Preda's Voice (Guardians of Vaka Book 1)

by Carolyn Gross

  “Can we turn the music back on?” Preda asked after what seemed like at least five minutes of silence.

  “No,” he replied.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Foxy’s phone vibrated on the console. He hesitated to answer after glancing at the caller ID. “I told you to await further instructions,” he said curtly after picking it up. He spoke to the person on the other end with barely restrained anger. “You’re where?”

  There was silence for a solid thirty seconds. Preda felt uncomfortable listening to the conversation, but she couldn’t do anything. She was locked in the car with no music for distraction and no one else to converse with. She could see Foxy’s knuckles had turned white where he gripped the phone. Finally he sighed and started speaking again. “There will be disciplinary action for this, but since you are already there…Puerto rendezvous eighteen hundred tomorrow.”

  He hung up the phone, pressing the button a little too aggressively. Preda was silent in the backseat. She hoped never to be on the wrong end of that anger. After another period of awkward silence, Foxy’s phone beeped twice with a soft tone. That seemed to be the signal. Suddenly the doors were unlocked, and he got out of the car and moved to open the door for her. Preda grabbed Fiver and awkwardly squeezed out with her feline burden.

  Foxy was quick to grab their bags, and they started to make their way through the parking lot. Once again Preda had to skip every fifth step to keep up with his long strides.

  When they were inside the airport, Foxy leaned down. As though it was a secret, he said in a low voice, “We’re going to Buenos Aires, Argentina.”

  After that he was quick to utilize his faux badge, and they were ushered through check-in and security. Before she knew it, they were sitting with Al in a first-class lounge and waiting for their flight. Preda wondered if perhaps that badge might actually be real.

  No one had asked about her feline passenger, and while they were waiting, a woman walked by to take the cat to a back room at Al’s request. He was to be fed and allowed to use a litter box. Preda was reluctant to see him taken away, but she trusted Al. Fiver was brought back after ten minutes. There was at least another thirty minutes until boarding, and Preda needed to use the restroom herself. When she excused herself to go, she was met with resistance.

  “Can you wait until we are on the plane?” Foxy asked with what she thought was a slight degree of annoyance.

  “Fiver wasn’t asked to wait,” she replied.

  “I’ll go and stand guard,” said Al in a placating tone.

  Stand guard? Preda didn’t know whether the precaution was amusing or terrifying. As they were walking to the bathroom, she asked Al, “Whom are we hiding from?”

  “I wouldn’t call it hiding so much as avoiding. You are going to be a very strong young Vozia. Sooner than you think. Until that time, though, you are vulnerable. Unfortunately the events of yesterday might have alerted them to your presence here. They look no different from you or me from the outside, so you can’t trust anyone, Preda. Promise me.”

  His words’ gravity weighed heavily on her mind. As she rubbed her hands over her thin arms, she doubted she could ever be strong enough to fight against anyone. She looked up at Al while they walked. “I promise,” she said.

  10

  When Preda entered the bathroom, she sighed in relief at seeing how crowded it was. She gratefully moved to stand in line. Being another face in a crowd was comforting, and she smiled to herself at her own paranoia. Then she suddenly felt something cold and sharp press against the small of her back.

  Preda jerked straight and almost knocked over the person in front of her. She had gotten so used to using her voice that she almost cried out. The woman in front of her grunted and said rudely under her breath, “Excuse me.”

  Preda started to turn around, but a phone was pressed to her left ear. A sweet, feminine voice spoke softly. “Don’t move. Above all else don’t make a sound. If you speak, these people will suffer as a result. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  Preda stiffly shook her head and remained still. She assumed the phone was being used so no one else in the bathroom could hear what was being said. The voice continued on the other end of the phone. “When it is your turn, go to the next open stall. Close the door behind you without looking back.”

  Preda considered her options, but what she assumed was a knife was digging sharply into her back. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t harm the other women in the busy bathroom. Screaming was certainly not an option. She wished she could get a good look at the person behind her.

  When her turn came, Preda walked forward to the next stall and glanced behind her before shutting the door. It was only a glance but enough to see the woman holding a knife hidden behind a large leather handbag. How did she get that through security? She was young—in her twenties at the most. She was wearing a perfectly tailored business suit. She was one of the most beautiful women Preda had ever seen. Her expression was one of well-rehearsed boredom while she continued to wait in line.

  Once the door was shut, Preda stood helplessly with her shaking hands held at her sides. What could their plan possibly be in a crowded airport bathroom with Al standing guard outside? Without knowing what else to do, she stood perfectly still and listened. If there was one thing Preda was good at after years of silence, it was listening.

  She heard a toilet flush two stalls to her right. The door opened, and the next person walked in. That had to be her. The click of the high heels matched the vision of the person in her head. At least she had a direction for her enemy. Unfortunately the only exit also happened to be on her right. Preda considered running, but she didn’t know if there was anyone else in the bathroom who could stop her if she made such a foolish attempt.

  This approach seemed well coordinated and planned. Al’s last words came back to her, and she whispered them to herself like a litany. “You can’t trust anyone, Preda.” She slowly started to lower herself down to one knee and risked a glance under the stalls to check for those beautiful black stilettos. Preda took in the sight as quickly as she could, but it was difficult to process.

  She saw a metal canister drop on the ground and start rolling toward her with white smoke hissing out of the top. The beautiful woman was wearing a mask over her face and had started to slide herself under the stall doors. She was crawling on the floor on her belly in Preda’s direction.

  Preda whipped her head up and climbed up on top of the toilet. She carefully balanced herself with her feet on the sides of the seat. She saw white smoke curling under the stall door, and she knew that the beauty in a mask was not far behind. Cursing herself for being so short, Preda wished she could see over the stall door. It was not as if she could call for help. She heard the sound of somebody falling on the ground and a lipstick tube rolled under the door.

  Preda took in a deep breath and held it as she propped her right foot on top of the toilet paper dispenser. She prayed it would hold her. She reached the top of the stall’s sides with her fingers and lifted herself up so she was standing on one foot and could see what was going on in the rest of the bathroom.

  The line of women was gone. Someone was facedown on the floor with her purse open and contents splayed out in front of her. Preda looked down and saw a perfectly manicured hand appear under the side of the stall. The smoke had surrounded her now, and she didn’t know how long she could hold her breath. She heard a thump to her left, and she peeked over the side to see a woman slumped over on the floor with her panties around her ankles. She was still breathing.

  Half of her pursuer’s torso was under the side of her stall now. Preda saw the metallic gleam of the knife in her left hand. She had to try to jump over the stall door. She looked one more time out into the bathroom. Two women were now standing in the middle of the room. Both were wearing masks and staring directly at her without moving or making a sound. Their sudde
n appearance and quiet stillness were terrifying.

  They were waiting for her to be killed. It didn’t matter that Al was right outside. Preda was going to die in this bathroom. She had to face either the woman with the knife or the two statues out there. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold her breath, and the knife was getting closer.

  Preda placed her left foot on the stall wall so she could get some higher leverage. She vaulted herself over the door and landed awkwardly on her side. The breath was knocked out of her, and she involuntarily tried to draw some air in. Preda realized too late she was also breathing in that white smoke. Blackness crept in on the edges of her vision. Preda tried desperately to hold her breath and stand. As soon as she was on her feet, a sudden and sharp pain exploded over her left hip, and she let out an involuntary scream.

  The last thing Preda remembered thinking before losing consciousness was how disappointed Foxy and Al were going to be that she had already gotten herself killed—in an airport bathroom, no less.

  11

  “Puerto rendezvous at eighteen hundred tomorrow,” Will said after he hung up the phone.

  “Well, that could have gone worse. Could have gone better but definitely worse,” replied Jim.

  They were sitting on the patio of a local dive restaurant in Buenos Aires. Both wore relaxed clothes and postures. Will, however, couldn’t feel further from relaxed. “I’m just glad she’s going to be here tomorrow,” he murmured.

  Jim stared at him for a minute. “I was really starting to wonder, but now I think I know. You have feelings for her, don’t you?”

  Will glared at his friend. “I’m a Kait. I’m bred to protect her. You don’t know what that’s like. I don’t even know her. She hasn’t spoken a word to me. Remember? Besides,” he continued, “I think you had feelings for half the girls in that place. I could barely get you to leave.”

  Jim laughed. “I really did like that school.”

  They were staying in a cheap hostel down the street from the restaurant. Puerto Madero, the waterfront, was only a few miles away. After some discussion about plans, Will decided they would scope out the rendezvous location after paying their tab.

  While walking, both projected airs of tourists exploring the city’s back roads. Will, however, was scrutinizing every person they passed for unusual behavior. Kait were known to have a sense for the Soundless, and even though he was young, Will was unusually gifted. He’d never actually encountered one in the field, though.

  Jim was a much better actor and was keeping up the front that he was inebriated and celebrating. Will laughed at his friend’s behavior while they moved through the city. Jim was a member of the Landi family. They were the largest of the families, and their lineage was composed of many thousands. Landis tended to have ranging skill sets, but the most prominent was mechanical ability. This made them invaluable on missions.

  Jim was extraordinarily talented with security system overrides. His puzzle-solving and mathematic scores were off the charts. That was one of the reasons he had been chosen to accompany Will on this particular mission.

  Will felt a twinge of guilt as he thought about the potentially bright future his friend had had before he got them both into this situation. In Will’s mind there had been no alternative action. He shook his head as he considered Preda. It had been Will’s dream ever since he was a child to meet a Vozia. Preda didn’t live up to the image in his head, but there was something overwhelming about her presence. Maybe it was just a product of his Kait nature.

  As they walked down to the waterfront, Will smelled the air. It smelled of salt and wind. It was beautiful here. He was going to be sad to leave it, but at the same time, he yearned for the freshwater of his home.

  The two stayed off the main roadways and stuck to the back alleyways. Here and there they came across vendors selling “homemade” trinkets to unsuspecting tourists. Jim purchased a few bracelets, and Will nonchalantly assessed the landscape. While Jim pretended he knew how to haggle with the seller, Will visualized the rendezvous point at the end of the street.

  It was really nothing much to look at—just a corner of an abandoned warehouse. The only thing that made it unusual was that Tamron Fox owned it. From that corner a person could survey every vantage point. That included this alley and the waterfront itself. It was amazing how well Tamron had researched it. There was even a small electrical field installed around the warehouse’s roof. It was a risk allowing that piece of technology in, but Tamron had deemed it necessary.

  Jim got the bracelets at a “steal,” according to the street vendor. Will personally considered it robbery, but money wasn’t his main concern at the moment. Jim laughed as he stuffed them into his pocket. Then they walked toward the end of the alley.

  “Who’d you buy those for?” asked Will. “You know we’re never going to see those high-school girls again.”

  “Shows how much you know,” he responded. “I got them for myself. They’re green. See? It’s a masculine color here…in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  As Jim was slipping the bracelets on, Will saw a refraction of light out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough to make him glance briefly at the warehouse’s roof. He saw a small spark as the box generating the electrical field was crushed, and a person standing on the roof quickly jumped back out of sight.

  Will cursed as he considered the implications of what he had just seen. Either this was a person discovering the technology and inadvertently destroying it, or it was one of them. If so it was now obvious this was a place of importance, and Tamron Fox had just given them away.

  Jim stopped walking next to Will. “Everything all right?”

  Will shook his head almost imperceptibly and gave the hand signal for silence. Jim immediately fell in step with him, and both men crept along the warehouse’s wall until they reached the side door. The trinket salesperson behind them in the alley was looking at them as if they were crazy, but neither said anything.

  They reached the coded doorway, and Jim punched in the seventeen-number combination. It was one of many possible codes they would need that Will’s friend had been forced to memorize for this mission. Will breathed a sigh of relief when the code worked and the lock clicked open. He entered the building first, and Jim stepped back to cover him.

  Will felt his heart hammer against his sternum. He could easily be killed in this warehouse if he wasn’t careful. After stepping into the building, he took a cursory glance around the room and found the stairwell in the back corner. He didn’t hesitate.

  12

  Jim slowly followed Will and quietly allowed the door to shut behind him. There was very little light, but he could see the hand signal Will was giving him well enough. It felt wrong. They should call General Fox and tell him the rendezvous was compromised. Jim indicated as much with an intricate and emphatic reply. It was as forceful as he could be with a hand signal. Will just shook his head and indicated they should move forward.

  Jim was helpless. Will outranked him. He hadn’t seen what was on the roof, but Will had a way of sensing the Soundless better than anyone in their class. As far as Jim was concerned, if it involved the Soundless, this was better left to the adults. Will led the way up the stairs, and Jim dutifully followed without further argument. The Landi told himself they would have a conversation about this later.

  The two men were not without weapons. They had been briefed relentlessly about the use of technology, but Will reasoned the enemy was not similarly briefed. He had insisted on taking small electrical impulse guns with them and cited that Tamron himself had violated the technology ban. Jim had initially protested, but he was grateful for the small weapon in his right hand now. The gun was approximately the size of a cell phone and could almost pass for one on brief inspection. If people looked more closely, however, they would note the deep trigger on the side of the device and the visible circuitr
y on top.

  Jim had programmed these particular guns to fire only in response to his and Will’s unique fingerprints on the triggers. He was very proud of himself after accomplishing that particularly ingenious modification. These weapons were not meant to kill—only incapacitate for a few minutes. Neither Jim nor Will had ever used one on a live person before.

  Jim followed Will slowly up the stairs and marveled at his friend’s unrelenting confidence. They passed many rooms on the second and third floor that could have been full of bad people, but Will moved ever upward. He was like an arrow that had been loosed.

  As they reached the top floor, Will stepped aside so Jim could enter yet another code. This one was only eleven digits long. There had been no way to know how many digits the code was based on the keypad, and the numbers had been chosen at random. If someone was up there, that person certainly didn’t get there from the inside of the warehouse. This lock was intact.

  When the door opened, Will walked out first and immediately turned right. Jim could see all four corners of the roof from this vantage point, and he breathed a sigh of relief. It was obvious they were the only people up there. Will was crouched down on the edge of the roof. He overlooked the alley they had just been walking in, and Jim went over to see what he was inspecting. It was a broken electrical field transmitter. On initial inspection it was obvious the device had intentionally been crushed. Jim knelt down and pulled the bent casing off to evaluate the wiring.

  “It needs replacement parts to function again,” Jim said. He looked up at Will’s stern face and elaborated. “We’re never going to find anything even remotely close to what we need around here.”

  Will cursed and moved to inspect the rest of the rooftop. He was looking for the point of security breach. Jim could tell his friend was angry and made himself useful by removing all the tiny intricate pieces of foreign technology he could identify from the transmitter. Once he was satisfied he had removed all the damning evidence, he placed them securely in his bag and walked over to where Will was kneeling over the edge of the roof on the western-facing side.