Authors: Adrian Howell
“Be my guest,” I said to her, gesturing toward the remaining candles. “Blow them out.”
Terry looked again at the cake. But what came next wasn’t a mere puff of candle-extinguishing air. It was a gust of hurricane-force wind which tore the top layer off the cake, spattering my shirt and face.
Wiping the chocolate frosting off my cheek, I laughed with the rest of the crowd as I said to Terry, “You’re going to need to learn how to control that.”
Terry nodded slowly, and then, finally overcoming her shock, smiled.
Though he probably sorely wished it had been himself, James graciously congratulated Terry again. I was happy for her too, as I considered this to be something far more worth celebrating than the seventeenth anniversary of Adrian Howell. Terry didn’t really need psionics to complement her already formidable combat skills, but considering the nature of our mission, there was no such thing as too much firepower. I had a feeling that we would need everything we had before we were done.
In the evening of the very next day, Mrs. Harding called for an emergency all-Wood-claw meeting to announce something far less celebratory.
With the exception of Ed Regis, Alia and perhaps a few parents taking care of little kids, everyone in the building had crammed themselves into Mrs. Harding’s living room. Poor Puff was nowhere to be seen. Meeting up with Scott, Candace and others, Terry, James and I carefully nudged our way through the crowd to a place by the wall where we could just barely see Mrs. Harding. The aged leader’s frown told us that she was about to say exactly what we had all been afraid of.
Once she had everyone’s attention, Mrs. Harding spoke slowly with frequent, deliberate pauses to make sure she wouldn’t have to repeat herself. “The official announcement came from Lumina today,” she said gravely. “Due to the increasing number of former Guardians, entire breakaway factions, in fact, that have both willingly and unwillingly been absorbed into the Angels, King Divine has now seen fit to rename his faction. They are now officially the Guardian Angels.”
One of the men in the crowd asked incredulously, “Is that what we’re going to call them?”
“You may call them what you like,” replied Mrs. Harding, “but there is no doubt that King Divine has indeed converted and reunified enough of the Guardians to make such a claim. In fact, it seems to be at the request of Mr. Travis Baker himself that King Divine agreed upon the name change. Many of you know this already, but Mr. Baker, once the leader of the New Haven Guardians, is now King Divine’s chief political advisor. Many other members of the former New Haven Council also serve in top positions of King Divine’s organization, so regardless of what we may choose to call them, they are the de facto Guardian Angels.”
There were murmurs of displeasure at this assessment, but nobody contested it.
That Mr. Baker now worked for King Divine wasn’t news to me. We had already heard at other Guardian settlements how the old New Haven Council had been folded into King Divine’s new government. However, when we discovered that Ms. Jodie Decker, a former top-level Guardian Knight, had been put into a position where she apparently had direct access to the Divine family, it was a troubling new development. Terry had predicted back then that it was only a matter of time before the Angels made this claim of reunification. Randal’s announcement would be another severe blow to Guardian morale, and could very likely entice more Guardians as well as independents to surrender and accept conversion.
Always the politician, Mrs. Harding had carefully saved her good news for the end. She cleared her throat to silence the muttering crowd and continued, “As to the rumors of the Guardian Angels being in control of multiple world governments, we believe these stories are, in fact, greatly, greatly exaggerated. There is no evidence what-so-ever that any world leaders have been converted. While it is true that the Guardian Angels seem to have some limited influence over a few of our own government agencies including the police, internal revenue, military intelligence and the Wolves, they do not rule this nation nor any other at the present time. Of course we must remain alert for further developments and be more careful in our dealings with local government and law enforcement, but we must not give up hope or cut our ties with the true Guardians, the Resistance or the Council.”
Glancing around the crowd once, Mrs. Harding added, “I strongly feel that it is both irresponsible and counterproductive to act upon hearsay, and I would ask everyone here to be mindful about spreading and believing baseless rumors.”
I cringed. Some of those rumors had been started or inflated due to the manner of our arrival in Wood-claw. Following our first dinner at Scott’s place, Walter and Daniel had lost no time telling everyone they knew our account of the Wolf plane, and things had snowballed from there.
After taking a few questions, Mrs. Harding announced certain changes in Wood-claw’s security measures. This mostly concerned the establishment of a Knight outpost somewhere on the other side of the city, but the specific details of this plan weren’t meant for Terry, James and me, so they were later scrubbed from our memories.
“As you all know,” Mrs. Harding said at the end, “we have in our company one of the Guardians’ greatest Knights, Ms. Teresa Henderson, who is currently volunteering her expertise in our combat training program. I strongly advise all of you to take advantage of this unique opportunity and improve your skills. This war is far from over and, as always, we must do all that we can to protect our future freedom.”
With that, Mrs. Harding dismissed the crowd, but she showed no surprise when Terry, James and I remained for a few extra words.
“Still no plan to rejoin the Guardians, Mrs. Harding?” I asked.
“It may come to that,” admitted Mrs. Harding, “but not yet.”
Terry asked, “What about the Resistance?”
Mrs. Harding nodded. “I have passed on your request, Teresa, and they seemed to regard it favorably. However, it will take some more time to get an official answer and then to organize your passage. The Resistance will be driven deeper underground now that the king’s influence is spreading more rapidly.”
Terry smirked. “So I guess they weren’t all just rumors?”
After an uncomfortable pause, Mrs. Harding replied carefully, “Unfortunately, no, dear. Or rather, they are not entirely
baseless,
but they are still rumors and should be treated as such.”
“Which ones?” demanded Terry. “Which ones aren’t baseless?”
“All of them.”
I realized that one of Mrs. Harding’s main reasons for calling this meeting had been fear control. She wanted to keep her people from losing all hope. After all, who was to say how much the self-declared Guardian Angels had infiltrated top-level government or how much faster their progress would become once they got rolling?
This unsettling question, along with Travis Baker and Randal Divine’s new name for their faction, kept me awake long after Alia had fallen asleep that night. Alia, perhaps also troubled by Mrs. Harding’s announcement (which we had passed to her and Ed Regis over dinner), hadn’t let out a single telepathic murmur, and I missed her voice in my head. Unable to keep my eyes closed, I gave up at around midnight and crawled out of my bed, levitating myself to the door so as not to wake Alia with my footsteps.
With only one small nightlight built into the wall, the living room was nearly pitch-black, but I left the lights off as I plopped myself down onto one of the sofas, putting my feet up on the coffee table. Staring blankly into the darkness Alia-fashion, I sorely wished I was back at my favorite window overlooking New Haven where I used to sit with my sister when I couldn’t sleep. This place didn’t even have windows, and despite being above ground, it suddenly felt more claustrophobic than many of the underground places I had been trapped in. It was strange how something as innocent as a name change could so completely shift my perception of this conflict, but there was no denying that our time was running out. It was like a schoolteacher had just reminded me that a major project he had assigned three weeks ago was due tomorrow morning, and I hadn’t even started it.
Sensing motion in the room, I telekinetically flipped on the light switch. Ed Regis jumped a little in surprise.
“I didn’t notice you there, Adrian,” he said, squinting in the light.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked.
Ed Regis nodded.
I got up from my sofa and followed Ed Regis into the kitchen.
“What are you looking for?” I asked as I watched him open several cupboard doors.
“I thought I might pour myself a glass of wine. I know you hide it somewhere around here.”
I opened the correct cupboard for him, pulling out a bottle of cheap red that I sometimes used in my cooking. “Grab me a glass too and I’ll pour it.”
“You?” Ed Regis asked in surprise. “You hardly ever drink.”
“It’s just one of those nights,” I replied.
Ed Regis found the wineglasses, and we returned to the living room.
Ed Regis was right, by the way. After my first monster hangover back in New Haven, I wasn’t much more than a very occasional social drinker. Drugs, alcohol and other highs really weren’t my thing. As a wild-born psionic destroyer, my life was crazy enough and I had little desire for additional stimulation.
“Guardian Angels…” I mused, sipping slowly. “I guess the storm is finally upon us.”
“We were lucky to find a way into the Resistance in time,” said Ed Regis.
“Do you really think we’re in time?”
Ed Regis shrugged. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
I said darkly, “Even if we get into Lumina, there’s no guarantee that we’ll find the next step there.”
“One step at a time,” said Ed Regis.
I nodded.
We sat silently for a minute. Watching me finish my glass, Ed Regis poured me another and then asked quietly, “What is it, Adrian?”
I stared down at my wine. “Things are getting a lot more dangerous.”
“I suppose they are.”
“Terry still won’t agree to my request.”
Ed Regis gave me a wry smile. “I can hardly blame her. To be honest, I’m having some second thoughts as well.”
“Well, I’m not letting you off it,” I informed him. “You know it’s necessary.”
“If I had a spare bullet, I’d save it for my enemies.”
“If Randal Divine gets me alive, then I will be your enemy.”
Ed Regis didn’t reply.
I said, “You may think I had no plan on that airplane, Ed Regis, but actually I did. I figured they would kill me or somehow I’d escape, and either way would be a win for us.”
Ed Regis shook his head in wonder. “You really are prepared to do anything, aren’t you?”
“Not anything,” I said, telekinetically lifting the wine bottle and refilling Ed Regis’s glass. “But almost.”
“In that case, might I return to the topic of next steps for a moment and suggest that the next logical step is already in sight?”
I narrowed my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s only one person in Lumina who could definitely point us to the Divines, Adrian. You know this.”
“Never!” I said. “Absolutely not.”
Ed Regis cocked an eyebrow. “Are you about to remind me of the rules of war?”
“There are no rules of war with psionics,” I replied quietly. “I remember you said that, and maybe it’s true. But I still have rules – my own. And one of them is that Cindy is off-limits.”
“Cindy Gifford might be our only link to the Divines. Are you really prepared to lose this war over her protection?”
Ed Regis had been with us for a while now, and he should have known better than to try reasoning with me over something like this. I drained my glass and set it down on the coffee table as I said to him icily, “You just don’t get it, do you? The only reason I want to win this war
is
for Cindy’s protection. I don’t care about the rest of the world, Ed Regis. I don’t care about justice. I don’t care about the future of goddamn strangers. I care for only one future. One specific, personal, selfish future. And that can’t become a reality if Cindy isn’t in it.”
Refusing to back down, Ed Regis finally broke the taboo. “You’d kill your own sister but an adoptive mother is off-limits?”
I glared at him, seething. A crack appeared in my wineglass as I growled through clenched teeth, “I don’t have the luxury of principles, Major! I have to save who I can!”
Ed Regis didn’t reply, but slowly bowed his head.
I steadied my breathing and forced myself to calm down. Then I said in a low voice, “Just remember, you and Terry may be our leaders, but this is
my
mission, Ed Regis. My mission, my rules.”
“Fair enough,” said Ed Regis. “But if you feel that strongly about your future, then you had better do your very best to stay alive.”
“I always do,” I said wryly, standing up. “That’s one of my rules too.”
I looked down at the hairline crack in my wineglass and sighed. It had been a long time since I had lost control of my power like this. I telekinetically lifted the glass up and tossed it into the trash.
Ed Regis said, “I’m sorry I upset you, Adrian, but I had to try.”
“It’s alright,” I mumbled. “I was already in a pretty foul mood so now was the time to suggest it. Goodnight, Ed Regis.”
I returned to my bedroom, quietly shut the door behind me, tiptoed to my bed and slipped under my blanket. After resting my head on my pillow for a minute, I sat back up in my bed and whispered into the darkness, “I can always tell by your breathing when you’re awake, Alia.”
Alia remained silent, but the dim glow from the nightlight was just enough for me to see her body tense up.
“You were listening at the door, weren’t you?” I said.
My sister continued to lie perfectly still, but said quietly into my head,
“You really should, Addy.”
“Should what?”
“Care,”
she said, sitting up on her bed and looking at me disapprovingly.
“About the world. Cindy isn’t the only one we should be trying to save.”
“Why?” I scoffed. “Why should we fight for strangers?”