The Quest (Psionic Pentalogy Book 4)

by Adrian Howell

  Mrs. Harding gently patted Terry’s right arm and asked in an overly understanding, grandmotherly tone, “You and what army, Teresa dear?”

  “I’ll find help elsewhere!” said Terry, her voice shaking as she stood up. “I’ll go to the other Guardian factions if I have to, but I’m going to get to the Historian somehow!”

  Mrs. Harding remained calmly seated. “I know you well enough not to try stopping you, but I’m afraid that you may not have much luck anywhere you go. We are all on the defensive now. No faction leader will risk their limited resources for a suicide mission.”

  Terry bit her lip so hard I thought she might draw blood.

  Taking Terry’s hand, Mrs. Harding gently forced her back into her chair.

  “Besides, Teresa,” she said, pouring us more tea, “I have met the Historian four times in my life, and I believe that you are seriously overestimating the potential return on a meeting with him. Even if, by some miracle, you did get to his mountain, the Historian would never actually fight for us. His bending of his vow of neutrality has its limits too. And while there is definitely potential gain from whatever information he might provide on Randal Divine, even the Historian’s lore is not absolute.”

  I remembered how the Historian hadn’t been able to provide the Guardians with the secret identity of the Angels’ second master controller, Angelina Harrow. The Historian wasn’t omniscient. As for the possibility of him actually breaking his vow and fighting for us, I found Mrs. Harding’s levelheaded assessment far more believable than Terry’s passionate hopes. Perhaps Terry just believed what she wanted to believe.

  Terry was positively fuming when we left Mrs. Harding’s home. Merlin had given me strong enough hiding protection to last three solid days, so it was only Terry and me walking back to the Refugee House together.

  “Me and what army?!” Terry muttered savagely. “I’ll give her what army!”

  “Are we leaving, then?” I asked hesitantly.

  “No,” replied Terry, her eyes suddenly filled with grim determination. “The Historian is still our best bet, but Harding is right too. The Guardians won’t keep sending Knights to the mountain if they’ve already lost six teams.”

  “Then what are you planning to do?”

  “What I should have done the day we arrived here,” replied Terry. “We’ve been sitting around playing house far too long.”

  Chapter 6: Terry’s Troopers

  The living room was in its usual state of chaos when we returned. In one corner were Daniel and Walter throwing paper airplanes at each other. In another were Felicity and Susan in the midst of a heated argument over something or other. Heather, Candace and Alia were sitting together on the sofas, and Heather was teaching Alia how to put on lipstick as the girls talked and laughed noisily over the sisters’ shouts and the blaring sound of action-movie gunfire from the TV.

  “Attention please,” Terry said quietly.

  I telekinetically hit the power switch on the TV and then locked onto an in-flight paper airplane, guiding it into my right hand. All eyes turned toward us.

  “Is everyone here?” asked Terry.

  Heather replied, “Scott just got back from work and said he was going to take a shower. I think everybody is in the house somewhere, though.”

  “Gather them please,” said Terry. “I have an announcement to make. Scott can shower later.”

  “You want Steven here too?” asked Heather.

  “Everyone. This is important.”

  In less than two minutes, Terry had everybody’s undivided attention as they sat on the sofas and on the floor, gazing at us expectantly. I already regretted not confronting Terry before we entered the house.

  “You all know it’s been more than a month now since we left New Haven together,” began Terry, looking around at everyone in turn. “I heard from Mrs. Harding today that Teddy is doing well with his aunt. I still hope that some of you will find your families. But in the meantime, we are all members of the Walnut Lane community, and it’s time we started contributing to it for real.”

  I looked at Terry uneasily. But as Terry’s second-in-command, I knew better than to argue with her in front of the others.

  Terry continued, “Scott, Heather and Candace are helping us make enough money now not to be a drain on the other Guardian families living here, and I know that everyone else is helping out in the house one way or another. But we have to do more than that. The Angels are all but unstoppable now, and every small community like ours is at risk. You all know what Adrian and I have been doing downstairs, right?”

  By “downstairs,” Terry meant the large storage basement under our house. Weeks ago, I had helped Terry clear away the clutter and set up a makeshift training room. Alia had managed to use her connections over at Patrick’s to get Terry a set of rusty weights that had been gathering dust in someone else’s basement. Though we didn’t have proper gym mats to cover the concrete floor, our training room resembled a miniaturized version of the dojo in the subbasement of NH-1. Terry and I had been using the place to keep our skills up, and most of the kids had come down a few times to watch us practice. Seeing Terry’s moves, however, nobody ever tried to join in.

  Felicity asked hesitantly, “Are you suggesting that we should all become Guardian Knights?”

  “No,” said Terry. “You don’t have to become a Knight if you don’t want to. But I’m saying you should at least learn how to defend yourself. Knights or not, we’re Guardians, all of us. If you’re untrained and get into a fight, you might win, you might die. Two on one, you die. The more you train, the better your odds get. It’s really that simple.”

  Most of the kids nodded. Not every Guardian Knight was proficient in hand-to-hand combat. Many simply fought using their own psionic powers or relied on modern weapons. But these kids didn’t have either.

  Terry smiled grimly at the crowd, saying, “I’m sure you’ve all had plenty of time to think about what might happen if you don’t find your families again. Most of you will probably gain some kind of psionic power in a few more years. It might not be a combat power, but that doesn’t mean you have to be helpless. If you have time to waste in this house, you have time to train. You might even get one back for what happened to your homes.”

  Steven snorted loudly. “So who’s going to teach us? You?”

  “I’ll teach anyone willing,” Terry replied evenly.

  Steven stood up, silently glared at Terry for a few seconds, and left the room.

  “Anyone else?” Terry asked challengingly, her eyes darting around the room.

  Sitting next to Felicity, Susan seemed to tremble under Terry’s fierce gaze. Max just stared emptily back.

  Terry said in a softer tone, “I’m not going to force anyone, especially the youngest. It has to be your own decision.”

  A full minute passed in silence. Then we heard a whisper.

  “I’ll fight.”

  The kids looked around trying to find the source of the voice, but Terry and I knew who it was because we were facing the crowd.

  “I’ll fight,” Max whispered again, getting up from the floor and looking at us determinedly.

  Scott stood up too. “I’m with you, Terry,” he said forcefully. “I’m done running.”

  James was next, followed by Rachael and then Alia. Slowly, everyone got to their feet.

  Susan was last, looking anxiously at her older sister and then at Alia and Max before carefully standing up and saying in a shaky voice, “Me too.”

  “You’re sure, Susan?” asked Terry.

  Susan nodded.

  “Good girl,” Terry said quietly.

  Terry faced the crowd again and explained, “What I’m planning to teach you all here is close quarters combat, or CQC for short. It’s essentially military-style hand-to-hand and basic weapons training. But you’re going to have to build some muscle too, which means a fair amount of all-round exercise and weight training. And if we’re all doing this together, we’re going to need
a much larger room than the basement.”

  “How about right here?” suggested Scott.

  Terry surveyed the spacious living room for a moment, and then nodded. “This will do fine. Move the sofas against the wall and take the TV somewhere where it won’t get smashed. Adrian and I will do a quick inventory check downstairs and see what we need to get.”

  As Scott started to get things organized in the living room, I followed Terry down into our musty makeshift dojo.

  Alia came too, and as soon as she shut the door behind her, Terry turned to me and said, “Speak your piece, Adrian.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say about this.”

  Terry smiled grimly. “I’ll survive it.”

  “Alright, if you insist,” I said icily. “I think that was a pretty impressive pep talk, Terry. I never knew you could be such a politician. I suppose it didn’t occur to you to tell them the real reason you wanted everyone to learn combat.”

  “That comes later,” said Terry. “Besides, I really did mean what I said back there too. Even if we weren’t going to the Historian, it makes perfect sense for them to learn how to fight. Once they’re ready, we’ll let them decide for themselves whether or not they want to come with us.”

  “You’re just using them!” I said, my temper rising. “Sugarcoat it all you want, Terry, but a lie is a lie!”

  Terry gave me an exasperated look. “You want this war to be so damn easy, don’t you? First you didn’t want to get your own hands dirty, now you don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s!”

  “They’re just kids!”

  “Half of those kids are older than us,” countered Terry. “Some of them are over eighteen, so they’re not kids at all. As for the younger ones…” Terry threw a quick nod in Alia’s direction and grinned slyly at me. “I think you’re forgetting what children are capable of… when they’re put to it.”

  “Damn you, Terry!” I snapped, waggling my index finger at her nose. “Alia never asked for any of this, and neither did I!”

  Terry poked me in the chest with her left stump. “Well neither did I, and neither did they. But they’re here, they’re willing and they trust us.”

  “Of course they trust us!” I said savagely. “You’re the great Terry Henderson, famous hero of New Haven! They’d do anything for you!”

  “And you’re the famous Adrian Howell now!” said Terry, jabbing me again with her stump. “We lead this rabble whether we like it or not. Get used to it! And get that finger out of my face. I’m afraid it might go off.”

  I lowered my finger but continued glaring at Terry.

  Terry said patiently, “Listen, Adrian, we can either train these kids to defend themselves, or leave them unprepared for the Angels when they come. And the Angels will come, make no mistake about that.”

  “I’m not against them learning to fight, Terry,” I said, meaning it. “But that’s not why you’re doing this. What if we’re the ones who end up getting them hurt or killed? What then, Terry? Do you really want that kind of blood on your hands?”

  Terry gave me a pained look. “Please don’t think I ever stopped regretting what I put you through last year. It was my pride that robbed you of your sight. But this isn’t about adventure or even revenge anymore. It’s about our collective survival. I admit that Peter probably died because I put the fight into him. But this could be our very last stand, and I’m prepared to do anything it takes to give our future a fighting chance. You’re the one who doesn’t believe in choices, Adrian! We all do what we have to. Not what we want. What we have to!”

  Huffing loudly, I turned away from Terry and looked at Alia. My sister steadily gazed back at me with Cindy’s quiet eyes. She seemed as if she was about to say something, but then just nodded and smiled sadly.

  Terry touched my shoulder from behind. “Please, Adrian. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but I really need you in my corner right now.”

  I didn’t turn around, but replied quietly, “I’m always in your corner, Terry. I never once blamed you for the Slayers. But promise me that when the time comes, you won’t pressure these kids to join our quest. They can’t feel like they owe us something.”

  I felt Terry give my shoulder a squeeze. “I promise, Adrian.”

  I turned around and gave her a weak smile. “Alright. Let’s do it, then.”

  I didn’t want to be the one to mention the brave pyroid we lost on the minibus, so I was glad that Terry did. We would never know for certain whether Peter’s death was an accident or if he had removed his seatbelt because he felt duty-bound to help us. And I couldn’t help wondering where this unfamiliar road was about to take us. The children of lost Guardian families turned soldier for Terry’s secret mission… I wondered how many of them would end up following Peter to their deaths, and how soon.

  Terry hadn’t really come down here for an inventory check. We already knew what we had, and more importantly, what we didn’t have.

  “We’ll need proper mats in the living room, or maybe several stacked layers of carpet,” said Terry.

  I asked, “Do you want to leave the dumbbells down here and keep this as a weight room?”

  “No. We’ll have to move them out. And the shelves too. We’re going to use this room as our shooting range. It’s way too small, but we can put some targets on the far wall and just use it for short-range pistol work.”

  The rectangular basement room was only about ten yards long. Hardly ideal for target practice, it was nevertheless the only place you could fire a gun without anyone calling the police.

  “Where are you going to get the cash for guns and ammunition?” I asked. If Terry was planning to take away any of my grocery money, she was in for stone soup three meals a day.

  “I’ll think of something,” said Terry. “One thing at a time.”

  We returned to the living room where Scott and the others had already cleared away the furniture and were waiting for us. I wondered if at least a few of them had been secretly hoping that Terry would offer to train them in combat. For the most part, they were an eager-looking bunch.

  “First I want to get a feel for what you can do,” said Terry. “Does anyone here have any background in martial arts?”

  James raised his hand. “I took karate back in elementary school. I made green belt before I quit, but I haven’t done much since then.”

  “It’ll come back,” said Terry. “Anyone else?”

  It turned out that several did have a basic background in some martial art or another. Scott had been captain of his high-school wrestling team. Rachael had done some aikido. Heather, Felicity and Daniel had attended several classes in basic self-defense that had been organized by the Raven Knights shortly after the gathering of lesser gods. Walter had been commuting to a judo dojo ever since arriving in New Haven two years ago.

  “Not a bad start,” said Terry. “But I want to see it. When I call your name, please step forward and try to kill me.”

  After a few seconds of awkward silence, Terry smiled and said, “That was a joke. But of course you’re quite welcome to take it seriously.”

  Candace asked nervously, “Are we going to get seriously hurt?”

  “Not today,” promised Terry. “Not seriously, anyway. And this isn’t the army. You’re all volunteers, and you’re free to quit if you feel this isn’t for you. Fighting isn’t for everyone. No one will hold it against you if you quit.”

  Terry gave me a sidelong glance. I smiled back at her.

  “If there are no other questions,” said Terry, “Scott, you first.”

  The captain of the wrestling team lasted a grand total of ten seconds against Terry, who easily pinned him using her particular blend of every martial art known to man. Still, I was quite impressed with Scott. The first time I faced Terry, I couldn’t remain standing for longer than the blink of an eye.

  “That was very good, Scott,” said Terry. “With a little work, you might even be a match
for Adrian here. I think I’m going to train you myself, but let’s see what everyone else can do first.”

  Terry turned once more to the crowd. “Let’s just go down from the oldest. Candace, you’re next.”

  Terry tested each one in turn, squaring off with them and telling them to attack in any way they saw fit. Our students met Terry with a mixture of awe and terror, but even with the older kids, Terry was much gentler than she had been with me on my first day. Terry had learned a thing or two about teaching and motivation. Besides, the living-room carpet wasn’t nearly as yielding as a proper gym mat, and Terry had, after all, promised no serious injuries.

  In the end, Terry assigned about half of them to me and half to herself. Naturally, she took the stronger ones and left me with the others, promising to train them in person once they learned what they could from me. In addition to Scott, Terry took Rachael, James, Heather, Felicity and Max.

  Max looked quite surprised when Terry called his name, but Terry merely smiled at him and said, “I like a strong spirit.”

  I was left with Alia, Candace, Daniel, Walter and Susan. I couldn’t be sure, but it was probably deliberate on Terry’s part to separate the sisters and friends as much as possible. Alia was an exception, but I guessed that this was also deliberate. Terry understood about Alia.

  Just like Terry, I squared off with each in turn, asking them to kill me. With his background in judo, Walter was by far the best in my group – if you didn’t count my sister. Alia had been down in the NH-1 subbasement dojo with me and Terry ever since we moved to New Haven, and what she didn’t have in muscle she made up for in technique. I suspected that if only their sizes weren’t so far apart, Alia could beat Scott four out of five rounds any day.

  “Enough for one day,” said Terry once we had a feel for everyone’s drive, nerve and abilities. “We’ll start for real from tomorrow. I have to talk with Mrs. Harding first.”

  There was, of course, no keeping this from the leader of Walnut Lane. We visited Mrs. Harding first thing after breakfast the next morning to ask for official permission to open a combat school.