The Quest (32 page)

“Clever girl,” commented James, shaking his head in wonder.

“Too clever,” I said dryly. Alia’s “dog” was no doubt the Wolf, while “presents” were probably Angels.

“She didn’t mention Merlin,” said Terry. “She thinks he’s with us.”

“Damn,” breathed James. “I wonder what happened to him.”

“He may still be alive,” said Terry, though she didn’t sound very convinced herself. “More importantly for us, if Major Regis bagged a pair of Seraphim, they’ll probably have food and water.”

“We’re a day behind,” I said. “We’ll have to double-time it tomorrow if we’re going to catch up.”

“Especially if they’re moving on full stomachs,” agreed Terry, “but that should be incentive enough for us to pick up the pace tomorrow.”

Incentive it was, but willpower alone couldn’t speed up our legs very much the next day. We were out of water again, and I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one feeling dizzy with each step we took. We didn’t realize it at the time, but our average elevation was gradually increasing with every mountain we crossed, so the air was getting thinner.

But even altitude sickness, gnawing hunger, thirst, and the pain in our legs were not the worst of our problems on the mountains. To varying degrees, we had all learned to deal pretty well with physical discomfort. The real problem was the sheer monotony of the landscape compounded with the fact that we had to take each step carefully to avoid slips and possibly fatal falls. That, compounded with the constant strain of not knowing if and when we might come under fire, stretched our nerves to their limits.

Stumbling, occasionally crawling, we reached the top of the eastern slope in the early afternoon. I wanted to stop and catch my breath, but not until I had a look down the other side of the mountain where I hoped to see the distant shapes of Alia and Ed Regis.

“They’re following you,” said a rough voice from my left that nearly stopped my heart.

James and I spun toward the source of the voice, James drawing his pistol as I prepared to throw a blast from my right hand.

Ed Regis, sitting calmly on a large boulder, merely smiled.

Terry, equally composed, said, “I know that, Major. They’ve been following us for the last three days. But I don’t think they’re actually Seraphim. Just common Angels, or maybe even hired guns. They’re waiting for reinforcements.”

“Which will come soon, I’m guessing,” said Ed Regis. “The two scouts we ran into the day before yesterday were unmistakably Seraphim, and I’m sorry to report that they managed to give our position away before I got them.”

I had many questions, but the most pressing one was, “Where’s my sister?”

“Taking a nap under the sun,” replied Ed Regis, pointing at a large rock formation behind him. “We saw you three coming toward our little message yesterday afternoon and decided to wait for you here.”

Wanting to see for myself, I ignored the pain it was causing my weakened body and levitated myself up several yards. Alia was lying curled up on a sleeping bag spread out over a large flat rock. Next to her were two tall, dark gray backpacks.

“I’d let her rest, Adrian,” said Ed Regis. “I’m sure she could use it.”

I agreed and let myself drop back down. Then I said crossly to Terry, “You should have told us that we were being followed.”

James nodded in agreement, but Terry said coolly, “And the two of you should have noticed. They weren’t all that hard to spot, you know.”

I scowled at her, but James hadn’t seen anything either so at least I didn’t have to feel like a total idiot.

Terry continued, “Anyway, I didn’t want to worry you over a non-threat. They’ve been keeping their distance, always one mountain behind us. I’m pretty sure there’re only three of them.”

I asked Ed Regis, “You haven’t seen Merlin, have you?” After reading Alia’s Braille message yesterday, I wasn’t very hopeful, but I still had to make sure.

“We haven’t seen Merlin since our jump,” replied Ed Regis. “We had been hoping that he joined up with your group.”

“Our jump was delayed,” I explained. “Merlin should have landed closer to you.”

“He did, but not close enough,” said Ed Regis, shaking his head. “I pulled my chute pretty close to the ground, but I think Merlin opened his up the moment he left the plane. I saw his chute in the air. The wind took him over a different peak from where we landed.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And you didn’t try to find him?”

“The terrain was too rough in that direction to cross without our gear,” said Ed Regis, looking at me apologetically. “I had to look after Alia, too. And I figured that since Merlin could home in on the Historian just like you and Alia could, if we all set off in the same direction, we would meet up in a day or two. But the truth is that I’m not even sure if Merlin landed safely.”

“I hope he’s still alive,” said James.

“Me too,” said Ed Regis.

There was no reason to doubt the Wolf’s sincerity. He had, after all, brought Alia this far. I forced a smile, saying, “Hopefully we’ll meet up with Merlin soon.”

As worried as I was for Merlin’s safety, his continued absence presented a serious problem for us too. How were we ever going to get through these mountains without Merlin’s hiding protection? We were already being followed by a team of Angels or mercenaries or whatever, and no doubt more were on the way.

At the moment, however, we had far more pressing physical issues to resolve.

“We haven’t eaten in five days, Major,” said Terry, and James and I nodded fervently.

Ed Regis grinned. “I have some canned food.”

“We’d love some canned food.”

Ed Regis quietly retrieved one of the backpacks from Alia’s side and produced some processed meat that looked a lot like dog food but tasted divine. Ed Regis didn’t join our meal, explaining that he and Alia had already eaten just before Alia lay down for her nap.

As we ate the food Ed Regis had taken from the Angel scouts, I wondered if Alia had tried to stop the Wolf from killing them. What had my sister’s journey been like? Without Merlin, Alia’s only company in these mountains all this time had been Ed Regis. Though I hated to admit it, I now felt grateful to Ed Regis for having taken extra pains to get to know Alia before leaving Walnut Lane.

“Try to eat slowly,” said Ed Regis. “Alia says we’re still a good long ways from the Historian. We’ll have to ration this carefully.”

In addition to the canned meat, Ed Regis had acquired a fair supply of beef jerky, wheat crackers, chocolate bars, dried fruits, nuts and other hiking foods, but it was hard to guess how long the five of us could make it last. Fortunately, my stomach had shrunk so much that it didn’t take a lot to fill me up, and though I still felt physically weak after eating, at least my telekinetic power was nicely recharged.

“I suppose we should get going,” said Terry, and Ed Regis nodded in agreement.

“I’ll go wake her,” I said, levitating back up to Alia’s rock.

Landing beside my sister, I gently shook her shoulders, saying, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

Opening her eyes, Alia instantly threw her arms around my neck, but I had been ready for that, so we didn’t go tumbling off the rock.

“You made it, Addy!”
Alia cried in my head.
“You’re here!”

“Happy birthday, Alia,” I said, holding her tightly and rubbing her back. “Sorry we were late.”

“I’m so happy you’re okay.”

Breaking apart from her, I gingerly fingered her horribly dusty hair. “You need a bath, Ali.”

Alia touched my chin and laughed.
“You need a shave.”

My sister was equally thrilled to be reunited with Terry, and even gave James a hug.

Once Alia calmed down a bit, she looked around at us hesitantly, and I knew what she wanted to ask. Having seen us from this mountain yesterday, Alia already knew that there were only three of us.

“We haven’t seen Merlin either,” I told her quietly. “We always thought he was with you and Ed Regis.”

Alia nodded dully, and I wondered if she was about to sink into one of her silences.

Grasping her hands, I said firmly, “Don’t give up on him yet, Alia. We don’t know what happened to him, so there’s no use worrying. We still might run into him somewhere in these mountains. Who knows? We might even find him waiting for us at the Historian’s house.”

Alia slowly nodded, giving me a weak smile as she said, “I hope he’s not hurt.”

“Me too,” I said. “For now, we’ll just have to keep hoping for the best, okay?”

Alia nodded again, her smile a little more confident, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Terry nudged me with her hook and said, “Hey, aren’t you forgetting something, Adrian? Something small, green and needlessly expensive?”

“Oh, right,” I said, grateful for the change of topic. I hastily pulled out a wrinkly paper package that I had kept hidden in my pocket ever since leaving Walnut Lane. It was fortunate that I had it on me when our planes came under fire.

Passing the package to Alia, I said, “Happy eleventh, Alia. You probably think you know what’s in this, but you don’t.”

Carefully opening it, Alia pulled out her new bloodstone pendant. Hanging from a thin leather cord, the dark green stone speckled with red spots had been cut and polished in the shape of…

“A unicorn!” Alia exclaimed in delight. “It’s so pretty!”

“Happy birthday,” I said again.

“Oh, thank you, Addy!”

This hadn’t been an easy present to get, not only because I had to sneak out of the house in the daytime without Merlin’s hiding protection, but because unicorn-shaped bloodstones weren’t commonly sold at the local rare-stones dealer. I had my sister’s new pendant specially designed and made just for her, and the expedited service needed to get it done before our departure came only with Terry’s grudging consent to use some of the money that we had taken from the Angels’ house.

“Now that’s from both me and Terry,” I informed her.

“Thank you, Terry!” said Alia, holding the little unicorn up. “I love it!”

Terry laughed embarrassedly, saying, “Well, hurry up and put it on.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “and give me back mine already.”

Alia returned Cat’s amethyst, which felt comfortingly familiar around my neck. Then we resumed our northeasterly march, beginning yet another slow and painful descent.

The two backpacks that Ed Regis had taken from the scouts were heavy even for the Wolf, who had been carrying both by himself for the last two days. James and I agreed to take turns carrying the second pack, but it was James who ended up doing most of the carrying. He was bigger than me, after all.

Our new supplies included one small tent, two thick sleeping bags, hiking food, bottled water, miscellaneous mountain gear, and the warm mountain clothes Ed Regis had stripped from the dead bodies. “We can use them as blankets,” said Ed Regis. The clothes had bullet holes and dried blood on them, but that kind of thing wouldn’t matter when you were cold at night.

As we carefully walked down the mountainside, my mind briefly wandered back to our last moments in the crippled airplane, to the fear in Merlin’s voice as Terry explained to him how to use the parachute. Had Merlin been injured in his landing? Had he fallen from a cliff? Had the Angels caught him and sent him to Randal Divine for conversion? Under the circumstances, it was hard not to imagine the worst.

But as I had just said to my sister, worrying wasn’t going to solve anything. Besides, Merlin was a hider and a puppeteer, and a trained Guardian Knight. He had saved my life in the Angels’ house. He certainly wasn’t helpless, and who was to say we wouldn’t run into him tomorrow or the next day? It was even possible that we really would find him waiting for us at the Historian’s home.

Always assuming, of course, that we made it that far ourselves…

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” I said to Alia, who was walking beside me and occasionally grabbing on to my arm for support as we descended the slope, “but how are you enjoying your adventure so far?”

My sister looked tired and weathered, but nevertheless in pretty decent condition under the circumstances. Perhaps too out of breath to speak aloud, she replied telepathically,
“I don’t regret coming, if that’s what you’re asking. But I’m not enjoying it. I really missed you, Addy. Terry too. And I’m still worried about Merlin, and sad about what happened to Ed’s friends.”

I grimaced at Alia’s mention of “Ed’s friends.” More concerned with our immediate survival, I still hadn’t given much thought to the five Wolves who had perished with the second airplane. But those men had been an important part of our team too, and unlike Merlin, there was no chance of finding them alive. I did feel bad about that, but at least for now, Alia could keep the damn handkerchief.

“It was pretty scary at night,”
said Alia.
“But Ed always kept me safe.”

“He’s a soldier,” I said brusquely. “That’s his job.”

Ignoring my tone, Alia continued,
“It wasn’t easy getting over some of the really rocky parts of the mountains we climbed. Ed had to carry me a lot. After the Angel scouts, sometimes he had to make two trips, one for the extra backpack and one for me.”

I let out a resigned huff. “You really like him, don’t you?”

Alia walked a few steps in silence before answering,
“I know you don’t trust him, Addy. It took me a long time too, and I still don’t know if we’re really friends. It’s not like I forgot what he did to us. But I think he’s changed.”

I gave a non-committal, “Hmm.”

Alia looked away.
“Maybe not a whole lot. I mean, he shot the two Angels, one of them while he was running away. But you and Terry kill people too. And I’ve helped.”

“You have, and I’m sorry you had to.”

“Ed doesn’t like hurting people any more than we do.”

I stopped walking and looked at her. “You still think he’s like me?”

Alia gazed thoughtfully into my eyes for a moment, and then said carefully,
“Maybe you can’t believe that, but I think there’s just something inside him. Something that hurts him, Addy. Something really sad. That’s why I said he was kind of like you.”