The Quest (30 page)

The only real threat we encountered so far had been six days ago, when a group of Seraphim picked up our trail as we left the cover of human civilization. It was a member of Ed Regis’s team that first spotted them coming, and thanks to the Wolves covering our escape, there were zero casualties on our side. Even Terry was vocally impressed with the efficiency of Ed Regis’s men. The Wolves were, after all, an elite paramilitary unit specializing in anti-psionic operations, and we had been right to employ their help. Without them, we might never have made it this far.

Yesterday, in a sweltering, smelly trading post where people spoke in multiple languages I couldn’t decipher, Ed Regis had rented two eight-seat passenger planes to get us to an unmarked airfield at the edge of the Historian’s mountain range. Both planes were so frighteningly old and grimy that even I, who could telekinetically fly if the need arose, felt apprehensive about boarding. Unfortunately, it was either this or weeks on camel-back.

There were only two licensed pilots among us: Ed Regis and his second-in-command. Ed Regis agreed to fly the plane carrying us Guardians while his Wolves followed in the second plane. “I shall be your hostage,” he had joked, but considering that he was our pilot, it felt like the other way around.

I had only just started getting comfortable with the sputtering right-wing engine and thinking that perhaps we would make it safely to the airfield after all when suddenly a loud bang jolted the cabin. At first I thought it was from the plane, but then I saw a puff of black smoke through my window.

Ed Regis shouted, “Incoming fire! Everybody hang on!”

We didn’t need telling. As more bangs and black smoke filled the sky, I realized that they were exploding rounds of anti-aircraft fire. So far, we hadn’t been hit, but each bang rattled the cabin so violently that I thought we might break apart in midair. Across the aisle, Alia looked as terrified as I felt, and I telekinetically yanked her seatbelt tight enough to make her squeal.

Through Alia’s side window, I caught a glimpse of our second plane banking hard to the right, its underside exposed to us. But the next moment, the Wolves’ plane turned into a giant, bright orange fireball, burning my eyes as the massive explosion rocked our plane.

Ed Regis put our plane into a steep dive twisting to the left. I felt my stomach jump into my throat as I clung on to my seatbelt for dear life.

“Hang on, everyone!” Ed Regis shouted again. “We’re going to keep changing our heading and altitude till we’re through this.” Ed Regis pulled the plane out of its dive and into an equally steep climb. “Who the hell is shooting at us?!”

Who indeed? We couldn’t be sure they were Seraphim since we didn’t expect the Angels to have access to anti-aircraft guns. But according to the news, there were no human wars going on in this part of the world this month. Besides, we weren’t illegally crossing any borders today and most normal people at least radio a warning before shooting down a civilian aircraft. Most likely, our attackers knew who they were trying to kill.

There were more bangs and pops as Ed Regis weaved our plane through the fire, and I expected to blink out of existence at any moment. But a nerve-racking minute later, the exploding rounds were left behind us as we cleared the gun range. Our plane was still banking to the left, though.

“We’re in trouble,” said Merlin from the seat behind me.

I looked out my window and saw what he was referring to. The left propeller had ground to a halt, the engine billowing black smoke. Worse yet, part of the wing beyond the engine had been torn away, leaving the left wing slightly shorter than the right.

“Losing oil pressure,” announced Terry.

“I see it,” replied Ed Regis, his voice tense but in control.

I looked diagonally behind me to see how James was doing. He just stared blankly back at me.

“Sorry, guys,” said Ed Regis. “We’re not going to make it.”

“Keep her steady,” commanded Terry as she unbuckled her seatbelt and stood from the copilot’s seat. “We’re going to jump.”

Knowing the dangers, Terry and Ed Regis had prepared for this too, but not enough. We had only managed to get our hands on six parachutes at the last outpost, which meant that there were only three on each plane.

Quickly making her way to the rear, Terry announced, “Three chutes, six people. We’re going tandem.”

She passed one of the packs to Merlin, who said anxiously, “I’ve never used one of these before.”

“I’ll explain,” said Terry. “Go get your weapons out of your bags now! Leave the rest. We’re going as light as possible. Merlin will jump alone. I’ll get James down. Major Regis, Alia. None for you, Adrian. Hold the plane for us.”

“Typical,” I muttered, unbuckling my seatbelt and standing up.

Grabbing my arm, Alia said in a shaky voice, “I’m scared.”

“It’ll be alright,” I said, pulling free of her. “You go with Ed Regis. I’ll meet you on the ground.”

Terry had chosen the two jump pairs out of a pragmatic weight calculation. Alia, the lightest, with Ed Regis, the heaviest, which would be roughly the same weight as James and Terry combined. On principle, I really didn’t like the idea of putting Alia’s life in Ed Regis’s hands, but I had to admit that the Wolf was the best qualified. Merlin was a first-time jumper, and we were so high up that I didn’t trust myself to get Alia down safely.

I took the copilot’s seat beside Ed Regis, saying crisply, “Get your chute on, Major. Try not to drop my sister.”

“You can count on it,” said Ed Regis, standing up. “See you on the ground, Adrian.”

My heart was racing as I grabbed the yoke of our crippled plane. Back during our escape from New Haven, I had piloted our stolen airplane for a grand total of less than thirty minutes, and though I had the basics down, flying a broken antique solo wasn’t supposed to be in my job description. Without its left-wing engine, the plane felt horribly sluggish and wouldn’t fly straight.

I heard Alia cry into my head,
“No, Addy! I want to go with you!”

“No arguing!” I called back, fighting the controls to keep the plane level. “You promised, Alia! Go with Ed Regis!”

I heard Ed Regis say calmly, “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll get you down in one piece.”

Suddenly there was another loud bang. Turning my head, I watched in horror as the engine on the right wing also sputtered to a halt. Whether it had been damaged by the guns or had simply failed due to stress was anybody’s guess, but we were losing airspeed fast.

“Make it quick!” I shouted, feeling the controls becoming increasingly unstable. “I don’t know how long we have.”

Behind me, Terry was giving Merlin a crash course on how to use his parachute, saying, “Here’s your pull string. Yank it hard, but not till you see the rocks rushing up to meet you. If the Angels see you floating down, that’s where they’ll shoot you.”

“Is there a reserve chute?” asked Merlin.

“Yes, but if you do this right, you won’t have time to use it. Delay your pull to the last second.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, Terry,” Merlin said worriedly.

“Relax. It’s not like you have a choice. Just keep your cool and you’ll be okay.”

I didn’t have time to worry too much over the fact that Merlin was being asked to perform a dangerous low-altitude pull on his very first jump. The whole airplane was beginning to shudder.

Suddenly a high-pitched alarm filled the cockpit, and Terry called to me, “Stall warning, Adrian! Bring the nose down a bit. Watch your airspeed.”

I did, and the alarm turned off. But our lopsided plane kept trying to bank to the left, and if I stopped countering it, I feared we would quickly be upside down or worse.

The cabin filled with swirling wind as somebody opened the side door. I could barely hear Terry shout over the noise, “Alright! Merlin first! Go! Go! Now, Merlin! Come on! Jump now! Major Regis, you next!”

Alia was shouting something into my head, but I ignored her, my concentration focused on the yoke and pedals, and Alia’s telepathic voice faded away a moment later.

“Terry, tell me when you jump!” I shouted. I didn’t want to turn my head.

“Hold on!” said Terry. “A couple of last-minute things.”

“We don’t have a couple of minutes, Terry!”

Terry ignored me, shouting, “James, throw those bags out. We might find them later.”

The plane began to shudder again.

“I think we’d better go too, Terry,” said James, his voice understandably panicked.

“Just wait!” said Terry. “I’m looking for something!”

But our airplane wasn’t in a waiting mood. The left wing suddenly dipped sharply, and I heard Terry and James lose their balance and tumble onto the floor. I tilted the nose down a bit more and restored some airspeed, but there was no way to level us out anymore. The mountain peaks were looking dangerously close now.

Terry shouted, “Damn it, Adrian! Can’t you keep her steady?”

“Do I look like a pilot to you?!” I shot back furiously. “What the hell are you looking for back there, anyway?”

Instead of answering me, Terry cursed loudly and then cried in a panicked voice, “No! No! No! It’s not here!”

“Then get out
now!”
I hollered.

“Alright, alright! We’re going!” said Terry, and then asked, “But how are you going to get to the door?”

“I’ll think of something! Just go, Terry!” I begged. “Go now! I’m losing her!”

“Alright! James, hang on to me!”

I waited another ten rapid heartbeats, which I hoped was enough time for Terry and James to get out. Then I jumped out of the copilot’s seat, scrambling madly toward the open cabin door.

But before I took two steps, the whole cabin began to swirl around me. The plane had gone into a spinning nosedive with me still in it! Something mildly soft shoved against my left arm, and then I hit my forehead against something much harder. Everything was a blur, and I felt like I was in a washing machine’s spin cycle. Where was the exit?!

Almost entirely by chance, my right hand caught the edge of the open door and, with some help from my telekinetic power, I managed to pull myself through. As soon as I cleared the door, I used my telekinesis to kick-stop in midair. A second later, the airplane smacked into the rocky mountainside and exploded. I found myself close enough to the ground to feel the heat of the flames.

Distancing myself from the wreckage and dropping safely to the ground, I looked around at my new surroundings. The mountain slope was moderately gentle here, but there were high peaks in every direction. The terrain reminded me of pictures I had once seen in a science textbook – specifically pictures of the surface of Mars. We had literally fallen into a world of yellowish-brown earth and jagged rocks, with hardly any vegetation and not a single tree in any direction.

I saw only one parachute – Terry’s – touch down several hundred yards away. Where were the other two?

Due to Terry’s unexpected delay, Merlin, Alia and Ed Regis could be far behind us, either on the other side of this mountain or on another one entirely. I couldn’t even be sure which direction we had been flying.

Still moderately high on adrenaline, I used my telekinesis to push off from the ground and fly over to Terry and James, who were busy freeing themselves of their parachute.

“Adrian!” called James. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I replied, landing beside them. “Where are the others?”

Terry took a quick look up at the sun and then pointed to the nearest peak. “Behind that, I think.”

“Then let’s go find them,” James said hurriedly.

“We will, James,” said Terry. “Just calm down. We have to sort ourselves out first.”

Worried about my sister, I felt just as impatient as James, but I agreed with Terry. Considering what we had just come through, a minute of calm thinking was definitely in order. Though lucky to be alive at all, we had lost all of our supplies, including…

“The stones, Adrian,” said Terry. “We lost the stones.”

“What stones?” I asked. There were rocks and stones in every direction.

“The box wasn’t on our plane. It was on the Wolf plane.”

I stared at her until I understood what she meant. Then I gasped. The bag containing the jewels for the Historian was gone! We had hidden it inside a wooden crate containing our bottled water and hiking food. That was what Terry had been looking for before she jumped, but in order to balance the load between the two airplanes, I had stowed that crate on the second plane myself.

Terry let out a dejected huff. “I can just imagine some goat herder finding the wrecked plane and making off with our fortune.”

We had lost more than food, water and gemstones. Ed Regis’s entire team had burned up in midair, instantly cutting our numbers nearly in half. But even if I had it in me to mourn the deaths of five Wolves, I certainly had no room for such thoughts now. I was still getting used to the idea of still being alive, and wondering how we were going to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

James asked hesitantly, “So, um, what now?”

“We’re going to the Historian,” decided Terry. “We’ve come this far so there’s no sense in turning back now. Who knows what he’ll say to me when I arrive without gifts for the second time, though.”

That was something to worry about later.

Terry turned to me and said, “Get yourself a bird’s-eye view and see if you can’t find the bags we tossed.”

I did, levitating myself up fifty yards or so, but I couldn’t spot any lost luggage.

“See anything?” Terry called up to me.

“No,” I called back. “But there are a lot of big rocks and our bags might be behind or between them.”

“Okay, forget it,” said Terry. “Come on down before someone sees you.”

As I landed, James asked Terry, “You think there are people living on these mountains?”

“People live just about everywhere,” replied Terry, “but I’m more worried about the Angels right now. We’ll have to assume that those guns were fired from an Angel-controlled camp, and that they know we’re here, and about where our plane crashed.”

“That’s a lot of assumption,” I remarked.

“Better than being caught with our pants down,” said Terry. “We’re sniper bait here.”