Guardian Angel (Psionic Pentalogy Book 5)

  Candace called it a miracle, but just as Dr. Greene had predicted, Alia’s recovery was a long and very painful climb. She still needed her feeding tube. It took months before she could start to move, and even then she could speak only with her telepathy, and only in very short sentences. Eventually, she learned to make sounds with her mouth and to walk with a cane.

  Candace sent me periodic updates. I was, of course, happy to hear of Alia’s progress, and I did make brief visits from time to time. But for the most part, I kept my distance. I had killed Alia once in my mind, and haunted by the memory of what I had done in the aftermath, I just couldn’t go back to being her Addy.

  Early the next year, when Alia was deemed fit to travel, Candace brought her to my house. Alia had lost a fair bit of her memory, some of which she would never regain, but she still remembered me. I insisted that she start calling me Adrian, and we talked quietly for many hours. I made no excuses as I gave her the full story. She nodded sadly and said that she understood, and that she forgave me. But I couldn’t forgive myself. When Alia asked if she could live with me again, I told her no.

  Instead, with Mark’s help, I enrolled Alia in a church-run all-girls boarding school where the teachers could attend to her special needs and rather unique personality. At first, I feared that a religious school might in some way be monitored by the God-slayers, but the good nuns knew how to keep a secret.

  Having never attended school before in her life, Alia was understandably apprehensive about her new environment, but she adapted quickly. From the cheerful messages she often sent me, I could only conclude that those were the best years of Alia’s childhood – what very little remained of it.

  Since she was no longer taking care of Alia, Candace suggested that she and I get back together and see if we could patch up our lives. Candace had also lost both of her parents and most of her relatives, and she had nowhere to go except perhaps back to Wood-claw. I pitied her, but I had no intention of patching up our lives.

  I couldn’t stay with Candace.

  It was mostly for the same reasons that I couldn’t stay with Alia. I had set out to die, and in a way, I really had died. Occasional reunions were tolerable, but I couldn’t live my day-to-day in the company of people who had been a part of those tumultuous years of my life. Not when I so desperately wanted to put them behind me.

  I begged Candace to understand that, but she didn’t. She insisted that us being together would heal my pain. Our final parting was very bitter, and I’m sorry for having hurt her so much.

  Shortly after I broke up with Candace, I joined a Meridian-funded expedition to the Historian’s mountain. There were a few bumps on the road, but we arrived intact.

  In his bizarrely decorated home office, the eccentric 3000-year-old child thanked me for my work, easily forgave me for breaking neutral ground at the Dog’s Gate, and outright refused to confirm or deny ever sending me dreamweaves.

  Laughing, he said enigmatically, “People never believe you when you say you’re innocent, so why are they so certain that you’re telling the truth if you say you’re guilty?”

  In retribution, I refused his request to read my past a second time, but he wasn’t very upset. I had completed my mission to restore chaos to the world of psionics, and that was enough for him.

  The Meridian envoy remained at the Historian’s mountain home for six days. As I waited, I considered a lifetime stay. Here I would be safe from anyone who might recognize me as the last living descendant of a lost master-controller bloodline. The servant Havel assured me that my skills as a cook would be most welcome in the Historian’s home.

  But in the end, I decided to risk the open world. No matter what the dangers, I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life under a rock.

  Back when I had set Cat’s house to explode, it had crossed my mind to just stay there and let myself die in the same blast. But I didn’t do that for two reasons. The first was that, in case Cat somehow survived the explosion, I had to make sure that I could finish the job. The second reason was that it felt like cheating. Cindy had wanted me to live.

  And so I returned to civilization and started planning out a new life.

  I had to be careful. With Ed Regis’s help, I changed every aspect of my identity. I had a new name, a new birth certificate, high school diploma, driver’s license, passport, everything. I also found a plastic surgeon who could make my bullet-torn right ear more presentable, no questions asked. Whenever necessary, I wore color contact lenses to balance out my eyes. I even had my P-47 tattoo removed.

  What I really wanted was to get out of the psionic world completely, and perhaps find a restaurant job somewhere far from any of the factions, but that just wasn’t going to happen. I never gained a second psionic power, and I was no hider. Alone, I constantly risked capture by factions that were looking to add new members to their fighting ranks.

  After some cautious searching, I finally found a small, independent psionic settlement where the members were willing to trust me without delving my mind. I freely admitted to them that I carried secrets, and they welcomed me because they needed to boost their defenses as the faction war rekindled.

  But I spent more time cooking than being a soldier. This settlement was much like Mrs. Harding’s in that it relied primarily on concealment. I was told by the leader not to unnecessarily rock the boat, and I certainly had no intention to. I knew that this was the place for me.

  But even there, I never fully lost touch with my former life.

  I occasionally met with Scott’s family in Wood-claw, and continued to visit Cindy in New Haven. Alia still sent me stories about her life at her boarding school and told me how much she missed being my little sister.

  The years passed.

  I started dating a woman who, for once, wasn’t taller than me, and we got along so well that we almost started a family together. However, a few months into our engagement, we hit a brick wall. She wanted children; I had sworn not to. Personally, I would have been happy just to adopt, but she desperately wanted her own, so we went our separate ways. I felt guilty about being unable to tell her why I couldn’t have children. She never knew what I was, and since I had no intention of telling her, perhaps such a union based on lies would never have worked anyway.

  Meanwhile, Alia, having graduated high school, returned to New Haven to work at the Guardian hospital in NH-3. It was the perfect place for a powerful healer, especially because there Alia could see Cindy again. When I had first talked to Alia after her coma, she had told me that she couldn’t remember anything about her adoptive mother, which was really sad. I suspected that Alia’s memory had recovered a bit more since then. She wanted to be near Cindy again, and to take care of her. That I understood.

  But Alia didn’t stay in the hospital forever.

  She started dating a young doctor there named Daniel (yes, the same one) who she married the year after Mark’s death. The wedding was held in Mark’s old church. Scott was the best man this time, and though I would have preferred to just sit and watch, Alia insisted that I walk her down the aisle. I knew better than to argue.

  Daniel and Alia settled down together in a condo several floors above the hospital in New Haven Three. Though Alia’s past injuries prevented her from ever having children, she seemed happy with her married life.

  But that ended the following year when Daniel was killed in a flash raid by the Angels. The Guardian Council, overconfident in New Haven’s unified strength, hadn’t been as prepared for the Angels as they thought they were. In addition to Alia’s husband, seven other Guardians were killed, including two small children.

  From then on, though Alia continued to work as a healer in NH-3, she turned more and more to politics, hoping to save lives by influencing Council policy. Through hard work and some celebrity status being New Haven’s youngest-ever Honorary Guardian Knight, Alia soon earned herself a position on the New Haven Council. She was just twenty-seven years old when she took office: yet another youngest-
ever record broken.

  A few years later, when a scandal involving the Guardians and the Meridian left the head of the Council permanently banished from New Haven, Alia Gifford was sworn in as the new leader of the Guardians.

  I guess some people’s lives are just meant to be extraordinary. Some people really are meant for greatness, not because it’s their destiny, but rather simply by the nature of their character and the principles they live by.

  For myself, I wanted none of that, and I was glad to be living a simple life. With the exception of very occasional, unavoidable destroyer work, I lived my life peacefully, hoping that someday I really would find peace. I enjoyed the smaller things in life: neighborly friendship, clean air, a hot meal, a soothing bath and a soft bed. I did a fair bit of gardening too.

  I still woke up breathless from time to time, but it wasn’t as bad as before.

  So I told myself that someday my world really would be still and silent, and that I would stop hearing the screams. And I believed it, too. Especially in the summertime, as I watched the sun slowly rise and felt its comforting warmth on my face, I believed it with all my heart.

  But if you think that this is the end of my story, then you are dead wrong. Stories don’t actually end in real life. They just linger, or smolder on, until the next chapter. But as for how much of my story I’m going to share, well, I’ll write one more chapter and then I’m done. Read it and perhaps you’ll understand why.

  Chapter 21: The Boy Who Came Home

  The well-waxed silver sports sedan glinted in the sunlight as it came to a smooth stop in front of my vegetable garden where I had been plucking a few wayward weeds. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I looked up from my work as two women stepped out of the car’s rear doors.

  The driver who had escorted the women into our settlement was a trusted member of my security team. I stood up and frowned at him through the windshield. It was part of my job here to know when psionics visited from other factions. No one had told me about this visit.

  But I wasn’t too alarmed: I recognized one of the women. She was a high-ranking Guardian Knight, and my faction was on very good terms with the Guardians.

  “Andy Kellogg, it’s been way too long,” said the Knight, coming up to me and extending her arm out.

  “Hello, Susan,” I said, wiping my dirty fingers on my shirt before shaking her hand.

  “Rabbit,” she corrected, reminding me of her Guardian call sign.

  “Where?” I teased, looking around my garden.

  Susan chuckled. Then she gestured to her partner, a muscular, blond-haired woman who appeared to be in her early twenties. “This is my associate, Vixen.”

  “Good afternoon, Vixen,” I said as I shook the young Knight’s hand.

  Vixen was a double-destroyer, combining formidable telekinetic and pyroid powers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kellogg,” she said politely. “May we come in?”

  “Certainly,” I replied, escorting them into my air-conditioned living room. At least we could do away with the fake identities once we were indoors.

  As I served them iced lemonade, the women exchanged a mysterious, knowing glance.

  Then Susan grinned as she asked me, “You don’t recognize her at all, do you, Adrian?”

  “I’ve been away for a while,” I reminded her.

  Susan’s grin widened as she gestured to Vixen and explained, “This is Ms. Laila Land, who recently transferred into my Lancer unit.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a little awkward. “I’m sorry, Ms. Land, you were… uh… smaller when I last saw you.”

  Laila Land laughed and then gave me a little bow. “I’ve heard so much about you, Mr. Howell.”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll deny it,” I assured her.

  Then I turned to Susan again, saying, “I’m sorry you were sent all the way out here, but my answer is still no.”

  It had been “no” all summer. After two decades of dedicated service, Ed Regis was finally retiring as Head of Council Security, and Alia had been begging me to take his place at her side. It was absurd. I hadn’t seen combat in more than four years.

  “Adrian, please,” said Susan. “We are not here to–”

  “I am not returning to New Haven,” I told her firmly. “You’d think that after all these years, they would have figured that out by now.”

  Susan shook her head. “Ms. Gifford requests an audience with you on an entirely different matter.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. “What?”

  “We can’t tell you,” said Susan. Catching the look in my eyes, she added hastily, “Because we don’t know.”

  “Our orders are simply to deliver you to New Haven, sir,” said Laila Land.

  “First of all, please don’t call me ‘sir,’ Ms. Land,” I said. “Second, I don’t jump on the Guardians’ say-so.”

  “We’ve already made our request to your settlement leader,” said Susan. “It is his order that you accompany us.”

  “You talked to him directly?” I asked, annoyed. “I’m Head of Security here, Susan. Those kinds of requests have to be passed through me.”

  “I know!” laughed Susan. “But you would have refused.”

  I scowled at her. “When do we leave?”

  “Now,” she said crisply. “You have fifteen minutes to pack. We have a flight to catch.”

  “At least finish your drinks,” I said.

  They took me to a small private airfield at the edge of town. I sat in the chartered helicopter feeling irate and uncomfortable. I didn’t like surprises and I hated mysteries, and being snatched away by a pair of Guardian Knights in broad daylight for reasons they themselves didn’t know stank of both.

  We arrived in New Haven in the early evening of the next day.

  I wasn’t actually under arrest or anything, but Susan and Laila insisted on escorting me through the NH-1 lobby security. They even wanted to come up the elevator to the penthouse with me, but I stopped them.

  “No, Susan,” I said dryly. “You’ve already dragged me halfway across the country without knowing what for, so you might as well stay on need-to-know.”

  “You’re probably right,” agreed Susan. “The way things are these days, the less you know, the longer you live.”

  I shook hands with her and Laila once more before stepping into the elevator alone.

  On the fortieth floor, two security guards stood sandwiching the front door to Alia Gifford’s penthouse. The guards recognized me and opened the door.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Kellogg,” said one of the guards. “We’re under orders not to accompany you.”

  Giving them a curt nod, I stepped into the penthouse living room.

  The Guardian leader looked pretty much the same as I remembered her from our last meeting: a short, slender woman in her mid-thirties with long walnut-brown hair that almost reached the small of her back.

  “Adrian Howell reporting in as ordered, Ms. Gifford,” I said as she rushed up to me and hugged me tightly.

  “It’s so good to see you again, Adrian,” Alia said happily into my head.

  “I can tell,” I laughed, hugging her back a little before pulling myself free. I noticed the unicorn pendant around her neck and gave it a light telekinetic tug. “Are you still wearing that every day?”

  “I like it,” she said simply. Then she frowned. “You haven’t been back here since Cindy’s funeral. That’s almost a year now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve been busy.”

  Alia led me into the kitchen, dragging her left leg a little as she always did. She hadn’t needed a cane since graduating high school, but she would probably never lose the limp.

  Opening the refrigerator, Alia pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured two tall glasses for us. Neither of us drank coffee regularly. I carried the glasses as I followed Alia into the dining room. We sat together around the corner of her large oak table.

  “My faction is getting bigger, Alia,” I insisted as I sipped my
juice. “There’s just more work these days.”

  “I’m not stupid, you know,” Alia said in a sullen tone.

  I grinned. “I would never dream of accusing the leader of a major psionic faction of being stupid.”

  Alia didn’t smile. “You used to come to New Haven four or five times a year back when Cindy was alive. And on our birthdays, too.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been around more,” I said quietly.

  “Is it really that painful for you to come see me?”

  I looked away. “It’s not like that.”

  “Yes it is,” she contradicted. “It’s always been that way with you. I knew exactly how you felt when you stuck me in that boarding school.”

  I shook my head. “I thought you liked it there.”

  “I did like it there! I had fun and I made friends and I learned so many things I needed to learn.” Alia gave me a hurt look. “But I still missed you. You never even came to visit me.”

  I sighed. I knew how much Alia had missed me by the things she had written in her letters. And she was right: my visits to New Haven over the years had been mainly to see Cindy.

  “It’s been more than twenty years, Adrian,” Alia said gently. “Don’t you think it’s time you let it heal?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Is this what you called me out here to say?”

  “No.”

  “Ed Regis, then?” I asked. “I’m not staying here, Alia.”

  “No, Adrian, it’s not about Ed. I know you’re not coming back.”

  We looked at each other for a moment. Alia silently sipped her orange juice.

  “I’m sorry about not taking the job,” I said, “but this is your home, Alia, not mine.”

  “I know,” said Alia. “Anyway, it’s okay. I’ve asked Ed to find his own replacement, and I think he has a few people he can trust with my life.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Alia’s sarcasm had grown subtle over the years.