The Quest (25 page)

“How is she?” I asked as Alia jumped into my arms.

“She’s going to be okay, Addy,” said Alia.

Terry was still unconscious, but Dr. Land said, “She’s just sleeping. I doubt she’ll be walking for a few days yet, but the worst is over.”

Candace seemed to have recovered from her shock, and she held the door open for us as we wheeled Terry into the house.

Merlin and the Richardsons had moved Steven and all of the dead Angels to the room with the balcony, where the surviving hider was tied to the furniture. We put Terry in the telekinetic’s bedroom at the far end of the second-floor corridor, and I carefully levitated her over to the soft bed. The telekinetic had left the window wide open when she flew out, but at least it wasn’t shattered like the door. We closed the window and then nailed a blanket over the doorframe so that Terry’s temporary bedroom would remain tolerably warm. Terry stirred a little as we tucked her in, but she didn’t wake.

Terry’s face was still a little pale, but looked much more alive than it had an hour ago. It was now well past midnight, but I didn’t feel at all sleepy. Dr. Land informed me that our peacemaker and mind-writer would join us here once they finished wrapping up our intrusion on the aged couple down the road. But I wasn’t worried about them at the moment. My main concern was with the men in the basement.

“Could I have a little time alone here with my sister?” I asked, and everyone complied without question.

Once Alia and I were alone, I asked her hesitantly, “Are you alright?”

“I’m tired, but I’m okay,”
she replied.
“Did you get the people out of the basement?”

“No,” I said, and added accusingly, “You could have told me who they were.”

“I tried,”
insisted Alia. Then, letting out a little sigh, she said,
“I should go heal them.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “Alia, they’re Wolves. All of them.”

“I know that, Addy. I saw them too.”

“You saw the man in the end room?”

Alia stared down at her feet.
“Yes.”

“You want to heal him too?”

I realized that I had lost my chance for revenge. At least for now, I couldn’t simply go down there and shoot unarmed men in jail cells. But I wasn’t about to deliver care packages to them either.

Alia looked up into my eyes, saying quietly,
“He’s hurt and alone, Addy.”

I shrugged. “It’s no more than he deserves.”

“Nobody deserves that.”

“Oh, for the–”

Suddenly my sister shouted furiously into my head,
“Adrian Howell, what is the matter with you?!”

“The matter with – with me?!” I sputtered, “Alia, you – I mean – you honestly–”

“He’s hurt, Addy! Don’t you get it?!”

“Damn your conscience, Alia!” I spat, throwing my hands up in disgust.

I looked at Terry, still sleeping peacefully. What would she say about this when she woke?

My first thought was that Terry would agree with me. She had lost her brother to the Angels, who had tortured him to death. She knew what it felt like to truly hate. But then again, Terry was a pragmatist. She, like her grandfather, did whatever needed to be done to accomplish the task at hand. And when my thinking was clearest, I was that way too.

I took a deep breath and said slowly, “Alright, you can heal him, but I want to have a chat with this man first. Stay here until I call you.”

Alia shook her head.
“Addy, no! Please!”

“I promise I won’t kill him, Alia,” I said. “Just give me a few minutes. I swear, okay? I won’t hurt him.”

Alia slowly nodded and hugged me, and I realized once again that there was simply no arguing with a healer. At least not with this one.

It took a few more minutes to convince Merlin and the others of my non-lethal intentions regarding the Wolves, but they reluctantly agreed to let me speak to the leader alone. Scott managed to break the padlock on the farthest cell door, and I asked him to leave me and go back upstairs. Scott still seemed to think that I was planning on killing the Wolf, but he obediently left the basement.

The blindfolded Wolf had lifted his head when he heard Scott break the lock, and he seemed to be following the sound of my footsteps as I slowly walked around him once, looking him over.

He wasn’t even wearing socks, and I noticed that he was missing two toes on his left foot.

Standing behind his chair, I reached around his head and gently pulled his blindfold off.

The Wolf didn’t turn his head. Facing straight ahead, he said in a quiet tone, “You’re psionics, aren’t you?”

“That’s right,” I said evenly.

“Meridian?” he asked. “Guardian? Avalon?”

“Guardian,” I replied, stepping around to his right side.

The Wolf looked surprised when he saw me, but then said calmly, “I was expecting someone older. Who are you, kid?”

“You don’t remember me?” I asked, genuinely disappointed. “I admit I look rather different from the last time we met, but so do you.” I lifted my left shirtsleeve up to the shoulder. “Maybe you’ll recognize this.”

The Wolf looked at my P-47 tattoo for a moment, and then nodded. “Adrian… I heard of your escape.”

His composed manner irked me, but I wasn’t going to let it show. I kept my tone equally calm as I said, “I never got your name, sir.”

“Major Edward Regis,” the Wolf replied casually. “You can call me Ed.”

I sighed. “And I didn’t even have to beat it out of you, Major Edward Regis.”

“Names are free, Adrian. Are you going to kill me?”

I slowly shook my head. “I promised Alia that I wouldn’t.”

“She’s here too?”

“Yes. And she also knows that you’re here. She wanted to heal you, which is certainly more than I want. I still have nightmares about what you did to us.”

“You were a prisoner of war, just as I am here now.”

I gave the Wolf a wry smile. “Sometimes I need to be reminded too these days, but there are rules, Major Edward Regis, even in a war.”

“Not with psionics,” he replied evenly, and then smiled, saying, “Call me Ed.”

Despite my hatred, I couldn’t help being impressed with this man who so calmly faced me as if speaking to an equal rather than a captor. I certainly wasn’t about to call him “Ed” as if he were a friend, but I decided that “Major Edward Regis” was not only too long but far too respectful to continue using on a regular basis.

“How long have you been locked down here, Ed Regis?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “We were caught in December.”

“It’s almost March now,” I informed him. “Why haven’t the Angels transported you to Randal Divine yet?”

“King Divine has many duties,” said Ed Regis. “We were on a waiting list, but they promised that we’d be sent in a few more weeks.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem very upset by that.”

“I wasn’t until you showed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re contaminated, Adrian,” explained Ed Regis. “The Wolves never take a captured soldier back because that soldier could be converted or worse. We would be hunted as if we were psionics ourselves. There was nowhere left for us to go but to join the Angels anyway. But now that you have us, I’m guessing we’re all about to be executed after all.”

“I already told you that I’m not going to kill you, Ed Regis,” I said. “I can’t promise anything regarding the other Guardians, but if you’re ‘contaminated’ as you say, well, that makes things much easier for me.”

I gazed at the Wolf’s face for a moment, wondering if I was really going to say what I had come down here to say. But it had to be said, so I did. “How would you like to join us, Major?”

Ed Regis finally looked surprised. “You’re joking, right?”

I wasn’t. I had already told Merlin and the others up on the first floor that I was going to ask the Wolves to help us. Without a master controller, we would have to convince them to join us willingly, and for them to do so, they would have to trust us. That’s why it had to be me.

“We’re putting together a team to get us through the Angel blockade of the Historian’s mountain,” I explained. “We could use some good soldiers. I assume that you know who the Historian is?”

Ed Regis nodded.

“And you also know that the Guardians are all but destroyed,” I said quietly. “We believe that the Historian may be our last hope to find and kill Randal Divine. The truth is, Major, we have common enemies. When the Guardians fall, even the strongest governments of the world won’t be able to stop the Angels.”

Ed Regis remained silent, but nodded slightly in what I took to be grudging agreement.

Feeling a little more confident, I continued, “Since the Guardians don’t even have a master controller anymore, if you join us, you might still make it back to your unit someday if you can convince them that you haven’t turned Angel. What better way to do that than by helping us kill Randal Divine?”

Ed Regis still didn’t reply. I couldn’t be sure if he was thinking it over or simply ignoring me, so I added, “Don’t think I like this any more than you. I was a heartbeat away from killing you today. But if Alia can suffer your company, then so can I. This is very simple. You can either join us or you can walk free and go live your life however you want.”

Ed Regis gave me a skeptical frown, asking, “You’d let us go?”

I nodded. “If I’m to trust you, then I can’t make your freedom conditional on your help. But we could really use your help.”

I undid the ropes binding him. Ed Regis remained sitting, but looked at me in astonishment.

“Please,” I said, ignoring the horrible pain that word was causing me. “Please will you help us, Major Regis?”

Ed Regis stroked his beard. “If I do this, I will want their master alive.”

Not a chance. I wasn’t going to let the scientists of any government learn how master controllers tick. But first we had to get to the Historian.

“That’s perfectly fine,” I lied to his face. “We’ll even help you capture him.” If Ed Regis was still with us when we moved on the Angel king, I’d personally make sure that the Wolf didn’t even walk away with a corpse to dissect. “So will you help us?”

“Yes,” Ed Regis replied carefully. “I will need to speak with my team, but I believe they will agree.”

“We’ll get them out in a minute. Stay here.”

As I turned to leave, Ed Regis said, “What I did to you, Adrian… What I did to that girl… It was nothing personal, you know. It was my job to get information.”

I rounded on him furiously. “Nothing personal?! You shot me, Ed Regis! You tortured my sister! It doesn’t get much more personal than that!”

Ed Regis said quietly, “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

I steadied my breathing. “Alia will be down in a moment to heal your injuries.”

“No,” said Ed Regis, shakily getting to his feet. “I’m alright. There’s no need to put her through that.”

“She has survived much worse than you,” I told him stiffly. “So have I, for that matter.”

“Nevertheless–”

“Alia
insisted,
” I said coldly. “My sister is incapable of ignoring any person’s suffering, so you will believe me when I tell you, Major, that I’m absolutely sure it’s nothing personal. Now sit down!”

Back on the first floor, I found Alia waiting with the others.

“Their leader, Major Edward Regis, has agreed to join us,” I announced. “He’ll need to talk with his team, so please get them out of their cell now.”

Alia looked at me in surprise. She hadn’t known what my new plan for the Wolves was.

“Your turn, Alia,” I said to her. “I’m going to go check on Terry.”

Alia gave me an uncomfortable look.
“Addy…”

“Hey, don’t expect me to watch you do this,” I said gruffly. “I’d just as soon shoot them all.”

“It’s alright,” Candace said to Alia. “We’ll stay with you.”

Scott grabbed the crowbar and headed for the basement, followed by Alia, Candace and a few others.

Up in Terry’s room, I telekinetically pulled an armchair up to the bed. Sitting down heavily, I tried not to think of what my sister was going through as she faced the Wolf again. I knew she was still terrified of him, and I felt guilty about not holding her hand.

But then, what was Ed Regis going through now? The Wolf was a soldier. He might not always follow the warrior’s code of honor, but he knew it. I felt that in a strange and sick way, being indebted to Alia was the most fitting punishment possible for a man like him.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

“Addy?”

I first thought that Alia was sending her telepathy from below, but then I felt her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you coming,” I said, turning my head. “I must have dozed off. So how are they?”

Alia gave me a blank stare.
“They’ll be okay.”

“Did you heal them all?” I asked.

Alia nodded.
“And the rest of the team agreed to join us too.”

“Terry will be happy when she wakes.”

“I hope so,”
Alia said sadly.

“What’s the matter, Alia?”

“I don’t know,”
said Alia, tears welling in her eyes.
“He said he was sorry for what he did, but I… I…”

My sister’s telepathy hardly ever failed her so I knew how hard this was for her. I asked gently, “But you didn’t want to heal him?”

Alia nodded wretchedly as her tears overflowed.
“I’m sorry, Addy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m really sorry.”

I held her quivering shoulders and whispered, “Don’t ever be sorry for how you feel, Alia.”

Alia collapsed onto me, howling at the top of her lungs. I pulled her into my lap and held her tightly. Her loud cries soon brought Candace and a few others to the room, but I told them to leave us alone for a while.

My sister eventually cried herself to sleep in my lap. Not wanting to risk waking her, I decided that my armchair was comfortable enough and closed my eyes too. Somebody thoughtfully brought a warm blanket and wrapped it around us before turning out the light.

Terry was still asleep when the morning light woke me the next day.