Daniel understood what was happening from what Ethan had told him: Hector’s touch was draining Lisa’s body of health, causing her intense physiological grief.
She was unable to stifle a bloodcurdling scream, and the sound echoed throughout the barren plain.
Alex dared to step out into the open.
She couldn’t help herself. Grant was only a hundred or so feet away. She didn’t care that the last time she saw him, he’d flung her into a wildfire. Didn’t care that his skin was gray and hard, or that his eyes were on fire.
He was still Grant.
He had to be.
She was about to move when the old man appeared in front of her, his expression different than she’d ever seen it. It had softened, but carried heavy creases around those sharp, bright eyes.
His lips formed a grim smile, a pained expression of love. He slowly reached out with his one hand and placed it flat over her beating heart. He nodded slowly at her as if wordlessly speaking an unspoken message, and she read the myriad emotions running through him in that instant as warm and caring, yet regretful and determined.
Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand. And then he turned on his heel and ran. Away from Oblivion, away from where Payton had disappeared, away from the truck where the others were hiding.
Alex stood in stunned silence, watching as his elderly frame grew smaller on the flat open ground, until he rounded a distant mound of black ash and was gone.
He’d left her. Left them. Abandoned them all.
Confused, her thoughts drifting, Alex subconsciously directed her feet to begin carrying her forward.
And suddenly all of her thoughts snapped back to attention as her eyes landed on Oblivion. If only she could get closer to him, maybe she could flood him with feelings of love, of compassion and joy and hope—maybe it would be just enough to give Grant a chance to return to the surface . . .
Her line of thought ended when a scream pierced the silence from somewhere in the distance, far off to her right. Oblivion turned toward the sound as well, looking—
A hand snapped over Alex’s mouth from behind, an arm around her shoulders.
She tried to shout, but only a muffled sound came out.
“Alex!” Payton whispered into her ear. He turned loose and grabbed her by the hand, dragging her off.
It was only after they rounded a small hill and Oblivion was no longer in sight that she noticed there was an unconscious man slung over Payton’s left shoulder. Which didn’t seem to be slowing Payton down in the slightest.
She recognized the sleeping man.
“What are you
doing
?” she asked, a little louder than she’d meant to. “This isn’t what we came for!”
Payton held her tightly by the hand and continued to drag her half running in a direction opposite of Oblivion and his army. “Pencil me in for a good row over that once we’re far away from here.”
Daniel whacked at Hector’s head with his cane, but it only resulted in putting a dent in the metal walking stick. Hector backhanded Daniel, and he landed with a harsh thud against the black ground.
Xue appeared, using her powers of magnetism to draw Daniel’s cane to her. Once the cane was in hand, she tried to sweep Hector’s feet out from under him, from behind. But he was too big a target to be felled so easily, and soon she too was on her back on the ground.
Hector dropped Lisa and looked around, looked down at his own two hands, looked at the two people lying at his feet. He was utterly mystified, bewildered, as if he’d lost his—
Nora.
Daniel’s head spun and he saw the black woman being carried in Sergeant Tucker’s arms. Her dazed, barely conscious gaze was focused on the three of them, a bleeding hand outstretched and trained on Hector.
Tucker ran until he stood face-to-face with the big man.
“Sorry, man,” he whispered. He brandished his gun and shot Hector in the shoulder, creating a tremendously loud sound that would draw the attention of everyone in the area.
Daniel didn’t bother to watch what happened next; he crawled over to Lisa, who had turned red in the face. Now she was clutching her head with both hands, as if her brain were about to explode and she wanted to contain the blast. He sat cross-legged and pulled her close, until he could hold her in his arms. She cried out in pain as he rocked her back and forth.
A hand extended down from above and touched her on the shoulder. Lisa’s hands fell away from her head and she looked up. Daniel followed her gaze.
Hector, unharmed and smiling, beamed down at them both.
“Good to have you back, big guy,” Lisa mumbled wearily.
Hector placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and he instantly felt a lift, a boost in energy, and the calm centeredness that always came from the man’s healing touch.
The two of them got to their feet and saw that Nora was standing as well, with just a little help from Ethan for balance. Her hand was mended, no longer bleeding. She still appeared wobbly, but she was definitely in control of herself again.
Daniel was about to ask what they should do now when Alex and Payton appeared, running toward them. Payton carried a man over one shoulder, unconscious.
It was Devlin.
“Follow me,” Payton said, and he turned and ran toward the housing development in the distance.
There was no choice. They’d gotten two of their best fighters back, but they were still outnumbered and thoroughly exposed. The Ringwearers possessed by Oblivion’s will were closing in.
They had to hide.
The housing development stood all but abandoned. Daniel quietly speculated that the residents were in hiding elsewhere. Or, Lisa added, maybe they’d fled when it was apparent that Oblivion was coming their way.
Payton prepared to slice through a doorway to grant them access to a random house deep within the neighborhood, when Tucker stopped him. The Army man pointed out that any enemy on the hunt would notice something as obvious as a door that had been hacked open. It didn’t escape Daniel’s notice that such an oversight was out of character for the assassin.
Ethan knelt next to the door and picked the primitive lock in impressive time.
The door opened into a dingy living room bearing the distinct smell of, as Lisa put it, “old people.” Off from the main room there was a separate bedroom, bath, and tiny kitchen. They couldn’t afford to turn on any lights, leaving them to feel their way through the room past vague, blocky shadows.
Contact with anything in the room gave off a musty odor. Nora found her way to a linen-draped sofa and lay down; Hector sat on the floor at her feet. His touch had repaired the wear and tear done to her skin, muscles, bones, and ligaments, but she had gone on miniscule food and water for far too long, leaving her body nearly desiccated.
Payton slung Devlin’s unconscious form on the floor without grace or pity. Devlin grunted softly and began to stir awake; Payton swiftly kicked him in the head, and Devlin slumped, asleep again.
“You abducted him?” Daniel asked.
Payton gave one curt nod.
“But why?”
“
You
wanted to fight Oblivion smart,” Payton replied. “This man is our one chance at doing that. Wouldn’t you like to know if Oblivion has any weaknesses?”
“Where’s Julie?” Nora asked weakly, barely able to stay awake.
Hector was about to administer his healing touch on Alex when he froze, hand outstretched. Instead of looking at Nora, his eyes met Alex’s; he knew she would have the answer.
“She’s not here,” Alex replied. Her words didn’t express the truth, but the tone of her voice had.
Hector seemed to withdraw into himself. His usual dogged smile, his most prominent feature, faded. His eyes searched the ground as they grew bigger.
Alex put a hand on his round shoulder. He didn’t react.
“You loved her . . .” Alex whispered. “Oh, sweetie . . . I had no idea.”
Lisa blinked to life, squeezing Daniel’s hand harder. “Hey, where’s the old guy?”
“Wait, the one Payton was talking about, or somebody else?” Nora asked, still dazed.
“He left,” Alex replied.
“The man without a hand,” Lisa explained to Nora.
Nora’s mouth opened, but she said nothing. Flummoxed, she grappled for words. “The guy Grant met back in L.A. during the riots?
That
old kook was with you? But . . .”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Lisa said under her breath.
“Quiet!” Payton hissed, his sword drawn and ready. He was looking outside through a small gap in the curtains behind a smallish front window.
Everyone fell silent.
“What is it?” Alex whispered.
“The Easter Bunny,” Payton whispered, without turning from his post.
“Attitude, now? Really?” she shot back.
“I said
quiet
!” he seethed.
Ethan joined him at the front window, looking out to the distant right. There was a bit more light in the dusk outside than the tiny, darkness-filled room. His sharp eyes focused on something in the distance.
“Is that—?” Ethan asked.
“It’s Cornelius,” Payton replied, referring to the elder British statesman of the Upholders of the Crown. “He’s not aware of us yet, but the search pattern he’s using will lead him straight to us.”
Daniel thought back. Cornelius could force others to think about whatever he wanted them to think about. It would be a simple matter for him to subdue them; he would simply distract them all with thoughts of flowers or chipmunks or something, until Oblivion arrived.
“We have to move,” Payton whispered. “Now.”
“Where?” Daniel asked.
“Whole town’s crawling with them,” Ethan added, nodding in the other direction.
Daniel joined them at the window. He followed Ethan’s gaze and saw another shadow sweeping through the street, this one much farther away, but also moving in their direction.
The journey to a safer location deeper in the maze of houses nearly ended in disaster. With Payton leading them through the darkness, they almost crossed paths with three different Ringwearers. Each time Payton broke away from the group to create subtle diversions elsewhere that would draw away the danger, so the rest of the group could continue moving.
When they finally reached a more secure hideout, Payton was nowhere to be seen, but before the last of them could step inside he appeared at the rear of the line and followed them in.
“Mrs. Edeson isn’t far, but she’s moving in a different direction,” he replied. “Stay put and stay quiet. I’m going to grab her.”
Ethan stepped forward. “Can I lend a hand?” he asked eagerly.
“No.”
Ethan recoiled slightly. “But I could—”
Payton was already gone, in as long as it had taken Ethan to blink.
Alex felt significantly better, now that Hector had had a chance to help her. His hand had lingered on her flesh longer than his usual brief touch, his eyes closed tight in concentration, but once done, her pain vanished and her strength had fully returned. The skin over her stomach and right arm were permanently scarred; there was nothing he could do about that.
She retrieved cloths from the small bathroom, ran them under cold water, and brought one out into the living room for everyone. Most everyone placed the cool cloths on their foreheads or the backs of their necks to cool off. Ethan and Tucker wiped the greasepaint from their faces.
Alex found a broken menorah in the closet bathroom. She saw no stand for the yard-long candelabra, but she thought it might be useful nonetheless. Along with the menorah, she found a bottle of oil and a matchbook, so she lit the tiny cups of oil at the end of each branch. She found the floor stand out in the living room.
The glow it created gave them enough light to move about safely, while still dim enough not to attract any outside attention.
In what seemed like no time at all, Payton reappeared. Alex stopped what she was doing, as did everyone else.
Rather than carrying Mrs. Edeson, he was guiding her with his arm around her shoulder, though she was quite capable of walking under her own power. While clearly freed from Oblivion’s influence, she had a wild look in her eye and repeatedly tried to yank herself from his grip. Her refined, tailored attire had seams that were falling apart, bits and pieces of it hanging in slivers from her slight frame. Her makeup had long since worn off, and like everyone else in Oblivion’s service, she desperately needed food, water, and a shower.
But none of this explained the crazed way she was wrestling to pull away from Payton.
“Get your hands
off
of me!” she shouted in a blind rage.
“Shhhh!” Alex, Daniel, and Lisa all said at once. Even Hector motioned at her with a finger over his lips.
“It’s all right,” Payton replied. “They’re leaving, resuming course toward Jerusalem.”
“And every minute we waste, the farther away they get, don’t they!” Mrs. Edeson cried with a savage furor.
“What’s going on?” Alex said, asking the question that was on everyone’s minds. Even Nora rose from her incline on the couch to sit up and listen closely.
“We have to go back for him! NOW!!” she screamed.
“Who?” Alex responded.
“Ryan, of course!”
“Who’s Ryan?”
Mrs. Edeson froze, recognition dawning in her eyes. “I never identified him by name to you, did I? Ryan is the young man from our group—the Upholders.”
“But,” Daniel interjected, “what’s the rush? Let’s formulate a plan for taking on Oblivion first, then we can track him down inside Jerusalem . . .”
“No!” Mrs. Edeson cried. “I will not leave him to suffer under Oblivion’s thumb, all alone. He won’t understand what’s happening. He may never recover as it is . . .”
“No, Daniel’s right,” Alex said. “Let’s figure out our next move, then we’ll look for your friend first thing when we get to Jerusalem—”
“You people are not hearing me!” Mrs. Edeson shouted, frantic. “
I will not help you
unless we save Ryan! Right now!”
Silence filled the room.
“Why? What’s so special about this boy?” Daniel asked.
“He’s my SON!!” she bellowed, tears pouring from her eyes. “Ryan is an autistic savant—he can’t have understood what’s been happening to him all this time in Oblivion’s enslavement, and I fear the damage already done could be irreversible!