Chapter 17
Again. Tina fixed her eyes at the place where she wanted to appear, her mind on the doll she held in her hand.
Her body went through the strip of darkness before it appeared before the black couch in the small living room. She looked down at her hand and a smile flashed on her face when the doll she held in her hand still had its solid shape. Yes.
This was the fifth time in a row she had managed to pull this off. She punched the air and grinned widely. Yes. She had improved. She had really improved.
She tossed the doll on the couch. Now she should try to find a practice partner again. It was a pity that Michael, who had gotten Tina to help him babysit for three months, wasn’t interested in making any new deals while Muriel was still absent, and she refused to ask Uriel. She could ask Haniel, who was behind the kitchen table at the moment working with his laptop, but if she lost him in between space he might not be able to get out of it.
She fell backward into the softness of the couch and leaned back. Time moved by so fast, too fast. She was doing her best, but what if -- No, she couldn’t think that. She would free Damon. She would. She had made a promise. To him. Her heartbeat slightly accelerated, not enough for time distortion, but enough for annoyance to rip through her. Damon. Why did she have to miss him so much? And why did he have to intrude in her thoughts so often? The jerk. A resigned sigh left her mouth. She could see him before her so clearly. The emerald green eyes, the smirk, those stupid braids. He was so close, just a dream away, and at the same time so far, with cities between them. No, countries. Probably. She didn’t know, because they still didn’t have any useful clues, and the container with Irene’s blood still hadn’t arrived at its destination and was now somewhere in the Ukraine. She sighed again.
“Hey.”
“Hi.” Tina’s eyelids fluttered open. She straightened and raised her brows at Gillian, who had a pile of beige muslin in her arms. “What’s that?”
“We are going to have a fitting.” Gillian lowered the fabric onto the coffee table.
“Fitting?”
“Hey, I thought I heard something.” Haniel strode into the room, his eyes zoomed onto the table and a wide smile stretched his lips as he stepped toward the table and the fabric. “You already made them, great.”
“Yes.” Gillian pulled two pieces out of the pile and shoved them into Haniel’s arms. “Put it on.”
“Hello.” Tina waved her hand to get Gillian’s attention. “What fitting?”
“For the suits.” Gillian gave the rest of clothes to Tina. “Try it on.”
“What suits?” Tina unfolded the fabric. A pair of pants and a jacket.
“The ones Haniel ask me to design, remember?”
“What’s the point when we still don’t have the fabric?” Tina put on the jacket. It fit her well.
“Oh, but we do.” From the pocket of her knee-length skirt Gillian pulled out a red pencil. She readjusted the Russian collar around Tina’s neck, smoothed jacket’s sides and then drew lines and markings at the excess fabric. “I’m thinking of sewing metal plates into the sleeves and pants for additional protection. Something light, but sturdy enough you could use it to block hits.”
“What do you mean ‘we do’? Since when?” Tina wrapped her hand around Gillian’s.
“Since the day before yesterday,” Gillian said. “I thought you knew.”
“No.”
“Really?” Gillian wiggled her hand out of Tina’s hold. “And there are even two of them.”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?”
“Maybe because Uriel hadn’t finished retesting them,” Gillian said. “He sent them to the Lost research centre so they could make them more wearable, but he told me he already got them back and is now doing some additional tests on them. And then as soon as he approves them -- I think it’s going to be today -- we are going to start producing those fabrics and I can use the prototypes for making suits for you.”
“Look.” Haniel burst into the living room and spun around in his beige pants and jacket. “It fits perfectly. I love it.” He wrinkled his nose. “Except for the pockets. I need more pockets, and maybe some zippers. I want zippers on the jacket.” With his fingers he drew a square on the left side of his torso. “This whole area.”
“The suits are for fighting, not for showing off.” Tina took the jacket off, folded it and put it on the table.
“Haniel likes to look pretty and I like to play with details,” Gillian said to Tina before she pulled a small notepad out from her pocket and started to write on it. “Okay. Pockets and zippers. Anything else?”
“I want zippers on the pants too. And something for my knives and my boxes.”
“Okay.”
“And could you make me a sheath for my sword, something to match the suit?”
Tina raised her brows.
Gillian nodded then focused her eyes on Tina. “Do you have any wishes?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind a loop for my blade and some pockets.”
“Just make hers like mine. And Uriel’s and Muriel’s too.”
“Maybe fewer zippers for Uriel.” Gillian closed the notepad and put it in her pocket, then turned toward Tina. “Now, try the pants.”
Tina stood up, ready to go to the room with Sarniikzi, when an alarm pierced the air. It lasted only a couple of seconds, but afterward its sound still vibrated in Tina’s ear. “Not again.”
“Be right back.” Haniel rushed out of the room.
Into the kitchen, probably, Tina thought, to check that the system back-up had worked as it should. “This happens quite a lot lately, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Gillian handed Tina pants. “Go and change.”
Tina went behind the couch, quickly changed into the pants and obediently stood while Gillian drew lines and marks on the pants. After Gillian finished with her and she had changed back into her slacks, Tina went into the kitchen.
“You’re still at your computer. Is anything wrong?”
“Sort of.” Haniel glanced at her over his shoulder before he stared at the screen again. “The attacks are getting more frequent. I have to activate additional shields.”
“What do you mean, more frequent? This was the first alarm today.” Tina wrapped her arms around Haniel’s neck and leaned her chin on his shoulder, gazing at charts, tables and rows of numbers flashing over the screen under Haniel’s typing.
“The alarm only sounds when the estate is without protection. With the backup system, when one shield fails a new one uploads instantly so the estate shouldn’t be without a shield even for a second, but as you could hear that’s not the case.” Haniel pushed a few more keys before he turned, forcing Tina to release him. “I got a call from Anael.”
“Yeah? Do you have to go to the control room?”
“Yeah, she -- actually Uriel wants me there.”
“Why? Can’t you make the adjustments from here?”
“Yes, I can but... She mentioned a lockdown, and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on anymore.”
“A lockdown?”
“Yes, a lockdown.” He frowned. “But Prva wouldn’t seal the estate away, would she? Not because of a few system breaches.”
“Seal away? What are you talking about?”
He looked up at her. “She wouldn’t do that, would she?”
“How I am supposed to know that?”
#
“Wow, this is actually a city?” Tina stared at the display of Haniel's handheld that showed her a map of the underground. “And a self-sufficient one, at that.” She furrowed her brows as she looked Haniel who sat beside her on the steel chest set on the asphalted path that framed a large patch of grass. “But why do Aradmas need to go to the city, then?”
“Because they like to go out,” Haniel said.
“Could you stop chitchatting?” Uriel leaned over Tina and pressed a few keys on the keyboard, turning off the handheld before he took it away from Tina.
“Why are you so bothered?” Haniel arched his neck backwards as he looked up at Uriel and snatched his handheld away from him. “And you still haven’t explained to us why Prva has the estate locked down and why we need to leave.”
“I already told you yesterday that she doesn’t want to bother with Deadeaters and Elders and she thinks that this is the best way to protect our people,” Nathaniel, who stood between Uriel and Michael, said.
“Yeah, right,” Tina whispered to Haniel. “And why are he and Michael even here?” She knew why Irene stood a step away from them, with her arms crossed, looking ready to start tapping her high-heeled shoe against the pavement. They couldn't leave her among the Damned. Which was a shame, really, in Tina’s opinion.
Two sides of the grass-covered area opened and long fan-like boards were the first thing Tina saw in the twilight.
A rotor? But there was another one just underneath it. Tina stared as the white giant rose up until the platform on which it stood reached ground level. A helicopter. So big.
“They are coming with us.” Uriel put his hand on her back and pushed her forward, forcing her to stand up.
“They are? Why?”
“Because it's hard to operate from the sealed-off estate.” Nathanael strode forward.
“What about Gillian?” Tina followed Nathanael.
“What about her?”
“Isn’t she going with us?”
“No.” Nathanael reached the helicopter and slid its side door open, then offered Tina his hand. “But she did give me something for you and the Dumes.” He helped her climb inside.
“Don’t tell me she already made them?” Haniel elbowed his way past Tina and slumped down on one of the seats that lined the side of the helicopter.
Tina sat beside Haniel, pulled the seat belt over her shoulder and belly and buckled it.
“Yes, she did. She worked all night to finish them.” Nathanael lowered himself onto the seat next to Haniel.
“That’s great. Where are they?” Haniel asked.
“In the box.” Nathanael pointed at the steel chest that Uriel and Michael had just set inside.
“Good.” Haniel nodded before he rummaged through the side pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a handful of chains with pendants. “Now we’ll have a whole set.”
Tina took the chain that Haniel offered to her and turned the layered square ornament around. “Is this the mask?”
“Yes.” Haniel tossed Uriel, Nathanael, Michael and Irene a pendant and stuffed the other four back into his pocket. “For Muriel, Anael and Tristian,” he answered to Tina's stare.
“Where is Anael, anyway?” Tina hung the chain around her neck. “Is she going to stay on the estate?”
“I wish,” Uriel said, after he put the necklace around his neck and buckled the seat-belt.
“You should be more grateful for our help,” a woman’s voice commented from the cockpit, and Anael’s head peeked over the high seat.
“She is driving?” Tina whispered to Haniel.
“Yes.”
Tina remembered that Haniel had told her about Anael being a technical type like him, that she was good at mechanics while he excelled at electronics, and that like him she loved everything connected with speed. So maybe Anael being in the driver’s seat shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did.
“There's nothing she can't drive.”
“Uriel, would you like to keep me company?” Anael said.
Uriel refused, but Irene asked if she could be his replacement and when Anael agreed, Irene went to the cockpit.
“Everybody fasten your seat-belts,” Anael said.
The sound of the turning rotors drowned out anything else that Anael might have said before Michael closed the door and hushed the sound. He sat down just as the helicopter lifted off the ground.
Tina twisted her upper body and looked through the round window at the panorama that spread before her. She could see the main building with the lab, the house, the wall, everything becoming smaller and smaller. Her eyes searched for that stalker-girl’s camp and her forehead wrinkled when she couldn’t find it.
She poked Haniel’s arm. “Give me some binoculars, please,” she requested, pretty sure that he had the item stored in the messenger bag that hung across his chest.
He gave them to her.
She looked through them and in the place where a container and tents should have stood, she could only see a van, a couple of lined up boxes and men that carried them into a vehicle. “The camp is gone.” She turned forward. “Did that girl give up?” That would mean that they had one less thing to worry about. Good. “I thought I would see her all panicking and stuff.”
“Oh, you mean the Macele girl,” Uriel said. “She already left and will probably give us a warm welcome when we arrive.”
“What? How does she even know where we are going?” Tina stared at Uriel, who sat on her right side. “Even I don’t know our exact location.”
“Nat’s double agent told them.”
Tina had heard that Nathanael had appointed a trustworthy Aradma to give Macele information that would benefit them, but wouldn’t it be better to get rid of the stalker? “Why?”
“Because her ability will be useful to us,” Uriel explained.
“What ability?”
“She can make copies of people,” Uriel said. “And we can use her manpower.”
Okay, that was a good ability. That was a very good ability. Tina could understand why that would come in handy to them. But... “But why would we even need it? Don’t we have people of our own that we could use?”
“If we took an army of Aradmas and Masters with us, the Elders might take it the wrong way and we might find ourselves in a war,” Nathanael answered.
“But the Elders are behind the system failure,” Haniel intervened. “The war might be inevitable.”
That was the first time Tina had heard that. She pouted. Nobody ever told her anything.
“One Elder is behind it, not all the Elders.” Nathanael laced his fingers together. “And Prva wants us to settle the matter discreetly.”
“What’s going on?” Tina poked Haniel.
“We found out who is behind the system failures.”
“Yeah, and?”
“It’s Inan,” Uriel said.
“That doesn’t tell me much.”
“He’s the second most powerful Elder,” Uriel explained.
Tina frowned. “But isn’t Prva more powerful than an Elder? Why doesn’t she just order the Numuns to grab him?” Why did they need to play a game of cat and mouse?
“Because Inan would never dare to do anything against Prva on his own, none of the Elders would,” Nathanael said. “We need to learn who is giving him the courage.”
“I don’t know why you are explaining this to her,” Anael yelled from the cockpit.
“Because she is in this as much as you are,” Uriel answered before he focused on Tina. “I don’t believe in coincidences, neither does Nat. Missing Aradma, Deadeaters and system failures have to be somehow connected.”
“But that would mean... That would mean that Petsha and that Elder had joined forces -- but that...” Tina frowned. She didn’t know much about Elders and the Damned, but if an average Aradma refused to have anything to do with the Deadeaters, a connection between an Elder and a Deadeater seemed impossible.
“Yes.” Uriel nodded. “That looks like the obvious conclusion. But we have to make sure.”
What did that mean for them? Tina gazed through the window again, at the disappearing dot that represented the estate, absently wondering if she would ever see it again.