Awakening: The Elder Chronicles, Volume 1 Page 10

  "We need to leave the truck. By now it will be reported stolen. We'll need to procure other transportation." He spoke in a hushed tone. His lips brushed her ear, sending an electric current down her neck. She wanted to taste his kiss. She wanted him more than she'd wanted anyone before.

  She drew in a sharp breath and held it, trying to regain composure. But her heart beat so fast. In a forced hushed tone she asked, "W—why are we walking?"

  "We don't want to leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading them to us, do we?"

  Elena nodded. "Are we going to fly out from here?" she asked him.

  He chuckled.

  "I mean, Ottawa has an international airport, right?" she corrected.

  "No," he replied as he pulled away from her. "We are not. If they find the truck, then they will search the airport. We need to make sure we are not followed. The location of the Elder cannot ever be divulged to the Opposition." He stopped and soaked her in. She turned and faced him. "And," he said, "we need to keep you safe from them as well."

  Alec pulled a cell phone from his pocket and dialed some numbers. Elena could not overhear his hushed conversation, but he hung up and slipped the phone back into his pants pocket.

  "Sorry," he told her, "but we need some money. And I needed to make sure Luc got his compensation."

  "What does a pair of fake ID's go for nowadays?"

  "For his trouble," Alec replied, "I've decided to give Luc about twenty thousand dollars." Alec raised his eyebrows. "Do you agree?" he asked.

  "Well, I guess a fee so high is nothing, Your Grace," she responded with a smirk.

  Alec smiled. She could see in his smile reflections of some fond memories.

  "Unfortunately," he said, "I am not a real duke anymore. I was, once upon a time. But I had to abandon my post to keep up a human pretense. Upon my 'death' I liquidated the entire estate and transferred it to my 'heirs' in perpetuity. My 'heirs' are a long line of false identities I have used for many generations to control my accounts. It's partly where some of my fortune comes from." He smirked. "I use the false title from time to time as a way to explain my accounts."

  "So," she asked, with no regard for propriety, "how rich are you?"

  Alec laughed.

  Good, at least I didn't offend him.

  "I like to think I have enough," he told her. "We will be picking up some walking-around money at my bank. If I am not mistaken, there is a branch at the mall up the road." He stared off in the distance and she wondered what ran through his mind. "I would say we have about a two-mile hike ahead of us. Are you ready?"

  "Okay," she replied with a playful grin. "So what do you say we jog? I've been sitting on my butt too much with all this driving. A little exercise would be good."

  "We're not exactly dressed for jogging," he said. "It will be suspicious."

  "Wait," she countered. "With all of the pull you keep telling me the Opposition has, you're telling me you are afraid of the police being suspicious of joggers? We're going to be on their radar anyway. Why bother keeping a low profile?"

  "Because," he replied in a tone meant to remind her to be serious, "having a low profile will hopefully increase our chances of not getting caught. If the police get suspicious, they may tip the Opposition off. We may have eliminated a few of their members, but they have plenty more in reserve." He paused. "We'll try to blend in and take our time. As someone who has lived as long as I have, I can say with certainty time is on our side."

  They walked for the next half hour in silence. Elena hated seeming foolish in front of Alec. But instead of brooding about it, she enjoyed the walk and the scenery. From the modern suburbs of Tanglewood, they crossed over to the commercial development along Merivale Road.

  They entered a modest-sized mall and found Alec's bank. However, once Alec entered the bank, the process took quite a while. He didn't come out until an hour had passed. For a wire transfer this size, he explained, there are innumerable forms to fill out. "I got some money for our trip transferred from one of my untraceable accounts. We don't need the Opposition following us through our purchases."

  "Well," she asked, "how much did you take out?"

  Alec smiled at her. "I have about two-hundred thousand in various currencies. We have some shopping to do. And, we need a new car, don't we?"

  Elena coughed. Two hundred thousand? Who walks around with so much cash? But then, there were not likely to be any humans who could challenge Alec and wrestle the money away from him. And the people chasing them weren't interested in his cash.

  She raised her face, locked eyes, and said, "Then I have one question."

  "Which is?"

  "Can we at least take a cab to the car dealer?"

  "No," he said. "We can catch the bus outside the mall. But how about we go clothes shopping first?"

  To be on the safe side, Elena mentally scanned the area for any Daimon voices, feeling relieved when she heard none. "Sure," she told him. "Clothes shopping sounds great."

  They spent about two hours shopping for enough clothes for a week or so—pairs of jeans, layers of shirts, and fresh underwear and socks. Despite the danger they were in, Elena enjoyed one of the largest shopping sprees she'd been on in years, if not ever. Outside the mall, they hopped on the bus and headed over to a car dealership. After about an hour of haggling, they drove off the lot in a used 1980s Mercedes Benz diesel.

  "So, Elena, do you like hiking?" Alec asked under a raised eyebrow as they pulled onto the main road.

  "Yeah," she replied. "Why?"

  "Because it is going to be our cover. We'll be a couple on a backpacking trip." Within minutes, they arrived at a sporting goods shop to equip themselves.

  Back in the car with their new vacation gear in the trunk, Alec popped open the glove compartment and removed a small electronic unit with a wide screen. "The great thing about this car," he explained, "is I was able to negotiate with the dealer to throw in a GPS unit. It should make it easier to plot our way to Winnipeg." He turned the unit on, tapped the screen to input a destination, and attached it to the windshield with a suction-cup mount.

  "Wait, won't they be able to track us with the GPS?" Elena asked.

  "No," he replied. "It's a generic plug-in unit. They're not typically registered and not really traceable. They would also have to be able to link our new identities to us in order to figure out who purchased the car. The paperwork for the sale and registration won't make it into the system for a few days." Alec grinned. "By the time they figure out whose car it is, we will have been long gone from Canada."

  The sun had settled beneath the horizon by the time he pulled onto the Trans-Canada Highway and opened the throttle. Despite its advanced age, the car accelerated. They must have been traveling at least eighty miles per hour.

  They sat in silence while Alec drove. Elena relaxed her guard enough to enjoy the passing scenery. But after a while, the monotony of dense forest hypnotized her into sleep. When Elena woke up, her legs were stiff, and she had a cramp in her lower back. Wiping the crust of sleep from her eyes, a sign on the side of the highway piqued her curiosity. Turning to Alec, she asked, "So, why are we going to Winnipeg? Don't we have to go to Europe."

  "We do," Alec replied. "It will be harder to track our position if we stay on land as much as possible. And the more distance we put between ourselves and Ottawa, the less likely it is there will be a Daimon welcoming party ready for us at the airport."

  He continued, "We need to fly to Europe, but I want to make sure we can do it in relative peace and without alerting the Opposition. Whatever the inconvenience or delay in our current mission, we cannot afford to be careless enough to lead the Opposition to the Elder."

  "Why? What would the Opposition want with this Elder?" Elena asked.

  "Since the Elder is our progenitor, our alpha and omega, he represents the ways things are and always have been. He represents our mission of cooperation, understanding, and protection of humans. To kill him would be a major symbolic blow to those of
us who wish to maintain this mission. It would show the Opposition as more powerful, able to destroy our creator, capable of toppling what, for lack of a better term, is our equivalent of a god."

  Alec's comparison caught her off guard, though she could not understand why. She often described her religious beliefs as agnostic, if not atheistic. For legends of Angels and Demons to be right made little sense to her. Despite having been to church as a child with her grandmother, a devout Roman Catholic, she would never call herself a believer. But now a question burned inside her, one to which she needed answers.

  "Alec, I'm not sure how to ask this. So I'm going to go ahead and ask it." She couldn't figure out why she'd be so nervous to ask him. So she blurted, "Is it real?"

  Alec brow furrowed. "Is what real?"

  How could she follow it up?

  After a moment she answered, "You mentioned when we were leaving school something about Christian chroniclers, you discuss the Elder in very religious terms, you introduced yourself to me as a theology student, and you—you are something right out of the Old Testament itself! Is it real?"

  "I still don't understand your question."

  "Is he real? God? Is there a heaven? Or, a hell?"

  Alec stiffened. "Elena, I am really not sure how to answer these questions. Things are not as simple as you think."

  "What do you mean?" she asked, annoyed at him for trying to dodge the issue.

  "Daimones don't have religion," he explained. "To us, the idea of an all powerful, omnipotent being is embodied in the Elder. But the difference is he is a tangible being. Human religion, on the other hand, is all about belief: the belief in a hereafter, the belief there is some prime mover driving everything in existence, the belief in all of creation as intelligently designed by some supreme architect, and faith in the supreme architect's plan. This is not our way of seeing the world. In essence, humans would say we are atheists. There is no afterlife, no supreme architect, or great driver steering the course of existence. There is no faith except in our own selves. There was only ever and always will be the Elder."

  Elena nodded. "So then, he is kind of like your God."

  Alec shook his head. "No," he said. "It's not so simple. It would be like saying a child's father was her God. From the child's perspective, it would seem a rational assertion. The father is larger and stronger, he seems to have answers to nearly any and all questions, and the father is the child's creator as the child is his offspring. But the reality of the situation is they are both sentient living beings who are equally prone to the same mistakes and behaviors but yet still share the same limitless potential as the other. During maturity, it eventually becomes evident to the child she and the father are equals."

  "Okay, so he's not a god. But you refer to him as the alpha and the omega—a term Christianity uses to describe God."

  Alec nodded. "Yes. You're right, I did use a Christian term to describe him and to illustrate another facet of his importance to us. You see, he was the first of our kind. He has been on this earth since time forgotten and will probably be here once we have all perished. Therefore, he is also the end. I was trying to explain his importance in a way you might understand without getting into a lengthy discussion."

  "Yeah, it didn't work out so well for you, did it?" she teased.

  Alec laughed. "No, I guess not."

  Elena still had questions, though. After a few moments she asked, "But, if he is so revered by the Daimones, then why is there all the secrecy about where he is?"

  Alec smiled at her. "Because the Opposition wants him destroyed. His destruction is their goal because he stands in the way of their attempts to enslave both the Daimon and human races."

  This seemed to make sense to Elena, but something else didn't feel right. "Okay, but don't all Daimones know where he is?"

  "No," he replied. "After the Opposition's uprising, all Daimones were banished from our ancestral home, where the Elder lives. Legends and tales tell of its location, but in a very general sense. And then there are the stories of him being moved to a new location. His actual location is known by a select few of our kind, his sworn protectors. They alone possess the location of his resting place."

  "Wait a minute. Did you say resting place? Is he dead, or something?"

  Alec shook his head. "No, he is not dead. Don't you remember what I told you about our kind? We do not die of natural causes, but such longevity does have its own price to pay. None of us know his true age, but his eldest offspring are well over a hundred millennia old. Time wears on a body, be it human or Daimon."

  "Wow," Elena remarked. "Do you think the Elder lived when both Neanderthals and modern humans cohabitated?"

  "More than likely," Alec replied.

  Elena turned back to the side window, where she watched the darkness of sunset creep westward across the land. In her mind danced images of humans and Neanderthals, the emergence of human cultural traditions, and the answers to thousands of questions about human biological and cultural evolution.

  After a short pause, she turned back to Alec again. "So how long are we going to be on the road to Winnipeg?"

  Alec checked the speedometer. "At this speed, probably another twenty hours, give or take. Of course," he said with a wink, "we could get where we're going a lot quicker if you could fly!"

  Elena's eyes rolled in exasperation. "Great! I'm super psyched!" she exclaimed. "Twenty more hours of riding in a car."

  Elena glared at him then turned her attention back to the world whipping past her window. Despite having a new identity and her own personal guardian angel while heading off on an international flight, a shiver ran up her spine. She couldn't shake the feeling this trip wouldn't be as easy as it sounded. Pushing her uneasiness aside, Elena decided to focus on something much more palatable. She spent her time wondering what it would be like when this adventure ended and she could have Alec all to herself. Would he want her like she wanted him?

  Chapter Eleven

  "Folks, this is your captain," came the voice over the airplane intercom. They had made it to the airport in Winnipeg without incident. There they abandoned the car and boarded their flight to London.

  "It is nearly 7:30 am, local time," the captain continued, "and we are currently circling above Heathrow Airport. We will be landing in about fifteen minutes. Please make your final preparations before we begin our descent. Thank you."

  Elena collected her meager belongings, amazed at how few things she had brought. Her old possessions were now abandoned either at college or at her home, and most of her new possessions were in her pack, stowed below.

  The plane landed and taxied over to the terminal. As Alec climbed out of his seat, the flight attendant opened the outer door. Elena could see the pilot had also made his way from the cockpit to greet his passengers.

  "I hope you had a pleasant flight, folks."

  Alec shook the captain's hand. "We did," he told the man. "I will be sure to recommend your airline to all of my friends," Alec continued, grinning. "We fly a lot."

  The captain returned Alec's smile. "Thank you."

  Elena stifled a laugh, shook the pilot's hand, and then followed behind Alec out the hatch. It took everything she had to suppress a chuckle as she did.

  The hatch led to a mobile stairway, which deposited them down onto the tarmac. There were few planes near them. And aside from the few passengers on the half-empty plane, the place was desolate. A handful of workers were carting luggage from the bellies of the nearby planes or performing what Elena figured were routine safety inspections.

  The plane has landed, she heard a voice say in her mind. I think she might be here.

  Despite having eavesdropped on the conversation, she knew the voice's owner searched for her.

  It took all of her self-control for Elena to fight the urge to stop dead in her tracks. She didn't recognize the female voice and fought hard to resist the urge to find the voice's source. She knew somebody had to be nearby. A Daimon somebody.

&nbs
p; With a Herculean effort of will, she managed to keep her legs stepping in perfect rhythm with Alec. If they were being watched, she knew she couldn't afford to draw attention to herself by craning her neck searching. She trotted after Alec and caught up in a few short strides.

  She leaned close to him, as if to give him a kiss on the cheek. "We are being watched," she whispered in his ear.

  Alec smiled and planted a peck on her cheek. Her skin tingled where his lips touched her. He whispered back, "They've probably broadcast your ability to hear Daimon telepathy to scouts all over. I believe this is a fishing expedition. They'll pounce on the first person to search the skies for them. As long as we ignore it, then to them we are white noise. A lead needing to be run to ground."

  Hoping they'd appear to anyone watching like a couple in love, Elena laughed and hugged him. She hoped the real fear growing inside of her did not show through. "So, where do you think they would be hiding?" she asked. "I can't help but want to search for our tail."

  "Whatever you do," he told her, "don't do it. They will be watching every move we make. We need to match our cover—we are a couple taking a backpacking holiday through Europe."

  "Okay," she said. "I understand." Elena stopped, put her arms around his neck, and leaped into his arms, squealing with excitement. She took advantage of the situation and hammed it up for their audience. But she also had to admit she enjoyed having him this close to her. His lean, but powerful arms wrapped around her.

  She gazed into his alluring eyes and warmth spread through her. He squeezed her tight against his chest. Leaning in, she brushed her lips against his, electricity passing between them. She could feel the heat of his breath on her neck as she cocked her head to one side. Her lips sought his neck, laying kisses with a feather-like touch. She could feel his groin press against her as he leaned back, holding her off the ground. Her face burned, her heart pounded. She wished they could be alone. Grabbing his face between her hands, she pushed hers closer to him.