Veiled (7 page)

“
What, do you see
something?” he asked with alarm.

“
Yes. Our
auras.”

“
What are you talking
about, Tess?”

I turned to Nancy, who was
next to me on the other side. “Nancy, do you see us
glowing?”

Nancy frowned, confused at
my question. She was too busy trying to see though the fog and my
question seemed so unrelated that she couldn’t understand
it.

“
Wait a minute!” Alex said
with sudden realization and brought the whole group to a halt.
“Tess, you can see our auras?”

“
Yes, all our auras are
glowing, but not theirs.” I pointed to the spirits that surrounded
us. “Their auras are dark, dark like this fog. Can’t you guys see
it too?”

They all shook their
heads.

“
This is great!” admitted
Russell. “We have a tactical advantage!” he said pointing at me.
“You’ll be able to find Celeste and Max, their auras should be
glowing too, right?” he asked me with hope.

“
I think so,” I replied.
Finally I had proof that I was indeed a Discerner!

We pressed on with new
found hope, and we needed it too. I focused my vision and looked
all around as we made our way down the street, but saw nothing.
Then I remembered the little glowing dots that I had noticed while
we were hovering above the planet.

“
I know how to narrow this
search down,” I said. “It made no sense to me before, because I
have never seen auras before…or at least I never saw the contrast
that they make against a background such as this.”

Russell looked eagerly at
me and Valerie looked like she wanted me to get to the
point.

“
When we were hovering
above the planet, I saw glowing spots. At the time…” I hadn’t
finished my explanation before Valerie began a quick ascent.
Russell and the rest followed her, no doubt in a hurry to get out
of this oppressive place.

“
Good idea, Tess.” Dorian
patted my shoulder before he too took to space. Alex was the only
one who still stood by my side, and he grabbed my hand and pulled
me up.

“
Ahh…much better,” Valerie
sighed once we were out of the planet.

Nancy muttered something
and so did the others, they sounded muffled by the gloomy feeling
that still possessed us.

“
We have to get a little
closer, just above the city,” I said, and reluctantly they followed
me back down.

“
OK,” Russell said, “start
looking for those glowing dots, Tess, before I go insane.” His
words resounded in our hearts as well as our ears. If we felt this
way…Celeste and Max would only be feeling worse.

As soon as I spotted a
shimmer we went down to the surface. But when we got there, we
didn’t find Celeste or Max. We found a spirit named Katie. Some of
her clan members had come here seeking more information, but she
assured us that she didn’t want to be there. She was hesitant to
leave her loved ones, but she didn’t want to stay either so we told
her to come with us as we searched for Celeste and Max. She joined
us and we rose up to get a better view and to give our souls a
chance to recover from the gloom we felt. In the mean time, Dane
brought Katie up to speed on what our situation was, and got some
information about her own.

“
This might take a while,”
Russell admitted. “It might also prove to be a bigger rescue than
we first anticipated,” he said while glancing over at Katie who
seemed to be a pleasant happy spirit, obviously foreign to these
parts.

“
We’ll see,” I added. “I
don’t see very many glowing spots, none at all actually.” I was
trying to be thorough, which also meant that we were moving very
slow. I didn’t want to miss any parts of the city. After what
seemed like an eternity I saw them! Three glowing spots, two bright
and one dim and they were all some distance apart.

“
There!” I
pointed.

“
Yes!” said Valerie,
relieved.

“
Who do you suppose the
dim aura belongs to?” Alex asked.

“
Richard,” I said
bluntly.

He grimaced, “You’ve made
your point beautifully.”

“
I didn’t mean to rub it
in, Alex. I just…I just knew we couldn’t trust him.”

“
Um…sorry to butt in,
but…what if the dim aura doesn’t belong to Richard?” Valerie
said.

“
It has to! Who else?” I
snapped.

Valerie and Alex exchanged
looks; I didn’t bother to look over to see what they meant. I knew
that Richard was lying about something, and the fact that we were
here, trying to save Celeste proved it. If someone’s aura was going
dark, it was his.

Once we touched down on the
planet’s surface we were once more greeted by that awful feeling of
discouragement and I found it increasingly hard to believe that we
would succeed in our rescue attempts, in spite of the added
advantage of seeing auras. It was hard to have confidence and hope
in anything down here. I was in the lead, groping in the dark
toward the spot where I saw the auras from above.

“
Are you sure we are going
in the right direction?” whispered Nancy cynically, from somewhere
behind me.

“
We should have landed
right in between all three of them. We’ll see at least one of them
soon,” I said, ignoring her rudeness. I knew I wasn’t the best with
directions, but I saw the glowing auras from above, and I knew that
we landed near them. “Wait! I think I see something! This way, stay
close we don’t want to separate,” I ordered.

“
Oh, it’s you,” I couldn’t
hide my disappointment, and Richard couldn’t hide his
relief.

“
Hey! What are you guys
doing here?” Richard said in a stupidly nervous manner.

“
We are looking for Max
and Celeste,” Russell said, as he moved in front of me, not to
shield me from Richard so much as to shield Richard from me. “Do
you know where they are being held?”

“
I don’t know…I was
talking to someone…then they left,” Richard said without concern.
“But I’m sure glad to see you guys here. I tried to look for those
spirits who brought us here; they wanted me to speak to some of
their friends…but I can’t seem to find them now.” He swished his
arm in front of him in a fruitless attempt at clearing the fog in
front of him. “But since you guys are here now…can I just come with
you?” he asked.

It was easier to get mad
down here and he infuriated me so much at the moment that I was
ready to jump on him, but Russell instinctively stuck out his arm
to keep me back.

“
Richard, you will have to
think a little harder about where Celeste or Max is, or you can’t
come with us,” Russell said in an unprecedented effort at keeping
his cool.

Now Richard’s goofy look
disappeared and he looked truly nervous. “I…I told you, they left.
One minute we were all talking to those lovely spirits, and the
next thing I knew Max was gone and Celeste said something to me
about…well, never mind about that. But she left too. She just
turned and left, and you know how hard it is to see in this fog.
Please take me with you, don’t leave me here.”

“
Can you at least tell us
in which direction she went?” I couldn’t see Russell’s face, but I
was sure that it took great strength to control his volatile temper
as he said those words.

Richard looked alarmed for
a moment and with a shaky hand, promptly pointed to his
right.

“
Are you sure?” Russell
said through gritted teeth.

“
Ah…yes,” Richard said
trying to sound sure. I figured that there was a fifty-fifty chance
that he was right, but we didn’t have a lot of options at the
moment. Alex wrapped one arm around my shoulder as we moved in the
direction that Richard had pointed; it was his way of
congratulating me on holding my tongue.

“
So can I come?” Richard
asked, but no one answered him. He must have taken our silence to
mean yes, because he not only followed us, but also talked the
entire time. He went on and on about his adventures with Celeste
and how much success they were having until he was invited here,
and was promised a large gathering for him to lecture to on the
advantages of mortal life under the First One’s rule, until two
different voices told him to “shut up” and then Valerie added, “or
you’ll be left behind again!”.

I couldn’t see anything,
but I knew we were close, I could feel a familiar presence. I
raised my hand and the procession of spirits who followed me halted
behind me. All was silent for a moment, and then I slowly began to
hear them.

They were nothing but mere
whispers, yet they carried the most vicious messages with the
vilest of feelings and thoughts with them. I couldn’t hear the full
message, just isolated words—nothing…worthless…forgotten…useless—I
gathered in my strength and plunged myself forward and through the
spirits I knew were in front of me.

I was quickly swallowed up
by the many forms that encircled the little light that was
Celeste’s aura.

“
Tess, no!” Alex’s
strangled shout sounded distant.

There, surrounded by
darkened ugly faces, stood Celeste. Her eyes were shut tight and
her fingers stopped her ears. She seemed to have retreated into
herself and was repeating something over and over again.

I didn’t want to startle
her, but I knew that I must do something quick, because the voices
were turning on me now. I laid the palm of my hand softly on her
cheek. But she didn’t feel it, and her eyes were shut
tightly.

“
Celeste!” I said, but she
couldn’t hear me. My mind was having a hard time focusing amid the
noise that the vile spirits were creating.
What do I do? What do I do?
I thought
and suddenly I found myself imitating Celeste’s technique and
stopping my own ears, trying to shut the noise out.

No…be strong!
I told myself,
you are
here for her, don’t worry about yourself.
In an instant I moved my hands away from my own ears and put
them over Celeste’s hands and I tried to pry them away from her own
ears. Startled, she looked up and stared at me,
dumbfounded.

“
Let’s get out of here,
Cel,” I said trying hard to smile. She nodded, but neither of us
could move. The circle seemed to close in tighter around us and we
were trapped.

We hugged and clung to each
other. “Thanks for coming, Tess,” Celeste whispered in my ear. “I
feel better having you here…but now we are both
trapped.”

“
We are only as trapped as
we think we are,” I said, though I didn’t know where this idea had
come from.

“
You think they’ll let us
go?” Celeste asked with a tired shaky voice. “You don’t think
they’ll just follow us wherever we go? They did that to me once
already…and now I am resigned to staying here.”

I struggled to know what to
say that would give her, and I, hope of escaping. But by now our
whole clan could have been overpowered. We could all be trapped
here, forced to listen to their lies—lies that sounded truer and
truer the longer we stayed.

Close to my ear I heard a
distinct voice, one that asserted itself more than the
rest.

“
I’ll cut you a deal…” it
said. “If one of you willingly gives herself up and joins us…the
other can go free.”

That voice…I had heard that
voice before, it was, it was….

My thoughts were
interrupted by a loud growl-like noise in the distance. My mind
tried to make sense of what was going on around it. I dared not
open my eyes for fear of the faces that surrounded us. But then one
thought occurred to me.
Agatha
. That was the voice I heard.
It was her!

This thought somehow did
the opposite of what it should have done; it gave me strength to
open my eyes to face her. The memory of my resolution after our
last encounter, gave me that strength. I was not going to be weak!
I was going to face her, and any rebel that tried to destroy our
future. But when I opened my eyes, I was not ready for the scene
that was unfolding itself around us.

“
Um…Celeste?”

“
What?” Her voice was
barely audible.

“
You might want to open
your eyes and see this.”

She did and looked with
astonishment at the flying forms of rebels that looked like they
were being plucked up and thrown this way and that with an
incredible speed. So fast was this, that the other rebels hardly
knew what was going on before they too fell prey to the unseen
force that was chucking them.

All I could discern were
streaks of light at the base of them and the sound…the growling
sound that came closer and closer to us.

Once the way before us was
cleared and only Agatha and a few other spirits remained at our
side, the streaks of light stopped abruptly and smiled at
us.

Beside me I could see
Celeste’s aura brighten as she let out weak and nervous laugh.
Russell, Dane, Alex, and Dorian looked back at us and in one bound
they scooped us up into their arms and took us away, followed by
Valerie, Nancy, Katie, and Richard.