The Protectors

by Dowell, Trey

  “Not even a little bit.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Neither of us was very interested in conversation. We just sat there, two people in a cozy romantic restaurant in London . . . surrounded by bodies, shattered dinnerware, weapons, and worse, our shared guilt and loneliness. A standard dinner date.

  It was a solid five minutes before she spoke. “You know, I don’t hate you.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes one of us.” I suddenly felt old and tired. The wineglass in front of me drew my attention.

  “I could use a drink . . .” As I reached for it, Lyla’s hand flashed out and smacked my fingers.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry. It’s drugged. Just in case.” She handed me her own. “This one is safe.”

  A silly, simple gesture, but it lightened the mood. The wine went down smoothly and the warmth in my chest felt nice. I leaned back and thought about how much I missed Carsten. The big lug could drink an entire barrel of wine (and often did) with absolutely no ill effects. Before I became misty-eyed, though, Lyla reached under the table and pulled up a handbag, her arm buried up to the elbow.

  “I have something to show you. I think you’ll appreciate it.”

  Her hand withdrew a piece of paper, folded over twice. I recognized it immediately. The cover shot from Time magazine, our cover shot. Our first exposure to the world as the Protectors, sponsored and endorsed by the United Nations. All in costume, trying to look imposing for the camera. Man, we looked young. Carsten was the only one who actually achieved imposing, but then again, it was easy when you took up half the frame. His spandex overalls looked perpetually ready to rip apart at the seams. Diego, holding his hands out with upturned palms—one of his electrical arcs jumping from one hand to the other. No idea if the camera actually captured the energy or if it was a special effect added later, but damn, it looked cool. Lyla in her Greek goddess toga, pure white against olive skin. The robes never covered as much of her legs as she wanted, but hey, modesty takes a backseat in the public relations business. And the diamond tiara! I couldn’t help but smile thinking about how much she’d argued with the design people on that.

  Then me, the leader of the Protectors—off to the side in my black duster with the KO belt buckle and the big P on my chest armor. My left hand, outstretched to the camera as if I were about to drop the photographer. Which, trust me, I almost did by the end of the two-hour photo shoot.

  God, we argued so much that day about where to stand, what poses to take—a bunch of costumed divas. But strangely, looking at the cover, even though I remembered all the frustration, the jealousy, the arguments—they had no power. Instead, my overwhelming feeling was one of happiness. The cover reminded me of a time when we were all alive, all friends, and the world seemed a great deal warmer. I knew why she kept it with her.

  “We were glorious, weren’t we?” Lyla asked. The voice was lower, with a vibrating bass I’d never heard before. Her eyes came alive, focused on the page, churning their colors and making me swoon. I was dizzy for a moment, then felt energy pulsating outward from her, hitting me in waves—each one making me feel warm, safe . . . loved. The feeling was overpowering, nothing like I’d experienced before. I craved more—to feel more, to be surrounded by her voice, enveloped by her energy. To feel that warmth—

  “Wait . . . Lyla. Wha—what’s happening?” I stammered. Her eyes were focused only on the Time cover, lost in her moment of reverie.

  “Stop. Lyla, stop . . . you’re . . . embracing . . .” And then it no longer mattered. There could be nothing better than this, the two of us here, alone, together again. There was nothing more I could ever want. Just us. Forever.

  She looked up, face twisted in concern. Immediately, the pulses cut off like a lead barrier had slammed down between us.

  “Scott, I’m sorry! I had no idea! Please, it was not intentional!”

  I tried to shake the feeling. My mind was hazy, like coming out of a dream. “Whoa. What the hell?” I said.

  “The downside of greater strength,” she explained. “When I become emotional, it can initiate without my awareness. I am sorry, my love.” She reached across the table and grasped my arm.

  My love. For an instant, her old pet name for me was like a warm blanket thrown over my shoulders, a two-word reminder of the happiest time of my life. But that memory died when splashed with cold reality. Five years of exile had shown me the truth behind those words now: we’d never “dated” and Lyla sure as shit never loved me. Hell, I don’t know if she’d ever loved anyone. If she even understood what the word meant to other people. For Aphrodite, love wasn’t about affection. It was about control.

  I yanked my arm away from her grip. “Don’t call me that.”

  Her hand withdrew as if shocked, and she placed it back in her lap, bumping the table on the way down.

  “I’m sorry. Force of habit.”

  It would have felt good to hold on to my anger—make Lyla feel bad for the pain she’d caused me—but the raw intensity of what I’d just experienced wouldn’t let me.

  “Your power . . . it’s different now,” I said. “Overwhelming.”

  She seemed to appreciate the topic change. “It comes at a high price. My brain is hyperactive in all respects. CAT scans of my cerebrum look like firework displays. It feels as though I’m constantly riveted and on alert. I have not slept more than an hour a night in the last three months.”

  Only then did I recognize the signs of true exhaustion. Beautiful, yes, but the shoulders slumped. The skin beneath her eyes, slightly darker than the rest. Chest heaving with deep breaths, even without visible exertion.

  “If your power didn’t render one into an unconscious, dreamless coma, I would have contacted Knockout long ago.”

  She was right—my induced sleep was far from refreshing. No recovery, no REM stage, no deep alpha waves to rest your brain and body. Shutting down someone’s consciousness was like hitting the PAUSE button on a DVR.

  “One hour per night? How are you even walking around, operating on that little rest? Your ‘evolved’ power sounds more like a curse.”

  Her face softened.

  “No, you misunderstand. I would not trade my abilities now at any price. They are a gift beyond measure,” she said. She looked like a child about to regale me with stories of Santa Claus. “I was clumsy when we knew each other, encouraging slavish devotion for the tiniest of tasks. Like wielding a sledgehammer to press a thumbtack. My evolution has granted me nuance . . . the ability to use only a fraction of my power when I need it.”

  From a former thumbtack’s perspective, the change was intriguing. “Let me get this straight—you’ve gotten stronger by getting weaker?”

  “Strangely enough, yes. I can now influence people to speak or act, yet they feel as though it is their choice to do so. Without requiring them to be in my thrall . . . to feel like a lovesick minion.”

  My eyes grew wide as I considered the impact of what she described.

  “What about the hangover? If you’re able to influence without enslaving someone . . .”

  A smile reanimated her tired face.

  “I do not leave people brokenhearted and bereft of hope—I have no need to release someone unless I’ve used the full extent of my power.”

  “And this nuance? Is that what you did in North Korea?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long does it last?” I asked, holding my breath.

  “We are about to find out. If I hear saber-rattling coming from the Korean peninsula, I will simply plan another visit.”

  So easy, so matter-of-fact.

  So Lyla.

  If what she said was true, it invalidated almost every concern Tucker implanted back in Colorado. The ability to guide an entire region of the world back from the brink, all through subtle manipulation of one key man, with no destabilizing emotional effect—the
possibilities were astonishing. The chance to change the world for the better, without endangering herself or others.

  Tucker was wrong. Stop her? Hell, I wanted to book her next plane ticket.

  “How about you, Knockout? You’ve grown more powerful as well. Does the government still believe you use pheromones to render people unconscious?”

  I smiled at the memory of the squads coming off the helicopter three days ago.

  “Amazing, right? I’ve never dropped anyone wearing a gas mask, so they believe that’s how it works. Nice insurance policy on my part.”

  “Always the wise one,” she admitted. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

  I wasn’t quite ready to give away my trump card. Not yet.

  “Yeah, but nothing too spectacular. I certainly can’t go planet-hopping like Diego.”

  She stared back, unwilling to take the bait on my topic shift. I thought I saw her eyes start to rotate, so I looked away. A flash of panic hit my brain as I considered possible responses if she decided to push, because nobody could push like Lyla. Then, as if my mental locomotive weren’t steaming fast enough, she dropped another bombshell, which threatened to derail the train entirely.

  “Do you remember the Time article? The one in the same issue as our cover story?”

  I didn’t understand at first, but then I remembered. The article about how much money the world’s governments spent on defense. The conversations it sparked. The nights spent debating the future. What the world could be like, if only someone had the guts—

  My mouth dropped, and my voice, too.

  “That’s what you’re planning to do? You can’t be serious. Lyla, they’ll kill you,” I whispered.

  She stared through me.

  “They can try. I am quite resourceful.”

  Behind me, I heard groaning—the telltale sign of Lyla’s army coming back to life. Rather than do a blanket drop on all of them again, I wanted some true alone time with Lyla. I had questions to ask, things to consider.

  “Do you have somewhere we can go? Just to talk.”

  For an instant, her face flashed a familiar expression: wrinkled nose, dimples, and a grin that touched her eyes. A look from years ago, when she’d led me by the hand to her room, just to “talk.”

  But memories like that had a short half-life—and once decay sets in, the shine never comes back.

  Lyla must have agreed, because her features melted back into exhaustion. “Come with me, I have access to rooms not far from here,” she said without smiling.

  CHAPTER 9

  She led me back through the kitchen, where dazed cooks and dishwashers were only now beginning to pick themselves off the floor. We reached the back door and she pushed it open with one arm, allowing me to go first into the alley beyond. She looked so sad and tired that I couldn’t help but turn to her once the door shut.

  “Everything will be fine—we just need to figure some things . . .” And I stopped when I saw her. She was looking over my shoulder in surprise. I wheeled to look at the alley and immediately felt a light thump in my chest. I looked down to see the red tail of a tranquilizer dart, sticking out from my chest plate. The Kevlar and titanium sheet beneath kept my skin untouched, and before I even lifted my head to see where the projectile had come from, a second dart hit two inches to the left of the first, over my heart.

  I looked up and saw two gunmen, one on each rooftop bordering the alley, pointing their weapons down on us. Just then, my head erupted, as if microphone feedback was being pumped directly into my brain. The sound forced us to our knees, and only as I ventured a second glance upward did I notice the cylinders slung under the gunmen’s rifle barrels: sonic suppression devices. They were the perfect nonlethal weapon in an urban environment, projecting a tight cone of piercing rhythmic wails. Even more perfect for thwarting Lyla’s mind-control ability, drowning out her seductive voice and making it impossible to focus.

  I channeled the last of my concentration to latch on to the gunmen, and I managed to drop them both at once. Their weapons clattered from the rooftops and the sonic assault halted. Before I could help Lyla to her feet, I sensed movement in the shadows behind a nearby dumpster. I had barely enough time to curse before I took a rifle butt to the jaw and went down hard. My face dragged over slimy cold cobblestones as I tried to lift my upper body off the ground, but to no avail. Muffled shouts of “Get her!” and “Don’t look in her eyes!” came from two people streaming past my body to Lyla. From the far end of the alley, I heard brakes squeal and a truck door roll open.

  “What is your name, my love?”

  Her deep, rich velvet voice filled the air.

  I heard a British accent mumble, “Colin,” and knew right away that he was hers.

  A second voice panicked.

  “Hawthorne?! Snap out of it! Grab her now!”

  “And you? Tell me your name,” was the only response, producing another mumble.

  “Thomas.”

  In spite of the blinding pain in my jaw, I rolled over and finally got a look at them: two men, wearing black tactical garb and carrying assault weapons, slumped in front of her. Her eyes swirled now; Lyla was turning on the power full-force.

  “Colin, Thomas . . . please protect us from your colleagues.” They turned as one and began walking toward the street, weapons held low. We were lucky Lyla managed to embrace them, because the extreme pain and spotted vision made it impossible for me to focus enough to stand, let alone drop anyone. At least, it seemed lucky at first. As they passed my prone body, I heard Lyla finish her orders.

  “Kill them all,” she said.

  The words were so foreign, I could hardly believe they came from her mouth.

  “No!” I croaked.

  I raised my hand toward the walking men, fighting to concentrate enough. I couldn’t find what I needed in my haze of pain.

  “Stop!” I shouted at Lyla. “What are you doing?”

  Her stare didn’t move from the end of the alley.

  “Make them stop! Don’t do this . . . don’t kill them!”

  Colin and Thomas were almost to the street opening now; I could hear their teammates shouting at them—asking what had happened. I took a long, slow inhale and closed my eyes, trying to purge the throbbing from my head. When I blinked them open, I saw Lyla’s minions’ rifles rise. Now the shouts from their teammates became frantic, and I heard multiple firing bolts being cocked in the distance. I reached out again and marshaled all the strength I had left for one try.

  “Let it happen,” Lyla hissed, turning to me. “I am tired of being hunted like an animal.”

  With that one sentence, I not only understood Tucker’s fear—I shared it. The anger and hatred in her voice . . . backed by unimaginable power. I had no idea if the CIA’s pursuit had created the rage, or if she’d simply “evolved.” Either way, I couldn’t allow Lyla to murder innocent men.

  My mind cleared as I extended outward and this time, I found the mental buttons. I dropped everyone within a hundred feet. Rifles clattered to the cobblestones and metal struck metal as sleeping drivers on the street lost control of their vehicles. Lyla fell into a small heap in the alleyway next to me. I propped myself up against the graffiti-covered wall and put my head in my hands.

  Somewhere an ocean away, Tucker was probably laughing.

  Asshole.

  The bad thing about doing an indiscriminate drop . . . well, there were several of them: property damage, accidents, injuries, and having to carry a 120-pound sack of unconscious rage over my shoulder were the biggies. The good-news list was a helluva lot shorter, but vital: a getaway car was silly-easy to find.

  I put Lyla in the back of a running Peugeot whose driver was snoring peacefully at a traffic light just outside the alley. After moving the portly fellow to the passenger side, we were on our way—but not before I’d snagged one of the tact
ical guy’s badges. Wasn’t surprised to see the MI5 designation on his ID. Britain’s version of the FBI was tasked with finding internal threats to the United Kingdom, while its sexier sister MI6 got all the external, James Bondian glory.

  Knowing about MI5 actually made me feel a little better. When the first dart stuck in my Kevlar, my assumption was I’d made some kind of mistake; I hadn’t lost my CIA pursuit and I’d inadvertently led them right to Lyla’s doorstep. But the CIA would have been prepared for me as well. The sonic suppression strategy and tranquilizer darts were the perfect loadout to capture Aphrodite, not me. Hell, the Brits didn’t even know who I was, based on the cavalier way they popped me in the mouth and walked right by without so much as a hello. Somehow they’d tracked and found her, and I was just a spectator who needed to be put down before they took the real target. She’d been fortunate to have a superpowered spectator, too; otherwise she’d have been on her way to a detention cell by now, with a blindfold and gag keeping her powers in check. Somehow I doubted she’d buy that argument when I revived her.

  I flipped a look over my shoulder. Even splayed in the backseat like a sock puppet, she maintained an aura of dignity and almost supernatural beauty. I wound my way through the theater district and out toward North London’s residential area. The score hadn’t changed; I needed a quiet, safe place to talk to Lyla, especially after witnessing her meltdown in the alley. No matter how tempted I was at the idea of her manipulation abilities becoming less dangerous, it really didn’t matter if the woman wielding them was more dangerous. Tucker’s mission was still the imperative: assess the threat, get her to understand the risks of her actions. But let’s be honest, after I heard “Kill them all,” any hope for a nice, calm risk assessment seemed like a long shot.

  After ten minutes behind the wheel, the shops and bright marquees of the district gave way to row houses with manicured postage-stamp-sized lawns. I found a quiet two-story with a narrow driveway, which suited our needs perfectly. The driveway led back to a small detached garage off the street, so I killed the engine and lights and coasted my way behind the house. Leaving my snoring companions, I did what any self-respecting visitor would do—I walked around front and simply knocked on the door.