Coming of Age (26 page)

“All right.” Axel rattled off some names and instructions that were incomprehensible to Lisa. “And don't wake up anyone else,” he added.

“Right,” Weylin said. The teekay grip on Lisa eased some, and there was the sound of a door opening and closing.

“What
are
we going to do with her?” Axel asked.

“Leave her here, of course,” Omega said. From the sounds behind her Lisa guessed he was picking up the books and papers she'd thrown at Weylin earlier. “You don't think we're going to take her with us to look for Jarvis, do you? She'll be suitably restrained, of course.”

“You know where Jarvis is?”

“Close enough to make it worth trying. Anyway, we have no choice—Weylin's blown his cover and the police'll undoubtedly be making a push now to find him first. We'll leave here at first light—that should only be a couple of hours away now.”

“Why not leave as soon as she's taken care of?” Axel suggested. “That area's a good two-hour flight away, and we can fly it just as easily in the dark.”

“So you
were
listening at the door,” Omega said coolly. “That's not a very polite thing to do, you know.” There was a short, brittle silence before Omega continued. “We leave at first light because I want all of the regular kids out of here before we leave, and we never send them back to their hives in the dark. That's a lesson you should learn: breaking familiar patterns draws attention, and that kind of attention is always unwelcome. And we want the regular kids out first to make sure none of them accidentally stumbles across Lisa on their way out. I don't want to find this place swarming with police when we get back.”

“Oh,” Axel mumbled. “I hadn't thought of that.”

“That's lesson number two for the day: leave the thinking to me. You haven't had enough practice at it.”

Taking a careful breath, Lisa gingerly tested the teekay grip holding her face to the wall. If Axel's attention wavered even a little, she might be able to turn her head far enough to teek off the light. If she could then get out the door—knocking it flat if necessary—and out of the tabernacle, it should be dark enough outside for her to get away …

She was still probing for an opening when Weylin returned with the other pre teens.

They took her outside the tabernacle and up the side of the mountain towering above. At Omega's direction Axel flew into the gaping hole that was the temple site; and a few minutes later he led the group to a small, cavelike hollow the workers had left in one of the sides. Omega pronounced it satisfactory … and as Lisa stood motionless within the space, pinned by two of the preteens with a flashlight, the others maneuvered a huge slab of rock into place over the opening. The light momentarily showed a five-centimeter gap between the stone and the roof of her prison. Then it was turned off. The murmur of voices faded into silence, and she was alone.

Drawing a shuddering breath, Lisa clenched her hands into painfully tight fists. “I'm
not
going to cry,” she said aloud, mainly to relieve the silence hissing in her ears. Carefully—the rock surrounding her was jagged enough to cut—she felt every centimeter of the cave. She found nothing useful. With the full force of her teekay on it, the slab blocking the entrance would not budge so much as a millimeter, though she tried again and again. Once, she thought she had the answer when she discovered a layer of small stones directly beneath the huge rock. But after a solid half hour of teeking out as many as she could touch, the slab merely settled a few millimeters and, if anything, ended up leaning even more securely over the opening.

Finally, with a weary sigh, she gave up. Sitting down carefully, she closed her eyes, only then realizing how utterly fatigued nineteen hours without sleep had left her.
And I trusted him,
she thought bitterly, wishing she'd listened to Sheelah's doubts.
He used me, got me in trouble with the police, and might even
—

She swallowed. She'd never thought much about death before; certainly never really considered the possibility of dying before she became an adult. Now, it suddenly seemed likely that she would never even see sunlight again. The urge to scream for help bubbled up into her throat, and it was all she could do to choke it back down.
Not yet,
she told herself firmly.
Omega wouldn't have put you anywhere someone could hear you. Save your strength; someone's got to come by sooner or later. One of the kids who's been working here, maybe even the police.
She smiled painfully at the thought of how hard she'd been trying to
escape
from the police a bare four hours earlier.

But one way or another, no one was likely to find her for at least several hours. Stretching out as much as she could in the cramped space, she pillowed her head on her left arm. If anyone came by while she was sleeping, she would just be out of luck. …Groaning with the exertion, she sat up again and, maneuvering cautiously in the dark, wriggled out of her pants and underwear. The pants went back on; the panties she dangled outside her prison, anchoring one end securely to the top of the rock slab. It wasn't much of a signal, she knew, but it was better than nothing. And with fatigue dragging at her like a down-draft, it was the best she could do.

Stretching out again, she was asleep within half a minute.

“Sorry, Stan,” Tonio said tiredly, drifting onto the bare rock outcrop where the detective was standing. “I can't find any trace of him anywhere.”

“Damn,” Tirrell muttered, gazing out at the dimly lit mountains, rising like frozen ocean waves around them. To have come so close …

“I can try again, if you want,” the preteen offered. “Unless Jarvis is growing trees on his roof the cabin's got to be visible from
some
angle.”

Tirrell shook his head. “Not worth it, especially now that the moon's gone. But we know he went down somewhere in this valley, and unless he spotted us they're not likely to move before dawn. Which is—” he consulted his watch—“all of two hours or so away now. Let's sit tight and get a little sleep, and we can pick up the search in the morning.”

“Well … okay.” Tonio paused. “Maybe I should go and get some help, though. I could probably get to Plat City and back before it gets light. Unless you're still worried about Jarvis getting tipped off.”

“Actually, at this point I'd love to have some help,” Tirrell admitted. “Unfortunately—no offense—I'm not at all sure you could find this place again if you left now. Maybe when it's light we can risk that, but not now. Besides which, if you feel like I do, you need sleep more than flying time right now.”

“There's that,” Tonio sighed. “Okay. Shouldn't one of us watch in case they try to leave or something?”

“Probably,” Tirrell conceded. “No rest for the righteous, for a change.”

“Come again?”

“Skip it. Move back a ways into that thicket of trees where you won't be spotted and get some sleep. I'll wake you in an hour or so.”

Tonio nodded and moved off, and after a moment the sound of rustling leaves was replaced by silence. Moving with the stiffness of overabused muscles, Tirrell carefully seated himself on the ground. Pulling his knees to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them and settled down to watch.

T
IRRELL HAD ALWAYS BEEN
a sound sleeper, especially when overtired; but the hand shaking his shoulders was anything but gentle, and within seconds the colorful dream he'd been having faded and was replaced by Tonio's blurry face. “Wha—?”

“Shh!” the righthand hissed. “You'd better come take a look at this.”

Tirrell nodded and rolled onto his stomach, mindful of the dead leaves beneath him. Pushing himself up on his knees, he noted the starlight had been replaced by the stronger glow of early dawn. The highest peaks around them blazed with sunlight, though the deepest parts of the valley were still dark.

From high overhead came the faint sound of laughing voices.

The last remnant of sleep was gone in an instant. Getting to his feet, Tirrell moved to the edge of their concealing thicket and cautiously looked up. At least a dozen kids were visible, fanning out in twos and threes as they flew across the lightening sky in generally northward directions.

“What the
hell?
” Tirrell whispered.

“Agreed,” Tonio, at his side, whispered back. “They came from over there.” He pointed, and with perfect timing another trickle of figures rose into the sky from the eastern side of a tall mountain several kilometers due south. Tirrell listened closely as they passed overhead, and while the words were unintelligible, the tone was clearly lighthearted and untroubled—not the sort of tone the detective would normally expect from a kidnapper's accomplices.

“This makes no sense at all,” Tirrell growled, fatigue putting irritation into his voice. “Have we stumbled onto some hive's weekend outing or something?”

“Hive outings don't break up at five in the morning,” Tonio pointed out. “And I haven't seen any of the adults that should have been with them, either.”

“Right,” Tirrell said, annoyed he hadn't thought of those points himself. “Well … have you seen anyone who looks like Lisa Duncan?”

“Uh-uh,” the preteen said positively. “I've been watching for both her and Weylin and haven't seen either of them.”

More kids were streaming upward now, and Tirrell looked at each carefully as they flew past. No Lisa or Weylin in this bunch, either. “This has
got
to be some kind of coincidence, Stan,” Tonio shook his head. “Jarvis can't be mixed up with this many kids and preteens. Weylin must be somewhere else in the valley.”

“Maybe,” Tirrell said slowly. “On the other hand, he
did offer
us a group of kids to help search for Jarvis. I think it would be worthwhile to ease over there and see just where it is everyone's coming from.”

“Okay.” Tonio paused. “Wait a second; here comes another group.”

More figures were indeed rising into the air … but as Tirrell watched them something cold began tracing a path up his spine. This was no loose-knit bunch of kids who had simply happened to leave at the same time. They were staying together, almost flying in formation, without a trace of chatter that Tirrell could hear. Staying just above treetop height, they shot swiftly past, heading northwest.

“Stan!” Tonio whispered. “There's an
adult
with them!”

“I saw him,” Tirrell nodded. Buoyed up by two of the kids, his outfit some sort of Woodsman's garb, the man had looked nothing at all like a prophet; but Tirrell had no doubt he was the Omega in Lisa's note. And he was most definitely
not
Matthew Jarvis. “Weylin's there too.”

“Yeah. But I didn't see Lisa.”

“Me neither.” Tirrell looked back toward the mountain, the coldness on his backbone seeping into his stomach. “Let's get down there right away, Tonio. And the hell with secrecy—I've got a bad feeling that everyone who was supposed to leave has already done so.”

Tonio understood. “Grack,” he said, very softly, as he held out his hand.

A second later they were hurtling southward.

The huge tent set up at the mountain's base was impossible to miss—and probably the last thing Tirrell would have expected to find. “What
is
this place?” Tonio whispered as they stood just inside the entrance, looking at the gaudy furnishings.

“The Prophet Omega's headquarters, I'd imagine,” the detective whispered back, keeping a firm grip on his feelings. Even recognizing that the place had probably been deliberately designed to manipulate emotions, he couldn't help but feel a touch of awe. To an inexperienced kid, the effect must have been well-nigh overwhelming.
No wonder Omega's suckered in such a large following,
he thought grimly.
What the hell is he
doing
with them, though?
“Let's do a fast search,” he said aloud to his righthand. “Don't disturb anything too noticeably, but check every place a preteen could be locked up.”

The tent, though large, had only a few rooms, and it took them only a handful of minutes to go through it. “Now what?” Tonio asked when they were finished.

“I think,” Tirrell said quietly, “we'd better start looking for a grave.”

Tonio sighed. “You don't think he would have left her tied up somewhere outside?”

Tirrell shrugged. “Maybe, but tying kids up so that they can't get free isn't easy to do. You can't really gag them, for starters, and he almost certainly would have needed to keep her quiet. I'd bet my pension the kids who left first this morning weren't involved with Lisa or whatever else Omega's got cooking.”

“Maybe that's why Omega's group left last, so that a couple of them could sit on Lisa and make sure she couldn't call for help until the others were gone.”

Tirrell thought that over. Probably nothing but wishful thinking. If Lisa wasn't thoroughly on Omega's side, keeping her alive was more dangerous than profitable—but on the other hand there was no special reason to burst Tonio's hopes out of hand. At this point looking for a body, a freshly dug grave, or a prisoner would be essentially equivalent. “You might be right,” he told the preteen. “Okay. We'll do a fast search, starting at the tent here and moving outward.”

They spent the better part of an hour flying slowly through the trees, and while they located several other places Omega's kids apparently used in their activities, there was no clue anywhere as to Lisa's location or fate. For Tirrell, the hardest part of the search was watching Tonio's almost desperate optimism slowly ground down as their chances of finding her alive diminished. The righthand's reaction to what Jarvis might be doing with Colin had shown up the soft spot in Tonio's character, and his concern now for Lisa merely emphasized it.
Just one more righthand,
Tirrell predicted privately,
who'll leave the force after his year and never come back.