The Paladin Prophecy

#5: TRUST NO ONE.

He tossed the cookie out the back window and closed his door quietly. It had no lock, so he tilted his desk chair and wedged the top rail under the knob. He started his phone’s stopwatch app and set it on the bed. Eleven minutes.

He stepped to the bathroom and turned on the shower so she’d hear water in the pipes. He peeled off his shirt and sweatpants and checked the road rash on his hip. It was red and raw but he’d had worse. He cleaned it with a washcloth, then splashed on hydrogen peroxide. The scratch on his back looked nasty and inflamed. He poured peroxide on it, then gripped the sink and grimaced through the burn. Moving back to the bedroom, he glanced out one of the windows at the street in front. Empty.

Will dressed in fresh sweats. He picked up his iPhone and tapped the new application. A moment later the “Universal Translator” opened into a blank gray page. No menu or on-screen instructions about how to use it.

He logged onto his laptop and opened his email. A new message was waiting from Dad. The time tag read 8:18 that morning, but it had only just arrived. He double-clicked it. A blank message opened. No text. But it carried an attachment. He clicked on the attachment and it transferred onto his hard drive. It was a video file. He clicked on it repeatedly but couldn’t open it. Six minutes.

He tried every program on his drive that could play video. Nothing worked. Then he noticed the subject tag on the email: Translated. He transferred the Universal Translator app from his phone to the laptop. This time a pull-down menu appeared. On the menu were two options: Translate and Delete. He clicked Translate. A video player’s graphic interface came up on-screen. A triangular PLAY arrow floated into view. Will clicked on the arrow. The video file began to play.

A generic hotel room faded in, shown through the wide-angle lens of a laptop’s on-board camera. There was a framed generic still life on the wall and a fragment of window on the left side of the screen. Pale morning light.

“Will.”

Dad’s voice. A moment later, Jordan West sat down in front of the camera. Will felt a flood of relief just seeing his father. But it didn’t last. Dad’s face and sweats were drenched, as if he’d come back from a hard run. His wire-rimmed glasses were fogged up; he took them off to clean them. Will realized it wasn’t just fatigue or urgency in his eyes: Dad looked terrified.

“Pay attention now, Will,” his dad said. “I’m in room twelve-oh-nine at the Hyatt Regency.”

He held the front page of a San Francisco newspaper close to the lens. He pointed to its upper right-hand corner. His hands were shaking.

He’s showing me today’s date. Tuesday, November 7. Then Dad held his phone in front of the laptop’s camera: 8:17 a.m. So I’ll know exactly when he recorded this.

Jordan leaned in close and spoke in low, controlled tones. “Son, I’m making a big bet that only you will be able to open this: I’ve always bet on you. From what I’ve just seen, I don’t have much time, and by the time you see this, neither will you.

“I know how strange and how frightening this sounds, Will. The first thing you have to know is that none of what’s happened, or might happen, is your fault. Not one bit of it. We’re responsible for this. And the idea that something we did would bring pain or sorrow into your life is the worst feeling your mom and I have ever known.”

Will felt panic spread from his gut.

“We always hoped this day would never come. We’ve done everything in our power to prevent it. We’ve tried as best we could, the only way we could, to prepare you if it ever did. Someday I hope you’ll understand and forgive us for never saying why—”

A startling bang rocked the screen. Will recoiled along with his dad. The camera shook as Jordan West looked to his left: Something powerful had crashed into the door. He turned back to the lens, his eyes frantic.

“My dear boy,” he said, his voice breaking. “We love you more than anything in life. Always and forever. Tell no one about this or about our family, no matter who they say they are. Believe me, these people will stop at nothing. Be the person I know you can be. Use the rules and everything we’ve taught you. Instincts, training, discipline, hold nothing back. Run as far and as fast as you can. Do whatever you need to do to stay alive. I’ll come for you. I don’t know when, but I swear I’ll tear down the gates of hell to find you—”

Another explosion blew out the laptop’s equalizer into white noise. The hotel room filled instantly with a cloud of dust and debris. The image spun around as the laptop flew through the air and landed on the floor at a crazy angle. Will was looking at the window he’d seen earlier but the camera had turned sideways. In the near distance, a tall, singular skyscraper jutted horizontally across the window: the Transamerica Pyramid. San Francisco. The video signal fractured into static lines. Dark figures rushed into view. A curtain closed across the window, and then a hand reached into the keyboard. Dad’s hand: He hit the key that attached the video and sent the email—

The screen went dead.

“Dad. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Please don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him, please let him be okay.

Too stunned to move, Will gazed at the poster on his wall. THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ORDERLY MIND.

Listen. No matter what’s happened, you have to do exactly what he’s telling you. The way he taught you: rationally, systematically, ferociously. Now.

Start by asking the right questions: When did this happen?

Tuesday, November 7, 8:17 a.m. While I was in history class. Dad sent his last real texts before I got to school: RUN, WILL. DON’T STOP. Every text after 8:17 was either coerced or sent by the men I saw in Dad’s hotel room. They’re working with the ones who’ve chased me all day. The ones who’ve done something to my mother.

But why? What do they want from us?

Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw movement in the back window. He grabbed a rock paperweight from his desk, a birthday gift engraved with a single word: VERITAS. He whirled and pegged it at the window. It punched a hole through the glass and clipped something that spun and fluttered to the roof.

Will hurried to the window. Lying on the shingles outside, in a sharp rectangle of light, was the little white-breasted blackbird. It twitched once or twice, then lay still. The sight of the small pathetic creature pierced Will’s soul. He opened the broken window, gathered the still-warm bird in his hands, and brought it inside.

A puff of smoke rose from the center of the bird’s chest; it smelled acrid, almost electrical. Looking closely, Will noticed an irregular line under the bird’s chest feathers, a seam where smoke continued to leak.

Will grabbed his Swiss Army knife from the desk, opened a blade, and pressed it against the seam until he felt it give. Something small, black, and insubstantial—like a shadow—flew out of the widening crack. Startled, Will leaned away; the shadow veered out the back window and vanished.

Will pried the crack apart. Inside he found no flesh or blood, sinew or bone. Only wires and circuits. The bird was some kind of complex machine. And its cold blank eye looked a lot like a camera lens—

There was a sharp knock at his door. The doorknob turned. “Will, honey, are you all right?” asked Belinda just outside. “I heard something break.”

“I dropped a glass,” he said. He stood motionless, waiting for the door to open against the chair and give away that he’d blocked it. “I’m just cleaning up.”

She paused. “As long as you’re all right. Be careful. Dinner’s ready.”

He listened as she moved down the stairs, then grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and folded it around the bird. As he came back into his bedroom, he heard a car outside. Through the window that looked toward the front of the house, he saw a familiar set of headlights coming slowly down the street.

It was Dad’s car, but after viewing that video, Will had no idea who would be behind the wheel.

That decided it. They’d rehearsed the drill as a family countless times: two minutes to drop everything and run. Will threw first-aid supplies into his kit bag, then hurried to the bedroom and pulled out his cross-country duffel. He dropped the kit bag in with some clothes: jeans, T-shirts, his best sweater, a bomber jacket, underwear, and socks. His iPhone, iPod, MacBook, power cords, sunglasses, and the bird in the towel went in as well. He set the wedding photo of his parents on top. He grabbed a hundred and forty-three bucks—emergency savings—from a hidden slot in his desk and tossed in the Swiss Army knife.

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