The Guardian

by Elicia Hyder

  “Tandem,” I said.

  “Just one?”

  I nodded.

  Dave entered a closet on the side of the room. A moment later, he returned with a harness, a pair of goggles, and a parachute bag. “No need for the parachute,” I said, accepting the harness and the goggles.

  Dave’s confusion returned.

  “Suicide mission,” Ionis announced.

  Azrael elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Well, it is,” Ionis croaked out.

  “Thank you, Dave,” Azrael said.

  I put the rucksack down and shoved the items into it.

  “Need anything else?” Azrael asked.

  “Probably, but I won’t remember until Manila what it is.” I offered Dave my hand, and he shook. “Appreciate it, man.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He still looked a little mesmerized.

  “You ready to do this?” Azrael asked, walking back to the hangar door.

  “Do what exactly?” Ionis looked nervous as we walked outside. “I thought we were accessing the spirit line from here.”

  “You are.” Azrael headed toward the brick building. “But you don’t want to freak out Dave, do you?”

  He smiled over his shoulder before opening the building’s side door. He held it for us as we went inside. The bottom floor looked like the common room of an old college dorm. “Is this a residence building?” I asked as we followed him down the hallway.

  “It used to be. Since the activity of the base has decreased, we don’t really need as many overnight personnel here. The ones we do have stay underground. It’s much nicer.” He opened another heavy door that led to a stairwell. “They are currently renovating upstairs to turn this building into offices, hence the portable office trailer outside.”

  We followed Azrael two floors down. Then he used a retina scanner to open what looked like a solid wall. A loud buzzer made Ionis jump, and the wall slid away to allow us inside.

  I admired its size as we walked in. The walls and the door were at least four feet thick.

  “That’s a sixteen-thousand-pound door,” Azrael said as it closed behind us. On the wall hung a massive metal sign. It had a swastika and a drawing of Hitler beside the words, Loose lips sink ships! scrawled in cartoonish script.

  “Is that thing real?” I asked.

  “We salvaged it from a junk pile after the war.” He pointed to an open doorway on our right. “Decontamination shower and biohazard incinerator are through there.” We didn’t stop to look as we neared a heavy door like the first.

  The next door opened up to a lobby, where a woman was waiting to greet us. She was tall, dressed like Fury, and armed better than a GI Joe. “Damon Claymore, in the flesh.”

  “Hello, Gisele.” He looked back at me. “This is Gisele Palmer, head of Claymore, Oak Ridge. Gisele, this is my brother, Warren, and our associate Ionis.”

  She shook my hand. “I see the resemblance. What can I do for you, Mr. Claymore?”

  “We were never here, Gisele. As always, no questions.”

  “You’ve got it, sir. I sent everyone to the command room, so as long as you stay clear of there, no one will see you come or go.”

  “Thank you. We’ll chat on my way out. I want to hear how the renovation project is going.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Azrael led us down a long hallway with oak doors. I peeked inside the ones that were open. There was a rec room with a big screen and two pool tables, a large kitchen and chow hall, and a first-aid station.

  “How big is this place?” I asked.

  “Twelve thousand square feet, give or take. The one at Wolf Gap will be six-thousand feet bigger than this.”

  He led us through a door to another stairwell at the end of the hall. We went down another floor to a hallway of residences. “These are the apartments.”

  He pushed open one of the doors so we could see inside. It looked like the living room of my first apartment at Camp Pendleton.

  At the end of that hall, he punched in a code to open what looked to be the final door. “This is the one reserved for me or any VIP guests we might have.”

  I wouldn’t call it luxurious, but out of all of Azrael’s hidey-holes I’d visited, this one was the nicest. “Through here,” he said, opening another heavy metal door.

  He flipped on the light in the bare concrete room. The only decoration was a single quote, in what looked like Sanskrit, painted on the wall.

  “That’s creepy as shit, Azrael,” Ionis said, staring up at it.

  “What is it?” I asked, unable to read the language.

  “It’s the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, that Robert Oppenheimer quoted when they successfully tested the first atomic bomb.”

  “It’s grammatically incorrect,” Ionis whispered.

  “You guys are absolutely no help.”

  Azrael apparently wasn’t aware that I still didn’t know what it said because he moved the conversation along. “You can breach from inside here. It won’t be heard aboveground.”

  Ionis rolled his eyes. “We could have breached from the woods, but whatever.”

  “Ionis, do you remember the safe spot to breach to at Claymore West?” Azrael asked.

  Ionis nodded.

  Azrael turned back to me, an odd mix of worry and resolve on his face. “Have you thought of anything else you need?”

  I shook my head. I had my sword, my gear, and the cuffs—which, for a second, I was tempted to leave behind. “I think we’re good. Any other words of wisdom before I go?”

  “I wish I did, but you’re about to do something even I have never done.”

  “What if I fail?”

  He put both hands on my shoulders. “What if you succeed?”

  Azrael reached under his shirt and pulled out a gold necklace. It was his blood stone, containing all his memories of the supernatural world. “But take this, and revisit all my memories during our time of negotiating the deal with the Morning Star. Something might be helpful.” He took it off and offered it to me.

  “Now?”

  “No.” He put the necklace in my palm and closed my fingers around it. “Take it with you. I want to see what it’s like down there.”

  I hesitated.

  “It will be fine. I’ve done without it for a few weeks before, and my memory has been just fine.”

  “OK.” I put on the necklace and dropped it beneath my collar.

  My father opened his arms, and I gladly stepped into them. “Be careful, and come back quickly.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He squeezed me tight. “I love you, son.”

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  Over his shoulder, the words on the wall triggered a memory in the blood stone.

  “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Aside from Ionis’s constant whining, the next two days were completely uneventful. Fury and Reuel made it to Oregon with no issue, and in the times Ionis and I had to wait for them, he shopped while I scoured the memories of the blood stone.

  The four of us met up at the airport in Manila around lunch on Thursday. Even Fury’s and Reuel’s checked bags arrived on time—a miracle all by itself.

  “Now what?” Ionis asked, throwing his rucksack onto the ground beside the baggage carousel.

  “Unav.” Reuel pointed toward a sign advertising a restaurant.

  “We’ll eat soon, but I’d like to try to secure a charter to the island before we get too far from the airport.” I looked around for an information desk.

  “Now we’re going to fly?” Ionis asked.

  “It will be short, and I fear warping this close to the gate might set off some supernatural warnings that we might be here.”

  “Flint had planned to rent a helicopter through a company called Helifleet Aviation. They might do charter flights,” Fury suggested.

  “Do you have a number?” I asked.

  “No, but I
can google it.” She pulled out her phone. After several taps, she held the phone to her ear. “Hello?” She caught my eye and pointed toward the outside door before starting toward it.

  “Go with her,” I said to Reuel.

  Reuel followed Fury outside. As they neared the door, I noticed an information desk. “Ionis, I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure. Leave the little guy to defend all our possessions in the world. Great idea,” he said with a smirk.

  “Good point.” I picked up my sword’s case and carried it with me. When I neared the desk, the eyes of the small man behind it widened in question.

  I waved. “Hi.”

  “Hello,” he said. “May I help you?”

  “I hope so. I need to charter a helicopter to one of the islands. Can you recommend a company?”

  “I will be happy to. One moment please.” He began to flip through what looked like a Rolodex on his desk. After a second, he stopped and pulled one from the file. “This company is very good. Where are you going?”

  I accepted the card. “La Isla del Fuego.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, sir. A charter flight to la Isla del Fuego is impossible.”

  “Impossible?”

  “Yes. The airspace around the island is closed. Too many planes and helicopters go down there.”

  “Go down, like crash?”

  “Yes. Crash.”

  “Why?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “I’m afraid no one will fly you there.”

  “Well, shit.”

  “Sorry.”

  I dismissed the apology with my hand. “Not your fault.” Beyond the desk, Fury and Reuel came back in. “Any luck?”

  She shook her head. “They said helicopters can’t be taken to the island.”

  I jerked my thumb toward the help-desk guy. “He said the same thing.” I turned back toward him. “How about a boat?”

  “That would be possible, but it would be a long journey. There is a plane that flies into Dumaguete—”

  “No more planes.” I didn’t want to risk checking the sword, but that did give me an idea. “Thank you for your help.”

  The man bowed his head slightly.

  Fury and Reuel followed me back to Ionis. “What if we fly?” I said, quietly.

  “You just said you didn’t want to fly,” Fury said.

  “I don’t want to fly in a plane.”

  Reuel’s head tilted like he was considering it.

  “What do you think? Could we wait till sundown and go?” I asked.

  “You mean fly like…?” Ionis began to flap his arms.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Ionis put his hands on his hips. “Because I don’t want to.” Ionis enunciated every word. “It’s a thousand degrees outside.”

  Fury looked intrigued. “It will be cooler when the sun goes down, and much cooler at a higher altitude.”

  “What about all her stuff?” Ionis gestured to the bags on the floor.

  I looked at Reuel. “Can you manage the bags if I carry Fury? We picked up a harness in Oak Ridge.”

  He nodded. “Now about that food…”

  The sun set in Manila at 6:13 p.m. In the six hours we waited for the sun to make its descent, we ate Filipino food for lunch, Thai food for Reuel’s afternoon snack, and seafood for dinner. The dinner joint had a view of the harbor, so we stayed there until the sun went down.

  I was holding Azrael’s blood stone in my hand, lost in his memories once more as I looked out over the bay.

  “What is it with you and that thing?” Fury asked, plucking a piece of pineapple out of the remains of her fruity drink. “You’ve been treating it like a security blanket since we got to Oregon.”

  I dropped it beneath my shirt again. “I keep rewatching Azrael’s memories. The trials where they learned about Nulterra, the Battle of Antioch, the day they connected the spirit line to Nulterra. I’ve rewatched almost everything from the past millennium. Hell, I even watched Robert Oppenheimer speak about the atomic bomb.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been thorough. Learn anything new?” she asked.

  “Not really, but the Nulterra stuff is much more interesting after what Moloch told us about Ket Nhila,” I said.

  “The Bad Lands?” Ionis asked, translating the language. “So glad I don’t have to go.”

  “Nulterra is designed to trap souls there and keep them in anguish for as long as possible. It makes sense that trapping them would be easier if the Bad Lands are an illusion that’s familiar.” I looked at Fury. “And Moloch said the Bad Lands would depend on you.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “I think it means we need to start preparing for your worst nightmares.”

  “Meh,” Ionis said, nudging her shoulder. “Fury’s not afraid of anything.”

  I hadn’t thought so either. I waited for a while to see if she’d fess up to any fears. She didn’t.

  “When will it be safe for us to go?” she finally asked, dodging the unspoken question altogether.

  The sun was casting a golden hue over the waves. “Soon. The last thing we need is to make national headlines in the Philippines.” I raised my hand to flag down our waitress.

  “Yes?” she asked when she reached us.

  I pointed out across the bay to where a peninsula free of buildings jutted into the ocean. “Can you tell me what that place is?”

  She looked in the direction of my finger and squinted. “Far out there where the mountains are?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mount Palay. The Palay National Park.”

  “Can we drive there?”

  “Yes, sir. It will take about an hour.”

  “Thank you, Thania.” I pulled out my wallet. “How much do we owe you?”

  She left when I’d paid our bill.

  “What are you thinking?” Fury asked.

  I tucked my change back into my wallet. “I’m thinking we should catch a taxi out to that beach. If it’s a national park, it should be deserted this time of night. We can fly to the island from there.”

  “It’s weird that the airspace is closed around the island,” she said.

  I picked up the last shrimp on my plate. “The guy at the airport told me lots of planes and helicopters crashed there.”

  “Sounds like the Bermuda Triangle,” she said.

  “Bizarre for sure.” I popped the shrimp into my mouth, then washed it down with the last of my beer. I sat back in my seat and took a deep breath. “If I eat anymore, you’ll have to use me as a raft to float to the island.”

  “Where will we stay tonight?” Ionis asked. “Or has anybody thought that far ahead yet? I vote for somewhere with air conditioning.”

  Fury turned on her phone’s screen. “I’ve been looking at this place called the Lazi Beach Treehouses.” She turned it around so I could see it. “Looks like they have one treehouse available tonight that sleeps four.”

  I scrolled through the pictures on the website. It was a two-story structure with a thatch roof. On the ground level was a shared bathroom with an outdoor shower concealed by bamboo. Upstairs were two bedrooms that led out onto a shared deck. One bedroom had twin bunkbeds. The other had a king.

  My brain immediately went to the sleeping arrangements.

  “May I see?” Ionis asked.

  I handed him the phone. “Looks good to me. Where is it in relation to the gate?”

  “A two-hour walk maybe,” she answered.

  “Two hours?” Ionis made a gagging sound. Then his head jerked back while perusing through the pictures. “Fifty dollars a night for the whole thing? I might have to move to the Philippines.” He turned the phone around. “Does it come with the girl in the bikini?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fury, can you book it online?”

  “I think so. Let me check.” She took the phone back from Ionis.

  Across the table, Reuel was finishing his banana dessert. “You about ready to go, big guy?”

  He shook his head.
>
  “We can’t put it off forever, Reuel.” Ionis swiped a finger full of whipped cream off Reuel’s plate. “My ass wants to go home.”

  With a huff, Reuel shoveled the rest of the pudding into his mouth.

  “Done,” Fury said, putting the phone down. “And I let them know we might be arriving late. How long do you think it will take to get there?”

  On my phone, I opened an app Azrael had told me about to calculate distance as the crow flies—or in our case, as the angel flies. “Looks like it’s about four hundred and seventeen miles to the island. If we travel at a hundred and twenty miles per hour—”

  “Why so slow?” Ionis asked.

  “Because Fury’s a human.”

  “Oh, I forgot. You’re not like most humans,” he said.

  Fury smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It should take us about three-and-a-half hours in the air.” I looked at my watch. “So elevenish, roughly.”

  “I’m going to have to fly with my legs wrapped around you for three-and-a-half hours?” Fury asked.

  I grinned. “You want to get there, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but my thighs aren’t made of steel, Warren.”

  That wasn’t what I remembered.

  “I’m kidding. I have a tandem harness in my bag. You won’t have to hold on at all.”

  “Thank God.” She stood and put on her rucksack. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  I got up. “Let’s go.”

  An hour later, our taxi driver dropped us off at a beach club that had been closed for hours. Not a soul was in sight. Still, I sent my powers out into the night. Nothing.

  “Reuel, you getting any signs of life out here?” I asked, trusting his ability to sense the living more than mine.

  He turned in a slow 360-degree turn. Then he shook his head. “Nanta.”

  “All right.” I still didn’t like our position so close to the road. Someone would be stopping by at some point to check for after-hours trespassers, like us. “Let’s make it fast though.”

  I dropped my stuff onto the sand. Taking out my sword, I strapped it to my back. Then I pulled the military-grade harnesses from the bag and tossed one to Fury with a pair of clear goggles.