The Protectors

by Dowell, Trey

  An elderly woman with kind eyes and knitted shawl opened the door. She smiled at me, which was a little surprising when you considered my black leather outfit and the way I was standing far too close to the door when she opened it. I had to be, so I could catch her when she dropped, but to her credit I didn’t see even an ounce of fear right up until her lights when out. A trusting people, Brits. Kind of like Canadians, but without the irritating optimism. I swept us both inside the foyer and flicked the door closed behind me. There was a couch in a tiny, well-appointed sitting room off to the left, so I laid her down as gently as possible. I moved through the rest of the house with purpose but didn’t find anyone else, which meant it was safe to bring Lyla in through the back.

  CHAPTER 10

  I carried her over the threshold like a sleeping bride, and the irony wasn’t lost on me. For years I’d imagined what it would be like—just the two of us, no Agency, no tests—a man and woman enjoying a life together. Of course, that’d been my naïveté talking, or her power. Maybe the combination of both. Now it was my ability keeping her in my arms as we ascended the staircase to the bedroom.

  I laid her on top of the quilt and her black hair spread out like a gossamer halo on the pillow, surrounding her perfect face. It was impossible to be this close and not have the old feelings, the ache inside. Couldn’t help but wonder—

  Do her powers work even when she’s unconscious?

  Maybe none of these feelings were my own—that was the problem with Lyla. You never really knew if anything you felt was genuine. She was that good. Or that bad, depending on which side of the half-empty, half-full fence you were sitting.

  I plopped next to her on the bed and bent over to touch her cheek, nudging her awake. She came out of unconsciousness easier than most, probably because her brain was so amped up to begin with. She blinked, confused for a moment, eyes adjusting to the surroundings. I could see the anger start in a hard squint and then spread to pursed lips. She recoiled from my hand and bolted upright.

  “You dropped me!” she growled.

  “Didn’t have much of a choice, Ms. Kill-Them-All.”

  “You . . . you violated me!”

  “Please put the ‘violated’ card back in the deck, Mistress of Mind Control. You get no sympathy from me.”

  Lyla pushed me away with both arms and paced around the unfamiliar setting, arms clasped tightly over her chest.

  “Where are we?” she demanded.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  She laughed but it was laced with acid.

  “Like the restaurant? You led them right to me.”

  “Don’t get snippy.” I threw the ID badge on the bed. “MI5, not CIA. They were tracking you, not me. Apparently you’ve attracted some government interest all by yourself. Congratulations.”

  My tone broadcast “raging jerk” a tad stronger than intended, but it felt warranted. Her face twisted in a grimace of anger and frustration.

  “Why are you being so foul?”

  “Me? Oh, I don’t know, maybe seeing you try to slaughter an entire group of law enforcement officers has me a little on edge.”

  She dismissed me with a wave.

  “Don’t lord your morality over me. You’ve been living in a mountain resort while I flee around the globe like a common criminal.”

  “Boo-freakin’-hoo. I’ve got news for you—if you kill people, you are a criminal and damn well deserve to be run down. Tell me, is this moral flexibility new, or have you left a trail of corpses for MI5 to follow? Is that how they found you? How many people have you killed, Lyla?”

  I didn’t want to push so hard, but I had to know.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t put you down right now,” I said. “Don’t you dare try to lie to me, because I’ll know. I swear to God, I’ll drop your comatose ass at Scotland Yard’s doorstep personally.”

  I was terrified her shoulders would drop and she’d turn away. Instead, my question was met by wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

  “No! I have not killed anyone . . . I wouldn’t. I . . .”

  Her hands rose and shook in frustration, as if she were trying to squeeze an imaginary beach ball in front of her chest. Then the fingers unclenched and relaxation rolled through her shoulders. She took a single deep breath and exhaled like she was trying to expel all of her anger.

  “I’m tired. My frustration boiled over. I am sorry.”

  “Jesus, Lyla. It’s not like you just borrowed the car and forgot to put gas in the tank. You would have killed every man on that team if I hadn’t been there.”

  “My remorse has limits. You believe they would not do the same to me if given a chance?”

  “They had a chance, in case you weren’t paying attention. They used tranquilizer darts.”

  She sneered. “Yes, so they could transport and imprison me. I would have been an excellent catch. For years, the British have cried about America having unfettered access to us. They knew the United Nations backing was a convenient ploy to declare us an ‘international’ force. Once I was in their custody, the United Kingdom would have what every country in the world desires: their own pet meta-human.”

  I shook her off. “I think the CIA would have something to say.”

  “You think MI5 would even bother to acknowledge they had me? You give them far too much credit.”

  “They’re our allies, Lyla.”

  “Good Lord, Scott! Are you really that naïve, or just that good at self-deception? Allies, treaties, pacts . . . you think any of that nonsense matters when it comes to us?”

  Lyla cocked one hand on her waist and gestured the other between me and her.

  “Don’t you understand what we are? The CIA, MI5 . . . we’re not people to them. We’re weapons. Strategic assets. The planet’s ultimate nonrenewable resource, because either one of us could alter the balance of power. We’re infinitely more valuable than oil, precious metals . . . even uranium. And when we’re gone, there will be no one left to replace us.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You might be overselling my abilities just a tad,” I said, but she didn’t bother to acknowledge me. She started pacing the length of the bedroom, getting more wound up with every step.

  “So trust me when I tell you the British would not hesitate to keep me all to themselves. And yes, they would be extremely civilized about the entire matter. They would be kind and generous jailers, until they realize I am never going to assist them. Then the polite masks come off and the hypodermic needles come out. If MI5 is feeling especially ‘allied’ they might be generous enough to pay the shipping costs when they mail my corpse back to the Agency.”

  I shook my head.

  “God, you’re a bigger cynic than me. As manipulative and opportunistic as it may be, I don’t think the world’s quite as evil as you think. The CIA left me alone for almost five years. Hell, the only reason they came to me at all is because you went rogue,” I said.

  Lyla stopped stalking the room and turned on me, fake sincerity oozing out like blood from a wound.

  “Ah yes, your beloved CIA.” She spit out each letter with contempt. SEE-EYE-AY. “Defenders of America’s place in the world order. Did your red, white, and blue friends bother to tell you why I went off the reservation?”

  “No,” I told her. “And I never said I loved them. I’m just not convinced they’re part of some mustache-twirling cabal bent on world domination.”

  She brushed my comment away like dog hair on a sweater. With eyes wide in the dim light, her every word was a dagger.

  “Your friends in the CIA asked me to go to North Korea, but not to subdue the new despot. They wanted me to embrace him and ‘suggest’ he walk off a fifth-floor balcony. So much for the U.S. government’s mantra of ‘We don’t assassinate foreign leaders in peacetime.’ Comical, yes?”

  I frowned, but didn’t say anything.

 
“And do you know what the general said when I brought up that long-standing rule? He told me, ‘Wake up, Lyla. There is no peacetime anymore. Modern life is just one long conflict, and it never ends.’ I swear to you by all that is holy, those were his exact words. When I did not summon the appropriate level of bloodthirst in response, he had the gall to tell me, ‘Besides, if it’s suicide, it’s not technically an assassination.’ And he smiled, Scott. That man had the nerve to smile while he asked me to murder someone.”

  The fire died in her eyes and she slumped.

  “I left the next day and decided to solve the North Korean problem my own way. Condemn if you must, but spare me the platitudes about your virtuous CIA.”

  I wasn’t totally shocked. The Agency does what the Agency does, and sometimes those things need to be nasty. Still, Lyla had endured callous abuse of power in her own country, both before and after she’d left, and it deeply affected how she saw the world. The general should have known better than to rub her face in it.

  “I understand your reaction, Lyla,” I said, softer. “I really do. But where does it end? You want to keep operating on your own? You intend to change the world one country at a time, and make that old Time magazine article into reality?”

  She sat back down on the bed and smoothed the wrinkles from the white fabric on her lap.

  “Yes, I believe I will,” she said.

  Stupid. Arrogant. Now it was my turn to pace.

  “So, no more pesky free will. You’ll just personally write the destinies of any nation you see fit?”

  Her shoulders regained strength and her posture stiffened.

  “Nine nations have nuclear weapons, four more will have them soon. Two billion people starve, and the world chokes on its own filth and pollution. To paraphrase my favorite cynic—‘Congrats, free will. Job well done.’ ”

  Mocking me didn’t help. I channeled all my powers of sarcasm: “But Mighty Aphrodite can change all that, right?”

  She jumped up and poked her finger in my chest. “Yes, she can. I will personally tear down the world order if I need to. Countries are meaningless. Governments concerned only with their trivial disagreements, resources they can hoard, clawing up more power at the expense of others.”

  “It’s ‘politics,’ Lyla. It’s been around for millennia—and will be for millennia more.”

  “Well, I am sick of it. The useless, churning noise. All these petty squabbling mortals,” she said.

  Hearing the word was bad. Hearing the disdain in her voice was even worse.

  “Mortals?!” I shouted. “And you’re what now? A god?”

  Lyla retreated a step but stood resolute. Her head ascended and she looked down her nose at me.

  “Perhaps I am. I have the power of one. Just like you, I have struggled for years trying to understand why, out of seven billion people, this power was bestowed upon me. All four of us asked ourselves the same question, every day. Why would the heavens grant me these abilities? Why not my brother, or my mother, or the girl who lived next door?”

  She was right. I’d asked ever since my sixteenth birthday—the day I used my mind to make the family dog fall asleep. I think it’s safe to say he was only slightly more surprised than I was. Difference being, he forgot about it as soon as he saw a squirrel. For me, it was only the beginning of the questions.

  “Have you ever considered,” she said, “that we received these abilities because we are the only ones wise enough to use them the way they were intended?”

  “What about Carsten? Was he wise? I think your divine-right theory got blown out of the water the first time he told us demons were putting poison in our scrambled eggs.”

  “Do not use Carsten to refute me. His was a special case. You and I are of sound mind—”

  “Debatable.”

  “Enough,” she said, swiping her hand toward me. “Regardless, the constant questioning and doubt froze me. Made me search for direction, guidance . . . for permission.” Both hands flared down to her waist and sat on her hips. “That time is over. Now that I no longer do the bidding of a corrupt, power-mad government, it is time to stop asking and start acting.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “You’ve lost it.”

  “Do not speak to me like I am insane!” she roared. Her eyes seemed to rotate for a moment but then stopped. Either I imagined it or she clamped down before her ability spooled up.

  “You don’t understand! You can’t understand,” she pled. Her every breath fought through a wall of fatigue and frustration. “I am tired . . . so very tired of this . . . this . . . terminal disease I see all around us. The world suffers a long, drawn-out death, and you would just sit by and watch?! You and your comfortable life, with your idyllic American upbringing. My family is dead—victims of an Iranian government I barely escaped. And now I have the power to make that same government pay. I can make all of them pay for their recklessness. Their cruelty.”

  Her eyes weren’t spinning, but the room sure seemed to be.

  “Lyla, please! Listen to yourself ! Gods and mortals and ‘make them pay.’ You’re mixing anger and arrogance and calling it justice. Goddammit, you sound like . . . like . . .”

  “What?” she asked.

  I stared at the floor. “A villain. A fucking comic-book villain. The kind the Protectors would have fought, if there were any.”

  She stormed from the room. “Go to hell!” she shouted as she rushed down the steps.

  I chased her downstairs and caught her in the darkened hallway before she could reach the front door. I lunged for her arm and she spun around to face me. I half expected her eyes to be in full rotation and to hear the rich contralto voice, but instead I saw tears. Her shoulders shuddered up and down with sobs. I didn’t think, I just pulled her tight. She was reluctant at first, but then her arms fell free from between our chests and wrapped around my torso. She squeezed and the sobbing faded.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” I said, even as my mind raced to figure out if I actually believed my own words.

  Lyla was the first to pull back. Her watery eyes were hopeful—almost pleading. Words bubbled up to the surface, bursting from her mouth without the usual formality or control.

  “When you emailed, I was at my wits’ end. The running, the hiding, feeling totally alone, no matter how many people I had with me. After North Korea it got worse. But now”—and her face brightened—“now you and I can be together! The way we talked about.”

  I started to shake my head but she gripped me by the shoulders, refusing to let me interrupt.

  “Think about it! With the two of us, I won’t need to be afraid or alone . . . together we can make the world the way we want it to be. I don’t . . . I can’t . . . do it alone. I know that now. But we can do anything. It’s what we were meant to do, don’t you understand? The reason we’re here.”

  All I could think was: This can’t be the same woman. The one I’d laughed with, trained with, relied on. I thumbed away a tear from beneath her eye.

  “Lyla, please . . .”

  “The world will thank us for it! Every country, every person. It’s like you always say: we’re the good guys. They’ll know it in the end.”

  I couldn’t hear any more. My shoulders shrugged her hands off and I pulled away. Her arms remained outstretched, as if begging me to return, but I couldn’t—no matter how badly I wanted to.

  She was beyond reason. I couldn’t help thinking of Carsten at the end.

  “If you have to tell people you’re the good guy, you’re probably not,” I said.

  Her arms dropped and the hopeful face collapsed with them. She said nothing.

  “Come back to America,” I begged. “You can stay with me in Colorado. Rest, relax . . . think things through.”

  Silence. Her brow lower now.

  “Don’t ruin your life by going on a crusad
e you have no hope of winning,” I said.

  Her voice rumbled. “We shall see.”

  I stepped back farther down the hall. Her face was hidden in shadow. Where I wanted it.

  “Lyla, don’t do anything”—I almost said “crazy” but stopped myself—“foolish.”

  “Now who is the one not giving me a choice, Scott? Die quickly fighting a hopeless crusade against the world, or die slowly with you in the mountains?”

  She took a step toward me. I still couldn’t see her face.

  “Don’t.” More authority in my voice than I felt. I backpedaled a few feet but my heel struck the closet door at the end of the hall. Nowhere left to retreat.

  “I do not need to ask you to join me, my love,” she said, her voice starting to hum.

  My left hand came up.

  “Stop. Let’s leave the powers out of this.”

  Another step forward. Her mouth emerged from the shadows first, and her eyes flickered on the edge, swirling faintly. I moved my hand higher to eclipse her eyes, but I could still see her mouth. Her lips glistened.

  “I no longer want to be alone. Come, lower your hand and be with me.”

  The waves started to wash over me, like in the restaurant, but weaker. I wasn’t looking directly into her eyes, but her voice . . . the sweetness of it. The words were like golden honey.

  With what was left of my free will, I made a rash decision. I flung out my fist and smashed a framed picture hanging on the wall beside me. Shards of glass sliced into my hand, and the pain gave me a precious few seconds to realize how close to oblivion I stood.

  She’d never release me. She couldn’t. I was questioning her sanity, which was the biggest breach of trust I could possibly make. Without trust, she could never have me at her side—not the real me. We both knew that the only way she’d let me leave this house was as her slave. One look at her eyes and I was done.

  In other words, it was time to pull out the big guns.