“What are you guys doing here?” Russell demanded. “Don’t you know what this place is? This is where they entrap and torture spirits!”
“We know that,” I responded with cynicism. “We are about to go get Celeste and Max, who are currently being held and tortured.”
Russ looked surprised, as did Nancy. They looked at the rest of the clan, trying to get a second opinion; and they got one by way of nods.
“What’s the plan?” Russ wasted no time in asking. If a rescue plan was in place he would be part of it, no questions asked.
“We go in and get them,” Alex said succinctly.
“I like it, let’s go!” Russell said and plunged down. The rest of us followed.
* * * * *
Chapter 5
We landed on one of the main cities, and it wasn’t so much that it was dark as that it was gray. We had to let our eyes adjust to the fog because we could barely see anything in front of us; much less the spirits that we knew were there.
Once in a while a spirit would just come out from the fog and run into us. But most of them were not alone. We found them clustered in crevices and holes, whispering silent murmurs.
Being surrounded by all these spirits almost amounted to the same feelings I got while I was in the company of the Second One himself. This fog was also the perfect backdrop to their gloomy presence; a great place to work secret, dirty deals and depressing enough to make a spirit feel alone and forsaken. An ominous feeling hung in the air, and it could rob even the happiest of spirits of their hope.
Our little group glided hand in hand through the murky streets, trying to find Celeste or Max, and I could tell that the deeper we got into the city the more discouraged we felt, and the less hope we had of finding them. But we pressed forward, one next to the other.
Alex and I were at one end of the line, and Dorian and Luz at the opposite end. I had been looking ahead of me, not really focusing on my own clan members. So I was taken by surprise, when I turned to look at them and saw to my complete amazement, that they were glowing, brightly glowing through the fog.
I turned to look at Alex and he too was glowing. Then letting go of his hand, I stretched a hand forward to see if by some miracle I was glowing too, and I was. Quickly I looked to either side of me again to make sure I was not imagining things—and indeed we were glowing—our auras were glowing. Alex saw my strange behavior and after securing my hand again, asked me what the matter was.
“Can you see that?” I asked him, mesmerized by the sight.
“What, do you see something?” he asked with alarm.
“Yes. Our auras.”
“What are you talking about, Tess?”
I turned to Nancy, who was next to me on the other side. “Nancy, do you see us glowing?”
Nancy frowned, confused at my question. She was too busy trying to see though the fog and my question seemed so unrelated that she couldn’t understand it.
“Wait a minute!” Alex said with sudden realization and brought the whole group to a halt. “Tess, you can see our auras?”
“Yes, all our auras are glowing, but not theirs.” I pointed to the spirits that surrounded us. “Their auras are dark, dark like this fog. Can’t you guys see it too?”
They all shook their heads.
“This is great!” admitted Russell. “We have a tactical advantage!” he said pointing at me. “You’ll be able to find Celeste and Max, their auras should be glowing too, right?” he asked me with hope.
“I think so,” I replied. Finally I had proof that I was indeed a Discerner!
We pressed on with new found hope, and we needed it too. I focused my vision and looked all around as we made our way down the street, but saw nothing. Then I remembered the little glowing dots that I had noticed while we were hovering above the planet.
“I know how to narrow this search down,” I said. “It made no sense to me before, because I have never seen auras before…or at least I never saw the contrast that they make against a background such as this.”
Russell looked eagerly at me and Valerie looked like she wanted me to get to the point.
“When we were hovering above the planet, I saw glowing spots. At the time…” I hadn’t finished my explanation before Valerie began a quick ascent. Russell and the rest followed her, no doubt in a hurry to get out of this oppressive place.
“Good idea, Tess.” Dorian patted my shoulder before he too took to space. Alex was the only one who still stood by my side, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me up.
“Ahh…much better,” Valerie sighed once we were out of the planet.
Nancy muttered something and so did the others, they sounded muffled by the gloomy feeling that still possessed us.
“We have to get a little closer, just above the city,” I said, and reluctantly they followed me back down.
“OK,” Russell said, “start looking for those glowing dots, Tess, before I go insane.” His words resounded in our hearts as well as our ears. If we felt this way…Celeste and Max would only be feeling worse.
As soon as I spotted a shimmer we went down to the surface. But when we got there, we didn’t find Celeste or Max. We found a spirit named Katie. Some of her clan members had come here seeking more information, but she assured us that she didn’t want to be there. She was hesitant to leave her loved ones, but she didn’t want to stay either so we told her to come with us as we searched for Celeste and Max. She joined us and we rose up to get a better view and to give our souls a chance to recover from the gloom we felt. In the mean time, Dane brought Katie up to speed on what our situation was, and got some information about her own.
“This might take a while,” Russell admitted. “It might also prove to be a bigger rescue than we first anticipated,” he said while glancing over at Katie who seemed to be a pleasant happy spirit, obviously foreign to these parts.
“We’ll see,” I added. “I don’t see very many glowing spots, none at all actually.” I was trying to be thorough, which also meant that we were moving very slow. I didn’t want to miss any parts of the city. After what seemed like an eternity I saw them! Three glowing spots, two bright and one dim and they were all some distance apart.
“There!” I pointed.
“Yes!” said Valerie, relieved.
“Who do you suppose the dim aura belongs to?” Alex asked.
“Richard,” I said bluntly.
He grimaced, “You’ve made your point beautifully.”
“I didn’t mean to rub it in, Alex. I just…I just knew we couldn’t trust him.”
“Um…sorry to butt in, but…what if the dim aura doesn’t belong to Richard?” Valerie said.
“It has to! Who else?” I snapped.
Valerie and Alex exchanged looks; I didn’t bother to look over to see what they meant. I knew that Richard was lying about something, and the fact that we were here, trying to save Celeste proved it. If someone’s aura was going dark, it was his.
Once we touched down on the planet’s surface we were once more greeted by that awful feeling of discouragement and I found it increasingly hard to believe that we would succeed in our rescue attempts, in spite of the added advantage of seeing auras. It was hard to have confidence and hope in anything down here. I was in the lead, groping in the dark toward the spot where I saw the auras from above.
“Are you sure we are going in the right direction?” whispered Nancy cynically, from somewhere behind me.
“We should have landed right in between all three of them. We’ll see at least one of them soon,” I said, ignoring her rudeness. I knew I wasn’t the best with directions, but I saw the glowing auras from above, and I knew that we landed near them. “Wait! I think I see something! This way, stay close we don’t want to separate,” I ordered.
“Oh, it’s you,” I couldn’t hide my disappointment, and Richard couldn’t hide his relief.
“Hey! What are you guys doing here?” Richard said in a stupidly nervous manner.
“We
are looking for Max and Celeste,” Russell said, as he moved in front of me, not to shield me from Richard so much as to shield Richard from me. “Do you know where they are being held?”
“I don’t know…I was talking to someone…then they left,” Richard said without concern. “But I’m sure glad to see you guys here. I tried to look for those spirits who brought us here; they wanted me to speak to some of their friends…but I can’t seem to find them now.” He swished his arm in front of him in a fruitless attempt at clearing the fog in front of him. “But since you guys are here now…can I just come with you?” he asked.
It was easier to get mad down here and he infuriated me so much at the moment that I was ready to jump on him, but Russell instinctively stuck out his arm to keep me back.
“Richard, you will have to think a little harder about where Celeste or Max is, or you can’t come with us,” Russell said in an unprecedented effort at keeping his cool.
Now Richard’s goofy look disappeared and he looked truly nervous. “I…I told you, they left. One minute we were all talking to those lovely spirits, and the next thing I knew Max was gone and Celeste said something to me about…well, never mind about that. But she left too. She just turned and left, and you know how hard it is to see in this fog. Please take me with you, don’t leave me here.”
“Can you at least tell us in which direction she went?” I couldn’t see Russell’s face, but I was sure that it took great strength to control his volatile temper as he said those words.
Richard looked alarmed for a moment and with a shaky hand, promptly pointed to his right.
“Are you sure?” Russell said through gritted teeth.
“Ah…yes,” Richard said trying to sound sure. I figured that there was a fifty-fifty chance that he was right, but we didn’t have a lot of options at the moment. Alex wrapped one arm around my shoulder as we moved in the direction that Richard had pointed; it was his way of congratulating me on holding my tongue.
“So can I come?” Richard asked, but no one answered him. He must have taken our silence to mean yes, because he not only followed us, but also talked the entire time. He went on and on about his adventures with Celeste and how much success they were having until he was invited here, and was promised a large gathering for him to lecture to on the advantages of mortal life under the First One’s rule, until two different voices told him to “shut up” and then Valerie added, “or you’ll be left behind again!”.
I couldn’t see anything, but I knew we were close, I could feel a familiar presence. I raised my hand and the procession of spirits who followed me halted behind me. All was silent for a moment, and then I slowly began to hear them.
They were nothing but mere whispers, yet they carried the most vicious messages with the vilest of feelings and thoughts with them. I couldn’t hear the full message, just isolated words—nothing…worthless…forgotten…useless—I gathered in my strength and plunged myself forward and through the spirits I knew were in front of me.
I was quickly swallowed up by the many forms that encircled the little light that was Celeste’s aura.
“Tess, no!” Alex’s strangled shout sounded distant.
There, surrounded by darkened ugly faces, stood Celeste. Her eyes were shut tight and her fingers stopped her ears. She seemed to have retreated into herself and was repeating something over and over again.
I didn’t want to startle her, but I knew that I must do something quick, because the voices were turning on me now. I laid the palm of my hand softly on her cheek. But she didn’t feel it, and her eyes were shut tightly.
“Celeste!” I said, but she couldn’t hear me. My mind was having a hard time focusing amid the noise that the vile spirits were creating. What do I do? What do I do? I thought and suddenly I found myself imitating Celeste’s technique and stopping my own ears, trying to shut the noise out.
No…be strong! I told myself, you are here for her, don’t worry about yourself. In an instant I moved my hands away from my own ears and put them over Celeste’s hands and I tried to pry them away from her own ears. Startled, she looked up and stared at me, dumbfounded.
“Let’s get out of here, Cel,” I said trying hard to smile. She nodded, but neither of us could move. The circle seemed to close in tighter around us and we were trapped.
We hugged and clung to each other. “Thanks for coming, Tess,” Celeste whispered in my ear. “I feel better having you here…but now we are both trapped.”
“We are only as trapped as we think we are,” I said, though I didn’t know where this idea had come from.
“You think they’ll let us go?” Celeste asked with a tired shaky voice. “You don’t think they’ll just follow us wherever we go? They did that to me once already…and now I am resigned to staying here.”
I struggled to know what to say that would give her, and I, hope of escaping. But by now our whole clan could have been overpowered. We could all be trapped here, forced to listen to their lies—lies that sounded truer and truer the longer we stayed.
Close to my ear I heard a distinct voice, one that asserted itself more than the rest.
“I’ll cut you a deal…” it said. “If one of you willingly gives herself up and joins us…the other can go free.”
That voice…I had heard that voice before, it was, it was….
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud growl-like noise in the distance. My mind tried to make sense of what was going on around it. I dared not open my eyes for fear of the faces that surrounded us. But then one thought occurred to me. Agatha. That was the voice I heard. It was her!
This thought somehow did the opposite of what it should have done; it gave me strength to open my eyes to face her. The memory of my resolution after our last encounter, gave me that strength. I was not going to be weak! I was going to face her, and any rebel that tried to destroy our future. But when I opened my eyes, I was not ready for the scene that was unfolding itself around us.
“Um…Celeste?”
“What?” Her voice was barely audible.
“You might want to open your eyes and see this.”
She did and looked with astonishment at the flying forms of rebels that looked like they were being plucked up and thrown this way and that with an incredible speed. So fast was this, that the other rebels hardly knew what was going on before they too fell prey to the unseen force that was chucking them.
All I could discern were streaks of light at the base of them and the sound…the growling sound that came closer and closer to us.
Once the way before us was cleared and only Agatha and a few other spirits remained at our side, the streaks of light stopped abruptly and smiled at us.
Beside me I could see Celeste’s aura brighten as she let out weak and nervous laugh. Russell, Dane, Alex, and Dorian looked back at us and in one bound they scooped us up into their arms and took us away, followed by Valerie, Nancy, Katie, and Richard.
They took us out of the city, but there was no time to go all the way out of the planet, so we landed on a skyscraper that was partially destroyed.
“Thank you,” Celeste said after she was hugged by all with the exception of Richard, whom she warned off with a stern look.
“Two down, one more to go,” Russell sounded invigorated. “Who’s ready to go back down with me?”
“I’ll go!” Celeste said firmly.
“No, I don’t think so,” Russell put his hand out, blocking her way. “You have almost…”
“I’m fine! Don’t tell me what to do! I need to go down. Max…needs me.”
“Any of us can get him just as well,” Alex said.
“No! You can’t. You don’t understand! It has to be me.”
We all stared at her—all, I should say, with the exception of Richard who sheepishly looked to a spot on the broken down wall.
“Why?” Nancy and I asked at once.
Celeste started pacing and moving her fingers nervously. Then she explained in a low voice, so as to not be
overheard by Richard—who was presently slinking away from us.
Celeste talked so fast, it was hard to keep up with her. But from what I could surmise, Richard had turned out to be a total disappointment to Celeste. Big surprise!
She said that she would fill us in on the details of that adventure at another time, but for the time being all we needed to know was that Max had sacrificed himself for her.
I was startled by this. It reminded me of Agatha’s proposal right before the guys burst into the scene and broke up the torturing party.
“You mean to say that he willingly joined the rebels to let you go free?” I asked, and Celeste nodded solemnly.
“But as you just found out it was all a lie, because they didn’t let me go, and they wanted to get you to do the same for me! Oh, if you guys hadn’t come when you did…” Celeste looked at me with a pained look in her eyes.
“Listen, I am very interested in the whole story, but if Max has agreed to join the rebellion, then the aura that is going out must be his.” Valerie looked grave and anxious.
Celeste’s eyes grew big and shocked as she looked from face to face.
“How could you know that his aura is going out?” she asked.
“Tess can see auras,” Alex said proudly.
“Since when?” Celeste asked.
“Since we came here,” I answered and Valerie gestured anxiously for us to get on with it.
“Look we need a plan, unless it’s too late,” Valerie said.
Celeste looked appalled. “It’s not!”
“Then I suggest we do what we just did, and get those spirits off of him,” Russell decreed.
“No, it won’t work twice,” Celeste said. “Look, he volunteered to join them to save me. He will not leave unless I get him out.”
“But, Celeste, you just came out of there and barely at that,” Dorian pointed out.
She ignored him and continued. “I just need a way to get right next to him.”
“Impossible. They know we are coming back and they are waiting for us.” Valerie came forward and stood tall and magnificent looking. She always did when she foretold.
Veiled Page 5
