by Drew Cordell
“Grez is expecting you,” one of the men said, moving forward and opening the door to reveal a lavish office space with a huge one-way window revealing the open space of the main floor we entered on. We walked forward to cushioned leather seats in front of a huge wooden desk with a holo projector surface. A large, muscled man wearing an expensive black suit with red trim stood to greet us. He had long black hair that was tied back and a short well-trimmed beard beneath defined features. He shook our hands with a firm grip and easy smile.
“Welcome, I’m Grez. Please take a seat,” he said with a deep timbre, sitting in his chair while we did the same. The suited guards from outside closed the door behind us but remained standing at the back of the room watching us with calculating eyes.
The man in front of us looked familiar, but I didn’t know why. He folded his arms across his desk. “Marwin, it’s good to see you again even if it is a bit surprising. I’ll admit I never expected to see you again in my life. When Anderson told me you’d be coming with the others, I was quite pleased. I know you don’t take your commitments lightly, and that is something I have always respected in you.”
I scanned Marwin’s face, trying to read it, but he betrayed no emotions. “What is he talking about, Marwin? How do you know him?”
“Let’s let our host talk,” was all Marwin said, turning his attention back to Grez.
The big man continued. “While I regret the circumstances that brought you here, I hope our encounter can be mutually beneficial. I understand you’re involved with the Champions of Liberty, and despite our rocky past, I hope this can all be worked out peacefully. If you comply with me, you’ll be treated as my honored guests. I have no intention of harming you as long as you help me get what I want.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting from the leader of the Harvesters, but it wasn’t this. This man was surprisingly refined, and there was a striking familiarity I couldn’t place. I felt as though I knew him, but there was no way I’d met him before.
“Here’s the box I was talking about. They said it was a map to an underground weapons lab in Vermont. It’s a way out of the city,” Anderson said, placing my father’s box in front of Grez on the smooth surface of the desk.
“I’ve seen this sort of box before. Try to force it open, and it will explode and destroy the contents. That wouldn’t be good for anyone, now would it?” he asked rhetorically. “I understand this is your box, Baron Ashton?” Grez turned the box in his hands, inspecting it with clear appreciation.
I nodded.
“Any chance you’ll give me the code to open it? Like I said, I would love to treat you as my guests, but that involves your full cooperation in helping me get what I want.” He set the box back down on the table and interlaced his fingers together, revealing a brushed black metal ring with a hefty crimson gemstone anchored in the center.
I exchanged a glance with Marwin, and he shook his head. I started to talk to him, but Grez cut me off.
“Jake, you’re talking with me, not Marwin. It’s really simple. Give me what’s inside the box, we’ll take a look, and maybe you can take a copy of the information home. Obviously, the agendas of our two groups might not align and that might not be possible, but I assure you I’m very reasonable and will do everything in my power to sweeten a situation that is already negative toward you.”
“We need that map to end this war,” Marwin said. “Look, we can work this out peacefully and destroy the Omniscience Engine for good and you can return to Olympus and take your place as a Baron again.”
“As great as that sounds, I’m not fond of returning to Olympus again. Especially since my family name and legacy was wiped away by my idiotic little brother,” he responded.
“Who is your brother?” I blurted. Grez smiled patiently, but it was clear he was irritated I had cut him off.
“Jake, this is Grez Adrihel, eldest son of Paul Adrihel and the former heir to the Supreme Leader chair,” Marwin offered before Grez could say anything.
It all made sense now, but it seemed impossible this man in front of me could be responsible for the atrocities committed by the Harvesters over the years. What had happened to drive him away from Olympus in the first place?
Grez diverted his attention from Marwin and me to Anderson. “Anderson, you promised me three high-value prisoners to ransom to the Champions of Liberty and access to invaluable information. You have delivered on the prisoner part of our deal, but I see only a box in front of me. Without Jake’s compliance it is useless to me, and therefore you haven’t held up your side of the bargain,” he said, keeping his voice cool and level.
“The map is inside the box. It’s right in front of you—” Anderson stammered, apparently caught off guard.
“I’m a man of my word, but you haven’t delivered on your side of the bargain so why should I deliver on mine? Unless Jake is willing to open the box and help you out, I think we’re done here.”
Anderson was getting mad, but he also looked terrified. “I did everything I said I would. The information is all there; you just need to interrogate them to get the code.”
Grez winced, sucking in air sharply to articulate mock pain, as if he was sorry Anderson wasn’t delivering. “See, that’s the problem. I intend to treat these people as my honored guests, and I certainly wouldn’t forcibly extract information from a woman of nobility under my roof. Jake, do you care to assist Anderson and open the box for me? Take a minute to think about your answer. Anderson’s fate depends on it.”
Everyone was staring at me, and no one else dared to speak. Grez’s calm voice was chilling, and I knew this wasn’t going to end well but my decision was already made. Anderson deserved whatever was about to happen.
“No,” I said.
“Watch the upholstery. It’s custom,” Grez said.
Anderson tried to draw his weapon, but it was already too late. The guards behind us opened fire. Pink energy blasts cut through Anderson’s body, spraying hot blood and flesh all over us and the office. A tangy stench flooded the room as Anderson was shredded, blood burned, and ozone diffused.
Everything seemed to freeze as adrenaline spiked into my veins, and I fought the screaming instinct to lower myself to the floor. The guards in the back didn’t stop firing until Anderson’s body was gone from the chest up and what was missing had splashed all over us and the office space. The body slumped and toppled to the floor to reveal an undamaged, blood-soaked leather chair. There was a fine red mist in the air, hanging stagnant in the sickening silence.
With a mask of gore coating his face, Grez gave us a terrifyingly cheerful smile. “Don’t look so frightened. It’s not like it’s your blood.”
5 GUEST
∆∆∆
“We’ll get you some new clothes. In the meantime, you’re welcome to take a visit to the baths to clean up,” Grez said, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiping his face clean.
We were silent and deathly still, all staring at the gruesome corpse lying on the floor. I felt a strange distance, as if I was watching things through a screen rather than living them. With the carnage, it was amazing none of us were hurt or killed in the explosion of gunfire. The weapon shots hadn’t behaved like plasma-based energy weapons—they had shredded through Anderson like disruptor rounds, but I was too shocked to ask about the technical attributes of the weapons the two men in the back wielded. They lowered their guns, taking a detached, almost bored stance while looking completely unfazed from the gruesome murder.
“My men will escort you to get cleaned up. We’ll meet in, say, an hour from now? I’d like the three of you to join me in my private dining hall for a meal,” Grez said.
I became aware my body was trembling—I had no control over it and tried without success to steel my resolve and recover from the sheer force of pure terror.
“What is wrong with you?” Mary blurted, tears streaming down her face. My heart froze as fear of the guards firing at Mary jolted through my mind.
>
Thankfully, Marwin defused the situation before I could respond. “Mary. We’d be delighted to join Mr. Adrihel for dinner, correct?”
Mary nodded weakly and wiped away her tears. I was freezing up, and there was nothing I could do but let Marwin take the lead. Grez was a full-blown psychopath. Grez’s calm demeanor was masking chaotic evil, and I was terrified of igniting his anger. While there was no way I’d have given Grez the code to the box, I felt directly responsible for Anderson’s death and wasn’t sure how I felt about it yet.
“We’d be delighted to join you for dinner, Mr. Adrihel,” I said, looking away from the body and turning to face Grez again, regaining some composure and forcing my fear under the surface of my emotions, feeling it sink like a weight.
Grez’s face erupted into a smile and he clapped his hands together, shaking them with cheer. “Wonderful. I’m looking forward to it, Baron. And please, just call me Grez. The way I see it, we’ve sealed our friendship with blood.” He chuckled to himself. “Lady Dunn, I’m sorry for the violence, but there were a lot of reasons why Anderson deserved that death. I assure you, you’re in good hands. We have the opportunity to become great allies. We’ll discuss the specifics of our situation in-depth over our dinner.”
I was coated in blood and fragments of flesh and bone. The gore was thickening on my skin, and I wanted nothing more than to clean it off and purge the filth from my body. The sight and smell was still making me nauseous. I gagged, choking but somehow stopped myself from vomiting, forcing it back and trying to get out of the room as fast as possible.
“Jorla, please escort our guests to the bath and bring them some fresh clothes. Please bring them to my dining hall once they’re dressed,” Grez said to one of the guards. The man nodded and led us to the bath hall on the floor while the other guard trailed behind us.
“Just leave your old clothes on the floor. I’ll have some fresh ones put out for you inside the locker room while you bathe,” Jorla said as he opened the door to the locker room, letting us in and closing the door behind us before locking it with a deadbolt. The room had a couple of benches and empty metal lockers. There were two doors to the right and left leading to different bathtubs, but it was clear there was no way out other than the main door.
“What the hell just happened?” Mary demanded when we were left alone. I had to assume we were being listened to here and nothing we said or did was private.
“We’ll get out of this, but we have to give Grez some information—including how to open the box,” Marwin said, pulling off his shirt and using the inside to wipe some of the goo from his face.
I glared at Marwin. “You can’t be serious.”
He shrugged. “Look, Grez probably isn’t interested in war with Olympus. There’s a chance he’ll give us a copy of the map after all this is over. He’s probably just looking for a way out of the country, and there’s a good chance we can work this out. You both need to forget what happened to Anderson and move on. We can’t let it affect our actions going forward.”
“Don’t need to worry about it?” Mary demanded, raising her voice. “What happens when we say something that upsets him?”
“Let’s just take our baths. We’ll eat a meal with Grez, and we’ll go from there. We need to get out of here, and the only way of doing that is to comply and work with him. The Guild has a strict policy of not negotiating with our enemies, but times are different now and I think they’ll make an exception. We aren’t valuable to the Guild as damaged merchandise. However gruesome, Grez is a man of business and he respects logic. As long as we comply and he profits, we’ll get out of this alive. From my time with him in Olympus, he is a man of his word. With that, I think I’ll bathe separately and let you two have the other bath to yourselves. I’d advise you limit your conversation. We are being listened to, and it would be ill-advised to speak poorly of our gracious host.”
Marwin stripped out of the rest of his blood-soaked clothes and walked into one of the halls leading to a bath, leaving Mary and I alone in the locker room.
“Come on; let’s clean off,” I said, throwing off my coat and trying to take off my clothes as fast as possible. The smell of the blood was making me sick, and a lot of it had seeped through the clothes I’d been wearing and stuck to my skin. Anderson’s body may as well have exploded—the aftermath was sickening. We were stained red. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to control my nausea if I didn’t clean off soon, and Mary didn’t look like she was doing any better. We took off the rest of our clothes and moved into the next room through a small door. The bath was built into the floor, sinking a few feet down. The steam filled the small room with a clean, inviting smell.
We submerged in the hot water and furiously scrubbed away the gore. After a few minutes of cleaning, Mary waded over to me and rested her head on my shoulder while we tried to recover. We were both still shaking, and I did my best to comfort her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
“Are you going to give Grez the box?” she asked eventually, breaking the painful silence between us.
“I don’t know yet. I want to get us out of this, but I won’t let you or Marwin get hurt in the process. I can’t let anyone else get hurt because of me. I’ve done enough already.”
“Because of you?” she asked in disbelief. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened in Olympus or for falling into this mess. What choice did we have but to trust Anderson? Maybe we can get out of this. Either way, we are still alive and that is a blessing.”
Mary moved on top of me and kissed me, her soft lips brushing against mine. I kissed her back and wiped away the tears that were beginning to slide down her face. My own tears were blurring my vision. Looking at Mary didn’t help either; it made it worse. She was so beautiful, and it was impossible for me to put into words just how much I loved her—how scared I was of losing her like I seemed to be losing everything and everyone else in my life.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her words breaking something in me.
A deep rift of pain was churning inside of me—spilling over the edge. There was no way I could ignore it or pretend like it didn’t exist any longer.
“I’m scared of who I’m becoming,” I managed, feeling the weight of the words and the cumulative effect of my decisions that had brought me to this point. I longed to be truly alone with Mary, but that was not going to happen any time soon. Even now I knew we were being listening to, that nothing we said was private. “Too many people have died, and I’m trusting in something I don’t understand to lead us through this.”
Mart rubbed the side of my head gently. “And you’re going to let those lives go to waste? We have every reason to trust our source for the time being. Giving up would be the selfish thing to do. We have to keep moving forward until this is finished. I admire your strength each and every day, envy it even. You always press on, and I love you even more because of it.”
“How do we keep moving forward? How do we pretend like this hasn’t cost us enough already? Like we can still win?” the poisonous words were slipping from my mouth now, bitter and cold.
Mary was studying me, considering her words. “I love you, Jake. We’ll get through this like everything else. I think we need to trust Marwin here. If he thinks we should give Grez the information, then we need to give him the information.”
“My dad said if anyone else gets the other information, everyone will die and the Omniscience Engine wins,” I said.
Mary frowned. “I just want this to be over. I want to start my life with you, a real life where we aren’t always scared about whether or not we’re going to wake up in the morning.”
“That’s all I want too.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder. “I always tell you I wished you would have told me how you felt about me sooner, but the truth is I’m glad things happened the way they did. That we had the time to become such close friends before all of this. I’m so lucky to have you in my life still, and I want you to know I w
ill never take that for granted—I will do my best to cherish every moment I have with you.”
I pulled her into a hug, kissing her on the forehead and holding her in my arms. “I know you do a pretty good job of protecting yourself. I’m just trying to protect the people I care about, and I can’t always do it—I’m not always good enough or strong enough. Sometimes I feel like I just can’t do it anymore.”
Memories of Caeldra and the rest of Knight Squad slipped into my mind, cold whispers and icy shackles reminding me I couldn’t keep anyone safe. I tried to protect myself from the pain, from the crippling self-doubt spliced to my being. It was my ball and chain, tethering me to a darkening past.
“Sometimes I feel pain I can’t describe, fear I can’t comprehend, and doubt in myself I feel I can never overcome. I can never change the past, and I will always carry the decisions that led me to this point and who I am. I can’t do this alone; I wouldn’t have a chance. Help me be the person you think I am.”
“Always,” she said, pulling me closer and kissing me deeply. We were both crying now, and that was okay. All that mattered was that we were together, that we would always support each other through anything we faced. We spent the rest of the bath just being with each other, taking the time to try to relax and overcome the stress of an impossible situation which could only get worse. Some time later, we exited the large tub and walked back into the locker room.
The bath had done wonders to help my nausea, but I had no appetite and didn’t plan on eating anytime soon with the gruesome killing replaying in my head on a loop. I passed Mary a towel and grabbed one for myself. Our old clothes were replaced by two neat piles consisting of jeans, a t-shirt, a simple hoodie, and a new pair of shoes. Marwin had already left, and Mary and I walked out of the room where Jorla was waiting for us after changing into our new clothes. “Ready to go?”
