Please, please, please, she prayed. The call took a small eternity to get connected.
Kid picked up after two rings. Her voice was small and anxious, making her sound even younger than she was. “Chris? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Listen to me, this is important. Is O still inside the cabin?”
“Yeah, he’s right here,” the girl replied in a faraway voice. “But Nora got worried and went after you.”
“Yeah, I know. She should be on her way back now.”
“You should come back, too,” Emily pleaded. “Where are you? With the bossman?”
“I’m still out looking for him.” Chris tried to sound like she was in control of the situation and of herself. “I need you to get O to call the Counselor’s phone and tell him to go back to the cabin. If nobody picks up, just let it keep ringing, okay?”
She could hear Emily repeating her words to Peter. “Okay, he’s on it,” the girl told her after a few seconds.
“Good. For now I want you to stay on the line with me. I need to know you’re all right. Whatever you do, you are both to stay inside the cabin. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Is O calling the Counselor?”
“Yes,” the girl said. “But no answer.”
“Tell him to keep it ringing.”
“Righty-o,” the girl replied without a trace of her usual cheer. “What about Miss Leung?”
The question made Chris stop. Shit. She’s still on a hike somewhere out there. She’d been so concerned about finding her missing teammates that the Canadian woman had slipped her mind.
“You don’t have her cell number, right?” Chris asked.
“No,” Emily said in a small colorless voice.
“Get Nora to call 9-1-1 when she gets back to the cabin.”
“I wish those military guys hadn’t left.”
Yeah, me too.
Chris scanned the forest. There still wasn’t any hint of movement, not even a flicker of shadows in the underbrush. The awful screams hadn’t made a comeback, but she didn’t trust the peace just yet.
“Is Nora back yet?” she asked the girl, the phone pressed to her ear as she pushed her way through the thicket.
“Not yet. You’re not gonna hang up, right?”
“No, I won’t,” Chris promised, hoping that she was headed in the right direction.
As she trudged through the thicket, stopping every so often to listen to her surroundings and reorient herself, the forest sounds returned with the trill a single bird somewhere in the distance. Over the course of the next few minutes, the full forest symphony was playing again. Even the insects crawled out of wherever they had been hiding. As she covered more ground to the bird sanctuary, she heard a new sound. It was the ringtone version of a popular rock song, playing over and over again in the distance. Chris adjusted her direction, going straight to it.
“O’s still trying to call the boss, right?” she asked into the phone, breathless.
“Yeah, but he’s not picking up.”
I know.
“Just tell him to keep trying,” Chris instructed before she had a thought. “Can you hear any birds outside?”
There was a sound of footsteps, then the faint squeak of a window being opened. “Yeah, I can hear birds,” Emily said. “Why?”
“I think that means it’s gone. It has some kind of psychic aura, but you don’t have to be afraid. Mr. Black scared it away. Just keep listening, okay? If the forest goes quiet outside, let me know right away.”
“Um, okay.”
As Chris made her way through the bushes, the ringing sound drew closer. After a brief search, she found the place where the phone had been dropped. It was a trail through the forest so faint and overgrown, it hadn’t been used in years.
She looked around. There wasn’t any sign of a sacred stone pillar or anything else. Whatever the Counselor had been searching for, it didn’t look like he found it. Please don’t be dead. She swallowed, transfixed by the sight of the discarded phone. She pushed herself to take a few steps on the trail before stopping. Her hand that clutched the cell phone fell to her side, Emily forgotten on the other end. She took another step and looked down.
A black-and-white checkered suit sleeve protruded out of the ground, like an arm reaching from below. Nothing else was in sight.
I didn’t make it, Chris realized. The Counselor was gone. Devoured by the very thing they hunted.
She stared at the sleeve with a dazed calm. I’m sorry, she thought. I should never have let you come out here alone.
Some detached part of her recognized Emily’s voice through her own phone, but her hand didn’t move to bring it to her ear. For several long moments, she just stood there and felt nothing at all while her consciousness was overtaken by the half-buried checkered sleeve. The frantic shouting from her phone snapped her out of her daze. She brought the phone up to her ear, her eyes still glued to the ground.
“For fuck’s sake, talk to us!” Peter’s voice shouted into her ear.
“I’m here,” she replied in a flat tone.
“What the fuck is going on? Where’s the boss? I can hear his phone ringing.” His voice was quivering.
“He’s … he’s right here,” she said after a few seconds of dazed silence. “In the ground.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I know.”
She heard him suck in a breath, but nothing more was said for almost a minute.
“Is Emily okay?” she finally asked, breaking the silence.
“She’s crying.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She was sure that she would have been sorry if she were able to feel anything.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked, his voice rising in pitch.
He’s just a kid, Chris thought. All of us are kids.
“Thanks for staying inside with Emily,” she said, hoping that the praise would comfort him a little. “That was really smart. Is Nora back yet?”
“No, but she’s on her way. I can see her walking up the trail.”
Chris realized she felt something after all. Relief. One disappearance was all she was able to handle today. “Good. I’m heading back now, too. I guess we’ll have to call Mr. Turner.”
There was another pause. “Yeah, I guess we will.”
“And O? You can still hear the birds, right?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “They’re way too freaking cheerful.”
***
Chris managed to backtrack to the cabin, thanks to the narrow path the Counselor had followed. She picked up his phone, but nothing else. She didn’t want to dig up his stuff. She assumed their Army escort would take care of that as soon as someone alerted them. Since the Wardens were long overdue for meeting them back at the jeep, they might even be on their way back to the cabin now.
Chris didn’t want to make the dreaded phone call, but the Counselor’s phone defied her by ringing as she stepped out of the dense thicket as the cabin came into view a hundred feet ahead of her.
They’ll ask why I didn’t protect him. Why I let him go alone. She let the phone ring a dozen times before she accepted the call.
“Mr. Whitfield!” came an unfamiliar thick-accented male voice with audible relief. “Bless the Virgin Mary, we were worried. I am sorry to call you sudden like this, but Mr. Turner says we need contact you directly.”
“This isn’t Mr. Whitfield,” Chris muttered.
“Who this then? I need talk to Mr. Whitfield.”
Chris stopped and clenched her fingers around the phone. She still didn’t want to, but someone had to do this. Maybe it was better to do this out here where Emily couldn’t listen. “Who’s calling?” she asked.
“Francisco Juarez, overseer of Latin America team. Now please, you pass me Mr. Whitfield? Is important.” He talked too fast, anxiety evident with every word.
I hope nothing happened to Saint, Chris considered, eyes drifting shut for a moment. He used his martyr power to protect us all f
rom harm and take our pain upon himself. She hoped the hero hadn’t suffered too much from the psycho monster’s attack on the Counselor. Hell, she hoped the Counselor hadn’t suffered too much pain, either, but who was she kidding? The inhuman screams of all those disembodied voices had burned themselves into her brain.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Whitfield is gone,” she said simply. “I’m a Warden. I just found his things in the forest.”
“Hostia puta! Was it El Coco? The creature you seek?”
“Yeah,” Chris replied. “I think so.”
“Mr. Turner not know this. You call now, explain.” And with that, the man hung up. Chris listened to the beeping busy tone for a moment before lowering the phone, her eyes on the small display.
Right. Someone has to do it. She settled down in the grass, taking few deep breaths before she called up Mr. Turner’s name from the list of contacts.
***
A few minutes later, Chris pushed the cabin door open and stepped inside to see the others perched on the couch. Peter jumped to his feet the instant the door opened, but didn’t say anything. None of them did. They just stared at her with fearful expressions that were hard to endure.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Emily echoed.
Nora didn’t even look at her. She was perched, lopsided, on the couch’s armrest, her eyes fixed on the bear skin rug.
“I talked to Mr. Turner,” Chris began. “Want to hear the good news first?”
“Please,” Peter said.
“Nora’s in the clear until the Covenant makes a decision. They’ll want to see us after we return to San Francisco. Nora, I told Mr. Turner you scared the thing off so that’s going to count in your favor.”
The girl nodded without raising her eyes.
Chris elaborated. “They think when it comes right down to it, Nora might be better at killing this fucked-up mutant than anyone else.” Let’s just hope she learns to control her shadow better, she wanted to add, but didn’t. This was not the time or place.
“Was that it?” Peter asked, pacing the floor between the table and the door.
“Just after we left on Friday, there was a seriously fucked-up transition in Europe,” Chris added. “Might have been a surge gone wrong. Whatever is going on with powers lately, it’s getting worse.”
“Yeah,” Emily agreed. “Bad like what happened to the Counselor.”
No one said anything.
“Everything will be all right once we figure things out.” Chris faked optimism for Emily’s sake.
“Yeah,” Peter replied listlessly. “Maybe.” He resumed his pacing.
“But it’s traveling so fast,” Emily said. “It was all the way in South America yesterday, and now it’s right here.” As her lower lip trembled, Nora reached an arm around the girl to comfort her.
“Don’t worry,” Chris said, kneeling in front of the couch. “I’ve got you all under a protective bubble. It can’t get past my force field even if it wanted to. It tried, but it couldn’t get through.”
“Wait a minute.” Peter stopped mid-stride. “It actually attacked you?”
“Yeah. It couldn’t get through my force field. I think my power kept it from messing with my head, too.” She didn’t add that the ‘it’ had a name now, according to Mr. Turner.
Legion.
Another stretch of silence followed.
“Well, what the fuck do we do now?” Nora finally asked, tracing her horned mask with her fingers before tossing it to the floor.
“We wait for Miss Leung to get back, and we tell her what happened. The Army should be here any minute to escort us back to the jeep.”
Peter snorted. “As if they can protect anyone from that thing.”
Chris held up her hands. “I agree, but now is not the best time to rock the boat. It surprised us, but it’s gone now. We can’t track it without…” our missing Visionary, she almost finished. The thought of that one checkered sleeve stirred the pit of her stomach again.
“So we just wait and do nothing?” Nora asked.
“We can try to figure out how it got here so fast,” Chris suggested. She was up for anything that kept Emily distracted.
“You got an idea?” Peter asked.
“Maybe. Give me a minute.” Chris stepped over to the table to pick up the stack of notes their team leader left. She scanned through the papers until she found his list of missing victims and their powers.
The first name on the list had been belatedly added in the Counselor’s clean handwriting.
Roy Wilson (the Historian), exact date unknown. Vivid flashback visions of historic events that occurred at his current location.
Chris scanned the other entries while the Wardens watched.
Chayton Wallace (Burrower), April 17, 2012. Underground movement through anything except solid rock at running speed.
Sarah Atkins (Morpher). April 29, 2012. Odd and uncontrolled mutations to body shape and mass, including the development of matter not normally associated with the human body.
Timothy Valentine (Newal). May 16, 2012. Rapid healing and disease recovery, but with severe mutations and overall growth in body mass.
Paul Bobeck (Dreamcatcher). May 23, 2012. Projects visions and causes vivid hallucinations in others.
Ana Sofía Torres (Technomage). May 29, 2012. Immense knowledge and understanding of any kind of technology. Not a builder herself, but worked as an adviser for the NASA. Possible other aspects to her power were never revealed.
She slowed to read the next entry carefully, looking for something to confirm her suspicions.
Steven Navarro (Duende). June 5, 2012. Limited teleportation to a number of locations near his home town. May not choose target locations. Due to his recent transition, only limited information is available on his power. See appendix 8c for some notes by his assigned therapist.
Right. We already knew that. Chris remembered the reports about the limits to Duende’s teleportation. Those limits were the reason that no one had expected to see the killer so far up north, even if he could absorb powers. But how were they defined?
She leafed through the appendix until she found a mishmash of notes she assumed the Counselor never studied in detail, or maybe he had drawn the wrong conclusions.
Without exception, target locations for Steven’s teleportation are of significant sentimental value to him.
Sentimental value, huh? She didn’t believe a South American guy had any sentimental attachment to the forest outside of Grand Marronnier, Quebec. The self-healing teenager who the Historian had encountered in the woods, on the other hand….
“I think I figured out how it got here.” Chris set the stack of notes aside. “Our killer absorbs people and takes their powers. One of the last guys to disappear was a teleporter who jumped between places important to him.”
“But why would this place be important to anyone but the Historian?” Peter asked.
“Nearly two years ago our target absorbed the Historian,” Chris said.
A lengthy pause filled the room as the words sank in.
Nora was the first to speak again. “So if the killer can take on all the powers of the people it’s absorbed—”
“Then we’re dealing with something infinitely more dangerous than a single villain,” Chris finished for her.
Peter sat in a wooden chair, and put his head in his hands.
The last victim was able to cross oceans as if they were puddles, Chris recalled. And the Sleepwalker’s wandering around in Europe, contained there only because he hates water….
Before she even finished the thought, she grabbed the Counselor’s phone from the table and selected the Warden HQ’s emergency line in hopes that it would get routed to someone—anyone—who would warn the rest of the world. They had to assume Legion now had the ability to appear anywhere, not just the Americas, and if he absorbed the Sleepwalker…. “Do you think it was horrible, what the bossman went through?” Emily asked in a tiny voice, crying.<
br />
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Chris lied.
According to Mr. Turner, Saint had screamed his lungs out right after the Counselor’s disappearance and never stopped until they put him into an artificial coma.
5.1 Escalation
Outside Lyon, France
Saturday, the 9th of June, 2012
1:59 p.m.
As they neared Lyon, Sarina pressed her cheek against the car window, watching the landscape as it rolled past. It was easy to lose herself in the passing lush green hills, the picturesque villages, and the graceful chateaus. If she let her mind drift, she could even pretend to be a tourist on a fun summer road trip with friends.
She knew better, of course. The Nameless weren’t on the road for sightseeing. From the bits and pieces she picked up from one of Ace and Tess’s more heated discussions, she knew they expected trouble. Right now, Ace was sitting low on the passenger seat with his wide-brimmed hat drawn over his face. What little she could see of his gloomy expression told her more than she wanted to know about his expectations for their mission.
Sarina understood the reason behind his doubts since asking for a favor from another team of rogues could go wrong in all kinds of ways, especially with a team who the Nameless weren’t on particularly good terms with. Ace and his crew had met the rogues in question in the past, back before Sarina and Jasper had become part of the team, and the first encounter had left everyone with a sour feeling. And now, for reasons Sarina didn’t fully understand, they were on the way back to the rogue team’s hideout.
Ace drummed his fingers against the dashboard. “Are we almost there?”
“Ten minutes,” Tess said, turning up the volume on the radio as a newscaster’s voice read the hourly news.
“Hey!” Sunny protested from the bench seat in front of her, where he was sitting next to the ever-silent Snow. “You said we could listen to One Direction!”
“Quiet,” Tess said. “This is important.”
Disturbed by their quarreling, Sarina straightened up in her rearmost seat and pulled her eyes away from the passing landscape. As she shifted, her knee bumped against Jasper’s. He murmured a shy apology, closing his eyes to focus on the tunes trickling from his earphones.
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