The Quest (3 page)

Alia was still ten, and the berserker had been right there.

Please let her be okay.

Terry whispered, “I hope her brain isn’t fried.”

“I should have drained her,” I said numbly.

Terry shook her head. “It wouldn’t have helped, Adrian. Her balance is too good.”

A psionic with “bad balance” was someone who, like me, couldn’t stop his psionic power from supporting his physical strength. Metal touching a psionic’s body drained all powers, and consequently for someone who couldn’t balance his power, it drained physical strength and even emotions. When I had been attacked, I had managed to break the berserker’s influence on my mind by touching metal and draining myself. Terry was probably right, though: It wouldn’t have worked for Alia. There were disadvantages to being good at some things.

Alia stirred a bit. I thought I heard a whisper in my mind.

“Alia,” I called, gently shaking her shoulders. “Ali?”

My sister slowly opened her eyes.
“Addy?”

“Hey,” I said, smiling as she looked up at us. “Welcome back.”

Alia threw her arms around my neck, her whole body trembling.

“Addy… oh Addy,”
she sobbed.
“I – I saw everything but I couldn’t stop! I was coming back from the bathroom and something was tapping the window and then the curtain opened and
–
and he looked at me and…”

“It’s okay, Alia,” I breathed, holding her. “It’s okay now. It’s over.”

Terry brought a glass of red wine to calm Alia’s nerves. My sister shook her head but Terry forced her to take two sips, and I gratefully downed the rest in one gulp. Then I carried Alia back to the safe room as Terry grabbed the blankets from all of our beds and brought them in.

“I closed the curtains in your bedroom, but stay out just in case, okay?” said Terry as she dumped the blankets on the floor.

Terry had also brought Alia’s nightclothes. Alia was totally spent, so Terry and I helped her change into her bright yellow pajamas. As Terry pulled off Alia’s shirt, I caught a glimpse of my sister’s heavily scarred back: the many crisscrossing lines that told of years of ritualistic torture before Alia was abandoned deep in a forest to die. For Alia, that had only been the beginning. Then there was our capture and interrogation by the Wolves, our time at the Psionic Research Center, near-abductions and dreadful battles after coming to New Haven. Alia had been through so much already that it was a wonder she was sane at all.

We folded two blankets to make a mat for Alia to lie down on. My sister was still shivering a bit. I pulled another blanket over her, up around her shoulders.

“You’re going to be okay, Ali,” I said quietly, not quite sure who I was trying to comfort. “Just get some rest. You’ll be okay.”

Alia nodded weakly and closed her eyes.

I kept my hand resting gently on her stomach until she fell asleep.

Terry was sitting with her back against the opposite wall. I noticed her eyes were slightly red as she looked at me and said hoarsely, “Still neutral, Adrian?”

I had no reply to that.

The intercom crackled to life. “NH-1 Security to Gifford residence,” called a Knight’s voice.

Terry stood and pushed the intercom button. “Rabbit here.”

“We haven’t been able to locate your berserker anywhere around NH-1,” said the Knight. “It’s possible that he moved away. We’ll stay on the lookout.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Terry said sourly, and sat down again.

Carefully so as not to wake Alia, I whispered, “He’s still here.”

“Where?” asked Terry.

“Above us. On the roof. He’s resting.”

“How do you know that? You can’t sense him.”

I shrugged. “That’s where I’d be.”

Terry nodded. “You want to kill him?”

I stared back at her for a moment, and then I looked at Alia’s peaceful, sleeping face.

I slowly got to my feet. This wasn’t for the Guardians.

The door to the safe room couldn’t be locked from the outside, but we closed it and Terry quickly returned from her room with a semi-automatic pistol in her right hand.

We exited the penthouse and locked the front door behind us. All of the elevator lights were off, the whole system having been shut down by NH-1 Security, but that didn’t matter. I pulled opened the door to the staircase, and we climbed the last flight of stairs up to the exit that opened onto the roof of New Haven One.

Terry had the key to the roof door in her pocket, but with only one hand, she couldn’t use it and hold her gun at the same time. Terry wasn’t wearing her pistol holster either, so she slid the barrel under her belt and then silently unlocked the door.

If the telekinetic berserker was on the roof, he’d probably be watching this door in case it was opened by a pack of Guardian Knights. There was little chance of surprising him unless he was already hovering at one of our windows, waiting.

Alia was sleeping off her ordeal, and I didn’t want to wake her to heal us if we got injured. It was possible that the Angel was armed, but I doubted it. Flying this high up into the air was no small task even for a powerful telekinetic, and to do that whilst carrying a solid metal gun was really not feasible. No, this man was relying solely on his psionic powers. He had probably been hoping to find either Terry or me behind the living-room curtain, but when he saw Alia, he attacked, knowing that if Alia got away, we’d be warned of his presence anyway.

So he berserked my little sister.

Well, whoever you are, you sick psycho freak, get ready for Terry Henderson and Adrian Howell!

Standing one step behind Terry, I prepared a telekinetic blast in my right hand. In a few seconds, I was ready to fire a single focused shot through my right index finger. I couldn’t fire focused blasts very rapidly, and my range wasn’t all that great either, but my telekinetic accuracy was always spot on. If I could get within twenty yards, all I’d need was one shot.

“He can’t sense you,” whispered Terry. “Remember, no eye contact. Ready?”

I nodded.

Terry pushed open the door. A powerful gust of cool night air hit our faces and I involuntarily squinted as I followed Terry out.

Six rapid gunshots.

I didn’t even see what happened.

“He jumped the moment he saw us,” Terry shouted over the howling wind. Pistol in hand, she was standing at the edge of the roof, leaning over the railing and looking down. “But he’s not going to fly very well with blood pouring out of him.”

I looked over the railing too. “You hit him?”

“At least twice,” confirmed Terry.

The ground was too dark to see where the man had fallen, but I trusted Terry, who was as fast and efficient as ever. The iron in the Angel’s blood would have drained his powers the moment it left his body and touched his skin. Even if the Angel could somehow survive two gunshot wounds, he wouldn’t have survived his high-speed reunion with the ground.

Terry looked at me apologetically. “I would have let you kill him yourself, Adrian, but he was getting away.”

“I don’t care,” I replied, feeling my telekinetic energy slowly reabsorb into my arm. “Just as long as he’s dead.”

Terry grinned. “We’re not all
that
different.”

Chapter 2: The Second Wave

The security alert continued into the night. Back in the safe room, I silently watched Alia sleep as Terry sat by the intercom, occasionally getting updates from the Knights.

Alia woke at around 11pm.

Yawning loudly, her first telepathic words in my head were,
“I’m really thirsty, Addy.”

Once Alia was rehydrated, Terry retrieved one of Alia’s board games from our bedroom. Terry usually didn’t play with us, but this time she joined in. As we sat together on the folded blankets, Alia was soon talking and laughing as if nothing had happened.

It was impossible to tell what long-term damage her run-in with the berserker might have caused, but my sister appeared to be in good spirits, for which I was extremely grateful. Terry and I didn’t tell her what we had done while she slept. Alia was a healer, and she never seemed to understand the concept of revenge anyway. I wished more people were like that.

Midnight.

“NH-1 Security to Gifford residence,” called the intercom.

Terry stood and touched the intercom button. “Rabbit here, go ahead.”

“Rabbit, security code, please.”

Terry glanced at me. NH-1 Security hadn’t asked for Terry’s ID code in a while. Terry read off her code, and the Knight replied with his.

“What’s going on down there?” asked Terry.

“Are your charges locked in the safe room?”

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“We’re not exactly sure yet, but advise you stay there and sleep in shifts tonight.”

I wondered if we would sleep at all. Terry tried to get more information, but the Knight refused.

Twenty minutes later, the intercom came on again.

A panicked voice said, “Gifford safe room, respond! Respond, damn it!”

Terry replied briskly, “Rabbit here. Identify, please.”

“We’re being overrun – they’re coming up!” the voice said frantically. “Too damn many! Evacuate now! Get to NH-6!”

“Identify!” Terry said again.

What we heard this time, though, were screams and shouts, and gunfire in the background. Then Mr. Williams’s voice came on. “Get out, Rabbit!” he shouted. “They’re swarming us! Get out now!”

Terry asked, “Is Silver safe?”

The intercom went dead. Terry, Alia and I stared at each other.

In the weeks following the Guardians’ assassination of Queen Larissa Divine, as the tensions between the Guardians and the Angels flared up, we had often discussed the possibility of a major Angel invasion. But the Guardians had prepared for this. Hours ago, after retaking NH-1, the Knights had assured us that they had everything under control.

“Second wave,” breathed Terry. “It’s happening.”

“The Seraphim are in the building, Terry,” I said, “so how are we getting out?”

Terry glanced at Alia for a brief instant and then said, “Over the side.” Terry unlocked the safe-room door. “Parachutes are on the roof.”

I knew that. When the Guardians fitted our windows with bulletproof glass, they had also left a set of emergency parachutes on the roof for just this kind of occasion.

I grabbed Alia’s hand and pulled her with us as we sprinted through the living room and out the front door. As soon as we opened the door to the staircase across from the elevators, I heard echoing shouts from below. How close were they?

Her pistol tucked under her belt, Terry led us up to the roof door and opened it.

“Alia’s too small for the harness so I’ll take her down myself,” said Terry as we stepped out of the door and ran across the roof to where our parachutes were stowed. “Help me put on my harness, Adrian. Then you can fly.”

Ever since losing her left arm, Terry loathed being taken care of, refusing to be treated like a cripple. It was a testament to how desperate our time constraints were that Terry would ask for my help in something as trivial as strapping on a parachute harness.

Coming to a sudden stop, Terry cursed furiously, and I immediately saw why. The large nylon bag containing all of our parachutes was missing.

“That bastard!” screamed Terry. Score one for the dead berserker.

Terry turned to me and asked, “Can you get Alia down?”

I nodded slowly. “Probably.”

Human levitation was one of the toughest things a telekinetic could do, not only because of blood iron, but because of the sheer complexity of the human body. A powerful telekinetic could fly for several minutes or hover quietly for longer, but to lift himself and another person simultaneously was often beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful. When the Angels had abducted Cindy out of our penthouse last year, it took two flight-capable telekinetics carrying Cindy between them to make a controlled descent away from the building.

Soon after the gathering of lesser gods, I discovered that my telekinetic power had grown once again. I could now, for very brief periods of time, levitate both myself and Alia together. Not long enough to carry her up forty floors, but a controlled fall would be easier. All I had to do was keep us from hitting the ground too fast.

“Alright, you jump with Alia,” said Terry, looking back at the door to the stairs. “I’ll find another way down.”

“No!” I said. “We’re all staying together.”

Alia nodded in agreement, but Terry argued, “I can’t protect you two if I’m going to get through the Seraphim!”

Terry wasn’t an easy person to kill, but she had limits too. I shook my head. “You’ll never get through them, Terry. You’re coming with us!”

Even as I said that, I questioned the wisdom of it. Terry was a full head taller than me. How was I going to carry her weight?

“Take Alia down and come back for me, then,” said Terry.

I shook my head again. I doubted I would have enough energy to fly straight back up here after escorting Alia down. The Seraphim could be here any moment. “We’re going together, Terry,” I said firmly. “Together or not at all!”

“You can’t carry both of us!”

“Yeah? Watch me!” I shouted back, trying to sound much more confident than I felt. “No metal, Terry. Lose it now!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Terry tossed her pistol over the side, followed by her hook attachment. Then, looking down at herself, she quickly pulled off her shoes, belt and jeans. Terry’s shoes and belt had metal buckles, and her jeans had a metal button and zipper. Terry wasn’t modest at the best of times, and this was an emergency. Wrapping her jeans around her shoes, she threw the bundle over the edge.

Psionics like Alia and myself never wore metal if we could help it. I looked down at the Braille watch on my right wrist. It had been a present from Mark Parnell. I tore it off and threw it over the side of the building.

Then I lightly climbed over the side railing, carefully standing on the few inches of space between the railing and the ledge. Terry lifted Alia over, passing her to me.

Having accidentally peeked over the ledge, Alia cried into my head,
“Addy, I’m scared!”