by S. S. Segran
They’re too young!
Marshall Sawyer was hurtling down the highway in his Mustang with Jag, Aari and Kody. The bullet-holed tire had been replaced, costing them precious time that they were frantically trying to make up for. They’d now been in pursuit of the girls for a few hours, and the sun had yet to rise over California.
Having just finished filling the teenagers in on what he was permitted to divulge—with them barely uttering a word but looking more dazed by the minute—Marshall and the boys sat quietly, no one sharing even a whisper.
The Sentry rubbed his short beard. A group of teenagers were the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy . . . He had difficulty wrapping his mind around that. They were too young and inexperienced to have such a heavy burden placed on their shoulders. How can this be right? They’re just a bunch of kids—lambs among lions. The world will not be kind to them.
Aari spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. “So our memories were wiped clean and we were deprived of the knowledge we had a right to keep?” There was no mistaking the resentment in his tone.
Marshall looked at him in the rearview mirror. “For one, your memories were not wiped clean. If they were, they would be irretrievable. They were just . . . suppressed.”
Aari responded angrily, “Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Whatever.”
Marshall pinched his earlobe but kept a neutral expression. He knew the boys were hurting, what with Mariah and Tegan missing, and trying to take in all that he’d disclosed to them.
“It was a necessary evil,” he said. “If the Elders had any alternative, I know they wouldn’t have resorted to suppressing your memories. You know that too. They only wanted to keep you protected by ensuring that your knowledge and powers remained undisclosed to the world.”
Aari looked away but Marshall could tell that he was still crushed. Must be so hard, having the people you trust take away part of your life, even if it was well-intentioned, he thought.
“What do we do now?” Jag asked. It was the first time he’d spoken since Marshall picked them up several hours ago. “So we got our memories back and found our powers. Why now? What’s happened?”
Marshall’s eyes flicked to the speedometer before returning to the road. “That was my doing. That little device I tossed into your car—the vapor that was released helped stimulate your suppressed memories. Other than that . . . things are at play here, Jag. I’m piecing it all together as I go along. I don’t have all the answers. Right now, I’m hoping that your abductors will take your friends straight to their client, whoever that is. I know it’s not ideal at all, but maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe the Sentry following the girls will find out who it is that wants them. Once we know their identity, or at the very least where they’re located, we’ll have a better idea about who we’re dealing with and how to move forward.”
Jag looked out of his window. “So tell us again why we can’t contact the authorities. Because it feels like that would make a lot of sense right now.”
“I know. And you’d be right, if it weren’t for the prophecy. Your memories have all returned now, so you know more than anyone else how accurate the prophecy is. It foretold your arrival in Dema-Ki and the abilities that you possess. So there can be no doubt about its validity, right?”
“I guess, yeah. But by that logic, doesn’t that mean that the prophecy is the cause of everything that’s happening?”
“Is the prophecy the cause of mankind’s slide into the abyss?”
“Well . . . I suppose not.”
“Mankind chose a path of greed, corruption and destruction all on their own. The prophecy merely foretold this. So when the same ancient verses tell us that the gathering storm can only be stopped by the chosen ones of the prophecy, we can’t waver. Think, Jag. Do you really believe the authorities will be able to handle what could come their way? The darkness that’s brewing is outside of their understanding. I’m sorry, I know this is not easy to hear, but the authorities can’t come into the picture. Not yet, at least.”
Jag closed his eyes tightly.
Marshall hated being the bearer of bad news. He would have rather been shot clear through the foot than see the distress in the teens’ faces, but he knew it was part of his duty and he needed to keep that in mind at all times. He couldn’t afford to falter. There was too much at stake.
He tried to inject some hope: “We’re making good speed. At this rate we should be able to catch up with the abductors soon.”
All he got was a pensive nod from Jag.
“Who are you, anyway?” Kody asked.
Marshall paused abruptly, taken aback by the sudden, strange question. “Um, well, as I introduced myself earlier—”
“I mean you, aside from your role as a Sentry. Who are you?”
Marshall ran his hand around the steering wheel lightly as he considered the query. “I’m a descendent of the people of Dema-Ki. My great-grandparents were from the valley and they passed their knowledge and duties to their descendants.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing your whole life, just Sentry stuff?” Kody asked.
“No. I enlisted with the armed forces when I turned nineteen and was with the Marine Corps for over a decade.”
Kody whistled, and Marshall caught Aari giving a begrudging look of surprise.
After a moment of hesitation, Kody reached over to poke Marshall’s bicep enviously. “No wonder you’re so ripped. You gotta be real fit to be a Marine.”
Jag and Aari rolled their eyes. Kody noticed and glared. “What?”
Marshall, who’d taken an instant liking to Kody, appreciated the teenager’s presence even more. The boy came across as the type who wouldn’t hold a grudge for too long.
Kody wasn’t done yet. He noticed the tattoo on Marshall’s right wrist and pointed at it. “Semper fi,” he murmured, reading the inking. “Always faithful.”
Marshall’s expression softened slightly. “I got it to represent my faith to my brothers in arms and this nation, as well as to my dedication to the duties of a Sentry, which transcends artificial boundaries on a map.”
Aari, who’d had his arms crossed, now unfolded them. Through the rearview mirror, the Sentry could see a raging sea of curiosity behind the teenager’s hard gaze. “How many Sentries are there? Are they everywhere in the world?”
“We’re all over, yes,” Marshall answered. “We’re part of the League. But we’re not that many considering the scope. I don’t know the exact number, but I’ve been told it’s from several hundred to a thousand.”
“Are you forced into this responsibility?” Aari asked. “I mean, what if someone doesn’t believe in the cause?”
Marshall scratched the back of his head, subconsciously taking care not to disturb his neat blonde hair. “I wasn’t forced. It just . . . I don’t know. I can’t speak for everyone, but I guess the best way to explain it is that it’s an instinctive sense of duty. To wax poetic, the ancient blood coursing through us seems to dictate our purpose in this world. Our duty, and I believe the Elders may have shared this with you, lies not only with standing by the five of you, but also in protecting the good in humanity, the flame in people’s souls. We are driven by the knowledge that darkness is but the absence of light.”
The teens looked quizzical as they absorbed Marshall’s explanation.
“What exactly do you guys do, though?” Kody asked.
“It varies from Sentry to Sentry. Most of us have regular jobs and we serve the communities we live in by carrying out and encouraging deeds that bring out the best in people. Others serve and protect the people as firefighters, doctors, educators, law enforcement officers and such. Some try to influence society through different forms of art. A handful are tasked to uncover and, where necessary, bring to light that which poses serious and imminent threat to society.”
“Meaning . . . ?” Kody probed.
“Meaning that they have to go underground, get their hands a little dirty and drag out those who bring darkness into the
world. It isn’t a pretty job, but someone’s got to do it.”
“Isn’t that the job for the police and other agencies, like the FBI?” Aari asked skeptically.
“Yes, but not even they can uncover everything. So some Sentries have actively taken it upon themselves to, as I said, uncover the filth. There’s a pair I’m good friends with. Welsh twins. Rascally guys, but definitely not ones to mess with . . . Anyway, when called upon, we all commit without hesitation. One thing we will not touch with a ten-foot pole is politics.” Marshall wrinkled his nose distastefully. “It’s a messy field, that one. And extremely divisive.”
That earned him small grins from the trio, which made him feel more at ease. He understood why they were taking a long time to warm up to him, especially Jag and Aari. The conditions in which he’d met them were nowhere near ideal. Not even close.
“Oh, Aari, I nearly forgot—thought you might want this.” Marshall reached between his seat and the car door and gently pulled out something black, which he passed to Aari.
Aari took it, eyebrows swept upward. “My bag!” He unzipped it hastily to ensure that his laptop and cell phone were intact. When he saw that they were, he looked at Marshall through the rearview mirror. “I, uh . . . thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Suddenly, Jag groaned. “Problem. Our folks are gonna freak out when they find out we’re not exactly on our planned trip anymore.”
Marshall saw Kody and Aari swap alarmed looks.
“What do we do?” Aari asked. “They’ll go ballistic when they find out what’s happened to Teegs and ’Riah.”
Kody looked almost fearful. “Oh, man, this isn’t good.”
Aari was panicking. “What are our options?”
“Do we even have one?” Kody demanded.
“Well, we can’t hide this from them,” Jag said quietly.
“If I may,” Marshall cut in. “I wouldn’t want you lying to your parents, but you’re aware of what’s at stake here. This is much bigger than any of us. Maybe you might want to consider holding off on telling them, at least until the girls are safely back with us?”
“We take turns calling home every day and our parents fill each other in. We might get away with it for a while but not for very long.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Marshall replied kindly. “Don’t worry.” He took his eyes off the road to steal a quick look at his watch. “We’ve still got some ways to go. Try to catch some shut eye, if you can.”
The boys slowly leaned back but remained tense. Jag, sitting beside Marshall, kept fidgeting and drumming his fingers on his knee. Marshall understood then that there was no way the trio would even attempt to sleep. In a soft voice, he said, “Know that the Sentry following them is a tiger. She’ll stick with them until they’re rescued. Don’t worry, we’ll get them back.”
19
The red-and-black Ducati Panigale roared over the asphalt, its passage rattling a farmer’s handmade sign that hung from a post thrust into the shoulder of the freeway. The rider of the motorcycle was a fit and striking woman in her early forties. Her long black hair was mostly hidden under her sleek touring helmet, was tied in a ponytail. She wore leather gloves and a comfortable jacket over a white top.
She kept her distance from the blue car she was tailing, using the sporadic traffic of mostly semis and smaller trucks to maintain her cover. The car carrying the three abductors with the girls in the trunk was some five hundred feet ahead of her. She glanced at her watch. It showed a few minutes past four in the morning. There was still no hint of the rising sun, but it wasn’t pitch-dark either.
A sign overhead indicated that the New Mexico border was not far off. The Sentry had been following the car for nearly six hours, across California and into Arizona. She ought to have been tired, but it was the exact opposite. Being on the open road woke a part of her that was repressed when confined in a city. She thrived on the freedom of riding a powerful motorcycle on a freeway.
Up ahead, the abductors took an off-ramp toward a gas station. Eyes narrowed, she weaved her way between three large trucks and accelerated to catch the ramp. She spotted the blue car parked at one of the pumps where a few other vehicles were filling their tanks.
A man with long red sideburns and dark clothes stepped out of the driver’s side. He’d taken off his mask, and a peek into the vehicle showed that the other two abductors had done the same. The driver didn’t seem to notice her as she pulled up to the pump ahead of him, making his way to the convenience store to pay for the gas.
She topped her motorcycle’s tank and paid with a card, but when the man still hadn’t returned, she went into the store. Inside, she found him ambling down the aisles, grabbing junk food as he went. Taking a risk, she hurried to the bathroom to relieve herself. When she came back out, she was thankful to see that the man was waiting in line at the counter.
The Sentry paused, pretending to adjust her helmet strap, and darted a quick glance at the man. To her surprise, he was watching her over his shoulder. He took in her face and heavy biker boots before meeting her eyes and leering. The Sentry ignored the degrading look and gave him a nod and a tight smile.
Only when the man had paid for his snacks and fuel did she slink out, again keeping her distance. He tossed the food to his cohorts in the car and pumped the gas. The Sentry headed back to her bike and pretended to check its tires, muttering to herself and showing no interest as the captors pulled back onto the freeway. She allowed them a few seconds’ head start before swinging her leg over the seat and following, staying behind several small cars until they were in her sights again. Her eyes went to the vehicle’s trunk where the girls were cramped, and her heart wrenched.
The kidnappers and their unseen pursuer rocketed down the wide lanes of the freeway for a couple of hours more before they approached a small town. The blue car exited the highway and began to pull further ahead. It maintained its increased speed briefly before disappearing around a curve behind a small hill.
The Sentry leaned forward, urging her bike on. She pulled away from the other vehicles, leaving them far behind her, and rounded the bend.
The blue car was nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of its retreating tail lights down the road. The Sentry slowed to a halt, baffled. This wasn’t possible.
Is there a hidden turnoff somewhere? she wondered, looking around. There was no traffic on any of the lanes and big sagebrush carpeted the sides of the roads. The area was darker than the surroundings as the small hill blocked what little light there was in the sky. She used her headlight to try and see into the shadows.
The Sentry turned her head to the left when she thought she saw something odd in her peripherals. She pointed the headlight and froze. An outline of a car just barely visible against the sagebrush. It was parked, engine off, on the side of the road.
It seemed as if the car’s occupants had abandoned it. The Sentry quelled the panic creeping up her throat. She hadn’t lost them. They couldn’t be too far away. She’d find them, and the girls.
As she moved to get off her bike to investigate, a sound of metal on metal caught her attention. She quickly turned and saw a stocky, broad-shouldered form in the shadows. Its arms were raised, a gun pointed at her.
The Sentry threw herself off her bike but was a fraction of a second too late. She heard a bang and felt a blow to her abdomen as she hit the ground, scraping the side of her helmet against the road. She let out a gasp and pressed her hands where she’d been hit. Steeling herself, she slowly sat up only to be forced back down by another bullet. It struck her a few inches above the first wound. She bit into her lip to stop herself from letting out any sounds of pain.
The roar of an engine coming to life made her raise her head. The blue car’s headlights glared into her face and she closed her eyes just before her head hit the ground again. Helpless, she listened as the vehicle rumbled back onto the road and sped away.
The Sentry pulled her helmet off and unzipped her jacket. She could
feel no exit wounds; the bullets were still inside her. Her entire body trembled from shock but she forced herself to plunge her fingers into the holes to stem the bleeding as much as she could. With one hand keeping pressure on the wounds, she weakly grabbed her customized phone out of her pocket and called one of the few contacts she had.
A man’s voice answered after the first ring. “Is everything alright?” were the first words he said.
The Sentry’s breathing was heavy and uneven. “Marshall . . . they’re gone.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I lost them,” she whispered.
“You . . . what happened?”
“They got me. Ambushed—shot twice.”
There was a curse on the other end. Then, “How badly are you hit?”
The Sentry didn’t reply. She could feel her energy steadily leaving her body and knew her time would be up before she could get to a hospital. Marshall said, “Look, hang tight. I’m not far behind. I’ll be there—”
“Marshall, you need to worry about the girls. I lost them.”
“Where were they headed?”
“We just crossed the state line into New Mexico and . . . ” She grimaced as the pain intensified. “ . . .and took the exit at Deming, heading north. I don’t . . . know . . . the final destination.”
There was silence before he said softly, “I’m so sorry about this.”
She managed a bleak smile. “It’s what happens in the line of duty. You know that better than most.”
“But I should have—”
“We’re here for a reason.” She let out a shuddering breath and shut her eyes tightly. “I just wish I’d made my time count.”
“You did . . . you did make your time count. Thank you, Gwen.”
The Sentry ended the call. Her vision was darkening around the edges. She went to the settings on her phone and tapped the ‘Wipeout’ option. With a sigh, she dropped the device as all its data was erased permanently.
She could hear a vehicle approaching but never got to see the wide-eyed truck driver who stopped his semi and ran to her, never got to hear the frantic emergency call he made, never got to take more than two excruciating breaths before her heart stopped.