by Jenn Stark
But Filmore continued, easy and sure. “I helped facilitate the right introductions, the chance meetings between you and the administrators of the school you entered from junior high on. The scholarship committees as well. You had a knack for being in the right place at the right time, you see? That wasn’t by chance. You could say your entire career is due in part to me, but I considered it a more-than-even trade. After all, without you, I never would have made the discoveries I have or pushed through the policies I’ve championed so quickly. There were some hiccups, of course. I never found the original book that you used to summon the demons and that was incredibly vexing.”
This confused her. “What are you talking about? It was right in my parents’ study for years. How could you have missed it?”
“I asked myself the same thing, over and over again. After all, you were there, and you were speaking a language I didn’t know—and you didn’t know either, certainly. It was obvious a book was involved. But by the time I reached your house that night, everyone had gathered in the drawing room downstairs, and so I assumed that’s where the book would be. I never even thought you would have been given access to your parents’ study. Foolish of me, I admit.”
“Yes, foolish,” she murmured. “So how did you figure everything out without the book?”
“Another piece of serendipity,” he admitted modestly. “You see, I wasn’t the only person interested in this line of inquiry. I had to be careful, I had to be subtle, but eventually, I found like souls who were as aggressive as I was in identifying solutions to our military’s shortcomings.”
“And you discovered AugTech.”
“I did.” He flashed another politician-worthy grin. “And they explained how much further along they were already, further than I’d even imagined in my wildest dreams. And I knew we were ready. There are needs that must be met and tools that have been forged to meet those needs, and it’s time we accepted that truth. The rest was almost laughably easy. Starting about twelve months ago, I positioned you for the role of congresswoman, even lining you up for committees, while AugTech set about tracking down how to secure a large pool of test units.”
“They’re not units,” she protested. “They’re not human beings, but they’re more than test units.”
He gave Angela a mocking look. “You’ve seen them up close and personal, Angela.” Somehow, his use of her adopted first name came across as a slap. “Are you trying to tell me they have rights, like we should treat them like dogs and cats? Or sacred cows?”
She shifted a little in her chair. She didn’t know how she felt about demons, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t her job to make that decision. Any rights they had weren’t supposed to be negotiated by humans. She didn’t bother saying any of that to Martin. He had clearly already made up his mind.
“So what’s next? You kidnapped me out of my home. Somebody is going to notice that. You can’t possibly think that I’m going to go along with anything you suggest at this point.”
He sat back with clear satisfaction and excitement, clapping his hands to his knees. Another move she’d seen hundreds—thousands of times since she was a little girl. Never realizing he was watching her. Studying her. Preying on her. “On the contrary. I think you’ll go along with everything that I suggest, which is why you’re in the impactful position you’re in. Setting aside how easily and completely I could ruin both your life and the lives of your parents, since I have absolute and total control of your entire identity and I have since you were a very young girl, there is the moral aspect to it. You’ve always struck me as a particularly humanistic woman. And this solution will save human lives.”
She stared at him. She wasn’t an idiot. She could lay out the problem as neatly and succinctly as any mathematician. Martin Filmore had her dead to rights. In large part, he was exactly correct. Anything that she was, anything that she had become, was in part the result of his careful machinations. She was at his mercy. She suspected that not too many people knew what he had done to her, and she further suspected that his control ended with her and not her parents, but that was an idle distinction. He had her, and right now, silence was her best course of action. Appearing belligerent, or, worse, that she was willing to find some workaround wasn’t going to help matters. In fact, it might drive him to a proof-of-sincerity demonstration which she could ill afford.
Angela’s silence appeared to be the best course. Martin’s expression relaxed further. “I can tell you, sincerely, that I’m pleased to have given you pause, Angela. I suspect you’ve worked out all the likely scenarios. Don’t feel bad, I’ve had eighteen years to go through those, and a significant ramping up of focus over the past twelve months. The active part of my process has really only come into play in the last five months, since around Christmas. Your swearing-in ceremony in January was a work of art.”
She gave him a thin smile. “Well, you have my full attention. What is it you want me to do?”
He leaned forward. “All I’m asking you to do is to shepherd this legislation through the process and allow AugTech to continue its operations in a black box environment. You are the only person who knows the significance of what I’m proposing. Randall, Trudy, all the rest have completely bought into the artificial intelligence angle of the units and that they are organic only to the extent of appearance, not fact. We won’t be able to convince Congress to use these battle units if there’s any suspicion they’re organic.”
“Back to the dogs and cats issue.” She grimaced, forcibly reminded of Ghost and Old Sir. They’d both risked their lives for her back in her condo. Were they okay? Were they even still alive?
Anger scored through her as Filmore nodded. “But I don’t need this to have public approval. I need internal approval, and I need money to flow to AugTech quickly and consistently. AugTech, not me.” He spread his hands. “I’m not trying to get rich off this technology, Angela. I’m trying to save lives. I’m trying to protect human lives. I’m most especially trying to make the US military once more the most effective and efficient military power in the world. We can do this, and we have a moral right to do this.”
“And all you need is my support in committee?” She knew there had to be more to it.
There was.
He hesitated, then offered Angela another easy, politically savvy smile. “To start, yes. But I do need more from you. I need you to work directly with the operatives at AugTech. You have a control over these creatures that exceeds that of the witches we took from the Serbian encampment.”
She curled her lip. Gregori had told her the rest of this story, too. “You mean the ones you decided didn’t need to die?”
He shook his head. “We weren’t a part of any of that. That was a fight between demons and witches. We simply were there at the end to take advantage and to save lives where we could.”
“You mean when it suited you.”
He inclined his head. “That’s as may be. But I’m not here to argue with you about the ethics of this initiative. Those have already been decided. This is the right thing to do, and we’re going to do it. I need you to help take it to the next level.”
“Why me?”
“Because right now, you have a demon you’re controlling without any spell books. He’s been with you since Atlanta. We want him too.”
Angela felt a chill course down her spine. “He’s never going to let that happen.”
“On the contrary.” Martin smiled again. “He already has.”
22
Aided by the archangel, Gregori followed the line of energy to its source, which was exactly what he’d seen in the minds of the demons in the condo before he’d blasted them beyond the veil. He appeared in a long, empty corridor lined with shelves, apparently some sort of underground bunker. Before he could even move, however, an enormous pressure assaulted his ears and brain, driving him to his knees. He slapped his hands on either side of his head, only to realize he wasn’t touching his actual skull.
Instead,
a net of electrical circuits was wrapped around his head. When had that happened? How could anybody have gotten that close? How had—
“Go with it.” The archangel’s voice was hollow and resolute. But Gregori was an empath and not even the highest-ranking angel of God could completely hide his emotions from him. Michael was pissed. Whatever Simon had finally decided these humans had done, above and beyond the kidnapping of Angela Stanton, had rattled the archangel at a very deep level. That didn’t bode well for the humans. And it especially didn’t bode well for him as the blunt instrument of the archangel’s wrath.
“I better get a raise,” Gregori muttered.
“The skullcap was supposed to be put in place by the fifty demons they sent to take you out at the human’s condo,” the archangel explained briskly. “None of them, of course, got close enough to do that, but there was no surveillance in the room. So we improvised.”
Gregori sensed that the archangel wanted to say more, but there was no time. Doors slammed open at either end of the corridor and an onslaught of humans and demons poured out of the space beyond. The pressure in his brain was overwhelming, and he knew the tool being used. It was an ancient construct of the Greeks, a helmet into which was fashioned a sort of Sator square, a mathematical construct given over to words, where all the letters in the square mirrored each other in some way, backward and forward, up and down, the words constantly repeating with one never fully ending before the loop started up again. It was intended to distract a supernatural being so much that they couldn’t focus on whatever dire intent they’d originally conceived against humans, and it worked pretty well. It certainly worked well against him. Within a few short seconds, all Gregori could think of was the run of nonsensical words that coursed through his brain.
By the time the demons reached him, he didn’t even object when they laid hands on him, lifting him to his feet and shackling him with enormous cuffs. He could’ve told them not to bother, if he could focus on anything at all. But the archangel wanted him to go along with this charade, and fighting the constant rush and moan of words was only going to drain his energy.
Gregori allowed them to take him down the corridor and into a large gymnasium-style room. It was clear this facility was almost entirely underground, but the space was sweeping, and he struggled to think of where it might be located. He suspected it was nearby, on the outskirts of DC. There were too many shipping and transportation opportunities in the capital city that would make launching an operation like this far easier than a more remote location.
But what was its purpose specifically?
His captors pulled him to the center of the room and attached his manacles to two posts that were driven into the concrete. The moment they did so, a beam of light shone down from above, setting everything ablaze in a six-foot circle. Despite the cacophony in his head, Gregori eyed the posts with interest. They were black, but they hadn’t started out that way. Demons had been shackled here before, demons who’d been injured to the point of gushing black blood. Very few humans could make that happen, but other demons could. Which meant these people had been setting demons upon each other as part of their trials…successfully. Good to know.
A second later, a crackle of energy electrified the poles and bit into Gregori’s wrists. If he’d been an ordinary demon, the pain would have driven him to his knees. As it was, he felt it well enough and staggered appropriately, having no interest in his captors amping the wattage simply because Gregori was a tough guy. A hiss of noise then broke through the words running through his head, a different voice. Male and imperious.
“What is your name? What should we call you?”
When Gregori didn’t answer, the electrical prod spiked, and he screamed quite convincingly, sagging to his knees. The question came again, and he shook his head like a bull, hoping they would get the picture that he couldn’t respond with all the noise being fed into his helmet.
No such luck. The question came a third time, accompanied by so much electrical firepower that this time, Gregori did feel it all the way to his broken demon body. Sweat poured off his brow, and he could see his glamour falter, the smooth skin and well-muscled arms giving way to an equally burly but diseased and gutted form. He was like a mountain after an earthquake had broken it apart, little more than a pile of rubble. He glimpsed a fleeting memory of what he’d look like before he’d been ruined. Not the glamour he showed to humans, but the figure of the angel he’d once been and would never be again. He gasped with the sorrow and pain that image brought him, having nothing to do with the electrical whine at his wrists and temples.
The moment passed, and he sagged forward. “Gregori,” he groaned.
“No,” the voice said. “I need the name you were given at the time of your making. At the time of your sin.”
Gregori couldn’t help himself. He recoiled, but there were now three voices in his head, the demanding, imperious interrogator, the hush and moan of the repeating cycle of words, and once again, the Archangel Michael seemed so close that he might as well be whispering in Gregori’s ear.
“Tell them,” he said without inflection. “I know the sacrifice will be great. But there is no other way to save her.”
Gregori turned as if he could see the archangel. Of course, there was no one there. But he hadn’t mistaken what he’d said. To save her. The trial that was coming was great, but it would be successful if he succumbed. If he did what they asked. He had the archangel’s permission to bow to the will of these humans, but more than that, he had the archangel’s directive that this was the only course. It was not a difficult decision.
“Pónos.” No sooner had the word slipped from his lips than a new sound replaced it, the murmur and sighing of many voices, none that he recognized. While the beam remained on him, lights came up all around him, and he saw and understood what was happening.
He was standing in a witch’s circle.
He hadn’t been summoned into this trap by ordinary means either. He’d walked right into it and allowed himself to be shackled. The first ever shackling of the Syx in a witch’s circle, in fact, in all their long years of conflict. Anger flickered within Gregori, not an emotion he usually felt regarding humans. As an empath, he’d absorbed his share of mortal rage, dissolving it, diffusing it, absorbing it. But it was normally not his process to generate anger himself. There was more than enough of it to go around without his aid. But this was different. These mortals intended to do him harm. He knew it as surely as he knew that somewhere in that crowd of people watching him was Angela. They meant to do her harm as well, and he could not…would not allow that to happen. No matter what happened to him, she had to stay safe.
“You’re different from the other demons. Explain.”
Gregori tensed, waiting for the archangel to tell him to spill the secrets of the Syx. To explain the nature of the Fallen and their role within the greater horde. If the archangel ordered it, he would do it. He was bound, and he accepted that bond. The archangel, however, remained silent.
The whine of pressure increased. “You’re different from the other demons. Explain.”
This time, along with the additional round of pain, Gregori felt a renewed surge of anger. It was almost freeing. Without the archangel restraining him, and given that he had already accepted that he must succumb to whatever might come, he had a curious sense of lightness in allowing himself to be irritated by humans. To not excuse their pettiness or their orders as something they had every right to feel. He…he was allowed to judge them, should they be deserving of judgment. He could never harm a human, certainly not kill one, nor could he turn away. But he could judge them in this moment, sacrificing himself to their ridiculous demands as he was. It was…unsettling.
It was also painful. The ratcheting up of the energy stream crackled across his body, making him strain against his bonds. And the witches joined in this time, raising their hands, their voices lifting in whatever cubbyholes they’d been stuck. The amphitheater-style room he
stood in was surrounded by small, glassed-in observation rooms, almost like a gladiatorial arena where he would be gazed upon, cheered at, jeered by fools who didn’t understand what he was. Who especially didn’t know what he had been.
“You are different from the others—”
“Then why don’t you ask them what I am?” Gregori challenged, lifting his head as he spoke. His voice roared across the open space, though not with anger or force. It was simply loud enough to fill the whole room, to echo across the concrete walls surrounding him. In its wake, the very building shook and the witches froze in their cells. Meanwhile, high above him, the knot of people gyrated quickly, clearly excited to get a rise out of him, to get anything resembling a response. They shifted and edged closer to the glass, and finally, Gregori saw her.
Angela, standing as stiff as the poles that were holding him, staring at him with her soul in her eyes.
Even through the thick leaded glass, he could feel the intensity of her pain, her anguish, and his heart leapt. She was there. She was safe. It was a start.
The voice came again. “We have tried to ask the others what you are once we realized you were so much stronger, so different. What we’ve gotten back has not been satisfactory. They fear you too much, even more than they fear us, no matter how much pain we can accord them, no matter that we can ensure their deaths.”
Gregori smile grimly. The humans only thought they could ensure a demon’s death. The witches they had in their employ were very strong, could even send the demons back from wherever they’d summoned them. But they couldn’t send them back beyond the veil, not this group. And he further suspected the men and women who were trapping these demons didn’t want them sent away. Why would you get rid of your army when you were convinced you could control it? All an army had to do was fall in line, and demons, for all their many flaws, had an exquisite ability to survive. But they knew they couldn’t survive an attack of the Syx. It was a very delicate line to walk, but it was a line nevertheless, and one Gregori was forced to appreciate.
