Lance leaned back, crossed his arms, a smile on his face. “Well done, dude. You just thought like a criminal.” The last words were delivered in a low voice as he leaned in closer and wiggled his eyebrows.
Alric grinned and shook his head, standing up. “I’m just being practical. Mapping out a plan that makes sense.”
Pushing back, Lance stood up as well and headed for the door. “I approve. Let’s get it rolling.”
Outside, Lance motioned for Alric to follow. Unsure why, he did as directed. They ducked into an alley between buildings. Alric looked around. He saw no cameras. There were plenty of windows, a fire escape was attached to the side of each building, graffiti was sprayed on sections of the lower brick.
“Give me a sec,” Lance murmured, pulling a phone from his pocket. His fingers moved quickly over the screen.
Finished, he leaned against the wall, pulled a pack of cigarettes from a pocket. Alric frowned. He had not once seen Lance smoke one, but it was obvious from the ease at which he lit it up and inhaled that he was a pro at it.
Smirking, Lance held it out. Alric shook his head.
“Illusion,” Lance explained. “Why else would we be hanging out in an alley?”
Alric wrinkled his nose. The last time a cigarette had been in his mouth, he’d been ten and making an attempt to fit in with orphan boys that he didn’t even like. He crossed his arms.
“No then?” Lance grinned, lifting his phone. “No worries, Eron is on top of things today.” He crushed the cigarette beneath his boot and made his way back to the street. “I’ve got this for a minute,” he stated.
A taxi screeched to a stop in front of them and Lance barked out directions. “Not good place, cost extra,” the taxi driver said irritably in a heavy accent.
“Fine,” Lance said, tossing a twenty through the slit in the window. “We’ll pay.”
The city trailed off behind them. The streets got rougher. The taxi parked in front of a motel that was as memorable as a weed in a field of weeds. Lance paid and the taxi swung away from the broken curb the second the door shut.
The woman at the desk was as forgettable as the motel. She didn’t even look them in the eye as she accepted cash from Lance and pushed a key toward them. Alric got the impression they weren’t the only ones trying to be invisible.
The room wasn’t the cleanest. The mattress of one bed sagged in the middle. The dresser was scarred, and one leg was propped up with a piece of concrete. The bathroom was grimy.
“You can start your plan tomorrow.” Lance was busy texting. “Put your bag on something plastic,” he added.
Alric had been about to set his duffel on the bed. Curling his lip up at the bedspread he settled for the top of the television.
“Maybe I’ll sleep in the chair,” he said aloud, eyeing the uncomfortable wood and vinyl chair in the corner.
“We’ll burn the bugs off in the morning,” Lance commented.
“That’s disgusting.” Xis at least had been clean.
Lance lowered the phone. “What’s your game plan for morning?”
Alric shook his head. “I need to look at the map, plan out a course of action.”
Lance shook his head. “I’m trying to teach you to wing it. Plan on the fly.”
Alric snorted. “Except you already told me nothing you do is by chance, so I don’t believe you.”
“Dude, you’re a beginner. I’m an old dog here. I’ve been in this game for a long time. You, well, I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but stealth ain’t your game.”
Alric couldn’t tell if he was being insulted or if Lance was trying to offer him assurance. He thought about telling Lance that he’d been winging it ever since he’d gone from Xis employee to Xis captive, but decided it didn’t matter. Having a process in place made him feel better.
He had duped Xis for a long time, hiding his secret until it had been taken out of his hands. He had operated successfully between the two worlds, squirreling his formulas away while handing over small quantities and getting paid massive amounts for it.
Stealth was his game - once he had all the facts. Alric decided to catch Lance up another time. He pulled out the maps he’d collected from the Chamber.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sunlight filtered through Alric’s closed eyelids. Frowning, he flung an arm over his face to try and stay in the hazy numbness of fading sleep. He’d stayed up late poring over his maps and formulating theories and outcomes, deciding as the hour ticked later and later that he’d make up for his late night by sleeping in.
The sun had other plans for him apparently. Huffing out a breath, Alric swung his arm away from his face into the rough fabric of the comforter and squinted at the clock beside the bed. Eight seventeen.
Past the table set between the beds, he saw that Lance had already vacated his own. A quick glance around the room revealed that he was alone. The bathroom was dark, the door open. If nothing else, Lance’s routine was predictable. Up at dawn every morning.
Shuffling into the shower, Alric stood under the pathetic trickle of lukewarm water and went back through all the scenarios he’d tried to play out in his head the night before.
Go south and settle somewhere near the coast so he had the option of using the water to flee the United States if he needed to. Go west and lose himself in one of the mountain ranges. Go north and find a place near the border that wasn’t monitored.
He had half hoped for a vision to guide him, or for God to point a finger, but there had been a lack of any sign that stood out as an abnormal feeling for all of his possible routes. Finally, he’d climbed into the uncomfortable bed, exhausted and frustrated.
Stepping out of the shower, Alric dried off and moved to stand in front of the mirror, wiping a circle clear. He twisted, staring at the bones on his back. They were the same as always, but he didn’t really feel the same.
Deep inside, with every beat of his heart, something was pounding with life. An urgency wrapped around purpose that was becoming more and more noticeable. Or maybe it was anxiety. He wasn’t completely sure.
Leaning on the sink, Alric looked into his own eyes. There was only himself looking back. No answer lurked in his irises. “Alright God, I’m here, waiting for You to speak to me again.”
A rap on the door made him jump.
“Yo, dude, Eron sent you some stuff.”
“That was fast.” Alric grinned upward and dressed quickly, curious about what his rescuer had sent.
Lance was sitting on his bed, cleaning an assault rifle. His open duffel bag revealed more of his small stockpile of guns, ammunition and other weapons. All of them had made an appearance during the training sessions on the boat.
“You out doing something I should know about?” Alric asked curiously, picking up the box that waited on his own bed.
“Nope. Just making sure we’re secure.”
Setting one side of the gun down, Lance whipped a knife out from his belt and held it out.
“Thanks,” Alric said, eyeing Lance thoughtfully as he slid the blade free and cut the tape on the box. “How did Eron know to send this here?”
“He’s the one that put us here.”
Lance patted the gun. “This is Betsy,” he said affectionately. Amusement quirked at Alric’s lips as Lance continued in an unexpected bout of conversation. “Shoots straight and doesn’t waste any time. The bag is back-ups, but as long as I have Betsy, we shouldn’t need the others.”
“Thanks for sharing. You got names for the others too?” Opening the lid of the box, Alric took out a phone, trying to understand why Eron would have sent him one. There was also a small black box, a wallet, and a file.
The wallet had bank cards and IDs. Lots of them. Alric tossed it down, setting the phone next to it and removing the file. He flipped it open.
Whatever answer Lance gave to his question about the guns, he didn’t hear. The file had pictures in it. Of his back. His name was displayed at the top. Eve’s was labeled,
but he would have recognized her from the hair and her small bone structure. The next had a name on a post-it note attached to it, and the last was not labeled.
Fascinated, Alric spread the pictures out, ignoring the rest of the file. The Post-it said ‘Ashar.’ The four bones were easily recognizable. They were the same bones that had been plastered all over the blog. Ashar was A.
He set the picture of his back next to Ashar’s. The photo that had no name was next, with six bones. The final was Eve, with seven.
Heart pounding, the significance of the numbers beat to existence from that deep place inside of him. “Seven,” he said.
“Seven,” he repeated, louder. “The number of completion! So where are those with one, two, and three? And what happens when we are all together?”
“Dude, what are we looking at?” Lance gaped at the photos from beside him, his hands free of Betsy.
“God speaking.”
“Huh?” Confusion was heavy in the word. Lance reached for one of the pictures. “Wait… Dude. Dude! These are pictures of the bones you were telling me about?”
“Yeah.” Alric reached for the picture of his own back. “This one is me.”
Lance accepted the photo and studied it. “Why?” he asked finally. “I don’t get it. Why would, uh, God, put bones on your back?”
Alric looked to his right as the shimmer of light glinted around Lance, shifted into shadow, then back to light, the sparkling prism’s warring to gather the light. For a moment, the figure of an angel appeared, then was gone. A possible meaning for it grasped at Alric. Awe prickled along his skin. Was there a battle happening for Lance’s soul?
He sought his friend’s eyes, praying that his next words would aid the fight, not hinder it. He licked his lips, tightened his stomach then pushed it out to release air. “I’m sorry I can’t really answer that question with any assurance Lance, but I believe they have been a test of my faith since God gave them to me. A constant tangible reminder that something bigger than me is happening in this world and God has asked me to walk in a purpose that He gave to me.”
“So you think these are for wings?” Lance said slowly, his face twisted with doubt as he stared at the bones in the picture.
“Maybe I do, yes.”
Lance lowered the photo and examined the others. “So an… angel, then.”
It wasn’t a question. The light that had continued to flicker around Lance erupted, flashing bright. The dark shadows fled and an angel rose up behind Lance, its countenance victorious and proud.
Joy spread the muscles on Alric’s face, filled his eyes and his heart. Evil had lost. Heaven was welcoming Lance as its own. His faith soared.
Salvation was there in Lance’s eyes as his gaze met Alric’s again. He believed. “That makes my purpose to keep you safe,” he stated firmly. “No one is taking down an angel on my watch.”
Alric didn’t argue that he wasn’t actually an angel. He didn’t know what he was. The being that now walked with Lance was an angel, a creature of Heaven that walked the earth somehow. He was only human.
“So these other pics… who are they?”
“I’ve only met Eve. She’s the one still at Xis.” He tapped her photo, then another. “This one is Ashar. He is here in the United States, and I think we should search for him. One of my plans revolves around him at the moment. I don’t know who the other photo is of.”
Alric picked up the phone Eron had sent and powered it on. It was possible that the answer was on one of the devices.
“Is there anything else in that file?” Lance reached for it, then pulled back, looking at Alric. Alric nodded to give him permission.
The phone had a note attached to it that told him it would unlock after a retina scan. Alric didn’t bother questioning how Eron had managed to set it up.
On the phone were copies of everything that was on the data screen as well as all the research he had done in both labs at Xis.
“Perfect.” He grinned, dropping down on the bed. “This guy is incredible. I can’t believe he managed to get all of this stuff.”
“The rest here is about Afion.” Lance held out a sheaf of documents. “You should look at these.”
Alric was far more interested in Ashar and the other unknown holder of bones than Afion, but transferred his attention to what Lance wanted him to see. Before he’d finished skimming through the description beneath the first photo, a chill was coating his skin, suffocating the warmth he’d previously felt.
He flipped quickly through the rest. Murder. Espionage. Terrorism. Involvement with human experimentation. Page after page of evidence that Afion was so much more than he allowed the world to know. The documents accompanying each picture were incomplete, but the message was not. Xis was only a cover. Alric wasn’t really surprised. He had known about some of it, but the scope that the files hinted at was alarming.
Closing the file, Alric tossed it back into the box. “What are we supposed to do with all of that? I can’t read any more.” He reached for the black box he hadn’t removed, pulling it free from under the file. Inside were two sets of tiny ear buds.
Lance took the file back out, his face drawn and serious. “Maybe he wanted you to know exactly what you’re up against, dude. Eron will have copies of everything. I think we should burn this. It’s like putting a target on our backs.”
“What do you think these are for?” Alric asked Lance, handing over a set of ear buds.
Alric pulled up the contacts on the phone. There was only one. E. Tapping it to send a message, he poked at letters. “Why the file?” He sent it. He didn’t want to burn anything until he knew why Eron had sent it in the first place.
He searched for the Facebook page about Ashar. The status was updated above a picture of a hospital bed. The man in it had his face turned away from the camera.
No location was listed. He was pretty sure Eron would be able to help find him.
“Don’t know about the buds, dude. Reckon Eron will tell us. Who’d you just send a message to?”
“Eron. He programmed himself in here. He’s obviously far more in the know than we are.”
Alric sat on the bed against his headboard and searched for where he’d left off in the blog, determined to learn everything he could in the hopes that it would reveal something more about them all.
Lance had settled back on his bed with his guns. They would both have to wait for Eron to reveal more. It seemed pointless to send them a file if there wasn’t a specific purpose for it.
He wanted to question Lance about the status of his heart, but then he would have to explain what he had seen, so Alric let that go.
The angel wasn’t visible to him any more. He wasn’t sure what that meant.
For now, he would focus on learning everything he could from what Eron had sent, and then they could fine-tune their plan.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Dude, pack up, we can’t stay here any longer.” Lance was restless and Alric was getting tired of the man’s constant pacing. He’d spent the last couple of days reading through all of the files on Ashar while they’d motel hopped. He had found nothing that hinted at his location.
Now, he waited again on Eron. If Eron had a picture of Ashar’s back, then it was a high possibility he also knew where he was, but Alric wasn’t sure the response would be what he was looking for.
Eron’s response to his text about the file had been ‘be wary of the dragon.’ That meant nothing to Alric. He already knew Afion was dangerous, and while the files had confirmed it, Lance hadn’t thought they had offered anything specific to them personally.
They had decided that, rather than burn the files, they should send them anonymously to the capital and let them get routed to whoever handled threats. That task had been done on their way to a bank to withdraw funds from one of the accounts Eron had set up for him with one of his new identifications.
Sending the files had also raised a level of anxiety in Lance that was starting to concern
Alric. He wasn’t sure if the answering restlessness in himself was Lance projecting his own emotion, or if his gut was telling him to agree that it was time to go.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to sort it out. He was willing to go to ease Lance’s mind. Retrieving shopping bags from the desk, he dumped the contents out on the bed and unzipped the backpack he had purchased and began loading in the clothing and necessities he had felt he would need for the lifestyle he was about to take on.
They had gone to a busy department store after visiting the bank, with the intention of leaving as soon as Eron forwarded the information Alric had requested. That hadn’t happened, so Alric had been attempting to uncover the location himself. He had failed so far.
Meager belongings ready, they made their way back into the city to hail a cab to a used car lot. Having their own set of wheels would make things simpler, and now that Alric had the cash in hand to make it happen, he’d deemed it necessary.
He was sticking with the plan to follow the border until he heard from Eron. His only requirement for the car was that it offer a USB to charge the data screen and phone. Alric wanted to dig into the Xis files in depth, see if he could find anything else on the David Profile. The files were downloaded onto the hard drive, so he didn’t have to worry about needing a signal or that accessing the files would alert anyone.
Lance calmed down considerably once they were on the move. A nondescript blue Ford purchased and packed, they drove west.
Alric didn’t want to go any further than the westernmost part of Virginia, where it bordered West Virginia and Kentucky, at least until he knew where Ashar was. Then they could change their direction and segment their days with a goal in mind.
When darkness fell, Lance found a place for the car that was off the road. They ate the rest of a pizza they’d bought along the way earlier and then Lance climbed into the back seat to sleep.
“The light on the data screen bother you if I read through some files for a while?” Alric asked. Lance grunted and positioned his jacket beneath his head.
Seal One Page 14
