The Debt Collector (Season Two)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  I give him a look of mock horror. “You mean it’s not because of my hot kisses?”

  He smirks. “Well, I didn’t know that beforehand. Now, however, that is definitely a point in your favor.”

  I smile, and that feeling surges back: the one that wants to trust him. To tell him that I know about Lifetime. Maybe I can get him to help. He’s a slasher—he should be able to stop it without Moloch knowing the source. I doubt Jax and Wyatt can do it on their own—I didn’t have a chance to explain the whole thing, and my note will only take them so far. If they do manage to stop it, that will definitely get traced back to me.

  My chance to talk freely with Zachariel feels fleeting… once we’re back in Moloch’s domain, I’m sure it will be gone. When Zachariel turns to lead me inside, I stop him with a tug on his elbow. He frowns but doesn’t object.

  “I want you to know that I’ve noticed,” I say. “Even if you’re doing it for your own reasons, I appreciate that you’re trying to help me.”

  The smirk is back. “You don’t have to sweet-talk me, Wraith. I’ll kiss you anytime you ask.”

  I hold back the smile to let him know I’m serious. “I want to know the real reason why you’re helping me. I need to know before…” I glance at the mixture of stabbing light and murky dark that is the shop. “…before I get in deeper. I need to understand what’s happening here.”

  The humor on his face fades. “What’s happening is that Moloch’s going to keep testing you until he’s sure you’re converted. And I highly recommend you make every appearance of having been converted.”

  I wait for more, but it’s not forthcoming. He’s not going to come clean until I pass Moloch’s tests. Which puts him squarely on Gehenna’s team, even if he’s playing Good Cop for me.

  “So that’s what’s waiting for me inside?” I ask. “More tests.”

  He nods, lips pressed together, and that chills the urge to press him for more.

  “All right, then.” I brush past him and march toward the front door. I have to wait for him to catch up because it’s locked. He taps up a passcode on his palm and swipes it past the scanner.

  Inside, it’s even more difficult to see. The place is crammed with mirrors of all shapes and sizes. Some are modern, but most are encased in heavy baroque frames in black and gold. Elaborate chandeliers crowd the ceiling, packed so tightly, the small shop feels like a cavern encrusted with crystalline stalactites. They add a million tiny spots of light to the uneven brilliance, but there’s dust everywhere, and a filmy layer of grime coats all the bedazzling surfaces.

  Zachariel leads me past racks of mounted mirror displays to a back door. I expect it to open into a warehouse, but instead, it’s a stairwell down into darkness. Halfway down, plasma lighting embedded in the walls flips on and illuminates a concrete basement barren of any furniture or storage. Zachariel swipes through another door, and we enter a twenty foot wide concrete tunnel. The walls are lined with palettes of boxes—ancient paper records, the kind that haven’t been used in a century or more.

  “What is this place?” I ask, running my hand along the boxes. It comes back dusty.

  “Prohibition tunnels,” Zachariel says quietly. Our voices carry, bouncing off the hard-surfaced walls. “Used to run bootleg between the Mayor’s office and the speak easies.”

  “The Mayor’s office?” I ask skeptically.

  “It was corrupt even then.”

  “Is that where we’re going?” I glance up at the utility pipes running the length of the ceiling. We’re following them to a bend in the tunnel.

  “No,” Zachariel says as we turn the corner. “Moloch has his own separate kingdom down here.”

  A steel door blocks any further progress and appears rusted shut, but when Zachariel passes a palm over the lock, it slides back with a well-oiled lack of protest. Past the door, the concrete tunnel has been transformed into a gothic palace.

  It’s the same twenty-foot-wide space, but the bare tunnel walls are now draped with black velvet curtains. Carved ebony bookcases hunch over couches the color of blood. The dust is gone—in fact, flickering sconces give a dark shine to the highly polished furniture and sparkling black-granite flooring. The entrance space opens into a slightly larger area that appears to be an intersection with another tunnel. Down each of the wings is another door.

  Moloch is holding court with six debt collectors. Their black leather trenchcoats and pale watchful faces fit naturally into this place. Moloch’s chair is made of velvet so dark and rough it seems like coal was ground up to make the fabric. The chair’s carved wooden arms are the same color, and Moloch is perched at the edge, one hand stroking his chin. It’s the throne for his kingdom, only undersized, fit to his slender frame. Somehow it doesn’t seem grand enough to match his ambitions. Or maybe all of it is simply drenched in too much worship of death. This place, buried under the skin of a city that’s only skin-deep, feels like a crypt: a hidden tomb that Moloch controls. His debt collector minions step back to allow Zachariel and me to approach Moloch on his gothic throne. The whole thing is a bit much for me.

  “Who is your decorator?” I say with gushing enthusiasm. “And what do you call this? Early Modern Cult of Death?”

  His carefully thoughtful expression sinks into a glower. I remember a beat too late that using the cult word probably wasn’t my best opener. Zachariel’s face is expressionless, but I’m sure he’s cursing my name in his head.

  “Ever the wit, Ms. Sterling,” Moloch says from his chair. “Although I must say, I might find it quite tiresome over time.” His intonation lands an emphasis on the word time, and I know now that it means something entirely different to him: Moloch expects to live out eternity.

  I’m hoping I haven’t cut short what little time I have left.

  “Sorry,” I say, not quite managing to sound actually contrite. “Not entirely used to the rules yet. I’m a quick learner, though.”

  Moloch rises from his chair. His expression is cool. I can’t tell if I’m forgiven or not.

  He takes his time stepping closer. “You are quick, Ms. Sterling. I’m a bit surprised at how effective you’ve been in getting things done. I hear Akulife has already received an offer from Sterling Cybernetics.”

  I nod, but hold my tongue, hoping we can move on from that topic before he asks why I needed to make a trip to the basement labs of Sterling. I grip the bag with my suit tighter, ready to use that as my excuse.

  He appraises me. “You’re proving quite useful to our cause. I would not have guessed you would make it this far, but I’m hardly convinced we’ve won you over. I simply wonder how far you’re willing to go to remain in possession of that life energy you carry inside your body. Or is that what really motivates you at all?”

  As dangerously close to accurate as that is, I’m relieved we’ve moved on to his next test, whatever it is. “Well, keeping my life energy is certainly more attractive when you have an unlimited supply of it on tap.”

  A corner of his mouth lifts in a half-smile. “Indeed. Having an eternity stretch before you tends to adjust your priorities. As does the risk of having all of it stripped away.”

  I swallow. I’m not quite sure what he means by that, but I doubt it will be good for me.

  Moloch puts on a smile. “But you have delivered well on every task I’ve set before you. I think it’s time for a bit of that reward I promised.”

  My eyebrows hike up, flummoxed for a moment. I’m not sure what he means.

  He looks entirely too satisfied with my surprise. “I have the man who killed your father.”

  My throat closes up. In spite of my justifications to Zachariel, I expected to be caught long before we got to this point. Now that Moloch’s about to deliver my father’s killer… I’m not sure what to do. Which, as Moloch’s steely blue eyes watch me, is probably the exact position he wants me in.

  “That’s great,” I force myself to say. “Who is it?”

  “His collector name is Samil.” Moloch
’s smile grows. “But I doubt that concerns you in the slightest. What matters is that I’m ready to turn him over to you, as promised.” He waves his fingers at his minions, who have held back from our close discussion. Two of them break away from the group and march to the right-hand tunnel door. As they swipe through, I get a glimpse past it—the tunnel narrows considerably, with a thin ribbon of dark-carpeted hallway and doors on either side. I suspect they’re apartments for Moloch’s itinerant debt collector army.

  Which means… his collector lieutenants are retrieving the man who killed my father. Right now.

  I blink, staring after them. My heart starts to pound. I’m not sure what I expected to feel at the prospect of coming face-to-face with my father’s killer, but a cold trickle of fear wasn’t it. The fear is hollow and nameless, swimming around inside my head and breaking out sweat along the tiny crooks of my body: the back of my neck, the insides my elbows, in between my toes. It lands in a cold pool at the pit of my stomach and suddenly I know what it is: I’m not afraid of this collector.

  I fear what I will do to him.

  It only takes a few seconds before they return. Moloch’s two thugs have their hands on the collector’s shoulders. He’s blond and young, and his eyes are wide even before he sees me. He’s only halfway across the room when our eyes meet: I know him, but I can’t place exactly how. He clearly knows me: he jerks back, horror on his face. The two thugs holding him quickly find open skin and start to drain him. His horror becomes a death-mask while they drag him across the floor. The room is silent, the only sound my labored breathing.

  They drag the boy between them and stop draining him when they reach me. I can tell by the way his body unclenches, and his gasps for breath fill the room.

  In that moment, I recognize him: he’s the collector from the kitchen in Sacramento. The boy who recognized me but seemed too young to already be a member of Gehenna. And too young to kill a prominent anti-debt-collection activist on his own.

  I turn to Moloch. “You ordered my father killed.” The words are out of my mouth before my mind catches up. All this time of trying to survive, trying to infiltrate Moloch’s debt collector cult so I could figure out his plans… all this time of knowing he had been watching me, thinking about killing me… somehow I had missed the most obvious thing of all.

  Gehenna had my father killed.

  Moloch ordered my father’s death.

  And now he’s offering up the collector who did his dirty work as a reward to get me to do even more.

  My body trembles. I’m not sure if I’m going to be violently ill or if I’m going to violently attack Moloch. The need for violence of some kind, some rage against all of this, is bottled inside me, ready to explode. I’m mute with trying to contain it. I fight through the red haze clouding my mind.

  Moloch gestures to the still reeling collector on his knees. “Samil carries far more than just your father’s life energy inside him, Wraith. I’m afraid he’s too strong for you to tackle alone.”

  His apologetic tone makes the rage inside me froth up even more.

  With a nod from Moloch, the two goons shove their palms against the boy’s cheeks. His silent scream, mouth wide open, eyes squeezed shut, makes my entire body jolt.

  I clench my hands, but I’m shaking so hard my suit bag rattles in my hand. When I turn to face Moloch, I nearly fall over in my corporate heels. Zachariel braces me, his face grim, and he takes the bag from my hands. He locks gazes with me, but I can’t stand the look in his eyes: that I have to do this, I have to be part of this, or I will be next. And we both know the choice for my chief executioner would be Zachariel… just because Moloch’s cruel that way.

  I shove Zachariel away and face Moloch. “You were the one who killed my father.”

  “Of course.” Moloch says this like it was obvious all along. He’s studying my reaction. “Your father was an impediment to our cause, both in the near and long terms. His constant advocacy, his plans for cybernetic inventions to slowly erode the use of life energy, his relentless campaigning for new legislation to chip away at every gain we made, every step of the way. He was losing the battle, Wraith. But he wasn’t losing it fast enough. And frankly, I had grown tired of his meddling.”

  He pauses and considers the half-dead collector. “Your father’s collection was Samil’s first for Gehenna, admirably proving his commitment to our cause.” He looks back to me. “I actually had hopes you might be an easier problem to solve than your father, especially in the fresh wake of his death. At first, I thought you might accomplish our task all on your own, with your rather sudden withdrawal from the public sphere and your apparent reluctance to follow in his footsteps.” He glances to Zachariel. “Of course, all became clear once we understood you were actually one of us.” He lingers on the last word, drawing it out. “Or at least, you have the chance to be.”

  He gestures with an open hand to Samil. The two collectors yank their hands back from his cheeks. Samil hangs between them, only upright because they have a hand hooked under each arm.

  I stare at the boy, transfixed. Moloch wants me to kill him. To prove my commitment.

  “He only has your father’s life energy remaining in him now,” Moloch says softly, close by my side. “By all rights, it belongs to you anyway, Wraith. Take it. Reclaim what’s yours. It’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

  My stomach heaves because Moloch is right: I’ve imagined having my father’s killer under my palm from the moment he died. I pictured a righteous, ironic justice for the debt collector who killed my father—he would die at the hand of one of his own. But the boy on his knees before me was only the weapon—Moloch was the one who pointed him and pulled the trigger. In a flash of insight, I realize Moloch was likely the invisible force blocking the investigation into my father’s death.

  Moloch is so close I can feel the soft puff of his breath on my face. I could touch him before anyone else could stop me. But I would have no chance of coming out of that encounter alive.

  I always knew that was the endgame.

  I turn to him. “You would have me kill one of your loyal collectors? That doesn’t sound like much of a club I’d want to join.”

  Moloch smirks. “One trades a pawn for a queen when one can.” His voice is slick like the dark-oiled furniture of his den beneath the city.

  “Is that what I am?” I ask, the revulsion coming out in my voice. “A queen?”

  “Well, now, that’s up to you.” His dark eyes glitter. “You could be, Wraith. Ishtar was right about your potential. The choice is yours whether you live to see that potential fulfilled.”

  I nod and step toward Samil. He’s shaking. His face is so ashen from all the years already drained from him, I’m surprised he’s even coherent. Yet he’s still aware enough to cower as I approach. I can’t think of a way out of this. No matter how smart I am, I can’t outmaneuver a room full of debt collectors, any one of whom could kill me with a touch.

  I move to lay my palm on the boy’s forehead, but he flinches away. The two thugs hold him tighter. One grabs his hair at the back of his head to keep his face tilted up. Samil’s blinking fast, breathing through his teeth, preparing for me to kill him.

  If I don’t, Moloch will kill me.

  If I do… I’ll have regained the life energy stolen from my father by killing another man. I can’t imagine anything my father would approve of less. Under any circumstance.

  I lay my hand on Samil’s forehead. The two thugs lean back and give us space while still holding him up. I imagine myself as Ishtar: cold, ruthless, eternally beautiful. She would drain him in a heartbeat and not look back.

  But I’m not Ishtar. Or Moloch. I am my father’s daughter. And while this man, Samil, only possesses stolen life energy now, if he keeps my father’s life, maybe he will decide to do something better with it than continue as Moloch’s henchman.

  If I take it, I will destroy us both.

  I trickle a little life energy in, enough to blink su
rprise from Samil. I stare down into his eyes—they’re so young, yet they already show the creases of a blackened soul. His dull eyes grow brighter with the life energy I’m feeding him. Then they grow round as well. He knows what I’m doing but doesn’t understand it.

  I explain, softly, so only he can hear. “I forgive you,” I whisper, then I kick up the rate of transfer.

  I’m surprised when the mercy hit starts to glow inside me. Somehow I had forgotten what that clean-burning righteousness felt like. My head tips back, and my eyes close. I have no idea how long Moloch will allow this to go on, but I revel in this last moment, this final payout, this radical act of giving that’s wiping away all the bad acts Moloch has forced me to endure. I feel the tears trickle from the corners of my eyes, but I don’t move a muscle, all my focus given over to this singular act of rebuffing everything Moloch is and everything he stands for.

  It cuts off as I’m yanked back, a hand hard on my shoulder. I tumble to the lush, black carpet of Moloch’s lair. The mercy hit is still raging inside me, but the nausea sweeps up and curls me in. I don’t have the luxury of staying there long—Moloch’s two thugs haul me up from the floor of his buried crypt with their rough hands. I see a flash of Zachariel’s face—he’s awed and stricken at the same time—but then Moloch’s enraged face is in mine, nose to nose.

  I smile. “You should have killed me before now.”

  So he slaps his palm to my forehead… and does.

  I’m dying.

  Moloch’s hand on my forehead pulls such a river of life energy from my head that it feels like he’s cracked it wide open. His two thugs hold me upright while my body seizes in response, my hands curling into claws, my mouth gaping but silent, all the air frozen in my lungs. Then Moloch shoves my head away, which releases me from the death pose, and I slump. The thugs drop their hold on me as well, and I sprawl awkwardly on the carpet. I don’t know why Moloch stopped, but I’m too busy gasping in air and blinking away the horror feeling that still has its icy fingers wrapped around my chest.