by Linnea Hall
Ashley handed their receipt and her money to Ray and ran after Jewell seeing her just as she disappeared around the back of the building. “Jewell!” She shouted picking up her pace to catch up.
When Ashley caught up to Jewell, she was standing in the middle of the parking lot by the dumpster, looking confused. Jewell turned as Ashley walked up behind her. “I saw him Ashley, I really did.” Her voice sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Ashley put her arm around Jewell and Jewell turned her head into Ashley’s shoulder.
“It was just a guy that looked kind of like him.”
“I don’t know Ashley. Maybe I am losing it. I swear I saw him. I watched him come around this corner, but when I got here, there was…nothing. Was there even anybody there? Am I imagining things?”
“No sweetie. I saw him too.”
“You did? Really?”
“I can see how you could mistake him for Collin. He had a similar height and build, but Jewell, it wasn’t him.” Jewell nodded. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 36
“Idiota!” Collin cursed as he pounded the steering wheel with his fist, accenting each word. “Stupido! Imbecile!” His slip today had almost revealed him to Jewell. It was time to make a choice; he either had to leave her, allow her to live her life, or he had to confront her with the truth and let her make the choice.
He exited on the 310 South, heading towards home. He had to think and he couldn’t do it while he was following Jewell. Besides, she would be going home to sleep for her shift tonight. As he drove down the long drive toward the house, he started to feel uneasy. Something here was not right. As he approached the house, he saw his uncle’s SUV sitting in the driveway. “Great,” Collin said to himself. “Just what I need now; an unbiased viewpoint.” He had wanted time alone to think, he didn’t want to listen to his uncle yammering on about the choices he had made.
He pulled into the drive and parked his rented car next to his uncle’s. His uncle was sitting on the porch, waiting for him to show up. “Fancy meeting you here,” his uncle called from the porch sarcastically.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to get here.” Collin walked up the porch steps and sat down next to his uncle. “Did you come alone?”
“Of course not.” His uncle smiled brightly. “I brought Gladys and Kendryck.”
“Kendryck? Why Kendryck?” Gladys had become a given. Collin knew that wherever he was involved, she would be his defender, which made him feel a little better, but what did Kendryck have to do with all this?
“Well…I thought he might be able to help you out with some things. You haven’t been back in touch with Jewell yet, have you?”
“Not…not exactly.” Collin stood up and turned towards the door to go inside.
“What do you mean ‘not exactly’,” his uncle asked, grabbing his arm gently and pulling Collin to sit back down next to him.
“I’ve sort of been following her. I think maybe…well, I think maybe she saw me a couple of times, but I left before she could find out that it actually was me.”
“Oh, now that’s nice. My nephew has turned into a stalker.” His uncle got up and Collin followed him inside.
“I am not a stalker,” Collin said irritably to his uncle’s back. “Besides, you’re a kidnapper.”
“Let’s see…you follow her around without her knowing, I’m willing to bet you’ve hung out outside her work, waiting for her. Have you sat outside her house waiting to see what she does and with whom?” His uncle turned around to see Collin’s reaction. Collin nodded resentfully. “Sounds like you’re a stalker boy. I think we need to get you some help.” But he winked at Collin to let him know that he understood.
“We need to return that rental car as soon as possible too,” Percy told Collin as they walked into the parlor.
“Why? What am I going to drive?”
“Because, I am quite certain that that car has a GPS locator in it which is something that could cause trouble – especially if you rented the car in your own name.” He glanced at Collin who hung his head indicating that he had. “As for what you’re going to drive, you can drive my car…when I give you permission. You need to leave Jewell alone.”
“Fine!” Collin was not happy, but wasn’t going to argue with his uncle. Especially when he knew his uncle was right.
Inside, Kendryck was sitting in the parlor. He had set up two chairs facing each other about five feet apart. He gestured to the other chair, inviting Collin to sit down. Collin glanced at his uncle, who nodded, and sat in the proffered seat.
“As your uncle may have told you,” Kendryck began, “in addition to our pseudo-immortal state, we also possess some additional abilities. Photographic memory is common to us all, as is empathy. But some of us have talents unusual to the rest. The most common is telepathy, although cases of telekinesis, divination, precognition, astral projection, and clairvoyance have also been documented.”
“What do you mean by ‘most common’?”
“Well, probably one in ten.” He glanced at Percy for confirmation. Percy nodded.
“So, what does this have to do with me?”
“Well, because it’s more common than the other talents I’d like to test you. I would have liked to test you earlier, but your uncle is a bullheaded, stubborn, ass.” Percy shrugged.
“So…what?” Collin looked between Percy and Kendryck. “Are you saying I’m telepathic or something?”
“Well, I’m saying you need to be tested,” Kendryck responded. “That’s why I’m here.”
“What do I need to do?”
“Just relax, don’t try to block me.”
“Block you?” Collin was confused.
“Just don’t, well you’ll probably understand once I start.” Kendryck relaxed, looking intently at Collin.
Collin sat in his chair watching Kendryck, waiting for something to happen. After what seemed to be several minutes, he felt something touching his forehead. He moved his head reflexively feeling for whatever was poking him. It was then that he realized, something wasn’t poking at the outside of his head, the probing was on the inside. The more he thought about it, the more he thought it felt like someone was kneading his brain; looking for a way in.
“You’re blocking,” he heard Kendryck say quietly into the empty space between them. “You’re actually doing a really good job. I may be able to teach you something yet. Right now though, I need you to relax. Stop trying to keep me out.”
Collin hadn’t realized that he was doing anything; he had just been concentrating on the strange feeling in his head. He tried to relax as Kendryck instructed.
“I’ve never…” Kendryck just sat there shaking his head. “Among our Family, I am one of the strongest. I’ve never met anyone who could resist me so easily. You actually pushed me out!” He sat there, shaking his head. He looked at Percy, his voice cold. “I can train him, but you did Collin a great disservice keeping him from his talents for so long.” Kendryck stood up and left the room.
“You deserved better. I shouldn’t have been so selfish. If I would’ve listened…”
“What are you talking about?” Collin looked at his uncle.
“I’ve known almost since the day you were first put into my care that you were one of us. I should’ve raised you to understand what you are. I should’ve had you tested, had you trained from the beginning.”
“You did what you thought was best,” Collin said trying to comfort his uncle.
“No, I didn’t. I treated you like I wanted you to be. I’ve failed you.” Percy moved to stand up, Collin held him, forced him to stay seated on the couch.
“You treated me like a son. You loved me, you cared for me, and you taught me right from wrong. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better to have raised me.” Percy looked at Collin, his face still masked in misery. Collin smiled, and gave his uncle a hug. “So what if I’m never some great telepath? It hasn’t hurt me so far. What would I do with it anyway? You c
an’t do it; you seem to be just fine. It’s not the end of the world.”
“I guess you’re right. For a kid, you talk like you’ve been alive for centuries. Now, what are we going to do about Jewell?”
Chapter 37
Edgar sat in the musty, moldy office of the warehouse, as he listened to the arguing around him. His nose itched, and his eyes were watering. The room had some boxes pushed in a corner, obviously soaked and then dried; grim reminders of the hurricane that had swept through here and devastated most of the Gulf Coast. He studied the mildew patterns on the bottom of the box, wondering at what these meetings were doing to his lungs.
“I can’t believe you lost him!” Art was pacing irritably back and forth across the room, stirring the dust and mold that had settled into the stale 1970’s gold carpeting. “After two weeks of watching the girl, we finally see him and you let him get away?” Art stopped, pushing his hands through what was left of the graying hair surrounding his balding pate. The long strand that normally covered his shiny head, pushed out of place, fell to the side, hanging almost to his shoulder; a stark contrast to the short, well groomed cut of the rest of his hair.
“We couldn’t exactly run, what good would that have done, leading the police back here? It’s bad enough that the cop has our names and license plate; if we had run from him, then what?” Angry at having his judgment questioned, Elliot pushed himself up from his chair, bowing his body toward the older man who had assumed the position of leader. Elliot was not a large man, but when he wanted to, he had an imposing presence about him. It wasn’t enough to defer Art’s frustration at the loss.
“If you had used better judgment, you might have figured out who he was before you had to fly out of the parking lot to follow him. Did you stop to consider that maybe she was going the same place he was, maybe in a different car?”
Elliot didn’t like having his judgment questioned. He was an influential person in the academic community and most of his colleagues accepted his theories without question or dispute. He had an Irish temper, as hot as his red hair, inherited from his mother, and he was doing his best to control it now. Taking a deep breath, he turned from his accuser. “I don’t think so,” Alan chimed in. He was young, the youngest member ever accepted into the Obsidian Knights, and a new recruit having very little influence with the group. Art spun to look at him, angry at being addressed by the young man. “He was hiding his face, running from her. He left the restaurant ahead of her and ran to his car. He left before she was able to get a good look at him. There’s definitely a connection between them. He’s watching her, for whatever reason. I think she suspects it, but doesn’t actually know.”
Art sat down. They had been rotating surveillance over the past week, working in groups of two, always following the girl in different cars. Two days before the incident at IHOP, Kevin and Norman had seen the girl with one of her friends at the aquarium. While finding the girl was not as direct an approach as catching him, the general consensus among the group was that they could ransom her to great effect.
Kevin and Norman had taken the initiative, approaching the two young women, attempting to lure them away from the crowds, but the girls made it clear that they were not interested. The men had followed the women to an apartment complex in Mandeville, confirming Edgar’s suspicion that she lived on the North side of Lake Pontchartrain, but discovering little else. They had not seen Collin during that surveillance either, which had been typical of late.
When the group first convened a little over a week ago, Edgar had described his observations at the hospital and had shared the name of the man, Collin Sykes. He thought that the woman’s name might be Jill, and he knew that she worked the night shift in the ER at University Hospital, but had discovered little else. Shortly after the group had arrived, security had been tight at the hospital due to Edgar’s bungled attempts to locate Collin, but over the past week security had diminished. The security efforts of the hospital however, had provided important information. The security was much tighter on the nights that the woman worked, allowing the Obsidian Knights to determine her work schedule. Her schedule consisted of two or three days on followed by two or three days off. Over two weeks, the faction had identified the pattern of her schedule. As the week wore on with apparently no further threat, the guard at the gatehouse had stopped carding people entering the garage, and the number of guards on duty each night had gone from six to two. However, the number of guards doubled to four on the nights that she worked.
The biggest problem was finding Collin. Up until today, no one had even seen him. In fact, the group was beginning to think that he had left the area, as their type often do, but this recent sighting had confirmed that he was still in town. The relationship between him and the nurse was difficult to determine, though it was apparent that he was interested in her regardless of her feelings toward him.
The gathered group was formidable. They had been hand chosen for their abilities in detecting, hunting, and killing the infidels. All had training in the use of a sword; many having chosen to pursue training in traditional Japanese sword arts such as Laido, Kenjutsu, and Kendo, while others had trained in traditional European sword fighting techniques. This was important because the infidels could be killed in only three ways: decapitation, burning, or drowning. Decapitation was the only sure method however as burning and drowning were less than reliable, and often difficult. Decapitation was often more difficult and more gruesome, but in the end, it was more reliable.
Of the thirteen gathered, Daniel, Matthew and Alan were all active in mixed martial arts. Alan had been specifically recruited because he was the youngest UFC champion at twenty-one and continued to hold the title. Art had been in the FBI for nearly two decades before going into partial retirement recently and still had high level security clearance with the government. Kevin was a private detective and Elliot held two PhDs, one in European History, the other in Religion. Although Edgar only had a bachelor’s degree, he had an extensive knowledge of the Templar Knights and the histories of the Holy Grail. Other similar groups existed around the world, but it usually took only one faction to dispatch an infidel. In most cases, only a single infidel was identified at a time, though even that was rare. Only those that drank from the Chalice had the gift of eternal life. Only those had the ability to rise from the dead. The secrets of the Grail were closely guarded and very few had been able to steal its gifts.
As the group discussed strategy, Edgar daydreamed about the opportunity to hold in his hands the cup that had been held by Christ. Perhaps, if the Holy Grail was found, the Shroud of Turin and the Arc of the Covenant would also be revealed. Simply knowing that he was working to preserve those holy relics filled him with a sense of pride. He had not made his mark on the world yet, but he would. Oh yes, he would.
Chapter 38
“I just don’t know what to do.” Collin dropped his head into his hands, sighing despairingly.
“I can’t tell you what to do kid. It’ll rip your heart out, whichever way you choose. Either way, you’ll break her heart. There are no easy answers.” Percy looked at his nephew sympathetically. “What you need to ask yourself when you make your decision is whether you’re you doing it for you, or doing it for her?”
Collin lifted his head and looked at his uncle. “What do you mean, doing it for me or doing it for her?”
“Well, it makes a difference. If you’re doing it for her, then it’s an easier choice. If you are doing it for you, you’ll always wonder if you did the right thing. When I asked Avelyn if she wanted to come with me, I told myself that I was doing it for her. I wasn’t though. I was doing it for me. By the time she realized she had made the wrong choice, it was too late.”
“But, how do you know the decision you’re making is for her, and not for yourself? What if it had been the right choice? What if you hadn’t given her a choice but left, thinking that you were giving her a chance at a normal life? But after you left, she killed herself because she co
uldn’t live without you?” Collin shook his head. “How do you know what the outcome is going to be, either way?” Collin went on, his voice becoming agitated. “Either way, I’m doing it for myself. Either way, I’m trying to do what’s best for her, to mollify my own conscience.”
“That’s why you can’t make the choice today. You need to give yourself time, give her time. And most of all, you need to stop stalking her. That’s just going to make it harder, both for you and for her.”
“I know, but I can’t just leave. I need her.”
Percy stood up, patting Collin’s leg comfortingly as he did. “I know. I needed Avelyn too.” Percy left the room, leaving Collin alone with his thoughts.
Collin could have been sitting there for five minutes or five hours, he couldn’t tell. Nothing was clearer for his efforts when Kendryck walked in.
“Shall we start training then?” Kendryck pulled a chair up in front of Collin so that when he sat down, his knees were only inches from Collin’s.
“I assume you’re speaking of my training in telepathy?” Collin had turned serious, but his voice was weary. Too much had happened today.
“Of course. You’re already years behind thanks to your uncle. The sooner we start the better.”
Collin sighed. “I suppose we ought to start then.”
Chapter 39
After nearly a month of surveillance of the woman and no more sightings of the infidel, the group had split into two distinct camps. The first, led by Elliot felt that the hunt should be abandoned. It was clear that their only link to the infidel was no longer viable. In addition, it appeared that the infidel was no longer in the vicinity, taking it from their responsibility. The second camp, led by Art, was more determined to find and punish the infidel and believed that enough of a link still existed between him and the woman that she could be useful. Both groups agreed that continued surveillance would not bring them results.