by Brian Fuller
After a few minutes of searching and reading signs, they found room 34. The door slid sideways Star-Trek style, and when they entered, recessed lights in the ceiling sprang to life. Mars wasn’t kidding. It wasn’t much. The fourteen-by-ten-foot concrete room was split in half by a cubicle divider. Against the far wall on each side sat a simple metal desk and rolling computer chair with a blue cushion. Two mats—for reclining or meditation—leaned against the side walls, and against the back wall near the door, a deep, green trunk awaited their belongings with an open lid.
“I’ve been in prisons nicer than this,” Aclima said as she surveyed their spartan accommodations. “They could have at least sprung for some rugs.”
Helo didn’t mind it. “Mars said we wouldn’t be here much. I might find a poster or something, though. Better get changed. I want to get on the road. Maybe they’ve gotten some leads on who or what killed my parents.”
The prospect of getting to work hunting Dreads energized him like none of his sermon assignments from Dolorem ever did, and while working with the Gabriels was challenging, being a Michael felt like sliding into a comfortable pair of boots. Helo set his gear and computer on the desk and changed into the clothes he’d chosen from supply. Aclima followed suit on the other side of the divider.
“You’ve every right to want information about your parents’ deaths,” Aclima said, coming around to his side when she was done. “But you need to stay as far from it as you can.”
Helo scrunched his face. “No way. You said you wanted to put a bullet in Cain. I do too.”
She folded her arms. “Cain is a vengeful bastard, Helo. He doesn’t just want to punish you, he wants to eat you alive for what you did to him. He’s going to do things to get to you, get in your head, bring you out where he can trap you. If we’re going to get Cain, we have to dictate the terms, not the other way around.”
She didn’t understand. His brother was still out there, and he wasn’t going to stand by and let Cain get to him. Helo knew better than to argue with Aclima about it, so he grunted noncommittally.
Both of their phones buzzed, and he found a message from Archus Mars.
The mission is a go. Briefing room 3. Now.
“Looks like we’re up,” Helo said.
Chapter 5
Sicarius Nox
Briefing room 3 displayed the type of technological refinements Helo had come to expect from the Ash Angel Organization. In size it was smaller than a grade-school classroom, but every desk sported a touch-screen top, and instead of a chalkboard, a curved glass display stretched across the front of the room, currently showing a map of the United States.
As he and Aclima entered from the rear, three heads craned around to look at them, two from the seats at the front of the room and one from the rear. The one at the back was a wiry, bald African who regarded them with expressionless brown eyes. From the front, a short but athletic Asian woman with a pixie haircut sat on a table and took them in with raised eyebrows. The third was a black-haired Caucasian wearing a multicolored knitted hat with tassels hanging down by his ears. He took a good look at Aclima, a questioning glance on his long, bland face. He turned away and tapped furiously on his phone.
“Haven’t seen you two around here before,” the Asian woman said in a challenging tone. She turned to the man working his phone. “I think we might have some newbie graduates here, Faramir. I didn’t think we were getting any Cherubs on this team.”
“Unbelievable,” Faramir said, putting his phone down on the top of his desk, which sprang to life with all kinds of icons and information.
“What?” the woman said. “You got something against Cherubs? They’re Blanks, and that’s a plus.”
Helo opened his mouth to introduce himself, but Faramir stood and riveted his glassy eyes on him and Aclima, gaze intense, even a little angry.
“Behold,” Faramir said, extending his arms wide and revealing two watches on each wrist. “Before us we have Helo the Crazy Cowboy and Aclima, Bride of Satan. I can’t believe Mars is doing this to us.”
Faramir sat down and turned away. Helo didn’t like his tone. Crazy Cowboy? Bride of Satan?
“The Helo, huh? Ignore Faramir,” the Asian woman said. “He’s our resident geardo. Give him a new gadget and he’ll love you forever. Besides, he’s just jealous that he didn’t think up the Naked Nazi, um, ‘intervention’ before you did. Isn’t that right, Faramir?”
The man ignored her, now tapping on the tabletop computer.
“Faramir’s really good at what he does,” she added. “I’m Goliath. Yeah, I know. Short girl, big name. Deal with it. That big guy back there is Shujaa. He doesn’t say much or like people, really, but no one kills Dreads better than Shujaa. Say hi, Shujaa.”
Shujaa gave them a noncommittal salute. Helo saluted back and sat down at a desk in the middle row, Aclima sitting beside him. Faramir kept his nose down on his desk, reading something. He clearly had a problem.
“You guys know what this is about?” Helo asked Goliath.
“Nope,” Goliath returned. “Mars asked me to head up a new team. Said he was handpicking some people. Should be nice to have a couple of Blankity Blanks in the outfit. But I’ve gotta know. You two saw . . . well, the baddest of the bad guys, right? The old serpent. The devil. El Diablo. Was he hot or what?”
Helo doubted she would be so curious or so cavalier if she had ever been in the same room with him. When Satan had come into the world through Cain’s body, he had called himself King, and a cold, cruel king he was. Well did Helo remember the mental and emotional flogging King had dealt both him and Cassandra in the drenched hold of the Tempest, a flogging so vicious it had nearly turned Cassandra to a Dread.
“He was awful,” Aclima said. “And that’s all I wish to say.”
Helo nodded in agreement.
“Oh, come on,” Goliath said. “I want to hear it all. How did—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Faramir burst out, turning around. “So does the computer have this right, Helo? Your Bestowals are Strength, Inspire, and Impart?”
“Yeah,” Helo confirmed.
“Great,” he snorted. “You belong in the Sanctus handing out cheese sticks to preschoolers and homeless people. Do you even have a Bestowal yet, Aclima?”
“I do not,” she answered.
“What kind of team is this?” Faramir griped. Mars told me we’d be working with the best, not—”
The door slid open, and Archus Mars entered, his eyes finding Faramir. “Is that you I could hear whining all the way down the hall, Faramir?”
“Not whining, sir,” Faramir said. “Just expressing some concerns about Helo and Aclima.”
Mars strode to the front of the room and turned, standing with his feet apart and his hands behind his back. The man was a solid wall, and Helo wondered how much havoc Mars had wreaked among the ranks of the Dreads when he was still in the field.
“Let’s have it, Faramir,” Mars said. “Best to get this out in the open now. We’ve got work to do.”
“Well,” Faramir said, “no disrespect, but from what I’ve heard, Helo here doesn’t like obeying orders much, and Aclima . . . for heaven’s sake, she’s been a Dread for six thousand years. Six thousand! She’s supposedly an Ash Angel now, though for all we know she might be a Blank Dread. We know those exist now.”
“Only one exists,” Helo jumped in. “Just Cain.”
“You can’t know that,” Faramir countered. “This woman was a Dread Loremaster. She helped bring down an airliner full of innocent people!”
“She was being controlled,” Helo said.
“Again, supposedly,” Faramir continued. “No one knows that for sure. This team was supposed to be made up of elite operators. I mean, I’m the best at what I do, and everyone on the team should be top-notch. I don’t think we can afford having some do-it-my-way cowboy and the mysterious Bride of Satan no one really knows.”
Helo clenched his teeth. If Faramir called her Bride
of Satan again, he would find out just how far into a wall the Strength Bestowal could send someone.
“Bride of Satan?” Mars said, tone flat. “You come up with that all by yourself, Faramir?”
“No. Well, yeah,” he said. “But I’m not the only one who thinks so. Just because she doesn’t have a red aura now doesn’t mean we should ignore the atrocities she’s committed.”
Helo chanced a glance at Aclima, finding her face hard, eyes not really focused on anything.
“What do you say, Helo?” Mars prompted.
“I trust her,” Helo said, hoping his murderous glare at Faramir was as scary as he thought it was.
“But why?” Faramir said. “You’ve been AWOL since she came on board. You barely know her.”
“I was away with leave,” Helo said, “and I trust her because she saved my life. Three times. And because an angel told me to.”
Aclima’s eyes focused, face blooming. “An angel? A real one?”
“Rachel the Unascended, as she was ascending.”
Watching Rachel’s transformation and final ascension still burned in his memory as a beacon of strength. Just the thought of her rising into the air like a birthing sun had helped him shove away some of the darkest memories thrown at him when he’d been torched.
“You saw an Unascended rise?” Goliath asked, eyes wide. “What was that like?”
“Later,” Mars said. “Goliath, since you’re leading this team, what’s your opinion about Aclima?”
“I have my reservations, sir,” she said. She turned toward Aclima. “Can you shoot?”
“Yes,” Aclima said.
“Can you obey orders?” Goliath pressed.
“Yes,” Aclima replied, but Helo detected a slight pause before her answer.
After a moment, Goliath turned back to Archus Mars. “I’ll give the girl a chance.”
Mars nodded. “Faramir, if you can’t work with these two, then I’ll ask you to leave. No one knows the gadgets and gear like you do, but these two are on the team. Period. So what’s it going to be, soldier?”
Faramir shook his head. “I’ll stay. The team needs me, especially with those two around.”
“Good,” Mars said. “Let’s get to it. I’ve told all of you that I was forming a team, but what I am really doing is re-forming a team, one that used to exist but was eliminated. It was called Sicarius Nox, and their specialty was going after Shedim and Dread Thralls, the most dangerous creatures of the dark.
“Some bureaucrat decided to disband it in favor of a more distributed approach, but now that we know there really are Dread Loremasters and that Cain is actively plotting against us, I received approval from the Archai to re-form Sicarius Nox. So here you are. It’s a small start, but it will grow.”
Mars reached into his pants pocket and fished out his phone. “Now, if you’ll check the screen, I’ll show you what the Medius has on your first mission. Primus, dim the lights and secure the room.”
Primus, a database and artificial intelligence program, complied. Helo figured Primus owed him one. Stealing it back after the Dreads had taken it from Trevex had brought him face-to-face with Cain—and Aclima. She had helped him escape the Dread stronghold with it the first time she had saved him. The memory prompted him to glance at her and smile. She returned a questioning look, mouthing, “What?” But Archus Mars had begun.
“As some of you know,” he said, “there is a particularly worthless group of Ash Angels called the Angels of St. Mark. They like to teach preschool and do bake sales, and if a Dread messes with somebody, they just sit on their hands and whistle a hymn. Lucky for us, one of them had the good sense to alert us when a convoy of three trailer trucks passed through Blaine, Washington, coming over the border from Canada. One of those trucks is emanating a Vexus cloud from the back, probably a Sheid.”
“We’ve been tracking them on this line for the last couple of days,” he pointed to the map on the screen, which showed the route. “Rather than take interstates, they’ve been keeping to rural areas and state highways, proceeding on a generally southeastern track. Their route choice seems a bit random, even evasive. We’ve been debating with the Medius whether we should hit the convoy or watch it to see if it leads us to something or someone of greater value. We’ve decided to hit it.”
“Why?” Goliath asked. “If they’re going to a distribution hub or headquarters of some sort, we might get one of the Loremasters.”
“And,” Aclima added, “there are only a couple of Loremasters who will actually do Cain’s bidding without being forced, and they are two of the nastier ones.”
Faramir spun in his seat, glassy eyes narrow. “And which of your friends are those?”
“Shut it, Faramir,” Helo growled.
“Relax, bro,” Faramir said, raising his hands. “Just a joke. But seriously, which two?”
Helo could already tell Faramir would be trouble, trouble whose legs he might have to break. Aclima eyed Faramir for a moment before turning her attention back to Mars. “The two are Jumelia, my sister, and Avadan, my son by Cain.”
“Oooh,” Goliath said, eyes bright. “I just got the shivers. Six-thousand-year-old Dread Loremasters related to our girl here. This is gonna be good.”
Mars cleared his throat. “We’re hitting the convoy. The safety of normals comes first. If there are Dread weapons and a Sheid in those trucks, we can’t let them get to an area under Dread control. Their rural routes also give us a way we can hit them without attracting attention.”
Shujaa’s deep and heavily accented voice rumbled from the back of the classroom. He had something written on his clenched knuckles Helo couldn’t make out in the dim light, something scrawled with a Sharpie.
He gazed up at Mars with dead eyes, devoid of any kind of joy. “Can’t we get an F-35 to accidentally drop a bomb on them? Call it an equipment malfunction?” His accent and his deadpan tone made it hard to tell if he was joking.
“Believe me,” Archus Mars returned, “that would make my day. But, no. We don’t want to destroy the trucks. We want to capture them and whatever they are carrying. We predict they will be heading through rural Missouri the day after tomorrow. Likely routes are represented by the dashed lines. Goliath, you’ve got one day to plan the mission and get out there. The full resources of the Michaels are at your disposal, and Archus Ramis has offered Gabriel support, but we’ve got Helo and Aclima now. A sanctified weapon will arrive tomorrow. Any questions?”
“Are normals or Ghostpackers driving the trucks?” Helo asked.
“Just Dreads,” Mars answered.
“Capture or kill?” Goliath said.
“If it’s a Loremaster, capture if you can,” Mars replied. “Burn other Dreads. Kill the Sheid. Remember, success for this mission means three intact trucks and no news cameras. And don’t forget you’ve got Blanks, Goliath. I think you’ll find they open up some possibilities you’re not used to having. I expect your plan by the morning.”
“Yes, sir,” Goliath said.
Everyone popped to their feet as Mars walked out, and then sat back down. After the door shut and relocked, Goliath walked to the front of the room and hopped up on the glass table tomboy-style. “Primus, create a new folder called Sicarius Nox under the mission repository and start a new mission file.”
“Folder already exists,” Primus stated in a soothing female voice. “Open mission file in current folder?”
“Yes,” Goliath said.
“Mission file thirty-three opened and ready for input,” Primus stated.
“Okay, guys,” Goliath began. “Three untouchable trucks. One Sheid. One rural road. Ideas?”
“Are you sure we can’t hurt the trucks?” Shujaa asked, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Explosives kill Dreads good.”
“Trucks intact,” Goliath said.
“We’ve got to get the trucks to stop, then,” Faramir said. “We could drop a tree across the road.”
Helo shook his head. “No. That blocks
us from getting the trucks out quickly. They’ll be too hard to turn around on a wooded rural road.”
“True,” Goliath said. “What about wrecking a car in front of the convoy? We can push it out of the way when we’re done. Helo and Aclima could be inside to make it look real.”
“These are Dreads,” Aclima said. “They’d just push the car out of the way and keep going. They’re not going to stop to lend assistance.”
“Any ideas, Shujaa?” Goliath asked, craning her head to see him in the back.
“You deal with the trucks,” he grumbled. “Tell me when I get to start burning Dreads.”
Helo tapped his fingers on the desk. They needed an obstacle they could push aside quickly but one that would stop the Dreads from going forward. Anything they could easily push away, the Dreads could too. But Dreads did hate fire, and while they couldn’t in good conscience set a forest ablaze, he remembered one of the Ash Angel cover corporations: Trevex Propane.
“Any Trevex propane distribution centers around?” Helo asked.
A grin slid up Goliath’s lips. “I think I know where you’re going with this. We have Trevex in Missouri, Faramir?”
After a few taps of Faramir’s fingers on his desk, three flame-shaped logos popped up on the big screen. “St. Louis, Springfield, and Kansas City,” Faramir reported.
“So we stage a propane-truck accident,” Helo said. “They won’t want to get close. Might even suspect it’s a trap. If we can get a cop car or even some basic barricades, I can play a cop and get them to stop. Aclima can be stopped at the barricade in another car or truck just ahead of them to make it look legit, or maybe a ways behind to keep normals away until we’re done.
“The rest of the team takes up position with sniper rifles. Three snipers, one for each truck driver. As soon as they stop, drop them. We’ll break some windows, but I don’t think Mars will care. When the Sheid comes out, I’ll get the sanctified weapon and attack while you cover me. We do this in daylight so the Sheid can’t reconstitute as fast. Once the Sheid’s gone, we turn the Dreads to dust.”
