Aegis Rising (37 page)

He watched Mariah now as she worked. Every time he heard Saiyu praise her pupil on her progress, all he saw was red. Every once in a while his eyes went to Akol and he gripped the branch he was on, white-hot enmity spreading through him like fire. This was the nuisance that had thwarted his near-perfect plan with the diseased wolves. His nails dug into the bark as he relived that moment. He had been there, concealed high up on the rock wall, watching the five fend for themselves. He’d almost tasted victory when the friends had given up upon seeing the second pack of wolves come into the enclosure.

Hutar looked down at the base of the tree he was hidden in now. So close. He had been so close. He glanced back at Akol, then with a snarl turned and jumped to another tree, heading to Kody’s training area. Here he knew he would have to be careful. With Nageau having heightened senses and Kody learning aspects of that power, he had to be extra cautious. He paused, waiting for a bird to fly by. When it did, he jumped onto a tree with a good view of the pair. It was perfectly timed so that the rush of air from both him and the bird sounded as one.

Cautiously, he looked down. It seemed like nothing much was happening. All he saw was Kody sitting on the ground with his eyes closed, and Nageau was nowhere in sight. Hutar, though, knew from experience that Kody was listening to the sounds around him. This made it hard for Hutar to gauge how advanced Kody was. He looked up and down the branch on which he was balancing and saw a tiny twig attached to his perch. Keeping his eyes on Kody, he reached toward the twig. Holding his breath, he snapped it.

Kody’s eyes flew open and he stared up in the direction the sound had come from. He sat still for a moment, alert, but saw nothing. He unhurriedly faced the front again and closed his eyes in meditation.

This didn’t please Hutar one bit. Kody’s hearing was picking up, and so, he assumed, were the outsider’s other senses.

Having assessed the five’s progress, Hutar was only more determined to go through with his plan. He waited until another bird flew by before moving with it out of the training ground, a resolute mood tempering his feelings of bitterness.

*  *  *

Tikina walked quietly into her
neyra
and went to the kitchen to get a cup of water. The five had been dismissed for their lunch break, and she needed to check on the search teams; it was the second day of their rescue mission. After downing her drink she went to sit on the divan in the living quarter. She breathed out slowly, and then closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was looking through the eyes of Akira. She felt the wind beneath her wings as she glided in the sky. The view was beautiful. The sky was blue, and she could see for miles over the treetops. She tilted her wings slightly and looked down, seeing one of the search teams. She spotted the young woman with the red bandana and slowly started a circling descent.

The woman looked up when she heard the rush of wind as the golden eagle flapped her wings once. She smiled, stretching out her arm, and the bird eased down onto the leather glove she wore. She looked the eagle in the eyes and a message was shared between her and Tikina. The woman nodded and the bird launched off her arm and into the air, soaring high, and was soon out of sight.

“Where did she go?” one of the men in the team asked.

“She went to scout ahead,” the woman answered. Brushing a few strands of platinum hair that had escaped her bandana away from her bright green eyes, the woman led the group of men with a stride that showed her authority. She absently spun her staff in her right hand and prayed that they would find their missing friends.

*  *  *

Hutar sat on a rock facing one of the lakes that was supposedly contaminated. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was in fact tainted and needed to find a way to confirm it. In the pack he brought with him, he had two jars. He looked around the cove, sitting quietly without expression. Hardly anything made him smile since the death of his father, except for his uncle. Though he never told his uncle, he loved him deeply. Aydar was the only family member Hutar had left and he did not know what he would do if he lost him.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when his heightened hearing picked up the scuttle of small paws against pebbles. He froze in his place and located the source of the sound: It was directly behind the rock he was sitting on. Very slowly, Hutar brought himself up into a squat and counted to three, then did a back handspring and landed behind the rock.

A hare, frightened out of its wits by the unexpected intruder, tried to scurry away but Hutar grabbed it by the ears and lifted it up. The hare let out a bloodcurdling scream and kicked out its back legs. Hutar glared at it and was tempted to smash it against the rock to silence it, but he needed the hare alive.

His pack lay open on the rock and he removed one of the jars. He held onto the struggling, screaming hare with one hand and uncapped the jar with the other. Pushing the cap off, he grabbed the jar and strode purposefully toward the lake. There, he knelt, trapping the hare between his knees. Without touching the water, he filled up the jar. He pried the hare’s mouth open and forced the water down its throat. The hare thrashed but Hutar put the empty jar down and held onto the animal, the muscles in his arms bulging from the effort. He had to wait there for almost thirty minutes, but finally he saw the foam starting to encrust the hare’s mouth as the contaminant took hold of its small immune system. Hutar jumped back and went to watch the hare from the safety of his rock. The hare twisted around as if drunk and staggered away from the lake.

Hutar spent another half hour watching intently as the hare succumbed to the terrible illness. He smiled, thrilled, as he watched the creature surrender to a painful death.

42

A
tall silhouette gazed out through the palm trees from where it stood by a colossal window of an enormous villa. The villa was built along a sandy cove with a gorgeous view of a rich, blue lake. Tied to the villa’s dock, a single-engine float plane bobbed on the water as the breeze picked up. The figure gazed further out, watching the locals ride their sampans over the small rolling waves as the fishermen sorted out nets filled with the day’s catch.

Fingering the hem of a custom-tailored batik shirt, the figure glanced at a classic rotary phone sitting atop a mahogany desk and contemplated making a call, knowing full well the huge time difference on the other side of the globe. The figure looked back out the window for a few minutes and then, reaching a decision, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

Wild knocking on Ajajdif’s door rattled him from his sleep. Jumping out of bed, he quickly pulled on a t-shirt, slid into his jeans and opened the door to find his frazzled-looking assistant holding up a phone. “Sir, it’s the boss.”

Instantly, Ajajdif went pale. He stared at his assistant for a moment, then grabbed the phone from her and closed the door. Forcing a wide, demented smile, he put the receiver to his ear. His fingers shook as if he were cold. “Hello?”

“Vladimir. How are you doing?” a raspy voice breathed into the phone.

“Well enough,” he replied uneasily. “And you?”

“It all depends on the progress up there.”

“Oh, uh . . .” he stammered. “It’s coming along.” He switched topics as fast as he could. It was late at night and he hadn’t prepared himself for the call at this hour. He needed to buy time to think. “You’re not usually one to call at two in the morning. I assume that means you’re in a different time zone.”

“Yes, I am.”

“So which part of the planet are you at now?”

“I am catching some sun on one of my favorite islands.”

“Which one?”

“The one that sits on a volcanic lake in Southeast Asia.”

Ajajdif was genuinely interested. “So you found a new getaway island? How do you like this one?”

“It is beautiful, and it has a significant history behind it.”

“Oh?”

“It is a volcano that was presumed to have wiped out much of the human race when it erupted seventy-five thousand years ago. Rather symbolic, don’t you agree?”

Ajajdif pursed his lips. “Yes, definitely. That sounds interesting. How is the weather there?”

“Wonderful. The warmth of the tropics suits me well.”

“You’re certainly a globetrotter,” Ajajdif said with a laugh, although his nervousness gave it an unsteady pitch. “When do you plan to head back to the U.S.?”

“I should be returning in a couple of weeks . . . about the time that you’ll be wrapping up your little project over there.”

Ajajdif gripped the phone tightly.

“Adrian called me a few days ago and told me that he gave you a month’s extension. That doesn’t please me. We originally gave you four months.”

“I know.” His palms were getting clammy. “But the weather was horrid, and the machines weren’t working properly, and—”

“Adrian told me everything. I just want to know one thing: The project will draw to a close by the end of the month, will it not?” A cold note had crept into the boss’ voice.

Ajajdif swallowed. “I . . . I hope so. I mean, it should.”

“That is not the answer I am looking for.”

“I am pushing my crew to work around the clock and we’re trying our hardest to get the mineral. We’ve already gotten a substantial amount, and we will try to get the remaining quantity by the deadline. I’m not making any excuses but we’ve run into a number of challenges here and that’s the truth.”

There was a moment of unsettling silence, then the voice breathed again, “Don’t let me down, Vladimir.”

“Of course not.”

“Now . . . Adrian also informed me of some disturbing events that occurred over there, but he left a few gaps. Fill me in on those.”

Ajajdif swore silently. Of course Black would want to deflect the heat over to him. “One of my crew members died in an accident in the tunnel.”

“That is unfortunate, but there are risks in this operation.”

Feeling secure with the boss’ more easygoing tone, Ajajdif continued. “Four intruders trespassed into one of the tunnels. My head of security and his team managed to capture them, but not without a few casualties.”

“What happened?”

“They got into a scuffle with the intruders, but they’re being looked after now.”

“Tell me more about these trespassers, Vladimir.”

Ajajdif scratched his neck. “They were natives, apparently, but they were like no natives I’ve ever seen. My head of security told me that they fought with amazing strength and techniques that surprised his men before the team managed to tranquilize them. We kept them chained in a holding cell with one guard there at all times.”

“Did you try to communicate with them?”

“I did, but they couldn’t speak English. The security team tried to use hand signals and whatnot, but they didn’t respond to that either.”

“Hm.” The voice on the other end paused. “Were they all young, or was there an older native with them?”

Ajajdif found the question a little strange. “No, they were all young. Why do you ask?”

A sound of throat-clearing came over the speaker. “I was just wondering if there was a leader amongst them.”

Ajajdif frowned but didn’t pursue further.

“Adrian told me that you were taking care of them. Have you?”

“Yes.” Ajajdif knew he would have to tread carefully. Right before he’d left his office to turn in for the night, Hajjar had found him and explained to him all that had happened in the tunnel with the Marauders and the natives. “My head of security let loose the Marauders on the men.”

Interest sneaked into the boss’s tone. “That must have thrilled the beasts.”

“Yes. All the men are dead.” He had to force out the last sentence. From what Hajjar had told him, he knew that two were dead for sure. The other two had fallen down the side of the mountain. Hajjar assured him that no one could have survived that fall, especially not with their hands still tied behind their backs.

“Excellent. Less problems to deal with.”

“Uh, yes. However . . . we lost one of the hybrids during that little activity.”

“What? How did that happen?”

Ajajdif flinched. “Part of the tunnel they were in collapsed.”

The voice on the other end was silent again.

“Are you there?” Ajajdif asked cautiously.

“It takes a lot to create these animals, Vladimir. They do not come off an assembly line.”

“I understand. I’m sorry.”

“Good. Is that all there is to report?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will let you go back to sleep. Get some rest, Vladimir. You’re going to need it.”

There was a click and a tone, indicating that the boss had hung up. Ajajdif sat down on the edge of his bed and put the phone down beside him. Sighing, he held his head in his hands and thought with disdain,
Rest? Yeah, right.

43

J
ag gazed up at the third of the six logs in his training area and glanced at Elder Tayoka, who simply motioned for him to get on the beam. Jag looked back at the log. It was slightly daunting to think that he would now have to practice his abilities atop a beam that stood eight feet above the ground.

“Are you nervous?” Huyani asked, coming to stand beside him.

“Me? Nah . . .”

She smiled. “I remember when Akol first started practicing balance and some defense techniques with this log.”

“How did he do?”

“He hurt himself more than a few times.” She saw the alarmed look on Jag’s face and quickly said, “But there is no reason for you to be truly worried. All that is needed of one is focus, determination, and practice.”

Jag saw the truth in that. Having been involved in parkour for several years, he’d had his fair share of pain. But if there was ever one defining quality about Jag, it was his determination.

He scaled to the top of the log, took a few breaths to relax and waited for Tayoka’s instructions. Through Huyani, Tayoka said, “We will begin with an easy move to get you used to this log. Start with a forward roll.”

Jag crouched down and rolled forward on the beam, trying not to tense up. Through experience he’d learned that a rigid body would not have proper balance. He rolled all the way to the end and stopped just in time to make sure he didn’t fall right off the beam.