by Jeremy Flagg
“No kid puking, sound parenting advice.”
She let Raymond fly about the lobby of the Facility, higher and then in a controlled descent before going back up. Ariel wished she could recall when simple things like this were the norm. When there were no robots, no soldiers, no mentalists waging a secret war. But no, her childhood had always been more exciting than a soap opera.
“So, what have you been up to?” Elizabeth asked. “Hopefully you haven’t been cooped up here since I last saw you.”
The lobby could hold several hundred people. Today it appeared barren except for the large statue water fountain occupying the center and a wide table near the door into the guts of the Facility. It hadn’t served as a room for entertaining like it had been designed, but it offered more than enough space for privacy while making a five-year-old an airplane.
“I’m going to have to use your least favorite phrase.”
“Not you too!” Elizabeth yelled as she sat on the brick edge of the water fountain.
“A lot is classified now that the military is involved.”
“Is it above my ‘my husband’s the boss’ clearance?”
Ariel grinned. “That might have gotten you access to the early Second Prospect files, but nope, it’s all in those annoying beige classified folders now.”
Elizabeth doused her hand in the water. “I’m officially less in the know than an eighteen-year-old girl.”
“You got too old.”
Elizabeth splashed water at her. The liquid hovered in the air, inches from Ariel’s face. Elizabeth shook her head. “If I recall, somebody has a birthday coming up. You’re about to be old too.”
She had been so caught up in the military missions, rogue mentalists, and unearthing a conspiracy she nearly forgot her birthday was only a few weeks away. The fact Elizabeth remembered created a warm feeling in the pit of Ariel’s stomach.
Raymond descended one last time, making a perfect landing in front of them. He ran up and hugged Ariel. “You’re the best,” he said as he squeezed her. Ariel ruffled his hair.
“Raymond, do you want to draw some pictures for Ariel to hang in her room?”
The suggestion launched the boy into a run. He reached his mom’s oversized shoulder bag and started tearing through it in search of crayons and paper. The moment he found the box, he emptied the colors onto the ground. Lying down with the paper, he started scribbling.
“What can you talk about?”
“I’ve been watching those old movies you gave me.”
“Really? We’re going to talk about old movies?” asked Elizabeth.
“Well…”
“Spill it.”
“It’s about Jonah.”
Elizabeth studied her face. It didn’t take more than two seconds for her to figure out where the story was heading. “You didn’t.”
Ariel’s face turned red as she nodded.
“Ballsy. Your commanding officer, right? Isn’t that frowned upon?”
“If you tell Mark, Jonah will lose his job. Or Mark will kill him.”
Elizabeth made the universal sign for zipping her lips. Then she scooted closer, leaning in to whisper. “Your first boy, so…”
“So?”
“How was it?” Elizabeth asked, arching her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.
“The first time— “
“Wait,” Elizabeth stopped her. “How long has this been going on?”
“Just the one night.”
Elizabeth nearly fell backward into the fountain as her belly shook with laughter. “More than once. Now I’m lucky if I can make it through once before I want a snack or check my email.”
“I won’t get that image out of my head now.”
“Oh, stop it.”
Ariel closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Oh God, I can’t think of Mark naked. I hate you so much right now.”
“Speaking of my fine piece of man meat…” She giggled as Ariel wrinkled her nose. “How is he doing? Really doing? None of that standard reporting bullshit he tries to give me.”
“He’s stressed. He eats way too much unhealthy food. I’m not sure how he’s sleeping. The man is constantly in a fight with the military. You’d be impressed, he tends to get his way.”
“Attaboy,” Elizabeth cheered.
“Him and Ivan have been pretty united when it comes to fighting for the Facility.”
“Ugh.” Elizabeth’s eyes rolled back at the mention of Ivan. “That man creeps me out. I mean, he makes my skin crawl.” She wrapped her arms around her torso. “He gives off a seriously icky vibe.”
“He’s not so bad now. They’ve been united ever since…”
Elizabeth wrapped an arm around Ariel, giving her a squeeze. “You keep yourself safe around that one. My gut doesn’t lie. I don’t want you dealing with his bullshit.”
Ariel nodded. “Thanks, Elizabeth.”
“What about Arturo? You know, I was secretly hoping the two of you would wind up together.”
“Serious? He’s like my brother!”
“Daddy!”
Both of them looked up to see Mark kneeling with his arms out. Raymond was scooped up off the ground, spun around while Dad held him tightly. Ariel found herself jealous as Mark pretended to eat Raymond’s fingers.
“How are my ladies doing?”
“We were discussing the fine points of applying eyeliner.”
Mark’s face turned to a whimsical pout as he gave his wife a disapproving look. “Fine, if you’re not going to tell me what you’re into.”
Elizabeth stood up, wrapping her arms around her husband and son. They kissed. Ariel smiled at the trio. Someday, she wanted what they had with one another. Can I have that with Jonah? she asked herself.
“I promise we’ll spend the evening together—”
“You’re about to tell me some random nonsense and then it’ll be ‘classified’.” Elizabeth made air quotes. “So just do whatever you need to.”
“Ariel is needed for training. You and I can have a quiet night in. Tomorrow we’ll have a big meal with everybody. You’ll get to meet—”
“All the people you’re not allowed to tell me about,” Elizabeth jested. “Be glad I’m not a jealous woman or I’d be with the pool boy by now.”
“I mean, he is attractive.” Mark grinned.
“You’re only getting rid of me over my dead body.” She kissed him on the forehead.
Ariel started to leave until she saw Raymond waving his hand. She accepted his sketches and continued walking away while the grownups discussed whatever they talked about.
She tried to keep up her pace while she eyed Raymond’s drawings. There were crudely drawn stick figures of a girl and a young boy flying in the air. She shuffled to the next. The sight of Mark and Elizabeth in stick-figure form made her giggle. Standing next to them, holding hands, were Raymond, Ariel, and Arturo with big smiles.
The last drawing froze her dead in her tracks. A man stood in the middle of a huge black blob. Lying on her back with X’s for eyes was a girl. Raymond had tested negative for abilities on multiple accounts, but perhaps he sensed something wrong. The stick figure in the blob was impossible to identify, but it brought the looming darkness to the forefront of her mind.
“Who are you?” Ariel asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
2033
Ivan used Lillian's own powers to hold her to the wall. Her powers were the brute manifestation of her thoughts, while his were rooted in the psyche. It only seemed fitting to strangle the life from the traitor with her own abilities.
And so, as he removed his hands from her throat, she remained pinned, barely conscious as he turned his attention to Dikeledi. Jacob spent years meddling in both of their heads, each invasion making it easier to overcome their meager defenses and wretch control of their minds, bodies, and abilities.
Dikeledi was powerful in her own right, a master of emotional manipulation. He admitted the allure in how she touched his thoughts and rolled
his mind during sex. Unlike Lillian, forced into servitude, Dikeledi lusted to be among the powerful. Her craving for power made the empath one of his few allies. But now, the fear that made her eyes quiver betrayed her.
“While not as robust”—he gestured to her body—“I approve of your new vessel.”
Dikeledi stepped back, her arms flailing as a heel caught on the rug. He wanted to lunge, to grab her, to pin her to the ground, but he held his composure, hardly moving. She spun about and hit the floor on her side, where she clawed at the carpet to pull herself away.
He could sense the terror rolling off the woman, and it was indeed as intoxicating as Dikeledi described. Even without her empathy, he found the sensation arousing, stirring a carnal pleasure. The virility of his youthful body wanted a release, but Ivan found forcing himself on the woman was the last of the degrading acts he wanted to inflict. Even the strength in his arms, the sculpted torso of his host, none it compared to the magnitude of his mind.
She scurried to the shelf. Hand over hand she climbed. Her terror evaporated. Vanessa’s iron will started to seduce him, enough that he hardly noticed the stone bookend leaving her hand as she spun. The stone bashed the side of his head, sending him reeling backward against the wall.
“You fucking—”
An arm wrapped around his throat, squeezing the words from his mouth. Lillian clung to his back. With a death grip she refused to let go. He thrust his head back, smashing it against some part of her face and forcing her retreat.
Come to me. The stray thought pushed through the jet, latching on to the minds of several Barren. Without question, they would come, they would defend him. Shaking his head, he focused on the two women. One he wanted, the other meant nothing to him.
Dikeledi leaned forward, preparing to jump at him. Were either of them average women, he might be able to best them physically, but their gifts made them more than dangerous. Ivan let out a breath as Dikeledi started to charge. All movement in the room slowed until the individuals in the room froze. In the distance, a clap of thunder shook the plane, causing the lights to flicker then turn off, thrusting them in the darkness.
Ivan laughed, for he was the darkness.
* * * * *
Dikeledi’s flesh tore away as the wings of a great serpent extended from her shoulders. Vanessa let the husk of the empath fall to shreds as she rushed Ivan. Her sword erupted into flame as she drew it. The wings beat once, propelling her forward to lunge the blade into Ivan’s neck. The loose skin of an old man gave away, separating for the tempered metal as she buried it into his throat.
Vanessa’s knee drove into his torso, sending him backward with her riding him on the way to the ground. She pulled the sword from his chest and spun about to see faint outlines of Dikeledi, Jacob, and Lillian suspended in the darkness, only a dim light radiating from their bodies.
Ivan's presence lingered even as the corpse at her feet faded into the darkness. Vanessa spun the sword until her talons clutched the handle, then thrust it down until it sank into an imaginary ground. Flaring to life, a rush of fire burst outward, pushing away the black veil, revealing a stone courtyard and the exterior wall of the church in Boston.
At the edge of the circle where the light dissipated into an endless black, she found Ivan. He stepped forward, the shadows peeling away from his body as he moved closer. Unsettlingly the man still wore the Warden. The bulky frame would be intimidating in a fistfight, but now it was the black eyes and toothy grin alarming her.
“The two most powerful telepaths on the planet.” He slid his hands into his pockets, calm, unbothered by the gargoyle contemplating his death. “It’s only fitting that we meet like only we can, Vanessa. Don’t you think?”
“This ends,” she hissed at him.
“I do agree.” The Warden nodded his head. “But it won’t end how you want.”
Shrill screams filled the space Vanessa turned to see Dikeledi, Jacob and Lillian in cages, terrified as they shook the metal bars sealing them in. She gasped. While Lillian and Jacob were locked away, trapped within their bodies, prisoners, it was Dikeledi that stung, caged by Vanessa’s dirty tactics.
“I’m impressed with you, Angel. I did not think you had it in you to rape another person’s mind so completely.”
“Humanity is at stake.”
The Warden laughed. “It’s funny you should use that word. Humanity? You fight for these humans, and yet”—he gestured to the horrified Dikeledi, her face pressed into the bars, reaching out in agony—“and yet, you sacrificed your own humanity.”
Vanessa felt the jab to her chest, a sting strong enough she examined her chest for a wound. The armor normally accompanying her mental image was missing, and instead, she watched as the blood pumped from an wound in her chest. Shaking her head, she refused to let the Warden, Ivan, distract her from the only thing that mattered.
Vanessa contemplated the pilot, using Dikeledi’s empathy. The despair of losing to the Warden pushed outward, wrapping itself around the pilot. With a slight push from her, he’d turn suicidal and with luck, he’d push the plane into a nosedive. She pushed, only to find a barrier protected the man. Ivan, a sneer on his face, caught her in an act of desperation.
“I am going to kill you.” With her free arm out to the side, the sword vanished from the ground and materialized in her hand. Closing her fingers around the hilt, she brought the weapon in front of her, preparing to charge.
“My dear Angel, it seems you don’t understand what’s about to happen.”
The shadows themselves started to creep, wrapping about her neck and wings. With a flash of the sword, she severed the tendrils, leaving them withering on the ground. Shadowy figures broke from the darkness, storming forward.
“You’re only here, because this is where I wanted you.”
* * * * *
He admired the grace in which the telepath moved. A lesser woman, a lesser mentalist may have struggled, or even frozen amidst the overwhelming odds. But with each swipe of her blade, she vanquished another shadow, a demon conjured by his imagination. A master of the gifts bestowed on her by Nostradamus. Wings acted like weapons, slicing through shadow after shadow, launching her into the air, bringing her down in a thunderous roar.
As each shadow wiped from existence, he experienced a tiny pinprick, as if it were a distant memory. The Child of Nostradamus, the one mind he admired on a planet of billions, attempted to smite his lesser extensions.
The Angel had the ability to mentally eradicate the shadows without so much effort. The motions, the swing of the sword, the steps, none of them made sense for a warrior attacking the masses. As shadows vaporized, he discovered it was more by accident than by prowess. Perhaps in desperation, Vanessa wasn’t as collected as he anticipated.
In a realm with no environment, he shuddered at the manifestation of a cool breeze grazing his arms. The smoke he’d grown accustomed to using as his mental form started to blow away revealing fleshy, wrinkled skin. The hands he held out weren’t the hands of a young, virile Jacob, but the ancient hands he’d forsaken decades ago. He turned his attention to Vanessa just as her wings launched her skyward.
The woman’s body shone with a brilliant white light and for a moment, he pondered if she was falling back on her angelic ways. As the wind intensified, the brilliant shimmer grew. The poor fighting was in exchange of graceful movements. The wind grew stronger and the woman’s actions grew clearer as her wings tucked tightly by her side and she crashed into the ground. The woman bolstered her abilities, meditating with some form of martial arts.
A tricky misdirection, he thought.
A flood of light erupted outward from the woman causing the shadows to fall backward, blown away like ash. Ivan braced himself to keep his feet sliding along an unseen ground. The smoke about him vanished, leaving him nothing more than a man to stand against the gargoyle.
Even as she defied him, pushing back against the inevitable, he found himself seduced by her power. He wanted to
run his hands along her body, to touch her skin, and as he wrapped his hands around her throat, he wanted to hear the woman submit. No, he didn’t want to hear—he wanted to feel her submit as Ivan conquered another mind.
“No words?”
He waited for an answer to his question while attending to events occurring in the physical world. Splitting his attention was never difficult, but he found himself caught up in the glee he was undoubtedly about to experience. The smile crept here, there, across the face of everybody he controlled.
Far away, in the physical world, he touched her hand. Vanessa, the Child of Nostradamus, former Angel of the Outlands—he shuddered at the sensation of his fingers caressing her skin. Never had he found the woman to his taste sexually, but for a moment, he pondered the intensity of bedding her. He found himself aroused as he contemplated the power of the firm jaw beneath his fingertips.
The woman’s confusion—her brow furrowed, her head cocked to one side—spoke volumes. Her lack of understanding didn’t slow her charge forward, sword lifted, the bright light growing.
Ivan rested comfortably, his attention leaving the physical world and concentrating on the mental battle, or lack thereof.
Vanessa’s charged halted as she slammed into an invisible barrier. The light diminished as the sword fell from her hands into the growing shadows. Claws flashed as she struck against the nothing. Wings flapped, and he laughed as a ceiling held her down. Dikeledi would writhe in ecstasy to taste her panic.
“What is this?” Vanessa screamed.
Ivan stepped to the perfectly smooth glass barricade separating them. Vanessa turned, attempting to free herself, smashing into wall after wall. The prison surrounding her tightened until she could do nothing but stand upright.
“Fight me,” she screamed.
“I have been,” he said. “But not here.”
* * * * *
The monitor in the hospital broke the silence, a steady rhythm already grating on his nerves. Vanessa lay in the bed, her arms held in shackles and her wings pinned by large metal cages. The metal at her right cuff had been bent, warped by the woman’s uncanny strength.