I pulled out the chair in front of my place at the table. "Clearly, though, the first step in dealing with Pygmalion is learning who and what he is. Any insight we can get into his personality will make destroying him more and more possible." I hit a button hidden beneath the edge of the table that lowered a panel at the far end of the room. Behind it, a video screen blinked to life with a blank blue field displayed on it. "Jytte, if you want to begin the briefing."
The statuesque blond woman nodded stiffly. By any but the most twisted standard, Jytte would have been identified as being gorgeous. She eschewed cosmetics and jewelry and wore her hair unadorned and loose, so it fell to mid-back. Her dark eyes flashed with fearful intelligence, as if she were a wild creature trapped in a most beautiful cage. Her gray jumpsuit had been tailored for a man and likely had been chosen in an attempt to make her more androgynous and less appealing, but it failed.
Jytte Ravel pointed a remote control at the screen, and a picture flashed up on it. A black-and-white snapshot that had to have been taken back in the mid- 20th century, it showed a smallish child wearing a cowboy hat, checked shirt, jeans and a pair of toy pistols holstered on his hips. "This is Nicholas Hunt in 1957. He is 4 years old in this picture. It was taken at his family home by a relative."
Jytte's voice came almost as mechanically as the motion with which she punched the remote's buttons. "This shot is an X-ray of Nicholas Hunt's skull. It was made approximately a month after the picture you just saw. You will note that the right side of his head has been broken. The cheekbone was dislocated in the fracture and a portion of the skull fracture is depressed, right there, above his right ear. Because of the level of medical technology at the time, the skull fragments were removed and a metal plate was inserted to replace them."
Another slide flashed up. It showed Hunt a couple of years later and struck me as a mugshot, but I knew it had to have been a school portrait. The boy in the picture had a lopsided smile and his right eye remained half closed. He appeared to me to be nervous. I could almost feel his uneasiness at having his picture taken.
"As you can see," Jytte explained emotionlessly, "the injury left him with significant left-right facial and cranial asymmetry. In addition to that, the brain damage done by the injury made Nicholas lisp ever so slightly. Those who actually knew him and went to school with him recall his childhood having been difficult. Children are cruel to those who are different..."
Jytte's voice changed, and I looked over at her. She still held herself tightly, but I heard anger and sorrow bleed into her voice. I knew she had none for Pygmalion because she hated him more than even I despised Fiddleback. Her comment had been for herself, and that surprised me because she had never even admitted to remembering her own childhood, much less talked about it.
"Hunt was nothing if very bright, and his social exile meant he spent a great deal of time with books. His home life was no more appealing than his schooling. While his family claimed he had broken his skull in a fall, most people believed his alcoholic father had beaten him. His mother promptly divorced his father and moved away. She took refuge in religion and became involved in a repressive Christian cult called People of the Cross."
Jytte's voice became cold and clinical as she described the sect Pygmalion's mother had joined. "People of the Cross believed that Jesus had attained his divinity through the tortures he suffered during his capture, trial and execution. The group's megalomaniacal leader, Tilden Tyler, built a theology around personal denial, torture, starvation and deprivation. Members believed that they would attain divinity when they had proved their worthiness by subjecting themselves to the sort of punishments Jesus had endured. Through accepting enough pain, they believed, all their sins and their Original Sin would be forgiven, returning them to the original state of grace which meant divinity, since God had created man 'in his image.'"
"To heal her son," Jytte continued, "Agnes Hunt made him participate in flagellation, the wearing of a crown of thorns and even bouts of mock crucifixion. True and elevated members of the cult often underwent full crucifixion, including the use of nails to hold them to the cross before they were taken down and, through the use of hallucinogenic drugs and hypnosis, were led through the process of death and rebirth. They formed the Inner Circle and Agnes actually attained that rank."
"Nicholas rebelled secretly. While he attended services and participated in rituals, he grew to despise the God that refused him his cure. He began to experiment with things like magic and the Ouija board, but he found that nothing provided him as much power as science."
Another voice, soft and low, slipped in as Jytte paused to take a breath. "This is not entirely true." Vetha, a pale shadow crouching to my left, bowed her head. "It is during his exploration of the paranormal that my master was able to make contact with Nicholas. The contact was neither strong nor manipulative, but my master deflected Nicholas toward science."
Jytte stared at Fiddleback's representative, drinking in every word, then she nodded perfunctorily. "Thank you. That bridges a gap in my knowledge. Nicholas graduated from UCLA in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. He obtained his Master's degree in Neurophysiology in 1977 from Ohio State University. From there he went to work with Dr. Parit Chandra. This brought him into top-secret research that involved Rajani. According to her, Nicholas Hunt was fascinated by her psychomorphic abilities and even began a study of c'dithrta in an effort to master that ability. For the last 26 years, since 1984, there are no records or reports about him."
Jytte looked over at Vetha. The alien creature bowed her head respectively. "The reason your records of Nicholas Hunt end in 1984 is because in that year Nicholas Hunt ceased to exist." Reaching forward and letting her tripartite claws rest on the dark table, she tapped lightly on the wood. "In that year, my master smiled, and in his beneficence, Pygmalion was born."
Vetha's dark eyes, all eight of them, had pinpoints of ivory light at their centers that seemed to whirl around as if they were bursts of energy from a pulsar. "I know that to explain what I have said requires delving into more than just Pygmalion's background. I do not know how much he will allow me to divulge. If I digress to an excess, please encourage a return to the point."
I nodded silently. "Anything you can tell us will help."
Her mandibles parted in a motion I chose to interpret as her equivalent of a smile. "Dark Lords, as you so quaintly label them, are either generated spontaneously or cultured. Those which arise without aid are often eons in reaching their primacy and can be destroyed by a more powerful Dark Lord. This comes from the necessity of their discovering their aspect before they can master it."
The Yidam leaned forward, all four of his hands pressed to the tabletop. "What mean you by aspect?"
Vetha's ivory head came up. "The Dark Lord's focus, his avenue to power and exercising power. For example, my master has as his aspect synthesis. He takes from disparate groups and welds them together into a new creature. He can do this in a direct and forceful way, as he did with the Myrangeikki, or in a subtle way as he did in bringing your mother and father together, Coyote."
I ignored the reference to myself. "Myrangeikki? "
"That is what I am. We are, rather Fiddleback is, a synthesis of a dimension's population. He brought us together and absorbed us, melding us into a physical and spiritual alloy that provides him with sufficient power to do as he will as a Dark Lord. I am but one part of him that was absorbed hundreds of thousands of your years ago." She bowed her head. "I am his servant, as I was in the beginning, am now, and will forever be. My power is his power, to wield in that way which pleases him."
As she spoke, the light in her eyes slowed its spinning. I felt a wave of malevolence pulse out from her. Rajani winced and Jytte shivered, while Bat snarled and the Yidam echoed him. Everyone else shifted uncomfortably in their seats, with the exception of Crowley.
A tremor shook Vetha, then her eyes returned to their normal state. "I have been warned about digression."
br /> "Tell us, then, about Pygmalion. What is his aspect?"
"Pygmalion is a builder. His desire for change in himself prompted his study and pursuit of the art of c'dithrta. In the meditations demanded by that philosophical discipline, he opened himself again, and my master noticed him. He recalled the sort of seeker Nicholas Hunt had been before, and my master adopted him and trained him."
Vetha drew her forelimbs in and crossed her upper arms over her thorax. "It is almost a compulsion among Dark Lords born to create powerful minions.
Those minions gather to themselves power, and a portion thereof is passed on to their master. The more training and more abilities the master awakens in minion, the greater the potential for power to be returned."
"And the greater the chance for rebellion." I nodded my head slowly. "Nicholas Hunt rebelled."
"Your concept is correct, Coyote, but it was Pygmalion that rebelled. My master did not think of, and therefore did not instill in him, the safeguards he has placed in you, for example. Against my master's will, you cannot assume the power that would make you a Dark Lord in your own right."
I felt an uneasy tickle work its way up my spine. When my compatriots and I had opposed Fiddleback on the GalBro grounds, I had been offered the unlimited power of a Dark Lord. To suggest the offer was seductive is to suggest the sun's core is lukewarm. With the power I had been offered, nothing could have been denied me, yet I knew such power could not come without cost. I discovered the source in the misery and suffering of the people I would oppress.
I realized that the vision of power I had been shown was a parallel of that which Vetha had described for Fiddleback. In it, I had absorbed and taken into me all the hopeful fools who had come to worship Fiddleback. My success imitated his success, suggesting to me that my aspect must be that of a synthesizer. As I was now a synthesis of what Fiddleback had molded and Coyote had cast, perhaps all that was necessary for me to assume my place among the Dark Lords was Fiddleback's assent to my standing by his side.
I shook my head. "It is my hope that your master never stops opposing my elevation."
The Myrangeikki nodded almost imperceptibly be- fore her eyes slowed again. "Venomouz traitorz are not given power, Coyote. Your rejection of my gift, my pet, iz noted and final."
"Ah, then we can agree on more than the defeat of Pygmalion." I let a bit of anger into my voice, but mostly used sarcasm to carry my statement.
Vetha recovered herself. "Beneath my master's tutelage, Pygmalion learned to use power in many ways. He rebuilt himself, providing that cosmetically correct image of what he should have been that you saw when he came here. After he betrayed my master, he built himself a complex in which he could carry on the sort of sculpting work he enjoys. Both Jytte and Mickey show he is quite skilled. It is this complex we will have to locate to defeat him."
I nodded. "Okay, it strikes me that our drive to get Pygmalion has a number of obvious parts that have to be completed before we can succeed. The first is that we must find his headquarters complex. I already know someone who can work on that back in Phoenix and if Colonel Asano can get us Prince Ryuhito's electroencephalogram traces from his last physical, we can begin that work. Once we have that place pinpointed, the Yidam and Crowley can scout the area for a nearby proto-dimension that is suitable as a staging point."
The Japanese cyberninja nodded his agreement. The Yidam and Crowley accepted their roles silently, but I knew each of them would have a list of equipment needed to fulfill their missions. Everyone else started to think about what their part of the battle against Pygmalion would be, and I started outlining the other things we would need so they could slot themselves in.
"We are going against a Dark Lord. Even though we will have a Dark Lord working with us, we need any edge we can get. I need a PsyOps section to prepare a psychological profile of Pygmalion and suggest symbols, images, times, whatever, that might disrupt him. Jytte, I want you to lead that group. Vetha and Rajani, I need you to work on it as well, because you have background information on Pygmalion. If you want, we can hire some hotshot mindbenders back in Phoenix to toss their best guesses in on whatever you produce."
"Understood," Jytte reluctantly consented. She frowned for a moment, providing her doll-like face more animation than I had seen since I met her. She clearly felt uncomfortable, but she fought to force a victory over that discomfort. Rajani and Vetha nodded at me, then smiled reassuringly at Jytte, but I don't think Jytte even noticed.
"Sin, I'll need you to conduct negotiations with construction companies back in Phoenix, because we'll undoubtedly need equipment and trained workers to help created the dimensional gate that will bring Fiddleback in to our staging area. Fiddleback will be able to provide a great deal of raw muscle to do the heavy work, but we'll need people for fine work."
The young man nodded. "Do you want me to get a bid from my father?"
"Not unless you want to. Money is not an object here, and I'm willing to spend plenty if your father gets none of it." I glanced at Hal. "I'll need you to coordinate the recruiting of workers. You can do it through your Sunburst Foundation, if you wish. You should feel no compunction to hire any of the white supremists who are on Darius MacNeal's payroll either."
Hal rubbed his hand over one of the healing gunshot wounds in his chest. "Don't worry about that. How many are we going to need?"
I shrugged. "A couple hundred, at least. Having worked construction before will count. It is likely to be dangerous, so unattached folks would be good. Figure out what the going rate is and triple it, plus add substantial bonuses for signing and finishing the project. First thing you'll need is some screening staff."
I looked over at Bat. "We may need some roustabouts. Colonel Asano and the IDC will provide security for our beachhead, but I may need some people to keep peace inside the camp."
Bat nodded.
"Lilith, see of you can get me booked on a radio talk show or something in Phoenix within the week. Make it a 'Michael Loring of Lorica Industries announces an expansion...' kind of thing. I can use it to get the word out so Hal will have recruits when he's ready to process them. Natch, I'll want you with me as someone who has already signed up so you can let folks on the street know this is a good deal in their own language."
"Word up, Caineman."
Lilith smiled at Natch and added, "Consider it done, Mr. Loring."
Tadd Farber raised his hand. "What about us?"
I frowned for a second. "I was hoping you could consent to Mickey offering what he could to both the PsyOps group and the scouts." When I did not see the questioning look in his eyes go away, I continued. "Hal has two children who could probably benefit from being looked after by your daughter during the recruitment drive."
Tadd nodded solemnly. "Fine, that's fine. They'll do that. The kids would like that. What about me?"
"You?" I hesitated. "You have done quite a great deal, Mr. Farber. You... your... Letting Mickey help us is enough."
"No, Mr. Loring." He shook his head. "I guess you don't understand. I'm not so good with words. I have to do something. I have to."
I tried to give him an understanding smile. "You have been through a great deal, Mr. Farber..."
"Yeah, sure, but what is it in comparison to what he did to my Mickey?" The man's thin eyebrows almost touched in the middle of his frown. "You don't understand because you don't know what it's like. All of you here, you talk about evil things out there. You know what you are facing. You know what you want to do. You know how you will do it. You are ready to do it. Well... I don't know about that."
Tadd thumped himself on the chest with a fist. "What I know about is being afraid. I know about being afraid of not knowing why wherever I stand is bottom. I know about being afraid everyone has forgotten me, and I know about being afraid someone will remember me. I know that all I know is fear, and now I see you and hear you talking about things that don't make sense in the real world, but, damn, they explain a lot of my fear."
 
; He pointed at the Yidam and then at Vetha. "You wanna know why I'm not going crazy with two creature-feature monsters here? Something that's real isn't as scary as something that isn't real. Here, for the first time, I know what the source of my fear is, and that means I can take responsibility for it. Responsibility isn't something I've handled for far too long."
Tadd hugged his daughter with his left arm and rested his right hand on Mickey's shoulder. "This guy called Pygmalion hurt my son. If I leave it up to you to fix that, I'll be no better off. I won't know how to face a problem myself, and if I can't, then I can't teach my kids to do that. If they don't learn it, they can't teach it, and we'll all go to hell in a handbasket." He looked at Vetha. "I gather that's what your master would love."
His gaze came back to me. "Last time I did work, it took more sweat than thinking. Whatever you got, I'll do it."
Hal reached across the table and offered Tadd his hand. "He's with me."
"So be it." I smiled and stood. "Pack your things this evening because we leave for Phoenix at midnight. Catch a nap here, because I expect it to be a working flight. When we hit the ground in the desert, I want us running, and I want Pygmalion running scared."