Maybe her phone died.
“No, it rang too many times before her voicemail picked up when I called her. If her phone was dead, it would have gone straight to her inbox.”
Maybe she’s taking a nap. I like naps. He yawned, tongue lolling to the side, to prove his point.
“She’s never been the napping type. In all the years I’ve known her, she’s only ever napped when she’s sick and she seemed fine when I saw her before my date with the shrink.”
She doesn’t take naps? What kind of people are you friends with?
His disbelief at Piper’s disinterest in napping made her laugh and released some of the tension that was starting to build in the muscles between her shoulder blades.
“Maybe you’re right. She’s probably not near her phone.” The simple explanation did little to relieve the worry, but it put her mind at ease enough to finish her homework so she sent one more text before returning to it: Text me ASAP.
As she settled back into her homework groove, Kaiser relaxed back into his nap.
She blew through her last two assignments and an entire paper with still no word from Piper. It was definitely out of character for her to have not responded. It had been almost three hours. Ardra was positive she didn’t have the resolve to ignore her phone for that long.
She picked her phone up and called Piper again as she prepared to mount a search and rescue party. When Piper answered on the third ring, the first thing out of Ardra’s mouth was, “Where on earth have you been? I was worried to death!”
“Sorry! You remember that boy I was talking to at your party?”
“Which one? You talked to all of them.”
“The return missionary that was totally flirting with me all night.”
“Oh! Right.” She had just described three quarters of the guys that had been at that party. “That one.”
“Well, he asked me out to dinner tonight and I left my phone in my backpack. I just got home and I’m settling in to hit the books.”
“I’m glad you’re okay. I knew there had to be a reason you weren’t answering and with all that has gone on, I thought the worst.”
“I’m sorry sweetie. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t even think about it.”
“That’s okay. I’ll call off the National Guard and let you get your homework done.”
“Okay, goodnight! Call me if you need anything.”
“Hey, Piper?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you for being beside me through all of this.”
“It’s what best friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I guess so. Thank you anyway.”
“No problem.”
The line went dead and Ardra slid her phone into her pocket, feeling good about the affirmation of their friendship.
Next on her list of people to hunt down were her grandmothers. They were usually so far into her business that she had a hard time focusing on her homework. Tonight, they weren’t even in the house for the first time since they had arrived in town.
She double checked their rooms and the garage in case they had slipped in while she was focused on her work. After confirming that hadn’t been the case, she checked the house for a note telling her where they had gotten off to. When she found no sign of either of them, she placed a call to Arlene’s cell phone. She answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, grandma. I was just a little worried that you guys weren’t here. You’re usually around when I get home from school.”
“Oh, we went out to get some supplies for around the house and then caught a movie here at the theater. Did you know there was a theater at this big outdoor mall down here? My goodness this town sure has come a long way since I was a little girl!”
Ardra laughed into the receiver, “So, I assume you guys are on your way here then?”
“Yep! Be there in a few minutes! We’re on our way up the hill right now.”
“Okay, grandma. I love you! See you in a minute.”
“Love you too, sweetie! Bye bye!”
The line went dead and Ardra tossed her phone on the counter. She set down her jacket that she had picked up while preparing to go find her best friend and stood there, momentarily flustered.
Kaiser had been disturbed during the course of her phone calls and came up the stairs yawning.
“What’s wrong with me? I’m panicking over every little thing today!”
It’s probably just stress. Impending doom will do that to you. Speaking of which, I’m hungry. Doom works up my appetite.
She laughed and shook her head at his one-track mind. She wished she could be like that. Thinking about one thing and having everything else completely shoved from her mind would be a blessing she could really use sometimes. Right now was definitely one of those times.
As she poured food into Kaiser’s dish, she realized that she was pretty hungry herself and after scouring the kitchen for something that sounded appetizing, she decided to wait for her grandparents to get home and see if they had picked up anything better than what was laying around. She sure hoped so. Otherwise, it was either macaroni and cheese, or some other meal in a box type thing. She didn’t want to have to cook.
She headed back down into the den while Kaiser wolfed down the dog chow. Now that she was done with her homework, she could actually enjoy some quality TV time, something she hadn’t done in a while. At least not while being fully awake.
For once, she was quite alert and didn’t feel like she was going to fall asleep as soon as she allowed herself to slow down enough to do so. She took it as a good sign that she was adjusting to the schedule that she was held to between school and training with Kaiser. Which he would be ready for as soon as her was done eating.
Judging by the sounds coming from the kitchen, that wouldn’t be very long. She hurried and picked the first show that sounded even mildly entertaining so she could hopefully buy a few more minutes before he forced her to do the next insane power test that he could come up with.
Ankle deep in snow, underdressed for the bitter cold and moving beyond irritated into irate over her ride still being stuck with the counselor, Piper checked her phone yet again. Still no word from Ardra.
As she was trying to stuff it back into the pocket of her jacket, biting back words that would peel paint, it vibrated.
Her fingers flew over the screen as she tried to guess how Ardra would choose to apologize for leaving her high and dry.
When she saw that the message was from the Bishop, she froze. She knew there was only one reason that he would be texting her and the thought of it made her stomach churn.
The churning sensation gave way to a sinking feeling when she opened the message and read what it said. She cast one more look around the icy campus before stuffing the phone back in her jacket pocket and heading out. As much as she wanted to hang out and find out how Ardra’s head-shrinking session had gone, she had places to be and not a lot of time to get to them.
As they walked into the silent space, it was all she could do to keep from wringing her hands. When he had called them, they had barely finished eating dinner and were about to walk into the movie theater to catch the latest sappy chick flick. With the reality of the situation setting in, her irritation with the man’s interruption was dwindling and being replaced by a deep seated concern for her granddaughter.
Barb touched her elbow lightly, pulling her from her reverie. She had stopped outside of the door and apparently been lost in thought. The other woman shot her an understanding nod and nudged her toward the door.
She took a deep breath and reached for the door handle with a trembling hand, pausing a moment before grabbing it.
“Arlene, we both know how this conversation is going to go. Putting it off isn’t going to help matters any. Each moment we spend standing out here is one less moment we have to prepare.”
“I know. I just,” she huffed out a heavy sigh before
continuing, “I just never wanted this for her. This is not the girl that those kids raised and she deserves to still have them here with her.”
Another knowing look, tinged with a pang of sadness crossed Barb’s face.
Shaking off the feeling of impending doom, she steeled her resolve and with a suddenly steady hand reached once again for the door handle.
The door opened from the other side and Piper smiled half-heartedly from the other side of the portal. “Welcome to Doom and Gloom Central. We’re currently running a special on cases of misery and pallets of bad news.”
“Don’t quit your day job, sweetheart. You’re not a very good welcoming party.”
The door closed behind them and the three women walked into the quiet room together. The silence was stifling. The man everyone knew as Bishop Stauffer came in through a door on the other side of the room a few minutes later, the sound of the door latch causing them all to jump nervously.
“Sorry. I should have known you guys would be a bit on edge. I’m guessing you all know what’s going on.” He paused and waited for the three women to nod their agreement as he motioned for them to sit.
“Good.” he continued once they were all seated and focused on him. “That will save us some time. In brief, Chaos has been unleashed upon the earth and, judging by the trail of destruction he’s leaving, he’s headed here.”
Again, they all nodded and waited for him to continue.
“Now, the four of us are on equal footing when it comes to dealing with something of this magnitude. We’re all running on borrowed magic, passed down through a thinning bloodline and being put up against a limb of evil itself. The odds are definitely not in our favor here, but we’re the only thing standing between Chaos and Ardra. I’m open to ideas, because I’m at a loss.”
They all sat in silence, waiting for someone else to put out the first idea. Piper sat slouched in an overstuffed armchair, hands in her pockets, staring at some invisible spot somewhere between her nose and the coffee table at her knees. Barb was poised on the edge of her chair, back straight, hands idly picking at her jeans and eyes darting back and forth from the Bishop and herself. The Bishop, accustomed to being a leader, seemed completely out of his element without having something to put on the table for them to build on.
She took a deep breath as she gathered her thoughts before opening her mouth. “I think we can agree that none of us wanted this for Ardra. We’ve also got to admit that we all knew there was a possibility, if not probability, that it was going to happen whether we wanted it to or not. Now it has happened and I’ve lost two children to this bastard. I’m not about to let him take my granddaughter. We need to hold him off as long as possible. I don’t care if that means we have to lay down our own lives in the process.”
The others nodded in agreement.
Having had her opening statement go over without objection, she continued. “We know that he’s going after the orbs and gathering information on us. We know that he’s found three of them so far and they’re leading him straight here. There are two left between his last known location and the one here. All we have to do is get us a map and look at the most likely surface routes he would take. The time between attacks leads me to believe that he’s using more traditional means of travel to conserve energy, so major highways and interstates are probably our best bet for locating him and at the very least, throwing a few speed bumps in his path.”
Again, nods all around.
They sat for a moment, each deep in their own thoughts, before the bishop shook himself from his reverie and announced that he’d go get the map out of his glove box.
Left alone to their own thoughts, the three women sat in silence for several minutes before Piper rose and started talking, presumably for no other reason than to to drown out the ticking of the clock on the wall.
“When the Council came to our house when I was 4 and told us that we were needed in Salt Lake, I was terrified. I didn’t want to leave my home and I was scared that my parents wouldn’t let me bring my toys. When I started school here the following year, I was again, terrified. Then I met Ardra on that first day of Kindergarten. We clicked so deeply that even then I knew being without her would probably kill me. A few years later, the Council came to us again and told us why they had moved us here. I laughed at them when they told me that it was my duty to keep Ardra safe. I had already accepted that role as her best friend and done so many times over the years. When they told me who she was and what her role could be in all of this, I didn’t doubt it for a moment. For years, I’ve seen in her a kind of subtle power. Something that draws people to her and makes them feel comfortable. Sure, the thought of her going up against some big nasty from another plane of existence scared the crap out of me, but I knew that with her and I together, we could do anything. Now that we’ve both grown up and learned more about how cruel the world really can be, I’m terrified all over again. She has had no warning about what she’s going up against and what hangs in the balance. The weight of that would crush anybody. I feel the weight by proxy and I want to lay down and die. We can’t tell her about this, at least not any sooner than we absolutely have to.”
Arlene rose from her chair and went to the girl’s side. She knew the panic that she was feeling. She was experiencing it herself, but now was not the time to let it get the best of them. For Ardra’s sake, they could not let their fears incapacitate them at such a critical juncture.
That would lead them into Chaos.
Once again, he rallied himself and prepared for an onslaught.
Upon his arrival in Omaha, he had seen the glowing mass in the distance and actually groaned out loud. The shields were already up and ready to go. He had the sneaking suspicion that the Council had finally gotten its troops in order and dispatched them to locations all around the world to prepare for him and do what they could to stop him. Had it been a few hundred years earlier, he might have worried about them. If the two he had taken by surprise in Nauvoo were any indication, these pawns wouldn’t really add much of a challenge to his task.
It didn’t stop him from being annoyed that the element of surprise had been taken away from him.
The beast inside of him growled in agreement when he made a silent vow to make them pay for the setback and he began to make his way through the city to the glowing bubble he could see over the rooftops.
As the base of the illuminated bubble came into view, his assumption was confirmed as he noticed the first of the people patrolling the perimeter. They were doing a good job of making it look like they were aimlessly wandering the grounds, but he noticed that not a single one of them crossed over the barrier that was flashing and sparking between them and himself. There were four of them in total and, unlike the two he had already taken out, these ones had the focused energies of someone on the brink of battle.
He let his armor solidify around his body as he slowed his pace to approach the barrier. The sparking seemed to notice him and became concentrated on the side of the grounds nearest him, drawing the eyes of the nearest guard. When they made eye contact through the barrier, the energy around the woman suddenly snapped into place and a green ball shot from her hand into the sky and exploded above their heads, signaling his arrival to the others.
He cursed under his breath and rushed forward as the others came running toward their side of the property, shields in place and out for blood.
He tossed a hand grenade of his own in their direction, hoping that it would catch them off guard enough to do some damage. Instead, it hit the barrier and exploded, leaving all four of them unscathed.
As he dodged the shards of energy that had ricocheted back at him, the crackling energy in the barrier suddenly shifted and focused into a point of blinding white light. A split second later, a searing crack of green lightning shot at him, nailing him square in his chest and sending him reeling.
As he flew through the air, he was peppered with exploding balls of energy from the hands of the guardians tha
t had reached the battlefront. He allowed himself to phase almost completely to his natural state a split second before he hit the ground and reformed himself standing upright and ready for another assault.
His ears were ringing from the blast of energy that had caught him off guard and it took him longer than it should have to get his bearings due to the constant barrage of projectiles being hurled at him.
He needed a moment to regain his composure and think about how he was going to not only get through that lightning-launching obstruction, but those peon druid descendants as well. As the ringing in his ears began to fade, a well aimed energy ball blasted him in the face, intensifying the ringing and blurring his vision. The beast inside of him raged and thrashed about, demanding to be released.
A solid wall of black energy shot up in front of him and flew towards the barrier at a startling speed, blocking his body just long enough for him to make a well timed retreat to a safe place down the street. He shook his head as he solidified in the shadows of an alley between two storefronts.
The ringing in his ears subsided and he did what he could to ignore the crushing ache that he felt all over his body. Now that he was out of danger, the creature inside of him had calmed considerably, however it was still urging him to hurry back and complete his task. The primal energy that was contained within him was not big on rational thinking.
He pushed the sense of urgency from his mind and did a mental check of all of his limbs. Other than the stiffness from getting the snot beat out of him, everything seemed to be working as it should. Next, he checked his armor. It took a bit more effort than he would have liked to reach a satisfactory state of solidity, but he finally got it to a point where he felt that it would provide adequate protection from his foes.
With one last focusing breath, he let himself fade into the shadows and willed himself back to the site of his last assault. Seeing that they were still on high alert and watching for him, he flashed over to the other side of the property in hopes of buying himself a little time before they noticed him.
Blessed Page 17