing time, Kelsey, for all of us. We don't need to worry about it anymore." She nodded as he spoke into her hair.

"Well, that's better," said Ethan brightly as he came out of the shower. Sydney's T-shirt was much too big for him but it certainly beat the horrible yellow and white shirt and tracksuit pants he had been wearing. Stolen from the woman he had knocked out as he had escaped the building.

Kelsey giggled as she caught site of him, dashing her tears from her face with the handkerchief Sydney had given her. "It looks like a dress," she snickered.

"I am afraid I don't have panties under it either," Ethan commented mournfully as he eyed the comfortable looking bed hopefully.

"Ethan before you go to sleep we need to have just a little bit more chat. One with some friends of ours, do you think you can stay awake long enough for that?" Sydney asked him as he turned on the monitor on the wall.

"Sure Sydney, if it helps get me out of here, anything," he replied looking for a chair to sit on.

Kelsey put the kettle on in the little kitchenette and indicated for him to simply sit on the bed. The man sat gratefully and nodded to her question of tea. Alfred's appearance on the monitor did not seem to worry the man and the cyber doctor's first words confirmed what Sydney had already suspected. "There you are Ethan, how the hell did he find you?"

"You are the Sydney that Alfred told me about!" exclaimed the man as he looked up to the green faced man with a smile then turned to Sydney who had taken up the only armchair in the room.

"Yes he is Ethan," smiled Alfred, "who else do you want in on this Sydney?"

"Jo, Patrick and Bonnie if you can arrange it please, Alfred," the man said as he eyed Kelsey's carry all with a raised eyebrow.

Kelsey grinned as she retrieved her every present bag of bikkies from the bag and passed him his tea along with it. He paused and munched several of the biscuits while Ethan looked for a place to put his cup as he rearranged the pillows to sit up at the end of the bed. Kelsey giggled as the man realised his genitals were showing as he made himself comfortable and hurriedly stretched the T-shirt down to cover up. "It's OK Ethan, couldn't do much with them anyway tonight," she pouted as she took the magazines she had been reading off the bedside table to make space for his cup and some biscuits.

Jo and Bonnie's smiling faces appeared together on the screen, shortly followed by Patrick Evans. Sydney smiled at his old doctor and wished them all a good day. "What's up Sydney?" asked Patrick then his surprised, "Oh," caused Ethan to look up sharply to the monitor.

"Mr Wainwright I presume?" asked Jo with a broad grin.

Ethan nodded, then asked, "How do you know my name?"

"Because these people," Sydney indicated the faces on the screen, "have been desperately trying to find out where you had been taken when they couldn't find you in your home in Baywater."

"Well until today I wasn't even sure where the hell I was," the man said bitterly. "It's the first time I even knew there was a beach here!"

"How would you like to go and see those two pretty faces up there?" Sydney asked the man, then wickedly added, "the girls I mean!"

Ethan chuckled, then looking up at the screen he asked softly, "Which one of you is the Angel?"

Silence greeted his question. Sydney waited, it was now or never. Bonnie knew what she was and it was time for her to admit it. "I am," she said softly and her eyes filled with tears as Jo softly wrapped her arms around her.

Patrick Evans wiped his hand across his eyes as he watched the lovely black haired woman finally admit that she was alive because of the blood in her veins, not because of some lucky miracle that had thrown her clear of her parents' burning hover. It was a sad moment for him to see her innocence taken from her in two small words. He mentally thanked the man who sat on the bed whose directness forced them all to finally face the thing they had been avoiding for so long.

"You and I need to talk then Bonnie," the man said softly. His own eyes glistening with unshed tears. Then he smiled, "At least Bonnie you are pretty to go with it, not an ugly old fella like me!"

Bonnie blushed at the unexpected words even as her head nodded in agreement with him for the need to talk. Jo giggled beside her as Kelsey did as she hugged the man who sat on the bed chuckling.

Grinning Sydney told them all that Kelsey and Ethan would be arriving back in Brisbane on the first flight he could arrange for them. "Look for two ugly old women carrying red handbags," he told them. The faces on the screens laughed at his comments but the women that arrived in Brisbane airport surprised them all when they walked up to them and asked the astounded doctor to take them home.

As Sydney reclined in the lounge chair in the motel on Monday morning after receiving confirmation that his precious cargo had arrived safe and sound, he regarded the green faced man on the screen above him. "How do we play this Alfred? They have done enough for me to wipe them all out and shut down Delay Today, but I think we are missing something. Why were they torturing Ethan? What was the point in dismembering him in a tray to capture his blood and observe his body rebuild itself. As far as Ethan recalls and from the scanning I have done on some of the butchers in that place they have not used any of his blood. What the fuck are they hiding?" Sydney was furious at the acts he had gleaned from the minds of the employees at the cryogenics lab.

"I don't know Sydney, I need to get into that computer system! How many other organisations are tied up in this! Worse Sydney I have lost another Angel!" the green faced man was forlorn as he told the warrior his latest news.

"What! When, how?"

"The results only just came through from the government department that is supporting these mongrels. The tests are being carried out as part of a school health program by a private company and there are literally thousands of tests being done. A young woman from a high school in Darwin has gone missing!"

Sydney's warrior form was rampant, fierce, the sword and shield gleamed as his eyes turned to hard crystals of deep blue ice. "Time to go Alfred, no more talk. I am shutting this lot down then you can have the systems to examine. Delay Today is about to suffer a sudden closure of business due to technical difficulties!" The man vanished before Alfred's astonished inputs.