People's Champion (4 page)

“Do you want me to help?” Lyssa asked,
melting from the forest with stealth I’d taught her.

It was a very rare day when I was angry with
her. One look at her compassionate expression, though, and I
recalled she had no idea why she was being raised in secrecy or why
refugees were streaming through our forest. Reacting the way I
wanted to would only draw attention to the wrong things, to
Alessandra, and invite questions from her I wasn’t ready to answer.
If I sent her home alone, she was likely to run into more refugees
or animals. The wildlife, I trusted her to handle. But people …

She was safer with me. These strangers
couldn’t possibly know who or what she was.

One of the trespassers dropped to her
knees.

In the split second that followed, I made up
my mind. “Do you have your emergency medical kit?” I asked
Alessandra.

She nodded and darted forward, tugging off
her backpack. I placed the man in my arms on the ground. Kneeling
beside Alessandra, I ran her through our medical emergency
checklist, this time with a living patient, and watched as she
bandaged the wounded woman’s arm and neck before offering her water
and painkillers. While Lyssa may not have done well in school, she
followed the procedures I taught her without hesitation, even
stitching a gaping wound in the woman’s shoulder on her own.

Proud, yet concerned about her interaction
with the strangers, I didn’t praise her as I normally would.
Instead, when she had finished, I stood.

“We need to leave,” I said as much to her as
the others. “There’s a campground to the south and a few towns
nearby. You will find better medical care there.”

Alessandra obediently replaced her emergency
medical kit and stood, pulling her backpack on. I picked up the
unconscious man, certain he would be dead before they reached a
hospital, and started to the west again.

“Stay by my side, Alessandra,” I said with a
glance over my shoulder. She was looking with unabashed curiosity
at the people, and I knew questions were soon to follow. “There was
a fire to the north.”

She appeared to accept the explanation and
moved to my side, navigating the forest with ease.

The refugees limped and supported one another
as they followed. I kept my senses alert for wildlife and other
survivors while trying to calculate how many people I was going to
find this day. It didn’t seem possible that anyone had survived and
yet, I’d met eight people already. I would need to return
Alessandra to the orphanage, and give the priests stricter
instructions on how to safeguard my wily Lyssa, before I tracked
down any more survivors.

We reached the western path, and I helped the
two ablest bodied among the refugees to support the unconscious
man. Stepping aside, I couldn’t help the flicker of anxiousness
that floated through me when I realized how close this path would
take them to the manor house. Not one of them seemed too aware of
anything at the moment. With any luck, they’d pass through the
forest quietly and miss the orphanage. If what Father Cristopolos
said was true about a safe zone, then there were several towns and
cities between here and Washington DC where refugees could find
food and shelter.

“Is that why the animals are all running
through our forest?” Alessandra asked me.

“What?”

“The fire.”

“Yes,” I replied. “It’s engulfed the entire
forest outside our home.”

“Wow,” she breathed. “It’s a good thing we
helped those people.”

“Yeah.” I switched directions towards the
orphanage. My muscles were aching and my mind tired. I wanted to
take a break and quick nap, but if I weren’t here to reroute the
refugees, who else could do it?

“I should’ve sent the other ones to the
campground, too,” she added.

I stopped. “What other ones?”

“I found three others and told them where the
orphanage was,” she replied cheerfully.

“When was this?” I faced her, struggling not
to display my dismay.

“Ten minutes before I found you.” Alessandra
gazed up at me with a smile. “Aren’t you glad you taught me to
navigate the forest? They would’ve been lost otherwise.”

At the moment, I was wishing I’d taken the
priests’ warning about her being too wild more seriously.

“Some of these people could be looters or
worse,” I told her firmly. “You’re going back to the orphanage and
staying there.”

She made a face. “Can’t I help you round them
up?”

“No.”

Disappointed, Alessandra sighed and began
walking towards the orphanage.

I dreaded what I’d find when we arrived.
After the conversation with Father Cristopolos earlier, I was
unsettled. I didn’t know what he would do when strangers showed up
on his doorstep. We were on new territory.

As we walked, my slow mind began to unravel
what exactly left me uncomfortable.

I never wanted to be under someone else’s
control as I had been under Cleon’s. But it was more than this
bothering me.

Just as I didn’t want Alessandra to grow up,
I wasn’t ready to give up the peace I’d experienced for the first
time in my life over the past seven years. Part of me knew it was
inevitable, or a man like me wouldn’t have been chosen to protect
her. But I had hoped to wait until she was old enough to understand
her importance and place in the world before our lives changed.

“You have blood on your hands.” Lyssa’s voice
broke into my unpleasant thoughts. She had stopped a short distance
away and was reaching into her pack for a rag.

At one point, my hands had been accustomed to
being bloody. They were rarely clean. I didn’t object as she wiped
my hands free of the stranger’s blood before carefully folding the
rag so it wouldn’t make a mess out of the contents of her backpack.
She tucked it away, turned, and began walking again, this time
humming.

No, I wasn’t ready for any of this to change.
The world, my peace, her bloom into womanhood.

We reached the greens around the orphanage.
My sharp eyes scoured the lawns and house for any sign of the
strangers Alessandra had sent this way without spotting anyone.

When we neared the door, it was flung open by
Father Renoir, the youngest and the girls’ favorite, who resembled
a bug with his thick glasses. He was frowning and planted his hands
on his hips.

“Alessandra,” he chided gently.

She rolled her eyes and breezed by him. “I
know.”

“Kitchens! You’ve earned another week
cleaning up after the cook!”

Alessandra groaned. She tugged off her
backpack and tossed it on a chair in the hallway before heading
towards the kitchens.

“I told you. You need to keep a better eye on
her,” I said to him, folding my arms across my chest.

“I’ll admit she’s smarter than she leads us
to believe,” Father Renoir said. “But I plan on watching her
personally and keeping her too busy to leave the house again.”

I nodded in approval, not fully convinced any
of them could keep track of her unless they were tied to her. I had
trained her how to move with discipline and agility. If they turned
their backs, she was gone.

I started to say as much, when Father
Cristopolos spoke behind me. “I know you’re tired, Herakles, but
there is something else I must ask of you.”

Hearing the hushed note in his tone, I turned
to face him. The priest’s robes were muddied around their hem, and
he slid a hand flecked with blood deeper into the sleeves of the
robe as I looked at him.

“You’re well?” I asked.

“I am. Renny, tend to your flock. Herakles,
accompany me, please.”

Father Renoir nodded and closed the door.
Father Cristopolos walked around the manor house, towards the
cottages where we all lived, and then beyond to the maintenance
sheds. The lock on my supply depot was broken, and the door
open.

Unease stirred within me again. Father
Cristopolos was thus far not acting the way I had grown used to him
acting. I lingered in the doorway of the shed while he dug around
in one of the many boxes.

When he turned, he held a gun.

“Careful,” I said and grasped it.

“Before I came here, I was in the militant
priesthood of Ares, Herakles. I know how to handle weapons,” he
replied calmly.

Uncertain what to say, I watched him load
guns expertly. He handed me two. “Bears?” I asked.

The moment he met my gaze, I knew the
truth.

“Three strangers at least saw Lyssa,” he
said. “And everyone who passes through our forest sees the boundary
of light. Did you not stop to think that those in SISA and the
government looking for her wouldn’t be able to identify the work of
gods when they saw evidence of it in reports from refugees? And
when they did, wouldn’t they wonder what’s here?”

“I didn’t think of that,” I replied quietly.
My concern had been the orphanage and the hidden knowledge of what
Alessandra was, not about what the refugees would tell others about
the magical wall of light.

“She is safe and protected only as long as no
one knows she’s here. We could cover up what she is, if someone
knocked on our front door, be we can’t pretend the boundaries
didn’t somehow spare us the gods’ wrath. Anyone who witnesses our
magic will speculate why this patch of forest is protected by
magic.” He held up the red rope tied around his waist in
emphasis.

“And this is your solution?” I asked, hefting
one of the weapons. “I murder every refugee who walks through the
barrier?”

“Your history leads me to believe you have
the ability.”

“But not the desire! Why not send them
south?”

“And what? Pray for protection from loose
lips?” he countered. “The gods may have forsaken us. Even Artemis
has abandoned us for the time being. Either we handle this, or we
risk someone reporting what they saw. Do you want that?”

“I’m not what I was,” I growled. “I do not
kill indiscriminately.”

“Then I will.” Father Cristopolos met my
gaze. “I will always err on the side of caution when it comes to
the girl whose life will determine the fate of humanity.” He
snatched a bag of ammo and draped it over his shoulder. “No one
will find her, or destroy her, because we failed in our duty to
protect her. I made this promise the day we found you. If a river
of blood must flow to keep her safe, I am prepared.”

“There has to be another way!”

“You are her protector for a
reason, Herakles. You were chosen by the gods. Have you forgotten
your duty?” he countered. “Have you forgotten the world that exists
beyond our forest? And what it will do to her, if you fail to
protect her? You did unspeakable things in your past, but you are
what you are for a reason, and that reason is
her.
”

He left.

I remained in the shed. The weight of the
weapons in my hands was nowhere near as heavy as the dread settling
at the base of my stomach. Father Cristopolos had never confronted
me about my past. At times, I convinced myself no one else knew
what I’d really done. Did I also convince myself to forget or deny
the hazy memories of violence and blood? Or the world where a man
like me was able to do such things without penalty?

And when Lyssa found out what I did to her
parents? Or that they were two among the hundreds I murdered? There
was no denying my actions. Would I look back at this moment and
point out how I had stopped being that person after I killed her
mother and father in cold blood? Was that really going to make a
difference to her?

Did I not one day have to atone for
everything, even if I hadn’t been in the right mind at the time?
The people I had wounded could not be un-hurt, and the lives I’d
taken could not be returned.

I had carved up my face, so that every day,
when I confronted myself in the mirror, I was reminded of what I
really was. And yet, every time Alessandra looked at me, I forgot
that ugly part of me and dared to hope we could stay here forever,
my little girl and me.

The happy vision in my mind faded, as
additional truth began to penetrate the fantasy I’d created after
seven years of peace.

A monster like me was never meant to have a
real family or to live a happy life. Did I really believe I could
be the father of the girl whose parents I murdered? This delusion
was destined to end, if not when she discovered what I had done,
then in a situation like this one.

What I felt, what I
wanted
in this life, would
never matter. I was damned when Cleon found me and transformed me
from a boy into a monster. The only good to come of my existence:
Alessandra, not because she was an Earth-bound goddess I was sworn
to protect, but because she loved me, and I owed her everything for
the only moments of peace I would ever experience in my
life.

Somehow, I had gotten lost in the tranquil
life here and forgotten my purpose. Alessandra was special, and I
was sworn to protect her. She was not my daughter, and I would
never be her father, no matter how much I wanted that to be true. I
was her guardian, which meant, if Father Cristopolos believed her
to be in danger, I was responsible for eliminating each and every
threat.

The sense of urgency I experienced earlier
returned. Alessandra was in danger from a nontraditional threat,
and I had gotten too contented and lazy to realize it.

I drew a deep breath and left the shed.
Jogging after the shorter man, I caught up to him just as he
reached the tree line.

“Go back,” I told him. “Keep everyone inside
until I radio in. If you have to tie Alessandra to a chair, do
it.”

Father Cristopolos studied me. “You will take
care of this?”

“I will. All of it. I am only sorry I caused
you to doubt me,” I replied stiffly.

“I never doubted you, Herakles. I know this
is not easy for you.”