Space Angels: find the Gift (complete)

ЄD0Ɲ: Ŧhe CiŦy ~ Chapter Fifty-One

51 – recon

Cylvah landed on a flat, deserted rooftop in the heart of the city and began plucking her own feathers. A feather or hair from a Cherub's different forms had unique properties – they could mould to any shape and then stiffen into an unbreakable tool. They made perfect lockpicks. Cylvah guessed she would encounter many locked doors on this mission. She laid the feathers on the floor with her beak and, after scanning the streets below for her destination with her keen eagle sight, summoned her first changeling token. She'd already chosen her Quintessence, a young dark-skinned female, who wore a faded yellow dress, stooped, and dragged a foot in a limp. She had died at the hands of bullies and her fate had touched Cylvah. The changeling token hovered near her beak. She pecked, swallowed and morphed for the first time. She gathered up the feathers and put them into a pocket of her dress. She heard the clamour of Edon voices and walked to the edge of the rooftop.

Below, a bank of large white chariots lined the road opposite, shielding access to a long ornate palisade and a pair of black gates. Sunshine told her the many dark figures – it called them 'black guardians' – attending the chariots also protected the place of power Jango had ordered Cylvah to reconnoitre.

She sent two Scintillas towards the gates.

Scintilla One floated among the black guardians – she realised they got their name from their uniforms, made from a stiff jet-black cloth – patrolling outside the gates. The target building was an old three-storey structure in the middle of a short terrace beyond the gates: the House of Ten. Other guardians controlled the small crowd of ordinary Edons in the street below. They were protesting loudly about something. She had once wondered what anyone living on such a beautiful planet had to complain about, but knew these were the powerless Edons she'd studied, with much to rail against and nothing to lose.

Sunshine had said the right to complain was still permitted in this territory – while on other places on the planet, it was not.

Cylvah's second Scintilla floated through the noisy throng, studying anger and fear on the Edon faces. Some shouted abuse at the guardians, who watched on impassive but at the ready should violence erupt. They gripped clubs, electric charge emitters and poisonous sprays but no weapons that would harm a Cherub. She needed to get past the gates to get a closer look at the House of Ten. However, it was clear she couldn't simply walk past the black guardians, no matter what Edon form she took.

Cylvah had to act fast. She edged Scintilla One forward through the guardian ranks; it scanned them to seek out their leader. It stopped near a tall male with silver pips on the shoulders of his black uniform, his name tag proclaimed Deacon. He stood at the gate entrance, overseeing his minions, whose task was to check vehicles and security passes of all who entered the street. His height allowed him to see over most of the protestors' heads, his security-conscious eyes swept across and beyond the noisy crowd ignoring their chants and the writing on their banners, checking for anything unusual. Scintilla One moved closer to read some of his thoughts. The man's mind was impressively ordered, his skill in detection, highly developed. His training to look for something unusual, and one plain example of this he had seen a thousand times: furtive movement. Furtiveness was often a result of a crime in progress, his thoughts told her, but often committed by an amateur, a bold confident wrongdoer for example, will always be more successful than a furtive one.

Good, Cylvah thought, time to be furtive.

She crossed the roof towards the door that led to the street below. It was locked. She reached into her dress and pulled out a feather.

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;~)