by Myke Cole
Sarah was right. If he ever wanted a chance to be reunited with his son, if he ever wanted Patrick to have a life that consisted of something other than looking over his shoulder, he’d have to take the fight to the enemy. He’d have to find a way to stop the Cell in its tracks.
Hodges took Schweitzer’s silence for consideration. The burnt-sugar smell of his adrenaline increased. “You are going to kill me.”
“That depends on you,” Schweitzer said. It was a lie and he knew it. Schweitzer wasn’t above killing, but killing Hodges would solve nothing. If Hodges was going to help him, he’d have to be breathing to do it.
But it was too soon to play his whole hand. He crab-walked a step closer to Hodges. “Tell me what you know about the program that created me.”
“I don’t know a goddamn thing abou . . .”
Quick as a striking snake, Schweitzer seized Hodges by the throat and stood. He locked his hand precisely around the Senator’s windpipe, knuckles digging up into the hypoglossal nerve. He would be able to breathe, but the pain would be extreme.
Hodges gave no sign of his discomfort other than a slight tipping of his head to ease the pressure. Schweitzer recognized the “four by four” breathing technique he’d been taught in BUD/S. Four seconds in and four seconds out. Not a guarantee, but it would go a long way toward keeping Hodges from fainting or even wincing. Whatever he had done for the CIA, he was no analyst.
“I told you not to fuck with me.” Schweitzer put an animal growl into his voice; he hoped it was enough to convince Hodges that he wasn’t human and therefore wasn’t prone to human sympathy.
But Hodges didn’t so much as blink.
Schweitzer snarled and lifted the Senator off his feet, letting his spinal column take his entire body weight. He couldn’t hold him like this for long without injuring him. “Just because I’m a good guy doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you until you tell me what I want to know.”
Hodges actually smiled. He gurgled around Schweitzer’s vise grip, saliva bubbling out of the corners of his mouth. “Look at you. You’re exactly what you look like. A cartoon monster. Same on the inside as on the outside.”
A spike of hot rage mixed with sick shame. He remembered Sarah looking at him, fighting to keep the disgust off her face. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d shaken Hodges hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Hodges coughed, choked. His face had turned dark purple, his cheeks beginning to swell, but he kept smiling. “You’re not going to hurt me, Jim. I know that much.”
The rage bled out of him, and Schweitzer sagged. He could play the monster, but in the end, it was just play. He had been a monster to his targets and their lackeys when he’d still worked for the Cell. He had been a monster to his wife and son. Why not be the monster? Why are you trying so hard to be human? You’re not a human anymore.
But when Schweitzer searched his dead heart, he knew the answer. Rightly or wrongly, he still wanted life. Not the parody of his current existence, a soul driving a dead machine, but real life. I didn’t have enough time, he thought. I was robbed. The world owed him years, and all he knew was that he couldn’t possibly collect if he acted the animal it was trying to make of him.
He jerked his fingers open, and Hodges slid down to his feet, hands going up to his throat, massaging the red blotches beginning to form there.
“You’re right; I’m not going to hurt you.”
Hodges smirked. “I know.”
“But you’re a dead man anyway,” Schweitzer said. “The Cell will come for you. You’d have been dead back in your office if I hadn’t been there. Worse, you’d be walking around with something like me looking out through your eyes.”
“You’re lying,” Hodges said, but Schweitzer could smell the terror in the chemical makeup of his bloodstream, could hear it in his quickening heart.
“You know I’m not. There’s only one thing that can fight this force you supposedly know nothing about, Senator, and you’re looking at it.”
“And that’s what you want? To fight them?”
Schweitzer nodded.
“So . . . why save me?” Hodges asked. “You’re the only force that can fight them, go do it.”
“You also know that this program you know nothing about employs many creatures just like me,” Schweitzer said. “I can’t fight them all. Not myself. But you can shut the program down.”
Hodges sighed. For a moment, Schweitzer thought he would continue the I-Know-Nothing line, but he only shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
“The Director is dead,” Schweitzer said. “You know that? He’s living dead, like me.”
Hodges head jerked up, the color bleeding from his face. “How do you know that?”
Eldredge, Schweitzer thought. But he wasn’t about to sell out his one ally, the man who even now was caring for his son. “I have my sources.”
“If we’re going to trust one another, then we have to trust one another.” Hodges spread his hands, smiling. At least he had a sense of humor.
“We’ll get there. Did you know? About the Director?”
Hodges was silent, and Schweitzer could almost see him considering whether or not to lie to Schweitzer. At last, he settled on the truth. “No, but now that I think of it, I’m not surprised.”
“You have to shut it down, Hodges. Give the order.”
The adrenaline content of Hodges’ blood stayed level, as did his heartbeat. He didn’t move. He was telling the truth. “You’re crazy, Jim. Even if I could shut it down, think of the strategic edge it will give America’s enemies. You think the Chinese don’t have a similar program? The Russians? The Iranians? They do; they all do.”
Hot anger rose. “I don’t care. This program killed my wife and son, so this program goes down.” Let him think Patrick is dead. Until I am certain he won’t hurt him, I’m not revealing anything.
“Patrick’s dead?”
Schweitzer said nothing. Sometimes, silence was the most convincing answer of all.
“How?” Hodges looked genuinely stricken.
“None of your fucking business.” Schweitzer put some bitterness into his voice. “Life on the run isn’t easy on kids.”
“I’m sorry, Jim.” He was. His chemical scent confirmed it.
“You have to shut the program down. To save your own life if not anyone else’s. They’re not going to just let you go. They made a move on you, and you got away. They won’t stop until they have you.”
“I told you it’s not that simple.”
Schweitzer knew he was telling the truth. He’d been a captive in the Cell’s facility for months. He knew that it was probably funded to the tune of billions, protected by administrative line items burrowed deep into military databases. It took years to decommission even a small military program.
It didn’t matter. “Nothing’s ever simple with you fucking politicians. Solve the problem. Find a way.”
“Jesus, Jim. You were in the Navy your whole life. You know how these things are.”
“I also know that if someone high up enough wanted something done, it got done. You’re about as high up as they come. Make it happen.”
Hodges was quiet for a long time. “I . . . Maybe there is a way. I’ll need some help.” His face lit up; his hands twitched. He looked up at Schweitzer, grinned. “Your help.”
Schweitzer didn’t like that smile. “What help?”
“I thought we were going to have to ‘get there’ in the trust department. You aren’t giving up all your secrets, I’m not giving up all of mine. Either way, we have to work together on this, so let’s stop wasting time.” He turned to go.
Schweitzer put a hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him back. “Not good enough. I need to know what you’re planning here.”
Hodges sighed, but he didn’t move. “And I need to know how you can be so sure th
e Cell is gunning for me. Do you have any idea how many chits I’m going to have to call in to shut this operation down? And all based on your word.”
“Not my word, your experience. Did you miss the woman I tossed into your office? Did you miss the undead monster rampaging through the building?”
“There can be many explanations for both of those things without buying yours. Now, I’m willing to help, but that means you trust me and you help me. Make a decision, Jim. Or do whatever it is you’re going to do with me and then fuck off to some hole and di . . . rot . . . Shit. You don’t rot, do you?”
Schweitzer shook his head. “I don’t shit, either.”
Hodges laughed. “Come on, Jim. I believe you. We have the same goal here. We can work out the rest after the job’s done.”
“Fine,” Schweitzer said, “but I will be watching you, and if you betray me . . .”
Hodges’ smile melted into irritation. “Save it, Jim. Do you honestly think I would ever let a magical being as important as you go? I know what you mean to the future of this government’s study of magic. Our interests coincide here. You have to believe that.”
Schweitzer didn’t believe that, not in the slightest, but he didn’t see what other choice he had. He couldn’t fight the Cell on his own, and Patrick would never be safe until he beat them. Hodges was his one chance.
Schweitzer took it.
CHAPTER II
HEAD MAN IN CHARGE
The Director could hardly remember a time when his heart still beat. He hadn’t been dead that long, not nearly as long as Nandhimitra, the spirit he’d been paired with when he’d reawakened after the explosion to find he was no longer alone in his own body.
Over the months, the Director learned enough to guess that Nandhimitra had been in the soul storm over two thousand years. The spirits of the dead projected an image of how they envisioned themselves, and Nandhimitra appeared to the Director as a heavily muscled giant with an elephant’s head. It was the icon of some ancient civilization. The Director didn’t care to find out which one. Nandhimitra had been like all the ancient souls the Cell used, feral and blood-starved, mad for the warmth of human flesh and the heartbeat they could never have themselves.
Nandhimitra said that in life, he had been a great warrior. The spirits always were. But the Director had been a better one, the best who’d ever lived. Which was why Nandhimitra was gone, leaving him in sole possession of his corpse. The first one in the history of the program to exorcise the jinn from his own dead body. Behind the stretched fabric of his white hood, his eyes burned solid silver, the beautiful argent of a soul wholly his own.
The Director had spent the entirety of his new existence in the presence of those whose eyes burned gold, a metal-colored stamp of weakness. Gold eyes meant a soul could not compete with the predatory energy of the spirit paired with it, allowing itself to be pushed out because it lacked the strength to remain.
Even Gruenen, the South African mercenary, hadn’t been able to hang on to himself when he was paired with Schweitzer’s wife Sarah. In the end, she’d won control of his body long enough to use his own magic to defeat him. He couldn’t be called a Silver Operator. Not truly.
Every single operator they’d created went Gold. Every single one, save himself.
Not just you, one other. He pushed the thought away. It made him angry, and anger was seldom useful.
But the thought wouldn’t be denied. He had been the greatest in afterlife as he had been in life. Until Schweitzer had fled to a Virginia farm, dug in his heels, and won. It didn’t surprise him; he and Schweitzer were cut from the same cloth. If anyone were to equal his signature achievement, it would be Schweitzer.
In life, he’d had a name not much different from Schweitzer’s, a common pair of syllables as fallible as his flesh. Part of his reward for winning the struggle for his own corpse had been to dispense with his name. He liked his title better. It matched his intention and his ability both. He was the Director.
Even after he’d passed every test that could be thrown at him, moved through crucible beyond crucible to stand shoulder to shoulder with the greatest warriors of his age, even wearing their coveted symbols, bathed in the glow of their enduring brotherhood, he had wondered, Am I the best among them? He had read of warriors who had transcended their humanity, their greatness making them into icons, gods. Alexander. Hannibal. Frederick. Eugene. Sherman. The question begat a suspicion nursed in the deepest corner of his mind. He pondered it as he fell asleep each night, the hard terrain digging unnoticed into his back and shoulders. Was he great? Truly great?
And it was now, in this new unlife, that he found the answer he’d sought.
He became dimly aware of a staccato clicking. Mark’s chattering teeth, interrupting his reverie. His augmented eyes showed the deep red glow of her body heat faded to a pale pink as her core temperature cooled dangerously in the refrigerated room. She would have stood there without complaint, her precious heat bleeding out until she succumbed, rather than disturb him. Mark was a mighty warrior, but she was still a human, imprisoned in a fragile cage that would fail her at a moment’s notice. “Ah, Mark. My apologies; I’ve been neglecting you.”
Mark wasn’t her name, of course. Calling all males by female names, and vice versa, was just one of the hundreds of rules that ensured the Cell stayed beneath public notice, layers upon layers that succeeded where grand gestures failed.
She tried to answer, stuttered out a reply too jumbled by her gray-blue lips to be understood. Mark certainly deserved to die for letting Eldredge past her and into the Director’s freezing office. It had led to the discovery of the Director’s identity and Eldredge’s eventual flight. He’d certainly killed humans for less, but he also knew that that was what she wanted more than anything, and the exquisite punishment of forcing her to continue drawing breath was too beautiful to be passed up.
And besides, losing Eldredge and Dadou Alva, his most powerful Sorcerer, had made him cautious. Humans might be weak, but they weren’t an inexhaustible resource, especially not the strongest ones he needed to help him run his organization.
He placed a gloved hand on her shoulder and gently steered her through the huge steel door and out into the warm air of the office outside. He pushed Mark into her chair behind the reflective surface of her ebony desk. She slumped gratefully into it, shivering and rubbing her hands together, steam rising from her broad shoulders. The Director listened to her heartbeat, watched the steady red glow of her body heat rise, and knew she would be fine. Within moments, her hands and ankles were bright red and swollen. She must be in considerable pain, not that she would ever show it.
“I’m s . . . s . . . sorry, s . . . sir,” she finally managed.
“No, no, Mark. It’s I who should apologize. I was lost in thought.”
She looked at him in a tangle of surprise and adoration. Snot streamed from her nose, marring her perfect makeup. Her face was as blocky and hard as the rest of her. “No excuse, sir,” she said. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“If it means you’re going to freeze to death,” the Director chided her, “I want to be disturbed.”
“If I die”—she smiled—“you’ll make good on our deal?”
“Not if you kill yourself or by inaction allow yourself to be killed,” the Director reminded her. “I’ll have no suicides in my ranks. We’re professionals.”
“I’m almost forty, sir.” The petulance in her face made her look decades shy of that. “My body isn’t getting any more suitable.”
“It’s not your body I’m worried about, Mark. When I judge your spiritual strength to be sufficient, I’ll take your life myself and personally supervise putting a jinn into your corpse, but you don’t want to be a ravenous, mindless Gold, do you? It’s one hell of a fight to wrest one’s own body away from a jinn. I should know.”
“You were the first, sir.”
“That’s right,” the Director said with a sudden heat, “not Jim.”
He could smell the adrenaline dumping into her warming bloodstream, could hear the acceleration of her heart. He was frightening her. “Yes, sir.”
“It’s a tough fight, but I think you’re up to it. Do you?”
“I’ll damn well try, sir.” The truth was that she would never be able to stand against a jinn, that she was weak and desperate, that she would go Gold the moment the Summoner Bound the spirit into her. It didn’t matter; he needed a living hand to manage his affairs now that Eldredge was gone, and if he was to have hers, he must feed her desperate notions of one day joining the ranks of the undead.
“Be patient, Mark. I promise I won’t forget you.” He let pass unremarked the fact that she had almost frozen solid precisely because he did forget her. She straightened, shivered.
“Are you well enough to see to some things for me? Or should I call someone else from the pool?” he asked, pitching his voice just flat enough to make it a threat.
“No, sir. I can handle it.” That was good. She might be a little slower than normal, but it was important to keep one’s people used to enduring hardship in the name of the cause. Also to remind them who was boss.
“Good. I want to review the incentives. Can you have them gathered in the central holding cell?”
“Review them, sir? Personally?”
“That’s right.” He wasn’t surprised at her incredulity. He could count the number of times he’d left his refrigerated office over the past few years on a single hand. But all that was before Schweitzer had escaped, then Eldredge. Before Dadou had been killed. “I think this organization could benefit from a little more of a personal touch from leadership.”
“Yes, sir.” Mark stood, swayed. The prolonged cold had shunted too much blood to her heart and lungs, desperately trying to keep them warm at the expense of the brain. He gave her even odds of fainting and made no move to catch her. His magically enhanced ears could hear her jaw creak as she gritted her teeth. She took an unsteady step, kept her feet. Well done. He would keep her.
