“Don’t, Logan!” she said, reluctantly surrendering her gun.
“She’s got the right idea,” the male voice said.
Plastic zip ties were slipped around their wrists, binding their hands, and black sacks were placed over their heads. Simultaneously, the black vehicle came screeching around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of them.
“Deactivate their PCDs,” a female voice said. “The cops are almost here.”
Logan and Valerie were shoved into the back of the vehicle, and seconds later, it sped away. The last thing they heard was: “We have them.”
30
If it be a lie that all people have a holy spirit within them, and if it be a lie that you should endeavor to honor and have compassion for all around you, then let these be the greatest lies ever uttered.
—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA
NEAR BANARAS, INDIA, 8:30 A.M. LOCAL TIME,
3 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY
Sebastian Quinn sat on a hilltop overlooking a small Indian village a few hundred miles southwest of Banaras, India. His ever-watchful companion Bukya—named after a great warrior from one of the adventure tales recounted in The Chronicles of Satraya—sat next to him, listening to the sounds coming from the forest beyond the village. Sebastian sat motionless, gazing at the eastern horizon. The glorious rays of the mighty sun had driven the haunting light of the night’s moon and stars into faded memory. A new day had dawned.
“Greet every morning. For each rising sun represents the dawning of your enlightenment. And perhaps one splendid morning, it will be the sun that watches you rise.” Sebastian’s father had spoken those words to him as they watched a similar sunrise together from Peel Castle. Like the sages of old, Sebastian and Bukya, two travelers from a distant land, now watched from on high as the day began for the villagers below.
After a day of searching, Sebastian had located the remote village he had seen in his candle vision thirty-six hours earlier. He recalled the main dirt road that ran through the center of the village and the many small clay hovels that stood on either side of it. There was a small creek, born of a sinkhole, just to the north, which supplied water for farmers to irrigate their crops in a field nearby. During the Great Disruption, sinkholes had formed all over northern India. While the holes that accumulated water proved useful to farmers, the ones that remained dark and empty posed problems. Barricades were constructed around them to keep careless people from discovering just how deep they were.
Sebastian watched now as the villagers awoke and tended to their many daily tasks, which generations of people before them had performed. Despite its impact on the terrain, the Great Disruption had had little effect on these people. Their needs were simple and easily met, and they depended on no one but themselves for their sustenance. The younger children took care of the chickens and milked the cows while their fathers used horses and oxen to drag plows through the fields. The women of the village walked to the creek, carrying baskets of clothes on their heads. It was washing day.
Sebastian was relieved that the scene in front of him was so vastly different from the one he’d witnessed in the candle. “Looks like fortune has blessed these people and their lands,” he said to Bukya, who was now starting to pant as the heat from the sun intensified. “I am most relieved that this is not the adventure I thought it was going to be.” He poured some of the water from his bottle into a small bowl so his faithful partner could slake his thirst.
Bukya suddenly stopped drinking and rose to all fours, his ears pointed straight up, his nose sniffing frantically in all directions.
“What is it, my friend?” Sebastian asked. He couldn’t detect anything unusual taking place in the village below. Nevertheless, Bukya began to whine. Flocks of birds flew from the trees. The livestock of the village became agitated and began a frantic march toward the forest. Sebastian rose to his feet, knowing that the birds and animals were reacting to something that humans couldn’t see or hear.
As Sebastian surveyed the valley, hoping to ascertain what was causing the disruption, a sudden flash of intense green light filled the village below. Bukya let out a series of loud barks. Sebastian watched the light form a greenish dome over the village. He stroked the fur on Bukya’s forehead to calm him. After a few seconds, the green bubble faded, and the light was gone.
“I do not know. I do not know what that was,” Sebastian said, as if answering Bukya’s question.
The light vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Sebastian could see the villagers lying motionless on the ground. Helicopters could be heard approaching the village from the north. Sebastian knelt and watched as two black craft hovered low, one over the farming fields and one over the village. Three people wearing white hazmat suits jumped from the latter. Each was carrying a black case to which some kind of measuring device was tethered.
Sebastian watched their activities as they moved from body to body along the main road, but from his distant vantage point, it was difficult to tell what they were looking for. After no more than three minutes, the people in the hazmat suits reboarded the helicopter, and both craft sped off to the north, the same direction from which they had come.
Sebastian rose to his feet, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. His vision had been accurate after all. His initial relief was replaced with sadness. He gathered his belongings and walked back to the Jeep with Bukya. Then he cautiously drove down a winding trail that led to the village.
He parked the vehicle at the edge of the village and walked slowly down the center street. A strong wind from the east blew dust around. Bukya had ventured ahead, weaving his way in and out of the small hovels and sniffing the numerous bodies now lying on the road. Sebastian stopped and knelt by an elderly man who had been carrying a basket of wheat, which had spilled on the ground around him. He examined him for any signs of life, but there was no breath or pulse. He pushed open the man’s eyelids to examine his pupils. What evil is at work here? he thought, as he left the man and walked over to a teenage girl who was still grasping the sack of dirty clothes she must have been carrying to the creek. He checked her pulse and sadly confirmed that she, too, was dead. He removed an empty syringe from his bag and extracted a sample of blood from the girl’s body. Ten or more other corpses lay scattered on the main road, more could be seen in the farming fields, and yet others lay near the creek. Sebastian looked around for any sign of survivors, but he saw none. It seemed the entire village population had been killed. Sebastian watched as the birds returned to their nests in the trees and the animals settled back down.
A loud bark rang out. Sebastian looked around and saw Bukya standing in the doorway of a small clay house. A second bark rang out, indicating that the dog had found something.
An old woman was slouched in a bamboo rocking chair under the covered porch of the hovel. Sebastian pressed her eyelids closed. He could hear whining inside. Upon entering, he saw Bukya standing at the foot of a makeshift baby crib. A slight breeze entered through an open window, moving a handcrafted wind chime. From the crib, a set of tiny hands and feet motioned excitedly at the movement and the sound of the chimes. Sebastian walked over and gently took the baby into his arms.
“So you have been spared the fate of your parents,” he said. He looked for any signs of distress on the infant’s body. “And for what reason we cannot say at this moment.”
Holding the baby, he examined the inside of the hut and realized it was the village’s infirmary. Small shelves contained a variety of bandages and other rudimentary supplies. A corner cabinet held more potent medicines.
“So what is your secret, little one?” Sebastian said in a soothing voice as he walked over to examine the contents of an open box that displayed the emblem of the World Health Administration. Sebastian took one of the medicine vials from the box labeled “Tetanus Toxoid.” “Looks like your village received vaccinations recently,” he mused aloud. “Did they give you some of this?” He put the vial into his shoulder bag and, with the b
aby still in his arms, walked back outside, Bukya following closely behind him.
He activated his PCD and reported the tragedy in the village to the local authorities.
“What should be your fate, my tiny friend, now that your family is no more?” He looked into the baby’s deep brown eyes. “What say you, Bukya? Do we leave this little one here for the authorities to find? Or do we set him asail on an adventure in which this intended tragedy is transformed into his unintended destiny? This little one may hold the key to what happened here.”
Bukya let out another great bark and nudged Sebastian to turn around.
Sebastian turned. Walking toward them was a young girl, about ten years of age, carrying another infant in her arms and closely followed by twin boys who Sebastian guessed were about two years old. Soon there were five pairs of innocent eyes looking up at him.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to explain all of this to Lawrence. One of you was going to be hard enough, but five?”
Bukya let out another loud bark to express his approval of the decision.
31
See life through your own eyes, not through the lens of someone else’s advice.
—THE CHRONICLES OF SATRAYA
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, 10:15 P.M. LOCAL TIME,
3 DAYS UNTIL FREEDOM DAY
Logan didn’t know where he had been taken. He surmised that they had traveled approximately thirty minutes, and mostly on a highway, because there had been few stops or turns. The sack was still secured over his head, and his hands were still bound. He wondered how Valerie was faring and hoped his backpack was somewhere in tow. When the car had stopped and the door had opened, he’d felt a blast of warm, humid air. As he’d been led into a building, he’d heard the sound of crickets. They were in the country, somewhere in Virginia or Maryland, he figured. Now he was seated in a straight-backed chair in an un-air-conditioned room.
“You there, Val?” he asked in a whisper.
“Yes,” her muffled voice responded.
“Quiet!” a male voice yelled.
As they sat in the darkness, Logan continued to think about who would have the audacity to kidnap him and Valerie, a WCF agent, from a public park. Was this the Coterie finally carrying out their threat?
The silence was broken by the sounds of footsteps and a door closing.
“Remove their hoods and bindings,” a female voice ordered. “There’s little need for us to treat our guests so harshly. I am certain they will be most civil.”
Immediately, the restraints were removed from Logan’s hands, and the sack was removed from his head. He rubbed his wrists to regain circulation and allowed his eyes to adjust to the light. He was in the parlor of a historic old house, Federalist era, he figured, judging by the furniture and the size of the windows, which were open, letting in a welcome breeze. To his relief, he saw Valerie seated to his right. They exchanged a quick glance and then both looked at the people around them. The woman he recognized; she wore the same red hood she had worn during the auction. She was flanked by a young dark-haired woman wearing a short skirt, a tank top, and high heels and a tall blond man in jeans and a black T-shirt. Logan recognized him, too; he was the strange man from the museum. Off to the side stood two more men, large and muscular, the ones who had abducted them.
“Andrea,” Logan said in a low voice, as a chill ran down his spine. He was now face-to-face with the woman he believed had helped murder his parents.
“And you’re Monique,” Valerie said to the young woman. “We have been looking for you.”
“And you—you were stalking me at the museum,” Logan said, turning to the tall blond man.
“Stalking? We were only talking,” the man replied. “Perhaps you’re referring to your meeting with Fenquist on the street. Now, that was stalking. You should have reported that to the police.”
“Be quiet, Lucius. We have business to attend to.” Andrea stepped closer to Logan. “You do look like your father, but you have your mother’s eyes. They disappeared so mysteriously all those years ago, I wasn’t even able to say good-bye to my friends after all we had achieved together. How are they these days?”
“You know good and well how they are!” Logan shouted. He couldn’t hold back. He lunged forward, only to be pulled back roughly into his chair by one of the mercenaries standing behind him. “Who murders people and calls them their friends?”
“You shouldn’t throw accusations like that around,” Andrea said. “We were friends once.”
“Let’s cut out the pleasantries,” Valerie interrupted.
Andrea turned to her. “And who might you be, my dear?”
“They were together in the park,” Monique answered. “We had no choice but to bring her in, too.”
“You look familiar.” Andrea lifted Valerie’s chin with her finger.
Valerie slapped Andrea’s hand away. “My name is Valerie Perrot. I work for the WCF, and it would be in your best interest to let us go.”
“Ah, yes, I thought I’d seen you before,” Andrea said, continuing to gaze at Valerie. “Yet there’s something else about you. Lucius, do you recall seeing her before?”
“No,” Lucius replied. “Only from the news broadcasts.”
“It will come to me.” Andrea pulled her hood back a bit and turned her attention back to Logan. “You say that your parents were murdered? A shame that they met such a fate. They were upstanding people. And what of their friend? What was his name? Robert—Robert Tilbo. What of him? I would very much like to speak with him.”
Logan didn’t like where the conversation was headed. Quickly he said, “He’s dead. He died of a heart attack many years ago.”
Andrea gave no response. Just a short, pensive nod.
“You have to let us go,” Valerie warned. “This place is going to be surrounded by agents very soon.”
“I doubt that.” Lucius threw two disabled PCDs onto the desk next to where Logan’s backpack lay. “They’re probably still searching the park. They have no idea where the two of you are.”
A part of Logan was relieved to see his backpack. “What do you want with us?” he asked.
Andrea took a seat behind her desk and stared at him. “I can definitely see your father in you—always direct and to the point. So let me also be direct and to the point. Do you know why your parents were murdered?” She paused, but only for a moment. “They were weak-minded people. They had a need to save everyone they met. They were probably killed by some homeless man they rescued on the street and invited into their home.” She shook her head. “The Chronicles can’t save everybody. Sometimes, well, you just have to let people die.”
“Sounds like you still harbor some resentment for their derailing your plans,” Logan said. The mercenary standing behind him grabbed him by the hair and tugged on it. His neck twisted back in pain.
“Resentment?” Andrea raised her hand, signaling to the mercenary to ease up. “No, I have no resentment. Your parents lacked vision, they lacked purpose, they lacked the leadership skills required to make the Council what it could have been. What it should have been.”
“Then why did you and Fendral threaten the members of the Council?” Logan lashed out defiantly. “Is that the type of leadership you had to offer?” Andrea remained silent, but a hint of surprise flickered across her face. “My parents left because Fendral would stop at nothing to exert his control. They split up the Council because they couldn’t let you and that tyrant implement your so-called vision.”
“You sound just like your father!” Andrea said, raising her voice in amusement. “This is precisely what I meant when I said your parents lacked vision.”
“We know what you’re up to,” Logan continued. “You want all the books. That is why you murdered the Council members.”
“Logan!” Valerie said, trying to stop him from saying too much.
“No, please don’t interrupt him,” Andrea urged. “I am most amused by this story.”
Logan stopped.
“What about Cairo?” Logan demanded, refusing to back down. “What moved you to steal those books and kill three people?”
“Collateral damage,” Lucius muttered.
“Silence, Lucius!”
“What difference does it make, Mother? It’s over for these two anyway. They have little value to us at this point.”
“So it’s true, you were behind the Cairo theft and the Council murders,” Valerie said contemptuously, turning her gaze to Monique. “And those were your footprints we found in the tunnel.” Monique did not answer. “No need to deny it; you’re still wearing the same shoes—a size six and a half pair of Pierre Masus.”
Monique’s eyes darted quickly to Andrea and then back down to the floor. The room remained silent for a moment.
“I fear my son is correct,” Andrea said. “It is time that we are rid of the two of you.”
Lucius pulled out his gun, anticipating his mother’s next instructions.
“They are all yours, Lucius.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Logan said.
“And why not, pray tell?” Andrea asked.
“If you kill us, you’ll never find the fourth set of the Chronicles.”
Andrea paused. Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “What could you possibly know about the fourth set?”
“I know where it is.”
Valerie looked at Logan, surprised by what he was up to.
“I know where Deya hid them,” he continued. “She told my father the secret.”
“No one knows what she did with the River Set,” Andrea said. “I don’t believe you.”
“Are you willing to take that chance?” Logan asked. “Are you going to tell Simon you killed the only person left in the world who knows Deya’s secret hiding place?”
Journey Into the Flame: Book One of the Rising World Trilogy Page 21
