04 Last (45 page)

Finding them was not as complicated as I imagined, but it was still a surprise.

We were at the base of the mountain when I saw a lonely tree with large branches reaching up to the perfect, blue sky. The tree shimmered in the air. I saw a sparkle of fuzziness around the tree. Something urged me to look away. The shimmer of the tree was nothing more than a trick of the eye, the sun playing with my mind. My curiosity was wasted on the tree. I ignored the impulse to look away. I was too curious. I pulled Daniel over to the tree, to investigate further. The impulse to look away increased. Daniel’s feet started to drag with the weight of the impulse. I knew there was something wrong. My gut told me the problem was with the tree. I urged Daniel along with a steady pull on his hand.

As soon as we got close to the tree, the illusion shattered. The tree was not as empty as it had appeared at first sight.

King and Preacher were hanging upside down on the tree. Their entire bodies were wrapped in silver chains. They hung from the topmost branch. They were doing their best to try to escape. The chains swung in time to their struggles.

“Maybe if we swing hard enough, the branch will brake,” King said.

“We’ve gone through this…” Preacher said in his patient voice. “We will still be bound by the chains.”

“I know. I’m just trying to think of options,” King replied.

“You thought of that one yesterday,” Preacher said.

It was the first time I had ever heard Preacher sound cross.

“Or maybe you could wait for very good friends to help you down,” I said.

Preacher and King looked at each other than at the landscape. Their eyes told them that their ears were hearing something impossible. I was nothing more than another illusion. Neither man spoke; they were trusting to Preacher’s illusion to keep them safe. My voice could be a trick designed to figure out their location. There was a brief pause in which I felt Serenity and Reaper move close and then we all reappeared. I was flesh and bone again, instead of a wisp in the wind. Serenity had taken away her talent. Preacher and King looked at us with relief dawning on their faces.

“This is very curious indeed,” Daniel added.

“How about you have a little less curiosity and a little more help us get the hell down?” King asked.

Daniel moved to the tree where the chain had been tied off. He unwound the chain from the trunk and lowered King and Preacher to the ground. Once they were down, Reaper and I undid the chains from their bodies. Preacher sighed in relief as I helped him with the last of the chain, while King looked between our curious faces with a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

“What happened?” Reaper asked.

“That’s a story better told somewhere else,” Preacher said. “The devil has eyes on even the brightest of places.”

“Right,” Reaper agreed.

I held out my hands to the others. The grabbed them, and I felt the immediate pull of the darkness. When we landed in the forest, Preacher and King looked around the platform curiously. They had been expecting a ship, not a forest.

“It looks as if we both have stories to share,” Preacher said.

“Yours first,” Reaper commanded.

“Good news: Marcus is definitely in Israel,” King said.

“Bad news?” Daniel asked.

“You are such a pessimist,” I said.

“Realist,” Daniel corrected.

“Semantics. Maybe they only have good news,” I said.

“They were tied to a tree,” Daniel pointed out.

“Do you mind if I tell the story?” King asked.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“The bad news,” King said with a grin at me, “is that he has more people than we thought. He’s got thousands of Watchers and Nightstalkers around his fortress.”

“The Seekers he has out terrorizing people must be a small force, then,” Daniel said. “No wonder so many of them were easy to kill. They were probably all young ones Marcus thinks of as expendable. His real fighting force is still in Israel.”

“Is that why you let me do most of the fighting?” I asked.

“It was good practice,” Daniel teased.

“So, he has more people than we think,” Reaper mused. “How close were you able to get?”

“Close enough to see that he’s been digging in to the ground. We also saw him make a speech from his tower,” King said.

“Marcus made a speech?” Daniel asked. “Did you hear what he said?”

“Something about a new order – a new world where his people would be kings, where they suffered no rules, no fear of death or pain…it was crazy talk,” King said.

“Sounds about right,” I said.

“His people were real worked up, though,” King said. “The guy definitely has a way with words.”

“And how did we come to find you hanging by a tree?” Reaper asked.

King looked embarrassed. Preacher did not hold the same embarrassment. He accepted it is a situation they could not have helped.

“A patrol snuck up on us,” Preacher replied.

“How come they didn’t just kill you?” Daniel asked.

“They wanted to, uh, ‘discuss’ what we were doing hanging around the fortress…” King replied. “Who had sent us, etc…While they were tying us up I managed to put a seed in to one of their brains. It took a while, but he finally went in search of the third person he thought he saw hanging around with us. When he and his group were gone, Preacher put up the illusion that we had escaped the chains. They gave chase. Luckily, they didn’t see through the illusion.”

“Except that you couldn’t get down?” I asked.

“Right,” King said.

“Were you able to find out anything specific at all?” Reaper asked. “Anything to suggest what his goal is with the bombings and the attacks, or why he was digging in to the earth?”

“Well, the digging part sort of felt like he was looking for something. The bombings and attacks, I have no idea,” King replied. “I hadn’t even heard of it.”

“He
is
preparing, however,” Preacher replied. “I got the feeling he was waiting for something…he was close to what he was after. Time is not on our side.”

“Alright…thank you,” Reaper said.

There was a feeling of movement behind us. I turned and saw that River had climbed the stairs to join us. Behind her were Moira, Margaret, Jackson, and Alex – they had come to see what was going on. The whispers of the other Watchers around us had reached them. Word had gotten out of Preacher and King’s return. When River saw King alive and safe, a flurry of emotions went through her eyes. She could not hide the emotions. She stepped across the space separating her from him, grabbed King by the front of the shirt, and kissed him fiercely. King was shocked at the kiss, but he did not resist the touch or the kiss. I felt my eyes widen. The others were similarly shocked. When the shock wore off, we started laughing and Jackson whistled in appreciation.

River broke away from King and touched him on the chest.

“I’m glad you are safe,” River told him.

His mouth moved as he searched for a proper response.

“Obviously,” he finally said.

“Well…” I said around the awkwardness of the moment.

“Yep,” Daniel agreed.

“Would you two like a moment?” Reaper teased them.

“I think they just had one,” I said.

River turned to Reaper. She seemed unbothered by the fact that she had just so effectively shown King her emotions. She was focused beyond her personal life; she had a mission. Her body language suggested she was eager to continue the kiss. She couldn’t ignore that as much as she could our comments. I knew she and King would talk – they would figure out where they stood. I was just happy River had finally stopped dwelling on King and had decided to act.

“So, is that the last of our people?” River asked.

“Yeah,” Reaper agreed.

“What’s next?” River asked.

Reaper crossed his arms and looked beyond us to think.

“I think it might be good for everyone to take a day,” Daniel suggested before Reaper could speak. “We’ve had a traumatic couple of days, and time to gather our thoughts would be good for everyone. I think we’re all agreed that attacking Marcus is the way to go, but that sort of thing should be prepared when we’re fresh.”

Reaper thought about it. He finally nodded.

“We should wait for Sara and Shawn to wake up, anyways,” Reaper said. “Their help will make the difference once we start to move against Marcus.”

“Good,” Daniel replied.

King and River eyed each other for a moment then King reached out and tentatively took River’s hand. They disappeared down the stairs to talk in private. Margaret and Jackson followed after them at a slower pace, their hands linked as they walked. Serenity went back to the room Eli had healed her in, content to spend her time in private. Alex stared at Reaper. Her x-ray eyes moved across his face. Her expression was uncertain – she obviously had things she wanted to say. Her lips moved to form the words, but Reaper was not in the mood. He did not want to have to endure her reasons for choosing Eli over him. It would only distract him from the war he was preparing to fight. It would hurt too much. He walked away and went in to the room directly across from the stairs. A vine-made door blocked us from seeing him inside. Alex’s face fell as he closed us out.

“Alex…” I started to say.

Alex held up a hand to stop me.

“It’s fine,” Alex said.

“It’s not…” I replied.

Her lip quivered with the tears that were hovering in her eyes, but she didn’t reply. She turned away and walked down the stairs, not allowing me to comfort her. I frowned after her.

“Why won’t she talk to me?” I asked.

“Because she’s afraid,” Daniel replied.

“Afraid? Alex?” I asked.

“Alex is afraid that talking to you will mean that she has to be honest about her emotions, and she doesn’t do well with that,” Daniel said.

“Alex is very honest,” I said.

“Not when it comes to putting herself above others,” Daniel said. “She’s gotten in to a habit of being there for others and neglecting herself. Now, suddenly, she has two people vying for her attention. It’s a difficult reality to face.”

I sighed. “Yeah…”

I tugged on Daniel’s hand to get him to walk with me. We moved down the steps at a slow pace, our minds a million miles away. I was dwelling on the situation between Alex and Reaper – it was an easier place to dwell than Marcus was. It felt more immediate. We had been building up to the fight with Marcus for so long that it felt surreal to know the moment was close.

“Do you want to talk about how you just saved upwards of five hundred people over the course of a night?” Daniel asked after a moment of silence.

His mind had been focused on our night of rescuing the others. He was focused on the change I had gone through.

“No,” I replied.

“You were amazing,” Daniel said. “I’ve never seen another Watcher move the way you did. You took out most of them without even needing any of your talents.”

“That was the historian’s training,” I said.

“It was more than that…” Daniel replied. “Natural ability.”

“We are born to be violent, aren’t we?” I asked.

“Some more than others,” Daniel said.

I could tell he wasn’t thinking about me, rather he was contemplating his own aptitude toward violence. It was something I had never so fully understood until the moment I had changed. It really was as if the change triggered something in my brain – a pull to do the wrong thing for the wrong reason, just because I could. No matter how much I wanted to save people and help them, the pull could not be ignored. It was a pull Daniel had faced for a hundred years.

I finally understood why he spent so much time worrying he would turn in to a Nightstalker – not only because he had seen it in a vision. It was something most Watchers had to keep an eye on at all times. Those who did not ended up working for Marcus, or similar; and at the very worst, they irreparably turned in to a demon. It was no easy fate to consider. I wondered if I would be faced with the same fate as the others. My talents were still being discovered – did that make my fate worse if I lost control, or did I never have to worry about such a thing?

I realized that getting to the point where I killed without regret would be as much of a torture as being trapped in the form of a Nightstalker forever. I also realized that my mind had let go of the deaths easier than I thought. The vast expanse was willing to let the past lie in the past. I held on to a profound fear that delving too deep in to the uncharted expanse would make me loose the part of my personality that did not like killing. It was as if the old part of me was hanging on to a life preserver in the middle of the Atlantic without hope of a rescue. Did I dare allow the new me control over my life? What would that mean? From the way my talents were developing, I felt the damage I could do would be exponentially worse – not only ‘worse’ but also world ending.

“We have to visit the historian soon,” Daniel said after a moment of silence. “She told you to come back after the change.”