Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2) (3 page)

      Of course, he had also seen her tempered, even caring side. It wasn't a mystery that she favored Henri in a special way; the grotesque and Killjoy shared something close to a true relationship and they had even spent time together many times since they started sparring.

      Tony called them “dates,” but Henri denied anything more than special training sessions, claiming that only he approached her in strength, if not martial prowess.

      Thomas decided it wasn't wise to dwell on the matter and kept his opinions to himself...and Bolswaithe.

      Elise was the first to speak up. “Morgan beat us again,” she said aloud. “We had everything ready for Thomas to come in and take the sign, but Morgan’s escorts appeared in front of us and blocked us while Morgan read the sign.”

      “Just like in Aoudaghost, Doctor,” Bolswaithe offered.

      “How many?” Doctor Franco asked. He pressed on his desk and monitors lit up with images taken from security cameras around Caracalla. One of the images showed a Magical portal opening and a couple of Azure Guards coming through, but the image turned to static as a third person stepped through.

      “Three, plus Morgan,” Bolswaithe continued. “Two elves and a human.”

      “The mountain lion faun?”

      “I didn’t see him,” Thomas said.

      “They didn’t take him this time,” Killjoy interrupted. “Like us, they are still respecting the treaties of 1241 signed in Novgorod. That’s why Henri didn’t accompany you. Elves can pass as humans, but most Fauns can’t and grotesques certainly don’t. They don’t want to escalate Faun or Magic presence into the open.”

      Thomas sighed; Once again he felt a little lost. He hadn’t reached the part of the Guardians’ history where the treaties of Novgorod had been signed.

      “With the Mountain Lion faun they have a squad of five,” Killjoy continued after taking another sip of her coffee. “Just like we have a hand to search for the
Book of Concord,
the Warmaster has his own.”

      “Morgan is respecting all the treaties for the time being, at least,” the Doctor said, “but that doesn't help us. We have to find out exactly how he's tracking and getting the advantage on us. If we don't, we are only leading Morgan to the signs. Our network is immeasurably larger than theirs, and all our resources are centered on finding the clues for you, Thomas.” The Doctor’s hand movements betrayed his feeling of impotence. “We can't let them continue stealing the signs from you. We have to learn how they do it.”

      “If they are using magical scrying, it's a spell we had never seen before,” Elise offered. “I’ve asked King Seryaan and the Elven Council to try and follow us like the Azure Guards, but they couldn't.”

      “It has to be magical in nature,” Killjoy said. “The Warmaster would never use technology.”

      “If it was any kind of technology we'd know about it,” Bolswaithe said.

      The Doctor rubbed his temples. “We'll keep at it. I’m sure that we’ll find out soon enough. Meanwhile, you’ll have to stay inside the Mansion.” The Doctor stopped rubbing his temples for a second. “I'm sorry,” he said. “We can't risk losing another sign, but in the meantime we can gather something more from these images.” The Doctor enlarged the best camera angle on his desk. “Here are the two Elven guards, and then cameras go blind when the human appears. That tells us that he’s a Mage.”

      “More like a witch,” Elise corrected. “I got a good look at her when they moved inside Caracalla. She’s a female.”

      “I didn’t see a woman,” Tony said. “Did you, Thomas?”

Thomas shrugged.

      “That’s because you where hiding behind the rocks,” Elise said coldly.

      “I did see the alien rods though,” Tony said smugly.

      “What alien rods?” the Doctor asked.

      “The flying rods the aliens use for surveillance,” Tony said. “They were all over the place.”

      Elise sighed. “I didn’t see any flying rod,” she said mockingly. The Doctor turned to Bolswaithe.

      “I didn’t either,” Bolswaithe told him. “And the sensors on the equipment didn’t register anything like an alien flying rod.” Thomas knew that he was probably talking about his own internal sensors.

      “There’s even one in the camera.” Tony pressed the rewind button and played back the video. Just before the Mage appeared onscreen a flash zoomed past the camera view. “There!” he said, pointing at the screen. “You see that? Alien rod.”

      Bolswaithe rewound the video again, stopped it when the line crossed the screen, and they all peeked in closer.

      The thing looked like a rod with a long, undulating wing on each side, but the image was so blurry they could only make out the general shape.

      “Alien rod,” Tony repeated, as if by saying it again it would become the truth. “I'm sure the Guardians know the truth about them.”

      “It’s only a well-documented optical illusion,” Bolswaithe said, pressing a button. Numerous windows appeared on the screen, from kids’ birthdays to base jumpers. The same rod-like things zoomed past the frame. “Everyone sees them only after they review the video, Tony. Nobody sees them during the event. It’s just the effect of the motion blur as an insect passes in front of a camera with long exposure.” Bolswaithe pulled up images being reproduced in controlled environments. “There are no ‘alien rods.’”

      “Well…I saw one,” Tony said, crossing his arms, “and it wasn't an optical effect.”

      “And that’s why you were hiding behind a rock?” Elise mocked him. “The alien scared you?”

      “They were also shooting bugs at us!” Tony said. “And we were in the frontline, unlike you.”

      “Did you get one?” Killjoy stood up, interrupting what promised to be a fight between Elise and Tony.

Elise flashed a final glare at Tony before pulling out a glass jar from her bag; the live centipede was walking inside, its mandibles clacking against the glass. A shiver ran through Tony as Elise handed the jar to Killjoy, who then opened it. The centipede walked around her hand and arm as she took a closer look at it. The centipede seemed to be at ease on her hand, almost like a pet.

      “A beautiful, little, dangerous beast isn’t it?” Killjoy stroked the little animal with her hand. The centipede arched like a cat to the caress.

      “You see that thing, Doc?” Tony said with disgust. “Why do we have to use darts when they are using those things?”

      “Reciprocation,” the Doctor told him.

      “What?” Tony asked.

      “Reciprocation. We deal out what we receive,” Killjoy said, throwing the centipede at Tony.

      The centipede landed over Tony and ran up and down his chest while he jumped around trying to get it off. As he finally grabbed it, the centipede bit down on his hand, and he let it go. He grabbed his hand in pain, and as he yelled he became rigid and his skin took a grayish hue. He was completely paralyzed, and Killjoy stopped him from hitting face-first on the floor with her hand on his forehead. The centipede crawled back onto Killjoy and cradled in her arm.

      “Don’t worry,” she told Thomas. “These don’t kill; they just give you time to think what you did wrong.” She pushed Tony back toward Bolswaithe, who caught him and propped him up with one arm.

      “So he can hear us?” Thomas asked. A grimace mixed with surprise, pain, and anger was frozen on Tony’s face.

      “Hear us, see us…he’s just in there with nowhere to go.”

      “That’s Morgan’s idea, I bet.” The Doctor stood up from the desk. “He doesn’t want to see you hurt, Thomas. So we act in kind, with non-lethal weaponry.”

      Elise stood in front of Tony. “Does he feel anything?” she asked Killjoy.

      “Not really, but he will feel it when the effect passes.”

      Elise gave Tony a flick on his nose with her fingers. “That’s less than what you deserve for…OW!” She grabbed her neck, turning toward Killjoy. “Why did you do thhh…” she turned gray and fell forward over Tony.

      “We don’t take advantage of our own either.” Killjoy pulled her hand back with the centipede. “You are a team.” She picked up her coffee mug and metal pad and motioned toward Bolswaithe. “The venom effect lasts about an hour, but I’ll give them something right now so we can talk and practice teamwork for the remainder of the day. Think about what you did wrong and how to correct it,” she said to the paralyzed Tony and Elise. “Please bring them along, Bolswaithe. Goodnight, Thomas.”

      As Killjoy left the office, Bolswaithe followed closely behind carrying Tony under one arm and Elise under the other.

      “So…” the Doctor said, coming out from behind his desk. “Bolswaithe told me that you got a message from your grandfather.”

      “A birthday present,” Thomas said, pulling out the car key from his pocket.

      “The Impala?” The Doctor smiled. “That’s a wonderful gift, Thomas. Congratulations! You’ll have to take me for a ride some time.”

      “Thank you, Doctor.” Thomas smiled; it really was a wonderful gift.

      “Unfortunately,” the Doctor continued, “we’ll have to wait some time for that. Until we know how the Warmaster is tracking your movements, we can’t let you out of the Mansion.”

      “I understand.” With a heavy sigh, Thomas fiddled with the key.

“What’s wrong, Thomas?” the Doctor asked. “And no, I still can’t read your mind. I don’t need to read your mind to know that something’s troubling you.”

      Thomas lifted the key up. “I don’t know what to think about this.”

      “What do you mean?”

“This car was Grandpa’s most cherished possession,” he said. “He cared for it as if it was another son. My dad only drove it a couple of times. I mean...I’ve never driven it. If Gramps was here, I know this would not have been my birthday present! And to get it now just scares the hell out of me.”

For a second, Thomas wished that the Doctor could still read his mind. It just didn’t scare him; it terrified him. He had been happy to receive the car at first, but then, one fleeting thought passed through his mind. What if Gramps was giving away his car because he was severing his ties to humanity? What if he was giving him his inheritance? Could it be that Gramps had already decided to completely abandon him?

It had gnawed at him since returning from Caracalla. Thomas’s brain had raced through all possible explanations, and not finding a clear solution was the only thing that kept him from having an actual panic attack. “So you think he’s giving it to you because he’s not coming back.” The Doctor cut right into the matter.

“I don’t know what to think.” Thomas hunched his shoulders. “But I’m scared about that.What if he’s just given up on us? What if he’s giving up on me?”

      His Cypher powers couldn’t find any hidden meaning in the note or Gramps’s present. There was no code to break, no further insight beyond that of the wonderful gift he had received. Had it been, he was sure his mind would have decoded it already. So it was probably his imagination and anxiety running wild.

The Doctor placed a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “Your grandfather is living in a perfect world,” he said. “Much better than ours.” He enumerated with a hand. “There’s no famine, they're almost free of sickness, the people around him are powerful, magical, timeless, they are in tune with nature…even their wars are more civilized than ours. He’s convinced he can give that world to all of us if they control the
Book of Concord.
” He smiled. “To be truthful, I'd love to live in that world, but it’s impossible. Humans can't live in a perfect, magical world. We tried, long, long ago, and we failed. What makes us human are our flaws.”

“And I was happy living a ‘flawed’ life with him, Doctor. I didn’t want to become a Cypher, or know all the things I know now. We were happy living together; we had even come to terms about losing my parents.”

The Doctor stopped Thomas by raising a finger in a way a psychologist might do. “If you hadn’t become a Cypher you wouldn’t have learned that your parents might be alive. Would you still want to go back to not knowing about them? To think that they’re dead?”

Thomas paused. The visions he had when he touched Gramps in Ormagra haunted him, and Killjoy had confirmed, as best she could, that they were memories from someone very close to him and Morgan, memories from one of his parents, but he had to be a realist too. Without any more interaction with Gramps the memories he’d seen were only a small hope of his parents being alive.

Many times he’d thought it would have been better to continue thinking that his parents were dead.

He just couldn’t say it aloud. Couldn’t let go of that hope.

Small as it was.

      “No,” he said. “But I don't want to live in a perfect world. I just want him back.”

      The Doctor took the key from Thomas's hand. “There’s not much I can tell you about Morgan right now except this…” He fiddled with the key appreciatively. “The one flaw all good parents share is that we try to do the best for our children, even against their wishes. Your grandfather really believes that what he's doing is in your best interest, and he gave you this because he loves you very much.” He handed the key back to Thomas. “Take it for what it is meant to be…a present because he loves you.”

      Thomas took the key back and fiddled with it too. “Yes,” he said smiling. “It’s a wonderful gift.”

Changing the Pace

      Practicing in The Five Treasures of Snow had become one of Thomas’s most cherished times as a Guardian. The mountain temple had a very special ambiance and unique character. They were almost at the top of the world, surrounded by vast walls of granite covered by snow and clear blue skies as far as the eye could see. The only structure was the temple itself; the only sounds came from them because the attending monks were always silent. It was a place where Thomas could concentrate and let go of the world below.

He had started to sit down in the middle of the arena for some time after Killjoy finished with their training session. He did this every day for five or ten minutes for total silence and to clear his mind.