I pulled Ed Regis’s pistol from its holster and, flipping off the safety, fired a few random shots at the Seraphim too. If we were all going to die here, then at least I wanted to die fighting.
Suddenly I found myself face to face with James, who hollered, “We gotta get down to twenty! There’s a trapdoor over there!”
“Ed Regis doesn’t have his chute yet!” I shouted back over the wind and explosions.
“Doesn’t matter!” screamed James. “Stay here and we’re all dead!”
I heard Alia call into my head, “Addy!”
“Alia!” I shouted as I realized that I was no longer holding her hand. “Where are you?!”
“I’ve got her,” called Ed Regis from my left. “Come on! Let’s go!”
James was holding his own pistol in his right hand and what looked like Terry’s in his left, and he simultaneously fired a few covering rounds from both at the Seraphim coming down Raider’s trapdoor.
“Heads down!” he shouted. “Crawl forward!”
I saw Ed Regis discard his rifle and push Alia ahead of him as James led us through the firefight. Bringing up the rear, I followed closely behind Ed Regis’s feet.
But the Seraphim weren’t only coming in from Raider’s bedroom. Other explosions had opened up several entry points, and the Seraphim were dropping down into Twenty Point Five from all around us now. Using the concrete columns for cover, the remaining Guardians were doing all they could to hold the Angel forces back, but we were being swarmed. As I crawled behind Ed Regis toward wherever it was that James was leading us, I saw three Guardians die. One of them was screaming horribly as she was engulfed in pyroid flames. It was Willow.
“Down the hole!” shouted James, nodding toward a small square opening in the floor. “Go! Go!”
He rolled over and sat up on the concrete. Aiming his pistols in separate directions, he fired them both empty as Alia and then Ed Regis dove headfirst into the trapdoor.
“Go!” James shouted again as I scrambled forward. “Get down there!”
I was about to dive in, but the next instant I saw James’s body shudder violently as a dozen rounds of gunfire ripped into his chest. I felt his warm blood spatter onto my face. Even over the screaming wind and incessant gunshots, I clearly heard the sick hissing sound of the air leaving his lungs. James opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out, and I knew that this wasn’t the kind of thing my sister could heal.
James fell heavily onto his back. His eyes followed mine as I crouched next to him.
“Go, Adrian…” he slowly mouthed, blood pouring from his lips. “Finish this.”
I nodded once, and then pulled myself into the trapdoor.
I fell down onto a springy mattress. It was a bedroom with the lights dimmed so that the Seraphim above wouldn’t easily spot the trapdoor. Hands grabbed me and pulled me off the bed. A small but painfully bright light was shined into my face.
“Richard!” said Terry, pulling me toward the only door. “Where’s Jack?! He went back up to find you! Where is he?!”
I shook my head, still dazed from what I had just seen. James’s eyes were still looking at me.
“Where is he?” Terry asked frantically. “Didn’t you see him?!”
I shook my head again and mumbled, “He’s gone, Terry. He’s gone.”
In the next room, I found a handful of Guardians including Ed Regis, Alia, Mark and Mr. Jenson. Alia was helping heal the badly burned right arm of one of the Knights.
“How many more of ours up there, Richard?” Mark asked me.
“I don’t know,” I breathed. Using my sleeve, I wiped most of James’s blood from my face, which cleared my head a little. “I think they’re mostly dead.”
“Alright, let’s close it up,” said Mark. “We’ve got to move quickly.”
The Knights sealed the trapdoor, but we weren’t out of danger yet. Not by a mile. Aside from what was left of my team, there was Mark and Mr. Jenson and eight other Knights here. That totaled only fourteen people.
“We couldn’t get to our parachutes, so we’re going by the shaft,” announced Mark.
Lumina Nonus was still without power, which was to our advantage at the moment because this meant the security cameras couldn’t spot us as we left the condo and headed toward the elevator. The Seraphim had all attacked from the twenty-first floor, and none were on the twentieth yet.
The Knights pried open the elevator’s double doors, and in we went, single file down the iron service ladder. The inside of the elevator shaft was too dark to see far in either direction. Under more normal circumstances, this would have been a harrowing experience in its own right, but after what we had just escaped, no one complained or hesitated in the least.
Instead of telekinetically hovering my way down, I used the ladder like everyone else. I had wiped my face as well as I could but I was still being slightly drained by James’s blood. Besides, I wanted to save my psionic power in case I needed it later.
The last Knight in had closed the elevator doors so that we wouldn’t be tracked. We got to the bottom of the shaft in good time and without Angel contact.
Gesturing to the double doors that led to the basement parking lot, Mark whispered, “They could be right outside.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Terry. “Open it.”
The Knights who still had guns trained them on the doors. I had lost Ed Regis’s pistol somewhere, but I prepared a focused blast in my right index finger as Mark and Mr. Jenson carefully pried the doors open.
There was nothing waiting for us.
We climbed out of the shaft and into the basement parking lot. The fluorescent tubes lining the ceiling were all dead, and by now the outside was so dark that very little light shined down the exit ramp into the parking lot.
“It’s too damn quiet,” said Ed Regis. “They didn’t even close the shutter on the exit ramp.”
“That’s the only way out,” said Mark. “It could be a trap but we can’t stay here.”
Mark turned to Mr. Jenson, saying, “Sharky, set us up.”
“Alright,” said Mr. Jenson. “Three trains, five, five and four. Once outside, we’ll split up and head to our designated safe houses.”
Mr. Jenson quickly divided up the Knights so that he and Mark would each lead a group of five, leaving Terry, Alia, Ed Regis and me in the last group. As train leaders, Mr. Jenson and Mark would have to keep their eyes visible in order to see where they were going, but that meant attentive Seraphim around Nonus could spot them. I wasn’t going to take that chance.
“I’ll lead my team, Sharky,” I told Mr. Jenson. “No eyes.”
“Are you sure, Richard?” asked Mr. Jenson.
“You know me,” I said. “I don’t get lost in the dark.”
“But do you know where you’re going?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
Mark said to me, “Do you remember that store across from the pool you used to swim at during the summers?”
I nodded.
“Don’t lose your cloak until you’re inside the store. If the front door is locked, move around to the back from the left side. There’s a back door that will be open.”
“Got it. Will we see you there?”
“Not for a few days. I’ll be at a different safe house until this blows over.” Mark looked around at us. “Good luck, all of you. I’m sorry about your friend.”
We didn’t have a rope this time so we had to hold hands. Terry hooked the back of my shirt and put Alia behind her, followed by Ed Regis who brought up the rear.
Then Mr. Jenson turned all of us invisible from head to toe. As my world flickered into oblivion, I realized my mistake: I didn’t even have a stick to guide me.
But it was too late to do anything about it. The other two teams were already on the move. I remembered the general direction of the exit ramp and started walking, choking a little as Terry’s hook pulled on the back of my shirt.
“Keep pace,” I croaked.
Walking blind, my own pace was probably much slower than Mark’s and Mr. Jenson’s, but after counting roughly fifty paces, my left hand found what I believed to be the concrete wall that would lead us up the exit ramp. I soon found the incline with my feet and, running my left hand fingertips along the wall, I slowly led my team upwards.
I guessed the other two trains were already well out of Nonus, and I still didn’t hear any sounds of fighting. I knew that this ramp led up onto a fairly large street with plenty of non-faction people. The Seraphim would be unable to attack us once we were outside.
We reached the top of the ramp and stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Suddenly Terry’s hook yanked on my shirt, pulling me down as I heard several surprised yelps and my vision instantly returned.
Looking around, I discovered that a suited businessman had walked right into our invisible train, tripping over Alia and falling facedown onto the sidewalk. Our train had lost its cloak upon impact. So much for the no-eyes plan.
Painfully picking himself up and looking utterly bewildered, the man said to Alia, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. I was running and–”
“It’s okay,” said Ed Regis, shoving the man away and frantically looking around for more serious threats.
Terry, Alia and I looked around too, but there were no Seraphim in sight.
We were no longer carrying any guns, having lost them during the firefight in Twenty Point Five, but our group still stood out on the street: Despite the February chill, we didn’t have winter jackets. Our clothes were dirty and bloodstained, and Terry was wearing her hook.
“Let’s go,” said Terry.
We quickly made our way down the sidewalk between small piles of shoveled snow. My heart was still racing and I hardly noticed the cold.
When we tried to turn a corner, we were met by a team of six dark-suited Seraphim. They recognized us instantly, but they didn’t attack. There were still plenty of pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars running up and down the street.
The Seraph team leader stepped forward and looked around at us. His eyes stopped on Terry’s hook for a second, and then he said to me, “Adrian Howell, I presume?”
I nodded as Alia gripped my left hand. I instinctively prepared a blast in my right.
The leader smiled like a peacemaker. “If you will quietly come with us, the rest of your team may go free.”
“I’ve heard lies like that before,” I replied evenly.
“We control the law in this town,” said the leader. “If you refuse, we can simply have you arrested by the police.”
Ed Regis took a step forward and growled, “You’ll have to call them first.”
“Come on,” said Terry, pulling on my arm and leading us in the opposite direction. “Don’t even look back. They can’t touch us if we stay in the open.”
“But we can’t go to the safe house like this,” I argued. “They’ll follow us there.”
The Seraphim were trailing us at a distance of only about ten yards.
“I’ll think of something,” said Terry.
We continued walking. The Seraphim kept pace. The park was just ahead of us now, and I suspected that Terry wanted to lead the Angels inside and deal with them there.
That was when we noticed the flashing red and blues of a police car coming up the road from behind us.
I heard the Seraph team leader call out, “I beg of you not to resist.”
“Run?” I whispered.
“Now!” shouted Terry.
We sprinted down the sidewalk, Ed Regis in the lead pushing people out of our way. The police siren began to blare. Over it, I heard the Seraph leader shout at his team, “No! Don’t shoot! You’ll hit him!”
Drivers slammed on their brakes as we cut across an intersection and into the park.
“Get off the path,” said Ed Regis as he picked Alia up in his arms without breaking pace. “Straight line to the other side!”
We ran through a snow-covered field, through a line of trees, across a jogging path and into another field.
“Angels on our nine!” warned Terry.
“I see them,” said Ed Regis.
I saw them too. Another small band of Seraphim had broken through a line of trees to our left and were headed our way.
As Ed Regis led us diagonally away from them, I heard one of the Seraphim shout, “Hold your fire! It’s Adrian Howell! Hold your fire!”
“They sure are hell-bent on keeping you alive!” said Terry as we followed Ed Regis through a clump of bushes.
“Lucky me,” I panted, using my telekinesis to help me keep pace.
“Fly, Addy,” said Alia. “They’re not after us.”
I shook my head. “Yes they are and you know it.”
There were no witnesses here and the only reason that the Seraphim weren’t attacking was because they didn’t want to risk killing me. If I flew away now, Terry, Alia and Ed Regis would either be shot to death or captured.
Crossing another small clearing and pushing through a few more bushes, we found ourselves on the sidewalk at the other end of the park. A few pedestrians stopped to stare at us as we brushed the twigs and snow off of our wet, tattered clothes.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Keep going,” said Ed Regis, setting Alia back down onto the sidewalk.
We jogged forward, but I had a feeling that even Ed Regis didn’t really know where we were going. Maybe the Seraphim couldn’t attack us in the open, but there was no doubt that police backup was on the way. Soon they would be joined by the Wolves, who also worked for the Angels now. I strained my ears for the sound of helicopters, but none had found us yet.
A distant voice from behind us shouted, “Adrian Howell! Stop!”
It was the Seraph team that had intercepted us in the park. They were still more than a hundred yards away but catching up fast. We picked up our pace too.
A deep telepathic voice growled into my head, “Stop this nonsense right now, Adrian Howell, or we will be forced to open fire.”
Go ahead, I thought savagely. Save me the trouble.
“Hey! Stop!” another voice called. “Richard! Tiffany!”
At the sound of our aliases, we immediately stopped running and spun around.
A large black van screeched to a halt beside us, bumping its tires up onto the curb as the driver shouted, “Need a lift?”
“Raider!” I cried.
“Get in!”
Ed Regis opened the side door and we all jumped inside as the Seraphim closed in on us.
A fireball impacted on the back of the van, cracking the rear window.
“Go!” shouted Terry. “Go! Go! Go!”
As the van lurched forward, I heard the Seraph leader shout, “No! Goddamn it! Hold your fire!”
I telekinetically slid the side door closed as the van picked up speed.
“Marion!” exclaimed Alia.
Marion was sitting in the back seat, eyes closed and seemingly unconscious.
“Everyone, hang on!” shouted Raider.
Ignoring the lanes, Raider weaved his van through the traffic until we were clear of the Lumina area. I kept a tense lookout for police cars and military helicopters, but saw none, and soon Raider slowed down and joined the flock of cars headed toward the river at the city’s edge.
“Thanks, Raider,” I said, breathing easier. “We thought the Seraphim had arrested you.”
Raider grinned in the rearview mirror. “So did the Seraphim. But there were only two of them and they thought I would come peacefully. Lucky for you guys too, huh, Richard?”
“Adrian,” I said quietly. “My name’s Adrian.”
“I know that, Adrian,” said Raider. “But don’t expect me to tell you my name in return. You probably already know it from my daughter anyway.”
I did, but if he wanted to continue being called Raider, that was fine by me.
“What’s wrong with Marion?” I asked, incredulous that the kid could have slept throu
gh our escape. “Is she alright?”
“She’s fine,” Raider said reassuringly. “I had to drug her a little to keep her safe and quiet. She’ll wake in a few hours.”
“We were told to go to a safe house, Raider,” said Terry. “It’s–”
Raider cut her off, saying, “Forget the safe house! My cover’s been blown. I’m going to get us out of the city once.”
Raider’s black van had tinted windows. Terry and I sat in the middle seat while Alia sat between Marion and Ed Regis in the back. I looked at the empty seat next to Raider. If James had been with us, that’s where he would have been sitting.
There were still no police cars or helicopters in sight, but I couldn’t be sure that we weren’t being followed by Seraphim in unmarked vehicles. Still, I remembered that Raider was a psionic hider in addition to a delver, and that he would have put a hiding field around his van as we left the protection of Cindy’s giant bubble over Lumina.
“So, what happened to the command center?” asked Raider, keeping his eyes on the road. “I heard it was attacked.”
“Twenty Point Five is lost,” Terry reported bitterly. “They completely cleared us out.”
I heard my sister let out a quiet sob from behind me.
Raider asked, “How the hell did they find us?”
Not wanting to bring up Alia’s mistake, Terry said simply, “They just did, Raider.”
“I suppose it was only a matter of time,” said Raider. “Our casualties?”
“About half of us got out,” said Terry. “Proton was already outside, and Jacob made it out too. But we split up at the exit so I don’t know if the others reached their hideouts.”
“What about your buddy? Jack, was it?”
Terry didn’t reply.
“James,” I told Raider. “He’s dead.”
Raider nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Alia whimpered from the back, “I’m sorry.”
Guardian Angel (Psionic Pentalogy Book 5) Page 21