Lesser Gods

by Adrian Howell

  Understandably, Alia answered with her telepathy.

  I asked her, “Are you really sure you don’t need to take your unicorn, Ali?”

  Alia shook her head and said aloud, “I’ll be okay, Addy. Really!”

  Cindy had already suggested this twice the day before, but my sister insisted that she would be fine without her favorite horned beast. I was pretty sure that she was just putting on a brave face for Cindy and me, but I didn’t press the matter any further. If Alia really wanted to play Guardian Knight and rough it out, she had the right.

  Terry helped Alia with her bag as they left the penthouse together, leaving me behind with Cindy. Earlier that morning, I had asked Terry to guarantee me some time alone with Cindy before we left New Haven.

  Cindy didn’t seem at all surprised at my lingering, turning to me and saying with a brave smile, “So, once more unto the breach, huh?”

  Not having read any Shakespeare at that age, I hadn’t a clue what she meant by that, but I nodded anyway.

  Cindy hugged me and said, “Remember that you promised to be good this time, Adrian. Stay out of trouble.”

  Two weeks ago, Cindy had suggested that I would be facing dangers I didn’t know, but it was Cindy who didn’t understand just how dangerous this was going to be. Before I left New Haven, I had to ask her one last, burning question.

  “Do you still trust the Guardians, Cindy? I mean, do you trust the Council?”

  Cindy let out a quiet sigh. “I’ll admit my confidence in the Council has been shaken a bit recently. But there are good people on the Council too, like Laila’s mother.”

  “But that’s the exception,” I argued. “You know they’re wrong to accept this trial.”

  “I know,” Cindy said calmly. “But don’t forget that it was the same Council that voted to rescue you from the Slayers last year.”

  “Which they never would’ve done if I wasn’t your son,” I pointed out.

  Cindy smiled. “You have to try to see the good in people, Adrian. Especially when it looks like there isn’t any.”

  I remained silent. Cindy peered into my eyes and asked gently, “What’s the matter? Are you having second thoughts about going?”

  I shook my head. Then I hugged her again and whispered, “I’ll bring them back safe, Cindy. I promise.”

  Chapter 14: The Arena and the Phantom

  The once-thriving industrial town had closed the last of its three factories over two decades ago, and the population had dropped to less than a fifth of what it once was. What remained was a mess of derelict houses, crumbling apartments and boarded up store windows. The few residents who remained were those who had nowhere else to turn. The town didn’t even have an operational movie theater, to say nothing of any kind of tourist attraction, so an observant citizen might have wondered why there was a sudden surge of motorcycles, sedans, SUVs, vans, minibuses and motorhomes pouring in from who-knew-where.

  We weren’t just passing through. On the outskirts of this town lay the abandoned factory where we would meet the Angels in a gathering of lesser gods. The first such gathering in more than half a century.

  The Angels had already arrived several days prior, and I didn’t know their exact vehicle count, but the Guardian rides alone numbered nearly a hundred. I was sitting in the back of Cindy’s Guardian-issued silver sports sedan. Alia was curled up at my side, fast asleep, and Laila sat up front next to Terry, who was driving.

  Over the course of the four-day journey here, Terry had taught me how to drive, saying that, since I could see again, it was high time I learned to do something useful. I discovered that Terry, though still unlicensed, was actually a conscientious driver when she wasn’t tearing through the city in a stolen police car. After a few hours on the freeway and some practice during our evening rest stops, I had become fairly confident in everything but parallel parking. Laila still didn’t trust my skills enough, though, so whenever I was at the wheel, she rode in her mother’s small camper, taking Alia with her. Terry obviously didn’t trust me yet either, because once we got closer to the town and the Angels waiting in the factory beyond, she took the wheel. Just in case.

  In a blood trial, the challenged party – the Guardians in this case – got to choose their champions first, but the challengers prepared the location. The Angels had probably paid off or psionically dealt with town officials to keep prying eyes out of our gathering. If there were any vagrants staying in the abandoned factory, the Angels would have seen to it that they quietly disappeared.

  The Angels weren’t quite kind enough to send us a gold-embossed invitation card with a detailed map of the factory, but we weren’t going in blind. The Guardian Knights had obtained prints of the factory layout and passed them out to all the witnesses prior to leaving New Haven. Though I had already committed it to memory, I glanced over my copy again as Terry followed the Guardian car train out of the town and up a pitted asphalt road.

  The main factory building was a monstrous rectangular concrete structure. According to the map, the building ran north-south, and was nearly twice as long as it was wide. The visitor and employee parking lot was to its south, just inside the main gate. There was a separate square three-story office building in the southeast corner of the compound, and across from a service road that ran along the east side of the factory building sat a neat row of warehouses. At the north end of the service road was a loading area where a fleet of semi-trailers could park. This was where the Angels had set up their camp. The Guardians would take the front parking lot near the office building.

  As we approached the main gate, I woke my sister and helped her tighten her seatbelt. We had driven several miles from the town’s last derelict home, and I suspected that even the sound of a small cannon blast wouldn’t carry back to civilization from here. While I had been reassured many times that the Angels would be politically cutting their own throats were they to ambush us upon our arrival, I remembered Cindy’s warning about the loss of honor in modern times, and braced myself.

  There was no need. Our car train quietly crept through the rusty main gate, which had a large metal “Closed” sign bolted to it. “Permanently” had been sprayed over the sign in red paint.

  This would be our home for the duration of the blood trial.

  The trial was as much a political show as a fight, extending over an entire week. The battles would be fought one at a time, with forty-eight hours between matches. The idea behind this was that faction leaders could, during the in-between time, exchange everything from taunts to hostages, spy on each other or negotiate truces.

  The first battle, scheduled for the evening of the next day, was to be fought between Ms. Dallas and her selected Angel opponent, another telekinetic pyroid. Terry would have preferred to fight the first match, but for reasons known only to himself, Mr. Baker had scheduled Terry for the second. The rationale for putting Mr. Simms last was simple: he would be pitted against one of the Angels’ best pyroids, and chances were he’d lose, but if both Ms. Dallas and Terry won their fights first, the trial would be over before that happened.

  The Guardians were arranging their camp in a defensive perimeter, parking the largest of their motorhomes bumper to bumper in a line to create a wall facing the factory building. The smaller cars, including our sedan and Laila’s camper, parked behind. I realized that since the Angels had arrived first, they were obliged to camp in the farther side of the compound, which was decidedly advantageous for the Guardians if the need arose for a speedy getaway. The Guardian cars behind the wall of motorhomes were all parked facing south toward the compound’s exit.

  While Mr. Baker wandered around chatting with who-knew-who, the Guardians who had arrived in normal cars were pitching their tents, without stakes, on the concrete next to their vehicles. We soon learned that dignitaries such as members of the Council, chosen combatants and (fortunately) their friends would be given slightly better accommodations. Laila joined her mother in their camper while Terry, Alia and I were dir
ected toward the main office building, where Guardian Knights were checking for possible Angel traps before cleaning out the first-floor rooms and supplying them with bedrolls, blankets and pillows. We were each offered a separate room, but my sister wasn’t about to have that, and Terry decided to bunk with us too. We brought in our own sleeping bags from our car and spread them out under the Guardian-issued bedrolls for additional comfort.

  In a few minutes, the Guardians had set up several portable generators in their camp and pulled electrical cables up into the office building. The factory hadn’t had running electricity in years, and many of the ceiling-mounted lights were either broken or missing, but enough remained that we probably wouldn’t be needing flashlights after dark. The Guardians were still testing out the power grid, so our room lights were flickering feebly, but fortunately it was still early evening and there was plenty of light coming in from the cracked window.

  Laila stopped by to examine our temporary residence.

  “This place is really creepy,” she said, glancing around our room, her eyes resting uncomfortably on some of the more colorful graffiti on the walls. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay in our camper? My mother says you’re all perfectly welcome.”

  “It’s okay, Laila,” said Terry. “It would be a little crowded for five.”

  That was putting it mildly: Laila’s family camper was one of those tiny one-room box types.

  “Well, I do hope none of you run into any ghosts here,” said Laila.

  I shrugged. “I’m more afraid of the living.”

  “Me too,” said Alia, and we laughed.

  A few minutes later, a crisp female voice amplified on a loudspeaker called for the Guardians to assemble outside for a short meeting. Exiting, we joined the crowd that was forming around the office building.

  I looked around at the people coming out of their cars, tents and motorhomes. Only about a third of them were actually Knights. The rest were ordinary Guardians, and many of these weren’t destroyers or controllers. Some, like Laila and her mother, weren’t even psionic. Terry had told me that the Council’s decision to mix a large number of Guardian civilians into the witness group rather than bring only Knights was a deliberate ploy to keep the Angels off guard, though how effective this would be was yet to be seen. Mr. Baker had apparently made it clear to everyone that this was a come-at-your-own-risk event. Even so, some had arrived with their entire families, including children, though none quite as young as Alia. Would the children actually be permitted to watch the battles? I wondered what kind of insane parents would bring their own kids to a blood trial.

  “There’s my mother,” Laila said happily, unnecessarily pointing her out in the crowd. I had first seen Laila’s mother with my restored eyes when we left New Haven four days ago, and she looked a lot like Laila. She was currently having a quiet chat with Mr. Baker and, of all people, Ralph.

  Laila’s mother noticed us and waved. I had promised Terry to keep my mouth shut, so neither Laila nor Alia knew what Mr. Baker was plotting at this event. I suspected that Mrs. Brown, despite being a member of the Council, didn’t know either. She had been against the Guardians accepting the Angels’ challenge, and had probably been kept out of the loop. No doubt Ralph would be in the know, though. He and Mr. Baker weren’t always on the best of terms, but Ralph was a trusted Knight well within the inner circle. What would be his part in the Council’s plans?

  Once the crowd was large enough, Mr. Baker strode around it and stood with his back to the front door of the office building, beaming at the Guardians in full politician mode. He was flanked by four of his security guards, one of whom I recognized as the shape-shifter, Mr. Ted Williams. Mr. Williams smiled and nodded when our eyes met. It had not yet been a whole year since he had tested me in the form of Lindsey Taylor, and I remembered my failed little mission and how much easier life had seemed when my only problem was a nosy reporter.

  Finally, as the Guardians became hushed, Mr. Baker ceremoniously cleared his throat and began by thanking everyone who had come to witness “this momentous event” as he put it. Then Mr. Baker formally introduced Terry, Mr. Simms and Ms. Dallas to the crowd, calling them forward and having them stand by him.

  The telekinetic pyroid Ms. Dallas, I saw, was a rather petit woman in her late twenties, with very short blond hair and a formidable chin. There were so many psionic destroyers around me that I couldn’t focus on Ms. Dallas well enough to gauge her strength as a double-destroyer. She certainly didn’t look like someone who would be seen walking into a gladiator arena. But looks could be deceiving, especially for psionics, and since Terry trusted her strength, I had no reason to doubt her.

  “Our three heroes!” announced Mr. Baker at the end of the introductions. “May they fight well and true!”

  Not that I even believed in heroes, but none of them looked the part. Terry was frowning and bowing her head slightly, Ms. Dallas was shifting her feet uncomfortably, and Mr. Simms stared silently back at the cheering crowd with an almost bored expression.

  Once the applause had died down, Mr. Baker once again assured the people that the three Guardian warriors chosen for this blood trial would win the five-year peace that the Angels had promised. There was only scattered applause at this, and I guessed that many of the witnesses agreed with Terry’s view that such a peace would never last.

  Before dismissing the crowd, Mr. Baker dished out a few reminders: Never leave the camp area alone, never leave without good reason, and never leave without informing the Knights. The entire factory compound, aside from the faction camps on the north and south ends, was officially neutral ground. But the short of it was that if you were caught with your pants down, you were fair game. There seemed to be little doubt in anyone’s mind that witnesses from both sides would find reasons to start little blood trials of their own during the course of this week-long event.

  As the Guardians dispersed, some of those who had already finished setting up their tents began wandering past the line of motorhomes and into the main factory building.

  “Want to go look inside?” suggested Terry.

  “Is it safe?” asked Laila.

  Terry shrugged. “Nothing’s completely safe here or anywhere. Come on. We might as well go take a look at the place now.”

  Alia hesitantly looked up at me. I smiled at her and said, “Come on, let’s go check it out.”

  Laila quickly informed her mother where we were going, and then the four of us followed the other small groups of Guardians into the main factory building, which was a six-story dirty concrete monstrosity with an arched roof. Though the building clearly would never see any kind of lawful use again, it was at least as sturdy as it was dusty, which would probably be important considering the kind of battle that was going to be fought under its roof tomorrow. We walked down a short corridor to a giant pair of steel doors that opened into the main factory floor.

  My first impression was that it looked a bit like an airplane hanger, though without an exit large enough to run an airplane through. The ceiling was at least three stories up. There were walkways along the walls at various heights, as well as plenty of windows, most of them still intact, though horribly dirty. The gradually waning sunlight that filtered in through the dust made the place look strangely still, highlighting the cold emptiness. A few rusty bits of metal and broken-down engines lay against the side walls, but whatever assembly lines or other machines that used to be here had been removed ages ago. Our footsteps echoed through the colossal room, and very few people spoke. It was a far cry from a Roman gladiator arena, but I felt it suited us well.

  We weren’t the only visitors to the factory floor.

  On the far north end of the room, entering through another pair of heavy steel doors, the Angels were quietly gathering. They weren’t here to observe the building, which they already had days to do, but to look at us.

  By now there must have been about fifty Guardians standing on our side, and soon the Angels matched us in number
. Both groups stared across the room at the other, whispering, pointing, occasionally gesturing or shouting obscenities. But both groups kept their distance. Some, just to show off their bravery, stepped a little closer to the center of the arena, but nobody crossed it.

  “Anyone you know, Terry?” I whispered.

  Terry shook her head. “We killed most of my Angel buddies last year.”

  I didn’t see any children on the Angels’ side, and I wondered how many of the Angels were civilians as opposed to Seraphim – the Angels’ equivalent of the Knights. Perhaps all of them were Seraphim. After all, the Angels were expecting, or at least hoping for, an attack. But then again, in order to invite an attack from the Guardians, perhaps the Angels too had mixed a fair number of civilians into their witness pool and kept their Seraph count down. It was impossible to tell, but I did sense a fair number of destroyers among them.

  As I felt my way through the various destroyer powers around me, I guessed that Alia and I were among the very few here who were psionically hidden. Perhaps a few hiders were keeping their own powers concealed, but neither the Knights nor the Seraphim had bothered to put proper hiding bubbles over their camps or the arena. I supposed that this was a deliberate show of strength and bravado by both sides. Thanks to Cindy’s hiding protection, I wouldn’t be a part of that, which was fine. I hadn’t come here to show off in front of the Angels. I had come for Terry, and to protect Laila and my sister.

  “Satisfied?” Laila asked Terry.

  “This will do fine,” said Terry, but I couldn’t be sure if she was referring to the arena or to the Council’s secret plans.

  We returned to the comparative safety of our camp and joined Laila’s mother for dinner. While everyone was, of course, free to prepare their own food if they wanted, regular meals were provided at the expense of the Council by a dedicated team of cooks working out of a converted motorhome.