Chapter Six
"The Long Night"
After having made sure that the motel was safe, the men all parked their vehicles in front of the rooms they had selected mostly out of sight of the highway and the other motels, gas stations and fast food places at their exit. Demons weren't their only concern as David pointed out to him that people became stupid in crisis situations and were prone to turning against each other and looting supplies from the people that had them.
Cody carried the injured young man into the room that all three of them would share, struggling with his weight and set him down on the bed closest to the window once Lily had pulled back the sheets so that they wouldn't disturb him by coming and going through the front door. He went back out to the truck and brought the backpacks, a few bottles of water and one of the baskets of food they had gotten at the gas station inside. After locking the door and standing his flashing up on the table pointed at the ceiling so that it created a good deal of ambient light in the room, Cody flopped down on the remaining bed with a deep sigh of relief. Finally a chance to rest after an incredibly hectic day! They weren't planning on leaving until eight in the morning.
He turned his head to the side and watched as Lily tended to the teen they'd found buried under a pile of rubble. She methodically checked his bandages, took his temperature with a thermometer she had found in the bigger of the two first aid kits and then opened one of the bottles of water Cody had brought inside. Lily tilted the teen's head up with one hand and held the bottle up to the his lips, letting it slowly trickle into his mouth. After he'd consumed about a third of the bottle Lily stopped, pulled her flashlight out, peeled open his eyelids and shone the light in his eyes checking for pupil dilation.
"How beautiful!" Lily gasped, staring in wonderment at the stranger.
"Huh?" Cody wondered aloud, rolling over and getting to his feet to see what had amazed her. Lily shone the light in the teen's eye again and Cody saw the pupil constrict, but he was distracted by the incredibly vibrant shade of green surrounding it. It reminded him of Taschen's insanely blue eyes minus the bolts of lightning of course. An image of the boy's broken body, soaked in his own blood, came to mind unbidden and Cody pushed it away not wanting to remember him like that.
"So how is he Doc?" Cody asked as he went over to the small table in the corner of the room and set out a couple bowls of microwavable beef stew and a box of Cheeze-Its.
"He'll be fine, there's nothing really wrong with him. I think he just got hit pretty hard in the head." Lily answered, seeing what Cody was doing and came to join him at the table.
"Shame he didn't have a hard head like Zack," He replied, feeling a small smile tug at the corners of his lips, remembering his brother's stubbornness.
"Zack's your twin right?"
"Yeah and he could be so stubborn sometimes, even about the stupidest things. That's how he died I guess…" Cody muttered, pausing in the process of eating his stew to stir the contents of the bowl lazily with the plastic spoon he held. He saw Zack slide out of the duct in his mind and then get thrown to the floor by the Orcs in their bedroom. He'd recovered quickly and fought the Demons, buying Cody time to escape by distracting them.
"You can tell me Cody…if you feel up to it," Lily said in a concerned tone, giving him an opening to talk about it or just let him have his space for now. She reached across the table and her right hand slipped into his left.
"He had a chance to escape with me," Cody finally said, remembering how Zack had rolled away from the Orc that had thrown him down and ran over to the vent, slamming it shut and saying goodbye. He would have made it! Well…he might have made it and Cody became unsure of himself. "But rather than take it he protected me until the very end, distracting the Demons and buying me time to escape."
In his mind Cody saw Zack surrounded by a dim aura of white light lashing out with his good leg to deliver a devastating kick to the head of one of the Orcs followed up by a pair of punches, one from each fist. He'd lashed out in every direction, giving as good as he'd got for several seconds before he was knocked out of Cody's view. Wait a minute! Cody halted his memory and rewound it like it was a scene in a movie until he paused it, seeing Zack surrounded by a dim aura of white light.
"What is it?" Lily wondered after he had apparently ignored whatever she had said, his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall behind her with an unfocused stare. She came around to stand in front of him, cupping her hand under his chin and lifting his gaze so that it rested upon her face.
"Zack was using his powers to defend me. I didn't realize it until just now." He answered in an astonished voice.
"Taschen said that your brother was like you didn't he?" Lily asked, confused as to why Cody thought Zack using his powers to defend him was strange given that he had first exhibited his own abilities while protecting her.
"Yes, but…" He wasn't sure how to interpret the dream he'd had down in the subway. "I had a dream last night and I was reliving the entire thing, except that this time I was Zack. It was so real. I felt like I was him! I remember feeling the pain he endured, hearing his thoughts about my safety, feeling his anger, his fear and above it all I remember feeling power surge through his body. It was the same power as mine, he had an aura like I do now and just before that man chasing us killed him I felt a different sword form in his hand. Zack was about to clean house, just like I'd done back in Boston right before we escaped and then the man overpowered him…" Cody said in a rush, his initial hesitation vanishing as his voice grew in strength until the last few words when it became soft and he looked down at the floor.
"Do you think it was real?"
"I didn't think it was when I woke up, but now that I remember Zack glowing just before I lost sight of him…I don't know." Cody desperately wanted the dream to have been true, despite the grim ending. He wanted to think that if Zack had had to die, that he would have gone down fighting. It was so typical of him, not to give an inch when he made a stand for or against something that he truly cared about, including his baby brother.
"Maybe it was. They say that twins share a special connection."
"Yeah, we did. I loved Zack, he was my brother and my best friend. We didn't always get along perfectly, that's what you would expect of siblings, but I wouldn't have traded him for anything in the world."
"That's so sweet." Cody smiled as he remembered his mother, Maddie, Max and Barbara telling him what a nice person he was and how he was doing sweet things, caring about the welfare and happiness of others before himself. Zack had once accused him of being selfish when they were younger, it had been some stupid argument and the absurdity of it made Cody burst out laughing which soon ended the fight because Zack couldn't figure out what was so funny and eventually gave into his own fits of laughter. On that fateful day however, when the Demons burst into their suite, Zack had been the selfless one.
"I wonder what his story is," Cody said at last, deciding to change the subject, nodding his head toward the teen sleeping soundly by the window. He felt better after talking to her, but for the moment he needed some space again. Lily picked up on this and sat back down to start eating dinner.
"Me too, I hope he wakes up soon," She agreed, and then she grinned devilishly, "He is pretty handsome." Cody simply nodded as he went back to his own meal. He wasn't one to judge how other guys looked, but he could see why Lily would think that with the teen's short white blond hair which was black at the roots and had streaks of black running through it here and there on top of the incredible green eyes.
"Something banged him up pretty good, I'm amazed that he lived after going through that glass into that counter. Not a single broken bone." Cody said analytically, remembering how the teen had been buried under the ruins of the service counter. He wondered why the young man had been there at all, so close to where Ashani and Taschen had been fighting. Who, or what, had knocked him into the auto repair shop and why didn't they finish him off? He hadn't seen any of the Demons or the men in black armor offer mercy to anyone. Everyone that had run into them had died. Everyone except Cody and Lily, so far as he knew…
"Some people just get lucky." Lily shrugged off his concerns. "Lucky like how you found just when I really needed you."
"Yeah…" Cody trailed off, now munching down on the Cheeze-Its having finished his stew. He stared at the other young man for awhile, mindlessly popping the flat square snacks into his mouth, not really believing in luck.
Eventually he went into the bathroom to see if there was any running water, hoping that there was a nearby water tower providing pressure and was pleased to see that there was. Cody brought a change of clothes into the bathroom and took a quick cold shower, using the free little bars of soap and bottles of shampoo since he hadn't thought to grab anything at the store. He doubted that he would use up all the water, but he still hurried to finish mainly because he didn't want to leave Lily alone in the room with the teen they had rescued and also because it was damn cold.
Cody gently turned over onto his other side, unable to sleep and not wanting to disturb Lily who was sound asleep. All of the rooms in the hotel only had two beds and he'd been the perfect gentlemen, opting to sleep on the floor and leave the bed to her. Lily wouldn't have any part of it, reminding him that they'd already slept together down in the subway and that with all that had happened to them, such concerns seemed trivial.
He didn't know why he couldn't sleep though and it bothered him. All of the fighting he'd done that morning and afternoon had exhausted Cody and made him really hungry. It seemed that although this newfound power, the power of light as Taschen had called it, was an endless source of energy, it didn't come without drawbacks. Cody felt like his body was a bridge between wherever the power came from and the real world around him, passing through him like a conduit. Harnessing this power had given him great abilities, but had worn him out more and more the longer that he had used it. It seemed that it was burning up the chemically created energy in his body in order to be…what? Exploited? Used?
Eventually he fell into a state where he wasn't sure if he was awake or asleep, where the body rested but the mind was still abuzz with activity. He eventually decided that he must be asleep because he felt someone shaking his shoulder urgently trying to awaken him. Cody was slightly angry, after a couple of hours of staring at the ceiling he was finally starting to drift off to sleep… He shut his eyes tighter, trying to ignore whomever it was attempting to wake him.
"Cody you need to wake up!" Zack said, a sense of urgency in his voice. A chill raced down Cody's spine and his whole body turned as cold as ice. His eyes shot open and he sat up so fast that he nearly gave himself whiplash. Cody looked around the dark hotel room, expecting to see Zack standing over him and feeling disappointed when no one was there. He could have sworn that it was real, could have sworn that he had felt the warmth and pressure of Zack's hand against his shoulder, but there was no one in the room besides himself, Lily and the young man in the other bed. Something was wrong though, Cody was sure of it.
He felt an unnatural sense of terror and wasn't sure what as causing it. It felt as though the air in the room had become oppressively stuffy, making it harder to breathe. Cody resisted the urge to hyperventilate and looked down at his arms which were now covered in a cold sweat, in fact his whole body had broken out into a cold sweat. What the hell was going on?
Then the pieces of the puzzle started coming together as he recognized what he was feeling. The first two times he'd felt this…whatever it was, he had only been distantly aware of it and couldn't place it. After running into the battle between Ashani and Taschen, he'd felt the powerful energy of the evil black armor clad murderer rolling off of his body in waves. Compared to the energy in Taschen, Ashani's power carried a taint with it. That was the only way Cody could describe it, the other power was like good tasting food that left behind a horrible after taste. He knew the first two times he had felt like this, he was sensing the darker power of the man hunting him who had been at the Tipton and then came looking for him in the subway tunnels.
The darker power was associated with the two men in black armor who seemed to be able to command the Demons and fight with impressive strength and skill. Fear gripped him, constricting his chest, as he suddenly came to the conclusion that one of the men had found him. Up until now the power of the light had been hiding just outside of his sight. Cody was reminded of standing on the beach at the ocean, the tide out to sea, watching to see if the struggling waves would reach all the way up the wet sand where they had dominated hours ago, the tiniest sliver of salt water tickling his toes before going back out to sea. Now though, without conscious thought, those little slivers of ocean became tidal waves slamming into the beach with full force. He quickly got out of bed and stood up.
Wave after wave slammed into Cody as the power of light filled him from head to toe with its wonderful energy, making him feel unnaturally strong and confident. The tainted power he felt receded a little, but it was still there very near to him, growing in strength matching his own and then exceeding it. Where was it coming from? It was driving Cody mad with a combination of fear and anger. Where?
He turned his head toward the bed by the window looking where the young man they had rescued was sleeping, except that he wasn't there. Panic…uncertainty… Simultaneously his golden aura burst into existence, the sudden flare of brilliant light illuminated the whole room as Excalibur appeared in his hand and leveled itself at the teen with the white blond hair and unnaturally green eyes. While the entire room was lit up as bright as day, the teen somehow seemed to be standing in shadow, Cody's aura of light failing to reach him. The golden light was bending around the young man, like it was refusing to touch him or rather like he was doing something to repel it outright. How did you repel light???
"I wouldn't do that if I were you…" The teen said, producing a sword not unlike the one that had went through Zack's chest and leveling it at Cody in the fraction of a second it took him to blink. Excalibur vibrated in his hand as though it had been struck, somehow sensing the other blade so close to it.
"Who are you?" Cody demanded, surprised at the firmness in his voice. At hearing his voice, Lily groggily woke up asking what was wrong. Then she gasped as she saw the two of them standing with swords trained upon each other and scrambled to get behind Cody.
"My name is Jarran…"
"That's not what I mean! WHAT are you?" Cody interrupted, shifting his weight and changing his stance for better balance. Jarran cocked his head to the side as though he hadn't heard Cody correctly. He seemed generally confused by the question.
"I am a Child of Darkness and a Champion of the Chaos Realm, just as you are a Child of Light and a Champion of the Earth Realm. Am I correct?"
"What?"
"You are the Truth Seeker are you not?" There was that title again… The words meant nothing to him, and yet Cody felt that it held some sort of significance.
"Taschen, what is Cody?" Lily asked, slipping her hand into his as he groaned in pain and the effort of talking.
"Cody Martin is the Truth Seeker," Taschen answered without stopping this time. Cody felt a chill run down his spine. 'How does he know my last name? How does he freaking know?'
"Yes. How did you know?"
"Gold," Seeing that Cody did not seem to understand his cryptic answer, Jarran shook is head in dismay and explained in detail. "The Truth Seeker is always gold. The White Knight is, oddly enough, always white. The Guardian and Warden are red and blue respectively."
"You mean…the color of my light?"
"No. The color of your shoes!" Jarran exclaimed sarcastically in exasperation. "Yes your light. Good lord do you not even know who you are?"
"I…" Cody started to say…say what? What could he say? That he had no idea who or what he was? He somehow knew that this was one of the first rules about dealing with an enemy. Information is a powerful tool and you don't let your enemy know that you lack it. You have to bluff, make it seem like you knew more than they did while trying to gain information without appearing too. Unfortunately Cody had paused, long enough for Jarran to see through him.
"You don't know…" Jarran whispered, sounding genuinely awestruck. "Except for you The Children of Light are all dead now, including your twin brother." Surprise and rage boiled through Cody when he heard those last words. Did that mean Jarran had been there in the Tipton? Had this teen standing before him helped kill his brother?
"How the fuck do you know about Zack?!" Cody's voice wavered slightly, his fear, rage and frustration bleeding into his voice. Jarran seemed to stare upward for a moment as if recalling something before answering.
"Two of the souls travel together always. They enter the mortal world at the same time, almost always as brothers or sisters…" When Cody said nothing further and continued staring at him, Jarran just muttered something under his breath. It sounded like he said something along the lines of, "It can't be possible…he's completely ignorant."
"We treated your wounds!" Lily suddenly piped up from where she had been standing silently behind Cody, watching the rather one sided exchange of words. "Boston is crawling with monsters now, we saved your neck back there." Jarran briefly glanced at the bandages on his arms which covered the worst of his scrapes and cuts, before looking back up as she finished her sentence in shock.
"Those 'monsters' are the Chaos Demons. I am a Champion of Chaos, they follow my orders. I was never in any danger." Jarran said matter of factly.
"Then you're responsible for Zack's death!" Cody accused, steadying his sword and his resolve firmed.
"No, I am not. Another Champion is responsible for eliminating the Children of Light. Obviously he failed to kill you."
"Then what were you doing in Boston?"
"I was on my way to help my…help Ashani fight Taschen, but the Guardian found me first." He almost swore that Jarran was blushing with embarrassment. Cody also didn't miss that he stuttered, concealing what he had meant to say with something else.
"You mean he surprised you and knocked you out cold?" Cody asked neutrally, though he could tell Jarran took it as an insult by the way he clenched his teeth.
"Taschen's dead. Who is laughing now?"
"How would you know? You were buried in a pile of rubble while they were fighting…"
"Because Ashani was always more powerful than him! You saw the fight personally, I can see it in your eyes. I bet it was pretty one sided?"
Abruptly the fight came to an end as Ashani knocked Taschen off balance yet again, this time though he knocked the boy's sword hand away and drove his own blade down into Taschen's chest.
The sword had went completely though the boy's chest just below the ribcage, most likely missing the lungs but still doing terrible damage nonetheless. Taschen's blood pooled underneath him and that was the only reason that Cody could see the charred looking surface of the armor around the entrance wound. There was more damage done than just that of the blade.
"Look, forget about all of that. We saved your life! That building could have collapsed, crushing you. You could have suffocated under all those debris. You could have burned to death by all of the fires. Why can't you just go away and leave us alone?" Lily interrupted their verbal sparring, pleading with Jarran. Suddenly Cody saw him drop his blade slightly and he matched the movement. If what he'd said was true, Jarran had no personal hand in killing either Zack or Taschen and so far he'd done nothing more than match Cody's escalation of force. He seemed open to reasoning, and if he'd leave without a fight, Cody was willing to let him go as he was concerned about what might happen to Lily and the other survivors here at the hotel with them should they start fighting.
Seeing Cody match his move, Jarran slowly lowered his blade and Cody copied him. Finally they just stood looking at each other with their weapons pointed at the floor.
"So you did," Jarran finally relented, addressing Lily directly before looking back to Cody. "I would have expected you to kill me while I was helpless…"
"I didn't know what you were then. We just saw that you needed help and we helped you." Jarran nodded in understanding. His blade seemed to waver briefly and then it faded away into a thick wisp of black smoke.
"What is your name Truth Seeker?" Cody was so startled by this turn of events that it took him a moment to find his voice.
"Cody…Cody Martin."
"Well met Cody." Jarran said, inclining his head toward him slightly. "Today I depart in your debt, I shall not forget it." Dark smoke suddenly appeared around Jarran, clinging to him and then before his very eyes Cody saw it form the same style of impressively designed black armor that Ashani and the other man wore. More smoke appeared behind him; he turned around and walked into it, looking over his shoulder at them.
"A word of advice… Just as you can no doubt feel my presence, I can feel yours Cody Martin. It would be wise, if you wish to continue eluding Chiam, not to use your powers." The smoke thickened before dispersing with startling suddenness, leaving Cody and Lily standing alone in the room. Jarran's advice seemed completely true, every time he'd used his powers he had run into one of dark warriors. It was time for them to leave…
A/N: Bwahahaha! Surprise! It's Jarran! tiger002 asked me to include him in the story and I found a good place for him =)
If you've read Reflections you'll know that Jarran is quite a powerful Champion of Chaos, but in this story which takes place two years prior you have to remind yourself that he is only fifteen and lacking his unique abilities. I absolutely love this character because he has such an interesting background that will be the basis for my novel (we haven't seen it yet in any of these fanfics) and he is deeply flawed and conflicted.
So where does this leave Cody? He's just aided the enemy and who miraculously decided to leave peacefully, leaving Cody with a lot of information to churn and a dire warning. If he wants to continue eluding the Champions of Chaos, he has to cease using his powers...but in a world nearly overrun with Demons how will he manage to do that?
Philadelphia and an uncertain future loom on the horizon. There are still many Demons that Cody hasn't encountered yet and sooner or later Chiam is bound to catch up to him.
The future is rife with possibilities and dangers...
What is going to happen to our hero?
Stay tuned!
