Crow - The Awakening (67 page)

The elevator trip up to her floor was in stark contrast to the raw conflict that he had endured that evening. The elevator musak was irritatingly cheerful and the decor was modern and clean. The metal surfaces were polished to a mirror finish and Brandon could see himself in one of them. A glum and defeated person looked back at him from the reflection and he averted his gaze. Finally he reached her floor and used the key card to access her apartment.

It was dark in there, but not overly so. The window drapes were open and the city lights gave some illumination. He noticed that the door to the veranda was open. He looked around then looked back, thinking he should at least close then door, when saw her silhouette standing there. Blinking quickly, he squinted in the darkness. "Rachel?" The silhouette turned and walked out the door and he couldn't help but notice the light bouncy walk that he had grown so familiar with. Without any hesitation, the shadow casually jumped over the rail of the patio and disappeared without a noise. Stunned, Brandon ran to the rail. "Rachel!" he yelled as he looked down the several stories to the ground, but he didn't see her.

In shock, he sat down, leaned against the railing and put his head in his arms, trying hard not to sob as he remembered her. He felt like he was going mad. For the briefest moment he had cast reality aside and had hoped against hope that somehow she had survived and was standing there in the dark. And yet, he could not deny what he had so clearly seen at his apartment. She was gone.

As he sat there he looked down on the floor of the porch and saw something that looked familiar. A turquoise necklace lay as if dropped by the figure that just jumped over the rail. Brandon picked it up and examined it. It looked identical to the one he had given Rachel earlier that night. But he couldn't comprehend how it could have gotten there. She still wore it when he clung to her as they were being shot at. Standing up, Brandon looked down again, hoping to see something that would explain this. But he just saw shadows. Sighing, he put the necklace in his pocket. He would have to address that later.

Walking through the apartment, he didn't find anything that really stood out to him. While she had art hanging on the walls, she didn't have any pictures of herself. He sorely wanted to have at least one picture, but there were none to be found. He ended up taking one of her brushes that still had some of her hair in it, then walked out and headed to his car. It was time to meet with Steven and see just what sort of damage he could do to these people.

Rachel sat on the concrete table in the little park below her apartment with her legs pulled up under her chin as she gazed up at the porch she had just jumped from. The shadows hid her but she could clearly see her old residence, and she saw Brandon looking down. She smiled when she saw him reach down and pick something up. The seeds have been planted. Getting up, she walked to her car and pulled out into traffic, humming to herself as she prepared to assume a new identity and continue her work.

Glass crunched underfoot as Lohet walked through the apartment. Migalo could smell Steven there and was currently upstairs searching for any sign of him. Something on the floor caught his eye. A red stain but no associated body. Did Steven get hit? Lohet kneeled down and pulled out a sampling kit and collected some of the blood. The scanner didn't take long to identify the source and Lohet frowned. All the indicators tonight pointed at a very precise military style invasion. But he's seeing hints of something else at play. He looked out through the window and up. There had been someone on the roof at one point. Scuff marks on the shingles, and more blood.

Lohet walked over and jumped up onto the roof and examined the scene, taking more collections. One Terran bled up there, but Lohet suspected from the scuff marks that there was more than one Terran present. From the nature of the scuff marks it appeared that they were trying to get away from something or someone. And it would seem that they were not successful. He sat down where they were and looked out across the property. It was a good sniper position. And now the snipers were dead. Someone had protected Steven, but the reason why eluded him.

Migalo walked out of the apartment and, with a bound, jumped up onto the roof to stand beside Lohet. "There were four up here." Migalo tasted the air. "One had been in the apartment."

Lohet held up the sample from the apartment. "This one."

Migalo looked at it and sniffed the sample. "Yes." He looked perplexed, trying to remember something. "It smells familiar."

"It should. It's the same as the blood we found on the roof by the restaurant." Lohet said. "The scanner indicates that it is a perfect sample." He turned around and peered at the property, looking for any clue that could help answer questions rather than just create new questions. "Terran blood isn't that perfect."

Migalo frowned. Something strange is happening. "Whose blood could it be?" Lohet looked at him and Migalo was aghast. "They don't bleed. How can it be them?"

"Their infiltration of the Terran population would appear to be far more sophisticated than we had previously estimated." Lohet put the sample away. He would have to examine it closer when they returned to the safe house. "During the War they never went this far." He had to go toe to toe with many golems in those days.

"Could they have him?" Migalo asked. He didn't expect an answer, but voiced a concern. He held up Steven's old clothing. "I found this upstairs. He appears to have showered up there. His trail leads back to the garage in the back."

Lohet jumped off the roof and, gathering his energy, he sped to the garage, arriving there before the cloud of mist dispersed from where he had been standing. Migalo loped not too far behind him, catching up as he entered the garage. The garage door was still open and a car cover sat crumpled on the floor.

Migalo looked around. "Steven was here but he didn't leave in that car." He indicated the car cover. "He took one of these." Migalo walked by the motorcycles lined up by the wall.

"The assault force had their own vehicles and the golem had no need of one. It would appear that one of these was meant to be a diversion." Lohet walked out and examined the rubber stains on the driveway and the sprayed gravel. "They went opposite directions."

"We've lost him again," Migalo growled.

"Patience, my friend." Lohet cocked his head, listening. Penipe was approaching. From the sound of her breathing, he knew that she had found something of interest.

Penipe stepped into the garage and Lohet turned to her. "You're going to want to see this," she said. Her face was downcast, and Lohet suspected it involved Asherah in one way or another.

In the garden they saw the remains of the guards. In one place, the ground had been severely disturbed and they saw a hand sticking up out of it. Migalo tugged on the fingers to verify that the hand was attached to something. "It looks like what almost happened to me back at the clearing." He looked over at Lohet who peered into the brush. In there they beheld a quartered body that was thoroughly skewered by branches. The branches literally pulled the body apart. More body parts of another agent were scattered all over the place still wrapped up by strong vines.

"Steven was definitely here." Migalo looked around. Penipe hugged herself in horror of what she saw, remembering the branches that almost skewered her back by the meadow. Elves didn't control every detail of what the plants they influenced did but merely expressed a desire. The plants did the rest. Asherah would have had an extremely strong desire to protect Steven, especially with the severe danger that he was in. Penipe looked around. Her daughter's defensive instincts were exceedingly strong from the looks of this and the incident back by the meadow. Penipe shuddered. But would she have done any different were her life-mate in danger? Nevertheless, it was still a shock that her young daughter would have been involved with this and Penipe cried inside for what it must have done to her to have had to do this. Lohet came up, and putting his arm over her shoulders he guided Penipe away, sensing her growing distress.

"We must see what progress Sirel has made on recovering the security footage," he said as they walked back toward the mansion. The computer had a quick data wipe applied to it that did a basic delete of the video footage and it looked like it was nearly in the process of having a deep wipe that would have irreversibly removed the data when it was interrupted. Given the attention to detail they had noticed before, they were surprised to see things left in such disarray by these agents.

Sirel was humming to herself as she transferred the last of the restored data to her storage device when they walked in. She held the memory stick out with one hand as she continued working on the computer with the other. The system had continued recording so she had to remove their own presence from the recordings. Rather than just deleting the files, she entered blank spots where the motion sensors would have paused the recording for lack of movement. Sometimes it is easier to hide in plain sight rather than trying to hide in a way that advertised itself. Penipe grabbed the memory stick and popped it into her computer to see what files could be accessed. Once all traces of their own presence were gone, Sirel crashed the system. Given the break-in and assault, there would be no additional suspicion because of that and they would disappear like ghosts.

Grinning, Sirel looked up at Lohet and batted her eyes, then floated up to look over Penipe's shoulders. The Elf accessed the memory stick and scanned through the multiple video streams. There were several that covered many hours and she opened up several into their own little floating windows and ran them simultaneously, looking for anything that stood out.

"There." Lohet pointed. But he didn't have to point that out, since they all saw it. The girl had been shot and the camera had gotten a recording of it. And then she was back on her feet and walking away. Lohet frowned. This confirmed his suspicions but raised many more questions.

"If they know he's here, why don't they collect him?" Penipe asked what they were all thinking. They had gone to great efforts to keep the boy hidden until he was ready, mainly because the Sadari had abducted his parents. They wanted gatekeepers and Steven would be a prize above all prizes for them. He was vulnerable now, ripe and ready to be harvested. If they waited much longer, any effort to collect him would be futile. They were all racing against time.

"They know our policies regarding deviants. And they must know the danger the Terrans present to him as well," Lohet said, trying to think. There was every reason for them to collect him, because the longer they didn't the more they risked losing him in one way or another. He would definitely have to give this significant development some thought.

"And why are they pretending to die?" Migalo asked, mirroring Lohet's frown. The attention to detail was remarkable. The blood stains and the deviation from their own experiences with the golems were leaving them scratching their heads.

Penipe gasped at the video of the plants. She cried for Asherah as she watched the agents getting skewered and ripped apart. Steven appeared to be talking to someone and Penipe knew it was Asherah. Her daughter must have suffered greatly to have had to do this. But why? Was she trying to prove something to Steven? Steven's guardians had said that he believed she was imaginary. Perhaps she is trying to change his mind? Penipe wiped her eyes and looked at Lohet. "What is she doing, Lohet?"

"It seems that she is trying to get his attention." Lohet looked at the display. "Beyond that, I don't know."

Time seemed to slow for Steven as the ground receded away from him. He lightly hit the rear brake of the free spinning wheel to force the front down. It had been starting to migrate up as the motorcycle launched into the air. Up ahead was the forest and it was coming at him rapidly. His eyes adjusted to the moonlight as the canopy came into clearer view.

His heart was in his throat as he flew completely weightless through the air. While he was accustomed to and even preferred the heights of the tall canopy of the virgin forests, he had never quite experienced anything like this.

As he flew through the air the motorcycle reached its apex and started its gradual descent. Steven started looking ahead to plan his disembarkation of the bike. Its shocks were completely blown and would most certainly not survive the landing, but he had no intention of landing anyway. Even under the best of circumstances it was sure to be catastrophic.

Putting his feet up on the gas tank Steven took a crouching position as the bike slowly rotated forward. The lower branches of a thicket of trees were coming up faster than he'd ever seen before, so he had to time things perfectly. Trying hard not to think too much and to just do, he pushed off the motorcycle with all his strength, and found himself in a more familiar situation, flying free through the air much as he would do between trees. But he was going fast. Very fast. He was going to crash into the branches.

Bringing his arms in, he targeted the tip of an oncoming branch and grabbed it. The branch bent, its springiness absorbing some of Steven's momentum. He ducked boughs as he crashed through, found another branch to grab the same way, and quite quickly, by grabbing and releasing branches, he brought his speed down to a manageable level. He found himself transitioning smoothly and speeding through the tree tops as he would normally do. "Wow! That was awesome!" He almost laughed at the exhilaration he felt.

Once he had made it in several trees deep he stopped and rested against one of the trees to look back. He couldn't see the car or the street because of the trees, but he could hear and feel. Controlling his beating heart, he listened closely and heard the sound of a car door being slammed and a trunk being closed. The agent was actually going to try to follow him into the forest. "Good luck with that." Steven grinned. He was in his element now.

Shaking his head, Steven turned and continued deeper into the forest, climbing up higher into the canopy periodically to account for lost elevation from jumping between trees. He kept a nimble pace and noticed a refreshing euphoria coming over him as he traveled deeper into the forest. Its energy enveloped him like a blanket, renewing him even in his current exhaustion. For a moment, the stress of the catastrophe he had been enduring seemed to melt away, unable to resist the timeless force of life that now surrounded and flowed through him.