Veiled (45 page)

“
Well, I am not leaving
without you, so get up!” I ordered. My patience was wearing thin.
Katie hadn’t stopped her string of angry yells and accusations. It
almost reminded me of when we were trying to get Celeste and Max
out of Ishtar.

The things she was saying,
the anger behind them, how fast and…I looked back at Katie’s face
and it no longer looked like her own. It was, in fact, Agatha’s
face.

I stared at her in
disbelief. I narrowed my eyes. “What is going on?” I asked, and
then I saw nothing. Everything and everyone was gone, Agatha
included.

I was left in total
darkness, not a shred of light, not a sound. This perhaps was worse
than having to listen to Katie or Agatha yell at me. I was alone,
utterly and totally alone. The noiselessness and the darkness
filled me completely.

I felt empty, and a memory
of long ago crept inside of me. I was not a spirit anymore. I had
no form at all. I could see nothing and feel nothing. Only Agatha
would sometimes come by, just to make sure I was still alone and
miserable.

*****

“
Dorian, are you sure
these are the caves? There are millions of caves all over Heaven,
they all look very similar.” Alex sat on a boulder and put his
hands over his eyes.

“
Well…no. I am not
completely sure, but they look very close to it.”

Alex tapped on his calling
stone impatiently. “Jase, have you and Katie found anything out of
the ordinary?”

“
Sorry, Alex, we are still
looking. Don’t worry, mate, we are being very thorough.” Jase’s
voice sounded far away and it seemed to echo.

Alex called Brandy and Wes
next. He got the same answer—nothing. He wanted to scream. If only
he had responded to Tess telepathically when she was trying to call
him, but he had put his Sentinel Mission first. At the time he had
been annoyed at her for trying to talk to him while he was on duty,
but now he saw how silly he’d been. No one would have ever known
that they were talking. He could have kept the conversation short,
to just a simple,
“Hi, Tess, this is what
I’m doing right now, talk to you later. And oh yeah, don’t go
looking for missing Sentinels on your own, wait for me!”

Now Tess, along with five
more spirits, was missing. Some had been gone for over twenty of
Earth’s years. A weird kind of panic crept over him, and engulfed
him completely. Alex stopped and tried to calm himself, but he
couldn’t, the panic was not his, it was hers!

Instinctively, Alex reached
for Dorian with one of his arms as if looking for support. He
needed to focus on this feeling and let it guide him toward Tess,
but his own worry and jumbled thoughts kept getting in the
way.

“
Alex!”
she screamed.

“
I hear you, Tess, where
are you?”
he answered.

“
It’s so dark, I’m so
scared! I don’t want to be alone again!”

“
Tess, where are
you?”

Alex was now too alarmed to
understand what was going on. He looked at Dorian with a wild kind
of look.

“
What is it Alex? Did you
feel something? Did you connect with her?” Dorian peered into
Alex’s wild expression.

Alex nodded.

“
What did you feel?”
Dorian asked tactfully.

“
She called my name,” Alex
said numbly.

Dorian frowned and looked
away, he paced a little, and Alex leaned back against one of the
rocks.

“
She’s got to be around
here somewhere!” Dorian said, showing the first signs of real
worry.

“
Dorian, what happens if
we don’t find her in time?” Alex asked. “Maybe…maybe this is
supposed to happen, maybe we don’t get to be born at the same
time…you and Luz…”

Dorian kept shaking his
head and walking around in circles. “It doesn’t make sense Alex,
I’ve seen us.”

Alex looked up. “What have
you seen?”

“
Tess and I grow up
together, I know that for sure. I’ve seen a few glimpses of my life
and she is almost always there with me…and not much older
either.”

“
Then we need to find
her!” Alex got up, regaining a bit of hope.

“
What did you hear
exactly?” Dorian asked.

“
She said she didn’t want
to be alone again.”

Dorian scowled as he kept
his gaze on Alex, then it dawned on him. “She’s being tortured,” he
whispered.

Alex turned his head
sharply to face him.

“
We found something!”
Jase’s tunnel like voice resounded in mid-air, through the
caller.

*****

Marcel was Eugenia’s last
hope within the Fallen Angels. He was the last of the Sovereigns’
regime along with her and like Eugenia, he didn’t like Agatha. He
would love to see Agatha dethroned, but he wasn’t as vocal about it
as Eugenia was. He thought it best to lie low and wait for a good
time to take the reins of command back. But in the meantime, he
humbly served—sort of.

When he found Eugenia
hurrying down the alcove tunnels holding two hands full of those
devices they used on their captives, he knew that Eugenia had found
a way for them to take Agatha down.

“
Oh, good!” Eugenia said
with relief on her face. “I’m glad it’s you. Listen, take these and
put them on any Fallen Angel that you come across.”

Marcel frowned. “I don’t
follow. Why use it on us?”

Eugenia’s eyes darted
around the tunnels making sure they were alone. “There are a
several Sentinels and Heralds heading this way as we speak. Whoever
they find here to be responsible for this, will be in serious
trouble.”

Marcel nodded, trying to
understand what that meant to them. “So what are we doing here? We
need to get out!”

“
No, you idiot! If we get
out now, that will only give Agatha an opportunity to frame us for
the whole thing. Don’t you get it! She has to take the fall for
this.”

“
Well…how…” Marcel
stammered as he looked down at the neurotransmitter games in his
hands. Then it dawned on him. “Oh…I see…”

“
But we have to get
everyone, Amanda, Eros, every one! And they can’t see us either…if
possible.”

Marcel nodded once and he
was off down the corridor and to the left. Eugenia smiled and
headed down the main corridor where she was sure to run into some
Fallen Angels. Slipping the neurotransmitter game on the head of a
spirit who felt nothing was easy. Marcel and Eugenia worked fast,
and before long they had almost everyone connected and safely
dreaming.

Only Eros and Amanda were
still with Agatha, and getting them to leave her side would be
tricky.

“
How should we do this?”
Marcel asked, his head reeling. “Without her suspecting anything,
that is.”

Eugenia thought, then a
smile crossed her face. She had known Tess would become useful at
some point.

“
You go and whisper in
Agatha’s ear that the new spirit that Amanda brought is talking.
Tell her that she is saying her name.”

Marcel shook his head. “But
that’s impossible! She couldn’t possibly...”

“
Trust me, she’ll take the
bait.”

“
But what if she doesn’t
believe me?”

“
Tell her that you were
just gliding by and that you heard a weird noise. Tell her that the
spirit is still attached to the device, but she is saying,
‘Agatha.’ Then I’ll sneak in and attach Eros and Amanda to the
device.”

Marcel had his doubts about
this part of the plan, but it was their last recourse, so he would
have to go along with it.

He started to go, but
Eugenia grabbed his arm. “When you see me coming to you that will
be your cue that Eros and Amanda are hooked. You will need to
excuse yourself and then we will go and hook ourselves
up.”

Marcel nodded “All right.”
He turned to leave but turned again. “Hold on. What good will this
do us, when we go up against the High Council?”

“
None at all, but that is
not why we are doing this. We are doing this so the rest of the
Fallen Angels know that Agatha set them up, Eros
included.”

Marcel smiled broadly. “You
are brilliant! I almost love you for it.”

Eugenia grimaced, but as
she glided down the hall, the thought didn’t bother her as much as
she let on.

* * * * *

Chapter 39

“
Jase, Katie! Where are
you?” Alex asked, once they got to Jase and Katie’s last known
coordinates.

“
Call them again!” Dorian
suggested.

“
No need.” Jase emerged
from one of the caves, closely followed by Katie. They both looked
grim.

Alex stared at them, not
sure if he wanted to hear more bad news.

“
We’ve got good news and
bad.” Katie broke the silence.

“
We found these caves,
they are full of tunnels, and down one of the tunnels we found some
alcoves that are currently being occupied by spirits,” Jase said as
he gave Katie a sideways glance.

“
Is Tess one of those
spirits?” Alex asked.

“
No, she isn’t, but if she
is anywhere in Heaven, she has to be here.”

“
You said that there were
a lot of spirits there…where are they?” Dorian prodded.

“
Well…they are not
moving,” Katie said lamely.

Both Dorian and Alex cocked
their heads to the side questioningly.

“
They seem to be attached
to some sort of device that is causing them to be…asleep,” Jase
explained.

“
Like—like one of those
games they had at the square?” Alex suggested.

Both Jase and Katie
shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jase said.

“
We have. Dorian, do you
remember that game that Henry showed us? The…the…”

“
Neurotransmitter…something or other,” Dorian
remembered.

“
Yeah, it’s like a game
that works with your own mind to create alternate realities, but
it’s a game. It’s not real,” Alex continued. “So did you remove one
of those things from the spirits?”

Katie shook her head. “We
didn’t know what those things were. We decided not to pull any of
them out until we were certain it wouldn’t harm them in any
way.”

“
OK.” Alex started to
relax. “This has to be the place where all the missing spirits are
ending up, but what is it?”

“
A Fallen Angel’s hideout,
would be my guess.” Wes and Brandy had just landed next to Dorian
and Jase. “Brandy and I have been trying to locate the spot for a
while now. We knew it would have to be remote,” Wes
explained.

“
OK, so let’s go and get
them out. Dorian, you come with me to look for Tess,” Alex said
taking charge.

“
There’s a problem
though,” Wes interjected. “If this is the Fallen Angel’s hideout,
the place will be crawling with them. What’s to stop them from
hooking us up to those devices?”

“
He’s got a point,” Jase
said.

“
What other option do we
have?” Dorian asked. “We are here, and we have been sent to find
these spirits. Some of them are due at the Veil…now.”

“
Yeah, I agree,” Alex said
with a decisive tone. “We’ll have to take that chance. Just stay in
pairs, make sure you can see your partner at all times.”

They agreed and entered the
main tunnel. As soon as it came to a fork, Alex motioned for them
to stay in contact through the calling stones. They all nodded and
separated. Alex and Dorian kept to the main vein and soon found
some spirits.

They took the devices off,
and the spirits opened their eyes suddenly. They looked disoriented
and wanted to know what was going on. Dorian and Alex explained the
best they could, and they didn’t seem to be able to grasp the
concept very well, but took them at their word.

Dorian and Alex instructed
them to take any spirit they saw off of these things, and to keep
the devices themselves. After spending more time explaining the
whole situation and their plan of action, they left the spirits to
their task, while they went to find Tess.

They glided down several
corridors, some had spirits in them, and some were too small to
house a spirit.

Alex halted suddenly and
Dorian bounced off of him. “What’s wrong?” Dorian
whispered.

“
It’s Tess, I can feel
her. I can find her!” Alex darted through the tunnels like a
lightning bolt with Dorian at his heels.

When Alex came to an abrupt
stop again, Dorian bounced off of Alex one more time. He was just
about to complain when Alex lifted one hand, signaling for Dorian
to be quiet.

Dorian peeked over Alex’s
shoulder and saw what had made him stop.

Agatha was standing right
in front of Tess’s figure. She seemed to be talking to her, but
Tess was hooked up to the device and looked unconscious.