Guardian Angel (30 page)

“Do it for your real family, Raider,” I whispered. “For Marion. You can still save her.”

Raider stopped shaking, and his breathing slowly returned to normal. He opened his eyes.

Then he smiled. I took an involuntary step back.

“It’s so clear to me now,” Raider said in a quiet, awestruck tone. “I had always felt that I was a part of something truly special. Randal Divine… not the king, but what true genius! What sacrifices he must have made to protect our queen, and to bring us all together, to reunite the Guardian Angels…”

I shook my head. Terry was staring at Raider, openmouthed.

“Thank you, Adrian Howell,” continued Raider. “Everything makes sense. Everything is right. Now I can die knowing that my life has not been in vain… that my daughter’s life, however you choose to end it, is truly worth the sacrifice. Thank you.”

As Terry had said, it was a plan that had never been tried before. I hadn’t expected it to backfire so completely. The truth about his master hadn’t unhinged Raider’s conversion at all. It had solidified it.

Truth was indeed a double-edged sword.

So this was the future of the Guardian Angels once Randal Divine renounced his throne. Instead of rebelling against the deception, the converts would be purged of all doubt, giving Queen Divine complete control over her faction and, soon thereafter, the entire world.

“Damn,” breathed Terry. “I didn’t think it would turn out this way. I mean, in retrospect, I guess this was a probable outcome, but still…”

“He’s not going to talk, is he?” I said to Terry, unable to pull my eyes away from Raider’s sick little smile. It was the same smile Mr. Simms had given me just before I blasted a hole in his head. “It looks like he’s gone full-blown.”

“I agree,” said Terry. “Even if he did give us a place and name, most likely it would just be a trap.”

I cursed. Another brick wall. I was used to things not working out the way I wanted, but this had been our greatest lead in a year full of disappointments. Now the location of the High Seraphim who guarded the gate to Catherine Divine was locked away in the mind of a delver who would see his own daughter tortured to death before he gave up his psionic master. Had Randal known? Had he perhaps already tested this scenario out on someone? Trying to use the truth to unhinge Raider’s conversion was arguably my worst plan ever. My only consolation was in the fact that I hadn’t been the only one who believed it would work.

“At least we know about the Royal Gate,” said Terry. “The name alone might get us somewhere.”

I nodded and asked, “Are we done here?”

“Yeah,” said Terry. “We’re done.”

I pointed my right index finger at Raider’s forehead, preparing a focused telekinetic blast. “Don’t worry, Raider,” I said to him. “Marion will live. I’ll make sure she gets back to her mother.”

“Thank you,” Raider said contentedly, and then closed his eyes. “Goodbye.”

My blast was ready.

I wasn’t.

Feeling my power reabsorb into my body, I lowered my arm and said to Terry, “You do it.”

“I don’t have a gun,” said Terry.

“Then go get Raider’s from Ed Regis.”

Terry didn’t understand. “Just kill him, Adrian,” she said. “Save us a bullet.”

I looked at Raider again. “I… I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?!” snapped Terry. “Don’t start talking like Raider.”

I pointed my finger at Raider again. I lowered it again.

“We can’t let him live,” said Terry. “Think of what he knows.”

I knew that Raider had to die. There was too much at stake to let him walk free. I remembered James’s last words to me in the command center.

Finish this.

Why was it so difficult? I had killed plenty of people before, and not only in the heat of combat. So why couldn’t I execute this man? Sure, I had known him as a friend once, but even then he had been a spy for the Angels, using my sister as his cover. Now that I knew what he was, I didn’t care about Raider any more than I cared about Mr. Simms or Ms. Decker or any Angel that had gotten in my way.

Aside from my bluff about hurting Marion, I had been entirely truthful with Raider. I had known when we brought him down here that we were going to kill him. I knew this well and I accepted it. This wasn’t about anger or revenge or anything. I would take no more pleasure in killing Raider than I would in emptying the toilet buckets in Twenty Point Five, but that didn’t change the fact that it had to be done. And as Terry had said, why waste a bullet when I could simply use a finger blast?

Raider kept his eyes closed. He couldn’t have made it any easier for me.

“Come on, Adrian,” Terry said impatiently. “It’s enough that we’re sparing his kid.”

I still didn’t move. My blast simply wouldn’t focus.

Why couldn’t I kill Raider? Was it because of his daughter? But Marion would hardly be the first child to lose a parent in this war. No doubt many of the people I had killed had left behind family and friends. That was just the nature of conflict.

Was it because of my sister? Was it the way Alia had looked at me before escorting Marion upstairs? That might have been a part of it, but there was something else.

“Adrian!” shouted Terry.

“I can’t,” I whimpered.

Terry let out a frustrated huff. Then she stepped forward, grabbed Raider’s hair with her right hand, and slashed her hook across his throat.

“You picked a hell of a time to develop a conscience, Adrian!” snapped Terry as I watched Raider’s body convulse violently, blood pouring down his front. “I hope you’re happy,” Terry said disgustedly. “Now I’ve got his blood all over me and I don’t even have a change of clothes. What a mess.”

I turned and ran. Up the stairs and out the front door, I collapsed onto the porch, panting heavily. I was as confused as I was disgusted. And my disgust was not with Raider’s death, but with myself. All I had to do was blast a hole in his head. It would have been an easier death for him.

Picking myself up, I slowly walked down the porch steps and stopped a few paces from the house. I looked up at the night sky. It was almost entirely covered in dark clouds that were sprinkling a few small snowflakes here and there.

“He needed to die, Adrian,” said Terry’s voice from behind me.

“I know that, Terry,” I said, turning toward her.

Her shirt spattered with blood, Terry was standing on the porch and looking down at me like an irate mother.

“You’re all talk and no action!” she spat. “You can kill in a fight but you still can’t kill when you need to!”

“I know how to kill, Terry!” I countered heatedly. “I’ve done it before and I can do it again!”

“Then why couldn’t you do it in there?!” demanded Terry. “Why?!”

“I don’t know.”

“You killed Mr. Simms for who he was and what he did. Why not Raider? Because of Marion?”

“No.”

“Then why?!”

“I don’t know!” I cried.

We gazed at each other for a moment. Terry looked more disappointed than angry.

“I just don’t know,” I said again.

“I think I do,” Terry said in a softer tone, looking me in the eyes. “Adrian, can you honestly say that you’re prepared to kill your own sister?”

I took a step back. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I stood there feeling the snowflakes fall around me until, with incredible effort, I finally managed to whisper, “No.”

“That’s what I thought,” Terry said quietly.

“I can’t do this, Terry,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought I could, but I can’t do this anymore.”

“You promised the Historian.”

“I promised myself,” I said wretchedly. “But I can’t, Terry. I just can’t.”

“You promised him you would kill Catherine Divine, Adrian. There’s no breaking a promise with the Historian.”

“There’s nothing he can do to me that could be worse than what he’s asking me to do.”

By refusing to have Ed Regis do my dirty work for me, I had tried to prove to myself once and for all that I could do anything, even the unspeakable. Instead, I ended up proving the opposite. How was I ever going to kill the Angel queen if I couldn’t even execute an Angel spy?

“Come inside,” Terry said gently. “It’s cold out here.”

Back in the living room, I couldn’t face Terry or Ed Regis. I wondered if James really had died for nothing.

“What do you want to do now, Adrian?” asked Terry. “Is the mission over?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

Terry gave me a pitying look. “The major and I will take the watch tonight. Go on upstairs and make sure that your sister’s okay. Marion too. Then get some rest.”

I dragged my feet up the stairs, one heavy step at a time.

Alia was waiting for me in the hallway at the top. She looked at me, not with anger or resentment, not with hurt or disappointment, but sadness. Pure, simple, quiet sadness.

“You’re right, Alia,” I said hoarsely. “Everything is wrong tonight.”

Unable to remain standing, I sat down in the hallway, resting my back against the wall.

“I’m sorry about James, Addy,”
said Alia, sitting on the floor next to me and gently holding my hand.

“I’m sorry about Raider,” I mumbled, staring at the opposite wall.

“Is he dead?”

I nodded dully.

“Marion’s asleep now.”
Alia gestured toward the nearest door.
“I tried my best to comfort her, but there wasn’t much I could say. I wish this was all just a bad dream.”

“Then we could still wake from it.”

“But you didn’t kill Raider, did you, Addy?”
said Alia.
“I heard you and Terry talking outside. You didn’t kill him.”

“I couldn’t kill him, Alia,” I said, staring down at my knees in shame. “I should have. I wanted to. But I couldn’t. Terry had to do it for me.”

“I’m glad you couldn’t kill him, Addy. And I’m glad you can’t kill your sister.”

I looked at her miserably. “Then what have we been doing all these months, Alia?”

“Finding that out.”
Alia’s eyes seemed to smile as she squeezed my hand.
“We were finding that out, Addy.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my free hand. “I promised you that we’d get Cindy back from the Angels. I told you that we could save everyone, even strangers. But I’m still a coward. I can’t do this anymore. I’m so sorry.”

“Remember what you told me once,”
said Alia, putting an arm around my side.
“Don’t ever be sorry for how you feel.”

Lacking the willpower to stand up, I fell asleep sitting next to Alia in the hallway.

When I opened my eyes again, the lights were off and Alia was no longer there.

But someone else was.

I slowly stood up and faced the small figure in the darkness. “You tricked me,” I said accusingly.

“You tricked yourself, young Adrian,” said the Historian, taking a step closer. “I tried to warn you. I told you that this would test your resolve. I gave you the chance to back out.”

I glared at him, furious at the truth in his words.

“James died today,” I told him. “Many people died today.”

“People die all the time,” the Historian said dismissively.

“But not you. You just watch.”

“That’s right,” said the Historian. “I watch. Just as I’ve been watching you, young Adrian.”

“Go watch someone else,” I said frostily.

“You are truly bold in the presence of a living god,” said the Historian. “I like that about you. It’s one of your very few redeeming qualities.”

I huffed loudly.

“You gave me your story, remember?” said the Historian. “I knew then what I could expect of you, and I knew how little you understood yourself when you so lightly agreed to become a kin slayer.”

“You’re wrong,” I told him.

The Historian looked amused. “Wrong, am I? You would risk your life to gain the trust of a wild-born you had never met, and then claim to have no interest in the fortunes of strangers. You would leave a man to die in a tunnel for a crime you never witnessed, all the while turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed under your own nose. You kill people one day and cry for them the next, and yet you think you know something about fairness. You are as weak in your heart as you are inconsistent in your justice. Ever you insist on playing the hero, unable to fully embrace what you know you will have to become if you are to do what needs to be done.”

I wasn’t about to stand here and be psychoanalyzed by this child hermit. “What are you doing out of your mountain?” I asked him. “Why have you come here?”

“I have come to remind you of your vow.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “You wanted to know how my story ends. It ends here, Historian. I’m through and done.”

The Historian seemed to grow taller in the darkness, almost reaching Alia’s full height as he said viciously, “I sincerely doubt that, young Adrian. For if you break your oath to me, you will condemn your friends to the most gruesome fates imaginable. What did you say to that man about his daughter? ‘You will watch as I cut pieces from her’? ‘I will bathe you in her blood’? Merely words from your mouth, Adrian. Well spoken, but merely words. I, on the other hand, am quite capable of demonstrating them to you.”

I stared at him, horrorstruck.

“Did you really think that there would be no consequences to others?” the Historian said with a cruel little smirk. “As with so many mortals before you, your only true strength has always been your greatest weakness. You’ve sworn an oath to take your own blood, and yet you’re still trying to live your life according to some self-serving set of rules that you think will save your soul.”

“They’re all I have left!” I replied furiously.

“Then you have nothing,” said the Historian.

“Get out of my head!” I bellowed.

The Historian laughed loudly. “What makes you think I’m even here?”

I woke with a start. Reflexively putting my right palm on my chest, I felt my pendant over my racing heart. I was lying on a soft bed in a semi-dark room. I wasn’t sure how I got here. Probably Ed Regis.

“Addy? Are you okay?”
said Alia, crouching next to me on my mattress and peering into my eyes.
“You were having a nightmare.”