The Quest (7 page)

“Talk, damn you!” shouted Terry, kicking him in the stomach. “What did you tell them?! What was the price you put on our future?! You’re one of the best blockers in the world! You’re a Knight! You were our leader! You should have died before giving them anything!”

Mr. Simms slowly replied in a low, growling voice, “I serve the Angels.”

Terry froze. Then, staring at Mr. Simms in a daze, she muttered, “No… You can’t… It’s not possible…”

Suddenly Mr. Simms laughed manically and roared out, “I serve the Angels!”

“What’s going on, Terry?” I asked. “What’s the matter with him?”

Terry shook her head. “It’s not possible. It’s just not possible!”

Mr. Simms was drooling a little as he looked at us with eyes that told of nothing but complete and utter victory, and suddenly I knew what it was that Terry couldn’t accept.

Mr. Simms had been
converted.

I whispered, “Who did this to you, Mr. Simms?”

Mr. Simms looked at me and smiled. “I must thank you, Adrian Howell, for leading me to the light. It was a mistake to think that the Guardians could ever–”

“Who did this to you?!” I shouted. “Who changed you?”

“The king,” said Mr. Simms, looking up at the ceiling.

“King?” I repeated. “What king?”

“The light of our world. The lord of all peoples. My king…” Mr. Simms’s voice trailed off for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, the newly converted Angel said, “King Divine… King Randal Divine.”

Terry stared down at Mr. Simms. “An Angel king?” she asked quietly.

Mr. Simms nodded. “My king.”

“No,” I said to Terry. “That can’t be. Master controllers are always women. Cindy told me.”

Terry shook her head. “Cindy told you wrong, Adrian. She was simplifying things for you because you’re a wild-born. There was a psionic king once, a long, long time ago. A man who was a master controller. It’s said that there’s only one every thousand years, but they do exist. The last king lived back when the Guardian Angels were united, and he had complete power. A king’s power is much stronger than a queen’s. The conversions always last forever.”

“King Divine,” Mr. Simms whispered emptily, “oh, how I have failed you. But you are greater than us all, and you will be victorious. You will hold the entire world in your hands, and yours will be the greatest kingdom ever. My only regret is that I can help you no further, but I promise you that these self-righteous vermin will get nothing from me.”

King Randal Divine… How could we all have been so blind? When Randal took control of the Angels following the death of their queen, everyone wondered how he had done it. Though he was the queen’s nephew, he was neither the highest ranking Seraph nor a senior member of the Divine family.

Back at the gathering of lesser gods, when Cat begged Randal to let me return to the Guardians, he agreed. Then, once he was alone with me, he tried to kill me. Randal Divine claimed that he couldn’t allow the Guardians to use me as leverage against Cat, who he had taken in as his daughter. He knew he would rise to power one day. When I faced him in the tunnel below the factory, I sensed no psionic powers, so I knew he wasn’t a destroyer like me.

But a
master controller?

Fate had given me the one perfect chance to kill him, but I had spared his life for Cat. How was I to know? But then, had I any sense, I would have killed him even if I hadn’t known what he was. He was an Angel. He had tried to execute me. That should have been enough.

“New Haven belongs to us now, young Knights,” said Mr. Simms. “The Guardians will never recover. Your pathetic alliances are nothing compared to the love of a true master, to the love of our king, our one true light in the darkness. Soon you will learn this for yourselves, firsthand if you are fortunate.”

I looked at Terry, who gave me a slight nod.

Placing my right index finger on the center of the converted Angel’s forehead, I said quietly, “Goodbye, Mr. Simms.”

Mr. Simms showed no fear. He didn’t even lose his sick little smile as he looked up at me and said calmly, “Goodbye, Adrian.”

As I released my focused telekinetic blast, punching a hole through the man’s skull, I heard a shocked squeal and looked up sharply.

My sister was standing there, mouth open, staring at us with horrified eyes.

“I told you to wait outside, Alia,” I said, getting up.

Alia looked down at Mr. Simms’s lifeless form, and at the blood oozing from the hole in his forehead. She glanced at Terry, who stood also. Then Alia looked at me again, asking in a quiet telepathic voice,
“Addy, why?”

“He was an Angel,” I said simply, “just like the others who tried to kill us today.”

I had once told Alia about the Slayer Charles, who kept me alive, and his sister Grace, who was killed by psionics. But I never told her that Mr. Simms was the man who led the team that routinely killed children in horrible ways. I could understand Alia’s confusion, but I wasn’t about to make excuses.

Terry said uncomfortably, “Alia, we couldn’t leave him here and we couldn’t take him with us. He was a dangerous man.”

Ignoring Terry, my sister shouted furiously into my head,
“He was tied up, Addy! He was tied up and you killed him!”

“I did what I had to,” I said evenly.

“You didn’t have to kill him!”

I shrugged. “That’s your opinion.”

I looked down at Mr. Simms again. The only thing that bothered me about his corpse was that his shoes were too big to give to any of the kids who needed them.

Alia stared at me for a moment, and then came up to me and quietly put her arms around my waist, her body trembling slightly.
“I don’t like it when we hurt people,”
she whispered in a shaky voice.

“I don’t like it either, Alia,” I said, and it was true. But sometimes it was unavoidable. Alia would just have to learn to accept that.

I picked her up in my arms and carried her off the airplane. Terry followed.

As we rejoined the kids waiting outside, Alia asked quietly, “What’s going to happen to us, Addy? Where will we go?”

“We’re going to find Cindy,” I told her. “Everything will be okay as soon as we get back to her.”

But we weren’t quite ready to begin our hike back to civilization yet. Patrick was removing the baby’s diaper, assisted by Heather and Candace. Apparently the baby’s crying wasn’t only because of the crash. Patrick had been right: It was a girl, probably not more than six months old. Of course we had no spare diapers, but everyone was doing without basic necessities today, and the baby was no worse off. At least she was clean now.

Heather offered to carry the infant, but Patrick insisted on doing it himself. He removed his shirt and Heather helped him fashion a simple baby harness out of it to put around his neck.

I suggested to Patrick, “You might want to give her a temporary name, just until we find her parents.”

Patrick nodded. “I’ll think of something, sir.”

“And please stop…” I started, but then shrugged. “Oh, never mind.”

Gathering everyone together, Terry assigned the younger children to the older ones to make sure that no one got left behind.

“Stay together,” commanded Terry. “You get lost in here, you’ll die slow, hungry and alone.”

Terry led the crowd into the trees. Hoisting Alia onto my back, I followed at the end of the line. As soon as we entered the forest, I felt my sister’s arms tighten around my neck, but I had too much else on my mind to make anything of it. Less than twenty paces farther, though, Alia started whimpering and telepathically begged in a frantic voice,
“Addy! Addy! Stop!”

I stopped walking and asked, “What’s the matter, Alia?”

“I can’t do this! Please go back! I can’t be here!”

Terry called from the front of the line, “Hey, what’s the holdup?”

Alia was speaking telepathically despite the crowd, which she wouldn’t do unless she was seriously upset. “Just wait a minute!” I called back, and quickly carried her back to the edge of the lake.

I set my sister down onto the ground but she refused to let go of me, her shoulders quivering as she desperately tried to regain control of her breathing.

“Alia?” I said gently. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry, Addy,”
she said miserably.
“I thought I could do it, but I can’t.”

I finally understood her fear. I said as soothingly as I could, “It’s just trees and bushes, Ali. Just like a big park.”

“It’s not!”

“Didn’t you once come running after me through a forest back when we were living with Mark?”

“There was a road! Please, please don’t make me do this.”

I would have thought that with everything else we had survived over the years and all that we had just come through, a hike through a forest would have been a cakewalk for Alia, but then again, I wasn’t her.

I heard Terry call, “Come on, Adrian! Let’s go!”

“I can’t fly you over this, Alia,” I said. “There’re no two ways about it. We have to go through.”

Alia shook her head.
“I can’t, Addy. I just can’t.”

Gripping her shoulders tightly, I looked into her damp eyes. “Steady, Alia. You’re not alone this time. Just hang on to me. Close your eyes if you want.”

Patrick came back to us and gave my sister a concerned look. “Are you okay, Alia?”

Alia took a few breaths before answering aloud, “I’m okay. I have to be. Just walk with me.”

My sister looked like she was on the verge of another panic attack, but Terry was still calling to us impatiently. I telekinetically lifted Alia onto my back and Patrick walked beside me, holding Alia’s free hand as I carried her into the forest once again. I was grateful for Patrick’s support. It was difficult walking together, especially since Patrick was carrying the baby and I had Alia, but at least my sister wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. Alia knew more than most about facing fear, and to her credit, she made no more complaints.

It was slow going, finding our way through the thick trees. Though it wasn’t exactly jungle, nevertheless we could have made good use of a machete to cut through the undergrowth. Terry used the sharp edge of her hook as best she could.

A little past noon, Terry gave us a two-hour break, and almost everyone slept or dozed a little. There was nothing to eat. Alia stayed close to Patrick and the baby girl, caressing the infant’s short blond hair.

“We’re still not far enough away from the plane,” Terry said anxiously. “But then again, the way we’re walking, it’ll be easy to track us no matter how far we get.”

We occasionally followed what appeared to be animal trails, but for the most part we made our own, noisily crumpling leaves and snapping branches as we pushed through the foliage. Alia was kept busy with everyone’s cuts and scrapes.

Once, little Teddy fell behind, and we only noticed when we heard his distant cries. Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to retrace our steps, and I wasn’t too surprised to discover that the boy who had been put in charge of looking after Teddy was my obtuse pyroid pal, Steven. Terry was equally unimpressed with Steven’s attitude, and reassigned Teddy to me.

“Good,” said Steven. “I was getting tired of dragging that brat along anyway.”

Terry said icily to him, “Keep it up and we’ll leave you here.”

Steven snapped back, “Don’t you talk to me like that, girl! My father’s on the Council. You’re supposed to be a Knight! If he hears that you treated me like–”

Terry grabbed Steven by the front of his shirt, brandished her hook at his nose and shouted furiously, “Daddy’s not here, you arrogant punk! Honorary Knights are just volunteers! Nobody owes you anything here, and if you disobey me again, I swear I’ll kill you myself!”

Alia and I exchanged smiles. We were used to Terry and knew quite well that far from killing the boy, she wouldn’t even hurt him because that would only slow us down. The others were visibly unsettled, however, and a few began to cry.

Releasing Steven, Terry said to me, “Adrian, bring up the rear and make sure no one falls behind. And that includes the spoiled Council boy.”

Then, ignoring Steven’s scowls, she walked back up to the front of the line and faced the crowd. “Now, listen up!” she barked. “We’re all in this together and we’re going to get out of it together. Keep your spirits up and your damn egos to yourselves. Let’s go!”

Near dusk, Terry informed us that we had come more than halfway. How she knew this was beyond me. All of the forest looked the same.

Our crew was a ragged bunch. Everyone was sweaty and muddy. Even the kids who hadn’t come in their nightclothes were wearing only thin summer clothing, and a full day’s march through the forest had reduced them to tatters.

The baby had soiled Patrick’s harness, so we took James’s shirt next. I asked nicely and James didn’t complain. With nothing for the baby to eat, I doubted she would need another change on this trip.

I asked Patrick, “Did you think of a name for the baby yet?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied earnestly. “We named her Laila, sir.”

“We?”

“It was Alia’s idea, sir.”

I glanced at my sister, who gave me an apologetic smile. I just nodded and smiled back. Alia had liked Laila Brown a lot. If I was Alia’s brother, and Terry very much family as well, Laila had been Alia’s first real friend. I looked at baby Laila sleeping peacefully in Patrick’s new harness, and realized that I was quite happy with her temporary name.

As we settled down for the night, Terry said to me in an overly casual tone, “So I guess Mr. Simms wasn’t all that dead when you passed him in the factory tunnel.”

“I guess not,” I replied stiffly.

Terry frowned. “So what happened down there, Half-head?”

“That’s my business.”

Terry looked like she was about to snap at me, but then shrugged. “Fair enough.”

I asked her, “Do you believe what he said about New Haven? Did the Angels really take the city?”

“From what I saw at NH-6, it’s very possible,” replied Terry.

I picked up a dry twig and twirled it around in my fingers. “So much for Mr. Baker’s great experiment. New Haven was probably doomed from the start. It attracted too much attention, especially from the Angels.”