by Holly Martin
I looked at him in confusion and relief that the silence had finally been broken.
‘Er yes twenty centimetres apparently,’ joined in Caleb.
They knew, they knew I needed the attention diverted away from me for a moment whilst I wrestled with all my emotions, and they were attempting small talk. Guardians attempting small talk. If it had been any other day, I would have laughed. I nodded at Mason with gratitude and he gave me a small smile back.
‘Erm it will mean the roads will be icy tomorrow,’ Eli struggled on with the weather topic. It was almost painful to listen to.
‘I was raised in Australia, its winters like this that I wish I was back there,’ Caleb ventured.
This caught my interest. ‘You were raised in Australia? What on earth made you come to England?’
Caleb frowned slightly and I saw Seth shake his head a fraction but Caleb answered, the most obvious answer in the world. ‘You.’
I let my head fall into my hands. I wasn’t just ruining people’s lives now, I had been ruining people’s lives for the last seventeen years. Until I died, no one could have a normal life. Bring on the end of the world.
I looked back up at the Guardians, at Caleb. ‘Don’t you miss your family?’
He smiled with relief. ‘No Eve, the Deus is not a family orientated species. We’re solitary creatures. Once I was born, my Mum raised me for the first few years. But we grow up and become independent very quickly. I haven’t seen my Mum since I was six. I never knew my Dad.’
‘You’ve been on your own since you were six?’ I was aghast.
‘Many creatures in the animal kingdom live solitary lives. Once they are old enough to fend for themselves they go and live independently, they don’t live in packs, they don’t mate for life, they live on their own. The Deus are no different. Just because we look human, it doesn’t mean we are. I had made my own house in the Australian outback and was living off fish and small mammals by the time I was six. Some Deus prefer to try to blend in with the humans, have proper jobs. The Deus children go to school, but the family role doesn’t change. The Deus mothers just pretend to play the mother role, for appearance sake, there’s certainly no love involved, there’s just two or three Deus living independently in the same house.’
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ I asked.
‘Probably,’ Caleb shrugged. ‘Deus mothers tend to concentrate on bringing up one offspring at a time. Generally brothers and sisters don’t stick together, we prefer to be on our own, there are exceptions,’ he nodded to Eli.
I looked at Eli in confusion.
Eli shrugged. ‘Lucas is my brother.’
I gasped. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It doesn’t make a difference,’ said Eli.
‘Isn’t it nice working with your brother?’ I thought about Persia and the close bond she shared with her sisters.
‘Over the years the Deus that are pledged to you and the Oraculum, the Guardians, have learnt to work together, it’s now become…pleasant…’ he clearly struggled with that word. ‘…to have…colleagues…to work with every day. The longer I work with these guys, the easier it is to communicate with them, to understand them. I er appreciate having them around. I see Lucas in the same way.’
‘Do you love them, or care about them at all?’ I asked quietly. I thought about my friendship with Persia and Quinn, I loved them, and then Seth, well that was something else altogether.
‘It’s not really something the Guardians have. Our relationships are not built on love, but of respect. The Guardians that make up your personal guard are great warriors. They are highly skilled and would all die to save you. This I respect. However, over the last few days, I’ve seen the emotional ties you have with Seth, Quinn and Persia and I can understand the importance of these ties. I don’t think the Guardians will ever have that, something that intense, but because we have been exposed to your emotions we have been starting to feel more … attached to each other. I think now, maybe I speak for myself here, but when our commitment to you is done, if it’s done, I imagine we would continue to live together, as a pack.’ Eli looked around at the other Guardians.
Caleb nodded. ‘It’s weird, the thought of living with and working with other Deus was not a pleasant one, but we all agreed to do it, for you. But now it’s hard for me to imagine going back to being solitary again. I think I would be lonely.’
‘Me too,’ said Mason.
I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. One good thing that would come out of all of this, because of me, the Guardians would find friendship. After all this was over, they would still have each other. I liked that. And it had worked; this conversation had put my other worries firmly to the back of my mind. I stood up. ‘Right, come on then Persia, let’s get started.’
She grinned and hugged me.
*
‘Sorry Quinn.’ I sighed as he got smacked in the face by yet another snowball.
I’d had sporadic luck with my training all morning. We had practised speaking telepathically, which I could do quite successfully with Seth, Quinn and Persia as I knew them so well. But I’d had no luck in finding the Guardians minds to communicate with them. I’d practised some more with the weather with varying degrees of success, this time using safe, harmless mist and fog as my weapon of choice and even managed to successfully pull Seth to me. Seeing him land next to me like the air had spat him out was an amazing thing.
But when we tried with the shield again we started to have problems. I could easily form the shield around me, but Persia wanted to challenge me to stretch it over others as well. My visualization didn’t help. As I pictured a bubble around me for my shield, when I imagined stretching the bubble out over my friends it just popped. Poor Quinn was soaked with snowballs as he stood next to me, whilst I was bone dry in my little cocoon of protection. He didn’t mind though. It reminded me again of when he was a dog; enduring patiently everything I threw at him as a child. It was ridiculous. I knew I had the power in me to do it. But my powers were just a mass of colour, light and heat at the moment and I couldn’t focus any of it to really do what I wanted.
Alexandria had come back but Seth had not long been despatched to go and find some soft beanbags for me to practise my skills of telekinesis with after yesterday’s mishap.
As my shield around Quinn popped for what seemed like the tenth time that morning, I let it wink out altogether.
My stomach gurgled hungrily.
‘Maybe you should take a break, get some food and then we can practise some more this afternoon,’ suggested Persia.
‘I’ll take her.’
I turned round to see Lucas walking into the church.
As I left with Lucas, I heard Quinn sigh with relief that his torture would be over. I grinned at him.
‘I’ve had a busy morning, I’ve got lots to tell you. Though I expect you know half of it.’
Lucas didn’t say a word as he got in the car, a dark grey Toyota RAV4. I hadn’t seen this car as part of the Guardian fleet before, but they had so many. He started the car, and it was soon tearing down the lane. I thought I would try my telepathy again. I felt closer to Lucas than I did the others, so maybe that would help. I closed my eyes and visualized Lucas in my head, then imagined a beam of light connecting us. I found him very easily. I was surprised by how sleepy his thoughts were, despite that he didn’t look tired. Maybe he had come to the church before he was fully rested.
‘Hey Lucas,’ I said in my head.
‘Eve?’ said his thoughts.
I opened my eyes and looked at him, driving next to me. He looked as if we hadn’t spoken at all. He almost sounded surprised to hear from me.
I sighed, and then out loud. ‘I met a member of the Oraculum this morning. Well sort of.’
‘The Oraculum was here?’ He looked at me in shock. Eli hadn’t seemed that surprised to see Samuel, so why Lucas was looking so stunned was unclear.
‘Yes, he didn’t seem to think a lot of
me.’
He stared at me, licking his lips greedily, then he turned back to face the road, his eyes still wide.
‘Eve?’ came Lucas in my head again. ‘You alright?’
This was so weird; it was like having two conversations with the same person. I closed my eyes again. ‘Yeah I’m fine, are you ok, you seem a bit…weird.’
‘Yeah just having a few hours rest. What do you mean I seem weird, where are you? Up at the church?’
I opened my eyes and looked across at Lucas in confusion. He smiled back at me, warily I thought, and then continued focussing on his driving.
‘Eve?’ came Lucas in my head.
‘What do you mean where am I? Is that some kind of joke? Where you taking me to eat anyway, I’m starving. Ooh there’s that new burger place just up here on the left, let’s go there.’
In my head, I heard Lucas’s heartbeat quicken, could feel the panic surge through him. Something was wrong.
Suddenly Mason appeared in the car between me and Lucas, he elbowed Lucas hard in the face, causing his nose to erupt in a spray of blood and then grabbed the wheel.
‘Mason, what the hell are you doing?’
11. Deception
Lucas punched him back but Mason didn’t even seem to notice.
A deafening bang came from the front of the car and I thought for one sickening moment that we had crashed. But as I looked up I saw Eli on the front of the car, two craters at his feet, where the metal had moulded like clay around him as he landed. He looked livid. He took one step towards us and punched through the windscreen, grabbing Lucas by the throat and dragging him back out the hole he had just created with his fist. He pulled him with such speed and strength, that the seat belt Lucas was wearing tore apart easily.
A loud bang on my door distracted me from the horrifying scene played out on the bonnet. Alexandria had landed on the outside of my door, clinging on to the edge as if she was wind surfing. Another loud band indicated Caleb’s arrival on the other side. As soon as Lucas was clear of the seat, Mason clambered into it and taking control of the car he started bringing it to a stop. The Guardians were clearly turning against each other, and there was only one reason for that, one or more of them wanted to kill me. I looked out onto the bonnet where Eli had Lucas pinned down by the throat. Eli suddenly punched Lucas in the face, but where his hand should have made contact with his nose his hand just kept going into Lucas’s head. I couldn’t even see Eli’s hand anymore. There was no face; there was just a hand shaped hole. I felt physically sick. I suddenly realised that I was still connected to Lucas, telepathically, that he’d been talking to me the whole time.
‘Eve, are you ok, Eve…’
I watched in horror as Lucas seemed to melt around Eli’s hand. Eli tried to hold onto him, but it was like trying to grip onto water. One second Lucas, or what was left of him considering he had no face, was there, the next he was gone, leaving only his clothes behind.
‘Eve!’ That was Lucas again.
I’d forgotten how to breathe.
‘Breathe Eve, it’s ok, you’re safe now.’
How was it ok? I’d just seen Lucas die at the hands of his brother, yet I could still hear him in my head. The Guardians that had stood by and watched him die were quite likely to turn on me next. I really thought I was going to pass out.
Mason got out the car and he and Caleb seemed to be checking the road and the surrounding woods. My door opened and Alexandria leaned in. Eli leant down and ripped out the remainder of the windscreen. I’d had training for this, my powers were there to save the world, but they were also there to save me too. In a moment of crystal clarity I produced a shield that burst from me, like an explosion sending the Guardians flying through the air.
‘Eve no!’ shouted Lucas in my head.
I quickly clambered into the driver’s seat, slammed the car in reverse and took off down the road. When I was far enough away from the Guardians, I violently jerked the wheel, then slammed down the brakes and clutch at the same time, as the wheels locked I shoved the car into first gear and sped off down the road. Somewhere at the back of my mind I was able to thank my Dad, David, for teaching me evasive stunt manoeuvres like that j-turn.
We hadn’t gone far from the church and within seconds I was bumping back up the dirt track again. I got out and ran in. I had to get Quinn and Persia to safety too. Quinn was nervously pacing the church and Persia was sitting, anxiously with her sisters. Quinn ran to me as soon as he saw me, gripping my shoulders tightly as relief washed through his face.
‘Eve, are you ok?’
‘No, the Guardians, they’ve turned against each other, I think they’re trying to kill me.’
‘What?’
Persia was at my side. ‘Eve they can’t, they’re pledged to protect you.’
I shook my head. ‘I think they’ve changed their mind. What happened here?’
‘I don’t know love, we were all sitting here and then they heard something in their head and disappeared,’ said Quinn. ‘But Persia’s right, they can’t do anything to harm you.’
‘Quinn I just watched Eli kill Lucas, his own brother, he ripped him out of the car, strangled him, and punched him in the face and Lucas just melted. I had no idea Guardians died like that, he melted into nothing.’
Quinn’s face turned to thunder and his grip tightened on my shoulders. ‘Lucas melted?’
Persia swore. Something I’d never heard her do before.
‘Eve listen…’ Quinn started but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of my Personal Guard, well the four that were still alive. I turned towards them, ready to attack, but Persia jumped in front of me, and Quinn held me back. Though that wasn’t going to stop me; my greatest power was not in my hands but in my mind.
‘Eve no, we can explain everything, just listen,’ Persia pleaded.
I raised my shield instead and with a lot of concentration quickly flexed it to stretch over my friends as well.
‘Damn it,’ Caleb grunted, kicking a brick into one of the walls. It shattered into dust.
‘Nice one Caleb, that’s not helping make the situation any better,’ Quinn mumbled.
Caleb turned back to face me, angrily. ‘Why did you take off like that for? We’re trying to protect you and you just run away. I feel like I’m babysitting a bloody child sometimes.’
I took an involuntary step back. I was expecting an attack; I wasn’t expecting verbal abuse.
Eli grabbed Caleb by the shirt and pushed him hard against the wall.
‘You will not speak to her like that again,’ Eli growled through gritted teeth.
Caleb nodded, all the anger fading out of him. ‘I’m sorry Eli, you’re right, that was inexcusable.’ He turned to me. ‘Eve I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m not angry at you at all, I’m just angry he got away.’ Eli released him.
I stared at them, in bewilderment. What was going on? To make matters worse, Lucas appeared. Was there no end to this madness?
‘You shouldn’t have come; you’re not fully rested yet?’ Eli scowled at his brother.
‘Eli, she thinks you killed me, I thought this was the easiest way to show her you didn’t.’
‘Oh! That’s why you ran away. We couldn’t understand it.’ Alexandria suddenly smiled.
‘She thinks the Guardians have turned against each other, she thinks we were going to turn against her next,’ Lucas said.
Eli turned back to me. ‘Eve we would never do anything to harm you, I thought you knew that, we’re sworn to protect you, we would die for you.’
I gritted my teeth, flexing my shield. I could feel anger surging through me. My hand was zinging with energy. ‘Will someone please explain what the hell is going on?’
‘Eve, that wasn’t me in the car with you just then, I was still lying at home in bed. When you started talking to me like I was with you, I started to get scared. I spoke to the other Guardians, asking where you were, as soon as they heard me, they came to you. I w
as going to come too, but Eli figured two of me would freak you out somewhat. The man in the car was a shape shifter, he had taken my form. Very clever really. It never occurred to us they would try something like that. He even fooled Eli and the other Guardians. They had no reason to doubt me, or someone that looked like me.’
I looked at Quinn for reassurance. ‘The shape shifters can do that, take someone else’s form?’
Quinn nodded. ‘Yes, well some can, some can’t do people well at all.’
‘But he just melted.’ Then I remembered Quinn changing from a panther into a dog, and how he melted from one form into the next.
‘Yeah he shifted into a wasp or something and flew off. If I’d been quicker I would have swatted him.’ Eli shook his head angrily.
‘As I said before, the shape shifters are notoriously dodgy characters,’ Quinn said, releasing his hold on me as he sensed I was getting calmer.
Feeling his grip lessen made me realise I could release my shield now as well. I quickly imagined my bubble winking out. ‘But why would a shape shifter be interested in me?’
Quinn shrugged. ‘He would have just been a hired hand, working for the Putarians or the Reapers. Generally the shape shifters go wherever the most money is, they don’t take sides they just take jobs.’
I looked at the Guardians. ‘I’m really sorry guys. You save me and I hit you with my shield again.’
‘No Eve, we’re the ones who are sorry. We never thought our enemies would walk right into our midst and take you from under our noses, we weren’t expecting it. If you want I will speak to the Oraculum about getting you a new personal guard. Someone who won’t let you down. Josh is very good and you know him or there’s Noah…’ Eli shook his head regretfully.
‘No Eli, I don’t want anyone else, you guys are fantastic. What you guys did out there was amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it. The Oraculum have given me the best, I know that.’
‘I think you think too much of us, but very well, if you are happy for us to stay.’ Eli nodded.
Just then Seth appeared in the church, the air spitting him out. He had obviously been informed as he moved to my side, putting an arm round my shoulders.
