by Alex Siegel
"I hope you're right," she said. "Let's review our objectives just to be clear. We will take the hotel by force and discover the secrets inside. The Great Adversary is hiding something very special in there. Our benefactors want to know what it is. That knowledge means everything to them, and therefore, it means everything to us. We must not fail."
"I understand. I'm confident we'll succeed. We will control the building by nightfall."
"Come back to the command bunker where it's safe."
"Yes, ma'am." He glanced at the hotel one more time and smirked. The battle was going to be easy.
He drove off.
* * *
It had taken twenty minutes in a steaming hot shower for Aaron to wash off the funky sewer smell. He was in his room now, getting dressed. His formal, gray robes felt soft and luxurious against his damp skin.
He looked around. Marina had been living in San Francisco for almost a year, and his bedroom still felt empty without her. The king-sized bed was made for two, not one. A rack on the wall held his personal weapons. There was certainly enough room to accommodate a collection of exotic knives. They had visited each other several times, but the meetings had been short and bitter-sweet. The commanders could afford only a few days away from home at a time. He still tried to talk to her every day using the video conference system, but often those conversations were brief. He was afraid their love was fading.
Jack's voice came down from overhead speakers. "Commander, visitors want to come up to headquarters."
Aaron furrowed his brow. "Describe them."
"Two men, two women, and one boy. All of them are carrying Society phones."
Aaron's eyes grew wide in alarm. "Describe the boy."
"Blue eyes with a peculiar reflectance pattern. Brown hair. He's... beautiful."
"That's an odd thing for a computer to say."
"There is no other word that fits, sir," Jack said.
"That's Wesley, the Voice of Truth. Let the visitors come up. I'll meet them in the entry chamber. Tell my legionnaires to go to the kitchen immediately."
"Yes, sir."
Aaron took a deep breath. He had thought the cannibal mission was bad. Wesley's presence meant it was about to get a lot worse. The boy was a harbinger of chaos, death, and rebirth.
Aaron jogged through the crowded headquarters. The twins and the scientists were working at a frantic pace to complete the project. They were leaving equipment wherever there was space on the floor. Aaron was doing his best to ignore the mess.
Jack let him into the security booth, and Aaron looked through the glass. The elevator doors opened. Wesley and his formidable protection team walked into the entry chamber.
Wesley had grown a little since the last time Aaron had seen him. He would become a tall man someday. He was eleven years-old, and his adult features were beginning to emerge. His skin looked like it was sculpted from perfect, pink marble. His blue eyes were his most astonishing feature. They sparkled like tiny jewels in the bright light.
The four adults around him were his bodyguards. Atalanta was a tall, Japanese woman. Her skin and bones were as tough as hardened steel, and she was also one of the best martial artists on the planet. Yvonne was a short woman with red skin. She was ridiculously strong and resilient, and she could also digest her enemies using roots that grew out of her palms. The very tall, very pale Guthrum was the third member of the deadly team. He could see a few seconds into the future. Finally, there was Charles, a handsome, elderly man with hair the color of frost. He could make himself effectively invisible.
This crew protected the most important boy in the world, and he needed all that protection. God's enemies would do anything to kill him.
Wesley grinned. "Aaron! It's great to see you again! I've been waiting for this day for such a long time." His voice sounded like beautiful music.
"It's great to see you too, but I'm a little terrified. What's going to happen today?"
"Is Marina here yet?"
"No." Aaron paused. "I wasn't aware she was coming."
Wesley furrowed his perfect brow. "Maybe I'm a little early or she's late. Let us in, please."
Aaron pressed a button on the security console, and a side door buzzed. Wesley and his team went through. Aaron met them in the corridor outside the security booth.
"Did you notice Jack was gone?" he said.
Wesley nodded. "I could tell he and Kamal were doomed the last time I was here."
"You could've mentioned it to me. They didn't need to die. If I had known what to expect, I could've intervened and stopped both of them from making a tragic mistake."
Wesley shook his head. "Destiny is a cruel bitch. There was nothing you could do."
He walked through headquarters with confidence as if it were his home. He didn't seem the least bit surprised by the mess or the extra scientists. He quickly found the twins and went straight to them.
He stared at the aperture with wide eyes. "It looks just like what I imagined," he whispered.
Bethany jumped a little. "Wesley! You're here!"
"We're not ready." Leanna shook her robotic head.
"It looks ready to me." Wesley touched the intricate, colorful surface of the aperture. "God is certainly excited about it."
"We haven't even attached the power supply," Bethany whined. "The calibration will take a lot of time."
"You don't have a lot of time left. The veil has been penetrated. The call to battle has been sounded. The armies are massing."
She appeared anxious. For her, it was an incredible show of emotion.
Aaron pulled Yvonne aside and whispered, "What the hell is going on? Why are you here?"
"Why are you asking me?" She snorted. "You think Wesley tells us his secrets? We're just window dressing."
He clenched his jaw in frustration.
Wesley turned to Aaron and said, "We have a meeting, right?"
"I suppose we do." Aaron raised his eyebrows. "Everybody is waiting in the kitchen."
"Then let's get started!" Wesley pumped his fist.
His enthusiasm made Aaron even more anxious. This was going to be a very rough day.
The group went into the kitchen. It was already crowded with Aaron's team, Ethel, and Boreas. Now thirteen people had to find space to sit or stand around the glass table. Even though Aaron knew everybody, he was uncomfortable. He hated big, crowded meetings. He preferred to deal with people one at a time.
Wesley's arrival drew looks of astonishment and anxiety. Sheryl had met him only briefly and hardly remembered him. Perry had just heard stories about the legendary Voice of Truth. The rest of the legionnaires had spent enough time with Wesley to know what his presence meant.
"I'm very sorry," Wesley said to Ethel.
Ethel raised her eyebrows. "Sorry about what?"
Wesley sighed. "Damn it. I'm really early. I was so excited this morning, I couldn't wait for the proper time. I rushed over here. Oh, well. We have a few minutes, so you can tell me what's going on with the cannibals."
Aaron gave a summary of the mission so far. Wesley didn't appear surprised or afraid when he heard the details. He just nodded as if this kind of thing happened every day.
"So now we need to find out who paid Unit K," Aaron said at the end. "It's starting to look like a military conspiracy. It's your turn to talk. Will you finally tell me why you're here?"
"Wait for it," Wesley said.
"Wait for what? Sometimes you really piss me off! You obviously know what's going on, but you insist on keeping it a secret. Do you like watching other people run around like idiots? Does it make you feel smug and superior?"
Ethel's phone rang. She frowned and answered the call.
After listening for a moment, she reported in an anxious voice, "The President has been kidnapped! Roy is gone!"
"What happened to him?" Aaron said.
"Fake Secret Service agents snatched him while he was at the Jefferson Memorial. There was some kind of terrorist attack, and they
grabbed him during the confusion."
Wesley nodded. "Right on time. Ethel, I'm very sorry."
Ethel gave him a look of disbelief.
He took a deep breath. "Thus begins the greatest battle of the Gray Spear Society. Some of you will not survive."
TO BE CONCLUDED IN... THE EYES OF THE WORLD.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Interior Art
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six