by Zile Elliven
Instead of catching up to her and confronting her immediately, he decided to observe her habits, so that the next time she ran out on him, he’d have a better idea of where to look in case she managed to vanish completely.
Like the last time he followed her, she watched her back well enough to force him to stay farther away than he liked. Unfortunately for him, unlike last time, a traffic snarl caused by construction allowed her to get away. One minute, she was standing on a street corner looking intently at a map in her hand, and the next she had vanished behind a long line of tour buses squeezing through the single lane open to traffic.
Cursing, he castigated himself. For someone like him, losing a little girl in traffic was an embarrassment, to say the least. An unfamiliar feeling broke free, paralyzing him with its intensity. His throat closed for a moment, and his heart raced, causing his head to spin.
Then memory kicked in. Fear. To be more precise, a panic attack, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since he was eight. He had been racing to the hospital with his father to check on his mother after the Accident.
He shook his head to gain distance from the memory and waited desperately for his conditioning to kick in and take the fear away, but it was slow to respond. Did that part of his mind seem smaller than it had before? Fourteen took the fear and shoved it toward the cold, urging it to do its job. Slowly, the cold unfurled and wrapped around the panic, freezing it into nothingness.
Fourteen frowned. If his conditioning continued to deteriorate, he was going to have to learn how to get a handle on his emotions before they compromised his ability to function as a soldier. Until then, he was going to have to limit his exposure to Aeyli as much as possible.
Taking a slow breath, he centered himself and went back into mission-mode. Once he was steady, he identified a break in the line of buses and darted through it.
He spent as long as he dared observing every detail his new vantage point gave him, but he saw no trace of the girl. Fourteen decided to kick himself later for his not-so-clever plan of hanging back to observe Aeyli, rather than confront her. It would only slow him down at this point.
Where would she go next? For him, the logical choice would be to steal a car and get as far away from the city as he could, preferably another safe house, but he didn’t think she had another safe house to go to. If his guess was correct, she had nothing to fall back on. No, she wouldn’t go for a logical approach. He wasn’t going to find her at the bus station or hitchhiking yet—his instincts told him it would be too soon to check there.
His mind presented him with a play-by-play of all Aeyli’s reactions to various stimuli during their short acquaintance. From her repeated insistence that he stay away from her for his own good, to her reaction to the devastation she and her family had inflicted on the cemetery, it wasn’t difficult to figure out where she would go first.
She would need to see for herself the fallout from the fight earlier. That was the kind of person she was.
It was over two miles from his current position, and traffic was backed up as far as he could see. His SUV would be useless.
He ran.
✽✽✽
What had once been a graveyard was now a gaping hole surrounded by police tape, a variety of different-colored vehicles—all covered in flashing lights—and swarms of people, half of whom were in uniform. The only body bags he saw were near the building leveled by Aeyli’s family, though he didn’t imagine she would find any comfort in that. She’d probably take the whole thing on her shoulders.
He didn’t know her well enough yet to anticipate what she would do once she got here, and finding her in this clusterfuck was going to be a challenge, so he hung back to survey the scene. With the patience of a sniper, he stood still and allowed the landscape to talk to him.
First he scanned the area in front of the police tape, hoping, but not expecting, to find her stymied along with the rest of the civilians. When that turned up nothing, he began to filter out useless information, deleting the flashing lights from emergency vehicles and the low buzz of the crowd from his perception. He let the setting play out in front of him, waiting for something different to attract his attention.
On the top floor of a white building, to his far left, he caught a quick movement that stopped abruptly, like something being jerked through a window. It was as far away from the cemetery as a person could get and still be able to see, but he thought someone as cautious as Aeyli would choose distance over details right now. Sentimental she might be, but the girl wasn’t stupid.
It was easier to move away from the scene of destruction than it had been to get closer, so he got to the top floor less than a minute after seeing the movement in the window. He was still running up the last flight of stairs when he heard the sound of something hitting the floor above him combined with a sharp yelp.
Through the open door on the landing he could hear, “It was stupid for you to leave your shield behind, Girl.” The voice was rougher than before, but Fourteen thought it was the older woman from the fight earlier. “Or maybe he just ditched you when he saw how much trouble you are?”
He drew his gun as he made it to the landing and went through the door without slowing. In the hallway he spied Aeyli sprawled on the ground moving feebly, trying to stand up and failing. He assumed the reason was the head-shaped dent on the wall behind her.
Towering over her was the lady from earlier, only she didn’t look as nice as she had in the graveyard. One side of her face was caked in blood and dirt, and her dress was torn. He processed the information as negligible—he was more concerned with the outstretched hand she was pointing toward the girl on the floor. The boy from earlier had his back pressed against the opposite wall and looked afraid. Fourteen ignored the boy and shot the woman in the head.
His eyes registered something his mind couldn’t process. Before him, ripples in reality formed and bent around the woman, while simultaneously, the sound of a ringing gong echoed through the hall. The woman jerked her unscathed head around to look at him, her face twisted in rage at the interruption.
He shot her again with the same result, this time noticing that his bullets weren’t bouncing off, but rather disappearing once they hit whatever magic was shielding the woman. At least he didn’t have to worry about Aeyli catching a ricochet, which was a plus. On the downside, they were making enough noise to draw attention, and half of the Boston PD was just one cry for help away. Having a silencer on his gun didn’t mean no noise, it meant less noise.
He proceeded to empty his clip at her. In his experience—with one notable exception—every shield could be breached.
After the first few shots, the anger drained from the woman's face and was replaced by fear as the noise from her shield grew fainter with every hit it took. When he’d emptied his clip, she threw up a hand that flashed through a series of strange positions. Fourteen felt something flow past him and heard the door behind him fall to the floor with a crash.
He cocked an eyebrow at the woman, reloaded his SIG, and trained the gun on her. Firing as he went, he pressed forward, forcing the lady away from Aeyli. When he reached the girl, the woman turned and ran. The next time he shot her, there was a wave of distortion around her that looked like a bubble being popped and he heard a faint chuffing sound. The woman jerked sharply and fell against the wall.
Aeyli put her hand on his foot, digging her fingers into his ankle, and he paused. “I won’t leave her behind us,” he told her, assuming she was asking him to stop. “She’ll just keep coming after you.”
Her eyes were dazed and didn’t track together, but she managed a weak, “Behind you . . . idiot.”
A ripple in the air passed over him and evaporated. He turned to see the boy from the graveyard looking frustrated and disheveled.
“Where did my sister find you, the Terminator store?” Eyes wide, the boy backed toward the door but didn’t make it before Fourteen grabbed him by the front of his jacket and threw him into the wall.
She nodded. “Sterling . . . just a kid.” Her eyes were pleading, but one of her pupils was twice the size of the other, not leaving him in a forgiving mood. “Please.”
“He’s the only one, Aeyli. Anyone else that attacks us, I will kill. Understand?”
Her nod was so weak he nearly missed it.
Fourteen strode over to the woman, now missing a portion of her arm, to eliminate the threat she presented, but when he got there, a blinding white hole opened in the wall, and she toppled inside. Before he could do anything, it was gone. Fourteen turned back toward Aeyli and saw her brother was gone too. Fuck.
Walking back to Aeyli, he heard footsteps on the stairs. As gently as he could, he scooped up her barely conscious form and hurried to the other side of the hallway, hoping that, like many old buildings, this one had two sets of stairs, one on either side. He was in luck, but had to kick it open to break the lock. Knowing there was a good chance someone heard that too, he ran down two flights of stairs, then cut back to go down the other set.
He made it to the still-chaotic mess outside and managed to blend in by telling anyone who asked if he needed help that he was taking his little sister to the hospital by car. Aeyli helped just by existing. Most of time, when someone got close enough to her, they stopped being curiously helpful and were more than happy to be told their services were not required.
The most interesting of these occurrences was when a tall, thin woman in a violently yellow pantsuit walked up to them with a look of sympathy on her face. Once she got within two meters of them, she stopped in her tracks, sneered, and stormed away.
He glanced at the small bundle in his arms as he left the crowd behind—her eyes had drifted shut sometime during their journey down the stairs. She would require medical attention as soon as he managed their extraction.
The adrenalin that had kicked in at his discovery of her disappearance was abandoning him, leaving shaking muscles and sickness in its wake, but he couldn’t fall prey to exhaustion yet.
Fourteen would get them to the safe house where he could assess Aeyli’s condition properly and treat her accordingly. After he had her stabilized, they would need to have a debriefing session and decide what their objective was. He already knew what his recommendation would be—complete neutralization of her family. It would be a challenge, but if she could harness the power inside of her, Aeyli would be unstoppable.
What the Company wouldn’t do to get their hands on someone like her. She could cause riots and—if she could pinpoint on a single person—even make other people angry enough to kill an intended target for them. She’d never need an extraction team if she could make everyone around her self-destruct from anger. First, she’d have to learn to control it and focus it away from herself, and then she would—
Reality smacked into him as he realized where his thoughts were taking him. Fourteen’s feet stopped moving, leaving him and Aeyli standing, exposed on the street. Without realizing it, his training had kicked in and begun consuming his mind. At some point he had stopped thinking of Aeyli as a person to whom he owed an unpayable debt and had begun to think of her as a weapon.
That wasn’t what she was. With his newly returned memories, he didn’t think it was what he was either—not completely, at any rate.
Their lack of cover forced him to resume walking at a brisk pace. His conditioning showed him, once again, he was not yet his own master.
He chose not to fight it completely, but, instead, allowed it to use him to search out a passable escape vehicle. As that part of his mind was occupied, he examined the part that had begun to classify Aeyli as a weapon. If he couldn’t get it under control, she would be better off left here by the side of the road.
“Fourteen?” Aeyli’s voice was panicked. Her eyes were open, but unfocused, and she began to struggle.
“I’m here. You’re safe.” He kept his tone even, hoping to soothe her.
At the sound of his voice, she calmed and her eyes locked onto him. “You came.”
He could get it under control. “I came.”
“We’re safe?”
“You’re safe,” he repeated. He had to get it under control—she needed him.
He sat her next to the car he planned on stealing. The Company could never find out about her, he decided. She wasn’t meant for blood and death.
Through her, he had touched a level of peace he had never known—even before he had become a soldier. Regardless of the side effect that everyone else was experiencing, he knew Aeyli wasn’t a monster.
No, he would be the monster for her. The Company would not introduce Aeyli to killing, nor would her family kill her—Fourteen would see to that. And somehow, he would find some way—find some person who could help her control her powers. In his mind, he owed her that much at the very least. Fourteen would make sure Aeyli was safe. Only then would he pay a visit to the Colonel for some unfinished business.
He opened the lock with a length of wire from his bag—older-model Nissans were a gift to anyone needing a quick getaway. Once inside, he tucked Aeyli into the backseat. She reached out to touch his face, but before she reached him, he caught her hand in his gloved one and patted it.
He needed her, too.
This new realization was pushed to the back of his mind when he saw a teenage girl fall from her bike, meters away. He threw himself into the driver’s seat and, within seconds, hotwired the engine to life. As he peeled away from the curb he saw that it wasn’t an isolated event. Dozens of people were sprawled out on the sidewalk. He saw cars drift to a stop, their drivers yawning and putting their heads down on steering wheels. He feared for a moment that he would have to abandon the car due to traffic, but once he made it around the corner, life continued as usual.
This attack was less violent than Aeyli’s family was prone to so far, but he didn’t question it. Instead he drove as fast as he could.
Chapter Seven
Marshall
It wasn’t uncommon for him to get called in on a second case while he was investigating a lead. It was, however, unusual to get the request before he had finished unpacking.
“What do you mean by ‘explosion’?” Marshall made sure his voice held none of the incredulity he felt. People, he found, were at their best when calm.
The man sent to deliver the message was the same one who had greeted him in the lobby. His red hair did nothing for the intense crimson burning on his cheeks. He hoped, for the man’s sake, the blazing red wasn’t a permanent fixture on his face, but it was hard to tell. When Clayton had met him this morning it had been there, though in a more subdued incarnation. Only time would tell, Marshall concluded.
“Well, perhaps not an actual explosion, it could have been an implosion, though then again there was a building we are pretty sure did explode. Probably.” His soft British accent should have made him sound cultured, but it was difficult to associate said adjective to the young man that had just dropped—for the third time—the remains of the doorknob that had fallen off in his hand when he had opened the door to Marshall’s room.
“Maybe you could start from the beginning.” Marshall’s voice was a placid pond on a warm June day.
“Of course, Guardian.” Clayton managed to put the remains of the doorknob into his pocket, and the small victory appeared to have calmed him somewhat. “One of the air sprites blew into my office—quite rudely I must say—and told me that a guardian was needed at the cemetery. It showed us—Samantha and me—a projection of the Granary Burying Grounds, only it wasn’t there.”
“How did it show you a picture of something that wasn’t there?” Marshall kept his hands busy putting each roll of socks in order in his sock drawer. If he didn’t, his fingernails would soon be digging deep crescents into his palms from sheer frustration.
He did his best not to announce to the world his anger management issues if he could help it. Good guardians didn’t get emotion
al. Destroy a city block in the name of protecting the balance? Sure. As long as they didn’t get emotional about it, they could wreak havoc with impunity.
Clayton examined an index finger that had begun to seep blood from its encounter with the doorknob. “The projection was . . . Oh just come with me, and it will show you.” His face flamed so brightly Marshall feared he was having a stroke. “Forgive me, Guardian . . . I didn’t mean . . . Oh dear . . .” He stammered incoherently, horrified he had offended Marshall.
Marshall put a large but friendly hand on the ginger man’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. And please, call me Marshall.
“Thank you, sir.” The red was receding from his face, but he was shaking hard enough for Marshall to hear the doorknob pieces jingling in Clayton’s pocket.
Sighing, Marshall ran a hand through his hair. He looked over at the mirror to make sure he hadn’t made his hair look ridiculous and had to smooth down an errant strand of honey-brown hair before he was satisfied with what he saw. “Why don’t you take me to the sprite so we can figure this out.”
Marshall followed the shorter man down the hall. Clayton’s reaction to him was, sadly, something he encountered in most of the people he didn’t know. Of the members of the Guard, the guardians were the elite. Known best for blasting their way through problems, the rumor was if you needed to call in a guardian, it was probably better to leave town for a while until everything had calmed down.
While some guardians had deserved the reputation—like the members of Blitz—other teams, like Ice or Mist, did their job without anyone ever knowing they were there. A team’s name reflected what they specialized in, so being the leader of Fire made people understandably nervous around him.
Once they got to the lobby, he saw Samantha at Clayton’s desk, sitting inside a small cloud—dark curls clinging wetly to her face, trying not to look as uncomfortable and damp as she was. As the head of the Boston Chapter House, Samantha Gonzales was the Guard’s liaison to the magical community in New England. She did her best to keep good relations with everyone, no matter how soggy it got her.
