by R. T. Lowe
“But you’re the disease,” Harper said steadily, staring from Allison to Felix. “Sourcerors aren’t the cure. Sourcerors are the problem. They’re like a virus.” She blinked and drew her eyebrows together. “Isn’t that what the Protectors think? They must not see the Source as a mirror. It seems to me they look at it like it’s a battery, and you guys are draining it when you use your powers. They’re just trying to wipe out the virus that’s infecting it. They’re trying to save it.”
“That’s not what the prophecy says.” Felix watched her, thinking she looked uncomfortable. “Human evil. Human cruelty. That’s what’s killing it.”
“How can you be so sure the prophecy is true?” Harper countered. “Or that there’s only one prophecy? Or only one version or one interpretation? If you’re so confident Sourcerors are meant to fix the Source, then why are they split on how to do it? Why are there two sides? Seems like the Sourcerors should be united if they’re so god-like and so much better than everyone else.”
Harper, Felix thought, wasn’t coping well with what she saw at the quarry. Caitlin may have left campus in the dark of night, but it seemed Harper was the most scarred by what she’d seen. “I don’t think I’m—” Felix started to say.
“I’m just trying to understand where they’re coming from,” Harper said quickly and flashed a disarming smile at Felix. “To be so committed to killing Sourcerors—for centuries—they’d have to believe they were the good guys, right? They’ve been taking on people like you—Sourcerors—and they don’t even have powers. I mean, that seems insane to me. How could you even think of doing that when you’re just, you know, normal?”
“There’s nothing normal about them!” Allison spat, coming out of her fugue. “They’re baby killers. They kill defenseless children and call themselves assassins. They’re worse than those fucking monsters. The next time one comes at me I’m gonna—”
“Hey,” Felix said to her gently. “Remember what the professor said.”
Allison took a deep breath and went back to her coffee, face red, eyes fixed in anger.
“Professor?” Lucas prompted.
“Professor Malone,” Felix answered. “He’s in the Order.”
“Really?” Harper said with a twitch of her eyebrow. “The psychology professor?”
“Yeah,” Felix said, nodding.
Harper picked up her cup and studied it, turning it in her hands. “You think there are others—other professors at PC—in the Order?”
Felix considered the possibility but could only offer a noncommittal shake of his head. “I really don’t know.”
“Sorry,” Allison muttered, collecting herself. “This isn’t about me. We’re telling you all this because you need to know what’s going on. At least now you know if you see someone with a huge knife, it’s a Protector and you should run like hell.”
Lucas grinned at her. “If I see a Protector, I’m running straight for you.”
“So that night last semester,” Harper said to Felix, “when you just disappeared, that was part of this?”
He paused for a moment before he spoke, keeping his eyes on his empty cup. “Bill told me something and I just couldn’t take it anymore. Like I said, this is all new to us too, and, you know, it’s a little overwhelming, and everything was coming down on me and I just…freaked out. I lost it. I, um, I don’t even really remember how I got there, but I ended up at my grandma’s old house on the coast. I was a total wreck.” He glanced up at Harper and found her looking at him the way she used to, her eyes mesmerizing, sensual.
“That’s where Felix and I spent winter break,” Allison declared. “It’s actually a pretty awesome little cottage. It’s right on the beach at the top of a cliff with amazing views of the ocean.”
“You guys stayed together?” Lucas said, surprised, leaning back in his chair. “Really? For the whole break?”
“We thought it was the smart thing to do.” Felix had forgotten about telling them of their recent living arrangement, and now that it was out in the open he felt awkward. He shifted in his seat and looked at Harper. The luster in her eyes had dimmed. “If we were under the same roof, we thought we could look after each other. It’s not like the people trying to kill us work regular business hours.”
“Makes sense,” Lucas said, and Felix was grateful for his pragmatism.
“Wow,” Harper said, looking directly at Felix, “you guys are full of surprises.”
“Ahhh!” Allison suddenly cried out, grabbing at her neck.
All heads turned to her as she thrust a hand under her shirt, feeling along her collar bone. “What the hell?” she said softly, eyes darting nervously around the room.
“What’s wrong?” Felix asked, watching her, thinking she’d been concealing another injury from him. He obviously knew about her arm, but something else could have happened to her at the quarry when he blacked out. “What’s going—?”
“Owwww!” Eyes watering with pain, she tugged at her shirt, stretching out the neck, pulling it over her shoulder. Two sets of ovals, red and puffy, were seared into her skin like train tracks. Felix thought it looked like someone had bitten her, but not the Numbered Ones—the ovals were far too small for that. Before their eyes a third appeared, blood dribbling from the corners. Allison winced and the one next to it vanished, instantly healed, the skin smooth and unbroken.
“You’re bleeding!” Harper gasped.
“Are those,” Lucas said, eyes bulging, “bite marks?”
Allison closed her eyes. “It’s…it’s Caitlin,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “She’s in trouble. I can feel her…her fear, and her…pain. She’s scared.” She stood and stared down at Felix, the pain gone from her eyes, replaced with grim determination. “I know where she is!” She hopped on the table and jumped over Lucas’s chair, bolting for the passageway.
Lucas ducked and swiveled around to see where she was going. Harper didn’t move, apparently too stunned to even turn her head. Felix was on Allison’s heels, the non-buttered side of his bagel left behind on the rug beside the couch.
Chapter 22
Footage
The jet black Bentley waiting outside the Rose Bowl’s main entrance gleamed in the mid-morning sun, sleek and much longer than any stretch limousine Kayla had ever seen. She tapped twice on a tinted window nearly as dark as the car itself and opened the door for Jalen, climbing in after him. The sounds of buses and shuttles dropping off their passengers—the rumbling of diesel engines, the hissing of compression brakes—and the murmur of the growing crowd all went silent as she closed the door behind them.
“…has a weak stomach,” Lynch was saying gruffly, “but he’ll do his job. He always has.” He gave Jalen and Kayla a brusque nod from the bench the three now shared. Lofton and Devory sat across from them on either side of a sizable compartment covered in burled walnut which Kayla supposed might be a bar. The seating reminded her of a train car.
“Having a conscience doesn’t make you weak,” Lofton said evenly. He wore charcoal gray pants and a light blue shirt, his folded jacket on his lap. “We’ll look back on this day and remember it as a great victory, but we can’t forget those who won’t be here to celebrate it with us. I don’t begrudge Dirk for questioning you, Lynch. If there comes a time when we demand sacrifices without careful deliberation, and without hesitation or empathy, then we are no better than Wisps.”
If Lofton’s comment offended Devory, the Wisp, it didn’t show on his face.
Sacrifices, Kayla thought, feeling a cold breath on the back of her neck. She decided to speak up. “What are you…?”
“It’s nothing,” Lofton told her. “Dirk Rathman has a task to perform at the assembly and he expressed some…concern.” He gave her an easy smile. “I have the utmost faith in Dirk. As I’ve said before, this is the role he was born to play.”
Kayla nodded as if that settled the matter in her mind. The ‘assembly’, as Lofton called it, was an ERA protest scheduled to begin in a few sho
rt hours that required a stadium the size of the Rose Bowl to accommodate the crowd. Tens of thousands of people. Dirk was having concerns. Sacrifices. What was Lofton planning?
“I was hoping to meet him,” Jalen said, grinning wide. “I think I watched Alien Armageddonator like a hundred times.”
“Me too,” Kayla added cheerfully. “I could totally see you going all fan girl on him.” Further questions were pointless and would only raise suspicions. If Lofton intended for her to know what was going to happen inside the stadium he or Lynch would have already told her. She wondered for a moment if Jalen knew and decided against it.
Jalen bellowed laughter.
“Did you send the file?” Lynch asked Kayla, trying to conceal his annoyance at their banter, an effort he would only make in Lofton’s presence.
Kayla smiled sweetly, wondering why he would ask a question he already knew the answer to. “I sent it to Devory late last night.”
Devory confirmed his receipt of the file with a stiff nod of his head, then he turned to Lofton. “I didn’t send it along because there’s an issue we haven’t been able to resolve to my satisfaction. It seems Felix’s mother underwent a hysterectomy prior to his birth.”
Lofton raised an eyebrow. “Well isn’t that…curious.”
“Very.” Devory scratched at the few remaining hairs on his head. “It goes without saying we have analyzed every record that has ever been created. All levels of government, including the various sub-agencies, school records, immunization and other medical records, and of course his cell phone and Internet activity. But there’s no documentation of the adoption. Not a single email or scrap of paper.”
“Could someone have erased it without leaving any trace?” Lofton asked. “No meta data? Nothing?”
“Highly unlikely, but yes, assuming the individual or individuals had the requisite knowledge and the right resources.”
Kayla knew of course that Lofton was searching for the Belus. All Drestianites were familiar with The Warning and were on notice to inform their superiors if word ever came their way of an immaculate conception. The prophecy foretold of a boy born fatherless, but the prophecy originated a few thousand years before the Internet provided a platform for every lunatic on the planet. If you believed what you read online, immaculately conceived children were born daily. The rumors and claims were so common no one bothered to chase them down. Nonetheless, Lofton continued his search, looking for something that didn’t quite fit—something like this. The situation with Felix, however, wasn’t unprecedented and the lack of documentation didn’t mean anything in and of itself. There were instances where abandoned infants left at churches and orphanages grew up without birth certificates and the flourishing black market trade in newborns involved identity swapping and forged birth records that were nearly impossible to match back to the babies’ actual identities. There were lots of possible explanations, each infinitely more plausible than an immaculate conception.
“Don’t worry yourself over it,” Lofton said to Devory. “You’ve confirmed what I already knew. I’ve had better luck in England. It seems Felix’s biological mother was born there and came to this country as a young girl. An elderly woman living in Wales knew of her and was quite close to her older sister. Felix’s mother was raised in Seattle and evidently lived an unassuming life until she got herself into a bit of trouble and was committed to a psychiatric institution. Her name was Elissa, and while there aren’t any records of her, in this country or in England, there are people who remember her. They seem to recall that Elissa had a baby—a boy—before she was institutionalized. Unfortunately, she died in the custody of the state shortly after her incarceration and the boy went to live with a childless couple in Coos Bridge, Oregon.
“The Augusts?” Devory hazarded.
“Yes,” Lofton confirmed.
“Our efforts haven’t been completely fruitless,” Devory remarked, looking somewhat sullen. “There is a person of interest we’ve been surveilling. His name is William Stout, one of our consultants. He’s a mental health expert, and by all accounts his reputation is unimpeachable. He’s been with us for more than a decade and provides his services from the comforts of an office on the AshCorp campus.” He paused, a wry smile flickering across his sallow face. “He’s also currently employed at Portland College as a groundskeeper.”
“Interesting,” Lofton mused. “His connection to Felix?”
“His phone records indicate he’s been in contact with Felix since last fall, though their relationship is unclear.” Devory frowned. “That said, I’d stake my life he knows something about his origins.”
“Perhaps he’s the link between Felix and his biological mother. Let me know if the surveillance yields anything of value.” Lofton fell silent, hands folded loosely on his jacket. After a while, his icy blue eyes glanced up at the ceiling displays and he said softly, “Let’s see it.”
Kayla let out a silent breath. That was her cue. The original footage was in Lynch’s possession and he’d forwarded her a copy an hour ago because technology intimidated him and he didn’t want to appear incompetent in front of Lofton. That’s not what he’d told her, but she recognized a technophobe when she met one. In less than a minute she synced up her phone with the Bentley’s entertainment system, resisting a sudden urge to flash Lynch a snarky smile. She tapped the play button on her screen and images flashed across the dual displays, one facing the front, the other, the back. A vehicle—a dark Jeep—traveled slowly over an unpaved road in the gray light of dawn. Four climbed out, the girl who had driven and three from the front seat, all young, dressed like students. Two people appeared from behind a rundown building, apparently lying in wait. The girl fought with a man who lunged at her with a knife, knocking him to the ground. A Numbered One streaked into the frame and bit through the head of the woman he was with. More Numbered Ones materialized. Without much struggle from the man, he and the woman—their weapons and methods identified them as Protectors—were eaten. Then the Numbered Ones waited.
“This is when he arrives?” Lofton asked calmly. He kept his gaze on the screen, his expression unreadable. Behind Lofton through the back window, a cloudless Pasadena sky shone blue above the columned entrance, the giant green-stemmed rose splashed across the front of the stadium. Kayla watched a young couple taking selfies by a grove of palm trees, mixing in with the crowd before filing in. She wondered if the happy looking pair would be walking out when the protest was over or if she was observing the final hours of two more of Lofton’s carefully deliberated sacrifices. Her throat tightened and her eyes grew hot with anger.
“Yes,” Lynch answered.
On the displays, a war began to rage. Numbered Ones swarmed a tall boy with sandy hair who had entered the fray. He dispatched a Numbered One with a wave of his hand and swung a steel pipe, crushing bone and flesh, fighting them off until their numbers buried him under like a wave. The girl fought with a Numbered One in a yellow jacket and it slammed her down, biting her arm. Then, in an instant, the Numbered Ones were floating and immobilized, the boy was free, and the Numbered One that had attacked the girl was in the boy’s clutches. Fire exploded from the boy’s hand, vaporizing its face. Great towers of flame swept across the quarry, devouring the creatures, incinerating them in an instant. A lone Numbered One limped away, fleeing the scene. Enormous spaceship like objects trailed after it, hammering it into the ground, obliterating it as dust clouds curled high into the air. The picture shook. Spiraling flames stretched toward the heavens, burning everything in their path as they moved steadily from right to left. The girl ran to the boy and embraced him. The columns of flame disappeared. A short conversation ensued with the other kids who had come in the Jeep and then the boy ran to the east and out of the picture.
Kayla tapped the stop button. “Looks like that’s it.” She had never seen anything like that before. There were legends of fire wielding Sourcerors, but she doubted they could control it on a scale like that. The flames had stretched
hundreds of feet into the sky. His telekinetic abilities were also off the charts. Immobilizing so many Numbered Ones at the same time was a feat maybe only Lynch could accomplish, and his healing powers were mind-boggling. The Numbered Ones had mauled him like a pack of starving lions and he’d fled the scene without a limp. Could he be the Belus? Had Lofton actually found him? She looked at Lofton. His expression had subtly changed. He was thinking about something, but what? She would give anything to know what was going on inside his head.
“Wow!” Jalen said in a hushed voice. “Kid’s got skills. It’s like he can… can do—”
“Whatever he wants,” Lofton finished for him.
“I think that explains what happened to Riley,” Lynch muttered dryly. “Goddamn stupid child.” He straightened in his seat. “What do you want me to do with Felix?”
“Nothing,” Lofton answered. “Do nothing.”
Lynch swallowed hard, then nodded grudgingly and lowered his eyes, staring down at his feet.
Lofton smiled up at the screen. “I think it’s time I introduce myself to Felix August.”
Lofton thinks he’s the one, Kayla realized and a cold chill swept over her. The only legitimate threat to Lofton’s perfect world—the only person who could kill him—had just announced his arrival. A feeling of unexpected hope washed over her like pure sunlight then vanished in a storm burst of clouded anguish as she understood Lofton would now end his life. The Order—those idiots—had failed to find him, and now their incompetence had sealed Felix’s fate. Lofton would swiftly eliminate the Belus, just as he’d eliminated Portland’s deputy mayor and all other threats, no matter how insignificant, that had surfaced over the years. As she sat there trying to appear calm and appropriately engaged, it dawned on her Lynch was fuming in silence, his anger threatening to blow the roof off the car. He was furious at Lofton. Why? Lynch had obviously assumed Lofton would ask him to kill Felix, but why would Lynch care if Lofton wanted to do it himself? Unless…unless Lofton wasn’t planning to kill him at all. Could that be it? Was Lynch afraid Lofton would let Felix live? Lofton wouldn’t do something so reckless, would he? Felix August was more than just a threat, he was Lofton’s fated adversary, his potential undoing—his kryptonite.
