Warrior of the Ages (Warriors of the Ages) (12 page)

“Yes.” Kahtar answered both of the women at the same time.

Abigail almost bounced with excitement, peering at Kahtar through what he knew was just plain glass in her spectacles. The Mother’s blue eyes lit with interest as she too peppered him with questions.

“How unexpected. How old is he, and where did you find him?”

“It’s a woman and she’s twenty-four years. The day Honor was shot I’d stopped her for speeding.”

“A woman! Imagine! Remind me what is speeding?”

“Driving her car too fast,” Abigail explained impatiently.

“Of course. She drives?”

Abigail interjected with authority. “Remember that is how they all travel, Anwyn. I think we should keep her!”

Kahtar had never seen Abigail enthusiastic in all his years. The thought of keeping Beth like a stray pet was almost laughable, but his eyes went to The Mother’s face trying to read her serene features.

“Keep her? You know nothing about her, Abigail! Her people might have been wandering without guidance since the Spanish Inquisition. Do you even sense her heart clearly, Kahtar?”

“Very. That has been a problem. Early on, before word spread, several of our warriors approached her asking if she is Clan Huron, me included when I first met her.”

“Oh dear, so her heart is that recognizable as Covenant Keeper?”

“It is strong and a bit uncontrolled.”

“Oh! Exceptional. Kahtar? Remember the Council voted that we would consider welcoming Orphan children? I wish she were a child, still, twenty-four is young for one of us…does she function well in the outside world?”

It was a question he hadn’t expected. The difference in the way their minds perceived a situation often intrigued him, but the images of Beth in her yellow convertible, and Beth with the electricians and carpenters flashed through his mind.

“Quite well.” Even as he answered Kahtar wondered if he could be wrong about that, then he brushed the idea away. Beth White with her business savvy was better off in her own world.

The Mother looked sad as she thought. “If she is at home with the Seekers, then she would never function in our world.”

“Never is one of those words that don’t often apply to Human Beings.” Abigail’s voice echoed loudly as she argued with The Mother.

Kahtar and Abigail rarely saw eye to eye. “Yet never is a word that often applies to Covenant Keepers,” he said.

The Mother nodded. “We never break the laws of being and that is difficult enough for those of us born to it. Abigail, isn’t it better to allow the Orphan to live outside, than risk her life trying to follow our laws?”

“I stand by what I said.” Abigail glared up at them, “and Orphans belong with their own.” The stodgy little librarian huffed away, and The Mother shook her beautiful head.

“You realize Abigail is right of course? The problem is her own aren’t part of our world either. We could hardly expect the Orphan to give up her family and friends. She’d likely forfeit her life by breaking a law, and I doubt it would take very long.”

Kahtar opened his mouth to make a comment. He wanted to point out to The Mother that few clans had ever tried welcoming an Orphan into their fold, that their rare Christian clan was unusual to consider even an Orphan child. He had centuries of anecdotal data to back that up, but of course he couldn’t mention that fact. The Mother waited patiently, watching as he struggled to put his thoughts into words. But the words never came to light, that conversation never took place, because an Old Guard flickered to his side and took him from the cave in a blinding flash of light. The next thing Kahtar saw, as he shimmered back into being outside the Arc, were grey waves washing the shore of Lake Erie.

IN THE SPLIT second it took to fully reappear, Kahtar knew exactly where he was. Standing outside the Arc, forty miles west of the entrance, bright June sunshine seared into his eyeballs after the dim cave, but he could scan. This was an area where warriors always kept watch because it marked a boundary in their territory. This bit of land abutted dozens of veils, and the Arc. While he knew where he was, it took a moment to understand why he’d been ferried away with no explanation. The Old Guard at his side didn’t wait for him to understand, his scan seared through Kahtar’s head forcing him to scan along the landscape, forcing the Warrior Chief to sense what lay on the pebbly shore of the giant lake.

For a microsecond Kahtar took the information in like the old soldier that he was. Facts: a dead woman washed up on the beach, waves crashing against her and rhythmically shoving her naked body further ashore. Kahtar automatically took in physical attributes first, noting that she was thin, with blonde hair, and then fear gripped him.

“No!” The word escaped and he raced over the rocky beach to her side with his heart seizing painfully, fearful of recognizing her features. They were bloated, almost beyond recognition, her nose missing, but he knew her. Kneeling beside her Kahtar gently brushed her blonde hair back. Long wet strands slid through his fingers, tiny pebbles too big to be called sand, dropped off in clumps. Flies had already begun to gather, clustering over most of her available flesh, lifting off only when another wave washed them away.

“She is not Covenant Keeper. She was an eater of dirty food.” The Old Guard spoke and he too crouched beside the woman. The sword strapped to his back should have dug into the pebbly shore, but it didn’t, the end jutting downward simply wasn’t there anymore. His large sandals didn’t even disturb the rocks as he shimmered on the shore, never completely taking solid form. The Old Guard used a flickering backlit hand to brush flies off the body, it lingered on the woman’s throat and, where his flickering hand had touched, the flies did not return.

“She was strangled, her windpipe crushed and broken before her body was given to the water.”

“Sweet El, take her in your arms.” Kahtar spoke the prayer out loud, almost ashamed as both relief and regret washed through him. “Her name is Brenda. She was a waitress in the village.”

Honor Monroe flickered into being at the side of an Old Guard and made his way down the beach. The Warrior of ilu dropped his cloak over Brenda’s nakedness and he stooped over her, gently picking stones from her hair with Kahtar. For several minutes they were silent, their hearts regretful. Brenda Blake was not clan, but she lived in their village. They were Warriors of ilu, protectors of Covenant Keepers, but they were also Police Officers and they had failed this young Seeker.

Kahtar finally looked into Honor’s blue eyes, detesting what he had to order him to do.

“We can’t risk an investigation and publicity. Have her cleaned and bury her on the north side of the lake—someplace where she will never be found. Have someone arrange financially for her daughters, something substantial that provides for their college education.”

“Chief?” Honor stopped pawing the dirt from Brenda’s hair to stare at Kahtar in surprise.

“I owe her. I thought she was safe. This should not have happened in our village, even if she isn’t one of our people, we should have done better by her.”

BY THE END of the day all the warriors could learn of Brenda was that she hadn’t been seeing anyone, and that her girls were being tended by a friend from the coffee shop—a friend frantic with worry and adamant that Brenda would never have left her daughters. Dressed in his police uniform and leaning against a wall in the police station Kahtar spoke low to his warriors.

“See to it that the girls’ guardian will acquire a home somewhere in the south. I want all trace of Brenda Blake out of here by tomorrow.”

“Her friend’s not going to leave while Brenda is missing.” Squire Tupper pointed the fact out and Kahtar glared at him.

“Then leave a false trail to Brenda down south. Get her and those girls out of here. I want no publicity over the fact that Brenda went missing in Willowyth. We can’t afford any extra attention here. We’ll have enough of that from our stray Orphan.”

The looks that his warriors shot at him didn’t go unnoticed, these lies were dishonorable and they all felt it.

“Hey, Chief?” Consider Drake wandered up the hall from dispatch, a piece of paper in his beefy hands. “Apparently Beth White called in to report that Brenda Blake borrowed her car and didn’t bring it back.”

Kahtar straightened up. “I’m just hearing this because?”

“Because dispatch didn’t put it through to us, they told her that we don’t investigate late fees associated with borrowing, but that if she wanted to report it stolen that they’d forward the information. I only found out now because I ran an illegal search on 911 recordings.”

RIGHT IN THE middle of her front yard, Beth’s yellow convertible had been parked crooked. A ticket stuck to the windshield stated she didn’t have enough rubber on her windshield wipers. Standing beside the car Kahtar scanned it to a microscopic level, Brenda had been in it. Motioning with only a nod at the vehicle he went towards the house. Consider Drake and Squire Tupper hurried across the small roadway to examine the vehicle more thoroughly.

Not bothering to knock for police business, he decided scaring Beth a bit could only help. The shop smelled clean though it looked shabby inside, the floor uneven beneath his feet. The original peeling wallpaper had been left untouched and crates and boxes were stacked everywhere, goods piled randomly on every available surface. Nothing had been repaired or modified, but the old woodwork had been polished to a gleam and reflected the late afternoon sunlight streaming through sparkling clean windows. Despite the mess something hinted at purpose in the sheer randomness of the piles of mismatched items.

Kahtar stepped silent. A talent honed instinctively from countless years as Warrior of ilu. Beth’s shop struck him as both the cleanest and messiest place he’d ever been. Not a single chemical or plastic fume touched his scan. From what he could see all she’d done besides dump a truck load of stuff inside, was to polish and scour the place. There was new shelving, but even those weren’t permanently affixed to anything, just random freestanding shelves filling every room in the house. He scanned the rest of the house in an instant, basement to attic, noting with disappointment that all she’d done was clean, so they couldn’t fine her for building without a permit. What caught his attention most were microscopic traces of Brenda all over the place, apparently she’d been there many times.

Beth stood with her back to him, dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, wiping down tall wooden cabinets with lemon oil. This looked to be the planned check-out area, an antique cash register rested on the counter. Beth’s blonde hair swayed in a high pony-tail, brushing against her shoulders as she rubbed. In canvas sneakers with no heels, Kahtar sensed her to be barely six feet tall. Even unaware of his presence, her energetic heart romped in place, reminding him of when Wolves had been a puppy and used to chase his tail. She jumped when he purposely stepped on a board that squeaked, and then her heart cantered straight for his. Braced for impact, Kahtar was aware of the fact that he was refusing to enjoy something impossible not to enjoy. Not pausing in her work she scolded.