Realm of the Malach

Chapter 9: The Seige

Sabogar pulled into a narrow side road and cut the engine. Haigan held the tracker in her hand that marked their position in relation to the coordinates sent to her by the analyst. They were nearly a mile away but she was not going to risk detection.

"Remember, we need the child alive. Everyone else is incidental," Haigan instructed firmly.

"And Kailash, Mistress?" Etienne inquired.

"No one but the child will be spared," she said looking first at him then at Naoki and last, Sabogar, each one nodding in understanding.

"Let us begin, then," she walked to Etienne and held the back of his neck, pulling his head towards hers. He reciprocated, touching their foreheads together.

"May Ahriman keep you in the darkness of his shadow, may Bathala protect you with his light," they said to each other. Naoki approached her and as in a dance they grasped each other's nape and put their heads together. When it was Sabogar's turn he took a step forward but did not meet her eyes. The touch of her hand on his neck sent a wave of tingling down his spine. His skin prickled at the sensation. He wondered if she had felt the same.

"Saba," she said, quietly invoking a childhood name that passed the lips of only one other woman who was his Mother. The sound of his name spoken in Haigan's voice made his fierce heart weak with longing.

"May Ahriman keep you in the darkness of his shadow, may Bathala protect you with his light, Mistress," he replied as cold as the fortress of stone she expected him to be. She held him fast then let him go, her fingers lingering on him as she stepped away. He busied himself with his weapon, hoping his face betrayed nothing of the turmoil he felt within.

They fanned out two on either side of the dirt road, hugging the tree line for concealment. Not a hundred yards into their march, Haigan's pocket vibrated. She checked the screen. Strange. Analysts do not communicate unsolicited.

"What is it?" Haigan answered.

"Mistress, before you advance, there is something you must know," Amira said sounding shaken.

"What is it then?"

"The coordinates I gave you, they rang a bell in my memory, so I searched the ancient archives ..."

"Spit it out, Amira," Haigan said hotly.

"It is a designated neutral zone, Mistress. It was decommissioned over a century ago, but I remembered it from my incident profiles. The seers were accused of breaking their covenant when they mingled with the local population too closely and taught the humans to record their family stories into quilts," she said nervously.

"If it was decommissioned, then it is open," Haigan said impatiently.

"That's the strange thing, Mistress. It was never opened and reassigned another designation. Technically it is still a neutral zone. And given the signature of the electromagnetic jump I saw, whoever caused it was high level," she responded with more confidence this time.

"Who was the zone designate?" Haigan asked.

"The Master Nour herself, Mistress," Amira answered.

"I ... I thought you should know the implications," she stammered when Haigan said nothing.

"Very well," Haigan finally responded before she disconnected. It was as close to gratitude as she could get.

Somewhere across the world, Amira slammed her communicator onto her keyboard and pointed her middle finger at it.

"Bitch. I should have just let you walk into the hornet's nest," the analyst muttered.

As Haigan jammed her device back into her pocket.