Guardian Angel (26 page)

“It looks like they shut down the whole building, sir,” said one of the Knights.

“They’re probably gathering their forces outside,” said Mark. “We may not be able to go through the basement after all.”

“Jump?” suggested Willow.

“Yes,” replied Mark. “Before it’s too late. We’ll drop into the twentieth floor on the southern side and jump from the back of the building.”

I knew that we only had about twenty parachutes stocked. Several of the Knights would have to jump tandem, though Willow would certainly get a parachute to herself. Once again, I would do without a pack, but I hoped at least Terry, James and Ed Regis would each get one so that I wouldn’t have to worry about carrying any of them down this time. Alia could either hover-jump with me or go tandem with Ed Regis again.

Using the flashlights and pyroid flames to find our way in the otherwise pitch-black corridors, we started filing toward the storage room where the parachutes were kept. Mark called out to the team of Knights that he had sent to guard Raider’s trapdoor, ordering them to come back and join us at the storage room.

Before we reached the parachutes, however, the Seraphim made their move.

First there was a massive explosion in the direction of Raider’s entrance, and the whole building trembled as the trapdoor blew apart. Then the shooting started.

“Get down!” shouted several voices at once.

I grabbed Alia and pulled her to the concrete floor. In the darkness, I couldn’t see anyone else from my team except Ed Regis, who had also hit the deck when the first shots rang out through Twenty Point Five.

Our Knights immediately opened fire in the direction of the Seraphim, shooting their guns right through our thin, makeshift walls. Pulling Alia along, I followed Ed Regis to a space behind one of the concrete columns which provided the only real cover aside from the darkness.

“We’ve got to get to the parachutes!” shouted Ed Regis as he fired his automatic rifle at the Seraphim from around our cover.

“There’s no way through this!” I shouted back, pushing Alia into a safer position behind the column. “Where’s Terry?!”

Ed Regis didn’t answer. From there, everything was screaming, gunfire, psionic flames, blasts, lightning bolts, wind and chaos. The walls fell apart around us as bullets and telekinetic blasts pounded the thin wood, plastic and glass into little fragments, which were then whipped up in violent gusts of wind that tore through the darkness. There were at least three Guardian windmasters here including Terry, and though the wind was probably meant to help cover our escape, we could hardly keep our eyes open. The Seraphim had a few windmasters on their side as well. Pyroid fireballs flew erratically in the psionic storm, impacting on the pipes and concrete columns, or sometimes just exploding in midair, sending little sparks in every direction.

Ed Regis continued to fire his rifle in very short bursts at the Angel invaders. I doubted the ex-Wolf would have to save a bullet for me after all. The Seraphim were giving us everything they had, with no intention of taking prisoners. I looked around for Terry and James, but they were nowhere in sight. The few other Knights I could see were pinned down like we were, returning fire with their guns and psionics. There was nowhere to escape to. I wondered if perhaps Terry and James were already dead.

I pulled Ed Regis’s pistol from its holster and, flipping off the safety, fired a few random shots at the Seraphim too. If we were all going to die here, then at least I wanted to die fighting.

Suddenly I found myself face to face with James, who hollered, “We gotta get down to twenty! There’s a trapdoor over there!”

“Ed Regis doesn’t have his chute yet!” I shouted back over the wind and explosions.

“Doesn’t matter!” screamed James. “Stay here and we’re all dead!”

I heard Alia call into my head,
“Addy!”

“Alia!” I shouted as I realized that I was no longer holding her hand. “Where are you?!”

“I’ve got her,” called Ed Regis from my left. “Come on! Let’s go!”

James was holding his own pistol in his right hand and what looked like Terry’s in his left, and he simultaneously fired a few covering rounds from both at the Seraphim coming down Raider’s trapdoor.

“Heads down!” he shouted. “Crawl forward!”

I saw Ed Regis discard his rifle and push Alia ahead of him as James led us through the firefight. Bringing up the rear, I followed closely behind Ed Regis’s feet.

But the Seraphim weren’t only coming in from Raider’s bedroom. Other explosions had opened up several entry points, and the Seraphim were dropping down into Twenty Point Five from all around us now. Using the concrete columns for cover, the remaining Guardians were doing all they could to hold the Angel forces back, but we were being swarmed. As I crawled behind Ed Regis toward wherever it was that James was leading us, I saw three Guardians die. One of them was screaming horribly as she was engulfed in pyroid flames. It was Willow.

“Down the hole!” shouted James, nodding toward a small square opening in the floor. “Go! Go!”

He rolled over and sat up on the concrete. Aiming his pistols in separate directions, he fired them both empty as Alia and then Ed Regis dove headfirst into the trapdoor.

“Go!” James shouted again as I scrambled forward. “Get down there!”

I was about to dive in, but the next instant I saw James’s body shudder violently as a dozen rounds of gunfire ripped into his chest. I felt his warm blood spatter onto my face. Even over the screaming wind and incessant gunshots, I clearly heard the sick hissing sound of the air leaving his lungs. James opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out, and I knew that this wasn’t the kind of thing my sister could heal.

James fell heavily onto his back. His eyes followed mine as I crouched next to him.

“Go, Adrian…” he slowly mouthed, blood pouring from his lips. “Finish this.”

I nodded once, and then pulled myself into the trapdoor.

I fell down onto a springy mattress. It was a bedroom with the lights dimmed so that the Seraphim above wouldn’t easily spot the trapdoor. Hands grabbed me and pulled me off the bed. A small but painfully bright light was shined into my face.

“Richard!” said Terry, pulling me toward the only door. “Where’s Jack?! He went back up to find you! Where is he?!”

I shook my head, still dazed from what I had just seen. James’s eyes were still looking at me.

“Where is he?” Terry asked frantically. “Didn’t you see him?!”

I shook my head again and mumbled, “He’s gone, Terry. He’s gone.”

In the next room, I found a handful of Guardians including Ed Regis, Alia, Mark and Mr. Jenson. Alia was helping heal the badly burned right arm of one of the Knights.

“How many more of ours up there, Richard?” Mark asked me.

“I don’t know,” I breathed. Using my sleeve, I wiped most of James’s blood from my face, which cleared my head a little. “I think they’re mostly dead.”

“Alright, let’s close it up,” said Mark. “We’ve got to move quickly.”

The Knights sealed the trapdoor, but we weren’t out of danger yet. Not by a mile. Aside from what was left of my team, there was Mark and Mr. Jenson and eight other Knights here. That totaled only fourteen people.

“We couldn’t get to our parachutes, so we’re going by the shaft,” announced Mark.

Lumina Nonus was still without power, which was to our advantage at the moment because this meant the security cameras couldn’t spot us as we left the condo and headed toward the elevator. The Seraphim had all attacked from the twenty-first floor, and none were on the twentieth yet.

The Knights pried open the elevator’s double doors, and in we went, single file down the iron service ladder. The inside of the elevator shaft was too dark to see far in either direction. Under more normal circumstances, this would have been a harrowing experience in its own right, but after what we had just escaped, no one complained or hesitated in the least.

Instead of telekinetically hovering my way down, I used the ladder like everyone else. I had wiped my face as well as I could but I was still being slightly drained by James’s blood. Besides, I wanted to save my psionic power in case I needed it later.

The last Knight in had closed the elevator doors so that we wouldn’t be tracked. We got to the bottom of the shaft in good time and without Angel contact.

Gesturing to the double doors that led to the basement parking lot, Mark whispered, “They could be right outside.”

“Only one way to find out,” said Terry. “Open it.”

The Knights who still had guns trained them on the doors. I had lost Ed Regis’s pistol somewhere, but I prepared a focused blast in my right index finger as Mark and Mr. Jenson carefully pried the doors open.

There was nothing waiting for us.

We climbed out of the shaft and into the basement parking lot. The fluorescent tubes lining the ceiling were all dead, and by now the outside was so dark that very little light shined down the exit ramp into the parking lot.

“It’s too damn quiet,” said Ed Regis. “They didn’t even close the shutter on the exit ramp.”

“That’s the only way out,” said Mark. “It could be a trap but we can’t stay here.”

Mark turned to Mr. Jenson, saying, “Sharky, set us up.”

“Alright,” said Mr. Jenson. “Three trains, five, five and four. Once outside, we’ll split up and head to our designated safe houses.”

Mr. Jenson quickly divided up the Knights so that he and Mark would each lead a group of five, leaving Terry, Alia, Ed Regis and me in the last group. As train leaders, Mr. Jenson and Mark would have to keep their eyes visible in order to see where they were going, but that meant attentive Seraphim around Nonus could spot them. I wasn’t going to take that chance.

“I’ll lead my team, Sharky,” I told Mr. Jenson. “No eyes.”

“Are you sure, Richard?” asked Mr. Jenson.

“You know me,” I said. “I don’t get lost in the dark.”

“But do you know where you’re going?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

Mark said to me, “Do you remember that store across from the pool you used to swim at during the summers?”

I nodded.

“Don’t lose your cloak until you’re inside the store. If the front door is locked, move around to the back from the left side. There’s a back door that will be open.”

“Got it. Will we see you there?”

“Not for a few days. I’ll be at a different safe house until this blows over.” Mark looked around at us. “Good luck, all of you. I’m sorry about your friend.”

We didn’t have a rope this time so we had to hold hands. Terry hooked the back of my shirt and put Alia behind her, followed by Ed Regis who brought up the rear.

Then Mr. Jenson turned all of us invisible from head to toe. As my world flickered into oblivion, I realized my mistake: I didn’t even have a stick to guide me.

But it was too late to do anything about it. The other two teams were already on the move. I remembered the general direction of the exit ramp and started walking, choking a little as Terry’s hook pulled on the back of my shirt.

“Keep pace,” I croaked.

Walking blind, my own pace was probably much slower than Mark’s and Mr. Jenson’s, but after counting roughly fifty paces, my left hand found what I believed to be the concrete wall that would lead us up the exit ramp. I soon found the incline with my feet and, running my left hand fingertips along the wall, I slowly led my team upwards.

I guessed the other two trains were already well out of Nonus, and I still didn’t hear any sounds of fighting. I knew that this ramp led up onto a fairly large street with plenty of non-faction people. The Seraphim would be unable to attack us once we were outside.

We reached the top of the ramp and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Suddenly Terry’s hook yanked on my shirt, pulling me down as I heard several surprised yelps and my vision instantly returned.

Looking around, I discovered that a suited businessman had walked right into our invisible train, tripping over Alia and falling facedown onto the sidewalk. Our train had lost its cloak upon impact. So much for the no-eyes plan.

Painfully picking himself up and looking utterly bewildered, the man said to Alia, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. I was running and–”

“It’s okay,” said Ed Regis, shoving the man away and frantically looking around for more serious threats.

Terry, Alia and I looked around too, but there were no Seraphim in sight.

We were no longer carrying any guns, having lost them during the firefight in Twenty Point Five, but our group still stood out on the street: Despite the February chill, we didn’t have winter jackets. Our clothes were dirty and bloodstained, and Terry was wearing her hook.

“Let’s go,” said Terry.

We quickly made our way down the sidewalk between small piles of shoveled snow. My heart was still racing and I hardly noticed the cold.

When we tried to turn a corner, we were met by a team of six dark-suited Seraphim. They recognized us instantly, but they didn’t attack. There were still plenty of pedestrians on the sidewalk and cars running up and down the street.

The Seraph team leader stepped forward and looked around at us. His eyes stopped on Terry’s hook for a second, and then he said to me, “Adrian Howell, I presume?”

I nodded as Alia gripped my left hand. I instinctively prepared a blast in my right.

The leader smiled like a peacemaker. “If you will quietly come with us, the rest of your team may go free.”

“I’ve heard lies like that before,” I replied evenly.

“We control the law in this town,” said the leader. “If you refuse, we can simply have you arrested by the police.”

Ed Regis took a step forward and growled, “You’ll have to call them first.”

“Come on,” said Terry, pulling on my arm and leading us in the opposite direction. “Don’t even look back. They can’t touch us if we stay in the open.”

“But we can’t go to the safe house like this,” I argued. “They’ll follow us there.”

The Seraphim were trailing us at a distance of only about ten yards.

“I’ll think of something,” said Terry.

We continued walking. The Seraphim kept pace. The park was just ahead of us now, and I suspected that Terry wanted to lead the Angels inside and deal with them there.