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"HAG OF THE MOUNTAINS: Daughters of Sunrise"
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"HAG OF THE MOUNTAIN I: Daughters of the Sunrise"
3/1-3/12/2002
Helena Petrides
I.
From forty feet behind the rear of the mansion, the guard thought she heard something. She leaned forward and stared into the darkness beyond the lawn, where elm trees rose to mark the hundred acres of forest that belonged to Sunrise. The tall woman reached to her belt for her flashlight and her other hand went to her coat pocket to feel the reassuring solidity of the Ruger. Then something stung the side of her neck, burning like the worst hornet sting ever. She slapped one hand up to her neck and just had time to pluck out a thin metal needle before the drug entered her system. In a second, she was confused and disoriented enough that she could not manage to yell. In another second, she was swaying and beginning to fall.
Flashing across the distance from the trees in an instant, a gaunt man all in black leaped to catch the unconscious guard before the woman could hit the ground. Jeremy Bane propped her against the cold stone wall of the mansion where she would be out of sight. Bane rose and glared suspiciously all around. He was wearing the full field suit, black boots and heavy pants and waist-length jacket with a dozen pockets full of weapons and gadgets. The visor on his helmet was lowered, a faint greenish sheen showing its light-amplifying function was working. To him, everything even in the gloom seemed clearly lit.
The Dire Wolf spotted nothing and heard no one else in the area. The anesthetic dart pistol was holstered behind his left hip and he carried a dozen more of the darts in the lower left pocket of his jacket where he could use them by hand. So far, he had encountered only the one guard. Bane was not happy about the mission. The building he was entering was the main headquarters of the movement called Sunrise. Call it a church or a cult or just a front for criminal enterprise, it was not the usual target for him. He had doubts about his mission tonight and doubts could lead to hesitation which would be disastrous. Normally, he was focused and single-minded in his goals.
The Dire Wolf moved over to the small back door. Unclipping the Link from his belt, he took readings on the small electronic device and found no traces of an alarm system. That simplified things. He tried the door, found it unlocked and slipped through into a dim kitchen with only a single nightlight burning in one corner. The room still smelled faintly of beef stew, which must have been the evening meal for the Daughters of Sunrise. Bane moved through double swinging doors into a huge dining hall with a long table that could seat sixty people at a time, with two smaller tables flanking it. A crystal chandelier hung overhead, there were standing buffet tables and benches along the mahogany-paneled walls. This room had a single lamp burning on an end table, and by its light he saw the portrait of Father John.
Twice as large as life size, the handsome square-jawed face of a man in his early fifties smiled down with a benevolent firmness. Father John had short crisp grey hair and deepset dark eyes. This was a photograph but it had been tweaked enough that it almost seemed like a painting. Bane would see that identical portrait a dozen times throughout the mansion. Moving past the dining room, peering out carefully to a grand hall with a marble staircase, the Dire Wolf thumbed his right ear pod to raise the helmet's visor. He preferred to rely on his own senses. Deciding the coast was clear at the moment, he hurdled up the staircase faster than most people could run on a level surface and froze as he reached the first landing.
The furnishings were all solid and imposing, showing wealth without being gaudy. A row of massive wooden doors faced him, separated by chairs or potted plants or standings holding small statuary. In an open space on the opposite wall, that same portrait of Father John smiled pleasantly over a case holding a bound set of his speeches. Around the corner, the sound of quiet regular breathing could be heard. Bane stole down the hallway so silently that he seemed to float. After his decades of Kumundu training, he would need to exert a conscious effort to make noise when walking. He peeked around the corner, ready to react to any attack instantly.
Leaning back in a chair propped up against the wall behind her was another guard. This one was engrossed in a news magazine. She was dressed in a plain white blouse and dark pants, studying the magazine with a surly demeanor. She looked like someone waiting for an appointment with a doctor. Moving like a shadow, Bane took a dart from his own jacket pocket, reached around the corner and jabbed it into the side of the guard's neck before swinging back out of sight.
There was a vague grunt of discomfort, then the sound of deeper breathing. The Dire Wolf came around to catch the sleeping guard before she could slide off the chair. He set the sleeping woman up so she would stay in place, reclaimed the spent dart and then on second thought picked up the magazine from where it had fallen and spread it across the cultist's lap. He thought neither guard had gotten even a glimpse of him. The Trom-formulated drug in the darts would usually keep a person senseless for about an hour, then leave another fifteen minutes or so of nausea and dizziness. He planned on being gone long before that.
Bane opened the door nearest the slumbering guard and stepped into an office that could have belonged to an Oxford professor from an earlier generation. A massive dark wood desk with two landline phones, bookshelves with reference books and literary classics, prints of historical events on the walls, even a three-foot globe of the earth standing in one corner. This was one area where no portrait of Father John was to be seen, possibly because he did not needed to be reminded of his own presence.
Light from the open doorway was sufficient for the moment. Before he did anything else, Bane picked up the lamp on the desk and found that its base unscrewed. He opened it and stuck a small electronic device inside that adhered magnetically, tightened the base again and replaced the lamp. Taking the Link from his belt, the Dire Wolf quickly began snapping shots of loose papers on the desk, of the appointment book by the phones, of the contents of the desk drawers. He did not do more than glance at what he was photographing. There would be time to study the results later. Only the bottom drawer was locked but before he could use the Trom device to open it, he heard singing.
An eerie beautiful melody that sounded vaguely Celtic drifted up from downstairs, women's voices singing acapella. He could not make out the words and suspected they were in a language he had not heard before. Bane went down the staircase slowly, keeping close to the wall until he saw that the procession of robed figures were gazing down at their feet and not likely to spot him. They seemed to be all female, wrapped in baggy golden robes which reached to the floor and which had cowls that shrouded their heads completely.
They were proceeding at an exceedingly slow pace. Walking in single file, each cult member took a step, paused, then took the next step. They were marching at a glacial pace to match their song. As he waited impatiently, he saw that the last woman in the procession was tall, maybe five feet nine or ten, and this gave him an irresistable idea. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, he waited until the final member of the procession passed by him before acting. Holding an anesthetic dart in one hand, he clapped his other hand over the woman's mouth to clamp it shut while jabbing the dart into her neck.
In a few seconds, the cultist had gone limp. Bane placed her in the shadowed space beneath the staircase and yanked off the golden robe. The woman was quite young, high school aged, with frizzy black hair and a round face. Beneath the robe she had been wearing dark pants and white shirt but Bane hardly noticed her appearance as he was quickly tugging the robe on over his head and moving forward to join the tail end of the procession.
Hunching down slightly, the Dire Wolf was relieved to see that no one had noticed the abrupt replacement of one of their number. The entire maneuver had been quick and almost silent, and the singing had helped cover up the unavoidable rustle of cloth. Bane brought up the rear, walking with the same rhythmn as the others, head down. Ahead, he saw the line of robed figures was passing through double doors that stood open to reveal a chamber blazing with brilliant light.
II.
Full spectrum bulbs gave everything the appearance of being outside in natural sunlight. The polished wooden floor was bare and gleaming. Against the far wall, beneath a ten foot high portrait of Father John, was a raised dais with a placard depicting the yellow semi-circle of a rising sun. Thirty cult members arranged themselves in rows of five or six, one behind the other, and remained standing as the song came to its finale with a drawn-out 'Ahh-Mennnnn.' Still at the rear and grateful no one had even raised their head, much less looked back at him, Bane removed a square metal mechanism from his jacket and bent to place it on the floor just inside the doors.
The cultist who had led the procession stepped up to the dais, bowed deeply to the portrait of Father John and clapped her hands twice. The congregation responded with two handclaps of their own. Turning to face the assembly, the woman threw back her cowl to reveal a pale oval face with light reddish hair that was almost orange. Even her eyebrows were red. She seemed to be only in her middle teens. A pointed chin, pursed lips and wide nose made for a distinctive face that was interesting rather than pretty.
"Daughters of the Sunrise, rejoice! Our numbers increase. Yesterday, we welcomed Sister Emmy to our family. I have been chosen to relate to you the good news that Father John will be here in person tomorrow to address our concerns. I know we all welcome this, yet there is something I need to remind every sister here about..."
This was definitely Paige Lundborg, last of the Lundborg family of warlocks who indulged their infamous and decadent tastes for nearly a century. It was the possibility that Paige, with her immense inherited gralic potential, would be used by Father John as a weapon, that had convinced Bane to accept this mission. At the rear of the meeting chamber, he saw the motionless intensity with which the Daughters of Sunrise listened to Paige and he decided he had made the right decision.
"We of the Order of the Sunrise have been blessed with the insights and revelations of Father John himself," she announced with complete conviction. "We are the answer to a sick world that is eating itself up. Our enlightenment is like the dawn that brings light after a cold dark night of fear, and our duty is to spread that light. Is any sacrifice too great to ask of us?"
"NO! NEVER!" came the instant response from thirty voices as one.
"Whatever material goods we may own, whatever wealth we may obtain from our families or our careers, will we deny these to the Sunrise?"
"NO! NEVER!"
"The wisdom which Father John imparts to us, the tasks he places as our responsibilities, are these things we will reject?"
"NO! NEVER!"
"If we are told to steal, to lie, even to murder, are these chores too heavy for us to carry out?"
"NO! NEVER!"
"I call on you all, Daughters of the Sunrise, to work with glad hearts and strong hands to carry on the work of Father John. We have been warned that there are those who oppose us. We have been warned that spies from the government may seek to stop us in our crusade. No matter what it takes, will we allow them to stand in our way?"
"NO! NO! NEVER!"
The congregation was getting a little too worked up for safety, Bane thought as he quietly reached down and flipped a switch on the device at his feet. Instantly, a sharp odor began to permeate the meeting hall. It was Mercaptan,the chemical that manufacturers added to the odorless natural gas used for heating so that homeowners could detect leaks.
Almost at once, the cultists began to sniff and glanced around uneasily. "Forgive me, Sister Paige..." one began.
"I smell it too," their leader said. "There must be a gas leak. Sisters, remain calm and walk out the front hall. Do not run. There is a valve outside which will turn off the gas supply and then we will call the company to send repairmen. Walk now, remain calm...."
Before anyone noticed in the excitement, Bane had slipped back through the open doorway behind him. Megan Salenger had come up with the idea for the Mercaptan dispenser to harmlessly break up a large group and he reminded himself to tell her it had worked perfectly. He stepped out of sight behind the door and watched as thirty women in gold robes marched from that room toward the front hall which led outside. To give them credit, they walked quickly but in no panic at all.
The last to leave the meeting hall was Paige Lundborg, who had pulled the cowl back up over her head. She paused to close the double doors and saw Bane standing there at arm's length. "What are you doing still here?" she asked and then froze in alarm. "You're not one of us... you're a man."
Before she could call for help, Bane had lunged to her and used another of the anesthetic darts. Paige winced at feeling the sting and took a deep breath to yell but just exhaled quietly instead as she passed out. Catching the last of the Lundborgs, the Dire Wolf flung her up over one shoulder and hurried away in the opposite direction from where the cult had gone. He strode quickly through the dining room and kitchen, then paused to take a metal ovoid the size of a hen's egg from his field suit. Depressing the stud and sliding it until a click sounded, he flung the gadget back into the dining room. A thick cloud of intense black smoke exploded outward in all directions, impossible to see through and spreading rapidly.
That would keep the Daughters of the Sunrise confused and worried, he thought. Some of them were certain to be calling 911 even then. Having firetrucks and gas company crews arriving might keep them too occupied to notice him making off with their leader. He hated tying up the time of firefighters like this. It worried him that there might be a genuine fire somewhere while they were wasting time here but the danger of Paige Lundborg being brainwashed by a lunatic like Father John was too great to allow. Getting to the woods without being stopped, carrying Paige over one shoulder as if she were weightless, he ran full tilt through the trees to the side road where he had left his car.
III.
Less than an hour later, Bane rolled to a stop at a cottage in a wooded area just outside White Plains. He had leased this a year earlier for his new KDF team to use as part of their training. A pond behind the cottage was deep enough and wide enough to use for breath control practice and for experience in enduring cold water conditions. There was also a path that ran parallel to the nearby highway for several miles, enough for running while carrying weights. There was a living room, two bedrooms, a single bathroom and a kitchen, just enough for his purposes.
He did not expect to keep this place much longer. His team had reached a point where they did not need it anymore. Still, the cottage had proven useful a few times for secluded meetings with informers both from the Midnight War and the criminal underworld that it was worth the expense. Right now, it was proving to be exactly what he needed.
As he went around to the passenger seat of his Mustang, two figures hurried out the front door of the cottage to join him. Lauren Sable Reilly and Josef Jubilec were the senior members of his new team and they had gotten here earlier. Paige was still unconscious from the anesthetic dart but beginning to stir and mumble uneasily. The three Tel Shai knights carried the teenager into the cottage and placed her on the bed in the guest room. The decor was mostly Early American with lots of heavy solid furniture.
Josef was slightly taller than the six foot Bane, with a deeper chest and thickly muscled arms from a lifetime of pulling a bow. The Blind Archer had short sandy hair and dark blue eyes in a weathered face that made him seem older than his years, since he was just under thirty. As Sable and Bane had carried Paige inside, it had been Josef who scanned the area as if expected an attack at any second. Even inside, he kept listening and going to the windows to peer out suspiciously.
Just inside the front door, leaning up against the wood-panelled wall was a Y-shaped leather quiver holding a dozen arrows, with a handmade longbow next to it ready to be strung. Josef was one of the Blind Archers of Chujir, raised from infancy to master that weapon.
Standing by the bed where Paige was beginning to move around, Sable and Bane waited for her to regain consciousness. Lauren Sable Reilly was the leader of the new KDF team that Bane had recently established. Medium height, slim and athletic in her black jeans and dark green pullover, Sable was normally serious-minded but right now she was even more intense than usual. "Unicorn and Megan are standing by at headquarters," she told Bane. "When we need them to take their shifts, they're ready."
The Dire Wolf placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it briefly. "I have so many doubts about this, Sable. I am not sure I should even be allowing the team to get involved...."
"We can make our own decisions," she answered without anger. "The team has discussed this mission and it was unanimous. We're with you, Jeremy. Even if you officially stepped down as leader, for this case at least we'll follow your lead."
He still seemed obviously reluctant. "We're operating without legal justification here. I did abduct a minor without her consent and brought her to an undisclosed location. Even though her parents requested this and hired me as a PI, this is kidnapping. And you and Josef are now accessories."
"Yes," Sable said simply. "This has occured to me, of course. Even worse, we will not be concealing our identities from Paige. It is important that she come to trust us as far as her brainwashing will allow."
From the living room window, Josef announced, "Headlights coming up the drive. It's the car the Lundborg family used yesterday." As he spoke, the Blind Archer buckled the leather quiver to his back and picked up the bow. The average man on the street could not have bent that to string it, but Josef seemed to do easily. He loosened a few arrows in their slots and seemed pleased to be armed again.
"Good," Bane said, moving to join his teammate while Sable stayed to watch Paige. "Their daughter should be waking up about now. But she'll be feeling sick to her stomach for a while."
In front of the house, a well-dressed middle-aged couple emerged and walked up to the front door. Watching from the window, the Dire Wolf's voice tautened as he said, "Josef, you see that up by the main road?"
"Yes. Another car. It's idling there. Now it's moving on." The dark blue eyes narrowed. "I say the Lundborgs were followed."
The doorbell rang and Bane moved to answer it. "Sunrise must have already had watchers on their house. As soon as they realized that Paige was missing...!" He swung the door open. "Come on in. Your daughter is well and safe." He ushered them into the living room.
It was not clear from where Paige had derived her red hair and pale skin tones, since both Anton and Magda Lundborg had dark brown hair and eyes. They were ordinary looking, with nothing obvious to mark them as adepts in the occult. As they entered, the husband gave Josef a startled look.
"One of the Blind Archers of Chujir, if I'm not mistaken," he said with a vaguely Eastern European accent tinging his words. "Paige is well protected, at least."
"Oh yes," said Bane. "You can see her in a few minutes. When she wakes up from the drug, there will be some nausea and maybe vertigo but that will pass."
Anton Lundborg reluctantly held out his hand for Bane to shake. "Let's be clear, sir. There is no love lost between us. To the best of my knowledge, you are responsible for the deaths of four of my family, including my two uncles."
"We've been over this," Bane said impatiently. "They were warlocks of Red Sect. Your daughter shows signs of possessing potent gralic ability. It may manifest someday, it may not. But you tell me she knows nothing of the Midnight War and nothing of her family's founding of Red Sect."
Sable stuck her head out of the bedroom doorway. "She wants to talk to you now, Mr and Mrs Lundborg. She won't be able to walk steadily for a little while."
As Bane followed the parents into the bedroom, he glanced over at Josef. The Blind Archer nodded grimly and stayed on watch at the window facing the road. He had knotted a black silk cloth loosely around his neck that he could quickly pull up to cover his eyes. With his eyesight cut off, his gralic perception of lifeforce was strengthened and he would be able to unerringly target any person in darkness or rain or fog. It was this that made the cult of Blind Archers so feared in every realm.
Standing by the double bed on which the young girl was sitting up, Sable said, "Here are your parents, Paige."
"They are NOT my parents!" the teen yelled with startling passion. "Father John is my true father, the Daughters of Sunrise are my only family. Get them out of here! Let me leave!"
"Honey, it's us," said the mother. "What are you talking about? What have they done to you?"
Paige Lundborg swung her legs over the side of the bed but swayed, still too unsteady to stand. "They have done nothing to me. They have done everything FOR me. I have seen the light of Sunrise. Go back to the darkness where you belong."
Mrs Lundborg took a step back and raised her hand to cover her mouth. She turned to her husband. "Paige, you're not yourself," he said. "They've changed you somehow. Don't you know us?"
"I know you are instruments of the old order that must pass away," the girl announced. She tried to stand and this time made it. "The darkness that covers the world will be broken by the new dawn. Under the wisdom of Father John, peace will come to a suffering planet."
"Oh, brother," muttered Bane under his breath, drawing a sour look from Sable.
Anton Lundborg stepped closer to the bed but hesitated. His daughter was glaring at him with her teeth bared like a cornered animal. "Sweetheart, please..."
"If you touch me, I'll kill you!" Paige said. She took a hesitant step, then straightened up fully. "I'm leaving. I'm going to my Sisters. Don't try to stop me."
"You're not going anywhere tonight." The Dire Wolf gently moved the father aside and stood directly before the furious girl. "We'll see how you feel after a few days."
Paige lunged and threw a straight punch at his face with every bit of strength and speed she had. There was a soft thump and her fist stopped short in his grip. He had caught her punch in mid-air. The girl tugged and struggled but could not even make his arm move.
"Mr and Mrs Lundborg, maybe you'd better leave now," Sable said, pulling on their coat sleeves. "I don't see where it'll do any good staying here while she's like this."
"Yes, maybe you're right," the father agreed. He was staring at Paige with horrified disbelief. "She needs to be un-brainwashed or deprogrammed, whatever it's called."
"Let me go! I'll kill you!" Paige whipped up a vicious kick aimed at Bane's groin but he easily slapped it down with the palm of his free hand. "You're wasting your time," he told the girl and released her hand.
Paige seemed about to try to run past everyone but reconsidered. "Who are you people? What do you want with me?"
"We want to help you," said Sable, coming back in after escorting the parents to the living room. "Your heartbeat is dangerously fast."
"What?! How could you know that?"
"I can hear it," the Tel Shai knight said. "I can smell the adrenalin in your perspiration. I can see the dilation of your pupils. You need to calm down. Take a deep breath and hold it."
Paige dropped back down on the bed. "Obviously I can't get past this guy. But you just wait. The Daughters of Sunrise will come for me."
"That's what we're counting on," Bane answered.
IV.
Left alone with Paige, Sable folded her arms and regarded the girl calmly. "I'm not nearly as quick as my friend is," she said. "If you take a swing at me, I'd have to hurt you. So just relax. At least your pulse has dropped down to eighty a minute. I was getting worried you had tachycardia."
The blonde girl made a scoffing sound. "You can't hear my heartbeat, especially from ten feet away. That's impossible."
"I've been granted a special gift. Try this. Put your hands behind your back. Good. Now touch the first two fingers of only one hand together. Aha. It's your left."
"That's correct..." Paige said.
Sable smiled faintly. "I am fortunate that I can enhance each of my senses beyond normal limits. Unfortunately, it's not something I can teach to anyone, I developed this power unexpectedly. You had meatloaf for supper. With biscuits and jam... strawberry jam."
"You've been spying on us!" Paige cried. "How did you sneak anyone into the Sunrise House?"
"No, I can smell traces in your hair and on your clothing. You've washed your face and hands since you ate. Hmmm, Irish Spring soap? Yes."
"That was hours ago. I can't believe this."
Picking up a wooden chair from one corner, Sable brought it over and sat down at the foot of the bed. "This is why it's no use trying to mislead me, Paige. I can smell changes in your perspiration that indicate stress. I can hear subvocal tremors that indicate when you are saying something you don't believe. Right now, you are feeling more curiosity than fear."
The teen drew back upon herself, drawing her legs up on the bed and hugging her knees to her chest. "You're trying to distract me. It won't work. I will escape and return to my Sisters, no matter what it takes."
"I don't know much about Father John," Sable said. "What makes his message so special to you?"
"He has the answers we are all seeking. We sleepwalk through life, never satisfied about why we live, what we live for. Father John shows us our purpose. He points the way. I would give my life to bring about the Sunrise."
"Hmmm," Sable replied in a neutral way. "Has he written any books I could read? Are there any interviews with him in a magazine somewhere, maybe?"
"Stop trying to get me off my guard!" Paige abruptly flared up again. "You are the problem. Father John is the cure. When the great dawn lights the world, you will either greet it or be swept away."
"Well, we'll see. Tonight, at least, you might as well get some sleep. Your blink rate indicates you're exhausted. Look at it as gathering your strength to escape if you like."
"You're making fun of me," Paige said. She realize her shoes had been taken off while she had been unconscious. Slowly, reluctantly, the teen reached over to pull the blankets down and climb under them. She bunched up the pillows and wriggled around. "But that's exactly what I'll do."
Sable came over and turned off the bedside lamp. Light from the living room came through the open door. In a minute, she could tell that Paige Lundborg had drifted off into deep slumber despite resistance. Lowering herself on to the chair beside the bed, Sable watched the sleeping girl and fretted about how far gone she was. After a few more minutes, she silently rose and walked out into the living room.
Jeremy Bane was standing by the door, holding his Link to one ear. As he saw Sable, he lowered the device and whispered, "Josef is up on the roof."
"Good," she said. "We couldn't ask for a better sentry."
"Between his Blind Archer methods and your perception, I got lucky with this assignment." Bane allowed himself the faintest smile. People had to get to know him before they could detect the restrained expressions on his seemingly somber face. "How is Paige?"
"Sleeping for now," Sable answered. She shook her head and went over to drop down onto the couch against the near wall. The cottage was simply furnished, with a TV in one corner, a round table with three wooden chairs around it, shelves taking up one wall which were nearly empty except for a few magazines and random debris. "There's something odd about her body odor, Jeremy. I don't recognize it but she is either on some prescription medicine or she has been ingesting a chemical I've never detected before."
"That could be our lead," Bane said. "Maybe it's related to the brainwashing?"
"Could be." Sable cocked her head to one side. She had eyes so dark a brown that the irises seemed black as her hair, the reason why her parents had given her the middle name she went by. Now those eyes were distant as she turned up her enhanced hearing and focused it outside. "There's a car up by the road. Sounds like a Ford Econoline, V-6 engine, running a little rough. Now it's shut off."
Staying by the door, the Dire Wolf kept out of the line of sight from the window beside him. Through a Kumundu method, he could increase the sensitivity of his own hearing but never to anywhere near Sable's ability. She sat with her head tilted, looking down at the floor but not seeing it.
"There's the van doors closing," she said. "Footsteps of three people. Women. None over a hundred and thirty pounds. They're walking on the gravel, now moving off on the grass, trying to keep quiet. There goes Josef's bow. Thump thump thump, three impacts and three bodies falling. Josef got them all with the non-lethal hard rubber heads. He's coming down off the roof..."
A second later, there came two soft taps on the door before it opened. The Blind Archer held his bow in one hand and was tugging down the blindfold from over his eyes with the other. "They got here sooner than I would have thought," he said. "You want to take a look at them?"
"Sure," Bane answered. He turned back to Sable before leaving. "We may be gone a while."
She reached behind her and drew her dart gun, holding the sinister-looking weapon up beside her face. "I'm on duty, captain."
Going outside with Josef, Bane found three Daughters of the Sunrise lying unconscious on the frost-covered lawn. They were wearing the golden robes and each had a long curved dagger on the grass nearby where it had dropped as they had fallen. The Blind Archer retrieved his arrows, examined them for possible damage and reinserted them into the quiver on his back. These shafts did not have barbed or pointed heads, but ended in round balls of hard rubber. At close range, those arrows hit harder than a boxer's punch and could easily break bone.
Bane examined the three cultists and satisfied himself that they were not seriously hurt. Josef had deliberately struck glancing blows with the arrowheads. One Daughter of Sunrise was not completely unconscious and was already mumbling as she stirred. The Dire Wolf drew more of the anesthetic darts from his field jacket and jabbed each of the Sunrise members to knock them out for the next hour. He scooped up the daggers and held them up in the dim light from the cottage windows.
"Good work, Josef," he said. "I think they'll all recover with just bruises on their temple or jaw. These knives are interesting. Identical, hand-made wooden handles. I think it shows we're not dealing with a peaceful New Age cult. You ready to load these three in their own vehicle?"
"Yes." The Blind Archer had unstrung his bow and placed it carefully on the gravel path nearby. He and Bane carried the Daughters of the Sunrise up to their Ford van and propped them up in the rear seat and the front passenger seat, even buckling their seat belts on. All three were breathing deeply and evenly as the Trom drug worked in their systems.
"Here's my keys," Bane said as he tossed them for Josef to catch. "I want you to follow in my car. We'll return these ladies to their home and then vacate the cottage. It's no use to us now."
Driving to the mansion where he had carried off Paige Lundborg only a few hours earlier, the Dire Wolf parked the van near the front gate. Every light seemed to be on in the building and they could see the silhouettes of figures passing by the windows. Jumping out of the van, Bane paused. He left the door open and went to haul one of the cultists around and put her in the driver's seat. As he fastened her seat belt and turned the van off, the Dire Wolf found Josef standing beside him.
"That might confuse them a little," the Blind Archer said with a snort. "They set out to kill us and fetch the Lundborg girl, and instead they wake up still in their van an hour later."
"Let them try to figure it out. Come on, Josef, we have to get Paige to a different safe house before Father John's followers send another hit squad after us... or after her."
V.
Paige woke up to late morning sunlight slanting in through windows to her right. She was in a different bed, in a different room furnished with solid old-fashioned furniture. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the wall facing her. There was a dresser with a mirror across its top, two upholstered easy chairs and a desk. The walls were panelled. Hopelessly confused for the moment, she remembered what had happened the night before but could not decide if it had been real or had been a dream or what.
As her eyes darted back and forth, they fixed on a small blonde woman sitting in a plain wooden chair in the corner by the door. Not more than five feet tall, she had platinum-white hair past her shoulders, pale crystal blue eyes in a delicate face and was dressed all in white... sneakers, jeans and sweatshirt. The woman was remarkably pretty, and her cheerful grin as she saw Paige stir seemed genuine.
"Hey there," she called over, getting up from the chair and stretching. "I'm Ashley. Also called Unicorn. Bet you're trying to figure out what's going on. Listen. You're in a safe place. I'll be escorting you today."
"What? Am I still a prisoner? Where are the people who abducted me?"
"That's looking at it completely the wrong way," Ashley told her. "There's the little girls' room to your left. I'll wait here."
As soon as the blonde said that, Paige realized how urgently she needed that bathroom. She jumped out of bed and hurried in, slamming the door behind her. When she emerged a few minutes later, drying her hands on a washcloth, she seemed calmer. "Who are you people? I demand to be released. The Sisters will be worried about me."
"Your so-called Sisters have already sent a hit squad after you," Ashley said. "But I figure you won't believe anything I tell you today. That's okay. Healing takes time." She picked up a cardboard box from the floor and plopped it down on the dresser. "You're the same size as one of our members, so she donated some underwear and shirts and stuff for while you're here. It's all been laundered."
"Oh no. I'm leaving now. Don't try to stop me."
"Right. If you only knew. You're not going anywhere for the next day or so. Your Father John is supposed to be in the country tomorrow, and we have reason to believe he will make an appearance at that snake pit where you were staying." The Unicorn walked past Paige to the half-open door of the bedroom and gestured for her to follow. "Come on, time for late breakfast or early lunch or whatever you want to call it."
Grudgingly, but thinking she might see an moment to escape, the last of the Lundborgs followed the blonde out into a hallway. There was a small elevator to their right, but Ashley headed instead for the wide staircase which was set in the center of the floor plan. That floor seemed to consist of rooms identical to the one where she had just awoken, with chest-high bookcases filling the spaces between doors. Hundreds of old books jammed those shelves. "What is this place? You're not the police."
"Damn straight we're not the police," Ashley answered as she headed quickly down three flights to the ground floor. They were standing in a hall, also lined with bookshelves but with a reception room to their right. To their left was the open door of a modern emergency ward, complete with three hospital beds and fully stocked medical equipment. Paige was surprised at seeing this, but her real attention stayed on the front door. Next to it was an umbrella stand and wall hooks for coats, three of which were hanging on them at the moment.
Seeing where Paige's eyes were fixed, Unicorn said, "Forget it. You couldn't get that door open with a hand grenade. Come on, the kitchen is back here."
Finally, Paige Lundborg allowed herself to be dragged into a snug kitchen of dark wood and gleaming stainless steel, with wall cabinets on all sides. In a nook under a window from which sunlight streamed sat a round table with five narrow chairs. On the table sat a ceramic bowl piled with bananas, pears, tangerines and lemons. The redheaded girl pulled out one of the chairs and sat rather stiffly upright in it, hands in her lap.
Unicorn washed her hands in steaming hot water before beginning, then hauled down a frying pan from its hook on the wall. Yanking items from the refrigerator, she laid out ten strips of bacon in the pan. As the sizzling began, Ashley placed a wooden chopping board on a butcher's block and began slicing thin pieces of a tomato. "My BLTs are the best," she declared in what seemed to be characteristic confidence in her every ability. "The reason why they're so good is that I'm the one making them."
Despite her fear and anger, Paige could not conceal a smile. This blonde girl was so exuberant and oblivious that it was hard to hate her. Yet she was one of the captors keeping her here when she needed to return to Sunrise House. She watched as the Unicorn took a head of Iceberg lettuce and went over to the sink.
"Rinsing with cold cold water is essential," Ashley began. As she stood by the sink, her back was turned for an instant and Paige leaped up and dove across the kitchen. To her complete shock, the Lundborg girl was stopped short as a tiny hand clenched in the back of her shirt collar and brought her up short. Even though she was considerably smaller than the Daughter of Sunrise, Unicorn simply snatched her to a stop in mid-stride and threw her back to plop in the same chair she had been sitting in.
"That's not going to get you anywhere," Ashley said as casually as if nothing had happened. "At least you didn't make me drop the lettuce."
"My God, you're strong for such a tiny thing."
"Absolutely. Okay, back to the BLT. We flip the bacon and put these beautiful thick slices of whole wheat bread in the toaster. I need some paper towels for the grease." As she moved around the kitchen, the little blonde did not seem to be watching Paige but somehow her feet were always planted so that she would be braced against an attack.
In a few more minutes, Unicorn had everything ready and was cutting the sandwiches in half diagonally. "For one horrifying second, I thought we were out of mayo! What a freaking nightmare that would be. Here we go. A glass of cranberry juice and a glass of ice water for each of us." Pulling out a chair facing Paige, Ashley dug into her BLT and seemed to take it for granted that the prisoner would do the same.
In fact, Paige Lundborg had been telling herself she should go on a hunger strike to force these strangers to release her. But something about Ashley's casual attitude seem to catch her off guard and she found herself eating the BLT before she realized it. Finishing half right away, she saw the blonde watching her expectantly and said, "It really is good."
"You bet your ass it's good," Unicorn said. "Wait'll you try my chili. Anyway, here we go. I'm gonna tell you a lot of stuff and you won't believe any of it."
"What--I don't understand."
"I know, you don't think you've been brainwashed by a cult. You think you've joined a spiritual movement that will free the world. Right? I'm not going to argue with you about that. I hate even discussing local politics. But I am going to reveal some stuff to you about your family. Your grandfather and great-uncle, for example. Clinton and Henry Lundborg."
Paige decided to say nothing. Let this woman talk. She was living in darkness like all those who had not taken the great Sunrise in their hearts. The redhead took another bite and waited without expecting to really listen.
"They were warlocks. They founded Red Sect, which uses sorcery to get rich and throw orgies and kill anyone they don't like. Your family has always been involved in Black Magick. I know, I'm sure your folks told you the family wealth came from real estate and iron foundries, but seriously.. has your father ever gone to an office? Have you ever seen him following the stock market or calling his accountants? Of course not. It's Black Magick that pays for everything."
"You're right about one thing, I don't believe any of this." Paige wiped her mouth with a paper napkin from a dispenser on the table.
"Hah! You could eat another one, huh? Two BLTs are overdoing it though, I think. Anyway, from the time you were in diapers you've been exposed to a lot of gralic energy and spells and rituals and stuff. Usually, that's means you're almost certain to develop some attributes of your own. It's called 'the dragon within.' And now, in your teens when puberty has really kicked in, is when your wild talent is likely to manifest."
Paige's face had gone taut and pale. Her voice sounded choked. "How long have you been spying on me and my family?"
"Huh? Ohhhh, I get it. Your gift has already started to manifest." Ashley grabbed the empty plates and tumblers and took them over to the sink. "So, tell me. This Father John guy, where was he born? What's his nationality?"
"Why, he..." Paige's voice trailed off into silence.
"No one has ever mentioned it, huh? How old is he? Was he ever married? Ever been in prison? You don't know, do you?"
"It doesn't matter!" Paige jumped to her feet and seemed about to make another run for it but caught herself. "It's his message that's important! The revelations he has for us. That is why I want to learn more about."
"Uh-huh," Ashley said, wiping her hands after doing the dishes. "Well, I'm not here to debate you. If you do start to levitate or grow an extra pair of eyes, at least now you'll know why."
"Listen to me," the Lundborg girl said in a sudden urgent tone. "Do you know the penalty for kidnapping? It's a capital offense. You and your friends abducted me and have kept me prisoner for at least twelve hours now. And I'm a minor! I just turned seventeen. If you let me go right now, I swear I won't lead the authorities to you. Otherwise, you guys are looking at life in prison or maybe the death penalty if we crossed any state lines."
"Oh, I've pulled so many felonies already that a few more don't matter," Ashley replied. "Honestly. If I was brought up on half of what I've done, I'd be behind bars the rest of my life anyway."
"And this doesn't bother you?"
The little blonde flashed a smile that would have been at home in a TV commercial for whiteners. "Nope. I've got some decent fake identities set up here and there. Anyway, Tel Shai knights don't serve the law... they serve justice."
VI.
They spent most of the afternoon in the rec room, curled up on a wall couch binge-watching Korean soap operas. The gigantic TV screen was so large and so detailed that it felt like looking through a window at real people. Hooked up to satellites, the system had thousands of channels available but Ashley pushed for Korean dramas.
"They are SO emotional and over the top, it's simply great. See, in this one, BITTER TEARS OF TOMORROW, the mother thinks the daughter has some fatal disease but she's really pregnant but it's with a guy from a poor family. They've been going to meet each other at the airport for three episodes now. I don't know if they're ever gonna actually make it there." Ashley tucked her legs under her and studied the English subtitles. "No no no, don't stop to call your husband! Go talk to your daughter before the plane leaves! You dummy."
Despite her determination to remain coldly furious, Paige got drawn into the drama after the first episode. There was so much over-reaction and meaningful glances and sobbing behind closed doors that she found herself watching intently. "Wait, where did those kids come from?"
"Those are Insun-Choi's from her first marriage," Ashley answered without taking her eyes off the screen. "Her husband fell off a fishing boat during a storm but I think he's not really dead..."
Suddenly Paige jumped off the couch and started yelling. "You're trying to lead me away from the Sunrise! My sisters must be searching for me even now. When they find us, they will kill you. You and your accomplices in this kidnapping."
"Kill us?" asked Ashley. "That doesn't sound very enlightened to me."
"Father John has many enemies. Those who live in darkness fear the light. Father John teaches us we must defend ourselves against those who would turn us from the Sunrise." Paige glared murderously at Ashley, who had not moved and who blithely returned that stare with a friendly smile.
Unexpectedly, three soft thwacking noises sounded and three wooden-hilted knives were sticking up from the hardwood floor in front of Paige's feet. She gasped at the surprise and at how close the points had come to her toes in the soft sneakers.
Standing in the doorway, Jeremy Bane was just drawing his arm back from the final throw. His grey eyes always seemed watchful and unfriendly, but with his brows lowered he was an unsettling sight. "I believe you recognize these."
The last of the Lundborgs bent her knees and leaned forward, one hand descending toward the daggers. She stopped short at the cold voice from the doorway, "You know better. Either Unicorn or I could just take them away from you without getting scratched. Who makes these?"
"We do." Paige straightened up, defiant again. "Just as we sew our robes and grow much of our food. Father John wants us to be able to defend ourselves against those who remain in darkness. Like you!"
The Dire Wolf stepped into the room and stood just out of arm's reach of the girl. "We took these away from three of your so-called Sisters who were sneaking up on us last night. They had these drawn and ready to use."
"In self-defense! They were coming to rescue me. Why are you holding me? What could you possibly want? I've given all my worldly goods to Sunrise. I have nothing that you could want."
Bane did not answer directly. He stepped over to tug the three knives out of the floor and stowed them in a cabinet high up in one corner of the room. "Unicorn, do you have your horn nearby?"
Ashley reached behind herself on the couch and held up the three foot tapering leather sheath. "You bet, captain."
"Good," said Bane. "Paige, I hate to say it but there are a hundred cults like Sunrise all over the world, with thousands of eager believers who under control. We don't tackle them all. To be blunt, new ones would just pop up to fill the vaccuum. There are always sheep looking for a slaughterhouse."
"Sunrise is not like that!" the Lundborg girl shouted in his face. "You make yourself feel look like a fool. We are the ones fortunate enough to see the light. Soon the new dawn will sweep the world of his ignorance."
"Has Unicorn told you about your family history?" he asked.
When Paige did not answer but merely stared, Ashley spoke up from the couch. "Yep. She knows all about the Lundborgs and Red Sect."
"That's one reason why we're interested in you. You might manifest gralic ability soon. And, to be honest, I think that's why this Sunrise bunch has treated you so well. At seventeen, being made Head Cheerleader or whatever your role is called, over other cultists who have been there longer... it's clear they want something from you."
"I'm not listening to anything you have to say," the Lundborg girl snapped and stomped over to plop down in a chair facing both Bane and Ashley. "You are bringing the darkness with you. I wait for the Sunrise to bring light."
"Well, heck," muttered Ashley, "Just when the next episode of BITTER TEARS OF TOMORROW is starting." She thumbed the remote control to make the TV blink off.
"We've been doing research on your 'Father John.' Paige, he is not the real head of your movement. We have reason to believe he is just the public spokesman. Behind him is someone very old and malicious. Father John is just a face presented to the cult members because meeting the real leader would terrify them." He stepped closer and coldly gazed down at the suddenly uneasy Lundborg girl. "But you'll find out for yourself. We're going to return you to Sunrise House."
Paige sat up straight. "You are? I'm going home?"
"Not to your parents, no. We're bringing you back to the cult center," Bane told her. "And I guarantee that you will learn things about Sunrise and about Father John that you are not going to like."
VII.
Once again, Paige Lundborg came groggily back to awareness in a strange situation. She was sitting in the back seat of a four-door Toyota, strapped into place. Her mind took a few minutes to stabilize and take everything in. It was dark outside, night had fallen, and they were sitting on the road outside the Sunrise House. She could see the gates and the low stone wall that ran around the grounds. Paige felt slightly nauseous and she groaned, moving her head.
Next to her, the blonde called Unicorn was holding up a hand to support her. "Hey guys," she chirped, "Our guest is back among the conscious population."
Paige looked around the interior of the car. Behind the wheel was the dark-haired woman with the enhanced senses, sitting in the front passenger seat was the archer, whatever his name was. "Where's the mean one?" she asked, "the one with the pale eyes?"
"Oh, he's nearby, doing what he should be doing," Unicorn said blandly. "Do you feel like you could walk?"
"Yes. Let me go. Right now!"
"Suit your own self," Unicorn said. "But I haveta warn you, you're in for some unpleasant surprises."
In the front seat, Sable reached for a switch and unlocked all four car doors. Paige wriggled out of her seat belt and its straps, jumped out of the car and ran through the open gate toward Sunrise House without looking back. It was freezing and she didn't have a coat but she hardly noticed. The redhead raced up to the front door just as it opened from within.
Two tall women she did not recognize met her at the door and waved her in. They were not wearing the golden robes of the Sunrise, but dark slacks and open jackets over plain white shirts. The women had their hair pulled severely back into buns at the back of their heads, and their bony faces were hard and unwelcoming.
"It's me, I'm safe, I came back!" Paige yelled in her excitement. "I must speak with Sister Hannah right away."
"Must you, now?" said one of the women, taking Paige by the arm with a grip tighter than seemed really necessary. "Come with us."
As they marched through the huge reception hall and up the wide marble staircase, Paige glimpsed other Sisters of the Sunrise in their gold robes. But they were watching her with angry, even hostile stares. There was no welcome in their faces. What was wrong? Why wasn't everyone glad to see her? Who were these stern women?
Almost dragged off her feet up the staircase to the first floor landing, Paige tried to get loose but the strange women held her without difficulty. Two more of them were standing on guard in front of the office door. When they saw Paige Lundborg being hauled before them, one of them turned and rapped sharply with her knuckles on the door before opening it. "My lord, the lost one is here."
"Bring her in," answered a deep, resonant voice.
Six different lamps were burning in that brilliantly lit office, including an overhead bulb in a frosted glass globe, two wrought-iron wall lamps and two reading lamps on the desk. Seated behind that desk, wearing an expensive tailored business suit complete with vest, was an imposing figure. Father John was taller than she had expected, with wide shoulders and large powerful hands folded before him. The familiar face she had studied for so long on posters and pamphlets produced a jolt of recognition when seen in the flesh.
"Father John...?" she whispered.
"Sister Paige," he answered in an unfriendly tone. "Kallikaronti, release her but stand by."
Flung to her knees in front of the desk, Paige leaped up and her temper snapped. She moved to attack one of the tall women but halted as she saw the point of a dagger held within an inch of her throat.
"You do not know your peril at this moment," Father John barked at her. "These are the Kallikaronti! They are raised from the cradle to be warriors and guardians. They live to serve only the Hag of the Mountains... and, through her, my humble self."
"I don't understand!" the young girl cried. "Why am I being treated this way? I have done everything that was asked of me. I have served the Sunrise fully, with an open heart. What is going on?"
One of the strange women backhanded Paige so hard across the face that the teen saw lights flash as she fell to the plush carpeting. She cried out in both pain and outrage, but before she could rise by herself, a Kallikaronti forced her up into a kneeling position with her head bowed.
"Show proper respect to our lord," the strongwoman growled in a heavy accent.
"Paige Lundborg, you left this house last night in the company of an outsider," said Father John.
"I was abducted!" the girl objected. "I was taken against my will."
"So you say. Three Daughters of the Sunrise had been watching the home of your former parents. They followed that man and woman to a cottage in White Plains. When the Daughters approached the cottage to retrieve you, they saw a blindfolded man with a bow on the roof and they were struck down with blunt-headed arrows. There is only one Blind Archer operating in the Western world at this time. He is a knight of Tel Shai and a member of the Kenneth Dred Foundation."
"Those were my kidnappers," Paige began, but one of the Kallikaronti cuffed her on the side of the head. Those blows seriously hurt and Paige was silent afterwards.
"We know the knights of Tel Shai work with a telepath. We know they have used Velkandu truth serums and hypnosis." Father John unclasped his hands and slapped them down flat on the desk before him. "We must conclude that they learned everything you know about Sunrise... and our Great Plan."
"No, no, you're wrong!" Paige said, struggling ineffectually to rise as the woman behind her effortlessly kept her kneeling. "I gave away nothing! What do I even know?"
"So you say," repeated the man behind the desk. He shook his head once. "Too much is at stake to be careless. The Hag of the Mountain has made her wishes clear. We have to assume these Tel Shai knights know whatever you know... and that you must pay the price for allowing yourself to be taken."
Behind Paige, the woman seized her hair and tilted her head back with a jerk, exposing her throat. Another of the Kallikaronti stepped forward and drew one of the wooden-handled daggers from her jacket. She bent over Paige and pressed the edge of the knife against the girl's neck.
"Let it be done," Father John ordered.
"You are not going to kill me," said Paige Lundborg in a deep, echoing voice that was not her own. "I'm going to live." She turned eyes that shone with a lambent crimson gleam on the cultists around her as a concussive wave of force detonated around her to fling the Kallikaronti violently across the room.
VII.
The blast emanated in a circle from Paige, hurling Father John out of his chair onto the floor, dislodging framed photos off the walls, slamming a lamp over on its side. There was a deep thumping noise like a bass drum being struck. The cult women hit the walls with bruising force, striking hard enough to bounce off and lie still after they fell.
Rising to her feet with a sudden deadly assurance, Paige Lundborg looked around her. It was all true. She watched Father John scramble back up onto his feet and he did not seem so imposing to her now. Within her body, swirling like currents in a pool, she felt gralic force crackle and ready itself to strike again.
Father John yanked open the center drawer of his desk and came up with a Browning 9mm HP pistol. With that semi-automatic in his hand, he seemed more confident. "This is what the Hag of the Mountain warned us about," he said. "You have the witch blood within you."
Completely unafraid, Paige stepped toward him with her open hands raised. "To think how much I trusted you. I believed everything you said. I would have followed you into a volcano. How could I have been so naive? I swear, I'll never be fooled like that again!"
Extending his arm full length, Father John took aim at the young girl's face... and unexpectedly, an iron hand gripped him by the shoulder to swing him around right into an uppercut that forced his head back so far that his chin pointed up at the ceiling. He fell like a corpse.
Standing over the stunned man, Jeremy Bane lowered his fist. "I didn't want you to kill him, Paige. He knows too much that we need to learn."
"What the hell, where did you come from?" she yelped.
"Down off the roof," Bane answered. He gestured at the open window behind him, its curtains flapping in a breeze from the chill night outside. "I tied a cord to the chimney and was watching the whole thing. If the window had been locked, I suppose I would have had to crash through but it was already open a crack."
"He was going to have me killed," Paige said. "These horrible women were really going to cut my throat right here and now. Sunrise was lies, all lies!"
The Dire Wolf bent over Father John. "He'll be out for a while. I should have pulled that punch a bit more but I was annoyed with him. You heard what he said about the Hag of the Mountain?"
"What does that mean? I don't understand any of this."
"There are three ancient witches, sisters some say, who have been feuding for centuries. The Hags. One of the Sea, one of the Mountain, one of the Desert. I've been looking for an opening that would lead me to them. It seems Father John was running this Sunrise scam for the Hag of the Mountains." He knelt down, threw the limp form over one shoulder and stood up as easily as if Father John weighed nothing at all. "I want to ask him some questions."
"Wait, what about me?" Paige asked. "I hate to admit it, but I'm all confused. If I go back to my family, will these killer women follow me? Do I have to go on the run?"
Bane studied her unemotionally for a long moment. "Honestly, you'd be safer with us than anywhere else. Do you feel comfortable with my team? Unicorn, Sable, myself?"
The Lundborg girl did not hesitate. "Yes. I do. I think you're good people. For now at least, I'll go with you guys."
"Good. We can also give you some training on how to use your new ability. That was a force pulse that seems to be your body defending itself." He watched her without any noticeable enthusiasm. "Maybe we can bring you to Tel Shai for a while, I don't know if the Teachers would take you but it's worth a try."
"But how are we going to get out of here? There are fifty Sisters here. They'll swarm over us like army ants. And what if there's more of these big killer women?"
"Oh, the Kallikaronti? I can handle them." Bane walked toward the open window with Father John over one shoulder. "Listen. Just outside the Sunrise House grounds, Sable and Unicorn are waiting in the car that brought you here. Josef is nearby in our other car. I'm going to carry Father John here down to the ground, then I'll climb back up and carry you. Just stay put, this will only take a few seconds."
"I can climb down a rope, I'm in good shape."
"This is a thin silk cord. You'd slice your hands open. Just wait." With that, Bane climbed out the window with the unconscious man still draped over one shoulder and disappeared.
Left behind, Paige Lundborg snapped her head around as she heard one of the Kallikaronti moan. Those women were stirring. She realized that the feeling of potent energy swirling within her body had dissipated and she wasn't sure if she could summon it again. What if this Bane abandoned her? It was certainly a night for betrayal and disillusionment. But a second later, the gaunt figure in black dove nimbly back in through the window again.
Standing next to Paige, Bane noticed the Kallikaronti beginning to revive. "Time to get moving," he said. "Get behind me. Put your arms up under my arms and hold on as tight as you can." As soon as she complied, the Dire Wolf crawled out the window again, seized the dark cord hanging from the roof and descended to the ground with her clinging to him. He sped down the cord almost as quickly as if he had been falling. As Paige disengaged herself, feeling a bit shaky at that rapid descent, Bane flung Father John over his shoulder again and ran off into the night. Paige followed him with sudden mixed feelings of uneasiness and hope. Everything she believed in had been shaken.
11/18/2016
"HAG OF THE MOUNTAIN I: Daughters of the Sunrise"
3/1-3/12/2002
Helena Petrides
I.
From forty feet behind the rear of the mansion, the guard thought she heard something. She leaned forward and stared into the darkness beyond the lawn, where elm trees rose to mark the hundred acres of forest that belonged to Sunrise. The tall woman reached to her belt for her flashlight and her other hand went to her coat pocket to feel the reassuring solidity of the Ruger. Then something stung the side of her neck, burning like the worst hornet sting ever. She slapped one hand up to her neck and just had time to pluck out a thin metal needle before the drug entered her system. In a second, she was confused and disoriented enough that she could not manage to yell. In another second, she was swaying and beginning to fall.
Flashing across the distance from the trees in an instant, a gaunt man all in black leaped to catch the unconscious guard before the woman could hit the ground. Jeremy Bane propped her against the cold stone wall of the mansion where she would be out of sight. Bane rose and glared suspiciously all around. He was wearing the full field suit, black boots and heavy pants and waist-length jacket with a dozen pockets full of weapons and gadgets. The visor on his helmet was lowered, a faint greenish sheen showing its light-amplifying function was working. To him, everything even in the gloom seemed clearly lit.
The Dire Wolf spotted nothing and heard no one else in the area. The anesthetic dart pistol was holstered behind his left hip and he carried a dozen more of the darts in the lower left pocket of his jacket where he could use them by hand. So far, he had encountered only the one guard. Bane was not happy about the mission. The building he was entering was the main headquarters of the movement called Sunrise. Call it a church or a cult or just a front for criminal enterprise, it was not the usual target for him. He had doubts about his mission tonight and doubts could lead to hesitation which would be disastrous. Normally, he was focused and single-minded in his goals.
The Dire Wolf moved over to the small back door. Unclipping the Link from his belt, he took readings on the small electronic device and found no traces of an alarm system. That simplified things. He tried the door, found it unlocked and slipped through into a dim kitchen with only a single nightlight burning in one corner. The room still smelled faintly of beef stew, which must have been the evening meal for the Daughters of Sunrise. Bane moved through double swinging doors into a huge dining hall with a long table that could seat sixty people at a time, with two smaller tables flanking it. A crystal chandelier hung overhead, there were standing buffet tables and benches along the mahogany-paneled walls. This room had a single lamp burning on an end table, and by its light he saw the portrait of Father John.
Twice as large as life size, the handsome square-jawed face of a man in his early fifties smiled down with a benevolent firmness. Father John had short crisp grey hair and deepset dark eyes. This was a photograph but it had been tweaked enough that it almost seemed like a painting. Bane would see that identical portrait a dozen times throughout the mansion. Moving past the dining room, peering out carefully to a grand hall with a marble staircase, the Dire Wolf thumbed his right ear pod to raise the helmet's visor. He preferred to rely on his own senses. Deciding the coast was clear at the moment, he hurdled up the staircase faster than most people could run on a level surface and froze as he reached the first landing.
The furnishings were all solid and imposing, showing wealth without being gaudy. A row of massive wooden doors faced him, separated by chairs or potted plants or standings holding small statuary. In an open space on the opposite wall, that same portrait of Father John smiled pleasantly over a case holding a bound set of his speeches. Around the corner, the sound of quiet regular breathing could be heard. Bane stole down the hallway so silently that he seemed to float. After his decades of Kumundu training, he would need to exert a conscious effort to make noise when walking. He peeked around the corner, ready to react to any attack instantly.
Leaning back in a chair propped up against the wall behind her was another guard. This one was engrossed in a news magazine. She was dressed in a plain white blouse and dark pants, studying the magazine with a surly demeanor. She looked like someone waiting for an appointment with a doctor. Moving like a shadow, Bane took a dart from his own jacket pocket, reached around the corner and jabbed it into the side of the guard's neck before swinging back out of sight.
There was a vague grunt of discomfort, then the sound of deeper breathing. The Dire Wolf came around to catch the sleeping guard before she could slide off the chair. He set the sleeping woman up so she would stay in place, reclaimed the spent dart and then on second thought picked up the magazine from where it had fallen and spread it across the cultist's lap. He thought neither guard had gotten even a glimpse of him. The Trom-formulated drug in the darts would usually keep a person senseless for about an hour, then leave another fifteen minutes or so of nausea and dizziness. He planned on being gone long before that.
Bane opened the door nearest the slumbering guard and stepped into an office that could have belonged to an Oxford professor from an earlier generation. A massive dark wood desk with two landline phones, bookshelves with reference books and literary classics, prints of historical events on the walls, even a three-foot globe of the earth standing in one corner. This was one area where no portrait of Father John was to be seen, possibly because he did not needed to be reminded of his own presence.
Light from the open doorway was sufficient for the moment. Before he did anything else, Bane picked up the lamp on the desk and found that its base unscrewed. He opened it and stuck a small electronic device inside that adhered magnetically, tightened the base again and replaced the lamp. Taking the Link from his belt, the Dire Wolf quickly began snapping shots of loose papers on the desk, of the appointment book by the phones, of the contents of the desk drawers. He did not do more than glance at what he was photographing. There would be time to study the results later. Only the bottom drawer was locked but before he could use the Trom device to open it, he heard singing.
An eerie beautiful melody that sounded vaguely Celtic drifted up from downstairs, women's voices singing acapella. He could not make out the words and suspected they were in a language he had not heard before. Bane went down the staircase slowly, keeping close to the wall until he saw that the procession of robed figures were gazing down at their feet and not likely to spot him. They seemed to be all female, wrapped in baggy golden robes which reached to the floor and which had cowls that shrouded their heads completely.
They were proceeding at an exceedingly slow pace. Walking in single file, each cult member took a step, paused, then took the next step. They were marching at a glacial pace to match their song. As he waited impatiently, he saw that the last woman in the procession was tall, maybe five feet nine or ten, and this gave him an irresistable idea. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, he waited until the final member of the procession passed by him before acting. Holding an anesthetic dart in one hand, he clapped his other hand over the woman's mouth to clamp it shut while jabbing the dart into her neck.
In a few seconds, the cultist had gone limp. Bane placed her in the shadowed space beneath the staircase and yanked off the golden robe. The woman was quite young, high school aged, with frizzy black hair and a round face. Beneath the robe she had been wearing dark pants and white shirt but Bane hardly noticed her appearance as he was quickly tugging the robe on over his head and moving forward to join the tail end of the procession.
Hunching down slightly, the Dire Wolf was relieved to see that no one had noticed the abrupt replacement of one of their number. The entire maneuver had been quick and almost silent, and the singing had helped cover up the unavoidable rustle of cloth. Bane brought up the rear, walking with the same rhythmn as the others, head down. Ahead, he saw the line of robed figures was passing through double doors that stood open to reveal a chamber blazing with brilliant light.
II.
Full spectrum bulbs gave everything the appearance of being outside in natural sunlight. The polished wooden floor was bare and gleaming. Against the far wall, beneath a ten foot high portrait of Father John, was a raised dais with a placard depicting the yellow semi-circle of a rising sun. Thirty cult members arranged themselves in rows of five or six, one behind the other, and remained standing as the song came to its finale with a drawn-out 'Ahh-Mennnnn.' Still at the rear and grateful no one had even raised their head, much less looked back at him, Bane removed a square metal mechanism from his jacket and bent to place it on the floor just inside the doors.
The cultist who had led the procession stepped up to the dais, bowed deeply to the portrait of Father John and clapped her hands twice. The congregation responded with two handclaps of their own. Turning to face the assembly, the woman threw back her cowl to reveal a pale oval face with light reddish hair that was almost orange. Even her eyebrows were red. She seemed to be only in her middle teens. A pointed chin, pursed lips and wide nose made for a distinctive face that was interesting rather than pretty.
"Daughters of the Sunrise, rejoice! Our numbers increase. Yesterday, we welcomed Sister Emmy to our family. I have been chosen to relate to you the good news that Father John will be here in person tomorrow to address our concerns. I know we all welcome this, yet there is something I need to remind every sister here about..."
This was definitely Paige Lundborg, last of the Lundborg family of warlocks who indulged their infamous and decadent tastes for nearly a century. It was the possibility that Paige, with her immense inherited gralic potential, would be used by Father John as a weapon, that had convinced Bane to accept this mission. At the rear of the meeting chamber, he saw the motionless intensity with which the Daughters of Sunrise listened to Paige and he decided he had made the right decision.
"We of the Order of the Sunrise have been blessed with the insights and revelations of Father John himself," she announced with complete conviction. "We are the answer to a sick world that is eating itself up. Our enlightenment is like the dawn that brings light after a cold dark night of fear, and our duty is to spread that light. Is any sacrifice too great to ask of us?"
"NO! NEVER!" came the instant response from thirty voices as one.
"Whatever material goods we may own, whatever wealth we may obtain from our families or our careers, will we deny these to the Sunrise?"
"NO! NEVER!"
"The wisdom which Father John imparts to us, the tasks he places as our responsibilities, are these things we will reject?"
"NO! NEVER!"
"If we are told to steal, to lie, even to murder, are these chores too heavy for us to carry out?"
"NO! NEVER!"
"I call on you all, Daughters of the Sunrise, to work with glad hearts and strong hands to carry on the work of Father John. We have been warned that there are those who oppose us. We have been warned that spies from the government may seek to stop us in our crusade. No matter what it takes, will we allow them to stand in our way?"
"NO! NO! NEVER!"
The congregation was getting a little too worked up for safety, Bane thought as he quietly reached down and flipped a switch on the device at his feet. Instantly, a sharp odor began to permeate the meeting hall. It was Mercaptan,the chemical that manufacturers added to the odorless natural gas used for heating so that homeowners could detect leaks.
Almost at once, the cultists began to sniff and glanced around uneasily. "Forgive me, Sister Paige..." one began.
"I smell it too," their leader said. "There must be a gas leak. Sisters, remain calm and walk out the front hall. Do not run. There is a valve outside which will turn off the gas supply and then we will call the company to send repairmen. Walk now, remain calm...."
Before anyone noticed in the excitement, Bane had slipped back through the open doorway behind him. Megan Salenger had come up with the idea for the Mercaptan dispenser to harmlessly break up a large group and he reminded himself to tell her it had worked perfectly. He stepped out of sight behind the door and watched as thirty women in gold robes marched from that room toward the front hall which led outside. To give them credit, they walked quickly but in no panic at all.
The last to leave the meeting hall was Paige Lundborg, who had pulled the cowl back up over her head. She paused to close the double doors and saw Bane standing there at arm's length. "What are you doing still here?" she asked and then froze in alarm. "You're not one of us... you're a man."
Before she could call for help, Bane had lunged to her and used another of the anesthetic darts. Paige winced at feeling the sting and took a deep breath to yell but just exhaled quietly instead as she passed out. Catching the last of the Lundborgs, the Dire Wolf flung her up over one shoulder and hurried away in the opposite direction from where the cult had gone. He strode quickly through the dining room and kitchen, then paused to take a metal ovoid the size of a hen's egg from his field suit. Depressing the stud and sliding it until a click sounded, he flung the gadget back into the dining room. A thick cloud of intense black smoke exploded outward in all directions, impossible to see through and spreading rapidly.
That would keep the Daughters of the Sunrise confused and worried, he thought. Some of them were certain to be calling 911 even then. Having firetrucks and gas company crews arriving might keep them too occupied to notice him making off with their leader. He hated tying up the time of firefighters like this. It worried him that there might be a genuine fire somewhere while they were wasting time here but the danger of Paige Lundborg being brainwashed by a lunatic like Father John was too great to allow. Getting to the woods without being stopped, carrying Paige over one shoulder as if she were weightless, he ran full tilt through the trees to the side road where he had left his car.
III.
Less than an hour later, Bane rolled to a stop at a cottage in a wooded area just outside White Plains. He had leased this a year earlier for his new KDF team to use as part of their training. A pond behind the cottage was deep enough and wide enough to use for breath control practice and for experience in enduring cold water conditions. There was also a path that ran parallel to the nearby highway for several miles, enough for running while carrying weights. There was a living room, two bedrooms, a single bathroom and a kitchen, just enough for his purposes.
He did not expect to keep this place much longer. His team had reached a point where they did not need it anymore. Still, the cottage had proven useful a few times for secluded meetings with informers both from the Midnight War and the criminal underworld that it was worth the expense. Right now, it was proving to be exactly what he needed.
As he went around to the passenger seat of his Mustang, two figures hurried out the front door of the cottage to join him. Lauren Sable Reilly and Josef Jubilec were the senior members of his new team and they had gotten here earlier. Paige was still unconscious from the anesthetic dart but beginning to stir and mumble uneasily. The three Tel Shai knights carried the teenager into the cottage and placed her on the bed in the guest room. The decor was mostly Early American with lots of heavy solid furniture.
Josef was slightly taller than the six foot Bane, with a deeper chest and thickly muscled arms from a lifetime of pulling a bow. The Blind Archer had short sandy hair and dark blue eyes in a weathered face that made him seem older than his years, since he was just under thirty. As Sable and Bane had carried Paige inside, it had been Josef who scanned the area as if expected an attack at any second. Even inside, he kept listening and going to the windows to peer out suspiciously.
Just inside the front door, leaning up against the wood-panelled wall was a Y-shaped leather quiver holding a dozen arrows, with a handmade longbow next to it ready to be strung. Josef was one of the Blind Archers of Chujir, raised from infancy to master that weapon.
Standing by the bed where Paige was beginning to move around, Sable and Bane waited for her to regain consciousness. Lauren Sable Reilly was the leader of the new KDF team that Bane had recently established. Medium height, slim and athletic in her black jeans and dark green pullover, Sable was normally serious-minded but right now she was even more intense than usual. "Unicorn and Megan are standing by at headquarters," she told Bane. "When we need them to take their shifts, they're ready."
The Dire Wolf placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it briefly. "I have so many doubts about this, Sable. I am not sure I should even be allowing the team to get involved...."
"We can make our own decisions," she answered without anger. "The team has discussed this mission and it was unanimous. We're with you, Jeremy. Even if you officially stepped down as leader, for this case at least we'll follow your lead."
He still seemed obviously reluctant. "We're operating without legal justification here. I did abduct a minor without her consent and brought her to an undisclosed location. Even though her parents requested this and hired me as a PI, this is kidnapping. And you and Josef are now accessories."
"Yes," Sable said simply. "This has occured to me, of course. Even worse, we will not be concealing our identities from Paige. It is important that she come to trust us as far as her brainwashing will allow."
From the living room window, Josef announced, "Headlights coming up the drive. It's the car the Lundborg family used yesterday." As he spoke, the Blind Archer buckled the leather quiver to his back and picked up the bow. The average man on the street could not have bent that to string it, but Josef seemed to do easily. He loosened a few arrows in their slots and seemed pleased to be armed again.
"Good," Bane said, moving to join his teammate while Sable stayed to watch Paige. "Their daughter should be waking up about now. But she'll be feeling sick to her stomach for a while."
In front of the house, a well-dressed middle-aged couple emerged and walked up to the front door. Watching from the window, the Dire Wolf's voice tautened as he said, "Josef, you see that up by the main road?"
"Yes. Another car. It's idling there. Now it's moving on." The dark blue eyes narrowed. "I say the Lundborgs were followed."
The doorbell rang and Bane moved to answer it. "Sunrise must have already had watchers on their house. As soon as they realized that Paige was missing...!" He swung the door open. "Come on in. Your daughter is well and safe." He ushered them into the living room.
It was not clear from where Paige had derived her red hair and pale skin tones, since both Anton and Magda Lundborg had dark brown hair and eyes. They were ordinary looking, with nothing obvious to mark them as adepts in the occult. As they entered, the husband gave Josef a startled look.
"One of the Blind Archers of Chujir, if I'm not mistaken," he said with a vaguely Eastern European accent tinging his words. "Paige is well protected, at least."
"Oh yes," said Bane. "You can see her in a few minutes. When she wakes up from the drug, there will be some nausea and maybe vertigo but that will pass."
Anton Lundborg reluctantly held out his hand for Bane to shake. "Let's be clear, sir. There is no love lost between us. To the best of my knowledge, you are responsible for the deaths of four of my family, including my two uncles."
"We've been over this," Bane said impatiently. "They were warlocks of Red Sect. Your daughter shows signs of possessing potent gralic ability. It may manifest someday, it may not. But you tell me she knows nothing of the Midnight War and nothing of her family's founding of Red Sect."
Sable stuck her head out of the bedroom doorway. "She wants to talk to you now, Mr and Mrs Lundborg. She won't be able to walk steadily for a little while."
As Bane followed the parents into the bedroom, he glanced over at Josef. The Blind Archer nodded grimly and stayed on watch at the window facing the road. He had knotted a black silk cloth loosely around his neck that he could quickly pull up to cover his eyes. With his eyesight cut off, his gralic perception of lifeforce was strengthened and he would be able to unerringly target any person in darkness or rain or fog. It was this that made the cult of Blind Archers so feared in every realm.
Standing by the double bed on which the young girl was sitting up, Sable said, "Here are your parents, Paige."
"They are NOT my parents!" the teen yelled with startling passion. "Father John is my true father, the Daughters of Sunrise are my only family. Get them out of here! Let me leave!"
"Honey, it's us," said the mother. "What are you talking about? What have they done to you?"
Paige Lundborg swung her legs over the side of the bed but swayed, still too unsteady to stand. "They have done nothing to me. They have done everything FOR me. I have seen the light of Sunrise. Go back to the darkness where you belong."
Mrs Lundborg took a step back and raised her hand to cover her mouth. She turned to her husband. "Paige, you're not yourself," he said. "They've changed you somehow. Don't you know us?"
"I know you are instruments of the old order that must pass away," the girl announced. She tried to stand and this time made it. "The darkness that covers the world will be broken by the new dawn. Under the wisdom of Father John, peace will come to a suffering planet."
"Oh, brother," muttered Bane under his breath, drawing a sour look from Sable.
Anton Lundborg stepped closer to the bed but hesitated. His daughter was glaring at him with her teeth bared like a cornered animal. "Sweetheart, please..."
"If you touch me, I'll kill you!" Paige said. She took a hesitant step, then straightened up fully. "I'm leaving. I'm going to my Sisters. Don't try to stop me."
"You're not going anywhere tonight." The Dire Wolf gently moved the father aside and stood directly before the furious girl. "We'll see how you feel after a few days."
Paige lunged and threw a straight punch at his face with every bit of strength and speed she had. There was a soft thump and her fist stopped short in his grip. He had caught her punch in mid-air. The girl tugged and struggled but could not even make his arm move.
"Mr and Mrs Lundborg, maybe you'd better leave now," Sable said, pulling on their coat sleeves. "I don't see where it'll do any good staying here while she's like this."
"Yes, maybe you're right," the father agreed. He was staring at Paige with horrified disbelief. "She needs to be un-brainwashed or deprogrammed, whatever it's called."
"Let me go! I'll kill you!" Paige whipped up a vicious kick aimed at Bane's groin but he easily slapped it down with the palm of his free hand. "You're wasting your time," he told the girl and released her hand.
Paige seemed about to try to run past everyone but reconsidered. "Who are you people? What do you want with me?"
"We want to help you," said Sable, coming back in after escorting the parents to the living room. "Your heartbeat is dangerously fast."
"What?! How could you know that?"
"I can hear it," the Tel Shai knight said. "I can smell the adrenalin in your perspiration. I can see the dilation of your pupils. You need to calm down. Take a deep breath and hold it."
Paige dropped back down on the bed. "Obviously I can't get past this guy. But you just wait. The Daughters of Sunrise will come for me."
"That's what we're counting on," Bane answered.
IV.
Left alone with Paige, Sable folded her arms and regarded the girl calmly. "I'm not nearly as quick as my friend is," she said. "If you take a swing at me, I'd have to hurt you. So just relax. At least your pulse has dropped down to eighty a minute. I was getting worried you had tachycardia."
The blonde girl made a scoffing sound. "You can't hear my heartbeat, especially from ten feet away. That's impossible."
"I've been granted a special gift. Try this. Put your hands behind your back. Good. Now touch the first two fingers of only one hand together. Aha. It's your left."
"That's correct..." Paige said.
Sable smiled faintly. "I am fortunate that I can enhance each of my senses beyond normal limits. Unfortunately, it's not something I can teach to anyone, I developed this power unexpectedly. You had meatloaf for supper. With biscuits and jam... strawberry jam."
"You've been spying on us!" Paige cried. "How did you sneak anyone into the Sunrise House?"
"No, I can smell traces in your hair and on your clothing. You've washed your face and hands since you ate. Hmmm, Irish Spring soap? Yes."
"That was hours ago. I can't believe this."
Picking up a wooden chair from one corner, Sable brought it over and sat down at the foot of the bed. "This is why it's no use trying to mislead me, Paige. I can smell changes in your perspiration that indicate stress. I can hear subvocal tremors that indicate when you are saying something you don't believe. Right now, you are feeling more curiosity than fear."
The teen drew back upon herself, drawing her legs up on the bed and hugging her knees to her chest. "You're trying to distract me. It won't work. I will escape and return to my Sisters, no matter what it takes."
"I don't know much about Father John," Sable said. "What makes his message so special to you?"
"He has the answers we are all seeking. We sleepwalk through life, never satisfied about why we live, what we live for. Father John shows us our purpose. He points the way. I would give my life to bring about the Sunrise."
"Hmmm," Sable replied in a neutral way. "Has he written any books I could read? Are there any interviews with him in a magazine somewhere, maybe?"
"Stop trying to get me off my guard!" Paige abruptly flared up again. "You are the problem. Father John is the cure. When the great dawn lights the world, you will either greet it or be swept away."
"Well, we'll see. Tonight, at least, you might as well get some sleep. Your blink rate indicates you're exhausted. Look at it as gathering your strength to escape if you like."
"You're making fun of me," Paige said. She realize her shoes had been taken off while she had been unconscious. Slowly, reluctantly, the teen reached over to pull the blankets down and climb under them. She bunched up the pillows and wriggled around. "But that's exactly what I'll do."
Sable came over and turned off the bedside lamp. Light from the living room came through the open door. In a minute, she could tell that Paige Lundborg had drifted off into deep slumber despite resistance. Lowering herself on to the chair beside the bed, Sable watched the sleeping girl and fretted about how far gone she was. After a few more minutes, she silently rose and walked out into the living room.
Jeremy Bane was standing by the door, holding his Link to one ear. As he saw Sable, he lowered the device and whispered, "Josef is up on the roof."
"Good," she said. "We couldn't ask for a better sentry."
"Between his Blind Archer methods and your perception, I got lucky with this assignment." Bane allowed himself the faintest smile. People had to get to know him before they could detect the restrained expressions on his seemingly somber face. "How is Paige?"
"Sleeping for now," Sable answered. She shook her head and went over to drop down onto the couch against the near wall. The cottage was simply furnished, with a TV in one corner, a round table with three wooden chairs around it, shelves taking up one wall which were nearly empty except for a few magazines and random debris. "There's something odd about her body odor, Jeremy. I don't recognize it but she is either on some prescription medicine or she has been ingesting a chemical I've never detected before."
"That could be our lead," Bane said. "Maybe it's related to the brainwashing?"
"Could be." Sable cocked her head to one side. She had eyes so dark a brown that the irises seemed black as her hair, the reason why her parents had given her the middle name she went by. Now those eyes were distant as she turned up her enhanced hearing and focused it outside. "There's a car up by the road. Sounds like a Ford Econoline, V-6 engine, running a little rough. Now it's shut off."
Staying by the door, the Dire Wolf kept out of the line of sight from the window beside him. Through a Kumundu method, he could increase the sensitivity of his own hearing but never to anywhere near Sable's ability. She sat with her head tilted, looking down at the floor but not seeing it.
"There's the van doors closing," she said. "Footsteps of three people. Women. None over a hundred and thirty pounds. They're walking on the gravel, now moving off on the grass, trying to keep quiet. There goes Josef's bow. Thump thump thump, three impacts and three bodies falling. Josef got them all with the non-lethal hard rubber heads. He's coming down off the roof..."
A second later, there came two soft taps on the door before it opened. The Blind Archer held his bow in one hand and was tugging down the blindfold from over his eyes with the other. "They got here sooner than I would have thought," he said. "You want to take a look at them?"
"Sure," Bane answered. He turned back to Sable before leaving. "We may be gone a while."
She reached behind her and drew her dart gun, holding the sinister-looking weapon up beside her face. "I'm on duty, captain."
Going outside with Josef, Bane found three Daughters of the Sunrise lying unconscious on the frost-covered lawn. They were wearing the golden robes and each had a long curved dagger on the grass nearby where it had dropped as they had fallen. The Blind Archer retrieved his arrows, examined them for possible damage and reinserted them into the quiver on his back. These shafts did not have barbed or pointed heads, but ended in round balls of hard rubber. At close range, those arrows hit harder than a boxer's punch and could easily break bone.
Bane examined the three cultists and satisfied himself that they were not seriously hurt. Josef had deliberately struck glancing blows with the arrowheads. One Daughter of Sunrise was not completely unconscious and was already mumbling as she stirred. The Dire Wolf drew more of the anesthetic darts from his field jacket and jabbed each of the Sunrise members to knock them out for the next hour. He scooped up the daggers and held them up in the dim light from the cottage windows.
"Good work, Josef," he said. "I think they'll all recover with just bruises on their temple or jaw. These knives are interesting. Identical, hand-made wooden handles. I think it shows we're not dealing with a peaceful New Age cult. You ready to load these three in their own vehicle?"
"Yes." The Blind Archer had unstrung his bow and placed it carefully on the gravel path nearby. He and Bane carried the Daughters of the Sunrise up to their Ford van and propped them up in the rear seat and the front passenger seat, even buckling their seat belts on. All three were breathing deeply and evenly as the Trom drug worked in their systems.
"Here's my keys," Bane said as he tossed them for Josef to catch. "I want you to follow in my car. We'll return these ladies to their home and then vacate the cottage. It's no use to us now."
Driving to the mansion where he had carried off Paige Lundborg only a few hours earlier, the Dire Wolf parked the van near the front gate. Every light seemed to be on in the building and they could see the silhouettes of figures passing by the windows. Jumping out of the van, Bane paused. He left the door open and went to haul one of the cultists around and put her in the driver's seat. As he fastened her seat belt and turned the van off, the Dire Wolf found Josef standing beside him.
"That might confuse them a little," the Blind Archer said with a snort. "They set out to kill us and fetch the Lundborg girl, and instead they wake up still in their van an hour later."
"Let them try to figure it out. Come on, Josef, we have to get Paige to a different safe house before Father John's followers send another hit squad after us... or after her."
V.
Paige woke up to late morning sunlight slanting in through windows to her right. She was in a different bed, in a different room furnished with solid old-fashioned furniture. A large flat screen TV was mounted on the wall facing her. There was a dresser with a mirror across its top, two upholstered easy chairs and a desk. The walls were panelled. Hopelessly confused for the moment, she remembered what had happened the night before but could not decide if it had been real or had been a dream or what.
As her eyes darted back and forth, they fixed on a small blonde woman sitting in a plain wooden chair in the corner by the door. Not more than five feet tall, she had platinum-white hair past her shoulders, pale crystal blue eyes in a delicate face and was dressed all in white... sneakers, jeans and sweatshirt. The woman was remarkably pretty, and her cheerful grin as she saw Paige stir seemed genuine.
"Hey there," she called over, getting up from the chair and stretching. "I'm Ashley. Also called Unicorn. Bet you're trying to figure out what's going on. Listen. You're in a safe place. I'll be escorting you today."
"What? Am I still a prisoner? Where are the people who abducted me?"
"That's looking at it completely the wrong way," Ashley told her. "There's the little girls' room to your left. I'll wait here."
As soon as the blonde said that, Paige realized how urgently she needed that bathroom. She jumped out of bed and hurried in, slamming the door behind her. When she emerged a few minutes later, drying her hands on a washcloth, she seemed calmer. "Who are you people? I demand to be released. The Sisters will be worried about me."
"Your so-called Sisters have already sent a hit squad after you," Ashley said. "But I figure you won't believe anything I tell you today. That's okay. Healing takes time." She picked up a cardboard box from the floor and plopped it down on the dresser. "You're the same size as one of our members, so she donated some underwear and shirts and stuff for while you're here. It's all been laundered."
"Oh no. I'm leaving now. Don't try to stop me."
"Right. If you only knew. You're not going anywhere for the next day or so. Your Father John is supposed to be in the country tomorrow, and we have reason to believe he will make an appearance at that snake pit where you were staying." The Unicorn walked past Paige to the half-open door of the bedroom and gestured for her to follow. "Come on, time for late breakfast or early lunch or whatever you want to call it."
Grudgingly, but thinking she might see an moment to escape, the last of the Lundborgs followed the blonde out into a hallway. There was a small elevator to their right, but Ashley headed instead for the wide staircase which was set in the center of the floor plan. That floor seemed to consist of rooms identical to the one where she had just awoken, with chest-high bookcases filling the spaces between doors. Hundreds of old books jammed those shelves. "What is this place? You're not the police."
"Damn straight we're not the police," Ashley answered as she headed quickly down three flights to the ground floor. They were standing in a hall, also lined with bookshelves but with a reception room to their right. To their left was the open door of a modern emergency ward, complete with three hospital beds and fully stocked medical equipment. Paige was surprised at seeing this, but her real attention stayed on the front door. Next to it was an umbrella stand and wall hooks for coats, three of which were hanging on them at the moment.
Seeing where Paige's eyes were fixed, Unicorn said, "Forget it. You couldn't get that door open with a hand grenade. Come on, the kitchen is back here."
Finally, Paige Lundborg allowed herself to be dragged into a snug kitchen of dark wood and gleaming stainless steel, with wall cabinets on all sides. In a nook under a window from which sunlight streamed sat a round table with five narrow chairs. On the table sat a ceramic bowl piled with bananas, pears, tangerines and lemons. The redheaded girl pulled out one of the chairs and sat rather stiffly upright in it, hands in her lap.
Unicorn washed her hands in steaming hot water before beginning, then hauled down a frying pan from its hook on the wall. Yanking items from the refrigerator, she laid out ten strips of bacon in the pan. As the sizzling began, Ashley placed a wooden chopping board on a butcher's block and began slicing thin pieces of a tomato. "My BLTs are the best," she declared in what seemed to be characteristic confidence in her every ability. "The reason why they're so good is that I'm the one making them."
Despite her fear and anger, Paige could not conceal a smile. This blonde girl was so exuberant and oblivious that it was hard to hate her. Yet she was one of the captors keeping her here when she needed to return to Sunrise House. She watched as the Unicorn took a head of Iceberg lettuce and went over to the sink.
"Rinsing with cold cold water is essential," Ashley began. As she stood by the sink, her back was turned for an instant and Paige leaped up and dove across the kitchen. To her complete shock, the Lundborg girl was stopped short as a tiny hand clenched in the back of her shirt collar and brought her up short. Even though she was considerably smaller than the Daughter of Sunrise, Unicorn simply snatched her to a stop in mid-stride and threw her back to plop in the same chair she had been sitting in.
"That's not going to get you anywhere," Ashley said as casually as if nothing had happened. "At least you didn't make me drop the lettuce."
"My God, you're strong for such a tiny thing."
"Absolutely. Okay, back to the BLT. We flip the bacon and put these beautiful thick slices of whole wheat bread in the toaster. I need some paper towels for the grease." As she moved around the kitchen, the little blonde did not seem to be watching Paige but somehow her feet were always planted so that she would be braced against an attack.
In a few more minutes, Unicorn had everything ready and was cutting the sandwiches in half diagonally. "For one horrifying second, I thought we were out of mayo! What a freaking nightmare that would be. Here we go. A glass of cranberry juice and a glass of ice water for each of us." Pulling out a chair facing Paige, Ashley dug into her BLT and seemed to take it for granted that the prisoner would do the same.
In fact, Paige Lundborg had been telling herself she should go on a hunger strike to force these strangers to release her. But something about Ashley's casual attitude seem to catch her off guard and she found herself eating the BLT before she realized it. Finishing half right away, she saw the blonde watching her expectantly and said, "It really is good."
"You bet your ass it's good," Unicorn said. "Wait'll you try my chili. Anyway, here we go. I'm gonna tell you a lot of stuff and you won't believe any of it."
"What--I don't understand."
"I know, you don't think you've been brainwashed by a cult. You think you've joined a spiritual movement that will free the world. Right? I'm not going to argue with you about that. I hate even discussing local politics. But I am going to reveal some stuff to you about your family. Your grandfather and great-uncle, for example. Clinton and Henry Lundborg."
Paige decided to say nothing. Let this woman talk. She was living in darkness like all those who had not taken the great Sunrise in their hearts. The redhead took another bite and waited without expecting to really listen.
"They were warlocks. They founded Red Sect, which uses sorcery to get rich and throw orgies and kill anyone they don't like. Your family has always been involved in Black Magick. I know, I'm sure your folks told you the family wealth came from real estate and iron foundries, but seriously.. has your father ever gone to an office? Have you ever seen him following the stock market or calling his accountants? Of course not. It's Black Magick that pays for everything."
"You're right about one thing, I don't believe any of this." Paige wiped her mouth with a paper napkin from a dispenser on the table.
"Hah! You could eat another one, huh? Two BLTs are overdoing it though, I think. Anyway, from the time you were in diapers you've been exposed to a lot of gralic energy and spells and rituals and stuff. Usually, that's means you're almost certain to develop some attributes of your own. It's called 'the dragon within.' And now, in your teens when puberty has really kicked in, is when your wild talent is likely to manifest."
Paige's face had gone taut and pale. Her voice sounded choked. "How long have you been spying on me and my family?"
"Huh? Ohhhh, I get it. Your gift has already started to manifest." Ashley grabbed the empty plates and tumblers and took them over to the sink. "So, tell me. This Father John guy, where was he born? What's his nationality?"
"Why, he..." Paige's voice trailed off into silence.
"No one has ever mentioned it, huh? How old is he? Was he ever married? Ever been in prison? You don't know, do you?"
"It doesn't matter!" Paige jumped to her feet and seemed about to make another run for it but caught herself. "It's his message that's important! The revelations he has for us. That is why I want to learn more about."
"Uh-huh," Ashley said, wiping her hands after doing the dishes. "Well, I'm not here to debate you. If you do start to levitate or grow an extra pair of eyes, at least now you'll know why."
"Listen to me," the Lundborg girl said in a sudden urgent tone. "Do you know the penalty for kidnapping? It's a capital offense. You and your friends abducted me and have kept me prisoner for at least twelve hours now. And I'm a minor! I just turned seventeen. If you let me go right now, I swear I won't lead the authorities to you. Otherwise, you guys are looking at life in prison or maybe the death penalty if we crossed any state lines."
"Oh, I've pulled so many felonies already that a few more don't matter," Ashley replied. "Honestly. If I was brought up on half of what I've done, I'd be behind bars the rest of my life anyway."
"And this doesn't bother you?"
The little blonde flashed a smile that would have been at home in a TV commercial for whiteners. "Nope. I've got some decent fake identities set up here and there. Anyway, Tel Shai knights don't serve the law... they serve justice."
VI.
They spent most of the afternoon in the rec room, curled up on a wall couch binge-watching Korean soap operas. The gigantic TV screen was so large and so detailed that it felt like looking through a window at real people. Hooked up to satellites, the system had thousands of channels available but Ashley pushed for Korean dramas.
"They are SO emotional and over the top, it's simply great. See, in this one, BITTER TEARS OF TOMORROW, the mother thinks the daughter has some fatal disease but she's really pregnant but it's with a guy from a poor family. They've been going to meet each other at the airport for three episodes now. I don't know if they're ever gonna actually make it there." Ashley tucked her legs under her and studied the English subtitles. "No no no, don't stop to call your husband! Go talk to your daughter before the plane leaves! You dummy."
Despite her determination to remain coldly furious, Paige got drawn into the drama after the first episode. There was so much over-reaction and meaningful glances and sobbing behind closed doors that she found herself watching intently. "Wait, where did those kids come from?"
"Those are Insun-Choi's from her first marriage," Ashley answered without taking her eyes off the screen. "Her husband fell off a fishing boat during a storm but I think he's not really dead..."
Suddenly Paige jumped off the couch and started yelling. "You're trying to lead me away from the Sunrise! My sisters must be searching for me even now. When they find us, they will kill you. You and your accomplices in this kidnapping."
"Kill us?" asked Ashley. "That doesn't sound very enlightened to me."
"Father John has many enemies. Those who live in darkness fear the light. Father John teaches us we must defend ourselves against those who would turn us from the Sunrise." Paige glared murderously at Ashley, who had not moved and who blithely returned that stare with a friendly smile.
Unexpectedly, three soft thwacking noises sounded and three wooden-hilted knives were sticking up from the hardwood floor in front of Paige's feet. She gasped at the surprise and at how close the points had come to her toes in the soft sneakers.
Standing in the doorway, Jeremy Bane was just drawing his arm back from the final throw. His grey eyes always seemed watchful and unfriendly, but with his brows lowered he was an unsettling sight. "I believe you recognize these."
The last of the Lundborgs bent her knees and leaned forward, one hand descending toward the daggers. She stopped short at the cold voice from the doorway, "You know better. Either Unicorn or I could just take them away from you without getting scratched. Who makes these?"
"We do." Paige straightened up, defiant again. "Just as we sew our robes and grow much of our food. Father John wants us to be able to defend ourselves against those who remain in darkness. Like you!"
The Dire Wolf stepped into the room and stood just out of arm's reach of the girl. "We took these away from three of your so-called Sisters who were sneaking up on us last night. They had these drawn and ready to use."
"In self-defense! They were coming to rescue me. Why are you holding me? What could you possibly want? I've given all my worldly goods to Sunrise. I have nothing that you could want."
Bane did not answer directly. He stepped over to tug the three knives out of the floor and stowed them in a cabinet high up in one corner of the room. "Unicorn, do you have your horn nearby?"
Ashley reached behind herself on the couch and held up the three foot tapering leather sheath. "You bet, captain."
"Good," said Bane. "Paige, I hate to say it but there are a hundred cults like Sunrise all over the world, with thousands of eager believers who under control. We don't tackle them all. To be blunt, new ones would just pop up to fill the vaccuum. There are always sheep looking for a slaughterhouse."
"Sunrise is not like that!" the Lundborg girl shouted in his face. "You make yourself feel look like a fool. We are the ones fortunate enough to see the light. Soon the new dawn will sweep the world of his ignorance."
"Has Unicorn told you about your family history?" he asked.
When Paige did not answer but merely stared, Ashley spoke up from the couch. "Yep. She knows all about the Lundborgs and Red Sect."
"That's one reason why we're interested in you. You might manifest gralic ability soon. And, to be honest, I think that's why this Sunrise bunch has treated you so well. At seventeen, being made Head Cheerleader or whatever your role is called, over other cultists who have been there longer... it's clear they want something from you."
"I'm not listening to anything you have to say," the Lundborg girl snapped and stomped over to plop down in a chair facing both Bane and Ashley. "You are bringing the darkness with you. I wait for the Sunrise to bring light."
"Well, heck," muttered Ashley, "Just when the next episode of BITTER TEARS OF TOMORROW is starting." She thumbed the remote control to make the TV blink off.
"We've been doing research on your 'Father John.' Paige, he is not the real head of your movement. We have reason to believe he is just the public spokesman. Behind him is someone very old and malicious. Father John is just a face presented to the cult members because meeting the real leader would terrify them." He stepped closer and coldly gazed down at the suddenly uneasy Lundborg girl. "But you'll find out for yourself. We're going to return you to Sunrise House."
Paige sat up straight. "You are? I'm going home?"
"Not to your parents, no. We're bringing you back to the cult center," Bane told her. "And I guarantee that you will learn things about Sunrise and about Father John that you are not going to like."
VII.
Once again, Paige Lundborg came groggily back to awareness in a strange situation. She was sitting in the back seat of a four-door Toyota, strapped into place. Her mind took a few minutes to stabilize and take everything in. It was dark outside, night had fallen, and they were sitting on the road outside the Sunrise House. She could see the gates and the low stone wall that ran around the grounds. Paige felt slightly nauseous and she groaned, moving her head.
Next to her, the blonde called Unicorn was holding up a hand to support her. "Hey guys," she chirped, "Our guest is back among the conscious population."
Paige looked around the interior of the car. Behind the wheel was the dark-haired woman with the enhanced senses, sitting in the front passenger seat was the archer, whatever his name was. "Where's the mean one?" she asked, "the one with the pale eyes?"
"Oh, he's nearby, doing what he should be doing," Unicorn said blandly. "Do you feel like you could walk?"
"Yes. Let me go. Right now!"
"Suit your own self," Unicorn said. "But I haveta warn you, you're in for some unpleasant surprises."
In the front seat, Sable reached for a switch and unlocked all four car doors. Paige wriggled out of her seat belt and its straps, jumped out of the car and ran through the open gate toward Sunrise House without looking back. It was freezing and she didn't have a coat but she hardly noticed. The redhead raced up to the front door just as it opened from within.
Two tall women she did not recognize met her at the door and waved her in. They were not wearing the golden robes of the Sunrise, but dark slacks and open jackets over plain white shirts. The women had their hair pulled severely back into buns at the back of their heads, and their bony faces were hard and unwelcoming.
"It's me, I'm safe, I came back!" Paige yelled in her excitement. "I must speak with Sister Hannah right away."
"Must you, now?" said one of the women, taking Paige by the arm with a grip tighter than seemed really necessary. "Come with us."
As they marched through the huge reception hall and up the wide marble staircase, Paige glimpsed other Sisters of the Sunrise in their gold robes. But they were watching her with angry, even hostile stares. There was no welcome in their faces. What was wrong? Why wasn't everyone glad to see her? Who were these stern women?
Almost dragged off her feet up the staircase to the first floor landing, Paige tried to get loose but the strange women held her without difficulty. Two more of them were standing on guard in front of the office door. When they saw Paige Lundborg being hauled before them, one of them turned and rapped sharply with her knuckles on the door before opening it. "My lord, the lost one is here."
"Bring her in," answered a deep, resonant voice.
Six different lamps were burning in that brilliantly lit office, including an overhead bulb in a frosted glass globe, two wrought-iron wall lamps and two reading lamps on the desk. Seated behind that desk, wearing an expensive tailored business suit complete with vest, was an imposing figure. Father John was taller than she had expected, with wide shoulders and large powerful hands folded before him. The familiar face she had studied for so long on posters and pamphlets produced a jolt of recognition when seen in the flesh.
"Father John...?" she whispered.
"Sister Paige," he answered in an unfriendly tone. "Kallikaronti, release her but stand by."
Flung to her knees in front of the desk, Paige leaped up and her temper snapped. She moved to attack one of the tall women but halted as she saw the point of a dagger held within an inch of her throat.
"You do not know your peril at this moment," Father John barked at her. "These are the Kallikaronti! They are raised from the cradle to be warriors and guardians. They live to serve only the Hag of the Mountains... and, through her, my humble self."
"I don't understand!" the young girl cried. "Why am I being treated this way? I have done everything that was asked of me. I have served the Sunrise fully, with an open heart. What is going on?"
One of the strange women backhanded Paige so hard across the face that the teen saw lights flash as she fell to the plush carpeting. She cried out in both pain and outrage, but before she could rise by herself, a Kallikaronti forced her up into a kneeling position with her head bowed.
"Show proper respect to our lord," the strongwoman growled in a heavy accent.
"Paige Lundborg, you left this house last night in the company of an outsider," said Father John.
"I was abducted!" the girl objected. "I was taken against my will."
"So you say. Three Daughters of the Sunrise had been watching the home of your former parents. They followed that man and woman to a cottage in White Plains. When the Daughters approached the cottage to retrieve you, they saw a blindfolded man with a bow on the roof and they were struck down with blunt-headed arrows. There is only one Blind Archer operating in the Western world at this time. He is a knight of Tel Shai and a member of the Kenneth Dred Foundation."
"Those were my kidnappers," Paige began, but one of the Kallikaronti cuffed her on the side of the head. Those blows seriously hurt and Paige was silent afterwards.
"We know the knights of Tel Shai work with a telepath. We know they have used Velkandu truth serums and hypnosis." Father John unclasped his hands and slapped them down flat on the desk before him. "We must conclude that they learned everything you know about Sunrise... and our Great Plan."
"No, no, you're wrong!" Paige said, struggling ineffectually to rise as the woman behind her effortlessly kept her kneeling. "I gave away nothing! What do I even know?"
"So you say," repeated the man behind the desk. He shook his head once. "Too much is at stake to be careless. The Hag of the Mountain has made her wishes clear. We have to assume these Tel Shai knights know whatever you know... and that you must pay the price for allowing yourself to be taken."
Behind Paige, the woman seized her hair and tilted her head back with a jerk, exposing her throat. Another of the Kallikaronti stepped forward and drew one of the wooden-handled daggers from her jacket. She bent over Paige and pressed the edge of the knife against the girl's neck.
"Let it be done," Father John ordered.
"You are not going to kill me," said Paige Lundborg in a deep, echoing voice that was not her own. "I'm going to live." She turned eyes that shone with a lambent crimson gleam on the cultists around her as a concussive wave of force detonated around her to fling the Kallikaronti violently across the room.
VII.
The blast emanated in a circle from Paige, hurling Father John out of his chair onto the floor, dislodging framed photos off the walls, slamming a lamp over on its side. There was a deep thumping noise like a bass drum being struck. The cult women hit the walls with bruising force, striking hard enough to bounce off and lie still after they fell.
Rising to her feet with a sudden deadly assurance, Paige Lundborg looked around her. It was all true. She watched Father John scramble back up onto his feet and he did not seem so imposing to her now. Within her body, swirling like currents in a pool, she felt gralic force crackle and ready itself to strike again.
Father John yanked open the center drawer of his desk and came up with a Browning 9mm HP pistol. With that semi-automatic in his hand, he seemed more confident. "This is what the Hag of the Mountain warned us about," he said. "You have the witch blood within you."
Completely unafraid, Paige stepped toward him with her open hands raised. "To think how much I trusted you. I believed everything you said. I would have followed you into a volcano. How could I have been so naive? I swear, I'll never be fooled like that again!"
Extending his arm full length, Father John took aim at the young girl's face... and unexpectedly, an iron hand gripped him by the shoulder to swing him around right into an uppercut that forced his head back so far that his chin pointed up at the ceiling. He fell like a corpse.
Standing over the stunned man, Jeremy Bane lowered his fist. "I didn't want you to kill him, Paige. He knows too much that we need to learn."
"What the hell, where did you come from?" she yelped.
"Down off the roof," Bane answered. He gestured at the open window behind him, its curtains flapping in a breeze from the chill night outside. "I tied a cord to the chimney and was watching the whole thing. If the window had been locked, I suppose I would have had to crash through but it was already open a crack."
"He was going to have me killed," Paige said. "These horrible women were really going to cut my throat right here and now. Sunrise was lies, all lies!"
The Dire Wolf bent over Father John. "He'll be out for a while. I should have pulled that punch a bit more but I was annoyed with him. You heard what he said about the Hag of the Mountain?"
"What does that mean? I don't understand any of this."
"There are three ancient witches, sisters some say, who have been feuding for centuries. The Hags. One of the Sea, one of the Mountain, one of the Desert. I've been looking for an opening that would lead me to them. It seems Father John was running this Sunrise scam for the Hag of the Mountains." He knelt down, threw the limp form over one shoulder and stood up as easily as if Father John weighed nothing at all. "I want to ask him some questions."
"Wait, what about me?" Paige asked. "I hate to admit it, but I'm all confused. If I go back to my family, will these killer women follow me? Do I have to go on the run?"
Bane studied her unemotionally for a long moment. "Honestly, you'd be safer with us than anywhere else. Do you feel comfortable with my team? Unicorn, Sable, myself?"
The Lundborg girl did not hesitate. "Yes. I do. I think you're good people. For now at least, I'll go with you guys."
"Good. We can also give you some training on how to use your new ability. That was a force pulse that seems to be your body defending itself." He watched her without any noticeable enthusiasm. "Maybe we can bring you to Tel Shai for a while, I don't know if the Teachers would take you but it's worth a try."
"But how are we going to get out of here? There are fifty Sisters here. They'll swarm over us like army ants. And what if there's more of these big killer women?"
"Oh, the Kallikaronti? I can handle them." Bane walked toward the open window with Father John over one shoulder. "Listen. Just outside the Sunrise House grounds, Sable and Unicorn are waiting in the car that brought you here. Josef is nearby in our other car. I'm going to carry Father John here down to the ground, then I'll climb back up and carry you. Just stay put, this will only take a few seconds."
"I can climb down a rope, I'm in good shape."
"This is a thin silk cord. You'd slice your hands open. Just wait." With that, Bane climbed out the window with the unconscious man still draped over one shoulder and disappeared.
Left behind, Paige Lundborg snapped her head around as she heard one of the Kallikaronti moan. Those women were stirring. She realized that the feeling of potent energy swirling within her body had dissipated and she wasn't sure if she could summon it again. What if this Bane abandoned her? It was certainly a night for betrayal and disillusionment. But a second later, the gaunt figure in black dove nimbly back in through the window again.
Standing next to Paige, Bane noticed the Kallikaronti beginning to revive. "Time to get moving," he said. "Get behind me. Put your arms up under my arms and hold on as tight as you can." As soon as she complied, the Dire Wolf crawled out the window again, seized the dark cord hanging from the roof and descended to the ground with her clinging to him. He sped down the cord almost as quickly as if he had been falling. As Paige disengaged herself, feeling a bit shaky at that rapid descent, Bane flung Father John over his shoulder again and ran off into the night. Paige followed him with sudden mixed feelings of uneasiness and hope. Everything she believed in had been shaken.
11/18/2016