The Belial Search

by R. D. Brady

  Matt followed her. “Maybe some other time.”

  Laney sighed, placing the pan she had just pulled out of the cupboard on the counter. “So I guess this is not a social call.”

  “I’m afraid not. There’s something I need to tell you, and I wanted to do it in person.”

  “Is it about the murders?”

  “Not exactly.” Matt gestured to the table. “Can we sit?”

  Laney debated for a moment. She had wanted just one quiet dinner for her and Jake without any stress. Things had been so much better between them after their little talk. And tonight, she had wanted to pretend they were just a normal couple, sitting down with some wine and a nice meal after a workday.

  Laney sighed. She took a seat at the table and gestured for Matt to take a seat as well. Well, maybe tomorrow we can play let’s pretend. “Okay, so you look like you just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar. What’s going on?”

  Matt stared at the tabletop before looking up at Laney. “You remember when Cain went into the river in India?”

  Laney looked at him for a moment and said dryly, “Yes, that sounds vaguely familiar.”

  Matt nodded, appearing not to notice her tone. He stared at the countertop. “As director of the SIA, it is my responsibility to hold some cards close to the vest for security and strategic reasons.”

  Laney frowned. “Matt, what’s going on?”

  Matt made eye contact. “In the aftermath of the incident in India, we recovered a valuable asset, who we have been holding in our West Virginia facility ever since.”

  Laney stared back at him. “Since India? Who—” She went still. No. He said he was dead. “You have Cain.”

  “Yes.”

  Laney was floored. He had Cain—the man who had nearly killed both Henry and Jake. The man who had orchestrated the abductions of both Victoria and Max—the abductions that had let the Fallen know Victoria was around.

  Laney rolled her hands into fists. “But I asked you specifically about Cain. You lied to me.”

  “Laney, I had to decide—”

  “What, Matt? What exactly did you have to decide? That the general of the army of the good should be kept in the dark? This is the second time in two days that I’ve learned you’ve been keeping something from me.”

  “Laney, you have to understand, you—”

  Laney stood up. All the anger and impotence she’d been feeling since Victoria’s death raged through her. “I am the ring bearer! I am the one who has been chosen time and time again to push back against the Fallen. I am the one who has put her life on the line I don’t know how many times in the last few years. I am the one who has had to lose people I love to this stupid war. Don’t tell me what I have to understand! I have a very good understanding of the stakes. I don’t need a lecture from you on bureaucratic policy.”

  She stepped away from the table and tried to calm down. He had lied right to her face. He had kept Cain’s existence from her for months. She had worried about Cain finding Max, Maddox, and Kati, had lost sleep over it. And that had all been for nothing. She curled her fists. Goddamn it.

  “Laney, I’m sorry. I chose what I felt was the best course of action at the time.”

  Laney whirled on him. “No. You chose to hide a critical piece of information from me. What happened to the whole ‘the government might pay me, but I consider you to be in charge’ line you fed me?”

  “I still believe that. But sometimes subordinates have to keep leaders in the dark to protect them.”

  “Protect me? I’m the only one Cain can’t hurt. I don’t need—” She narrowed her eyes. “What have you been doing to him?”

  Matt wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Questioning him, analyzing him. Trying to see what biological processes underlie his abilities.”

  Laney stared at him in shock. As part of Cain’s curse, anyone who tried to touch him would receive the injury back sevenfold—except for Laney. “And each time you probe him, one of your people must be harmed.”

  Matt nodded.

  “My God, you placed them all in terrible danger. And for what? Did you learn anything?”

  Matt shook his head. “No. The medical tests did not reveal any abnormalities. In fact, if we didn’t know what he was capable of, we would never be able to tell from the tests.”

  “And the questioning?”

  “He won’t tell us anything.”

  All Laney could think about was the research on torture. A CIA report to Congress demonstrated that the CIA had misled the public about its tactics and oversold the effectiveness of its techniques. In fact, their enhanced interrogations had led to no actionable intelligence—and worse, had led to false leads that had taken agents away from other possible avenues of investigation. While conventionally the belief may have been that torture resulted in useful intelligence, psychologists for years had warned that subjects would say anything merely to make the torture cease.

  And now Matt’s been torturing Cain for months. She shook her head. Like there’s any chance he’d willingly help them now, after months of torture. “What were you thinking?’

  “I was thinking this was one burden you didn’t have to bear. That I could handle this one for you.”

  Laney closed her eyes. She’d had it with men trying to protect her. It wasn’t their damn job, and she wasn’t some damsel in distress.

  She opened her eyes again, and Matt met her gaze. She knew he had done what he thought was best. But she knew it wasn’t what was best for her. And she wasn’t sure where to go from here. First, he’d kept the murders from her. Now he had kept Cain from her.

  She studied the agent. It had taken her a while to trust Matt, but eventually, she had. And apparently she had been a fool to do so. “Why are telling me this now?”

  “It’s about these murder cases. I think Cain may have some answers.”

  “And he won’t tell you.”

  “No. But he says he’ll tell you. Will you talk to him?”

  Cain, the man who had ushered murder into the world.

  The man whose actions had led to Victoria’s death and to Max going into hiding.

  The man who had caused this wall to come between her and Jake.

  She didn’t know if she could trust herself to face him. But she pictured Sheila’s family: the devastation on Mikio’s face when she’d told him the news; how he’d held his son and daughter at the memorial service. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see any other family destroyed like that.

  She nodded. “I’ll speak with him.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Addison, West Virginia

  The next day, Laney walked down a long hallway in the SIA facility between Matt and Mustafa. She’d been here before, but she still wasn’t sure what she thought of the place. It was designed to hold the Fallen and nephilim. No normal prison was equipped to handle them.

  But there was also no trial, no judge, and no sentence. The Fallen were just locked up, and that was it—because the world at large wasn’t allowed to know that they existed.

  But the moral ambiguity of the facility’s mission wasn’t her focus today. Cain was. And she was still coming to grips with the fact that Matt had had Cain in his custody for six months without breathing a word of it to her. Laney wasn’t sure what to make of the agent now. If he had kept this from her, what else was he hiding? To say the air was uncomfortable between them would be an understatement.

  Henry and Jake had been beyond angry when she had told them. Actually, angry was an understatement. Livid was probably more accurate. She’d found herself in the odd position of having to calm them down. They had both wanted to come with her. But Laney didn’t want their anger getting in the way of what needed to be done. It would be hard enough to keep her own anger in check.

  “It’s right up ahead,” Mustafa said.

  Mustafa had apologized over and over again for not telling Laney about Cain, and Laney had forgiven him. She knew it hadn’t been either his call or his choice—it
was Matt’s—and she could tell Mustafa still felt horrible about the deception.

  Now Laney made her way toward the world’s first murderer. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Cain. He had hurt both Henry and Jake, but in many ways, Cain, like Mustafa, had had no choice. Anyone who tried to harm him would be harmed sevenfold. He couldn’t help that, couldn’t prevent the damage caused to those who attacked him. That was a result of the curse placed upon him after he was banished from God’s sight for slaying his brother. And even that murder was not strictly intentional. At the time Cain had killed Abel, he had thought humans were immortal. He had thought his brother would live.

  Even Cain’s abduction of Victoria and Max was, in a weird sort of way, meant to protect Victoria. He wanted Laney, Jake, and Henry to defeat Elisabeta so that Victoria would not have to sacrifice herself. In his flawed way, it was his love for Victoria that made him do what he did.

  Victoria was a big part of the reason Laney was so confused as she walked down the cold hallway. There had been a bond between Victoria and this man, a bond that wasn’t just about the fact that they had both lived so long. They had a real concern for each other. Laney didn’t understand it entirely, but the fact that Victoria had cared in some way for this man made her own feelings toward him confusing.

  And how strange is it that I feel more compassion for Cain right now than I do Matt?

  “He was moved from his other cell to this one, at his request,” Mustafa said as they approached the end of the hall.

  Laney could see the glass wall but not the cell’s inhabitant. The cell was similar to what she had seen the other inmates in. As she came closer, she saw a figure sitting on the bed. Mustafa and Matt stopped twenty feet away, but Laney stepped right up to the glass divider.

  Cain immediately stood, his hands behind his back, his long hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wore dark pajamas and slippers.

  Laney struggled not to gasp. It wasn’t his clothing that was the issue, but his face. There were dark bags under his eyes and he was extremely pale. He’s almost as pale as me, she realized with disbelief. His warm olive complexion was nowhere to be seen. What have they done to him?

  Laney bit her lip to keep from yelling at Matt. Instead, she inclined her head to Cain. “Jor—” She paused. “What do you want me to call you?”

  “I’d prefer Cain. It’s been too long since I had my original name, and there’s no need to hide it.”

  She nodded. “All right, Cain, thank you for agreeing to help.”

  “Well, I was given two out of my three requests, so…” He shrugged.

  “What was your third request?” Laney asked.

  “To go outside,” he said.

  Laney turned to Matt. “I think we can arrange that.”

  Matt shook his head. “Laney—he can’t be trusted outside. If he gets loose—”

  “I will take full responsibility for him. Besides, I’m pretty sure in a fistfight, I would win.”

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Cain smile.

  “Very well,” Matt said reluctantly. “When he’s told you—”

  “No, I think we’ll have our chat outside,” Laney said.

  Matt nodded stiffly.

  Laney turned back to the glass wall. “Cain, would you care to take a walk with me?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Mykonos, Greece

  Gerard Thompson walked down the dirt street in Mykonos. Lights shone from the two-story white stucco homes as he passed. Up ahead, a group of kids played soccer by streetlight. An errant ball came flying toward him. Gerard trapped it quickly and sent it back to the kids.

  Stavros, age ten, ran up to him with a big smile. “Hi, Giorgio. Want to play?”

  Gerard smiled down at him. “Not tonight, my little friend. I have to put these away before they spoil.” He indicated the brown bag of groceries in his hands.

  “Okay. Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow,” Gerard agreed.

  With another smile, Stavros headed back to his friends. Gerard watched them play for a moment before continuing on his way. He had been in Greece for six months. He had first gone to his old village, outside present-day Thessaloniki in the north, where he had lived with Kaya and his children. He had found the spot of their graves and wept for them again.

  He had planned on leaving right away, knowing that Thessaloniki would be the first place Elisabeta would look for him. But while he had left the area where he and his family had lived, he could not seem to make himself leave the country. Even though it had changed greatly in the centuries since he had been here, there were parts that were so like yesterday, he almost expected to see Peter and Arya run over a hill to greet him. So he had traveled around the country, feeling at home like he hadn’t for centuries.

  Finally, four months ago, he had settled on Mykonos.

  The island, with its white buildings, its hilly land, and its blue waters, was like a little slice of heaven. He had found a small cottage for himself and begun work as a carpenter, doing repairs and creating furniture. A year ago, he would have scoffed at the idea of him doing manual labor to make a living. But now, he would be happy to do this for the rest of his life.

  Up ahead, his cottage stood perched on a cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea. It was small—only one room plus a bathroom. But Gerard had started a vegetable garden and had turned his bed so that when he woke up every morning, he saw the sun rising over the blue waters. He was a mile outside town, but he liked the isolation. He could walk into town when he wanted companionship, but he could also be on his own.

  He pushed open the rickety wooden gate, which was slowly decaying after years of neglect. He had plans to replace the gate and the fence next month when he had some more money. For now, he liked the old thing. It was something to look forward to—the next repair.

  The moon shone brightly up ahead. Gerard planned out his day tomorrow as he followed the path to the door. Mrs. Helios wanted new planters for her windows. He could get that done in the morning, which would leave him time to start the chicken coop for—

  His head whipped up as the wind shifted. Cologne.

  He dove for the ground as a dart hit the door ahead of him. He rolled to his feet. Three figures approached from the front, all of them carrying weapons.

  The door behind him was flung open and two more men appeared. A dart stung him in his side. Gerard yanked it out and kicked one of the men in the chest. The man flew backward and slammed into his companion, and they both disappeared through the doorway.

  Gerard could already feel his thoughts growing sluggish. Two more darts penetrated his body, one in his arm and the other in his neck, and he yanked them out as well. One of the men ran at him, but Gerard managed to sweep out the man’s leg, knocking him down.

  Using the last of his strength, he ran for the cliff edge.

  “Stop him!” one of the men yelled behind him.

  Gerard stumbled as he neared the edge, and crashed to his knees. He couldn’t stand. He rolled himself onto his side, then rolled again and again… until there was nothing solid beneath him.

  He dropped off the cliff edge.

  He hit the water, and it swallowed him. He tried to work up the energy to swim, but he didn’t have any. He watched the moon as he sank deeper and deeper.

  All these months he’d been waiting for the Fallen to find him. He had been on constant guard for the telltale signal that one of his brethren was near. But he hadn’t felt that tingle of recognition.

  Not that he should be surprised. After all, his attackers were human.

  CHAPTER 26

  Addison, West Virginia

  Laney and Cain walked side by side down the long hallway. She had already had them clear the corridors on the way to the enclosed courtyard where she and Cain would speak; she wanted no one to be within Cain’s reach.

  Ahead, sunlight shone through the glass in the doors. Cain picked up his pace just slightly at the sight. Laney pushed open the doors, and the two of them steppe
d out.

  Cain stopped just past the doors and stood, his face turned toward the sun, his eyes closed. A sigh escaped him.

  Laney let him have his moment. Finally he turned to her. “Thank you. We can speak now.”

  Laney shook her head. “Why don’t we walk a bit first?”

  Surprise flashed across Cain’s face before he nodded. “All right.”

  Together, the two of them walked around the perimeter of the yard, not saying a word. Laney was happy to let him walk as long as he wanted. There was nowhere for him to go, and a half hour one way or another would make no difference right now.

  And there was something different about Cain now compared to when she’d last seen him. His anger was gone. He was not defeated exactly, but he was…

  Lost. He’s lost, she realized.

  “You’re a lot like her,” Cain said quietly.

  Laney looked up in surprise. “Victoria?”

  He nodded. “Yes—your compassion. She has—had the same strain of it running through her. You could have demanded answers from me. You could have tortured me and I would not have been able to stop you. Instead, you chose to grant me a wish.” He gave a rueful smile and then turned away, but not before Laney saw the flash of tears in his eyes. “She was the same way.”

  He’s grieving her, she realized with shock.

  “Do you know how she died?” Laney asked softly.

  He nodded. “I knew what was coming long before you did. I’ve seen it before.”

  “She wasn’t alone,” Laney said, surprised by the emotion in her voice. When she decided to speak with Cain, she had never envisioned the conversation heading in this direction.

  Cain nodded but didn’t speak. They walked on in silence, but there was the beginning of a bond between the two of them, a closeness that Laney wasn’t sure what to do with.