“Dagger. Stop it.” Aristede pulled me off the ghul.
I was shaking.Rage? Fear? I couldn’t tell anymore. I broke free of Aristede and grabbed the Spear of Destiny. If Heinrich wasn’t going to talk, I’d impale the son of bitch right through the heart until he stayed dead forever.
The Cerby leaped back into view with a ferocious growl, cutting me off from the ghul. Only this time it wasn’t alone. Straddling it was Tresses, her blond hair flowing in the cool wind. I’d underestimated her. In one hand, she held the elixir, and in the other, an automatic weapon aimed right at me. She blew me a kiss. Stalemate.
The sounds of approaching wheeled tank destroyers surrounded us. B1 Centauros. We were screwed.
Heinrich staggered to his feet. The faerie gave him the elixir and pulled him astride behind her.
He turned back to me, a look resembling pity on his face. “You have no idea who’s pulling your strings. But I assure you, you are just a puppet, and your life has been nothing but a predetermined sequence of events, starting with your brother.”
I raised the spear, ready to hurl it despite the consequences. “You liar.”
Heinrich shook his head. “Who told you that we experimented on Phillipe? Let me see. Was it Price?”
Price? How did Heinrich know about her? My heart thundered in my rib cage. “You kidnapped him,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
Heinrich smiled. “You are naïve. It wasn’t a kidnapping, you fool. It was an extraction. Your brother was an agent. One of us.”
I went numb. The spear dropped from my hand. This was crazy. If Heinrich spoke the truth it would mean my life, my family, everything I’d worked for the past several years, including my service to DUST, was a lie.
Agents exited the armored vehicles and moved in to take us down. Let them. Right now I didn’t care. Not about anything.
A whirring sound sliced through the night sky. Aristede’s hands gripped my waist. A thick cable wrapped around us. In a split-second we were airborne, towed by the retrofitted Nighthawk F-117 that swooped down and carried us into the night.
A barrage of firepower streaked toward us from below. I watched through glazed eyes as the Stealth unleashed several BLU-109 2,000 pound bombs on the Monastery of Angelo Scuro. Flashes of brilliant orange and yellow light bloomed like deadly flowers, fading in an instant.
How sudden the transformation from clarity to darkness.
Chapter Seven
I sprang up in bed, gasping for breath, as if someone had jolted my chest with defibrillator paddles. An alarm blared. No. Not an alarm, a ring tone. The theme from James Bond. Felanie’d reprogrammed the call alert tone on my cell phone as a nudge nudge, wink wink every time my phone rang in public. Subtle. And not so cute after only three hours sleep. I was tempted to ignore the call and pull the sheet over my head. Barely escaping a smoldering Italian monastery after finding out my long-lost brother was working for the bad guys qualified as a valid excuse for taking a sick day in my book. But I thought better of it. In my world, something worse always lurked right around the corner.
Reaching for the nightstand, I ripped my cell from its charger and glanced at the caller ID.
Mommie Dearest
The Ice Queen was actually calling me? Forget the Age of the Sixth. The true apocalypse was nigh.
I almost let it go to voicemail but curiosity, the bane of my existence, got the best of me.
I pressed the green receive button. “You’ve reached Estranged Sons-R-Us. Dagger speaking. How may I direct your call?”
A sharp intake of breath on the other end. “Daguerre, it’s vital we talk.”
Vital? That’s a novel approach.
“What about, Mother?” I felt like Pandora with her fingers on the lid of a certain container.
“I don’t approve of this attitude of yours.”
I bit into my lip. Tell me she wasn’t going into the whole attitude speech. I squeezed the phone. “My”—I paused for dramatic effect—“attitude?”
“This is too sensitive to discuss over the phone. We’ll have dinner tonight.” My mother had a way of turning an invitation into a command.
I breathed in slowly a few times, exhaling through my lips. She actually wanted to talk. I had to give her props for that. It was about time we got things out in the open. Maybe I could make her see where I was coming from, understand who I was, as much as I was able to. I mean, it’s not like we’d chat about my Op against the Reich or anything. Baby steps was probably the best approach here. After all, we were family, albeit in the broadest, genetically-linked-specimens kind of way.
“I’d like to talk, Mother, really. Tonight’s not good. I’m heading over to my friend Cassie’s dorm for a study session. But I promise, first thing tomorrow, we can—”
“Tomorrow doesn’t work for me,” she cut me off. “Or the rest of the weekend, for that matter,” she added, before I could provide any alternative suggestions. Did I mention she’d been crowned Miss Flexibility?
“Let me guess,” I responded, my temples pulsing, “you’re going to be away on business for the software company.” Her constant business trips had started shortly after Phillipe had disappeared and my old man had taken off, leaving me to virtually raise myself.
And wonder why she hated being in the same room with me.
Was I the son who should have vanished instead? If she only knew what the prodigal had been up to.
“My work is very important,” she snapped. “And it’s what kept you clothed and fed.”
“Too bad loved didn’t make the cut.” The words poured out like a bleeding wound.
She ignored the comment. “This selfishness is just not acceptable, Daguerre. I’ve held my tongue but I can’t anymore.”
That’s it. Breaking point. Burning wetness clouded my vision. “Enjoy your trip, Mother,” I murmured. I jabbed the end button and flung the phone to the foot of the bed, where it bounced off and onto the floor.
I buried my face in my hands. How was it that I could be so composed while working undercover in life and death situations, but one conversation with my mother sent me into a spin? The mature thing to do would be to call her back and apologize.
Maturity was overrated.
I glanced at the clock. Six thirty p.m. So much for getting any more sleep. Time to get ready for the fiasco at Cassie’s. Etiquette dictated one not be late to a friend’s betrayal.
Pulling the sheet off, I tore myself from the sanctuary of my bed and shuffled into the bathroom. I wiped my eyes. Whoa. Who was that naked stranger in the mirror? Bruises dotted my aching muscles. I flexed my biceps, sending a wave of pain shooting through my shoulders. My six-pack was a maze of scrapes and cuts.
I limped into the shower, turned on the jets, and let the steamy, warm water work its magic. I tried to luxuriate for a few precious minutes, shampooing and soaping every part of my aching body. But my thoughts drifted back to Angelo Scuro.
DUST had received my biometric scan of the elixir and was busy analyzing its properties. The secret of Dighton Rock and Il Evanidus was close to discovery. But Heinrich’s words echoed in my mind: Your brother was an agent. One of us. And what about his allegations that Price knew more than she’d told me? I had to find out the truth. Good thing Aristede had agreed to leave that tidbit out of the Op Report. I owed him.
Much sooner than I would have liked, I shut off the water, toweled off, and blow dried the dark, wavy mess on my head into submission. I slipped on a sexy pair of black low-rise briefs (not sure why since I wasn’t planning on doing a striptease at Cassie’s, duh), tight jeans, sandals, and a T-shirt that hugged me in all the right (but currently achy) places. It struck me that I was being extra conscious about my appearance tonight, but I tossed this thought out with the trash. After all, it would only be Cassie, Marco, and, uh, Alexei. Forget wearing briefs. Maybe I should try on the Freudian Slip instead.
Now for the Pièce de Résistance. I pressed my fingers on the top surface of the dresser. A lo
w vibration hummed through the room. A red glow enveloped my hands. Click. The hum faded and the glow disappeared. A secret compartment slid open on the dresser’s surface containing what no self-respecting spy should be without—fashion accessories.
The secret drawer held a large silver belt buckle, a shark tooth necklace, and a matching bracelet to round out my look. Only these weren’t any ordinary accessories. The bracelet contained a tiny insect from the underworld called a Mimicron, quite literally a bug, capable of mimicking any sounds and transmitting them back to me. This would allow me to monitor activity in Cassie’s dorm room, when I excused myself under the pretense of answering a phone call, snuck from her bedroom’s third floor balcony, scaled the ledge, and broke into Marco’s dorm via the lock-picking device tucked away in the belt buckle. Once inside, the necklace contained a WI-FI access port capable of breaching Marco’s network firewall and cloning his laptop hard drive, allowing me to find out what he knew about DUST before Price had he and Cassie neutralized. As much as I hated myself for sneaking around behind their backs, as long as their lives might be in danger, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do.
I checked myself one final time in the mirror. Ahhh, nothing like spending a nice, quiet evening studying with friends. Wonder what kind of snacks I should bring?
****
The long hallway leading to Cassie’s dorm faded into darkness. For once, why couldn’t corridors in spooky, old, former-asylums-turned-boarding-schools fade into bright sunshine or something, just to shake things up a bit?
Apparently, some of the overheads had died. Hazards of living in a haunted mansion. DUST had selected the subterranean site below Montefuego as a base because of the region’s extraordinary propensity for psychic phenomena and its reputation as a hub for interdimensional traffic.
I picked up the pace, unable to shake the feeling that someone or something was watching me.
The faint smell of ozone snuck through my nostrils, mixed with another scent. Something burnt.
Scorched flesh.
My throat constricted. I felt a pressure around my hands and feet, tearing into my skin. The hallway faded away. Leather straps bound me naked to a cold, metallic table. My muscles ached as I strained to yank myself free. No, not me. It was just a psychic flash, another unholy memory embedded in the walls of Montefuego itself. The hallway reappeared and I braced myself against the wall, still a little dizzy.
Just ahead was the door to a room that was always kept locked.
The Treatment Center.
They had marched the patients down this hallway back in the day. Marched them into the coldness of the electroshock therapy room, strapping them in as they cried out in anguish, the volts frying their brains and snapping their bones. I fought against the pressure trying to hold me in place and continued down the hallway. My blood pounded, threatening to burst through my veins.
Keep your eyes straight ahead. You’ll be at Cassie’s in a few clicks. They’re only psychic imprints, they can’t hurt—
The door to the left of me creaked open.
The door to The Treatment Center.
My feet fused to the carpet.
A stream of frosty air flowed out of the blackness of the doorway, enveloping me in a hateful embrace. Despite the resistance conditioning to spectral entities I’d received from DUST, beads of chilled sweat erupted on my skin.
Whatever you do, don’t look into that yawning darkness.
But, to crib a Marco phrase, I was drawn to it like the latest celebrity trainwreck to a crack pipe.
I couldn’t help myself. I needed my fix. Willing my head to swivel, I turned to the opened door, the wave of searing cold evaporating the perspiration clinging to my body.
A child’s cries came from inside the Treatment Center, thoroughly challenging my mastery over my bladder.
The shopping bag holding the two bottles of Coke and bags of chips I was bringing to Cassie’s fell from my hand. The carpet absorbed the brunt of the impact. But one of the bottles rolled out of the bag and, wouldn’t you just know it, into the scary-ass room where the creepy-as-fuck youngster loomed in full tantrum mode.
Just for a sec, I considered showing up to Cassie’s with only one bottle. I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with any supernatural bullshit right now. Especially with so much at stake on my mission to find out if Marco had learned anything that would harm him or Cass.
Then the bottle creeped out of the darkness and rolled back to my feet. I picked it up. It was so cold it hurt my fingers. I shook the bottle a little, observing the dark liquid sloshing around inside.
Blood.
Okay. I’d Clark-Kented it long enough.
I set the bottle back down and reached into my wallet, pulling out a credit card. Studying the four sets of four numbers, I pressed my index finger to the second set, then the first, and finally the last. The card’s holographic seal turned into a tiny LED screen. Not only could I use the card to track the amount of ectoplasmic residue left by ghosts (or spirit-spunk to those in the know), it had a great APR Finance Rate, and a sweet deal on bonus points for purchases.
The red light on the tracker’s screen was going crazy, signaling erratic readings just inside the room with a series of bleeps. I licked my bottom lip and took a deep breath.
Taking a tentative step inside, I paused, looking left then right, in case any nasties were waiting by the door to ambush me. Nothing. Just for the hell of it, I groped for the light switch on the wall, knowing full well it wasn’t going to work, in the tradition of every formulaic horror movie ever made.
A dim shaft of light from a lone overhead bulb sliced through the darkness, enveloping me in an impotent spotlight.
Not fair. I call foul on script deviation.
The room was bare except for a couple of rusting equipment cabinets languishing in the corners. I coughed from all the dust (as in particles, not employer) which had settled on the cracked walls like a film of wallpaper. The place reeked with the scent of long-forgotten-trunk-in-somebody’s-grandmother’s-attic.
I pushed myself further into the room. Four dark scuff marks stained a rectangular pattern on the tiles. The Table. This was where they’d strapped those poor unsuspecting souls before firing the lightning into their brains.
The child’s cries grew louder. I swept the credit card around the room. The flashing red signal pointed in the direction of the equipment cabinet in the far-right corner. I checked the readout.
Bearing three meters and closing.
I forced my feet forward.
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep .
Almost there.
BleepBleepBleep.
The velocity of the signal increased in proportion to my decreasing saliva.
One meter and closing.
The cabinet loomed ahead like an oxidized relic, waiting for an explorer to discover its secrets.
Bleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleep.
My heart outpaced the tracker’s signal.
The indicator pulsated so rapidly now, it became one long stream, like the sound of a flatlining heart monitor.
Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
Range zero meters.
This was it. Whatever had set the tracker off was just inside the cabinet.
I slipped the card into my pocket and reached for the corroded handle on the cabinet door.
The crying stopped.
I twisted the handle.
Click!
The sound of the locking mechanism disengaging cut through the eerie quiet.
The cabinet was so rusty the handle was stuck. I tugged it harder.
This was usually the part where the cat jumped out and scared the audience. C’mon genre clichés, don’t fail me now.
The door wrenched free. But there was no cat. Not much of anything in fact. Only a small silver locket resting on the cabinet floor. I squatted and scooped it up. It was the symbol of the pyramids housing the demon and the dragon. The same as the birth mark carved into Reinaldo’s f
lesh. The same which graced the cover of Il Evanidus.
What the hell?
Something icy touched my hand. For a second I thought the Mimicron had escaped my bracelet. I sprang to my feet and whirled, pissed that I’d fallen for the fake-scare-followed-by-the-real-scare routine.
A little girl stared up at me. She couldn’t be any more than four years-old. She had long, straight black hair, and large brown eyes cradled by dark circles. Her skin was pale, as if it had never been kissed by a single ray of sunlight. A white dressing gown right out of another century, maybe Sixteenth or Seventeenth, clung to her small, bony frame. All the color was bleached from her, giving her the appearance of an old, sepia-toned Daguerreotype, as in my namesake. One thing was certain. She wasn’t native to this realm.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“Ginny,” she replied. Her voice was hollow and crackled like a short wave radio.
I managed a smile, both to set her at ease and shield my nerves. “Hello, Ginny. I’m Dagger.” Though I had more experience with other-worldly beings than the average person, it was still a little freaky shooting the shit with a paranormal entity.
“I know you,” she stated, her eyes never leaving mine. If she was trying to creep the crap out of me, she was definitely nailing it, as in The-Oscar-goes-to. What was it about undead kids that was especially disturbing?
I held up the amulet, the symbol shining even in the muted light. “Is this yours?”
She shook her head. “It’s the key to finding me. To finding all of us. But there isn’t much time, they’ll be coming soon.”
Finding all of us. As in vanishings? As in The Age of the Sixth, maybe? “Who else are you talking about, honey? Who’ll be coming soon?”
She trembled, as if she was trying not to cry. “Those who have disappeared must be found.”
That primordial instinct to protect the young kicked in. I knelt to her level. It was important for kids to feel they weren’t being talked down to, and I supposed the same applied even if they were dead. If anything, it was good practice. After all, who knew? Maybe I’d have my own someday. “You have to explain what you mean, sweetheart.” I smiled to set her at ease. “Why did you come to me? How can I help you?” I resisted the impulse to place my hands on her shoulders to comfort her. I mean, what if they went right through? Awkward .