Guardian Angel (Psionic Pentalogy Book 5)

by Adrian Howell

  Alia stared back at her in stony-faced silence.

  Only two seats. James and I looked at each other. After a moment of awkward silence, James nodded and said, “You go, Adrian. You and Terry are the ones who need to ask the questions.”

  “Personally, I would rather it was you,” I said honestly. “But you’re probably right. We’ll try to call you from the outpost.”

  In addition to Mrs. Harding, Terry and me, the van carried five more, all Knights including Mr. Beryl. We weren’t blindfolded this time, but Mr. Beryl later deleted our memories of the roundtrip. In fact, the only part of my visit to the Wood-claw outpost that I remember starts as Terry and I accompany Mrs. Harding down a flight of creaky wooden stairs into a musty basement. The other Knights that came with us in the van stayed upstairs.

  We stepped into a makeshift jail cell of concrete and bricks. Scott and two other Wood-claw Knights were there, including Hammer, the grumpy Knight who had originally driven us into Wood-claw. He still looked ill-tempered, but he had good reason this time and he wasn’t the only one.

  The Seraphim were both dead.

  “We’re sorry,” Hammer said to Mrs. Harding. “They were alive until a short time ago.”

  The corpses sat slumped down on the floor, their backs resting against the far wall. Their wrists and ankles shackled, the Seraphim had been psionically drained and completely immobilized with heavy iron chains. Their heads were both bloody messes.

  “What happened here?” demanded Mrs. Harding.

  Hammer explained, “We caught them by surprise and managed to restrain them without too much trouble. But then, down here, we made the mistake of leaving them unattended for a few minutes. No more than five minutes, but it was enough.”

  I looked at the limp bodies again and realized what had happened. Unable to escape, unable to even move, the Seraphim had bashed their heads against the concrete wall over and over until their skulls cracked open.

  “We just didn’t expect them to kill themselves,” the other Knight said apologetically.

  “Why not?” I asked, frustrated.

  “Randal Divine’s converts don’t often commit suicide,” explained Scott. “They prefer to fight to the death, and even when they’re caught, they never give up trying to fight.”

  Actually, I did know this. But that signified something even more important which Terry voiced first. “These guys weren’t ordinary scouts,” she said, frowning at the corpses. “They knew something.”

  “If they knew anything important, why were they being used as scouts?” asked Scott.

  “Maybe they weren’t scouts at all,” suggested Terry. “Maybe they found this place by accident or something. Whatever the case, they didn’t want to risk being delved.”

  “That’s for sure,” I muttered, staring at all the blood covering the dead men’s faces and stuck to their hair. It wasn’t the kind of suicide that just anyone could handle. Not like chugging sleeping pills or jumping off a bridge. You had to be converted to do something this crazy.

  Another dead end. We had seen many on the road this year. But this dead end was an especially frustrating one. After all, these Seraphim had killed themselves to avoid interrogation, which practically proved that they had something that could have helped us. Perhaps just a link to another link to yet another, but that still might have taken us all the way to the king himself. And to the queen.

  “We need to find out who they were,” Terry said quietly. “And more importantly, who they knew.”

  “We can start with the Wolf database,” I suggested. “Did these guys have any ID?”

  “No,” said Scott. “We found nothing at all on them.”

  “Then let’s wash their faces and take some pictures.”

  Fortunately, most of the damage to their heads was on the backs and sides, so once we wiped the blood off of their faces, we got fairly decent mug shots of them. We also took fingerprints and hair samples, and Scott informed us that one of the men had been a peacemaker while the other was a light-foot. Evidence in hand, we returned to Wood-claw, arriving just in time for a steak dinner that Alia and Ed Regis had prepared for us. But I had lost most of my appetite.

  “Sorry we couldn’t call,” I said to James. “It didn’t go as planned.”

  “Things rarely do,” commented James. “So what did you find out?”

  I preferred our dinner conversation to be about something other than people bashing their own skulls apart in desperate suicide, but James and Ed Regis were eager to be filled in, so I let Terry make our report.

  “We need to know who these guys are,” said Terry, passing the pictures of the Seraphim’s faces to Ed Regis.

  Ed Regis frowned. “Unfortunately, the portable version of the database doesn’t have face or fingerprint matching. I’d need access to the main database at my old office to do a proper search.”

  “Except that your office belongs to someone else now,” James pointed out.

  “We’ll just have to sift through the mugs on the portable and see if we can match up the faces on our own,” said Ed Regis.

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “There are enough entries in the database to take years, but I’ll start with the most likely suspects. I can search by psionic powers and affiliations. Still, it could take several weeks, and that’s assuming their faces really are in the database.”

  “We’re gone the day after tomorrow,” James reminded him. “You promised to leave the database in Wood-claw.”

  “That is a problem,” admitted Ed Regis.

  “I have a better idea,” said Terry. “We can just take these photos to the Resistance. They’ll have more current data on the Angels and might be able to identify them. These guys were important, after all.”

  “Agreed,” said Ed Regis. “But we should leave copies of these pictures with Scott and let him take a crack at it too. If he gets lucky, he can contact us in Lumina.”

  Alia had been silent throughout the entire meal, and remained so even after her bath.

  “You feel sorry for those men?” I asked as we got ready for the night.

  Alia winced. “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me, yes,” I said. “I feel sorry for them, too.”

  Alia looked up at me in surprise. “You do?”

  I nodded. “Those men did what they did because they were converted. They were victims of Randal and Catherine just like everyone else. They would have done anything for their master.”

  “You’re really scared of that, aren’t you, Addy?”

  “I’m not going to end up like them, Alia.”

  Alia gazed at me silently. I studied her face for a moment, and then cried exasperatedly, “Oh, for the last time, it’s just a precaution!”

  “A stupid precaution,” Alia said resentfully.

  “It helps me sleep.”

  Alia sighed and gave me a sympathetic smile. “Then you better try to convince Ed and Terry to change their minds.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay, Ali. You can keep the majority.”

  The next day was our last full day in Wood-claw. I spent much of it with Candace, who had taken a day off from work just to be with me. Privacy was still a rare commodity around here, but I asked Alia nicely and she agreed to spend the day out of our way.

  I hadn’t forgotten my vow or the Historian’s warning in my dream, but upon careful consideration, I had come to the conclusion that my vow was specifically about not having children. And I made sure that we didn’t. Aside from that detail, exactly how Candace and I spent our last day together is strictly need-to-know, as in you don’t.

  Finally, the day of our departure was upon us. We were leaving at 6am, but even so, a fair-size crowd had come to see us off. Alia huddled with her combat kids while the rest of us shook hands with the adults. James and I were given a round of applause by our security co-volunteers who assured us that our work had been flawless, though we remembered none of it. Terry also received much thanks for
her short but highly intensive combat courses, and even Ed Regis got a few handshakes.

  Goodbyes were always tough, but this one was especially hard for me. We had no idea how long we would be in Lumina or where we might head from there, so I couldn’t give Candace any assurances at all.

  “I really hope I see you again, Adrian,” Candace whispered into my good ear as we stood in tight embrace. “But if I don’t, it better not be for a lack of trying.”

  “I promise,” I said, and she kissed me in a way that made me levitate.

  When we broke apart, Candace said seriously, “Take care of Alia, okay?”

  “I always do,” I replied, touching my feet back down onto the floor.

  “And take care of yourself too.”

  “I’ll try.”

  I tried to kiss her again, but she stopped me. Taking a step back, Candace giggled and said playfully, “So you have something to come back for.”

  I smiled.

  One last round of goodbyes, thank-yous and well-wishing, and our five-man team was blindfolded and led down into the building’s basement parking lot and onto a van. Scott and Rachael accompanied us again along with Wood-claw’s Head of Security, Ms. Isabel “Tigress” Ferris. Our blindfolds were removed once our van was sufficiently away from the Wood-claw building.

  Although one of the reasons we had originally come to Wood-claw was so that Terry could recruit a few more Knights for a possible attack on an Angel stronghold, that plan had been put on indefinite hold, so we weren’t actually taking Scott, Rachael or Ms. Ferris into Lumina with us. It was just the five of us again.

  I looked over at Alia, who had the window seat next to me. My sister was silently staring outside, unfocused, watching the city go by. We passed into a tunnel. Catching my reflection in the glass, she turned to me and smiled.

  “Thanks, Addy,” she said quietly.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For not telling me to stay behind in Wood-claw.”

  “I wouldn’t have dared,” I said with a chuckle. Then I asked, “Are you still mad at me?”

  Alia shook her head.

  “What we do,” I said slowly, “and where we’re going now… is dangerous, Alia. I’m going to need you in my corner.”

  Alia nodded and whispered into my head, “Always.”

  Chapter 8: Raider and the Phantom Train

  Within an hour, we reached an airport at the edge of the city where a small chartered airplane was standing by. There we bid our driver, Scott, goodbye, but Rachael and Ms. Ferris boarded the airplane with us. We were asking the Guardian Resistance to break a few of their security protocols regarding access to their Lumina headquarters, so Ms. Ferris had agreed to come along and vouch for us. Rachael, of course, was our hider, and though she could have simply given us enough individual protection to last up to the handover, after what happened the last time, she didn’t want to take any chances.

  We landed in the nearest large city to Lumina early that evening. From there, Ms. Ferris drove us in a rented van to our rendezvous with the Resistance representatives who were in charge of smuggling us into the Angel city.

  I had been expecting our meeting to take place in some grimy back alley, or perhaps under a bridge, but it turned out to be nothing so secret-agent-ish like that. Instead, Ms. Ferris pulled our van into the parking lot of a large and expensive-looking Chinese restaurant. We parked alongside a dark purple minibus with tinted windows and off-road tires, which I guessed was our next transport. It certainly looked like the kind of vehicle the Guardians would use.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” said Ms. Ferris, cutting the engine.

  “I’m sure there are security cameras around the entrances,” I said nervously. “We are all wanted fugitives, you know.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” said Ms. Ferris. “The Guardians own this place.”

  Ms. Ferris led us inside, and we were taken to a private dining room on the second floor. One of the Resistance representatives was already there waiting for us. He was a well-built middle-aged man who looked enough like Ed Regis to make me wonder if he too was ex-military.

  “I’m Raider,” said the man, standing up to greet us but giving us only his Guardian call sign. “You don’t have to tell me your names, but I will need your handles or, if you don’t have one, a simple alias.”

  James and Ed Regis didn’t have Guardian call signs and I had no intention of going back to Hansel and Gretel. We gave Raider our most recent aliases: Richard, Alyssa, Tiffany, Jack and Edmund. Ms. Ferris gave her call sign, Tigress, and Rachael introduced herself as Rowan, though I didn’t know if that really was her official call sign or if she just made it up on the spot.

  “I believe one of you is also called Hansel?” asked Raider, looking between James and me.

  I reluctantly raised my hand. “That’s me.”

  “You are the leader of this team?”

  “That’s Tiffany,” I replied, gesturing toward Terry. “Also known as Rabbit.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Raider, glancing down at Terry’s hook.

  Ms. Ferris asked Raider, “Where is your associate?”

  “Exercising caution,” he replied curtly. “Your troublesome conditions have demanded it.”

  “Your leaders have agreed to our conditions,” countered Ms. Ferris.

  “It is nevertheless highly irregular,” said Raider. “Five people, all at once, including a young child.” He frowned at Alia, and then shared his frown with the rest of us as he added suspiciously, “And no delving allowed. Not even the adult.”

  Delving for secret motives was one of the standard security measures that the Resistance took with newcomers to their ranks. When arranging for our entry into Lumina, Mrs. Harding, at Terry’s request, had specifically asked that our team be exempt from this prescreening. Even Mrs. Harding hadn’t known the exact reason for this, but the Resistance leadership still agreed to let us in, probably because they desperately wanted Terry Henderson on their side.

  “They are not a threat to the Resistance,” said Ms. Ferris. “You have my word, under delving, on that account.”

  “Then I will ask you now, Tigress,” said Raider, who I realized was a delver himself. “Are these people, to the very best of your knowledge, who they claim to be?”

  “They are,” Ms. Ferris replied calmly.

  “Whom do they serve?” asked Raider.

  “They serve the cause of freedom.”

  Raider raised his eyebrows. “Not the cause of the Guardians?”

  Ms. Ferris shook her head. “To my understanding, they are, for the most part, independent.”

  “Whom do they hold as enemies?”

  “The forces of King Divine.”

  “Why do they refuse to be delved?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  Ms. Ferris didn’t answer aloud, but Raider seemed satisfied with what went through her mind.

  Raider nodded slowly, and then turned to Terry. “It’s Tiffany, now, is it? As Tigress says, our leadership trusts you enough to spare your team from divulging whatever secrets you are obviously keeping from us. However, I am the one who has to lead you in, and as a favor to me, I ask that you answer me just one question with your mind open.”

  Terry eyed him for a moment, and then nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “What brings your team to the Resistance?”

  “The freedom to do so,” replied Terry.

  Raider finally gave us a grudging smile. “Then you are welcome among us.” Heading toward the door, he said, “Wait here. I’ll go get my partner and then we will eat.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. After delving Ms. Ferris and Terry to make certain that we were enemies of King Divine, Raider had given us no reason to trust him in return. Who was to say there wasn’t a bomb planted under the dining table or something?

  Catching the uneasiness on my face, Raider said, “Hey, I’m trusting you guys, Hansel, so you’d
better trust me in return.”

  “Richard,” I corrected. “Trust is hard to come by these days.”

  Raider laughed. “Ain’t that the truth!”

  Raider was gone longer than I felt comfortable with, but at least the room didn’t explode. Instead, a pair of young waitresses in red and gold Chinese dresses set our table with the first wave of what would turn out to be an excellent ten-course meal.

  Raider returned just as I was about to suggest that we start eating without him. He was followed into the dining room by his partner, an older, gray-haired man who I instantly recognized.

  “Mr. Jenson!” I exclaimed, standing up in surprise.

  “Call signs only, Richard!” Raider said to me sharply, and then gestured to Mr. Jenson, saying, “This is Sharky. He will be our phantom for the crossing.”

  “It’s good to see you again,” said the phantom, shaking my hand.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” I said carefully. The last time I had talked to Mr. Jenson was at the gathering of lesser gods. I had threatened his life and forced him to help me turn invisible so that I could sneak into the Angel camp.

  Mr. Jenson showed no resentment at all, shaking Terry’s hand next as he said, “It is an honor to meet you again, um…”

  “It’s Tiffany now,” Terry informed him.

  “Tiffany, an honor,” said Mr. Jenson.

  Then he jumped in surprise. “Oh, my goodness!” he cried, looking down at my sister. “You’re the little healer from the gathering, aren’t you?”

  Nodding, Alia gave him a smile.

  “I never got the chance to thank you,” he said, shaking Alia’s hand. “The Guardian Council hadn’t yet finalized my re-initiation when New Haven fell. What is your name? I mean, what are you called?”

  “Alyssa,” Alia told him.

  “Thank you, Alyssa,” said Mr. Jenson.

  I asked Mr. Jenson, “You didn’t know it was going to be us?”

  “Actually, no,” said Mr. Jenson. “Raider had the details and I didn’t ask. In our operations, the less you know, the less a liability you can be if you’re caught.”

  “Sharky,” said Terry, gesturing to the rest of our group, “these are the other two members of my team, Edmund and Jack, and our friends, Tigress and Rowan.”