She looked into his face. “I’ve seen no lying from you, but I have seen impetuousness and arrogance. I see that you despise us of good blood. You do, don’t you?”
What should he say? The light was low, so any nervous flittering of his scales would not be seen.
“Of course I hate you. But I am loyal to you and to us all. I am loyal to our beloved Abaddon.”
She tightened her grip on his neck. He began to feel his throat closing. She knew just what she was doing, the way she dug her thumbs down into the sack of his craw, pressing it up so that it would be sucked down into his windpipe and make the throttling require less force. Easier on the hands.
He could no longer breathe. He waited. His penis stirred. Sex and death were so close. He felt his sheath draw back. Two of the girls giggled. One of them stretched herself. Children gathered closer.
Time passed. She wasn’t allowing even a trickle of air. Flashes came into his eyes, and air hunger now caused his body to torsion, throwing his abdomen forward and his head back. Amid peals of childish laughter, his bladder evacuated.
Air rushed in, sputtering as the sac of his craw fluttered in his windpipe, then snapped back where it belonged. He coughed, tried to gain control of himself, then flounced back, helplessly kicking the air.
As he gagged and spat mucus, everybody laughed. Kids ran up and spat on him and slapped him as he crawled to his feet.
“He pissed on us, Momma,” one of them yelled. Then another, older one, “Kill him, damn you, you old hag!”
“Nobody kills him,” she muttered.
A boy, his face flushing with eagerness, came toward him with a throating knife. “Let me! Let me get blooded, Mom!”
“Stay away from him, you little shit.”
“Dad, listen to her!”
“Obey your mother,” Beleth said.
“You people are such assholes.”
“Watch your mouth, boy,” Beleth said. “I’d just love to beat the shit out of you.”
“You don’t have the right.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Echidna snarled. She spat. “I’ll let your sisters whip you senseless, Marol.”
Little girls swarmed her, dancing around her, pulling at her skirts. “Oh, mommy, mommy please! Yes, he deserves it, please!”
“Later, we’ll talk it over.” She clapped her hands once, and all the children withdrew. “Now listen to me, Samson. We need you to go back there and win this thing.”
“I will, ma’am.”
“How dare you lie to me!”
His blood literally dropped to his feet.
“Look at him,” one of the fashionistas hissed, “he’s scared to die.”
He thought he’d passed this hurdle. But the agent was small stuff compared to the larger problem, which was that nothing close to a billion people were going to make it through the gateways, because two-moon earth was not ready, not even close, and that was the real reason he’d been called back. “I will not get a billion people onto earth, it’s true. But I have something else that I am going to bring out. Echidna, I have the greatest treasure in history, and I lay it at your feet.”
“This had better be good, Samson. Hyperbole annoys me.”
“I have human souls in captivity. Beautiful, healthy ones.”
Her eyes widened. The only ones Abaddon ever captured were ugly, and had to be sifted for the good bits, a sweet memory here, a compassionate act there—the things that smelled and tasted so good, that could be relived endlessly, like a delicious food that would never be finished.
“A few souls changes nothing.” She sighed. “Let’s get him stripped. Get the skin off, I haven’t got all night.”
Somebody grabbed him from behind. The boy who had wanted to kill him came forward, a silver molting hook in his hand. He smiled up at Samson. “This is not gonna be fast, you shit.”
“Ma’am! Wait, ma’am. I have more than a few. More, ma’am!”
She gestured toward the eager boy, dismissing him.
“Mom!”
“How many do you have, Samson?”
“Ma’am, I have ten million of them.”
The silence that fell was absolute. This was, indeed, the greatest treasure in the history of the world.
“Ten million good souls?”
“Ma’am, any one of them is better, more fulfilling, more delicious than the best you have ever eaten in all your memory. Fabulous, rich emotions. Delight, love, sweetness, all the best stuff, ma’am.”
He saw the calculation in her eyes. “Where are they?”
He could feel the boy getting ready, could see his scales shimmer with eagerness. He had to be careful, here, or she would kill him for insolence. “Ma’am, they are under the stable gateway, ready to be brought through. I have them connected to two-moon earth’s core. They cannot escape. I can bring them through.”
She gestured toward the boy, who swiped the air in front of Samson’s torso, then hurled the molting hook at one of the board members, who dodged it, hissing and spitting.
The boy glared at him as he adjusted his uniform. “You’ll be back, bitch,” he said. “And when you get back you an’ me, we got a date, do.” He ran his fingers across Samson’s throat.
Samson backed away, bowing until he was off the gold floor and onto the marble. When he saw its blackness, he almost wept with relief.
On the way down in the lift, fear became rage. How dare they, those grunting, greedy oru. He’d like to tear their living skin off their bodies with a molting hook, even her, yes, especially her. Tear it right off!
The elevator opened and he stepped out into the lobby. As he crossed it toward the great steel doors, he gloried in the fact that the guards were now indifferent to him. Delightfully indifferent.
The doors slid open to the wide esplanade of freedom, and he went through. So beautiful, life, despite the pain, the losses, the struggle, all of it. Life itself unfolding, so sweet.
How dare they throw away his life for the amusement of a mere child! His life! As he descended the steps, part of him wanted to cry out to the brown sky, “I lived, I went to the top on a black ticket and I lived!” He did not cry out, though. As befitted a general, he strode.
He was walking toward the bus stop when a wonderful Shu, the best aircar in the world, came swooping down so close that he had to duck, lest he be clipped by it.
It stopped, though, and hung there, its yellow surface gleaming, its black windows revealing nothing of the interior. Then the passenger door went up and a pureblood leaned out. “Hey, you Marshal Samson?”
“I’m General Samson.”
“I’ve got orders to deliver this to a Marshal Samson. You got your number ID?”
Samson produced it.
The salesman thrust the ID card into the slot. Samson heard the car’s confirming bell. The salesman hopped out. “She’s yours, Marshal. Ever driven before?”
He forced himself not to gape. It was stunning: instead of killing him, she’d given him a gift of one of the finest sports vehicles in the world, a wonderful, beautifully made creation that belonged only to the highest of the upper classes. Merely possessing such a thing raised you into the aristocracy.
He entered the car. The fine interior gleamed with exotic metals, greens and silvers and golds. The leather was pale and as supple as cream. Human, without a doubt, and young.
He glanced across the dashboard, a forest of gleaming gold buttons, none of which he understood. Apparently, the car had every option you could imagine. “I have no idea how to run this.”
“You don’t need to know. It’s ensouled.”
He was momentarily too amazed to speak. Shu ensouled perhaps a thousand vehicles a year. Such a car would cost a man like him ten lifetimes of income. Driving it identified him as one of the world’s most powerful, most elite people.
“Is the soul…human?”
The salesman laughed. “Maybe next time, mister. It’s a good one, though. Very smart, very compliant. You need to ride a
human ensouled vehicle very carefully, you know. They’re fast and really, really clever, but they can be tricky.”
Indeed, they’d been known to smash themselves to bits in the hope of getting release. It didn’t work, of course. They couldn’t release themselves.
But they ran a vehicle superbly.
Experimentally, tentatively, he asked the car, “Are you there?”
There was a pause, then, “Who are you?”
“The new owner. Take me home.”
It hesitated a moment as it read his ID. “Yes,” it said. He did not ask it why it had been put into a machine. He didn’t really care, as long as it did its work. It was his now, that was all that mattered.
As he soared upward, his engines singing, he called Echidna.
“You’re welcome,” she said into his ear.
“How can I ever thank you?”
“I can think of two ways.”
“Which are?”
“Open both human worlds, and I will grant you an entire city. I will break the law of blood, and let you wear Sky.”
The car swooped low into the dark streets of the back city, the real city. People looked up, some knelt, all bowed, pulled off hats, raised their open hands to sign loyalty to the Corporation, for nobody but an owner could be driving such a vehicle, a car glowing with the violet light of a soul.
The door opened. He got out. Wide, amazed eyes. Smiles everywhere, then cheering as his neighbors came to their windows, looked down, and saw his triumph. Success honored all.
He climbed the narrow stair, thick with the smell of boiling soup, and went into his apartment. There were meat parties everywhere in the street. The day’s executions had favored his neighborhood, and they all thought he was the reason, and he was cheered from every door.
Who knew, maybe Echidna had given such an order.
The gateway was open, waiting. He walked up to it. The stress waves shimmered evenly. It was as clear as he had ever seen. The approaching date was really having an effect now.
Then he realized what he was looking at. Mazle stood in their cramped headquarters space beneath two-moon earth. She was looking down at the autopsy table. On it lay the body of Al North.
He felt sick. That should not be.
He stepped through. “Is the agent dead?”
“You lived!”
“Is the agent dead?”
She gestured toward North. “This needs fixing.”
“I told her—” His mind returned to the sick, vicious boy, waiting for him with his molting hook. He shuddered. “Never mind what I told her.”
“We’re going to try replacing the brain entirely,” she said. “This almost has to get rid of the residual will. Then it’s going to work.”
“It had better work.”
“Yeah, because if it doesn’t Daddy’s gonna take away all your toys. And if you ever lie to my aunt again, I’ll help my unpleasant little cousin take off your skin, and I’ll eat it before your eyes.” She smiled. “You’re nothing, Samson, you and your ugly little car.”
He bowed to her.
EIGHTEEN
DECEMBER 19 ORIGINS UNKNOWN
NICK SAT READING THE PAGES his father had just finished. Over the past two weeks, Dad had slept maybe six hours, but he was asleep now, sprawled like a corpse across his keyboard. Of course, corpses don’t snore.
It was four in the morning and two weeks ago he wouldn’t have dared to get out of bed and venture into the dark, but things had changed, hadn’t they?
“What’s going on?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“What’re you doing up?”
“Dad’s written about being an intelligence agent.”
“Anything more than what we’ve already remembered?”
“Not really. When I came in here he was sound asleep and snoring, and he was writing.” He gestured toward the laptop. “This. It’s a description of Samson going to the demon earth. It’s horrible, Mom, really horrible.”
“Wylie, wake up.”
“Mom, leave him.”
“I don’t want him like that, he needs a bed.”
“Look, if you disturb him, he’s just gonna start writing again. He’s gonna have a heart attack. Let him sleep.”
She leaned over and read a few pages. “God, what a place. Abaddon.”
“I googled it, it means ‘the abyss.’ At least, it does in our language. In seraph, it probably means ‘Home,’ or ‘Nice Place’ or something. They’re cannibals, and even the children torture and kill. It’s, like, play for them. Like a video game to them, to skin a real person alive. They’re loathsome, Mom, and we do not want them here.”
She looked down at her husband. “I’m gonna get him a blanket at least.” She went to the linen closet and pulled one down. They covered him together, mother and son, and Nick slid the cushion from his chair under his head.
“I’m sober, I swear,” he murmured.
“It’s okay honey, it’s good.”
“Let’s fuck, baby.”
“Sh!”
He gave a long snore and smacked his lips.
“I grew up with him, remember, Mom.”
She tried to laugh, almost succeeded.
“Mom, the thing we have to ask ourselves is, not only who Dad is and who we are, but what we’re supposed to be doing, because I have to tell you, I am starting to realize that I feel this incredible kinship with somebody in his book, and I want to understand what’s going on. Trevor is, like, my soul brother or something. And another thing—this is dangerous. What happened with Al North trying to come in here, and that thing that came after Dad—it’s very, very dangerous.”
At that moment, there came a thin sound, almost like the wail of a smoke alarm, and for a split instant that’s what they all thought it was. Then Nick was running, they were all running. Kelsey stood in the hall outside her bedroom clutching Bearish and making this terrible sound, a noise Wylie had never heard his little girl make before, and which he had not known she could make.
Brooke leaped to her and enclosed her in her arms, and Kelsey sobbed the ragged sob of a child so terrified that not even her mother could comfort her. “There’s hands in my room and they were touching me and touching me, and when I threw Bearish at them, I saw a face and it was awful.”
“Oh, honey, honey, there’s nothing in your room, look, it’s empty in there, the light is on and it’s empty.”
“You saw just hands, Kelsey?”
“Yes, Daddy. They tried to grab me, and when they touched me I saw them. Then they were gone.”
“And the face, you saw it—”
“When Bearish hit it. It was bloody and awful, Daddy, it was horrible.”
He looked at Nick. Nick looked back, his eyes steady with understanding. But he said nothing.
No, and that was right. They had to be careful here, extremely so, because there was a person in the house that they could not see, who had one goal, and that was to kill.
“Let’s go downstairs and make cocoa,” Nick said. “We need some cocoa.”
“Nicholas, it’s late and Kelsey’s tired.”
Kelsey threw her arms around her mother’s waist. “Mommy, yes!”
“Just one cup, then, and we have to make it quick. Because my girl needs her beauty sleep.” She picked Kelsey up, and her little girl snuggled into her arms.
As they trooped downstairs, Nick asked Wylie, “Are we going hunting in the morning?”
“Hunting,” his mother said, “on a school day?”
“Not for middle school,” Nick replied smoothly. “Teacher’s Day.”
Wylie understood exactly what his son was doing. He could not communicate openly, not if somebody was in here and they couldn’t see him and they were listening. “We could go for pheasant,” he said quickly. “Maybe we’ll put a bird on the table. The guns are ready, so we can get an early start.”
“Let’s pull ’em out, then,” Nick said.
Wylie could feel the presence in the
house just as clearly as Nick apparently could. An invisible something, and it was close, it was right on top of them.
He unlocked the gun cabinet and pulled out one of their birders and tossed it to Nick, then got himself a 12-gauge. “Get behind us,” he said to Brooke.
“Excuse me?”
“Mom, get behind us!”
Wylie saw movement, very clear, not ten inches from his face. An eye, part of a face. And he knew something about who was here: it was a man, and he was horribly scarred. Al North was back for a second try.
Then there was a hand around his wrist. He looked down at it, felt the steel of the grip. “It’s on Daddy,” Kelsey screamed, and this time Brooke saw it and she screamed, too, and not just screamed, she howled.
Nick fired into the seemingly empty space where the figure had to be, and there were a series of purple flashes in the general shape of a man, but the buckshot passed through him and smacked the far wall of the family room, shattering the big front window and leaving a trench in the top of the couch.
The hand had gone.
Nick grunted and he was up against the wall, he was being throttled, and where the body of the intruder touched his, you could see edges of a black, tattered uniform. Wylie was not a huge man, not as big as Al North, but he waded in. From behind, he put his arms around North’s neck and pulled his head back, gouging into his face, and as he did that, the face and head appeared, the stretched neck, arteries pulsing hard, and the eyes, surrounded by scar tissue and dripping blood.
Seeing this, Brooke went into the gun cabinet and brought out the big silver magnum she’d fussed and fretted for years about him even having. She waved it, not having any idea how to use it.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Amid a showering mass of sparks, the figure flew across the room, slamming against the TV with a huge crash. It lay there, the left half of the head and face visible down to the left shoulder. Both hands and most of the left arm could be seen, also, until the hand moved across where the stomach would be, slipping into an envelope of invisibility, then coming out again with blood on the fingers.