Soul Protector by Amanda Leigh Cowley Page B

the
decency to look apologetic. But I didn’t want to rush in and
forgive him.
    “You could’ve rung and let me
know. I’ve been stuck in waiting for you.” Like I’d had anything
better to do .
    “I would’ve called if I could.
I felt bad letting you down, but there wasn’t any time. The CSPs
were spotted again. The Soul Protector who called in said they were
in a disused warehouse, but they obviously found out we were
coming. By the time we got there, they’d gone.”
    I was annoyed to see a smile
playing on his lips.
    “Anyway, it appears you found
something to occupy yourself with while you waited.”
    “Huh?”
    “Chocolate.” He pointed at me
and made a circle sign with this finger. “You’ve got it all round
your mouth.”
    I quickly raised my hand to rub
off the evidence. As I wiped, I couldn’t help giggling. “Oh damn,
guess I’m busted.”
    “That’s better. Couldn’t take
you to the office looking like Coco the Clown, could I?”
    “Oh, we’re still going? I
thought it might be too late.”
    “No, they’re expecting us.
Anyway, it’s a twenty-four hour operation. Never closes.”
    He paused for a moment, and the
way he looked at me made my insides melt. I felt the heat start to
creep up my face.
    “You curled your hair.”
    “Oh… I just fancied a
change.”
    “It looks really pretty.”
    I felt my blush so intensely, I
was sure I looked like a beetroot. I didn’t know what to do, so I
ruined the moment by bursting out with laughter.
    “What?” Dan pulled a face.
    “Nothing, sorry, I’m just
rubbish at accepting compliments”
    He studied me for a couple of
seconds, before grinning and shaking his head.
    ”Right, we need to go young
lady. Are you ready?”
    “Of course,” I said, grabbing
my bag. “Take me to your leader.”
    As Dan led me outside, I was
drawn to a sporty looking Jaguar sat in the parking area.
    Dan flicked his key fob, and
the Jag flashed its lights at us.
    “This one?”
    “Well, it’s not really mine,
it’s a company car.”
    “Some company.”
    As Dan pulled out onto the
road, I had a question that had been bugging me. “Dan, did you ring
in sick for me yesterday?”
    “No, not me personally, I
phoned the Office and asked one of the SPs to do it for you.”
    “Oh, thanks. How did they know
where I worked though?”
    He turned towards me and raised
his eyebrows. “They have access to pretty much everything.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, they’ve got contacts
everywhere. SPs work for the Police, the Government, the
hospitals... They’ve got access to all sorts of private files and
information, which is fed back through the Office. It comes in
really handy.”
    This place was sounding more
and more sophisticated.
    ~
    After driving North up the M1
for about half an hour, Dan turned off the motorway. With the
metropolis way behind us, all I could see lit up in the headlights
were fields and trees.
    “Not long now,” said Dan,
turning onto a single-track road.
    I wasn’t sure where I expected
the Office to be, but I never imagined it would be in the middle of
nowhere.
    “It’s quite a commute,” I said,
squinting through the darkness towards some old stone structures
which looked like derelict farm buildings.
    “It’s not too bad. This is
it.”
    I looked beyond the old
buildings for something that vaguely resembled a place of work.
“Here? You’re kidding, right?”
    “No, this is definitely it,” he
said, driving down a steep dip.
    We came to a standstill, facing
head on to an old stone wall covered in ivy. Dan pressed a button
and his window dropped down. He leaned out the car and spoke to the
wall.
    “Dan Sullivan with the new
registration. All clear.”
    “Good evening, Dan,” a smooth
female voice answered back. I looked around to see where it had
come from, but there was nothing obvious.
    To my amazement, a zigzag
pattern began to appear in the centre of the wall. The black lines
quickly became bigger, until a gap formed, and then