Authors: Adrian Howell
“That’s amazing,” James said with a touch of envy in his voice.
“It wasn’t easy following you, though,” continued Scott. “You guys went hundreds of miles out, and I’m guessing you were draining yourselves too, weren’t you?”
I nodded.
“I kept losing you when you were moving, but I could still spot you during the nights.”
“So much for caution,” I said wryly.
“Where’s Merlin?” asked Scott.
“Dead,” I told him quietly. “He didn’t make it to the Historian.”
We never really found out what happened to Merlin, so for all we knew, he could still be alive, but the chances were next to nil.
“And the Wolves?” asked Scott, glancing at Ed Regis.
“The Wolves, too,” I said. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m sorry,” said Scott.
Ed Regis just nodded.
“We had a feeling about Merlin,” said Rachael, “since your powers weren’t hidden.”
We observed a moment of uncomfortable silence. I hated being the bearer of bad news. Merlin had been Scott’s psionic blocking instructor, and he was a good friend to everyone in the old Refugee House.
James asked Scott, “How is everyone at Wood-claw?”
Scott was about to answer, but suddenly the Knight stepped forward and cut across him, saying brusquely, “Let’s save the chitchat for later. I don’t want to stick around here long.”
“Yeah,” said Scott, “you’re right, Hammer. Let’s bring them in.”
But the Knight called Hammer said warningly, “Scott…”
Scott turned to him and said in an exasperated tone, “Oh, come on! They’re all here. There’s no danger. Let’s just bring them in.”
Hammer shook his head. “Mrs. Harding’s orders.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Scott looked at us apologetically. “We can only take two of you right now. Once Mrs. Harding is sure that this isn’t some kind of trap, we’ll come back for the rest. And whoever we take will have to be blindfolded on the way in. You know how Mrs. Harding is.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “So, who gets to go?”
“You choose,” said Scott.
As our leader, Terry was the obvious first pick. As to the second, I didn’t want to leave Alia behind, she didn’t want to go without me, and the former Wolf wasn’t Mrs. Harding’s favorite. Thus we decided that James would accompany Terry.
“Alright, let’s go,” Hammer said impatiently.
“Wait,” Rachael said to him, “I need to put hiding bubbles over these rooms so that Adrian and Alia can stay here till we return.”
“Make it quick,” ordered Hammer.
“Sure thing,” replied Rachael, entirely unperturbed by Hammer’s blunt manner.
“Actually, Rachael,” said Ed Regis, “if you can, would you mind giving them individual protection so that they can move about?”
“Okay,” said Rachael, shrugging.
Rachael started with Alia. Kneeling, she put her palms on Alia’s chest and back, working her hiding protection into my sister’s body so that her healing and telepathy would remain undetectable wherever she went.
Watching, I wondered why Ed Regis had asked Rachael to give Alia and me individual hiding protection. Was it just a precaution, or was he already planning to move us to a different location?
Rachael took about five minutes for my sister, and Hammer looked on with an impatient scowl.
Releasing Alia, Rachael came over to me next. “Excuse me,” she said, gently placing her hands on me. This was simply how psionic hiders created personal hiding bubbles, but it felt a little awkward in Scott’s presence.
“How’s Candace?” I asked Rachael.
“Candace is fine,” she replied, smiling. “You’ll see her soon.”
Ed Regis cleared his throat and said, “Alright, let’s all pack it up. We’re relocating as soon as Rachael is done with Adrian.”
Alia was flabbergasted. “But I just finished filling the tub!”
“We’ll find another one,” Ed Regis said crisply. “It wasn’t smart for you all to shout your names outside like that.”
Alia looked at me accusingly. “I didn’t shout anything.”
“Sorry,” I said, cringing.
As Rachael continued working her power into me, Alia stomped back to our room to repack our bags.
Ed Regis told Scott where we would be holed up until he came back for us. It was a recreational campsite a little outside of the city, which meant cold showers and no bathtubs. My sister was going to be in for an unpleasant surprise.
“Okay,” said Rachael, releasing me. “That’s good for about sixteen hours.”
“And we’ll be back for you well before it wears off,” Scott assured us.
Now that Alia and I were properly hidden, we could relocate without anyone tracking us. Any Angel finders converging on our last known location were just going to find a bunch of empty rooms with “Do Not Disturb” signs hanging from the doorknobs. We didn’t bother checking out.
The Wood-claw van, carrying a blindfolded Terry and James, left via the back exit. Ed Regis drove our stolen sedan out the front, Alia and me in the back seat.
“Where are we going?” asked Alia.
“You’ll find out,” said Ed Regis.
“Will there be a bath there?”
“You’ll find out.”
Chapter 3: Discovery and the Fall
We were already at the city’s edge, so it took only minutes before Alia figured out that we were headed away from civilization and the amenities it provided. She groaned in frustration.
“It’s just another day,” I promised her. “You can bathe for a week once we get into Wood-claw.”
Suddenly Alia gave me a worried look. “Scott didn’t tell us if everyone was alive.”
I smiled. “I’m sure they’re all just fine.”
Alia stared out the window for a moment before saying, “Rachael said Candace was okay.”
“Hey, cut it out, Alia!” I snapped. “I’m worried about them too, you know!”
Alia gave me a wounded look. “I didn’t mean it like that, Addy. I just meant that I wanted to see Candace too.”
“Candace?” I repeated. “What for? I thought you’d be more interested in seeing Patrick again.”
“Well, sure,” said Alia, looking down at her knees. “And baby Laila. But Candace is my friend, too. We used to talk a lot back when we were living in that old house.”
“Yes, I know,” I said dryly. “You’re a big blabbermouth. You didn’t have to tell her everything you knew about me.”
Alia laughed. “I didn’t tell her
everything.
”
“Hey,” called Ed Regis from the driver’s seat, “are you two wearing your seatbelts?”
“No,” Alia and I said together.
“Put them on. Now.”
Alia had caught the tension in Ed Regis’s voice too. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I think we’re being followed,” Ed Regis replied quietly. “Don’t look back. Just buckle up and sit tight.”
I helped Alia tighten her seatbelt. Then, buckling myself in too, I gave her arm a little tug. She looked at me and nodded quietly. All of her playfulness, her little upsets and worries, all instantly gone, replaced with a warrior’s calm. I never fully understood how my sister managed it, but I was glad that she did.
“You want me up front?” I asked Ed Regis.
“No,” he replied. “Not yet, anyway. I see one car, one driver only. Let’s just watch what he does.”
We were only about halfway to our campsite, speeding along a narrow asphalt road that ran along the foot of a steep hill to our right. The left side of the road was mostly flat, grassy fields, with an occasional clump of trees here and there. It was too dark to see much else. I occasionally caught the headlights of the car behind us in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see it well, but it looked like a light truck or SUV.
“Is he really following us?” I asked.
“Honestly, I’m not entirely sure,” said Ed Regis.
“Maybe it’s someone from Wood-claw keeping an eye on us,” I said hopefully.
Suddenly the headlights behind us disappeared completely, as if the driver had turned them off.
“Hang on!” shouted Ed Regis.
The engine roared as he floored the gas pedal, and Alia and I were pressed hard against our seats.
“Hey, slow down!” I said. “He’s gone, isn’t he?!”
The front windshield exploded. Our car rocked wildly, spinning around once as it flew off the road and into the grassy field. My seatbelt cut painfully into my waist and I bashed the side of my head against my door window.
When everything finally stopped moving, we hadn’t turned over, and nothing appeared to be on fire.
“Addy?! Are you okay?” Alia asked frantically. “Ed? Are you hurt?”
“I’m alright,” groaned Ed Regis.
“Addy?” cried Alia.
“Addy?!”
“I’m fine,” I said, holding the throbbing side of my head, ears ringing. I knew I wasn’t seriously injured because if there was any blood on my skin, the iron in it would have drained my psionic power.
I looked over at my sister, who was panting heavily but appeared uninjured and alert. Ed Regis was clawing his way out of an airbag. Through the shattered windshield, I saw that the hood of our car had been torn to shreds, bits of metal sticking up at odd angles. We had been shot at from the air!
I saw dark metallic shapes in the night sky, and then we were hit by an all-too-familiar spotlight from above.
These weren’t Angels.
“Don’t run, Adrian,” warned Ed Regis. “Just stay in the car. They’ll kill us if we move.”
I was furious but I knew that Ed Regis was right. There was no escaping a military gunship, let alone many.
The spotlight stayed right on us as two other helicopters landed in the field. Our car was buffeted by the wind from their rotor blades, and I squinted in the dust swirling in through the broken windshield.
Alia shouted into my head,
“Addy, I can’t go back there! I can’t go back!”
“I know, Alia,” I breathed. “Just – just stay calm. We’re not going back.”
Uniformed soldiers were closing in on us, weapons drawn.
Ed Regis sounded strangely calm as he said, “Slowly put your hands together on the back of your head. Alia, you too. Do it now. We’ll live to fight another day.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Ed Regis,” I said, putting my arms up in surrender. “They’re probably your old war buddies anyway.”
“Hey, at least they have reason to keep you alive.”
Doors were opened at once, and everything was chaos for a while. Several hands roughly pulled me out of the car and shoved me facedown onto the ground. I heard Alia screaming. I felt thick plastic bracelets being locked around my wrists, and in an instant I was being drained as small metal rods extended from inside them, pressing against my skin. They were psionic control bands, designed to drain and, when necessary, incapacitate their wearers with high-power electric pulses. I knew better than to resist.
The Wolves stood me up, and one of them shined a powerful flashlight right into my face.
“I’ll be darned,” said a deep voice. “It’s really him, isn’t it?”
A hand grabbed the left side of my sweatshirt’s collar and pulled down hard, revealing the P-47 tattoo on my upper left arm.
“Adrian Howell, what a pleasure.”
Someone punched me hard in the gut, and I doubled over, gasping.
Alia was shouting my name but I couldn’t see her. She let out a high-pitched squeal as someone probably did something very painful to her, and then she was silent.
I found myself being pushed alongside Ed Regis, who had his wrists handcuffed behind his back. I remembered his words back in the basement of the Angel outpost that we had rescued him from: “The Wolves never take a captured soldier back because that soldier could be converted or worse.” Was Ed Regis about to be executed?
And where was Alia? Had they knocked her unconscious?
Ed Regis and I were pushed aboard one of the helicopters. As the side door slid shut, a black cloth bag was slipped over my head.
The ride felt short – probably about half an hour, though it’s difficult to have an accurate perception of time when you’re panicking.
We landed at what sounded like a large airport or military base. With the black bag over my head, I couldn’t be sure if Ed Regis was still with me. The Wolves silently marched me across a long stretch of pavement, and then we stopped as one of the soldiers talked into a phone or radio.
“No, sir, they’re not going to the detention center,” said the Wolf soldier, who sounded young and a little flustered. “We were told to skip the interrogation completely. We have orders to transport all three immediately to the RG. I understand it’s irregular, sir, but all three were requested to be transported together, ASAP. No, sir. The order came directly from the top. I understand, sir, but we have our orders, too.”
I tried to make sense of this, but I didn’t get far. The Psionic Research Center had been completely destroyed, but I knew there was a place somewhere called “Site-B,” which was another research facility for psionics. What was the “RG”? And why weren’t we being interrogated for the whereabouts of other psionics prior to transport?
The soldier continued talking. My control bands felt heavy on my wrists, the draining effect making it difficult for me to concentrate on his words. But I heard the next thing he said loud and clear.
“Yes, sir, it’s Adrian Howell, sir. No question about it. Yes, sir. King Divine will have him by sunup, sir. Thank you, sir.”
King Divine?!
The soldier hung up. A sturdy hand grabbed my upper right arm and forced me up a metal ramp. By the sounds around me, I guessed that it was the rear loading ramp of a cargo plane.
I was pushed down onto a hard chair.
“Move and you die,” said a female voice as hands pulled a seatbelt around my waist.
Even with the bag over my head, I could tell that there was someone sitting next to me. I carefully slid my right hand over and discovered a small set of fingers.
“Addy?”
Alia whispered into my mind.
“I’m here,” I said, grasping her hand. She was wearing control bands on her wrists too, but apparently they weren’t draining her. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay. Where’s Ed?”
“I don’t know. I think we got separated.”
I heard the grinding sound of the ramp closing, and the airplane started taxiing forward, its noisy propeller engines drowning out every other sound. After a few turns and stops, we were thundering down the runway and up into a steep climb. I could tell by the angle that we were sitting with our backs against the left side wall of the cargo hold.