Guardian Angel (17 page)

“Hope you’re hungry,” said Ms. Ferris, cutting the engine.

“I’m sure there are security cameras around the entrances,” I said nervously. “We are all wanted fugitives, you know.”

“That won’t be a problem,” said Ms. Ferris. “The Guardians own this place.”

Ms. Ferris led us inside, and we were taken to a private dining room on the second floor. One of the Resistance representatives was already there waiting for us. He was a well-built middle-aged man who looked enough like Ed Regis to make me wonder if he too was ex-military.

“I’m Raider,” said the man, standing up to greet us but giving us only his Guardian call sign. “You don’t have to tell me your names, but I will need your handles or, if you don’t have one, a simple alias.”

James and Ed Regis didn’t have Guardian call signs and I had no intention of going back to Hansel and Gretel. We gave Raider our most recent aliases: Richard, Alyssa, Tiffany, Jack and Edmund. Ms. Ferris gave her call sign, Tigress, and Rachael introduced herself as Rowan, though I didn’t know if that really was her official call sign or if she just made it up on the spot.

“I believe one of you is also called Hansel?” asked Raider, looking between James and me.

I reluctantly raised my hand. “That’s me.”

“You are the leader of this team?”

“That’s Tiffany,” I replied, gesturing toward Terry. “Also known as Rabbit.”

“Yes, of course,” said Raider, glancing down at Terry’s hook.

Ms. Ferris asked Raider, “Where is your associate?”

“Exercising caution,” he replied curtly. “Your troublesome conditions have demanded it.”

“Your leaders have agreed to our conditions,” countered Ms. Ferris.

“It is nevertheless highly irregular,” said Raider. “Five people, all at once, including a young child.” He frowned at Alia, and then shared his frown with the rest of us as he added suspiciously, “And no delving allowed. Not even the adult.”

Delving for secret motives was one of the standard security measures that the Resistance took with newcomers to their ranks. When arranging for our entry into Lumina, Mrs. Harding, at Terry’s request, had specifically asked that our team be exempt from this prescreening. Even Mrs. Harding hadn’t known the exact reason for this, but the Resistance leadership still agreed to let us in, probably because they desperately wanted Terry Henderson on their side.

“They are not a threat to the Resistance,” said Ms. Ferris. “You have my word, under delving, on that account.”

“Then I will ask you now, Tigress,” said Raider, who I realized was a delver himself. “Are these people, to the very best of your knowledge, who they claim to be?”

“They are,” Ms. Ferris replied calmly.

“Whom do they serve?” asked Raider.

“They serve the cause of freedom.”

Raider raised his eyebrows. “Not the cause of the Guardians?”

Ms. Ferris shook her head. “To my understanding, they are, for the most part, independent.”

“Whom do they hold as enemies?”

“The forces of King Divine.”

“Why do they refuse to be delved?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you trust them?”

Ms. Ferris didn’t answer aloud, but Raider seemed satisfied with what went through her mind.

Raider nodded slowly, and then turned to Terry. “It’s Tiffany, now, is it? As Tigress says, our leadership trusts you enough to spare your team from divulging whatever secrets you are obviously keeping from us. However, I am the one who has to lead you in, and as a favor to me, I ask that you answer me just one question with your mind open.”

Terry eyed him for a moment, and then nodded. “Go ahead.”

“What brings your team to the Resistance?”

“The freedom to do so,” replied Terry.

Raider finally gave us a grudging smile. “Then you are welcome among us.” Heading toward the door, he said, “Wait here. I’ll go get my partner and then we will eat.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. After delving Ms. Ferris and Terry to make certain that we were enemies of King Divine, Raider had given us no reason to trust him in return. Who was to say there wasn’t a bomb planted under the dining table or something?

Catching the uneasiness on my face, Raider said, “Hey, I’m trusting you guys, Hansel, so you’d better trust me in return.”

“Richard,” I corrected. “Trust is hard to come by these days.”

Raider laughed. “Ain’t that the truth!”

Raider was gone longer than I felt comfortable with, but at least the room didn’t explode. Instead, a pair of young waitresses in red and gold Chinese dresses set our table with the first wave of what would turn out to be an excellent ten-course meal.

Raider returned just as I was about to suggest that we start eating without him. He was followed into the dining room by his partner, an older, gray-haired man who I instantly recognized.

“Mr. Jenson!” I exclaimed, standing up in surprise.

“Call signs only, Richard!” Raider said to me sharply, and then gestured to Mr. Jenson, saying, “This is Sharky. He will be our phantom for the crossing.”

“It’s good to see you again,” said the phantom, shaking my hand.

“It’s good to see you, too,” I said carefully. The last time I had talked to Mr. Jenson was at the gathering of lesser gods. I had threatened his life and forced him to help me turn invisible so that I could sneak into the Angel camp.

Mr. Jenson showed no resentment at all, shaking Terry’s hand next as he said, “It is an honor to meet you again, um…”

“It’s Tiffany now,” Terry informed him.

“Tiffany, an honor,” said Mr. Jenson.

Then he jumped in surprise. “Oh, my goodness!” he cried, looking down at my sister. “You’re the little healer from the gathering, aren’t you?”

Nodding, Alia gave him a smile.

“I never got the chance to thank you,” he said, shaking Alia’s hand. “The Guardian Council hadn’t yet finalized my re-initiation when New Haven fell. What is your name? I mean, what are you called?”

“Alyssa,” Alia told him.

“Thank you, Alyssa,” said Mr. Jenson.

I asked Mr. Jenson, “You didn’t know it was going to be us?”

“Actually, no,” said Mr. Jenson. “Raider had the details and I didn’t ask. In our operations, the less you know, the less a liability you can be if you’re caught.”

“Sharky,” said Terry, gesturing to the rest of our group, “these are the other two members of my team, Edmund and Jack, and our friends, Tigress and Rowan.”

We were in a private dining room of a Guardian-owned restaurant so I saw little need for all this codename cloak-and-dagger nonsense, but I supposed it was better than taking unnecessary risks. Besides, we would probably be using these aliases during our stay in Lumina, so it would be best to get used to them here and now.

“Let’s eat,” said Raider as the hand-shaking contest drew to a close. “Our meal’s getting cold.”

Perhaps partly because we turned out to be acquaintances of his trusted partner, Raider made no further complaints over dinner about our rule-breaking. But nor did he give us many details about the situation in Lumina. He seemed to agree with Mr. Jenson that the less we knew, the safer it was for the cause. If only he knew what we knew!

“Did you find your family among the Guardians, Sharky?” I asked over dessert.

“I did,” replied Mr. Jenson. “I was briefly reunited with my son, but now he and his wife serve the Angels while I remain a Guardian.”

“Ouch,” I commented.

I noticed that like everyone at Wood-claw, Raider and Mr. Jenson both continued to call Randal’s faction the “Angels” rather than the “Guardian Angels.” I guessed that this was the official position of true Guardians worldwide.

Mr. Jenson continued, “I had to convince our leaders, under delving, that I wouldn’t betray the Guardians next and follow my son back to the Angels. And I won’t. At least not voluntarily. If I am caught, then that is fate, but I would much rather live to see a future that is free of King Divine’s rule, where my son and I can choose our own lives.” Mr. Jenson gave me a wry smile and added, “Still, the real reason I haven’t been booted from the Resistance is because they have preciously too few phantoms at their disposal. They need me enough to take a small risk.”

“One way or another, you’ll see your son again soon,” Raider said to him darkly. “This war is nearing its tipping point. That’s why the Resistance is taking greater risks these days.”

“Like with us?” asked James.

Raider didn’t reply.

After the meal, we bid Rachael and Ms. Ferris goodbye in the restaurant’s parking lot. They would make their way back to Wood-claw by road, hopefully without incident. Raider, in addition to being a delver, was our hider for the rest of our journey.

The dark purple minibus that we had parked alongside turned out to have nothing to do with us. Raider and Mr. Jenson had come in two plain old sedans. Terry and James rode with Raider while Ed Regis, Alia and I rode in Mr. Jenson’s car. We were taken to a Guardian safe house on the outskirts of the city.

Inside, Raider had Mr. Jenson run us through the entry procedure that would be used to smuggle us into Lumina the next day.

“Does everyone here know what a phantom train is?” asked Mr. Jenson.

We all nodded, even Alia.

Mr. Jenson next asked, “Has anyone ever been in one?”

Nobody nodded this time. Not even Terry had done this before.

“Five first-timers,” muttered Raider, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’d think Proton would have more sense…”

“They’ll be fine,” Mr. Jenson said to him confidently.

Then Mr. Jenson explained to us, “We usually transport only one or two people at a time. The Angels believe that Raider is one of them, so he is cleared for open operations in Lumina. I am not. I, along with the rest of you, will go in invisible, following Raider.”

As a psionic phantom, Mr. Jenson could turn part or all of anything he touched temporarily invisible. How that exactly worked was as beyond me as how any other psionic power worked, but Mr. Jenson could turn his and other people’s bodies, clothes and even metallic weapons so transparent that they couldn’t be spotted under a noon sun.

There were downsides, however. The most obvious was that if you turned your whole body invisible, you wouldn’t be able to see anything because light would pass straight through your eyes. Phantoms usually left just their eyeballs visible, which was creepy but necessary. This time, however, all but Raider would become completely invisible, and holding on to a rope to keep us together, we would be led by Raider into Lumina. This was the “phantom train” that Mr. Jenson was referring to.

But phantom trains, especially long ones, were very risky. In addition to blindness, another major downside to a phantom’s invisibility cloak was that any sudden movement, such as falling down or bumping into something, could instantly remove your invisibility right along with the invisibility of anything you were touching. That is, if even one of us tripped on a stone or something, everyone holding the rope could be instantly exposed.

“That’s why we practice here,” said Raider. “And you’re all going to be perfect at this or we’re not going anywhere tomorrow.”

Raider wanted us visible during our practice in the house, and Mr. Jenson didn’t want to turn just our eyeballs invisible because that was truly disgusting. Instead, we wore cloth blindfolds as we lined up behind Raider and had him lead us through the rooms like a group of prisoners on a leash.

Raider taught us his signaling system. “If I cough once, don’t stop but expect a low obstruction ahead such as a curb or steps. Two coughs, you stop immediately. We don’t want anyone crashing into anything or anyone. I will gently pull the rope when I want you to start walking again.”

We carefully weaved our way around the furniture as we listened for Raider’s coughs. The going was slow but we gave Raider no reason to scold us. After almost an hour of practice in the house, Raider had us remove our blindfolds, saying grimly, “Time for the real thing.”

“I know Richard has experienced cloaking before,” said Mr. Jenson, “but have the rest of you ever been cloaked?”

Only Terry raised her hand.

Mr. Jenson then asked, “Completely? Eyes included?”

Terry lowered her hand, saying, “Never. Besides, the last time for me was almost ten years ago.”

Mr. Jenson said warningly, “Blindness, even temporary blindness, can freak some first-timers out pretty badly.”

“Don’t worry, Sharky,” replied Terry. “No one on my team freaks out easily.”

Mr. Jenson started with James, touching his upper arm, and James instantly disappeared.

“Whoa,” said James’s disembodied voice. “This is something new.”

Next, Ed Regis, and then Alia, then Terry.

“This is so different from a blindfold,” remarked Alia, who sounded more awed than afraid. “I can’t see anything. It’s like I don’t even have eyes.”

Finally, me. As Mr. Jenson touched my arm, the world around me blinked out of existence. Mr. Jenson made our guide rope invisible too, but we couldn’t see it anyway. Groping our way around, we lined up behind Raider: Mr. Jenson first, followed by Ed Regis, James, Terry, Alia, and me at the end.

Then Raider took us on a walk outside, once around the neighborhood. It had been a long time since I had been blind, but it was still a mildly familiar world for me. Constant uncertainty and slow, deliberate steps.

Keeping a tight grip on our guiding rope, we all made it back to the safe house without incident. We turned visible again by stamping our feet on the floor, and as my eyes came back into focus, I saw that Raider finally looked a little impressed with us.

“I had expected at least one or two accidents,” said Raider. “We’ve never had a train this long before.”

Terry smiled. “Like I said, we don’t freak out easily.”

“Alright,” Raider said evenly, nodding. “We’re going tomorrow.”

We spent the night at the safe house on sofas and in sleeping bags on the floor.

The next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Jenson once again turned us and himself invisible for our car ride to the Resistance. Lumina was a five-hour drive from here, which meant that we would arrive a little after lunchtime, but the only person who could be seen outdoors there was Raider. So the real question was how to fit seven people into a single small sports sedan.