by W. J. May
I’m sorry. Did he say…success?
Rae leaned forward in her chair, staring towards the front of the table. Fodder didn’t appear to be joking. Neither, for that matter, did Carter who was seated by his side. The rest of the table was in a similar state of confusion to hers, but none of the Knights appeared willing to question their leader.
The PC agents showed less restraint.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Rae heard the words coming out of her mouth before she made the conscious effort to say them. It was the outburst with Mallins all over again, but this was too big an issue to just let hang.
A success?! Were they talking about the same meeting?!
Fodder turned to Carter with a low undertone. “She does that a lot, doesn’t she?”
Carter shook his head. “You have no idea.”
“I’m sorry,” Rae continued, sounding not sorry at all, “but in what possible dimension could you ever call that meeting a success? They threw us out of the school. Not a single person either spoke up for us, or went with us when we left. The entire thing was a total catastrophe!”
“The point of the meeting was not to acquire Guilder support.”
Rae’s eyes shot from Fodder to Carter, sure she had heard wrong. She wasn’t the only one.
Both Devon and the greasy blond-haired instigator she had heard bad-mouthing them in the halls spoke up at the same time.
“Then what was it?”
They flashed each other twin looks of malice, before turning their eyes front.
“Andrew,” Fodder gestured to the table, “would you care to do the honors?”
He was a statesman, through and through. Rae had been in enough high-power political situations (most recently with the royal family) to recognize it at once. Although the table was evenly divided—PC on one side and Knights on the other—the two men had pushed their chairs together at the head. Demonstrating clear, equal leadership. And although they were technically in the Knights territory, Fodder was giving Carter the opportunity to essentially run the meeting.
She had to respect it. Even if she didn’t quite trust it. It demanded respect.
“Thank you, Anthony.” Carter got to his feet. “The point of the meeting was to cement the alliance of the people gathered together in this room.”
“But…” Rae looked from one to the other, “I thought the Knights were already with us against Cromfield. I thought they were going to—”
“We were, by no means, with you, Miss Kerrigan,” Fodder interrupted. “We got a call from my son saying that the Privy Council’s top agents were about to be executed for insubordination on Guilder grounds? Yes, that warrants a rescue attempt. If the intelligence gathering opportunities weren’t enough, we would have done it just for your age. But when you told me that you were there trying to prove that your own Council had been corrupted, so that you could gather support to fight against a man the entire world believes to be dead? No. Miss Kerrigan. That required a bit more proof than Miss Cross’ stories, and your collective promise.”
A surge of anger welled up inside Rae’s chest, but at the same time, she realized that everything he was saying was perfectly justified. If she had been in his place, in charge of a large group of generally young people, and had been told to send them into the flames based on their word of her sworn enemies? No. She probably wouldn’t have done it either.
And who was Miss Cross? Oh, Angel! “So why did we go to Guilder?” she asked again. “Why didn’t you just turn us loose—”
“Because the only way I was going to believe it was true, was if I heard it from Mallins’ own mouth,” Fodder concluded. “Which, I’m pleased to say, I did.”
Before Rae could even ask, a tiny dark-haired boy stepped forward from the shadows behind Fodder’s chair. He was so slight, he seemed to just blend in with the room around him. But when Fodder gestured him forward, he stepped eagerly into the light.
“This is Kyo,” Fodder explained. “He’s been with the agency now for about two years.”
So what…since he was nine?
“I’m seventeen,” Kyo blurted, correctly interpreting the baffled looks from the PC.
Rae couldn’t help but grin. This was a kid who was used to getting underestimated. She knew the feeling well. And she wouldn’t do it for one second.
“Kyo came to us with a very special gift,” Fodder offered the child a rare smile, “he has the innate ability to tell when people are lying, or telling the truth.”
Boy would that come in handy!
Rae eyed the child speculatively, wondering if she’d be able to get close enough for an opportunistic hug. On her other side, Devon seemed to be wondering the same thing—brow creasing with a worried frown as he angled himself between the two.
Yeah…I bet that’s one gift you hope I never have.
But something about Fodder’s story didn’t add up.
“I don’t understand,” Rae said in confusion, “wouldn’t he have had to have been there? To see Mallins in person?”
“He was there.” Fodder placed a hand on the boy’s back. “You just weren’t able to see him.”
The next second, it was like Kyo was never there.
Every member of the PC sat up in alarm, muscles tensed at high alert as their gifts and senses ranged out to find him. Julian’s eyes flashed momentarily white, Beth’s hands flamed blue, while Devon got that dilated look of focus he did whenever he was listening very hard.
Rae was the only one who seemed completely delighted. Kyo’s power wasn’t quite like her invisibility—it was more like a camouflage. Actually, it was a great deal like Kraigan’s in that regard, slippery little sucker. But it wasn’t the power itself that had her smiling.
It was the fact that the kid had two.
When he popped back into focus, he was right by her side. The half of the table who had never seen his trick before gasped in shock, but he and Rae shared a little grin. Then, before any one of the Knights could stop him, he held out his little hand.
“Want to share?”
Rae didn’t think there was a sweeter way he could have asked. Her eyes flickered up to Fodder, asking silently for permission, and the man bowed his head. Then, with a feeling of great anticipation, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the boy’s wrists.
Hybrid powers felt nothing like the rest. Even though she was braced for it, Rae found that she was hardly prepared. Her neck curved down to her chest with a little gasp as she felt the full force of it running through her veins. There was the truth aspect—hovering just a little below the surface—just begging to be used. The camouflage was predictably a little harder to locate, but she knew she would be able to develop it in time. Hybrid powers always took longer for her to master. She was still up to her ears trying to figure out Ellie’s and that had been over a year ago.
“Are you really sure you wanted her to do that?”
Rae looked up in surprise to see the greasy-haired boy at it again. He was staring up at Fodder with a great deal of respect, and yet, harsh dislike twisted the rest of his features.
Fodder gave him a sharp look. “Miss Kerrigan is our guest, Drake. She’s welcome to share in any tatù. As long as its owner gives her consent,” he added pointedly, casting Rae a warning look.
She nodded respectfully, still marveling in the complexity of Kyo’s ink.
“So you knew Mallins was lying,” Beth summarized, bringing them back on point. “And not just about himself, but about Cromfield as well.”
Fodder nodded. “Sometimes it’s better to judge a man by the things he neglects to say, rather than by the things he says out loud. Mallins said nothing to deny any charges, but the truth was written all over his face. After being further assured by Kyo, I am convinced. And therefore, the Knights are convinced as well.”
He shared a quick glance with Carter, who nodded slowly.
“The Xavier Knights will help you in this quest to defeat Cromfield. It w
ould seem that it’s in all of our best interest to do so, as the man has designs not only for Miss Kerrigan, but for the rest of the tatù world.”
Carter cleared his throat and stepped forward. “We’re only being given one advantage in this fight, and it’s a slight advantage at that. Time. We have been told by reliable sources that it was Cromfield’s intention to go ‘underground,’ so to speak. With all three of his chief lieutenants out of the picture, I imagine he’s looking for time to regroup. This window of opportunity is the only chance we’ll get to gather our forces together and make an assault.”
“It won’t be easy,” Fodder picked up right where Carter left off. “Since the Privy Council is obviously refusing to acknowledge the problem, it seems we’ll be on our own. We’re going to have to put every effort forward if there’s even a chance this is going to work. Training schedules are being increased tenfold. Any non-essential or non-tatù’d personal will be on recon—searching for any and all rogue operatives in the field that could help us.”
His eyes seemed to glow as he stared down both sides of the table.
“This is a battle where every single person counts. I will not have our chances be diminished by petty in-fighting or pre-conceived prejudices. If this man and myself,” he gestured to Carter, “can see past our differences and come together, then there is no reason in the world why that wouldn’t apply to the rest of you. Refusal to comply with this alliance will quite simply not be tolerated.”
He got to his feet and it was clear the meeting had come to an end. An aide pulled open the door in front of him, but before he walked through, he turned back with one final message.
“We’re in this together now. Understand that. Our fates are tied together and we are dependent upon the unit as a whole.”
The glaring line separating both sides of the table suddenly couldn’t have been more obvious.
“Make me proud.”
* * *
“So we’re all on the same team now?” Gabriel sat up as straight as he could on the infirmary bed, ignoring the searing pain that followed. “What are we? Council or Knights?”
“I think that was Fodder’s point,” Julian answered, “we’re both. I mean—neither. I mean…I don’t know.” He pulled his dark hair back into a ponytail with a sigh. “We’re going to have to come up with some sort of new name.”
“We could be the Cights?” Molly offered hopefully. “Or the Knouncil.”
Rae bit her lip, while the rest of them shook their heads with various levels of rebuke.
“It’s probably best if we don’t try to combine them, babe.” Luke squeezed her hand.
“Whatever.” Molly had a notoriously short temper these days. “So what exactly are the lot of us supposed to do? Make anti-Cromfield banners?”
Devon’s eyes flickered out the ICU window, where a large group of teenage Knights was going through their daily training routine. “We’re supposed to train with them.”
A charged quiet settled over the little room.
“Well I think that sounds great.” Gabriel was predictably onboard. “Any opportunity to kick the ass of a Xavier Knight is fine by me.”
Even Devon perked up at that, and he and Julian shared a grin.
“I’d be down…” Angel cocked her head to the side, also staring at Julian, “if you are.”
As had become his custom, Julian’s eyes flashed automatically white before they cleared back to the present.
“It’s what Carter wants,” he said quietly, glancing at Rae to see her reaction. “And I hate to say it, but Fodder’s right. This fight with Cromfield is coming, and since we burned the bridge with the PC, we don’t have anyone to help us fight it. An alliance with the Knights seems like the only play left on the board.”
Rae stared out the window and bit her lip. “A lot of them are going to get hurt,” she murmured, almost to herself. “They haven’t been through what we’ve been through; they have no idea what they’re going to be up against.”
“Who cares?” Gabriel asked callously. “You know they wouldn’t care if it was us.”
An echo of the conversation she’d overheard between the Knights in the corridor flashed through Rae’s mind. No, some of them certainly wouldn’t care. Then she thought of the girl. But some of them would…
“We need to be better than that,” she said firmly. “Yeah, Cromfield is a fight that belongs to us all, but it started with the people right here in this room. And I have a sinking feeling that no matter what happens it’s going to come down to the people right here in this room as well. We’re not going to be nameless faces to Cromfield. It’s personal with us. And he knows it. It’s personal with him, too.”
Her eyes flicked from Molly and Luke—sitting far more on the periphery than was custom, to Devon—still watching the Knights training, to Julian—searching aimlessly through the future, and finally to Angel and Gabriel—the closest thing to children that Cromfield had.
Yes, it was going to be personal to him. But it was personal to her, too.
The fight that was coming was an equal match of wills. An equal level of hurt, and an equal level of terrifying devastation that was sure to follow.
Knights or Council. Friends or foes. Alliance or not.
In the end, it was just her and him.
There would be no last one standing.
They’d just have to see who came out on top.
Chapter 7
“Come on, Drake! Let her have it!”
Rae and her friends watched silently as their greasy-haired nemesis threw tiny smoking fireballs at the girl who had defended them earlier in the hall. She was doing rather well, protecting herself with what looked to be some kind of force-field, but he was still advancing. In the end, she fell back a step under the weight of the blast and raised her hands in surrender. Drake spun back around to the applause of the Knights, a rather devious look in his eye.
The only people not applauding were the small group of PC teenagers sitting on a picnic table in the shade. Even Gabriel had been allowed out of the ICU to observe, and sat lounging with the rest of them, taking careful mental notes on their opponents.
Or their allies.
Or…whatever they were supposed to call them.
They looked good. Really good. Rae had to admit it. While their powers might not be as developed as any Guilder student’s would have been by that age, they were in prime fighting form and, for the most part, their technique was commendable. Yep, they looked good. Certainly better than how Rae and her friends appeared right now.
While she was dressed in regular training clothes, head to toe black, a roll of tight-fitting bandages lay wrapped bracingly around her stomach, making it a bit hard to move and kind of a pain in the butt to take a deep breath. Julian’s arm hung still fastened across his chest in a sling, Angel had a single piece of black gauze wrapped around her head like a pirate, and Gabriel had thrown caution to the wind, leaning casually back against the picnic table with no shirt and only a pair of loose-fitting scrubs. There was a huge bandage taped across his chest where he’d gotten shot, and just from taking the brief walk from the ICU to the grounds, small stains of blood were already leaking through. He acted oblivious to it, but it had to hurt.
No, the ex-agents of the PC didn’t look like much no matter what their files might say. But there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt in Rae’s mind that every single one of them could take down any of the Knights standing before them.
They were better. That’s all there was to it. They were in a whole other league.
“How about it, Guilder?” Drake-the-obnoxious called over his shoulder, smirking tauntingly at the table. “Got anything that could beat that?”
Angel sighed loudly, turning to her friends. “Don’t make it worse for him, you guys. You know what they say: tiny fireballs, tiny—”
“Yo, Barbie! You want to say that to my face?”
It was a testament to the total lack of fear each of the ‘Guilders’ felt tha
t this challenge was met with a soft chorus of laughter. Rae knew they all had similar thoughts running through their heads. They had all called Angel ‘Barbie’ at one point or another. Her adopted brother made it a point to call her it at least once a day. But no matter how delicate Angel might look, she could mop the field with this guy if she wanted to. Massive head wound or not.
Drake paced forward, enraged by the lack of opposition. Two men and a girl followed along behind, flanking him on either side.
“I said,” he growled through his teeth, “say that to my face.”
At this point, Julian and Gabriel stopped smiling.
“Take a step back,” Julian said softly. “No one here wants to see you get hurt.”
This time it was Drake who laughed. “And who’s going to hurt me? You? What’re you going to do? Tell me my fortune? Nice arm, by the way.”
Julian’s dark eyes fixed on him intently. Behind his back, Devon leaned causally forward, every muscle in his body at attention.
Julian didn’t even blink as he stared steadily at the cocky idiot in front of him. “No, I wasn’t talking about me. If I were you, I’d be far more worried about my girlfriend. She’s been known to have a bit of a temper…”
Angel smiled sweetly, and despite his bravado Drake shuddered and took a step back, and then another.
That should’ve been the end of it. The situation should’ve been successfully diffused.
Until a Knight at the back of the field called to Drake with a sly look in his eye. “Really, man? You’re just going to let that go? You’re going to be talked out of it by the broken guy with the Barbie girlfriend?” the guy scoffed. “If I was you, I’d do something about it.”
The final words seemed to almost echo in the open air, and the next thing Rae knew Drake was thundering back across the field making a bee-line for their table.
