The Prophecies (The Sentinel Series Book 2) (23 page)

‘Why does it need to be a secret, keeping up with your martial arts is probably a good thing.’

‘Zach doesn’t exactly go easy on me.’

‘Right.’

He wasn’t exactly happy about this but he didn’t say anything more about it. I guess he was reserving judgement until he saw exactly how hard Zach was on me. Maybe I could persuade Zach to take it a bit easier today, break Mason in gently to the ferocity of my fighting.

On approaching the grassy slopes, I was surprised to see a lot of the Guardlings lying sprawled dead on the floor, with Deacon seemingly on some killing frenzy to fight the last remaining Guardlings still standing. Zach was amongst the dead.

I jogged over to him, with Mason at my side. Zach grinned at me as I stood over him.

‘Morning Eve,’ he called from the ground.

My eyes slid to Deacon who was brutally finishing off the last two Guardlings, simultaneously.

‘Why are you on the floor?’ I gently prodded his corpse with my foot.

‘I’m dead. Deacon got a good hit in with his sword, I was too busy trying to impress the Sentinel with my skills and he stabbed me.’

My eyes slid back to Deacon as he ran through one of the last Guardlings, who screamed tortuously, writhing on the floor as he breathed his last. I looked back at Zach in confusion. ‘You were showing off to the Sentinel?’

‘Yeah,’ Zach motioned towards another Guardling lying near him, wearing a brown wig and to my amusement, red converse trainers. I snorted with laughter. ‘Is that supposed to be me?’

Zach nodded, grinning hugely.

‘But I’m dead.’

‘Yeah sorry about that Eve. As soon as Deacon took me down, you were left defenceless, and he killed you too. If it’s any consolation, I fought bravely to defend you as long as I could, but after he had taken out most of the others it was only a matter of time before I fell in battle too, especially with my injury.’

‘What was your injury?’

‘Well the Sentinel was trying to use his, I mean her powers to defend herself, but she wasn’t very proficient in them and she took out both my legs with one of her bolts of fire,’ Zach grinned.

I looked over at the dead Sentinel, holding what looked like a long orange ribbon in his hand. I snorted again. ‘You mean to tell me, that you fought for me, even though you had no legs?’

Zach nodded.

‘How brave,’ I said, dryly. Mason suppressed a grin.

A triumphant scream diverted my attention from Zach’s corpse. I looked up to see Deacon holding his wooden sword above his head, roaring victoriously to the sky.

‘And Deacon is….?’ I asked.

‘Watching the battle scenes in Lord of the Rings too many times, I guess.’

Suddenly Deacon spied me, standing with Mason on the battlefield, the only two still alive in Deacon’s reign of destruction and he started charging for me, sword held high, screaming manically, a tiny smile playing on his lips.

Zach offered me his wooden sword from the ground. ‘Avenge me, good lady.’

I took his sword and charged across the field of bodies towards Deacon, screaming equally as manically. Deacon faltered in his attack for a second, clearly not expecting me to take him on, but then with renewed determination, he lowered his sword ready to run me through. I grinned as he got close.

I’d had many years of fencing and sword fighting lessons, part of the brutal training that my Dad, the Guardian posing as my Dad, put me through. I loved the sword fighting much more than the martial arts, wielding a weapon to defend myself was so much easier than using my hands and feet.

As Deacon thrust forward ready to finish me, I planted my feet and pointing the sword vertically to the ground I suddenly swung it up to parry his sword off to the side, turning sideways at the right moment, so he ran past me with the force he had been charging towards me. I span round to keep him in my sights as he quickly regained his balance and turned back to face me. He lunged forward, with a horizontal cut to my left shoulder at the same time I swung my sword down to slice his leg. We both leapt back in pain. Deacon grinned at me. He swung his sword over his head, and charged forward with the intent of slicing into my head. I raised my sword horizontally above my head as he brought his sword down and his blow glanced off again, but as he was so close, I elbowed him hard in the face, and kicked him in the shins. Hands and feet had their places too.

Deacon stepped back laughing. ‘Zach said that you fought without honour.’

I grinned. ‘Honour just leaves you dead.’

I glanced at the floor behind him for a brief second and as he raised his sword again, I lunged at him, aiming right for the heart. It was only a feint though, as I knew what he would do to defend himself and that was what I was relying on. As I got close, he blocked my sword with a parry and side stepped my advance. Immediately he toppled over the dead body behind him and sprawled out on his back. I whirled round and lunging forward I slid my sword across his throat. Deacon gargled and spluttered as he grabbed his throat, and then died.

I looked out across the sea of dead bodies towards Zach. ‘I’ve avenged you,’ I called as I made my way back across the battle field towards him.

Zach sat up, grinning broadly. ‘So I see. You certainly did better in battle than our own sentinel.’ He stood up and so did all the other dead bodies, slowly stirring, stretching, and tenderly feeling their wounds and bruises.

‘Good to see your legs are working,’ I said. ‘Can I apologise on behalf of the Sentinel for her lack of proficiency that meant you lost them in the first place?’

Zach grinned as he slung a casual arm around me. ‘That’s ok, just one of the many hazards of defending the Sentinel.’

‘I’m glad to say that Eve is slightly more proficient with her powers than your Sentinel, I’m quite partial to my legs,’ Mason grinned.

‘Slightly,’ I protested, with a smirk.

‘Ok, now she is very proficient but when she was first starting to learn her powers, she accidentally threw a car across a grave yard, set fire to the church and nearly died under a collapsing wall, burnt her brother and nearly knocked us all out with her over exuberant shield on a few occasions.’

‘Mason! You’re not supposed to tell him that, you’re supposed to tell him all the cool stuff I can do with my powers now,’ I laughed, remembering how clumsy I had been with my powers when I had first started using them. I was mostly in control of them now. Mostly.

‘Well when we were attacked by the Putarians in the helicopter on our way over here, she did completely disintegrate them, beams of fire just shot from her hands and took out the planes, that was very cool. Though when one of the planes she had destroyed flew into the side of the helicopter and made us crash into the sea, that wasn’t so cool,’ Mason touched his head, where he had received a massive gash during the crash.

Zach laughed.

‘Mason!’ I giggled.

Mason frowned. ‘Yeah it really wasn’t cool. We were all flung out the helicopter when it cart wheeled into the sea, Eve and Seth were trapped inside and we didn’t realise. It was so dark we didn’t know what was going on. The helicopter just crumpled up around them, there was no way out. Seth literally punched and kicked his way out, carving through the metal with his fists. Though he could get free, Eve was trapped and he couldn’t get her out. There was a huge piece of twisted metal pressing against her abdomen, if we pulled it away, it was quite likely that we would rip her open as well. The helicopter was sinking fast. We all fought to keep it afloat and try to free her at the same time, but it was hopeless. It sank. We had to dive down to continue trying to free her and give her air at the same time.’

I stared at Mason aghast. ‘I never knew any of this.’

Mason looked at me. ‘Seth never told you? He never left you, he was free to get out but as it sank deeper and deeper, he never left you. He fought with his last breath to free you. He somehow managed to get his hands between you and the metal, and when Eli dived back down, he pulled the metal away. We were right it literally tore through Seth’s hands and arms, but he somehow managed to stop it from touching you, taking the full brunt himself. He then pulled you to the surface. I thought he was dead when he came up, clutching you in his arms. It was apparent you were breathing, but we weren’t sure about Seth, he’d been down there for so long. Then he seemed to force himself back from the brink of death to see if you were ok, he checked your breathing and your pulse and then passed out, with you still lying tightly in his arms. Lucas tried to get you off him, to check on him, but Seth had hold of you so tightly we couldn’t prise his hands off you. He came round a few minutes later, and so did you not long after.’

I shook my head incredulously.

‘My brother the hero,’ Zach said, sarcastically.

I nudged him hard in the ribs and he grunted.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow Zach, I’d better get on with my training if I’m going to become more proficient and not lose people’s legs. Try not to get me killed tomorrow.’

Zach grinned.

I called across to Deacon. ‘Thanks for the fight, Deacon.’

‘Anytime,’ Deacon called back from his group of friends, all congratulating him on his near victorious battle.

I walked back up to my corridor in silence, deep in thought over what Mason had just told me. I walked into my room and Seth was sitting on the sofa twisting metal so quickly in his hands. It had been a while since he had made any of his sculptures. This one looked like the beginning of a horse. He looked up as I came in, and smiled as he put the metal down. I leaned against the door and stared at him. He had saved me so many times. How did I deserve someone who loved me so much; what had I ever done to be worthy of him? My heart filled, as I stared at him, swelling to twice its size. There were simply not enough words to describe how much I loved him right then.

His smile slid off at my expression. ‘Eve?’

I crossed the room slowly and sat on his lap. He breathed a small sigh of relief as he wrapped his arms tightly round me. ‘Are you ok?’

My throat seemed to have closed, as I removed his arms from my waist and he frowned again, with concern. I took his hands in mine and fingered the long silvery scars across his palm. They looked like they were once very deep. He had probably had them healed when he had returned back to England. As we had floated in the sea, waiting for the next helicopter to pick us up, I hadn’t even noticed that he had been bleeding. Maybe the salt water had closed the wounds up a bit.

I turned his hand over and touched the similar scars over the back of his knuckles, and up his arms. Scars that I had never noticed before. When a Zeki heals wounds, they do it so effectively that you can barely see the scar, unless you were looking for it. But surely I should have noticed them, the scars that showed that he never left me, even when it meant that he was going to die as well, even when there was nothing more he could have done, he never left me.

Seth took my face in his hand, tracing my lips with his thumb, searching my eyes.

I put his hand to my mouth and kissed each scar, softly and his face cleared as he understood.

‘You have given me so much,’ my voice came out in barely a whisper. ‘What can I give you in return?’

‘You are marrying me tomorrow.’ Seth grinned, as he moved his hand down to my chest, placing it over my heart. ‘This was the only thing I’ve ever wanted and you’ve given me that.’

He took the engagement ring out of his pocket and slipped it onto my finger. My heart soared.

‘It’s yours, it’s always been yours, and it always will be. You’re my best friend and I love you so much….’ My declaration of love was interrupted as Seth kissed me.

But just as the kiss started to get heated, his arms pulling me closer, tighter against him, an image flashed in my brain. I pulled back slightly from the kiss and Seth transferred his attention to my neck.

I could see myself in the pool again, surrounded by a cloud of blood. It was the same prophecy I’d had before but this time it was from my point of view; rather than watching myself drown, I was drowning. I couldn’t reach the surface, I couldn’t swim. My throat and my lungs were screaming with the lack of oxygen as I slowly sank to the bottom of the pool.

‘Eve.’ Seth looked at me with concern and the image vanished.

I smiled. ‘It’s nothing.’ I kissed him but he wasn’t convinced. I forced my smile to be bigger, forced it to meet my eyes. ‘Just thinking of marrying you tomorrow.’ I kissed him again and thankfully this time, he kissed me back.

I was going to get married tomorrow; nothing was going to stop that. We would deal with the return of my prophecies when we came back.

I woke the next morning when Seth ruffled my hair. I opened my eyes blearily; it was half past four. The sky was a murky grey, the sun not quite broken the horizon yet. As I looked up into Seth’s beautiful eyes, my heart leapt with joy. I was getting married today. I scrabbled out of bed, too quickly, and staggered a bit on my way to the bathroom. I quickly showered and dressed, pulling on my jeans and a hoodie, then turned back to Seth who was watching me with amusement as I rushed around.

‘What do I need to bring?’

Seth stood. ‘You don’t need to bring anything; all I need is this finger.’ He kissed my ring finger. ‘I might just take this finger and go and get married without you.’

‘Yes but you need my mouth, only my mouth can say I do, the finger can’t.’

Seth kissed my lips. ‘Then I’ll take this finger and these lips and go and get married.’

I giggled. ‘I’d quite like to come and watch the marriage between you, my finger and my lips, can I come?’

‘Only if you’re good,’ he searched my eyes and I knew he was referring to my promises I had made before.

I put my fingers up in a Girl Guide salute and chanted. ‘I promise that I will do whatever you say without question, I promise that you will not leave my side for one second, I promise to love, honour and obey you for as long as……’

‘Let’s leave that part to the ceremony shall we?’ His eyes cast down to my clothes. ‘Aren’t you going to change?’