The Quest (13 page)

Scott stood up too. “I’m with you, Terry,” he said forcefully. “I’m done running.”

James was next, followed by Rachael and then Alia. Slowly, everyone got to their feet.

Susan was last, looking anxiously at her older sister and then at Alia and Max before carefully standing up and saying in a shaky voice, “Me too.”

“You’re sure, Susan?” asked Terry.

Susan nodded.

“Good girl,” Terry said quietly.

Terry faced the crowd again and explained, “What I’m planning to teach you all here is close quarters combat, or CQC for short. It’s essentially military-style hand-to-hand and basic weapons training. But you’re going to have to build some muscle too, which means a fair amount of all-round exercise and weight training. And if we’re all doing this together, we’re going to need a much larger room than the basement.”

“How about right here?” suggested Scott.

Terry surveyed the spacious living room for a moment, and then nodded. “This will do fine. Move the sofas against the wall and take the TV somewhere where it won’t get smashed. Adrian and I will do a quick inventory check downstairs and see what we need to get.”

As Scott started to get things organized in the living room, I followed Terry down into our musty makeshift dojo.

Alia came too, and as soon as she shut the door behind her, Terry turned to me and said, “Speak your piece, Adrian.”

I shook my head. “You don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say about this.”

Terry smiled grimly. “I’ll survive it.”

“Alright, if you insist,” I said icily. “I think that was a pretty impressive pep talk, Terry. I never knew you could be such a
politician.
I suppose it didn’t occur to you to tell them the real reason you wanted everyone to learn combat.”

“That comes later,” said Terry. “Besides, I really did mean what I said back there too. Even if we weren’t going to the Historian, it makes perfect sense for them to learn how to fight. Once they’re ready, we’ll let them decide for themselves whether or not they want to come with us.”

“You’re just using them!” I said, my temper rising. “Sugarcoat it all you want, Terry, but a lie is a lie!”

Terry gave me an exasperated look. “You want this war to be so damn easy, don’t you? First you didn’t want to get your own hands dirty, now you don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s!”

“They’re just kids!”

“Half of those
kids
are older than us,” countered Terry. “Some of them are over eighteen, so they’re not kids at all. As for the younger ones…” Terry threw a quick nod in Alia’s direction and grinned slyly at me. “I think you’re forgetting what children are capable of… when they’re put to it.”

“Damn you, Terry!” I snapped, waggling my index finger at her nose. “Alia never asked for any of this, and neither did I!”

Terry poked me in the chest with her left stump. “Well neither did I, and neither did they. But they’re here, they’re willing and they trust us.”

“Of course they trust us!” I said savagely. “You’re the great Terry Henderson, famous hero of New Haven! They’d do anything for you!”

“And you’re the famous Adrian Howell now!” said Terry, jabbing me again with her stump. “We lead this rabble whether we like it or not. Get used to it! And get that finger out of my face. I’m afraid it might go off.”

I lowered my finger but continued glaring at Terry.

Terry said patiently, “Listen, Adrian, we can either train these kids to defend themselves, or leave them unprepared for the Angels when they come. And the Angels
will
come, make no mistake about that.”

“I’m not against them learning to fight, Terry,” I said, meaning it. “But that’s not why you’re doing this. What if we’re the ones who end up getting them hurt or killed? What then, Terry? Do you really want that kind of blood on your hands?”

Terry gave me a pained look. “Please don’t think I ever stopped regretting what I put you through last year. It was my pride that robbed you of your sight. But this isn’t about adventure or even revenge anymore. It’s about our collective survival. I admit that Peter probably died because I put the fight into him. But this could be our very last stand, and I’m prepared to do anything it takes to give our future a fighting chance. You’re the one who doesn’t believe in choices, Adrian! We all do what we have to. Not what we want. What we have to!”

Huffing loudly, I turned away from Terry and looked at Alia. My sister steadily gazed back at me with Cindy’s quiet eyes. She seemed as if she was about to say something, but then just nodded and smiled sadly.

Terry touched my shoulder from behind. “Please, Adrian. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but I really need you in my corner right now.”

I didn’t turn around, but replied quietly, “I’m always in your corner, Terry. I never once blamed you for the Slayers. But promise me that when the time comes, you won’t pressure these kids to join our quest. They can’t feel like they owe us something.”

I felt Terry give my shoulder a squeeze. “I promise, Adrian.”

I turned around and gave her a weak smile. “Alright. Let’s do it, then.”

I didn’t want to be the one to mention the brave pyroid we lost on the minibus, so I was glad that Terry did. We would never know for certain whether Peter’s death was an accident or if he had removed his seatbelt because he felt duty-bound to help us. And I couldn’t help wondering where this unfamiliar road was about to take us. The children of lost Guardian families turned soldier for Terry’s secret mission… I wondered how many of them would end up following Peter to their deaths, and how soon.

Terry hadn’t really come down here for an inventory check. We already knew what we had, and more importantly, what we didn’t have.

“We’ll need proper mats in the living room, or maybe several stacked layers of carpet,” said Terry.

I asked, “Do you want to leave the dumbbells down here and keep this as a weight room?”

“No. We’ll have to move them out. And the shelves too. We’re going to use this room as our shooting range. It’s way too small, but we can put some targets on the far wall and just use it for short-range pistol work.”

The rectangular basement room was only about ten yards long. Hardly ideal for target practice, it was nevertheless the only place you could fire a gun without anyone calling the police.

“Where are you going to get the cash for guns and ammunition?” I asked. If Terry was planning to take away any of my grocery money, she was in for stone soup three meals a day.

“I’ll think of something,” said Terry. “One thing at a time.”

We returned to the living room where Scott and the others had already cleared away the furniture and were waiting for us. I wondered if at least a few of them had been secretly hoping that Terry would offer to train them in combat. For the most part, they were an eager-looking bunch.

“First I want to get a feel for what you can do,” said Terry. “Does anyone here have any background in martial arts?”

James raised his hand. “I took karate back in elementary school. I made green belt before I quit, but I haven’t done much since then.”

“It’ll come back,” said Terry. “Anyone else?”

It turned out that several did have a basic background in some martial art or another. Scott had been captain of his high-school wrestling team. Rachael had done some aikido. Heather, Felicity and Daniel had attended several classes in basic self-defense that had been organized by the Raven Knights shortly after the gathering of lesser gods. Walter had been commuting to a judo dojo ever since arriving in New Haven two years ago.

“Not a bad start,” said Terry. “But I want to see it. When I call your name, please step forward and try to kill me.”

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Terry smiled and said, “That was a joke. But of course you’re quite welcome to take it seriously.”

Candace asked nervously, “Are we going to get seriously hurt?”

“Not today,” promised Terry. “Not
seriously,
anyway. And this isn’t the army. You’re all volunteers, and you’re free to quit if you feel this isn’t for you. Fighting isn’t for everyone. No one will hold it against you if you quit.”

Terry gave me a sidelong glance. I smiled back at her.

“If there are no other questions,” said Terry, “Scott, you first.”

The captain of the wrestling team lasted a grand total of ten seconds against Terry, who easily pinned him using her particular blend of every martial art known to man. Still, I was quite impressed with Scott. The first time I faced Terry, I couldn’t remain standing for longer than the blink of an eye.

“That was very good, Scott,” said Terry. “With a little work, you might even be a match for Adrian here. I think I’m going to train you myself, but let’s see what everyone else can do first.”

Terry turned once more to the crowd. “Let’s just go down from the oldest. Candace, you’re next.”

Terry tested each one in turn, squaring off with them and telling them to attack in any way they saw fit. Our students met Terry with a mixture of awe and terror, but even with the older kids, Terry was much gentler than she had been with me on my first day. Terry had learned a thing or two about teaching and motivation. Besides, the living-room carpet wasn’t nearly as yielding as a proper gym mat, and Terry had, after all, promised no serious injuries.

In the end, Terry assigned about half of them to me and half to herself. Naturally, she took the stronger ones and left me with the others, promising to train them in person once they learned what they could from me. In addition to Scott, Terry took Rachael, James, Heather, Felicity and Max.

Max looked quite surprised when Terry called his name, but Terry merely smiled at him and said, “I like a strong spirit.”

I was left with Alia, Candace, Daniel, Walter and Susan. I couldn’t be sure, but it was probably deliberate on Terry’s part to separate the sisters and friends as much as possible. Alia was an exception, but I guessed that this was also deliberate. Terry understood about Alia.

Just like Terry, I squared off with each in turn, asking them to kill me. With his background in judo, Walter was by far the best in my group – if you didn’t count my sister. Alia had been down in the NH-1 subbasement dojo with me and Terry ever since we moved to New Haven, and what she didn’t have in muscle she made up for in technique. I suspected that if only their sizes weren’t so far apart, Alia could beat Scott four out of five rounds any day.

“Enough for one day,” said Terry once we had a feel for everyone’s drive, nerve and abilities. “We’ll start for real from tomorrow. I have to talk with Mrs. Harding first.”

There was, of course, no keeping this from the leader of Walnut Lane. We visited Mrs. Harding first thing after breakfast the next morning to ask for official permission to open a combat school.

Mrs. Harding was old but not senile. It certainly hadn’t been lost on her that we had begun this on the day she refused Terry’s request for Knights. No doubt Mrs. Harding easily saw through Terry’s cover story, but she nevertheless agreed.

“You are a trusted and honored Guardian Knight, Teresa,” she said gently. “Do what makes you happy.”

Mrs. Harding probably doubted, as I certainly did, that Terry could get our students ready for a trip to the Historian for at least several years, and in the meantime, we were doing something that added a little to the desperately needed security of Walnut Lane.

But it seemed that Terry was hoping to set off in a few months, not years. She quickly set up a rigorous training schedule, breaking everyone’s free time into CQC sessions, exercise and weight training. The older ones still had their jobs, and everyone else had chores, but even so, most were assigned five hours or more of combat and physical training every day. It would be an adequate test of our students’ resolve just to keep up with our pace. Nobody voiced any complaints over the schedule, and I felt a little better about what we had started.

Our training program took into account everyone’s personal life, so in practice, Terry and I usually had no more than three students at a time in the living room, and often it was one-on-one, which would be better for the students, but not for the teachers. Whenever I wasn’t cooking, I’d have a combat lesson to teach.

“Like this,” I said, showing each move as slowly and clearly as I could. “Focus on your balance and step forward.”

Candace, who I was teaching at the time, tripped over herself. I stifled a sigh. Candace seemed serious enough about learning to fight. She just wasn’t very coordinated.

“It’s alright,” I said patiently. “Again.”

Though Terry’s style of teaching still started with using a move before explaining it, I didn’t want my students to think of me as an opponent so much as a guide. I knew from experience that learning combat moves was no different from learning anything else. It required repetition upon repetition upon thorough, painstaking repetition, and then more repetition. It was easier when your instructor wasn’t knocking you down every two minutes.

Candace lost her balance again, landing painfully on her hands and knees. All we had for floor padding were a few layers of blankets.

“I’m sorry I’m such a klutz,” Candace said unhappily.

I gave her an encouraging smile. “You’re a lot better at this than I was when I started learning, Candace. Don’t waste your time being sorry. Just get up and go again.”

By the end of the third day of training, all our students were noticeably spent, but still no one complained. In fact, Scott and a few others even did extra weight training when they could find the time. The living room constantly stank of sweat but soon nobody noticed or cared. We were definitely off to a good start.

But that wasn’t to say that everything was smooth sailing. In addition to her daily chores, Alia was kept busy with everyone’s bumps and bruises, occasional bloodied noses and even broken bones. There were so many accidents in those first few weeks that sometimes my sister really was too tired to roll over in her sleep, and we eventually took mercy on her and let her off her other household duties.

Having heard from Alia what we were doing, Patrick asked to join the training program too. Terry had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, she didn’t want to deny any willing hearts, but Patrick would no doubt talk with his foster parents and then Mrs. Harding would get a closer look at what we had started. Besides, Patrick now had a semi-legal home so he didn’t qualify for inclusion in Terry’s secret plan. In the end, Terry accepted Patrick into our school, but assigned him to me.