WarriorsandLovers (4 page)

Case after case of missing persons, some of them world
famous—aviators, explorers, ordinary men and women, husbands, wives, children.
Hopewood had accumulated evidence, cross-referenced and footnoted. At the end
of each document, Hopewood had an appendix to link the information to his overarching
theory. These people were victims, killed to prevent news of the Dvalinn’s
existence from being broadcast to the rest of the human race or for some
malevolent purpose linked to the Dvalinn plan to destroy the human race and
claim the surface world for themselves.

One file in particular nailed home the reality of the battle
Hopewood claimed was being waged. Fifteen years ago in Venice, the Dvalinn had
launched a devastating attack on Hopewood and his group, known as
Gatekeepers—killing them, leaving Hopewood hideously injured, presumed dead.
The pictures of the destroyed laboratory and the medical reports from the
hospital where Hopewood had been taken removed many of Elijah’s doubts. If the
Dvalinn existed and were capable of this malevolence, they had to be stopped.

Elijah had seen enough. He pushed the button on the desk.

“Are you convinced?” Hopewood asked as he re-entered the
room.

“Convinced might not be the right word,” Elijah hedged, “but
there is some interesting information here. Since I have nothing to lose and
half a million dollars to gain…yeah, I’m in.”

“I’ve had my lawyers draw up a contract.”

“One that binds you to giving me the money but which allows
me an out.” Elijah narrowed his eyes. “That contract?”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” Hopewood replied. “As long as
you complete the training period, the money is yours.”

Elijah held out his hand. “Give it here.” He took the
contract and the offered pen.

“Don’t you want to read it first?” Hopewood asked.

“I’ve got nothing else to do for the moment. I can complete
any training you want me to. After, I’m free to go if I want, right?”

“That’s correct,” Hopewood said.

“Fine.” With a quick slash of the pen, Elijah scrawled his
signature across the paper and watched as Hopewood added his and dated it.

* * * * *

“Shit!” Elijah shook his fingers then stuck them in his
mouth to relieve the tingling burn. When Hopewood had told him he’d be
undertaking weapons training, he’d envisaged rifles, target practice , given
Hopewood’s insistence that Elijah’s physical fitness was an asset, some kind of
boot camp. He had not expected to find himself in a laboratory, learning to put
together this odd appliance.

He had no idea what it was supposed to do, other than give
him a painful electric shock every time he put things together slightly wrong
or if he broke one of the fragile glass globes. Yet Hopewood insisted this was
Elijah’s primary weapon, one he would have to be completely familiar with. Most
of the time he could assemble the device in seconds, even with his eyes shut.
But not now.

He looked up at the clock. His heart rate escalated and his
hands fumbled. His muscles cramped as another surge of electricity hit.

“It’s time.” David strode across the room, sweeping the
components of the device out of Elijah’s hands. If David suffered a shock, no
sign of it registered on his grim face.

Elijah had never considered himself a coward but the thought
of what came next made him sick. Compared to it, the pain he’d just experienced
was no more than a pinprick.

“Move it!” David ordered.

Elijah pushed himself up from the workbench. His knees were
stiff, his gait jerky.

David pushed open the plain white door and waited for Elijah
to step inside.

The smell hit him first. Sour bile flooded his mouth. He
swallowed the rush of nausea. He’d attended fires where people had died,
inhaled the foul odor of ash and charring, and it hadn’t filled him with this
sense of dread.

He would never smell lavender again without wanting to
vomit.

The steel frame loomed like a mediaeval torture device.
Hopewood stood beside it, his face impassive, watching as David fastened the
cuffs around Elijah’s wrists, shackled his ankles and closed the cage around
his ribs.

And then the voices came. “Freak! Monster!” Male voices.
Female voices. Whispers, shouts. Endless. Inescapable. “We are the Dvalinn. We
will destroy. Freak. Monster.”

“You can stop them, Mr. Denton.” Hopewood now, speaking as
he always did. Soft, emotionless, relentless. “Press the button. The voices
will stop. Put your hand on the button. So simple. Stop them.”

The first time he’d been locked in he’d felt strong and in
control. The repetition had irritated him and three hours tested his patience,
but Lije had withstood it. He’d made a halfhearted effort to do what Hopewood
wanted and teleport himself out of the restraints, over to the switch on the
wall to turn off the speakers, but nothing had happened, nor had he expected it
to.

At the end of the session David had released him and wiped
down the metal with lavender-scented disinfectant. The next day the entire
scene had repeated itself, and the next and the next. Slowly, Elijah had found
himself dreading the moment he walked into the room, the scent of the
disinfectant making his gut clench. He wanted to clasp his hands over his ears,
shut out the hateful litany.

And every time David came to get him the ordeal became
harder and harder to bear.

Today Hopewood’s comments were contemptuous. “Too weak to
manage it, Mr. Denton? I expected better of you.”

The voices on the wall chanted, “Weak. Weak.”

“I wonder if we need to try physical force. Perhaps the
devil is in you. We need to beat the evil out.”

The voices on the wall took up the refrain, a hideous,
impossible echo of his mother’s words. How could Hopewood know? Wasn’t it
enough that he had infiltrated every aspect of Elijah’s life? How could he stand
having him plunder his mind?

His control snapped and he roared, “Shut up! Shut the fuck
up!” He twisted and turned but the restraints held firm. He wanted to kill,
tear the walls apart, anything to stop this. Rage boiled up in searing
darkness.

The voices went quiet. Silence fell, broken at last by the
soft sound of one pair of hands slowly clapping. “Well done, Mr. Denton. I knew
you could do it.”

Lije opened his eyes. His hand was splayed out on the red
button on the wall. The wall opposite his steel prison. He turned. The cage was
still, there, the cuffs locked, ankle shackles still in place, chest plate
closed. But he was free.

His chest heaved. Sweat ran down his cheeks.

“Now you know what you’re capable of,” Hopewood said. “A few
more days to hone the skill and you’ll be ready.”

* * * * *

That first traumatic escape smashed some bond holding Elijah
back. Within three days he could teleport himself anywhere in the complex as
long as he’d previously seen it. Upstairs, downstairs, into Hopewood’s office
and back to the lab. He refused to think about the torture chamber. He never
wanted to go back there.

He was considering whether to try to materialize outside the
building when Hopewood summoned him to his office. Elijah chose to walk. He hadn’t
got to the point where he felt comfortable using any of his abilities in front
of Hopewood. Maybe it was the man’s coldness or his determined refusal to call
Lije anything other than the formal “Mr. Denton.” He hoped his revulsion had
nothing to do with Hopewood’s scarred appearance.

He knocked on Hopewood’s door.

“Come in.”

Lije turned the handle and entered. Hopewood sat alone at
the head of the table. “You’ve mastered all the skills you need. It’s time for
your final briefing. Sit down.”

He waited, his fingers steepled in front of him, until Lije
was seated. “Fifteen years ago I would not have needed you or your skills, Mr.
Denton. I had the ability to detect Dvalinn when they came to the surface. I
had a device allowing me to piggyback onto their teleport and enter the Dvalinn
underworld.” His lips twisted, and with his sagging facial muscles he looked
less than human. Elijah had to control the urge to flinch. “I lost the ability
when one of my employees betrayed me.”

“So you need me,” Elijah said. “You forced me to learn to
teleport. You told me you want to take the fight to the Dvalinn. This is the
only way it can happen.”

“I’m pleased you worked it out for yourself.”

“I haven’t worked everything out.” Elijah clenched his fists
until the knuckles went white. “There are a few questions I should have asked
before this.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” Hopewood smirked. “Why do you
think that is?”

“Because I didn’t believe you. I didn’t think I could
teleport and I didn’t think the Dvalinn were real.”

“And now you do?”

“Now I do.” Sometime in the hours Elijah had spent listening
to those voices, he had come to believe. Hopewood knew Lije’s strengths and
weaknesses. He’d known he could learn to teleport. He’d shown him the evidence
he’d amassed. He’d been right about everything he’d told Elijah. If the Dvalinn
existed, as Elijah now believed they did, then Hopewood was right about them
being the enemy of humankind. They had to be destroyed.

“Ask your questions. I will do my best to answer them.”

“How can the Dvalinn live inside the Earth?” He’d done a
little geology in his science projects at school. He knew what the core of the
Earth was made up of. How could another race possibly exist there?

“It’s not as difficult as you might imagine.” Hopewood
pressed a button on the desk and a panel in the wall opened to reveal a screen.
“Watch.” The lights dimmed and documentary material about underground cavern
systems played. Some Elijah had heard of, many more he had not.

“Deep within the Earth’s mantle is a huge cavern system
shielded against detection by most human devices,” Hopewood said over the
commentary, “These are the dwelling places of the Dvalinn. You will use your
telekinetic ability to enter these hidden caverns.”

“I can’t visualize somewhere I haven’t been,” Elijah pointed
out.

“Visualization is helpful but not necessary.” Hopewood used
a pointer to indicate several places on the map. “There are portals where the
power of ley lines or dragon currents is particularly strong. This will act as
a channel to let you enter specific points in the Dvalinn world.”

Hopewood stood and paced back and forth in the space between
the table and the back wall. “Before the piggyback method became unviable, I
destroyed several Dvalinn cities. Given the scale of destruction and Dvalinn
cultural behaviors, it is extremely likely these cities have remained
abandoned. The portal can be manipulated to insert you into one of these.”

Easy enough for Hopewood to say. He wasn’t going, was he?
“What if it’s
not
deserted?”

“When I found you I was looking for a particular combination
of attributes. It was an unexpected bonus to discover your physical appearance
meant you would be indistinguishable from the average Dvalinn. Unless you
materialize directly in front of a hostile group, you should be able to pass
yourself off as one of them for long enough to get the job done.”

Elijah looked down at the exposed light-brown skin of his
forearm. His color was so much an accepted part of him that he didn’t think
about it much. For his grandparents or great-grandparents it might have been an
issue—it hadn’t been important in his life. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it
being a factor in his fight against the Dvalinn.

Before he could ask anything else, Hopewood, his eyes
gleaming with the light of fanaticism, continued. “With your help, I will make
one last definitive strike. The device you have spent so long learning to
assemble is a delivery system for a penetrative gas somewhat like the sarin
used in the Tokyo subway many years ago. In the enclosed caverns, there will be
no escape. Once detonation takes place the entire Dvalinn race will be wiped
from existence.”

A heavy weight settled in Elijah’s stomach. He folded his
arms on the table. During the propaganda sessions, he’d managed to close his
mind to what was required of him, but this was genocide. No matter how evil
these Dvalinn were, Hopewood had told him they were human in appearance—they
looked like Elijah—he could pass as one of them.

“This is not the time to be squeamish,” Hopewood said,
accurately reading Elijah’s expression. “The strong must sometimes make harsh
decisions. Mercy can be the greatest weakness. Prepare to leave early in the
morning. You will be taken to the most powerful natural portal in the world.
There you will concentrate on projecting yourself into the Dvalinn caverns.
Your telekinetic powers will start the process—the natural power lines of the
Earth will do the rest.”

“Where is this natural portal?” Elijah asked.

“At Stonehenge. Right in the middle of the standing stones.”

* * * * *

“So, Eora—you wanna share this plan with me?” For three
hours Nieko had trudged through the stone corridors beside Eora without saying
a word. He’d hoped she might get the message that he was angry, but if she had,
she hadn’t cared. The damn woman was singing!

He knew she was waiting him out. As always, she won. She won
because she was stronger than him. Nieko had a weakness Eora didn’t know about.
He would rather die than reveal it to her. Eora’s fascination with humans was
unusual for a Dvalinn—Nieko’s flaw branded him as a freak, a misfit, a creature
with more in common with the hated humans than with his own kind. The UDBC
would lock him away for life if they knew about his un-Dvalinn behavior.

Nieko loved the feisty woman marching alongside him, and a
true Dvalinn didn’t love anybody—ever.

If he ever needed to be reminded of how unacceptable the
concept was, all he had to do was to think of the two men Eora was so
determinedly marching in search of. Huon and Tybor should have been Dvalinn
heroes. They should be living in a major city, basking in the adulation they
deserved for having killed the hated Gatekeepers and their leader, Brian
Hopewood. Instead they lived in exile, reviled and rejected. Why? Because they
had not only brought one of the humans back with them, but they claimed to love
her and each other.