The Sentinel (7 page)

‘So why would the Oraculum trust you to be near me with such a bad reputation?’

‘Because I pledged my allegiance to you,’ Quinn said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world, then registered my confusion. ‘Seth didn’t explain about the pledge did he?’

‘Sort of. There wasn’t really time for details. He told me all about the Guardians, the prophecies, the fact that my life was in danger and that he was going to die to save me.’

‘Oh that. It’s very noble really, warms the heart,’ Quinn said, sarcastically.

‘Quinn! He’s my best friend, I can’t lose him.’

‘Then don’t. You know my theory on the prophecies. You’re in control of your own future Eve.’

I nodded. ‘I like your theory better than Seth’s right now. Anyway, the pledge?’

‘When we pledge our allegiance, it is a magically binding contract, it’s unbreakable, we can’t undo it, dodge out of it, change our minds, we’re sworn to you for life.’

‘Oh.’

‘So for me to take the pledge, it was clear even to the Oraculum that I was loyal to you. Ha, they wanted me to swear my allegiance to them, to the Oraculum, but I refused to do that. I said I would only pledge my allegiance to you. Nereus, Cain and Helez liked that a lot. It was quite a turning point for the Oraculum. Since you were about two years old all new Guardians have been asked to pledge to you rather than the Oraculum. Most have, but some stay loyal to the Oraculum. For now, it boils down to the same thing. The Oraculum are loyal to you too, but if that were to change, if the Oraculum decided to fight against you, the Guardians would be split down the middle, those that are loyal to you and those that are loyal to the Oraculum. I doubt that would ever happen though. You’re their precious little Sentinel,’ he nudged me playfully.

He suddenly stiffened by my side as a shabby looking man, broke the trees and started walking towards us.

‘What is it,’ I whispered eyeing the man, who seemed to be trying to carry off an air of nonchalance, not very successfully.

‘I don’t know. I just…I don’t like him,’ Quinn mumbled quietly. ‘It’s probably nothing.’

I waited for the man to pass but he suddenly stopped in front of us, pulling out a knife from his pocket.

‘Give me your wallet,’ the man said to Quinn, quietly.

Quinn laughed. I wasn’t sure what was so funny. The knife looked very sharp. I looked around for my Guardians but couldn’t see them.

The man’s lip curled in anger. ‘Look mate, I’m a very good shot with this knife, do you really want to test how good a shot I am. It would be such a shame for your pretty girlfriend to lose an eye.’

‘Look mate,’ echoed Quinn. ‘I strongly suggest that you turn around and walk away, or in about five seconds your day is going to get a lot worse.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The man shrugged and flipped the knife round in his hand ready to throw it. In the split second it took for the man to take aim, he immediately regretted the decision. One second Quinn was sitting calmly next to me, the next a powerful black panther pounced on the man, sending him sprawling onto his back. The panther snarled, savagely as he stood on the man’s chest, his dripping jaws and huge sharp teeth just millimetres from the man’s throat. The man screamed and sobbed, trying to fight off the panther but it was much too strong for him.

I was stunned. I hadn’t even noticed the two Guardians had come to stand either side of me until one stepped forward to talk to Quinn.

‘Quinn, that’s enough,’ said Abe, quietly.

Quinn growled ferociously but didn’t relinquish his hold. The panther looked over at me and I nodded. ‘It’s ok Quinn, let him go.’

Immediately the panther let the man go, backing off him into a sitting position. The man quickly got up and ran sobbing for the trees.

I sat staring at Quinn in shock and bewilderment. He nuzzled against me, purring like an oversized domestic house cat. I stroked his ears absently.

‘Great,’ Matthew said, sarcastically. ‘Now we’ll have reports of giant panther sightings.’

‘I doubt anyone will believe him,’ Abe said.

‘Still, you should have let us handle it Quinn.’

Quinn growled quietly in response. I knew the growl was his way of saying that they had been too late.

I shook my head in bemused shock. Just twenty four hours before I was lying in my bed, convinced there was something a little bit kooky with the world. I had never expected my life to change so dramatically. Life really would never be the same again. How I envied the me of yesterday, still firmly in my little safe world. I looked down at my feet stretched out in front of me, at my beloved red converse trainers. I had bought them years before because they had looked cool on David Tennant in Doctor Who, but now I thought about another pair of famous red shoes. Clicking my heels together I whispered quietly. ‘There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,’ to see if it made any difference to this weird reality.

Quinn made a noise that sounded like a laugh. The Guardians looked at me as if I had finally lost my grip on sanity. Maybe I had.

‘Eve I think you should go home,’ said Abe.

Quinn suddenly shifted back into a dog again. The change was so quick, so smooth that I barely noticed it, it was just like watching an ice cube melting really quickly. The panther literally melted into my dog. I scrabbled up.

‘Oh and you might want to get some new clothes Quinn,’ said Matthew, holding up the remains of the black shirt Quinn had been wearing moments before.

*

As we walked back, the silver car screeched to a halt in front of us. Eli got out and opened the back door, indicating that I should get in. I didn’t argue. I knew better than that already. Quinn hopped in as well, causing Mason to moan in disgust as Quinn shook the wet from his fur.

‘I’ll deal with you two later,’ Eli growled at Abe and Matthew as he got back in and drove off.

I looked at Seth and Lucas who were in the seats behind mine. ‘Problem?’

‘Only Eli deciding how best to kill Abe and Matthew for their negligence, that mugger should never have got so close,’ explained Lucas.

‘He wasn’t a Putarian was he?’

‘No, just some idiot who picked on the wrong person to try to steal money from. At least he might think twice before he does it again.’

I looked around the car, noticing for the first time that Caleb was missing. Though from the talks with Eli that morning it seemed that not all members of my Personal Guard would be on duty all of the time. They didn’t need a lot of sleep but they obviously needed some.

Seth leaned forward to break my thoughts. ‘We have some people you need to meet.’

He seemed to be bursting with excitement. I smiled at his enthusiasm.

‘It’s about to get a whole lot weirder,’ said Lucas, a smile twitching on his lips.

At the speed Eli was travelling, it wasn’t long before we reached the wide dirt track that led up to the ruins of an old church that Seth and I used to play at as children.

The church was just four empty walls now and a tower. There was nothing inside except the weeds growing up the walls, as if the ground was actually slowly trying to swallow the church by pulling it in with its tentacles. It didn’t even have a roof.

I followed Seth up the short path. My Personal Guard surrounded me as I walked. I was confused slightly for the reason we had come here, but excited at the prospect of learning more about this strange world I now had VIP membership to. I stopped as I heard voices coming from inside the church.

‘Izri stop it, she’ll see,’ hissed a familiar voice.

‘Isn’t that the idea,’ said another voice I recognized.

Lights lit up the walls of the church, like a mini fireworks display was happening inside. I stepped closer, hesitant.

‘Yes but we’re trying not to freak her out, remember,’ said the first voice again, the lovely welsh accent I would recognise anywhere.

What looked like a ball of ice suddenly flew past the doorway.

‘Clem, don’t you start,’ my friend Persia hissed again.

I heard a giggle from inside the church, then a knife flew past the doorway too.

‘Izri!’

I smiled to myself. I wasn’t sure what was going on but I loved Persia dearly.

‘Persia,’ I called. ‘Is it safe to come in, or am I going to get a knife in the face.

Persia peered round the door, smiling shyly as she pulled her hat tighter onto her head. ‘Hey Eve.’ She had deep blue eyes and cute freckles on her nose. I loved her welsh accent, it was so soft and lilting, I could listen to it all day. Her hair was a mass of red curls, that seemed to bounce as she moved or talked. She gave me a big hug. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your parents, are you ok?’

I nodded, not sure how to convey the feelings of simultaneously finding out my parents were dead and that they weren’t my parents. Plus I wasn’t sure how much I could talk about with someone not part of this strange new world.

‘They’re still your family, even if they weren’t biologically. You have a right to grieve for them.’

I frowned with confusion. Did she know?

I walked into the church and looked round. Behind her, looking like they had just stopped doing something they shouldn’t be doing, were two willowy girls that I instantly recognised as Persia’s older sisters. Their similarity to Persia was striking.

I peered round. On a wall near the doorway a knife stuck out the middle of what looked like a snowball. I pulled the knife out the wall and the ball of ice sloshed to the ground.

Persia glared at Izri, the sister that was in the year above us at school, but Izri was unfazed as she stepped forward to take the knife off me. Clementine the eldest sister stifled a laugh.

Seth went to stand by Persia, slinging a casual arm around her, as Quinn appeared in the church in his human form pulling a jumper over his head.

‘Eve, you wanted to know about the Donum, so what better way to tell you than to introduce you to some of them. Persia and her lovely sisters are all Donum.’ Seth grinned with his big news.

‘What!?’

Lucas was right, it was about to get a lot weirder.

7. Donum

Persia came over and hugged me tightly again. ‘Don’t get freaked Eve.’ She pulled away from me looking into my eyes,. ‘Nah you’re tough, you can handle this. I thought we could have some fun actually today, after your heavy conversation with these two.’ She motioned to Quinn and Seth, with annoyance.

‘Hey!’ they both said together, affecting indignity.

‘Oh come on,’ she said to Quinn. ‘I’m not sure who I’m more upset with, we have Seth telling her all about the people that want to kill her and you changing into a panther, not bad for her first day, poor love.’ She looked back at me. ‘Bet you had some weird dreams last night.’

I nodded, was there no end to my bewilderment. ‘You’re a Donum?’

Persia’s face lit up and she nodded.

‘I don’t even know what that is.’

She grinned. ‘Quite simply the Donum are the gifted. We have powers. Some Donum have a few powers to their name, some are exceptionally strong.’

‘Persia is one of the strongest Donum in over a thousand years,’ Clementine said proudly as she moved to stand next to Persia.

Persia blushed. ‘Clementine, I hardly think that’s necessary.’

‘I do,’ replied Clementine.

I didn’t know Clementine very well, she was significantly older than Persia and Izri. I knew she had recently got engaged, I had gone to her engagement party, as Persia’s guest. But the one thing I did know about her was how fiercely proud she was of Persia.

‘Well that’s only the Oraculum’s opinion, I’m sure there are much stronger Donum out there than me, they just haven’t made themselves known to the Oraculum.’ Persia fiddled with her watch, in embarrassment.

‘You do yourself a disservice Persia, the Oraculum sought you out,’ Izri said, all traces of the laughter gone now. She looked at me to explain. ‘We don’t normally have anything to do with the Oraculum, we generally keep ourselves to ourselves, but they sought us out, well Persia mainly because she’s the strongest, they wanted her to be your friend. And although we don’t believe in their prophecies, we have our own Seers and your coming was foretold in our circles as well. We were interested to meet someone with such strength. We agreed we would stay close to you, to guide you when the time came but we wouldn’t be friends with you. The Donum are loyal and loyalty and friendship has to be earned, not bought with the promise of big houses and money.’

‘Izri,’ Persia muttered.

I looked down at my feet, my red shoes. Dorothy certainly didn’t have this trouble making friends, she just had to walk along the yellow brick road picking up friends like picking flowers. My friends and family were under orders to be my friends, to be in my life. It seems the Donum were even offered money to be around me. Hadn’t anyone wanted to be my friend just because of who I was, not who I was going to be.

‘Oh don’t misunderstand me Eve, you’ve more than earned the friendship in our eyes,’ Izri continued. ‘The first day Persia came home from school, hating it. We have never been to school before, we were home schooled in Wales, the Donum think it more important to develop our powers than learn about Henry VIII. We learn everything we need from the world by touching it with our powers. The weather, the crops, the animals on our farm, could all be helped or influenced by our powers. That was all we needed. But like I said, you spiked our curiosity. We were prepared to give school a go, but thought we had made a big mistake when Persia came home on that first day, miserable. The second day was different because you were there. You looked after her, you were kind, you kicked some boy in the shins because he was mean to her.’

I had forgotten about that, Steven Baxter, horrid little boy who had it in for Persia, because she was new, because she had that lovely accent. He had said something nasty about red hair and dodgy accents and I’d kicked him. He never came near her again.

‘Persia came home that night and was full of how lovely you were, so we had to meet you. That night when you came round for tea, well, it was impossible not to like you.’