I scoffed at the notion. “Tell her what?”
“Tell her the truth.”
“I don’t care how old you think she is, Terry. She’s not ready for the truth. Not this one, anyway.”
“She’ll never be ready for it. I’m not even sure I will.”
“Get over it,” I suggested.
“Quiet!” hissed Terry as Mrs. Harding returned to announce that dinner was served.
Mrs. Harding’s son-in-law was out, but the rest of the family ate together. Mrs. Harding didn’t like bringing the war to meals, so the table conversation was primarily about the three grandchildren’s school day. There was a point at which Mrs. Harding scolded one of the children for something that he said, but I don’t remember any details. More about that later.
After dessert, Mrs. Harding served us some tea as her grandchildren excused themselves to finish their homework. Mrs. Harding’s daughter made a phone call.
“I am so sorry, dears,” Mrs. Harding said to us. “He’ll be up in a moment.”
“It’s no problem,” I replied. “But can I ask you a personal question?”
“Certainly, dear.”
“What changed your mind, Mrs. Harding?” I asked.
Mrs. Harding looked surprised. “What changed my mind?”
“What put you back into this war?”
Mrs. Harding sipped her tea for a moment before answering slowly, “I suppose you did, Adrian. You and Teresa, and little Alia… I watched her training our young ones, and I saw how you all inspired Arthur, practically a lifelong non-combatant, to risk everything for our freedom.”
“We’re really sorry about Merlin, Mrs. Harding,” said Terry.
“I’m sorry too,” said Mrs. Harding. “I’m sorry I took so long to believe what he believed. I had thought for a long time that the Guardians were a lost cause. I thought our only chance of survival was in concealment. I taught my people to think that way. But Scott and the rest of your trainees showed us that the Guardians still have some fight left in them. And at the mountain camp, when we watched Dr. Land leave us, taking Patrick to live in Lumina, we all saw the consequence of our inaction.”
I asked hopefully, “Are you thinking of rejoining the Guardians, then?”
“Unfortunately, no,” replied Mrs. Harding. “Wood-claw will remain an independent faction. We will support the Resistance and the rest of the Guardians under the new Council to the best of our ability, but we will not take orders from them. As always, I must consider my own people first.”
The doorbell rang, and a moment later Mrs. Harding’s daughter ushered Mr. Beryl into the living room.
Glancing at Terry and me, Wood-claw’s official mind-writer asked in an amused tone, “Trouble already?”
“Some loose lips over dinner,” explained Mrs. Harding. “My grandson.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Beryl.
I felt a little apprehensive as he approached me and placed his hands on my head. The last time someone tampered with my memory, I had spent almost a year in frustrating confusion.
“Please do not try to block me,” said Mr. Beryl. “You are still young so we must be careful. Close your eyes and let your mind go blank.”
I did, and a minute later, I heard Mr. Beryl say, “Done. Terry next.”
And that is why I can’t remember what Mrs. Harding’s grandson said over dinner, though I’m sure it must have been a street name or something of that nature.
My fears over memory alteration notwithstanding, Mr. Beryl’s work left no scars. Mr. Beryl didn’t implant false information or erase my memory of him performing the procedure. This ultimately made all the difference in psychologically coping with the memory loss because I knew that I was a willing participant.
Once Mr. Beryl finished with Terry, we bid Mrs. Harding goodnight.
At the door, Terry pressed Mrs. Harding one last time to make sure that the Guardian Resistance knew of our request to join them in Lumina.
“You have my promise,” Mrs. Harding said with a touch of exasperation in her tone. “But it takes a long time to communicate anything with them. Assuming that they accept your offer, realistically speaking, you will probably still have to wait several weeks here before transport can be arranged.”
“As long as it takes,” Terry said in a forced calm. “Meanwhile, we’ll do what we can for Wood-claw.”
“Thank you, Teresa dear,” said Mrs. Harding.
Once Terry and I were alone in the hall, I couldn’t help smiling as I said to myself, “Weeks…”
Terry scowled at me. “Happy now?”
“Absolutely.”
Terry shook her head, saying, “Adrian, are you sure you want to get involved with Candace? It’s not like you’re going to get very far with her.”
“Do you enjoy reminding me of that?” I asked wearily. “Alia said the same damn thing to me yesterday.”
“Sorry,” mumbled Terry. “I guess it’s none of my business.”
We got into the elevator.
While we descended, I considered pressing Terry once more for an answer to the request I had made of her, but decided against it. On most issues, Terry was either quick to decide or already decided, so if she needed more time to think, I would have to give it to her.
Back on the second floor, Terry and I parted in the corridor.
Entering my apartment, I found Ed Regis, Alia and Candace in the living room. They had finished the dinner Alia and I had prepared, and now Ed Regis was dazedly watching the news on TV while Alia and Candace were sitting on the floor, faced off over a deck of cards. James wasn’t there so I guessed that he had already returned to his apartment.
“How was dinner at Harding’s?” asked Candace.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “They erased my memory of it. But I did find out that we’re going to be here for a few weeks.”
Candace smiled broadly. “Care to join us? We’re playing Concentration.”
“Sure,” I said, sitting down with them. I suspected that Alia hadn’t had a chance to talk girl stuff with Candace yet, but there was no rush anymore.
As Candace dealt the cards facedown on the floor, I asked her, “How was dinner here?”
“Great,” said Candace. “You’re still the best cook I know.”
“I think Alia did most of the work this time,” I said.
“Candace brought us presents,” Alia informed me, gesturing toward two cardboard boxes set against the wall.
In addition to the deck of cards, Candace had brought us some board games and an assortment of books and magazines to help us pass the time we would spend trapped indoors at Wood-claw. There was also a paper bag filled with more secondhand clothes for Alia, as well as…
“A unicorn?” I asked, spotting the palm-size fluffy white creature lying at Alia’s side.
“A pony,” Candace corrected apologetically. “I couldn’t find a unicorn.”
“Ah,” I said, noticing the lack of horn.
“It’s still really cute,” said Alia, giving her new pet a light pat.
Actually, my sister was pretty much done with stuffed animals, unicorns included – she didn’t have any on the motorhome – but she still liked the horned beasts and wore her unicorn-shaped bloodstone pendant day and night. Perhaps Alia was just being polite to Candace, but a fluffy white pony wasn’t a bad unicorn substitute and Alia looked happy to have it. I thanked Candace for her consideration.
Using my telekinesis to flip the cards, I played two rounds of Concentration with the girls, but I discovered that my body was itching for a little more physical action. Like most cooks, I always enjoyed a meal more when it was prepared by others, and as such I had imprudently accepted seconds at Harding’s. Candace had to go home after the second game anyway, so I decided to head to the gym to burn off some of my excess energy.
The matted dojo was empty, but making my way to the weight room, I was surprised to find James practicing his moves on one of the large punching bags.
&nb
sp; I chuckled and said, “I guess I’m not the only one who overate tonight.”
James didn’t reply, keeping his full attention on the punching bag. It was a tower bag – a heavy cylinder mounted on a weighted pedestal – and James should have been wearing gloves to protect his knuckles, but I noticed that he was using just his bare fists.
Standing behind the bag, I steadied it a little for him, asking uncertainly, “You okay, James?”
“I’m fine,” replied James, giving the bag one last pounding before stepping away. “Just want to stay in shape. What did Harding have to say to you?”
I passed him Mrs. Harding’s update.
When I finished, James threw me a wry smile and said, “So Terry had already asked Harding to set us up with the Resistance?”
I nodded. “I guess it was the first thing she asked of Harding when you two arrived here.”
“Terry never told me anything about it.”
“Yeah, she didn’t tell me either,” I said, shrugging. “You know how she is.”
“At least you were invited to Harding’s today.”
I stared at him. “You’re not… bothered by that, are you?”
“Of course not,” said James, but he refused to meet my eyes.
I grinned. “Because I would’ve happily swapped with you and stayed home with Candace.”
“I’m not jealous or anything,” said James, finally looking at me and laughing. “I was just curious what was going on up there.”
James took another round against the tower bag, and as I watched him slam his fists into the leather, I decided that he had every right to be bitter.
Back in Walnut Lane, Merlin had refused to accept James into his mind-blocking class, citing the age restriction for safe mind control. And this despite the fact that James was half a year older than me. I had been treated as a special case because of my Honorary Knight status, but James had trained harder than anyone at Walnut, and when our house was attacked, he had unhesitatingly followed me into the tear-gas-engulfed fray. Despite his comparatively few months of training, James proved himself again and again, leading the front-door team when we attacked the Angel outpost to rescue Alia, and even taking a bullet as he helped Terry and Alia through the last leg of their journey to the Historian. Yet for all of that, James wasn’t a Guardian Knight, and Mrs. Harding clearly did not see him in the same way that she saw Terry and me.
I remembered how James had apologized for not helping me out against the pair of cops that had tried to arrest Ed Regis. As far as I was concerned, there really was nothing to apologize for, but I knew from a variety of bitter experiences how maddeningly frustrating it was to feel helpless.
“Come on, James,” I said brightly. “Enough with the bag. Give me a few rounds now.”
“Sure,” said James. “It’s never fun when your opponent doesn’t hit back.”
James was certainly in the mood for a few fast and furious bouts against the living, but I wasn’t about to let him beat me. We were good friends and that would have been disrespectful even to an enemy.
“I think I preferred the bag,” groaned James when I knocked him down for the tenth time.
But I had come dangerously close to losing my winning streak on the last three rounds. Helping James up, I said, “For what it’s worth, I’d much rather you fight with me than against me.”
James asked hopefully, “You said we’re going to be here for a few weeks, right?”
“Probably.”
“Do you think Harding might agree to get someone to teach me blocking?”
“Mind blocking?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” I said. “Who knows when we’ll get another chance, and I wouldn’t mind getting some extra practice in as well.”
“Would you ask Harding for me?”
“Why don’t you call her yourself?” I suggested. “Terry and Ed Regis will probably want in too.”
“Sounds good.”
We spent an hour working out on the weights and machines, and then went another ten rounds on the mat. James did win once.
Returning to my apartment all sweaty and tired, I found Ed Regis and Alia still in the living room, though Alia had already bathed and changed into her nightclothes. Facing my sister over the coffee table, the ex-Wolf was initiating her into the world of gambling for profit: they were playing poker over a plate of small peanut-butter cookies.
“Try not to smile so much when you have a good hand, Alia,” was Ed Regis’s expert advice.
Glancing over Alia’s shoulder, I discovered that the joke was on Ed Regis. My sister had nothing but a pair of threes.
I showered, changed, and joined them until bedtime.
As we retired to our rooms for the night, I discovered that so much training on my first day in Wood-claw had taken its toll. I was yawning even more than my sister.
I heard Alia let out a little sigh as she propped her stuffed pony onto her nightstand.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Too small or not enough horns?”
Alia shook her head. “It’s really cute, but Candace thinks I’m a little kid just like everyone else does.”
First James and now Alia!
“I don’t know about everyone else, Ali,” I said, “but I’m sure Candace doesn’t think that. Anyway, most people haven’t seen the things you have, so you can’t expect them to understand you.”
Alia shrugged.
I knew better than to suggest that there was nothing wrong with Alia staying a kid for a while longer. Instead, I telekinetically lifted the pony up from the nightstand, saying teasingly, “Hey, if you’re too grown-up for a hornless unicorn…”
“No!” cried Alia, snatching it back.
“That’s what I thought,” I laughed.
Alia tried to look angry, but she was smiling too.
Chapter 6: The Rise of the Guardian Angels
The next few days passed uneventfully. We trained when we felt like it, rested and played around when we didn’t. But we didn’t want to take advantage of our welcome at Wood-claw, especially since we still didn’t know exactly how long we would be staying.
Thus Alia returned to her position as lead instructor for Scott and Rachael’s kiddie-combat classes while Terry agreed to help train the adult Wood-claw Knights, our own former students included. At first, James and I assisted a little too, but I wasn’t really at teaching level for real Knights, and James wasn’t even close.
Looking for other ways to help, we learned from Scott about Wood-claw’s security watch program, of which Scott was the assistant director. Wood-claw volunteers worked in shifts monitoring security cameras from an office upstairs and patrolling the neighborhood for suspicious activity. James and I couldn’t do either of these jobs unless we had our memories wiped at the end of each shift, so we proposed to do just that. Citing the age restriction, Mrs. Harding first rejected our offer, but we insisted on doing our part for Wood-claw, and Mrs. Harding eventually gave in. Scott assigned us to the security office where we spent hours staring at monitors displaying scenes in and around Wood-claw. Mr. Beryl was thorough in his work, and I can’t even remember what the inside of the security office looked like, to say nothing of what we saw through the cameras.
Ed Regis did his part for Wood-claw too – by quietly staying out of sight. Despite his formidable combat experience and the fact that he was well within the safe age range for memory modification, he was neither welcome in the training program nor in the security office. Ed Regis spent much of his time looking through the outdated psionic database he had recovered from Mrs. Harding. Though he couldn’t find anything useful in our hunt for the Divines, at least it kept him occupied. Ed Regis still trained with us privately, of course, and when Wood-claw residents occasionally found us in the gym, their reactions ranged from an about-face to a polite request for a training match with the Wolf. In non-psionic engagements, Ed Regis, like Terry, never lost.
Candace and I got a lit
tle closer but, unfortunately, a real first date was out of the question since I was trapped inside Wood-claw for the duration of my stay here. I tried hard to get some time alone with my girlfriend every day, but that wasn’t easy and more often impossible: I didn’t want to impose on Candace’s foster family, the gym was often crowded, and the time Candace spent with me over at my apartment was usually shared with my sister. Much like how it had been when I was dating Laila Brown, we were more frequently a trio rather than a duo, and our “dates” were often spent lounging around chatting and playing games. Still, my sister’s chaperoning didn’t keep Candace and me from holding hands or kissing. I knew without being told that I couldn’t allow our relationship to go much further than that anyway, but it was still a treat when we got some time to ourselves.
But then the Historian visited me in a dream one night. The little blond-haired boy stood facing me in a cold white room, flashing his baby blue eyes angrily as he said, “Do be careful not to let your primal impulses interfere with your vow, young Adrian.”
“I haven’t forgotten my vow, Historian!” I snapped at him irritably. “Don’t spy on me!”
After I woke, I couldn’t be at all sure that the Historian really had been dreamweaving to me or if my dream had been just that: a dream, perhaps triggered by my frustration over a relationship I could never hope to fulfill. It pained me to be so close to Candace and at the same time know that I had to keep her at bay. Perhaps it was for the better that my sister so frequently stuck around us and kept things from escalating.
Though Alia didn’t mention it again, I hadn’t forgotten the promise I had made to her on our first night in Wood-claw. As per Terry’s order, I did have a private and rather embarrassing talk with Candace in which I asked her to make sure that my sister got all of her girl-only issues squared away. Candace probably thought I was a spineless parent too, but she kindly agreed, and during our first week in Wood-claw, Candace invited Alia up to her apartment three times for sleepovers. These visits were blatant violations of Alia’s terms of stay, but Candace promised to make sure my sister wouldn’t need memory modification and Mrs. Harding didn’t make an issue of it. Thus, ironically, Alia ended up getting more one-on-one time with my girlfriend than I did, but at least I slept a little easier at night knowing that I would never have to talk to my sister about the damned birds and the bees.
Guardian Angel (Psionic Pentalogy Book 5) Page 10
