And Alexander and Aria might never make it back, and if they did, who would be waiting to greet them?
Worse, and the only thing Alexander kept thinking and still seeing, was that none of this might matter.
Because the one who found the artifact still had it.
And in his hands, that meant the end of everything.
20
Bullets tore into the elevator from twin carbines, and Orlando could make out frightened screams of the men wielding the guns. He had a glimpse of a large area, a lobby with a central desk, a few windows and a main doorway, flanked by metal detectors.
Four men in camo gear. He had a psychic glimpse of them pacing earlier, shaking their heads, screaming at each other and themselves, yelling at someone to “Get our orders!”, and then firing as a door opened and anguished administrators burst through like crazed criminals escaping their cells.
There was blood, a lot of it, on the walls and the desk and a body slumped over the terminal, but these four… they were well-trained. Disciplined mentally and physically, they were fighting the onslaught of this massive change.
Three of them fired away at the elevator as the doors opened.
“Can’t you do something?” Orlando yelled to his new friend, pressed flat against the side of the elevator cab. But she just hugged herself and kind of jumped up and down, still laughing at some internal joke.
“Guess not.” Orlando held the opposite position and just started hammering the Close Door button, but it was either extremely slow — or broken in the gunfire, and the doors remained open.
If they charge in here, it’s Game Over.
He wished he had a white flag to wave. As it were, all he could do was look into the bullet-riddled back wall, the mirrored surface, to see the men advancing, reloading, preparing to fire again.
All but one…
One with his gun pointed down. Free hand to his temple, eyes clenched. Then…
Come on, buddy, see something, do something. Help…
More bullets, some ricocheting and barely missing his head. “Damn it! Come on, don’t shoot, don’t!”
Suddenly screaming. Painful, surprised shouts. A glimpse in the mangled cab wall, and it looked like the guards were now shooting at each other. Two were down and the last two—
Orlando’s cab mate started clapping her hands, rolling back her eyes and howling.
The gunfire stopped as she spun around and calmly walked out into the lobby.
Orlando tentatively followed.
Three guards were down, slumped and twitching, full of bullets. The fourth, shot in the abdomen, was slumped against the main desk. He dropped his rifle and tried to offer a smile as they approached.
“Saw you,” he muttered through a mouthful of blood as he pointed to Orlando. “With a girl, a pretty thing…”
“What?”
“And two babies, a boy and girl with… oh god, bright gold eyes…”
“Oh,” Orlando moved past the woman and knelt by the guard. Took his hand. “You can see this? Is it…?”
He was rewarded with a look of pure confusion, but a broad smile took hold, as the eyes gazed past and through him toward somewhere else.
“There’s ice. Lots of ice. A glacier maybe…”
“Yes, what else do you see?” Orlando snapped around to check the woman’s reaction, but the crayon-smeared face was just aimed away, her head nodding to some unheard beat.
“The four of you… doing something. A sword of flame, so bright, BRIGHT, don’t go in, don’t!”
The guard shook his head, trying to dislodge the sight, but then nodded, smiling wider as he focused again, this time, right on Orlando. He squeezed his hand.
“You’re going to… save them. And end this…”
“I will,” Orlando said, like an echo to a different phrase. “I promise. And you hang on, we’ll get help.”
He shook his head, and Orlando felt a gentle hand fall on his shoulder from behind.
“His part’s done,” said the woman, and the guard just now seemed to notice her.
He smiled again as his eyes glazed over. “I see it. At the end, oh my…”
His hand squeezed Orlando’s so hard it felt like the bones were about to shatter, and then it went limp and slid through his fingers. The eyes closed, and Orlando choked back a cry.
He’d seen death so many times before, so recently, but this was different. Someone he didn’t even know, a connection at once so deep and personal, and being right here as his soul, or whatever it was, left…
It took forever to stand up, but when he did, he felt like the gentle hand on his shoulder was the one that lifted him, effortlessly, in a fluid motion.
And then they were up and walking toward the exit. To the sunshine.
And all Orlando could see in that blinding glare through the windows was an equally bright glacier, a triangular mountain of ice looming under a faded, low sun.
I’m coming…
They emerged onto a field, in a valley surrounded by tall oaks, speared with a boundary of thick Douglas firs. A chain link fence, topped with barbed wire, began at the end of a crumbling, unkept driveway, and extended toward the trees on either side.
Wispy, oblivious clouds traversed an otherwise azure sky of tranquility. To his right was a hangar — old, with chipped paint and rusted arches. No planes on a dirt runway that had been overrun with weeds.
Orlando followed the woman, who moved a little sluggishly, kind of dragging along her left leg. Did she always walk like that? He wondered what they had done to her, and for how long, before they reeled that Custodian back into her body. Were there others?
He had so many questions, and so desperately wanted to sit, focus and ponder just such an objective. But he couldn’t focus, couldn’t think of anything but getting out of here, finding his children, reuniting with Phoebe and doing whatever they had to do.
He took a moment and gazed up at the sky again, trying to picture beyond the blue innocence and see what it was causing all this fuss.
“Do not try,” the woman said. “The shield is beyond sight during the day, and only visible as an occasionally pretty aurora in the early evening.”
“Great. Silent and deadly. And we have to bring it down?”
The head turned, and red-stained teeth flashed. “We all got parts to play.”
“Can’t I give it to an understudy? I’m tapped out.”
Laughter. “I like you, Orlando Natch. And your wife. Special souls, for sure.”
“Thanks. I guess. Although I’m not sure how high that praise is, coming from someone who has hidden in a mountain for centuries and probably hasn’t seen anyone since the Flood.”
They passed across the field’s border, onto the runway as they neared the hangar, and now Orlando could see the sign above the main entrance.
ROME AIR FORCE BASE
“Ah, good old upstate New York.” He frowned, trying to remember — which wasn’t his specialty. “Wasn’t this place closed down? And a new commercial base…”
He noticed the immense grey B52, a memorial plane, parked in a side field, with a plaque and statues.
“Yes.”
“Then there should be more people here. Civilians. Employees, pilots, other aircraft. A new runway?” He stopped, turning around and around, looking about.
“Yes.” The only answer, as the woman/custodian continued — not to the hangar, but to a small shed beside it.
“What the hell does that mean? What’s happening? Where are we?”
“Wrong question.”
“Huh?” Orlando’s head spun, and his temples hurt. Bad. He realized he hadn’t felt right since returning to his body, but now it was all intensifying, or maybe after the escape adrenaline levels fell, and the pain was free to return.