Nighthawks (Children of Nostradamus Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter Seven

May 16th, 2032 11:52PM

“
Why bother speaking?”

Vanessa pondered the question for a moment. It had been years since she found a human to be so candid with her. The young woman at her side was forthright and direct. “It tends to put humans at ease when they can hear my voice.”

“Is that why you hide your face?”

Vanessa smirked at the woman’s bold assertion. “Sometimes I forget if I’m speaking with my mouth or my mind. It helps hide my mistakes.”

Twenty-Seven nodded at the answer. The sun broke the horizon and the light washed over their faces. She pulled off the hoodie and tucked it away in her bag. She eyed the woman walking next to her. While they had been together, the angel had never appeared to be wet. Twenty-Seven knew there was something more than met the eye about the person guiding her down the road. Vanessa listened to the woman’s thoughts as they sped through her mind.

“Are you real?”

Vanessa continued as the woman stopped. The sun cast a brilliant light on the world in front of her, providing a sense of beauty to the upcoming day. She turned to see the woman holding her ground. She didn’t need to ask why. The woman’s thoughts were loud, broadcasting as if she was saying them aloud.

She doesn’t get wet when it rains? Where are her wings? If she can speak to me without actually speaking, can she make me see things that aren’t there? What if she’s not real? What if I died? How do I…

“You have no way of knowing.”

“Angel of the Outlands,” the woman said flatly, “what are you hiding?”

“Asks the woman tried and convicted for murder.”

Twenty-Seven didn’t flinch. “If you can read my thoughts…”

I do not judge.

Did I ask for validation?
“Lead on,” Twenty-Seven said.

“You trust me?”

Twenty-Seven walked past Vanessa, her eyes fixed on her feet. “I have no choice.”

The buildings had begun to crumble from disrepair. There weren’t many skyscrapers in Springfield, but as they approached the bridge leading them into the city, plenty rose into the sky. Cars were scattered across the streets, windshields smashed in, many still containing the remains of the occupants who were trying to flee the city. Twenty-Seven paused as she looked into a Subaru on the side of the road; the backseat contained a small skeleton still in the baby seat.

She tried to focus on the grass breaking through the cracks in the concrete. She assumed the angel was capable of seeing her thoughts. She didn’t try to hide them. She had expected something more Godly about her, something that earned her the title of Angel. She appreciated the woman’s intervention, perhaps saving her life, but she was left with more questions than she was willing to answer.

Posters lined the city’s buildings. The government had reached out to the survivors, offering them protection if they could make it out of Massachusetts. She couldn’t imagine how many people had survived. Was it possible people in the depths of parking garages or even basements could have survived the initial blast? Would the radiation kill them?

She tripped over her own foot as she looked at the graffiti covering dozens of posters glued to the side of a building. In black spray paint and nearly up to the second floor was a symbol. She studied it for a moment before she recognized the outstretched wings. She looked at the woman to her side again. The people who remained paid homage to the angel.

They walked in silence as they reached the edge of the city. The buildings became smaller in the southern portion of the metropolis. The large structures were behind them and the city turned into smaller residential homes. She stopped as she saw movement behind one of the cars. She didn’t hesitate, dropping behind a parked SUV.

Vanessa caught Twenty-Seven peering around the corner, staring at her stretched wings. Vanessa did everything in her power to be visible to anybody who might be watching. Vanessa motioned for Twenty-Seven to stay tucked behind the vehicle. Vanessa could sense the woman’s thoughts, pondering if she could detect anybody nearby, as well as several nearby thoughts alerting her to the trap she might be stepping into.

“Angel,” came a voice, “you bring company.”

“She is with me, Victor.”

A man appeared from the doorway of what had once been a cafe. Twenty-Seven noted the gun on his hip before she noticed the burns across his face. Perhaps in his late fifties, he looked like any other man, but a dark red patch covered at least half of his face and neck. She didn’t have to be a doctor to know the signs of radiation burn.

“Who is she?” asked Victor.

“She’s a convict, sent to the Outlands by the government.”

“Angel, you know we don’t take degenerates the government sends here to die. We’re a peaceful people.”

“Says the man who wears a gun,” she said from her hiding spot. She wasn’t the weak woman she was a year ago. There was no way she was going to let a man decide her fate. The woman who had taken punch after punch was dead. She was Twenty-Seven.

“Child, do you think we’re the only ones here? I’m sure you’ve seen the looting already.”

“Victor, she was sentenced to death for protecting herself.”

Another voice yelled, “How do you know she ain’t lying?”

“You dare question me? I see into the hearts of men, just as I have seen into Victor’s, or yours, Timothy. I have seen her heart and I have deemed her worthy.” The angel’s voice boomed. Reverberating in each of their chests, the words hovered in the air as if they had been spoken by God himself.

Twenty-Seven noted the angel was speaking with her mouth. The loud words were heard by her ears, not her head. The angel had more tricks than she could imagine, but she couldn’t figure out the game being played. She had been frank in their discussions, secretive, but up-front with most questions. However, she attempted to put the fear of God into these people.

They do not know I can read their thoughts.

Why do you hide it?

The angel turned her head, looking over her shoulder past the magnificent raised wing. Her eyes connected with Twenty-Seven, who could read them as if she was capable of reading her thoughts. She could see the sorrow written across her brow and the cost of her deceit etched in her crow’s feet.
You know I am not an angel.

“A telepath,” Twenty-Seven whispered in her hiding spot.

Chapter Eight

May 17th, 2032 12:32AM

Mr
. Cowan,

As you ponder the situation laid out in front of you, it is clear that things will never be the same. Before you are many decisions, but alas, beyond this point I cannot see nor predict your future. You are an element that seems to defy the strands of probability. I fear that before you lies a path that will test the fortitude of your soul. I wish I could give you more than a simple direction. I have done everything in my power to see you safe to this point. I wish I could tell you that somewhere on the other side of the darkness will be you, standing triumphant. However, I cannot. For that, I am sorry. What I can do is start you on your hero’s journey.

Go to Sarah.

With Regards,

Eleanor P. Valentine

***

For the fourth time, Conthan read the letter line for line. The woman who wrote it was older. He could tell by the elegant strokes of her pen she had written it slowly, carefully, deliberately picking each word. He marveled at the beautiful calligraphy.

As he finished the letter, he stared at the name at the end. It wasn’t a common name, but something about it stuck in his head. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

“How do you know me?” he whispered.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The small clear plastic object turned opaque as he pressed his thumb against it. He whispered the woman’s name and gasped as her image appeared on his screen. Every high school student was required to take modern history. One of the most notorious individuals in the last century was Valentine, a psychic driven crazy by her ability to predict the future.

Browsing further through the document, he could hear his former teacher barking about the importance of history in shaping the future of mankind. Eleanor had been an aide to the first female president. Near the end of her term, Valentine had started to have crazy dreams predicting outlandish future possibilities. The insanity led her attempt to kill the president. Eleanor had been shot, but historians claimed that it was the defining point in history that would lead to “The Culling” of all mentalists. Telepaths had the ability to read minds and telekinetics could move things with their mind. Eleanor was a precog, a person capable of seeing the future. Anybody identified with mental abilities was “put down” for national security.

The military had kept a detailed list of anybody with these gifts, using their abilities for decades before the Nostradamus Effect took place. During the culling, they began to tear people from their homes and exterminate them in the streets. The article showed a video of a man screaming at a soldier, whose hand violently shook as he turned the gun around and shot himself in the face before his fellow soldiers shot the telekinetic. The military developed a zero tolerance policy for people with the ability to manipulate the world with their mind.

Only months after the assassination attempt, a terrorist group detonated a bomb in two nuclear power plants in retaliation to an extremist government. The bomb left a good chunk of New England uninhabitable. Vacated, Boston would become known as the Danger Zone. The radiation rendered it unlivable, making it the new dumping ground for the unwanted people of the United States. America turned into a militant state.

“Bus is heading out, kid,” said a guy behind a dirty glass window.

Conthan examined the empty bus station. It had been fairly busy when he arrived, but the patrons had moved on to other destinations while he was doing research. He looked at the man behind the glass protective shield. “Thanks,” he said, standing up. He walked down the aisle and out the door to where a bus was idling. He looked at the side of the vehicle and could see a yellow biohazard sign next to the words ‘Danger Zone.’

He began to step onto the bus and the man at the wheel stopped him. “I need to see your ID and signed disclaimer.”

Conthan hovered his hand over the palm reader. A series of screens flashed, warning him about the perils of entering into the Danger Zone. He pressed his thumb to the glass, signing the document.

“You understand that you will be inside the Danger Zone and when not in a proper facility, you will be exposed to mild amounts of radiation. This could lead to radiation poisoning or worse, death.” The man had apparently memorized the document and was spitting it back verbatim.

“I’ve been before,” Conthan said.

“We don’t see many civvies make the trip more than once.”

“Going to see a friend of mine.”

The driver’s eyebrow rose at the statement. There was only one location to be reached on this bus route. The look on his face went from curious to saddened. “I hope it’s worth the trip, son.”

“Me too.”

Conthan moved back to an empty seat. He was surprised by how many people were on the bus. It was a mix of civilians and what he assumed were guards for the facility. He tried to maintain his composure as he scanned the number of armed. He knew they were like the Corps, augmented with various enhancements to their bodies. All of them would be modified to help screen them against the radiation. He had to wonder, what other enhancements did they have?

He sat against the window and looked at the letter again. It was sixty years since Eleanor had been killed in the Oval Office. What were the chances sixty years later, a letter would find its way into his hand, courtesy of a dead artist? He attempted to think of the journey the letter had to take to reach him at exactly the same time he discovered he wasn’t human anymore.

She must have predicted it all, he thought to himself.

Eleanor was the most notorious precog to have ever lived. She had been recruited by the military to train developing mentalists. He had to wonder if she had been aware of just how important this series of events would be. The world knew the United States enlisted fortune tellers, but nobody understood quite how far they could see or what the reach was for their powers.

Conthan paused at the thought. Nearly twenty years later, the nuclear bomb and the President’s assassination attempt would be overshadowed by a planetary effect commonly called the Nostradamus Effect. To this day, the exact causes of the event are still subject to speculation, but the most commonly accepted explanation is that a variety of stellar anomalies resulted in some sort of cosmic radiation affecting all of mankind.

Cults began to emerge, claiming Nostradamus had predicted the end of the world and mankind would cease to exist in 2012. Nostradamus himself, believed to be one of the earliest psychics, had foreseen the future of mankind. However, lost in interpretation was that mankind would not end, it would find a way to evolve. Those affected would begin to show signs in the next few years.

The mentalists that once could be measured in the hundreds were no longer the godliest of the human race. The mutagenesis produced a vast array of results, each of the Children showing unique traits. The Children of Nostradamus became more common and the military was forced to respond as their powers became a danger to the general populace. That is when they began to round up anybody with potential.

Conthan sighed deeply as he thought of his childhood friend. He wished he was visiting under better circumstances, but he was happy to be seeing her. She wasn’t going to believe what had happened since their last visit.

He leaned his head against the window and looked out to the storm clouds in the distance. A sign read ‘Danger Zone, 150 miles.’ He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the fact that he was a mouse walking into the lion’s den.

The bus began to move forward, vacating the lot. Outside the tinted windows, he watched the city pass him by. In the middle of the night, the Twin Towers remained lit like giant glowing obelisks reaching the gods. Gears began to crank and turn as the lead shielding closed on the windows, rendering the bus immune to the impending radiation from the Danger Zone.

He didn’t dare call Gretchen or Sculptee. He always assumed his mouth would land him in a detention center, but being a superpowered human had never crossed his mind. Gretchen was probably pissed; he imagined her going berserk as the Corps put the art show to an end. He hoped everybody made it out without injury.

He turned back to his phone and began searching the web for any coverage of the event. It had happened almost four hours ago and not one live feed from New York showed any interest. He went to the websites of both groups of protestors and saw that there was not only no mention of the attack, but no mention of protesting the show. It didn’t surprise him; the government was masterful at manipulating the media. Even The Culling, a mass genocide, was spun as an effort to protect domestic interests.

He paused at the thought. He went back in his browser to the article about Eleanor. “What if she wasn’t mad?”

***

The
Sheraton had once been glorious. The building was a mere eight stories tall, but standing in the center of the hotel one could look straight up to the skylights above. The red rugs had been vibrant before the cleaning staff had been burned away. Now, the conference rooms were turned into makeshift hospitals and the rooms above were crowded with people attempting to survive on the fringes of society.

Twenty-Seven rubbed the muscle in her left arm. Victor had ordered her to be given a shot for the radiation sickness. He warned her it would keep her alive, even if she wished she could die. After barking that simple command, he had walked off with a group of men to discuss matters of importance with the angel.

What would happen if they knew the angel’s secret? She wondered just how much the angel was manipulating them. Twenty-Seven had been young when The Culling took place. She had read the horrific accounts of the military sweeping through homes, killing anybody suspected of being a mentalist. It didn’t matter if it was for national security, or for the protection of the human race, it still showed the worst humanity had to offer.

She had only known the angel for a day and already she could tell the woman preferred to be cloaked in mystery and intrigue. She was no different than her, a human, only she was cursed, a Child of Nostradamus.

I am not.

How can you not be one?

Twenty-Seven found a bench overlooking a dingy grand staircase. She could imagine women in beautiful gowns being escorted down the stairs by gentlemen in tuxedos. At one time this would have been the ideal place for a prom or perhaps a wedding. Now, the dirt was married to the carpet, and dings in the brass railing had left it dilapidated and near falling apart.

My gifts emerged before the Nostradamus Effect. We were not many, but we existed, more hidden than we are now. I survived The Culling because of a wise woman who foresaw a shadow darkening our existence.

Twenty-Seven mulled over the woman’s words. She replayed the last sentence and hung on the phrase, “a shadow darkening our existence.” She remembered a letter that had once been delivered to her home in Brooklyn.

The hotel melted away in a streak of mixing colors. Twenty-Seven gasped as the world around her began to collapse in on itself. From the colors emerged new scenery, a place she had once lived. She looked down to the mail slot, and the letter floating toward the ground.

Twenty-Seven took a step closer to the door and became aware she was not alone. She turned her head to a mirror mounted in the entryway. Where her reflection should have been, the angel stood, gazing at her, watching her every movement.

What happened next?

Twenty-Seven reached down for the letter, surprised at her lack of fear. Her fingers touched the something and she recalled the sensation of fine linen paper. She admired the address on the front of the envelope. She knew the author was a female by the swirling letters and precision penmanship. She carefully tore at the corner until she could remove the slip within.

She unfolded it and paused at the fanciful script. She turned the envelope over, but there was no return address. She began to read the words.

Dear Samantha,

I have no time to waste in this letter, a shadow darkens our existence. My heart breaks for the abuse you have suffered at the hands of men. There is a chance to break the cycle and make a new life for yourself. I do not offer you simplicity, or even a pleasant journey in the days to come. I do offer you a chance to reclaim a woman you have come to mourn.

72-13-26.

I cannot tell your fate far beyond the wall. In your journeys you will meet an angel. She will need you as a symbol of what she has to gain as she wages a war within. Guide her. If your messenger is slow, go to meet him.

Sincerely,

Eleanor P. Valentine

Before the angel could inquire, Twenty-Seven spoke. “My grandmother used to say that. Do not wait for world to come to you, meet it. She had been a strong woman. She divorced my grandfather during an age where it wasn’t acceptable. She became a pariah in her community. But she never looked back.”