The Elders (23 page)

When I exit the hidden passage, I find myself in the forest, surrounded by cops and
Richard. They’re all pointing their guns at a white-robed figure.

Edward.

He’s one of the Enlightened and my step-grandfather of sorts—husband to Rose, my father’s mom. She had my father with Paul, who’s not her husband, for the sake of genetic purity. Of course, none of that Jerry Springer stuff matters right now.

The bullet-riddled bodies of monks are strewn everywhere, confirming what’s
already obvious: Edward is about to get shot.

But then I notice something strange about Edward. He looks frightened, sure, but he also appears determined. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there’s triumph in his frozen eyes.

I touch his forehead, determined to pull him in and find out what he’s doing.

Bringing him into the Quiet doesn’t work, likely because Richard made him Inert.

Edward’s
right hand is hidden in the folds of his white robe. Something about the way he’s standing makes me suspicious of that hand, so I examine it—and my stomach turns.

He’s about to pull the pin out of a grenade that’s been secured to his body.

He wants to blow himself up and take his attackers out with him.

No, that’s insane. There has to be a better way of dealing with this situation.

I enter
the mind of the first cop and watch Richard’s sickening, execution-style attack on the monks who are now dead on the ground.

Then I start Guiding him.

I instruct the cops closest to Richard: “
You will not shoot this old man. You will swap your gun for a Taser and point it at Richard; then you will pull the trigger. Richard, the big guy to your left, is the FBI’s most wanted criminal, and you’re
here to take him down. As soon as the Taser neutralizes him, cuff him. After this, do not allow anyone to follow the white-robed people.”

To the cops closer to Edward, I command:
“Use your Taser on the old man and then carefully secure his hidden grenade. You will tell him that everything is okay and that he can catch up with his people. You will make sure they are not followed.”

I hope my efforts
pay off. It’ll be a matter of timing, of the Tasers versus Edward pulling the pin from the grenade. Unsure of how else I can help my grandmother’s husband, I run deeper into the forest.

After a few minutes, I see a group of white-robed figures. In addition to the Enlightened, there are some regular people here too. Notably, I spot Julia and her mother. I feel a fleeting anger; they took Julia,
but they abandoned Mira, leaving her in danger.

I walk back to the cops and get a handgun—just in case.

When I return, I locate my asshole of a grandfather, Paul. Gun ready, I touch him to pull him in.

Again, nothing.

He must already be Inert, which means someone killed him in the Quiet before I got here. Given Richard’s current proximity, he’s the likeliest candidate—which means he knows
where Paul is located in the real world, and by extension, the rest of the Enlightened.

I touch a few more of the Enlightened and get the same results, which supports my theory that Richard knows they’re here, hiding.

When I make my way to Rose, my grandmother, and touch her, I finally get lucky.
 

A second Rose joins me in the Quiet.

Her usually smiling face is filled with sorrow. When she
registers me, though, her expression changes to one of confusion, quickly followed by such unfiltered hatred that she looks almost unrecognizable.

“You bastard.” She slaps my face with all her strength. “You brought death to your own flesh and blood.”

Chapter 19

R
ose’s words sting worse than her slap.

Rubbing my cheek, I say, “This—whatever this is—is not something I caused. It’s the opposite. I’m here because I’m trying to help you.”

“Help us, right,” she sneers. “Help put us all into early graves.”

“Why would I say I want to help if it wasn’t true?”

“I can think of a million treacherous reasons,” she says bitterly. “Why should
I believe anything you say?”

“Because I don’t need to lie to you.” My voice takes on a sharper edge. I’m quickly losing what little goodwill I had when I pulled her in. My jaw tightening, I show her my gun, trying my best not to make the gesture seem menacing. “If I wanted to harm you, I would’ve shot you already.”

“I think you want to gloat.” Her sharp tone matches mine. “You want to enjoy
my suffering before you kill me.”

“Why the fuck would I want that?” I glare at her. “Where is this shit coming from? If anyone should be angry, it’s me, not you.”

“Fine, what
do
you want?” The mask of hatred slips off her face, revealing a scared old woman.

“I want you to help me help you, your husband, and the Enlightened.”

As soon as I mention her husband, Rose’s face twists with pain.

“He’s going to die,” she says hoarsely, her eyes brimming with tears. “He insisted on being a hero, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I say, exasperated. “I Guided the cops not to shoot Edward and to use a stun gun to stop him from blowing himself up. They also won’t attack you or Edward. They’re going to incapacitate their leader instead.”

She stares at me. “Is this a cruel trick to give me hope before you snatch it away?”

I sigh. “If you don’t believe me, just go Read them.”

She gives a curt nod and does as I suggested. On her way to the cops, she looks much smaller and frailer than I remembered her. Today’s ordeal seems to have aged her by at least a decade.

Approaching the first deputy, she grabs the flesh of his face in an
angry, claw-like grip. I half expect her to poke the frozen man’s eyes out or kick him in the nuts, but she finds enough composure to just Read him. Then she does the same thing to another cop.

Looking a bit calmer, she walks up to Edward and touches him. Nothing happens for her either, but she still hugs the old man, stroking his body from head to toe as though expecting to find a magic spot
that might bring him in.

I let her do this for a few minutes before walking up to her and gently saying, “I think he’s Inert.”

She nods and her face crumples, whatever calm she gained dissipating.

“The cops might not make it,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “He still might blow himself up, and now it would be for nothing.”

“I can make the cops speak to him if you think it’ll help,”
I offer.

She shakes her head. “I don’t think it would. He’s not in the right state of mind.”

“Maybe you can try screaming at him?”

“I’m too far away for him to hear me,” she says, and buries her face in her hands.

“Okay, well, maybe when he sees the cops pull out the Tasers . . .” I’m grasping at straws here.

She lowers her hands and nods, her mouth quivering as if she might start crying.
I feel awful.

“I’m sorry I pulled you in, Rose,” I say. “I was just looking for someone who wasn’t Inert. I didn’t think it through, how painful it would be, especially for you.”

“So you’re really not behind all this?” She still seems to be having difficulties believing that. “I was so sure. We all were.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, I did bring these people with me, but they were supposed to rescue
Thomas and Mira, not attack you. It was supposed to be a stealthy rescue operation, with all of you none the wiser. Turning the Temple into a war zone was never the plan.”

“But they are Pushers, aren’t they?” she says. “We learned that from the minds of the police after they attacked.”

“They are Guides, yes, but that doesn’t mean they automatically can’t be trusted. I didn’t think you were prejudiced
that way.”

“I wasn’t, at least not until Pushers tried to kill everyone I hold dear.” Her mouth hardens. “Why do you think you can trust them?”

“They work for the Elders,” I say. “Your equivalents among the Guides.”

Her eyebrows pull together. “You knew
that
and thought the results would be different?”

“When I spoke to them, the Elders wanted nothing but peace with the Readers,” I explain.
“I was sure of it.”

“That’s news to me,” she says.

I let out an exasperated breath. “We can sort
that
out once we survive this.”

“This is hardly the path to peace.” She looks at the fallen monks. “It’s a way toward a new war.”

“Right,” I say. “Which might be the reason this is happening. Someone who’s against an alliance between Guides and Readers is causing this. I think someone is controlling
the people I brought with me, the same person who was controlling Mira and Thomas when your people came to grab me. Someone—”

She looks so horrified that I wonder whether I have maggots and scorpions crawling on my face.

“Someone can control Mira, a Reader?” Her eyes look wild. “So the rumors are true. They can do that
to anyone.”

I realize we’re now on very shaky territory.
 

“Only some Guides
can influence Readers and other Guides,” I say carefully. “Everyone thinks only the Elders can do it, but I’m not so sure. And the weirdest thing is that, in theory at least, I can do it too, but that’s a long story.”

She swallows. “Tell me everything. Please, don’t leave anything out.”

I give her a disjointed tale of everything I consider relevant to the situation: why I kidnapped grandpa and
ran away from the Temple to save my mom, and how my encounter with Kyle revealed my Level 2 capabilities. I tell her about Level 2 because I want the Enlightened to know that their little breeding project was a success a generation early. Hopefully, if we all get out of this alive, they’ll leave me alone.

I explain how I learned that someone else can use a power similar to mine, and that he or
she Pushed Kyle, as well as Mira, Thomas, and, more than likely, everyone here at the Temple. I also tell her about my trip to the Elders’ Island. This allows me to do what the Elders actually want me to do—start the peace conversation. So, to that end, I tell her what they wanted from me.

When I finish, she wipes her face with the sleeve of her robe and says, “Here’s my thinking. If all that
peace talk was true, and let’s assume, for now, that it was, then at least one of the Elders seems to be working against the others.”

“Except no Elder is here,” I say. “They never leave the Island.”

“Right,” she says. “So like you, one of the people you brought here might have this whatever-you-called-it power.”

“Nirvana,” I say. “Or Level 2.”

“Yes, that.” She looks as if she wants to cry
again. “Our plans were doomed from the start. We were generations too late.”

“Too late?”

“To a degree, the reason we’ve been breeding for Depth has been to protect our people against this type of scenario. We assumed that, given enough Depth, instead of being Guided, a Reader would get pulled into that second tier of the Mind Dimension. Back when our groups were at war, some of the captured
Pushers divulged information about such a power. We believed them because it’s the only thing that could explain the paradox of the Orthodoxy.”

I frown at her. “What paradox?”

“Think about it,” she says. “Why would the Purists, the people who hate Pushers more than anything else in the world, work with their equivalents, the Traditionalists?”

“I’ve heard theories
.
They might, for example, plan
to kill one another as soon as—”

“We’ve thought about this long and hard, and no other theory stands up to close scrutiny,” she says. “Take Jacob. The man killed Pushers in his youth, but then one day, he decides to work with one? The Jacob I knew would never do that, not unless he was compelled.”

She may be right.

“You weren’t too late,” I say, deciding to address her earlier concern. “In
a way, thanks to my mother’s background, you succeeded. Hell, being part Guide, I can do more from Nirvana than a mere Reader.”

“Indeed.” She blinks rapidly, as if to contain her tears. “Paul and I underestimated you.”

No shit
, I want to say, but resist the urge.

“I’ll try to undo more of this,” I say instead. “I need you and the others to keep fleeing.”

 
“Can you please save the monks?” she
asks. “They don’t deserve to die.”

I nod. “That’s what I was going to work on next. What I did with these cops, I’ll do with the ones attacking the Temple from the front.”

Rose’s mouth trembles in an attempt to smile. “Thank you. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I consider it. After a short pause, I say, “There is, actually. It would be very helpful if you could pull Caleb in and tell him
to work with me. I have no idea why he’s not under the bad guy’s control, but since he’s not, I could use his help, even if I don’t know how yet.”

“Consider it done.” Rose makes a visible attempt to pull herself together. Taking a breath, she says, “I wonder why this Pusher didn’t make us, his targets, commit suicide. Why this attack?”

“Don’t know,” I say, puzzled. “That
would
have been the
simplest solution.”

“It seems as if, for some reason, we’re not accessible to this person, just as you mentioned Caleb isn’t.” She looks thoughtful. “I wonder why.”

“A mystery.” I gesture for us to start walking. “It’ll have to take a number.”

“Yes, you’re right. It doesn’t change anything.” She falls into step beside me. “Where are we going?”

“Caleb’s at the front of the temple,” I say. “I
have to warn you, it’s not pretty out there.”

“Let’s go.” She’s clearly struggling to keep a stoic expression on her face.

We don’t talk on the way. Instead, I spend the time pondering what Caleb and the Enlightened could possibly have in common. What is protecting them from the Super Pusher? If my mind weren’t in such turmoil, I might be able to figure it out, but as is, I have no clue.

When
we exit the Temple, Rose takes a look at the scene and silent tears stream down her cheeks. I don’t comment on them, not wanting to embarrass her.

Instead, in an effort to distract her, I say, “Don’t pull him in yet.” I nod toward Caleb. “He might attack me.”