Lesser Gods (9 page)

Sitting in the driver’s seat and turning the ignition, Mr. Watson muttered to himself, “Swoop’s idea of a joke to send me on a fishing trip with a bunch of damn snot-nosed brats.”

As he drove the van up the exit ramp and pulled onto the street, Mr. Watson called back to us harshly, “Now, I’m not saying you don’t have talents, but a pair of almost entirely untested kids isn’t my idea of an assault team. Mr. Simms assigned you to me, that’s just dandy. I’ve got to work with you. But if you give me any trouble, I’ll personally guarantee that it’s the last time you work for the Knights. Do I make myself clear?!”

“Yes, sir!” I said as crisply as I could.

Terry snorted loudly and kicked Mr. Watson’s seat from behind. “Cut the crap, Switch! We’re the one’s keeping you alive!”

Suddenly Mr. Watson laughed out loud. “That’s more like it! Take a leaf out of Terry’s book, Adrian. You only live so long, might as well have some fun, eh?”

I looked at Terry, who nudged my shoulder and said, “This isn’t the damn military, Adrian.”

“You’re Hansel, right?” said Mr. Watson, looking at me in the rearview mirror, his tone suddenly cheerful. “My sign is Switch. Before I turned psionic, I used to have a job as a railroad engineer.”

“Wonderful,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Before I turned psionic, I used to go to middle school.”

“Just out of curiosity, how old are you, Adrian?”

“I’m fourteen, going on fifteen in October. Why?”

“Because you don’t look older than twelve or so.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Terry laughed. “Don’t worry, Mr. Watson. Size is no measure of guts, and Adrian’s got a fair share. I guarantee it.”

“Well, good, because he’s our only destroyer,” said Mr. Watson. Then he said to me, “You see, Adrian, we usually take five or six people even on a fishing trip, but Mr. Simms has everyone working overtime on... Well, I don’t know if he wants you to know about that yet, so I won’t tell you, but it’s a big project. You two are the only backup I got this round, which means Terry’s not kidding when she says you’re the ones keeping me alive. I’m just a peaceful finder and hider, like your Ms. Gifford, and a half-baked phantom. I can’t shoot worth a damn either.”

“Well, if it’s a fishing trip...” I began, wondering what the big deal was.

Mr. Watson’s face in the mirror smiled grimly. “Fishing trips can run afoul, Adrian. Sometimes they’re traps set by Angels or Wolves. Sometimes other factions try to beat us to the catch. A lot of things can happen. We’ll just have to be extra careful.”

“What’s a phantom?” I asked. I was sure Cindy had told me long ago, but I couldn’t remember.

In reply, Mr. Watson suddenly turned invisible. That is, his body but not his clothes. His clothes were still resting in the driver’s seat, the long sleeves of his shirt extending up to the steering wheel, making it look like the van was being driven by a headless ghost. I noticed Mr. Watson’s eyeballs also remained in sight, eerily hovering several inches above his shirt collar.

“That is really creepy,” I said.

“It’s also utterly useless,” Mr. Watson’s disembodied voice said with a light chuckle, “because I can’t turn anything but myself invisible. Most phantoms can do clothes and stuff, but I can’t. I’d have to be buck-naked to make any use of this power.”

“You can’t turn your eyes invisible either?” I asked. From behind, Mr. Watson’s eyeballs looked like two bloody red berries, and I wished I hadn’t seen them.

“I can turn all or any part of my body invisible,” said Mr. Watson, and his eyes blinked out of existence as well. “See?”

Terry leaned over to look around the driver’s seat and said angrily, “Hey cut that out, Switch, before you get us all killed!”

Mr. Watson’s eyes, head and body reappeared, minus his left hand. Terry got the joke, and kicked Mr. Watson’s seat again.

“What’s that about getting us killed?” I asked Terry.

But it was Mr. Watson who explained, “Phantoms rarely hide their eyes, Adrian. We can’t see anything when our eyes are transparent because light doesn’t hit the retinas.”

“That sucks,” I said. It had never occurred to me that the consequence of invisibility would be blindness.

Mr. Watson’s reflection in the rearview mirror grinned. “There’s a downside to most everything.”

“Enough play,” said Terry. “Tell us about the target.”

“Oh, this one’s good,” Mr. Watson replied cheerfully. “His name’s Art Barnum, and he’s a double-wild-born double-destroyer.”

“Huh?” I said.

Terry explained, “That means he gained two powers at the same time, and both are destroyer powers. It’s rare, and quite valuable to the Knights.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Watson. “This guy is a pyroid and spark. It’s amazing no one has picked him up yet. He’s been on the run now for several weeks, and recently he stopped about two hundred miles from here.”

“Why is he running?” asked Terry.

“The news clippings are in the file in the box if you care to read them, but the short of it is that he torched his own son by accident.”

Terry let out a soft whistle.

“The kid was five years old,” continued Mr. Watson. “He breathed in the flames and died. Mr. Barnum’s wife saw it and ran to the police. Best guess, the Wolves already scrubbed her.”

Mr. Watson didn’t sound at all bothered by the thought that Art Barnum’s young son had been burned or that Mrs. Barnum might have been tortured to death by the Wolves. For him, this kind of thing was clearly business as usual. His lack of sympathy bothered me a lot, but I kept quiet.

Mr. Watson continued, “The police found his car abandoned at the edge of his hometown. Exactly where he’s been from there is a bit of a mystery, but there are bits and pieces in various local tabloids and police reports that point to his cross-country run. We know the Wolves are already onto him, and it’s only a matter of time before other faction finders locate him too.”

“And you’re sure it’s this Mr. Barnum that you’ve found?” I asked.

“No guarantee, but the dates and locations seem to match up fairly well. And he’s a pyroid, of course. Wild-borns don’t come in six-packs, Adrian. You only see a handful every year.”

“How old is he?” asked Terry.

“About thirty,” replied Mr. Watson. “A bit of a late bloomer, even for a wild-born.”

I didn’t yet know what it felt like to be thirty years old, but I felt that I understood a small part of what Mr. Barnum was going through. Before Cindy found me, I had been on the run for three weeks, stealing money for food and constantly afraid that at any moment, my pursuers would catch up with me. I hadn’t a clue what might happen to me if I was caught, but that only added to the fear I felt as I spent cold, lonely nights on the rooftops of city high-rises.

“A double-destroyer is just too good to pass up,” said Mr. Watson. “I tried to get Mr. Simms to give me a few men yesterday, but, well...”

“Secret project?” Terry asked in an innocent tone.

Mr. Watson laughed. “You two do a good job on this and maybe you’ll get to be a part of it.”

“We’re almost out of New Haven’s bubble,” announced Mr. Watson, slowing the van. “Give me a moment to put my field up.”

Mr. Watson’s power as a psionic hider was just enough to place a hiding bubble over his van, but when he learned that I had been given individual protection from Cindy, he said happily, “Give my thanks to Ms. Gifford for me, Adrian. Now all I have to do is hide myself.”

We drove out of Cindy’s hiding bubble and across the river, leaving the city behind us.

“You kids better get some sleep,” said Mr. Watson. “I hope to get us on site before daybreak so we can get the job done quickly. I might want Terry to drive us back if I’m too tired tomorrow.”

“I think I might walk home,” I said, remembering Terry’s driving when we had been rushing to Cindy’s rescue.

Terry jabbed me in the side with her metal bar. Then she tilted her seat back as far as it would go before it hit the crate behind her.

“It’s barely Alia’s bedtime,” I said, rubbing my side.

“Sleep when you can, Adrian,” said Terry, closing her eyes. “That’s how you survive a mission.”

I leaned my seat back slightly, rested my head and let my eyes wander about the dark country scenery. Less than a minute later, I heard Terry’s breathing change slightly.

“Nobody falls asleep that fast,” I muttered, looking at her incredulously.

I heard Mr. Watson chuckle. “She’s right, you know. You two are in charge of the takedown once we get there. Rest while you can.”

“You really trust us to do this?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know you all that well yet, Adrian, but Terry’s worth ten Knights in my book. And if she says you’ve got guts, I’ll believe it.”

I caught my reflection in the window grinning back at me. It still took a while before I managed to close my eyes, though.

Mr. Watson woke us by turning the radio music up to full volume.

“Hey, cut it out!” shouted Terry, instantly wide awake.

Mr. Watson laughed as he switched off the radio.

“Where are we, Mr. Watson?” I asked groggily, stretching my arms and legs as best I could in the seat.

“Call signs only from here, Hansel,” replied Mr. Watson. “We’re close.”

It was too dark to see much, but as far as I could tell, we were driving down a narrow gravel road that ran between vast farm fields, with clumps of trees and thick bushes here and there. Mr. Watson stopped the van near a bend in the road, and then carefully backed us into a narrow space between several tall trees.

As we climbed out of the van, Mr. Watson said, “Rabbit, sort the gear please. There should be a couple of 84s in the box. You’ll have to assemble the rifle too. Hansel, help me hide the car.”

Terry, who had taken her call sign, Rabbit, from one of her late uncles who reportedly had buckteeth, started rummaging through the wooden crate on the back seat. Meanwhile, I helped Mr. Watson gather some dead branches to lean against the front of the van. There weren’t enough branches, so I levitated myself up and snapped a few leafy ones off of the tops of the trees. Once we finished, the van was hidden well enough that you wouldn’t see it unless you knew it was there.

“Okay, I’m set,” announced Terry. Then she said to Mr. Watson in an accusing tone, “But there’s hardly any real gear to sort here, Switch. Just this fishing rod, a pair of handcuffs and three 84s.”

“Would you have preferred a rocket launcher?” joked Mr. Watson.

Terry didn’t laugh. “You couldn’t even get us some CS cans?”

I didn’t know enough military jargon to decipher Terry’s complaint, but her “fishing rod” seemed to be the rifle she was holding in her right hand. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary hunting rifle, but even in the dark, I could see that it was a touch shorter than a regular rifle and that the shape of the barrel was somewhat unique too.

“You’re just going to have to make do, Rabbit,” said Mr. Watson. “Swoop has been pretty tight with our ammunition recently, and I had enough trouble getting a hold of the flashbangs.”

Terry noticed my lost expression but ignored it.

Mr. Watson added, “And we’re not to use them unless we absolutely have to.”

Terry shrugged. “Well, as long as he’s alone and unarmed, all I’ll really need is an arm.”

Mr. Watson grinned. “That’s the spirit!”

Terry slung the rifle over her left shoulder, saying, “I guess I didn’t really need to bring my jo stick.”

“What’s with the fishing rod?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity any longer.

“It’s a gas powered dart rifle,” said Terry.

“You mean like a tranquilizer gun?” I asked, looking at the rifle more closely.

“Actually, it’s a modified tranquilizer gun,” explained Mr. Watson. “It doesn’t inject chemicals though. It’s more like a harpoon. The metal darts dig into your flesh and drain your psionic powers. That’s one of the reasons we call it a fishing trip.”

“That sounds very painful,” I commented.

“Better than being shot with a real bullet, though,” said Terry. “I only brought my own guns in case this mission turns ugly.”

I thought it was already ugly enough, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I asked, “What is it that you said you wanted, Terry? What are CS cans?”

Terry glared at me. “Use my call sign or shut up, Hansel!”

It had been an honest slip of the tongue. “Sorry, Rabbit,” I mumbled.

Mr. Watson said to me, “CS grenades – that’s tear gas, Hansel. Very powerful stink... kind of like rubbing onions in your eyes and sticking dead rats up your nose at the same time, but less comfortable. Believe me, it’s better that we don’t have any CS here today. The M84s are a lot cleaner.”

“And what’s an M84?” I asked.

“A flashbang,” said Terry, her tone civil again. Reaching into the van, she tossed a black cylindrical object to me. “Big light, big noise. Make sure you close your eyes when it goes off or you’ll be blinded for a few seconds. Hang on to that one. I’ll carry the other two.”

I looked at the grenade in my hand. I had seen these things used in movies, but I had never seen a real one before. “How do you use it?” I asked.

Terry gave me an exasperated look. “You pull the pin and throw it, Hansel.
Honestly...
”

Mr. Watson said, “Come on, we’re wasting time. It’ll be daybreak in an hour or so.”

“He’s right,” Terry said to me. “Let’s go.”

Stuffing the flashbang into my sweatpants pocket, I followed Mr. Watson and Terry off the road and into a field of tall grass that I guessed was abandoned farmland. It reminded me of the grassy field where Derrick, the Guardian dreamweaver, used to appear in my dreams during my stay at the Psionic Research Center. I suddenly wondered if Alia was awake or asleep right now.

“He’s just beyond those trees,” said Mr. Watson as we trudged toward a long, straight line of pine trees that had probably been planted there to mark the end of the field. “Hope he’s still asleep.”

The line of pines was only a few yards wide, and when we came out the other side, Mr. Watson and Terry both swore at the same time.

“I was afraid of this,” said Mr. Watson, looking at an old, rectangular two-story farmhouse that was about a hundred yards away and sitting in the middle of another grassy field.