Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) (29 page)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

May 20th, 2032 7:48AM

Vanessa
could feel his hands pressing at her temples. His mind jabbed at hers like a red hot poker. Each time she warded against his attack, more pain shot through her body. She tried to let her avatar vanish and fade back into her physical self, but the Warden held her mind on the battlefield, refusing to let her leave.

“Angel,” came his deep voice. “Why would you want to leave before the fun begins?”

She could only resist at this point. The inevitable was about to happen. His fingers felt like liquid as they seeped deeper and deeper into her mind. She was well aware attacking him had been a mistake and that her hubris was going to kill her.

“When your will is broken,” he said, “I can only imagine what amazing things I can accomplish with another telepath.”

“You,” she hissed, “talk too much.”

His body tensed and the darkness began to retreat. She could see the Warden’s office again as his assault let up.

“It seems the two I hoped to enjoy have come straight to my door.”

Vanessa realized he wasn’t talking to her. She looked out of the corner of her eye and without being able to actually see it, she knew there was another presence in the room.

***

“
It
seems the two I hoped to enjoy have come straight to my door.”

Conthan’s chest was heaving as he stepped into the Warden’s office. He could see the man standing at his desk. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Conthan lunged at him and was surprised by how fast the large man moved. The Warden stepped to the side and grabbed Conthan, slamming his head against the desk. Conthan didn’t have to feel the blood running down his cheeks, he could see the splatter across wood’s surface. The Warden flipped him over on the desk and his sneer was inches from Conthan’s face. “Did you really think you could win this fight?”

Conthan tried to punch the man but his hand was inches from making contact. He opened a portal and reached through it, feeling the chill of the darkness. The exit appeared behind the Warden. Conthan’s fist connected to the back of the man’s head. He punched twice before the Warden threw him off the desk against a bookcase.

Conthan closed one portal to open another beneath him. He fell through and dropped behind the large man. Conthan wrapped his arm around his thick neck. “I said, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

***

The
pressure against Vanessa’s skull began to ease. She clawed at the Warden’s face and he staggered backward. She could sense Conthan in the room. She tried to work with the kid to fight the same man on two battlefields.

“Angel,” he said, cupping his eye, “this changes nothing.”

She stepped in to slash with her hand and he grabbed her wrist. He bent it backward, and had it been in the physical world, her bones would have snapped. She brought her feet up to his chest and pushed off against the large man, launching herself backward. She used her wings to stop her momentum and reached down to the imaginary belt at her waist. The familiar handle of her sword made her smile as she drew the weapon. “This ends now, Warden.”

She charged in, the sword held straight out in front of her. She expected to feel it slide into his abdomen, but she looked down to where he had caught it between his hands. She saw the mocking smile on his face.

“Submit,” he said through gritted teeth.

With the single word Vanessa felt his mind invading hers again. Memories of her childhood flashed by, and in each, he was standing there. She gasped as he pushed further into her past. The memories were beginning to distort until his presence was in all of them.

***

Conthan’s
back slammed into the floor. He was looking at the Warden upside down. The large man’s face was purple as he sucked in oxygen. The veins on his neck and forehead were beginning to protrude. His gasps turned into grunts.

Conthan tried to suck in air but his lungs refused to cooperate. The Warden turned, walked over to his desk, and pulled out a small gun. He stumbled as he walked forward and he landed on his knees, looking down at Conthan.

“Child,” he said with a raspy voice, “you either submit, or I exterminate you.”

The gun pointed at Conthan’s temple. The metal touched his skin and dug into his scalp. The anger on the man’s face was palpable. Conthan realized as he was staring into the killer’s eyes that he was about to die.

Remember Sarah.

Vanessa’s voice touched the edge of his thoughts. He clenched his fist and felt the pain course through his tired body. Sarah was dead. He repeated it over and over in his head as the pressure continued to build behind his eyes.

“This”—the portal opened—“is for Sarah.”

He reached into the portal and felt the exit tear open inside the Warden’s chest. He pushed through into a second portal that exited just in front of the Warden’s face. It took several blinks for him to grasp what the boy’s power had accomplished. Mere inches from his face, his heart thumped one last time. The organ was draining of blood as Conthan squeezed it tightly.

“That’s how you win a fight, asshole.”

Conthan opened his hand and the heart landed next to the Warden’s face. He pulled his arm through the portals and strained to shut them. He could see into the man’s eyes and realized the man had only been giving him part of his attention.

Conthan looked around the empty room. He could feel her nearby.

“Your turn, Vanessa,” he mumbled.

***

Vanessa
was looking at a nun’s face. Another memory. The young woman was holding Vanessa’s infant self out in the rain. The small cardboard box beneath her contained a blanket. She could see the kind woman’s face, her soft eyes absorbing the sight of the baby’s demon-like skin and reptilian wings.

Standing behind the woman in black and white was the Warden. He was staring at her, examining the small child with wings with a twisted smile. He started to reach for her when his hands froze. He brought them back to his chest and clutched at his shirt.

“Feeling a little shaken?” asked Vanessa.

Standing in his office again, she could see Conthan holding his still heart. She turned the sword, loosening the Warden’s grip and plunging it into his chest. She knew the vacant look of a dead man. He tried to reach for her, but she turned the blade and a guttural groan left his lips.

The sword slid through his body until the hilt pushed against his chest. She sneered at the man. “You pissed off the wrong people.”

One of Vanessa’s taloned hands let go of the sword and grabbed the Warden’s face. She pushed with every ounce of her being and felt his mind begin to crumble. She weaved through the broken images until she found one of a frail man sitting on the couch with the president. He smiled at the woman. She waited to see if he was exerting his will over her. By the touches and hushed tones, she knew the president was free of his will.

Vanessa looked more closely at the image of the man sitting on the couch and could see physically there was no way he was the Warden. She pushed harder at the disguise to unravel the web of deceit. Her mind focused on the Warden, the large bulky man behind the desk and slowly, his image faltered and she could see the older man in his place.

Her mind retreated as she looked at the wavering image of the Warden. It suddenly dawned on her that he was more similar to her than she anticipated. Where she was a master of projecting disguises, the older man had literally grappled and taken control of the host known to her as the Warden. She could see the image of the Warden fading to reveal the frail man from her memories.

He looked up from under his heavy eyelids and smiled at Vanessa. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

“We’re nothing alike.”

***

Conthan
rolled out of the way of the falling corpse. He forced the portals closed as he tried to choke down air. He jumped as two men he hadn’t seen in the room before collapsed on the ground. Before he could stand up, he felt a presence nearby. He attempted to force his muscles to move, but found they were sluggish. He took the pistol from the dead man’s hands.

He sat up slowly to see Vanessa standing in front of him. He knew without asking she wasn’t physically in the room with him. His voice squeaked as he spoke. “We won.”

“Not yet.”

“What now?”

“Follow me.”

She reached out her hand. He reached out for her. “You’re not here.”

“Do it.”

He took her hand. The moment they connected he could feel the echo in his mind. He was looking through his eyes but he was a passenger in his own body. Vanessa was in control, showing him her memories.

“The Warden is alive.”

It was a flash, but he could see the memory of a frail old man on the couch with the president. He had no idea how she was doing it, but he had come to expect weird when it came to Vanessa’s powers. He saw the man’s face as he bantered with the president.

He looked down to his hand and could feel Vanessa’s mind resisting him. He let out a low growl as he realized he had murdered a puppet. He thought he had given Sarah the justice she deserved. He looked at the portal in front of him. “Don’t get in the way, Vanessa.”

I can find him.

“No need.”

Conthan started to step into the portal and time seemed to freeze as his powers searched for an exit. His mind raced looking for a destination in which to open another void and provide passage between the two points. His other self soared outward from the facility.

Vanessa was still connected to him. Her guiding hands helped provide stability to his outward journey. He moved as fast as his thoughts could take him until he saw the transport vehicle flying away from the facility. As he soared closer to the vehicle, it shimmered for a moment and turned invisible.

Before he realized it, he was stepping out of the portal into the middle of the transport. He saw Dwayne’s shock and disbelief. “You’re alive.”

Dwayne attempted to take his hand. Conthan vanished and reappeared behind the lightning wielder. “What’s going on?” asked Dwayne.

Conthan continued walking past several refugees until he reached Skits. She sat holding a blanket around an elderly man. She looked up just in time to see Conthan raise his hand with a small gun.

Bang
.

They all jumped from the volume of the gunfire. It was done. It was over. The battle had been won. Conthan was barely aware he was falling as Dwayne tackled him. “What the hell?”

Conthan felt his body strike the metal floor. Only a few feet away, Skits was covered in blood. Next to her, a frail old man with a vacant look in his eyes and a twisted smile on his lips. It wasn’t a question that the frail, decaying body in front of him was the real body of the Warden.

He let the gun drop from his hands as the world grew dark.

Epilogue

“
Feel
better?”

Conthan jolted upright. He looked up into Vanessa’s serpentine eyes. His head and muscles were on fire. Just across the street from Vanessa, the darkness gave way to a large church. Seeing the gargoyles perched on its spires, he couldn’t help but think Vanessa was amongst her kin.

“I hear each and every thought.”

“Your burden to bear,” Conthan said with a devilish smile.

She took his hand and pulled him to his feet. He had no idea where they were. The street seemed to be vacant, but unlike their residence in Boston, it appeared to be perfectly preserved. He wiped his eyes to shake away the last of the fuzzy edges. “We’re not in Boston, are we?”

“He’s not the sharpest amongst you, is he?”

Conthan turned, expecting to find Jasmine, but was surprised when the space in front of him was empty. Jasmine emerged from a veil of shadows next to a decrepit building, almost as if by magic.

“Somebody has to be our Class Zero.”

Dwayne appeared from nowhere along with Skits, smirking. “I’m going to start having power envy.”

“As the only Class III here…” Alyssa’s voice echoed from nowhere. One moment the space was empty and next the Middle Eastern girl was in front of him, taking a bow. “Can we just agree everybody has their place?”

Dav5d appeared behind them. “Ahem.” He cleared his throat. “Two Class IIIs.”

Conthan turned to see Vanessa standing there, her wings flared out wide. He was amazed by how massive she seemed, the appendages spanning twenty feet. He touched his own face. The sensation was different, like moving his foot while it was asleep.

“We’re not in Boston?”

“We’re not even in the same room,” Dav5d confessed.

“Telepath voodoo,” Jasmine said.

Skits punched Conthan in the arm. “That’s for getting villain blood on me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was kind of raging there.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Dwayne patted him on the shoulder. “Feel better?”

Conthan thought of Sarah, her beautiful smile and her carefree laugh. It came to him in waves. He would never see her again. He looked at Dwayne and shook his head. With a whisper he replied, “No.”

He could feel the warmth of Vanessa standing next to him. She rested one of her hands on his other shoulder and gave a concerned smile.

“That is why you were worth saving.”

“What now?” asked Jasmine.

Conthan jumped in. “The Warden wasn’t the person in charge of the project.”

“Who was?” asked Jasmine.

“The president,” said Dav5d.

“What?” they mumbled.

“He was put into place by Cecilia Joyce, the president. If you ever asked if Eleanor was a precog with good intentions or bad, we have confirmation. Eleanor wasn’t a killer, she was trying to prevent the future we were born into.”

“But we’ve had several presidents since.”

“What if the president had been replaced by a shapeshifter all those years ago and Eleanor found out? What if she knew exactly how things would pan out?”

Vanessa nodded as each of the eyes turned toward her. Conthan finally asked what they were all thinking. “What if the darkness she spoke about has yet to happen?”

There was a pause before Dwayne gave Conthan a nudge with his elbow. “Nighthawks for life.”

Vanessa looked off into the distance, behind her newfound teammates. Conthan followed her eyes and could see the dark clouds just on the edge of where the city street vanished. He suspected the rumbling storm was a reaction to Vanessa’s state of mind. He watched as a cloud lit up. He knew the darkness had yet to descend upon them.