The Sentry

by Lyssa Morasey

  “It will be a long day,” my father warns from across the aisle. Evana, of course, is pressed up against his side. “With the time difference, we won’t land until the morning of Arrival Day. To show proper regard for the Goddess, I expect you to sit your vigil for the entire flight.”

  “I will, Father,” I promise. And really, with my stomach in knots over Keira and the clouds rolling beneath me like the hills of Nixa’s homeland, I don’t think I could fall asleep tonight if my life depended on it.

  3 October: Westrey

  Baz and I meet up at the security office twenty minutes before the beginning of our shift, surprising the Wardens already on duty.

  “I can’t imagine why two teenage boys would be eager to start a Friday night guard shift,” one of them says, “but it works for me.”

  “Why do you have backpacks?” the other wonders, narrowing his eyes. “You know you can’t do your homework in here.”

  “Of course not,” Basil assures him. “We just wanted an easy way to carry snacks.” He points back to me. “Wes doesn’t even have school right now; he’s on permanent shifter watch duty.”

  “Ah.” The man’s eyes light up with recognition, and his upper lip curls. “It’s Doorstep. Westrey Dorsan.”

  I bite my cheek. “That’s me.”

  “Where’s the shifter now?” his friend asks, sounding a little less offended by my existence.

  “With a friend,” I reply. “I didn’t want to bring her in here, in case she tried to pull something.”

  “Smart,” she says with a nod. “Well, you boys have fun down here. Don’t fall asleep.” She turns towards the door, tapping the other guard on the shoulder to get him to follow.

  “We won’t!” Basil calls after them. Once they’re gone and we’ve shut the door, he asks, “Where is Keira, actually?”

  “With Liesel,” I say. “I asked her to meet us in front of the lobby elevator at one-twenty.”

  “How did you convince her to do that?”

  “Twenty bucks,” I sigh. “Did you get your dad’s keycard?” Baz pulls it out and wiggles it in my face. Without the keycard, the two of us couldn’t even get into the armory—only senior officers are allowed inside.

  Propped up on the desk in front of us is the office’s aura detector. Its circular screen is blank, showing no auras within its fifteen-mile radius. Our detectors are programmed to ignore the auras of Wardens and our allies, but Keira’s should show up. If it ever reappears during our trip, we’ll need to know right away. I grab the detector and stuff it into my belt.

  “Have you talked to Naira about our visit to her station yet?” Basil asks.

  I shake my head. “I texted her earlier, but she hasn’t replied yet.”

  “She’s still awake,” Baz assures me. “She’s probably busy with Chael.”

  “Probably. I just hope she gets her tongue out of his mouth sometime before we get to Norfolk.”

  “Not likely,” Baz says.

  My eyes fall on one of the security screens just to the left of us, displaying a frontal view of the armory with the camera focused right on Ferignis. My mouth goes dry at the sight of it.

  “As soon as they look at the footage,” Baz says, “they’ll know exactly what we did, and we’ll be in some serious shit. Even my dad won’t be able to get us out of this one.”

  I take a breath. “Look, Baz, you really don’t have to do this. Any of it. You don’t have to put your ass on the line for me and Freya.”

  “I already told you, I’m coming,” he says. “I just have some reservations, that’s all. I mean, how do you even know Freya was the one on the other end of that phone line?”

  “It was her,” I insist. “The Nixans barely even have running water, Baz; they sure as hell don’t have advanced voice modification technology. I know what my sister sounds like.”

  “Okay, fine, so it was Freya,” Baz says, holding up his hands. “But if it really were so easy to take Ferignis and go kill the duke and curse the Nixans, don’t you think Fenella would’ve sent someone to do it a long time ago?”

  “We didn’t have a Sentry with us a long time ago,” I point out, though my stomach goes tight at his words. But my nervousness only makes me feel more defensive. “I’m serious, Baz—if you don’t want to come with me, you don’t have to. I’m not expecting it or anything.”

  “No, I’m coming,” he repeats. “There’s no way you could deal with that Sentry girl all by yourself. Plus,” he adds, “I’m a hundred times the shot you are.” He’s right; not because I’m bad with a fire-gun, but because Basil somehow inherited the Annie Oakley gene.

  My phone beeps—it’s twelve fifty-seven. I smile grimly at Baz. He sighs, digging his fists into his pockets. “Let’s go.”

  We leave the office unattended and take an elevator up to floor four, where the armory is. Guards stand on either side of its metal double doors with their hands behind their backs.

  “Are you here for your shift?” the man on the right asks.

  “Um, yeah,” Baz says, clearing his throat. The guards don’t seem to recognize either of us in the relative darkness, which can only be a good thing.

  “All yours,” one of them says, pressing a button on his phone to confirm we’ve showed up.

  Baz and I take our places beside the doors until the guards vanish up the elevator. After quickly scouting out the floor to make sure no one else is walking around, Baz swipes his dad’s card through the scanner built into the wall beside his post. With a quiet beep, the metal doors slide open, revealing the armory behind them.

  The lights are blinding inside; they aren’t dimmed at night like the hall lights, probably for the benefit of the security cameras. There are knives and blades hanging from the walls and huge cases of fire-guns stacked all the way up to the roof, but the whole room looks like it’s been set up around Ferignis—a sword encased in a thick glass box, propped up on its side, its metal so black it makes everything around it look brighter.

  “Oh, God,” I say. “We’re really gonna do this.”

  “Yep.” Baz and I step inside, the doors immediately sliding shut behind us. If we set off the alarms trying to steal the sword, they won’t open again.

  I unzip my backpack and pull out a torch-spear—one of the shorter ones, designed for kids to practice with. Hopefully it’ll be similar enough in weight to the sword to fool the sensors in its box.

  “Ready?” Baz asks. I nod.

  He swipes his keycard again, this time through a scanner in the box’s pedestal, and the front pane of glass sinks down to expose the sword. My heart leaps into my throat; the opening of the box alone, I know, sets off a flashing red light somewhere in the security office to call attention to it, though it shouldn’t be noticed by anyone but the nonexistent guards stationed there.

  I hold the torch-spear directly over the sword, my arm shaking. Baz reaches in and tentatively grabs the sword’s hilt.

  “All right,” he says, “we’ll only have a second. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Baz hoists Ferignis up out of its holders; at the same moment I drop the torch-spear, and it falls neatly into the sword’s place.

  We wait for the tensest of moments. No alarms.

  I sigh. “Jesus,” Baz says, wiping his brow. He holds the sword down at his side, the tip of the blade an inch from the floor.

  “Can I see it?” Baz hands the sword over to me without a word. I turn it over in my hands, studying it carefully. It has weight to it, but not enough to be hard to maneuver. There’s an inscription in what looks like Hindi carved into the hilt, and the lights overhead glance off the blade like flames, red and orange and yellow. Holding it, I feel like it really could curse a kingdom of ice-people.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

  “Don’t need to tell me twice.” Basil seals the glass box again and opens the armory doors; I tuck Ferignis into a sheath ripped off of one of the swords pinned to the wall and stuff it in my backpack, tying a bla
ck beanie hat of mine around its exposed hilt.

  “It’s one-twenty now,” Basil tells me. “Let’s hurry so Liesel doesn’t get pissed.” We run through the halls as fast as we can without causing a disturbance and take an elevator down to the first floor of the bunker, where the lobby-access elevator can be reached.

  Sure enough, Liesel is waiting beside the elevator with Keira, looking tired and very clearly pissed. “This was not worth twenty bucks,” she growls at me. “The shifter girl wouldn’t let me sleep at all, and I’m supposed to take the SAT tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, she’s annoying, I know.” I unlock the form chain cuff from around Liesel’s wrist and fasten it again to mine. “I’ll give you more later, okay?” If there is a later, that is.

  “You better,” Liesel says with a yawn. “Where’re you going with her at two in the morning anyway?”

  “Just out for a walk,” I say. Basil rolls his eyes at me.

  “If you get caught, Fenella’s gonna blow a fuse,” Liesel says, rubbing her eyes. “But I don’t care enough to do anything about it. I’m going to sleep.” She calls down an elevator and leaves for her room.

  Keira swivels her gaze between the two of us; she, for one, is wide awake. “You got the sword, right?”

  “Of course we got it.” I pat my backpack. “Now we have to get out of the bunker before anyone realizes.”

  “Gotcha,” Keira says, pressing the button for the lobby elevator. “I can’t wait to breathe actual fresh air again.”

  “It’s the middle of Boston,” Baz points out. “I don’t know about actual fresh air.” The elevator doors slide open and the three of us climb inside, backpacks and chain and all. I press the top button, and we shoot upwards towards the surface, fast enough to make our ears pop.

  My phone buzzes; I pull it from my pocket to find a text that reads: What did you need to talk to me about?

  “Naira?” Baz asks. I nod.

  “Be careful what you say to that girl,” he warns.

  I hesitate for a moment, then text back: I need you to get your boyfriend really, really drunk.

  3 October: Keira

  The receptionist behind the lobby desk is easy enough to deal with; he’s half-asleep, and simply nods when Wes tells him we’re going out for a walk. He doesn’t even look up to see who we are.

  It’s cold outside—not New Fauske cold, but still cold enough to make me shiver. I pull my Warden-issued jacket more tightly around my shoulders, and Wes and Basil slip on jackets of their own.

  Unlike in New Fauske, it’s not really dark here at night. There are lights everywhere—in windows, on cars, lampposts planted every two feet. It’s enough to hide half the stars in the sky. And Basil was right about the air—I’d forgotten, but it smells like smoke and trash and cat piss.

  I really don’t like Sen cities.

  Even though it’s one in the morning, there are a few people out and about, most of them talking quietly on phones. Several give our group funny looks as we pass them, probably due to the fact that I’m chained to the arm of a guy, but no one comes forward to help. These people have all seen stranger things, I guess.

  “What would you do if someone came over here and tried to rescue me?” I ask.

  “Take out our guns and tell them to back off,” Wes replies without hesitation.

  Wardens are assholes. “I appreciate your concern for the life and sanity of the Senex.”

  Wes turns back to look at me. “The only reason the Nixa-worshippers give a rat’s ass about the Senex is because of the laws of your holy trilogy thing.”

  “Nixa’s Trinity,” I correct him.

  “Whatever. If the Nixans didn’t have some sacred law not to harm Senex, they’d be just as willing to off them as we are.” I want to argue, but in all honestly I’m not a hundred percent sure he’s wrong. Plus, I’m supposed to be on team Warden now, so going out of my way to defend the Nixans would not be the smartest of moves.

  “You should probably take the chain off, though, Wes,” Basil says. “Before we get on the subway at least.”

  “Then she’ll be able to shift,” Wes protests.

  I spread my arms. “What do you think I’m going to do?” I ask. “There are two of you and one of me, and I’m a block away from your headquarters. Plus you have a magic sword and fire-guns.”

  “Fine,” Wes says. “I’ll do it. But you have to stay between me and Baz the whole time.” He takes off both our cuffs, and obediently I move up to walk between the two of them, keeping Wes’s upper arm in constant contact with mine.

  We cross the street and descend into a subway station, boarding one of the last subways of the night. There are only a few scattered people inside our car, but all of them strike me as a little bit off: one woman is mumbling incoherently about taxes, and another looks to be stroking an invisible cat in her sleep. There’s also an old man in one of the back seats who tries to wink at me; I ensure that we stay well away from him and the others by grabbing onto one of the poles in the middle of the car despite the empty seats all around us.

  The subway starts with a jolt and carries us through narrow tunnels, twisting and turning like a graceless snake, until we’re far enough out of the city to emerge aboveground. We stay on for a few more stops, then get out at a station beside a parking garage.

  “Your car’s all the way out here?” I ask as we set out for the garage, Wes refastening the chain around my arm as soon as the train is gone. “That seems awfully inconvenient.”

  “It’s my parents’ backup car,” Basil explains. “They keep it out here in case the Wardens’ garage is blown up or something. I take it out all the time, and they’ve never noticed.” Good—that probably means there are no trackers hidden in it.

  Basil leads me and Wes through the poorly-lit garage to a newish-looking car on the second floor. It’s a blue Chevy Malibu that has probably never been anywhere near California. Basil unlocks it and climbs into the driver’s seat; Wes takes shotgun, and thanks to the chain I have to awkwardly crawl over him and into the middle seat in the back.

  Basil takes the car out of park, scans a card to get us out of the garage, and pulls out onto the road, setting his phone GPS for Norfolk, Connecticut. Wes takes a pack of peanuts from his backpack and stuffs it in one of the cup holders up front for him and Basil, decidedly out of my reach. Whatever. I’m not hungry anyway.

  I lean back in my seat with a contented sigh, propping my feet up on the car console. I might be chained up and peanutless, but my Warden companions are mistaken if they think they’re the ones calling the shots here. Wes and Basil have stolen me my sword, and now they’re blindly chauffeuring me westward to safety—safety for me, at least.

  For the first time in years, everything is working out the way I want it to.

  Two Years Ago: Keira

  The first day of Sentry trials, I was ripped awake by the unpleasant sound of a drumstick striking a cowbell.

  “Wake up! Get up!” Bing. Bing. “Come on, girls, rise and shine!” Bing. Bing. Bing.

  I groaned, and blinked open my eyes to be confronted with an intense overhead light searing my retinas. I had to squint until my eyes adjusted.

  “All of you, get up! You’ve got ten minutes!” The cowbell-wielding Sentry was marching between rows of beds, whacking her instrument with sadistic glee. “Check your cards and get to your first class!”

  Cards? I pulled myself up into a sitting position and found a blue card on a lanyard peeking out from the tangle of sheets between my feet. Looking around, I saw bedraggled frizzy-haired girls all around me picking up cards of their own: red, green, purple, all the colors of the rainbow.

  I pulled the lanyard over my head and checked the back of the card, where my daily schedule had been printed. Ten classes, from seven in the morning to ten at night, with fifteen-minute breaks at one and seven for lunch and dinner.

  “What is this?” the girl in the bed next to mine growled. “Navy SEAL camp?”

  This is going
to be a long two months, I thought.

  ❄❄

  It was, in fact, a long two months.

  I started off my mornings with shifting class, which I thought would be a total cakewalk until I saw its coach. On day one, once all the blue cards had lined up outside for their first-ever class, he emerged from behind a cactus as a man, leapt into the air as a cat, shifted into an eagle for a wingbeat, somersaulted in midair as a kestrel, dove down head-first as a raven, and landed neatly on two feet as a man again. He received quite a few dropped jaws for that stunt.

  By the end of the week, he had us shifting mid-stride without losing balance. It was disorienting, changing size and shape and senses so quickly, but I got used to it soon enough. By the third week of the trials, everyone with the proper shifts could do the cat-bird-man thing we’d gawked at on the first day.

  Next the blue cards had weapons training, where we learned to throw knives and shoot guns and use a Sentry bow. Then we moved into fitness and conditioning, which was basically just a bunch of running and push-ups and screaming coaches. After that we got to cool off by jumping into a pool kept at hypothermia-low temperatures for swimming instruction. That class ended up being one of my favorites: in it we learned to scuba dive and swim around as seals and dolphins, both of which seemed to me to be more fun than practical.

  After lunch we had two classes in actual classrooms: one in which we studied the Wardens and their allies, and one where we studied North American geography. The Warden one was interesting—it included a real-life flamethrower demonstration—but the geography one mostly consisted of us looking at maps for an hour and a half every day.