Children of Sun (Oracle's Legacy)

by R. B. Holbrook

  "I have a phone call for you."

  "Granger?"

  "No, but he said it was a friend."

  Friend? No one knew she was here except the pilot.

  Ollie looked down at the phone. "Who did you call?" she said, looking into the pilot's surprised eyes.

  "Ma'am?"

  "Who in hell did you call?" She stepped forward.

  "I'm just following orders." The pilot stepped back. "I swear, to you, ma'am, I am doing as I was taught." He cowered looking at her eyes. She wasn't using her powers or wearing her sunglasses. She took them out of her pocket and put them on.

  "Where am I?" she asked, calming down.

  "Atlanta, as you asked."

  "Good," she said. She walked to the door and unsealed it.

  "Aren't you going to talk to--"

  "Tell that bitch to kiss my ass," she said as the steps were being brought to the boarding door. The man gasped. No one except her talked about Demon's Wrath like that.

  "But--"

  "Scratch that. I don't want him near me, so tell him to go screw himself." She hobbled down the steps, clutching her side, not caring one bit about the groggy feeling that the medication was giving her. Soon it would be all over, and she could sleep for weeks, knowing that her family was safe.

  ()()()

  The pilot put his ear to the phone as he watched the young woman shuffle off toward the main airport. Rumors traveled about her being bold and brash, but to tell Demon's Wrath such things was not wise. No one crossed him.

  "Did you catch that?" he asked into the phone.

  "I did," the man chuckled.

  "Do you want me to go after her?"

  "No, you will only end up dead. Besides, her comment doesn't affect me." There was a long pause. "Have her followed, but keep a measurable distance. Only intervene if she gets in trouble. If you get too close, she will notice you and kill you. You were warned."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And when she gets a new cell phone, find out the number." There was a smile in his wicked voice.

  ()()()

  Using her illusions, Ollie walked through customs unchecked and made her way to the front of the airport. She looked around for anything that might look suspicious. But no one except Moon knew she was here now.

  That bitch was keeping tabs on her. Oh, how she wanted to kill him. Yeah, right. That was a likely as the seal on her skin disappearing for good, she thought. She walked out the front door of the terminal and caught a cab.

  After giving the cab driver an address, she lay back and closed her eyes. All she needed was a moment to shut her eyes and regroup.

  "Ma'am. Hey, lady."

  She jumped awake, not feeling as if she had slept at all. Looking around, she wiped her hand over her eyes. She was already at Troy's house.

  "Are you all right?" The cab driver had gotten out of the car and opened her door and was shaking her. How far gone was she, to have slept so heavily around a total stranger?

  "Sorry," she said, getting out of the cab. She made him think she had paid him and sent him on his way, then she stumbled to the house.

  Walking up the steps to the porch, she took off her shirt and wrapped it around her forearm. She swung her arm hard and broke the glass of one of the front windows, cleared out the glass, and entered the house. She made her way to the homemade alarm system that Troy and Wolfe had set up and disarmed it. It wouldn't be long before Troy's system alerted him by cell phone. But he wouldn't care right now, would he? She ground her teeth as she leaned against a wall, bracing herself as the wave of pain moved slowly through her.

  Damn it, Troy, you better live.

  After it passed, she made her way up the steps to the attic. Once she entered the code to the secured steel door of the attic, she walked into a vault full of advanced weaponry. She went to the computer and immediately began to check on all the recent activity she had missed, to see if there was any information that led to her family. What she found stopped her heart.

  They were withholding food from Bones until Ollie contacted Mary Alexander. Ollie growled before she screamed in rage. "That evil bitch!" She began to cry from frustration. She went to one of the vaulted closets and began to unload the gun racks onto the floor, and she snatched ammo from the shelves. She grabbed five cell phones from a small table in the corner of the room and checked each one of them to make sure that they were working.

  As tears flowed down her inflamed cheeks, she grabbed two duffle bags and began loading them up. Tossing the bags down the attic stairs, she went to the computer and wrote down the phone number for that evil hussy. Then she took the last cell phone on the table and turned it on to call her.

  A stern female voice answered. "This is a secured line."

  Before Ollie spoke, she stilled herself. "This is Fire Eye." She ground her teeth.

  "Fire Eye. Mary Alexander requests a meeting in which you bring her the Oracle or the Oracle's location." Ollie had to laugh. Mary still didn't know that she already had the very thing she sought.

  "And the boy will be fed?" Ollie asked.

  "Of course, once you call us to confirm that you have the Oracle or know where the Oracle is."

  Ollie pulled her ear from the phone, trying not to scream. There was no way she was telling them who Mama was. She put her ear back to the receiver to hear the voice say, "Proof is required."

  "I'll contact you soon. But if any of them are harmed, Mary dies." Ollie was going to kill her anyway.

  Ollie dialed her phone again as she clutched her side. She made her way to Troy's bedroom while the phone rang.

  "Antonio," Geo answered.

  "Geo, how much longer until you find them?"

  "Ollie, where the hell have you been?" he yelled into the phone.

  "Answer my question, or I'll hang up," she said, bored with his hysterics.

  "Listen, Ollie, you need to stay put and relax. We--"

  "No. You listen to me, asshole. I will not relax. I will not settle down or stay put. I. Want. Blood. Now, how long before you find them?"

  "You are killing yourself, Ollie. Granger says that if you continue pushing, you will destroy yourself." Fear gripped his voice.

  "Big damned deal. Troy could die. Bones could die. Who cares if I die?" No way in hell was this about her.

  "Are you suicidal?" he growled into the phone, fury replacing fear.

  "No, I'm homicidal. I plan on eliminating the problem. And guess what, Geo? I am not the problem."

  Silence stretched over the phone.

  "Little sister, please listen to reason."

  "We're past that. I'm going after Mary," she said, hanging up.

  Little sister? Damn, she must be dying if he'd pulled that one out. That was desperation. Geo rarely showed such weakness. Damn. She swallowed hard to keep down the rising bile.

  Dying, huh? She looked up at the ceiling, trying to see through it to the sky. "Well, God, I guess my time is up. Thank you. It's been great." She smiled before she went to Troy's chest of drawers and pulled out a gray T-shirt and a belt. She went to his closet and found a black denim jacket and some black jeans. They would be a little big, but Troy had lost so much weight that the difference wouldn't be too great.

  She laughed as she got into the shower. It was just a few days ago when she had cursed her brother out for not taking care of himself, and now look at her. She was killing herself. But there was no way she was going to back down. She couldn't. She owned them all too much.

  Without her brothers and sisters, who would she be? What would she do? Her life had no meaning without them. Her soul would be blacker and more evil than it was.

  Putting on the clothes, she looked out the window and saw several cars pull up. She smiled. She had hoped that she would catch someone's attention. Ollie raced down the stairs and into the kitchen while throwing up a barrier in the surrounding area, one that would make anyone nearby believe that nothing was happening.

  Sliding across Troy's newly waxed hardwood floor,
she stopped at the kitchen sink. Squatting, she opened the cabinet under the sink and brought out an unfinished wooden box. It was time to see how the newest edition of her hillbilly twins performed. She unlatched the locks and looked at them. So which will it be, Billy or Bob? She laughed, grabbing and loading the pump-action double-barreled twelve-gauge sawed-off with a magazine of armor-piercing shots. Oh, yeah. Wolfe loves me, she thought as she kissed the barrel.

  Hearing the crunch of glass, one of the intruders had come through the window she had broken. If the intruders were smart, one would enter through the window to scope out the area. Then, if the coast was clear, he would open the doors from the inside and allow the others inside to find out what they could. If it was dangerous, they would fall back until they knew the full extent of what they were dealing with. If they were smart.

  Now to test her theory. Quietly she crept through the kitchen to the adjoining living room. Passing by the doorway leading to the front entrance, she looked through the frosted glass of the front-door's window to see two figures waiting outside. That made three at least. A noise came from the back door. So there were more at the back entrance. She assumed that six or seven fools were here for information.

  Her mind went to the only man who had entered the house. Grabbing his mind, she made the darkness she had been holding back reach for him. The void of emotions she'd held for the intruders manifested itself, taking on shape, a bottomless form. As it reached for him, he began to shiver. When it began to swallow his fear, absorbing it, it released a painful, searing fire that grabbed his soul, slowly creeping and seeping into every vein of his body. When he began to scream, all hell broke loose.

  His comrades were coming to his aid. They were idiots. Theory proven.

  Pumping the shotgun, she slid across the floor until she was lined up with both men entering through the back door. Bracing her arms, she pulled the trigger and slid back from the recoil before pausing a moment to admire her handiwork. Two for one. Wolfe was right--the recoil wasn't so bad; she had stopped sliding before she reached the doorway. And the armor-piercing rounds … More bang for the buck. She laughed just as shots rang past her head.

  Pumping the gun, loading another shot, she dove behind the kitchen table, landing on her side. She screamed out in pain as she tried to bite back tears. With blurred vision, she pulled the trigger on the first image to enter the kitchen. The head of the assailant exploded. Yuck.

  Pumping the gun again, discarding the shells, she listened as the first intruder, whose mind she had touched, continued to scream; he was seeing his painful death and was unable to do anything about it. And soon his voice would be getting hoarse.

  Sliding across the floor toward the entrance of the kitchen, she listened. The other intruders were too quiet. They couldn't have left; she was just starting to have fun.

  From the corner of her eye, something caught her attention. She looked toward the back door, where one of her new playmates was creeping up onto the back porch. He looked up at her and her at him.

  The race was on.

  Pushing off the wall, she slid across the floor toward the door. She was so grateful that her brother was a neat freak and kept the floors waxed. Then again, it could've been the blood that made the floor extra-slick. She reached the door before the man did and kicked it, slamming it shut in his face. When the glass of the door's window shattered, she stood up and shot him through the broken window. Sliding again from the recoil, she continued to back up until her back hit the wall and she slid down, trying to ignore her pain.

  Someone cursed, and then a female voice said something. Ollie pulled herself together and slowly slid herself to the doorway of the kitchen to peek out at the front entranceway.

  "This is a mess." A man was behind the stairs, crouching, from what Ollie could tell.

  "What do you suggest we do now?" The woman was at the wall on the opposite side of Ollie.

  "Are you asking whether we fall back or proceed? I have no idea. Only Irvin could tell us that, and he is … well, I don't know what he is," he whispered. They were talking about the gurgling man who wanted release from the hell she had put him in. So she gave it. Death was his.

  His body fell, lifeless. Ollie frowned. Something was different. That was too easy.

  "Uh, maybe we can bargain."

  "Okay, try it," the woman urged.

  "We want to talk!" he shouted.

  Ollie took aim for the wall, blowing a hole in it and in the woman on the other side.

  The man fell silent, as she had expected.

  "You mean you want to talk," Ollie said, feeling some of the pain ease up, but her vision was still hazy.

  "Y-yes. Yes. I … I …"

  Ollie stood up and pumped the gun one last time. She walked around the corner, gun pointed down at the man.

  He looked up into Ollie's face with fear. And when his eyes locked onto hers, his fearful eyes tripled in size. Any moment, he would ruin his pants. She loved that look.

  "Who sent you?"

  "My em … em …"--the man swallowed, trying to pull himself together--"em-employer w-would like to talk with--"

  "His name."

  "Ar-Ar-Ar-Arthur Clifton," he bit out. His breathing quickened. "P-p-please …"

  Ollie shot off his head before he could finish begging. Blood and nastiness splattered from the explosion. Watching his body spasm before falling lifelessly, she felt nothing. Nothing.

  Ollie, you can't keep plunging yourself into this world. You are already so disconnected from so much. You are not insane, but if you keep on this road …

  We love you, and we want you with us for as long as possible, and not just physically. Your mental health is important to us. You have been down a road that is hard for anyone to come back from. But you did. And here you are, crazy but loveable.

  However, I am afraid if you don't stop your current activities, that fragile hold you have on sanity will loosen until all you have is the darkness.

  Can you pull yourself back from that twice?

  Ric was always trying to get her to see reason. His reason. But she had her own reason. She looked around and sighed. What a mess. Troy was going to be pissed, and he'd better live to cuss her out.

  She ran up the steps and put on fresh clothes. Grabbing the two duffle bags she had packed, she made her way out the front door to one of the black sedans parked out front. They had even been nice enough to leave the keys in the ignition. She started the car, then pulled out one of her cell phones and dialed a number.

  "This is Squeaky Clean. You need it clean, we make it Squeaky Clean," a male voice answered with a jolly tone.

  "Squeaky Clean, this is one of your regulars. I need an immediate cleanup, and I was wondering if you can get it done before the Moon rises."

  He cursed in French.

  "Where eez your location?" His voice was grim.

  "I will text the site location to you."

  "You need to come een." The voice grew serious as the American accent slipped further. "Devil's Trill's orders."

  "Nope," she said, hanging up.

  Devil's Trill? If Creed was calling her in, then it was really bad. It wouldn't be long before Moon hunted her down. You are our biggest threat.

  Ollie slammed down her hands on the steering wheel, screaming. A scream of pain, frustration. Exhaustion. Hopelessness. A scream of fear as her mother's words came to her.

  You can't save us all. There will be a time when you come to a crossroads, one in which you will have four directions to choose from. No, I will not tell you which is best. But I know all of those roads leads to death--three of those to yours. And the last one … The last road holds this message:

  The past is not your enemy.

  Light and night are too weak to save you.

  Only one can form the connection.

  The Temple's fall lies in the true source of destruction.

  Death is the key to all salvation.

  What the hell did she mean? Ollie wiped the
tears from her eyes and exhaled.

  Sit and do nothing, Ollie, she told herself. Watch and pray. Hope. Let them handle it. Go home, Ollie. Just go home.

  Ollie began to laugh.

  Like hell.

  She saw the four roads she could take, but only one of them was clear in her mind. After sending the address for the cleanup, she threw the phone out the window and headed for downtown Atlanta. All roads led to Mary Alexander.

  ()()()

  It had been a little over half an hour since Elliot had lost contact with one of his surveillance teams. They had seen someone exit a cab and break into the house that was owned by a man with connections to Fire Eye. His connection with her was discovered after the killings at the gas station; the initial contacts had found Fire Eye at a club and followed her to the acquaintance's house. After some thorough digging, it was learned that the house belonged to a Martha Atkins and had been willed to her daughter upon the woman's death. But that woman never had claimed the house, so a shadow client had bought the house under the name Eli Oden.

  Eli Oden. Ella Oden. Both were aliases used by an unknown entity, and it could be assumed that all of them belonged to Fire Eye or someone she worked for. But the main inhabitant was named Troy. Arthur had done some business with him before. As had Augustus Granger, which gave Arthur pause.

  He made sure that none of his operatives touched the man's house until they were sure that Troy was not an employee of Granger's. No way did Arthur want to tread on Granger's turf again. It was only recently revealed that Troy was an independent contractor and only did business with Granger on occasion, so he had allowed Elliot's task force to breach the home in order to find information and find out who the intruder was. With the man in critical condition, it might be the best time to move in.

  "They should have checked in thirty minutes ago," Elliot said rubbing his chin.