She smiled. "Good to see you, again, Bron."
He didn't remember seeing her before, until she was nearly upon him—the young woman from Best Buy!
A shout died on his lips as she reached up and touched his temple. He saw the flash of sizraels, felt an electric spark, and his vocal chords went soft. He wanted to yell a warning, call for help, but he had forgotten how.
He stared up at her, mind blank with horror.
"You don't remember me very well, do you?" she asked. "But I remember you!" She tilted his head up and looked into his eyes. "I remember our time at the group home, that football game we played on Thanksgiving, what, six years ago? Riley gave me the memories."
She tilted his head up, examined his jaw, and smiled. "Yep, you're Bron Jones, all right. Now you're ours, little nightingale. So let's take a peek at those nasty old memories you've got rolling around in that skull."
She stood just in front of Bron. His heart was already racing from fear, but the nearness of her set it thudding to a new beat. He could smell her perspiration, her perfume. She wasn't just pretty. Her face was flawless. She wore a black leather jacket over a white t-shirt, and he couldn't help but notice her curves. She smiled teasingly. "Oooh, you're going to go into musth soon! You'll be needing a mate. Wouldn't it be cool if I was your first? Would you like that?"
She smiled, leaned near, with eyes as dark as a fawn's. Despite his fear, he found himself wanting her, and as she placed her hands up on his skull, she did it tenderly, caressing him. She splayed her fingers out, so that they cupped each lobe of his brain, and then softly touched his eyes.
He closed them. "Don't worry," she said. "I don't want to hurt you. You're one of us now."
She leaned forward, and her warm breath stirred the skin of his face, played through his eyelashes. She kissed his lips.
I'm not going to tell you anything! he wanted to say, but his tongue couldn't have been any more numb and useless if a dentist had shot it full of Novocain.
His mind exploded. It was as if a thousand memories surfaced at once, bursting like fireworks:
Mr. Bell driving him to Tuacahn.
Olivia showing him to his room.
The Mercedes flipping as it rolled.
Bron handing Olivia the caltrops.
Galadriel huddled in the back of a police car.
Purple fireworks exploding from his fingertips.
His heart pounding in terror as he discovered his sizraels.
Playing the guitar.
Watching lightning arc across the sky.
Oreo-cookie cattle.
Figuring out how to flush the toilet in his room.
Mike giving him a grin.
Whitney's gorgeous teeth.
The little Stillman kids, all sneaking waves goodbye.
Everyone that he loved, everyone that he wanted to protect, all flashed through his mind at once. Every secret thought, everything he wanted to conceal, all that he held sacred came out of him in an instant.
It was like being raped, he knew, at some primitive level. He'd never felt so sullied, never imagined that he could feel so violated.
And this is just the beginning, he thought. They'll take whatever memories they want from me, dispose of my friends. Olivia's mind would be wiped, but not before she was forced to reveal the contact information for any other masaaks that she knew—Father Leery, her family, the Weigher of Lost Souls.
Bron realized that their little community was like a terrorist cell, but once it was discovered, everyone in it would be laid bare. Olivia's people, the Ael, weren't just in hiding from their enemies, they were in hiding from themselves. How much damage would come from Bron's capture, he couldn't begin to calculate. Dozens of Ael might get rounded up, hundreds!
In another room, there was a popping noise, like firecrackers going off.
The girl lurched back, her eyes going wide, startled. She didn't bother looking toward the sound of the gunfire. She was startled by him. You can't have my friends! Bron wanted to scream, but it was too late. She already knew where Olivia lived.
"Oh, my god," she said. "You're a dream assassin!" There was wonder in her voice, or something more akin to awe, and excitement. She began to breathe rapidly as she backed away, and then she shouted. "Blair, Blair, get in here!"
A moment later the old man from Best Buy entered the room. "We've got a dream assassin!" the girl said.
"Quiet," Blair said. "The wet-work isn't done."
At that instant, gunfire popped again—three shots in rapid succession, then two more, then one. Then a hail of bullets. Cries of pain arose, and moans, and wet thuds as bodies smacked the floor.
Down a hall, someone shouted, "Clear!" From far ends of the building, two more voices called out, "Clear!"
"All clear!"
Blair smiled. With grizzled hair cropped close, his face seemed to be little more than skin stretched over a skull. Yet there was brilliance in his eyes, and something more, limitless cruelty.
"Don't be afraid, Bron," he said. "I feel like we're old friends, after all those hours playing videogames in the group home."
It was creepy, the way that these perfect strangers all spoke to him so personally about the good memories they shared.
"Yes, we're going to be great friends. There's nothing to worry about, Bron. You're very valuable to us. You'll be the Shadow Lord's favorite. Anything you want, will be yours—the finest cars, the most beautiful women. I'm going to make you a promise: we won't hurt you. We won't hurt anyone that you love. Instead, we're going to welcome you into our... family."
What if I don't want to go? Bron wanted to say, but he knew the answer. His wishes were of no import.
Bron's hands tingled. They were still cuffed behind his back. He knew that he had leeching abilities, and now he wondered if he could use them. He tried to extend the suction cups on his fingers, but he had forgotten how. He tried to draw the will from his captors, but felt only empty inside, and lost.
"Now," Blair said, "we're going to go to the car and drive away from here. Let me help you up." Blair took Bron's arm and pulled him to his feet.
Bron stood, feeling numb and empty, as Blair went into the other room. He returned moments later, bringing Olivia. Her hands were cuffed behind her back.
Bron had never seen such terror. Her wide eyes darted back and forth, and her entire body trembled. Her breaths were so shallow, she was gasping. There were red marks on her forehead from sizraels. She'd obviously been interrogated already.
Bron's heart went out to Olivia. He wanted to save her, but could think of no way to do it.
"Come," the old man said. Blair didn't brandish a weapon. Yet his commanding tone said that he would brook no argument.
The girl asked, "Aren't we going to call this in?"
"Not yet," Blair said. "Let's get them to a secure location."
With hands still cuffed behind his back, Bron was marched into the hall. A policewoman lay crumpled on the floor, blood pooling beneath her back.
Bron walked into the police department's main offices, saw two Acolytes carrying long-barreled pistols, with laser sights.
The desk clerk was slumped in her chair, apparently unconscious. Another officer appeared to be dead on the floor, his head askew. In another room, two officers lay bleeding.
Riley O'Hare came from a back room and announced, "I've pulled all of the security footage, and scrambled the audiotapes of the police logs." Riley wore gloves.
Blair added, "I've read through the memories of Walton and the others. We'll need to visit a couple of the officer's homes, if we're to clean up."
The girl added, "Bron has a friend, Galadriel. We'll need to wipe her—and Olivia's husband."
The old man nodded wisely, half-closing his eyes. "Very well. Let's get to it, people."
He marched to the precinct doors, and Bron followed in his wake. Bron considered running, but there was nowhere to go. Blair's grip on his arm was too powerful, too sure.
The pr
essure plate activated. Doors slid back.
A man stood in the doorway in front of Bron, wearing a Harley Davidson jacket and a motorcycle helmet. Beneath the jacket, Bron discerned a black shirt and a priest's white collar. Before Bron's captor could so much as blink, the priest whipped his hands up to Blair's temple.
At Bron's side, Riley shouted a warning and pulled a pistol.
Bron saw his chance to save Olivia. Blair's followers had taken his memories of how to talk, but they hadn't taken his memories of how to wrestle. He lunged sideways, shoving Riley with all of his might, throwing him off balance. Riley's hands flew up by instinct, to protect him from a fall, as Bron knew they would.
A single bullet flew wide, hitting the plate-glass window of the entrance. Tinted glass shattered in a hail.
Before Riley could regain his balance, the priest leapt into action, sending a roundhouse kick to Riley's face.
Olivia had thrown herself backward, hitting one of their captors—the young woman—in the face. Blood spattered from the girl's nose, rained down upon the floor. But the girl leapt forward with the determination of a cornered animal.
Bron leapt in the air, grabbed her legs with his own, and twisted, throwing her off-balance and pulling her down. The girl slammed to the floor. Her gun skittered away.
Bron adjusted his grip on his captive, clasping her chest, as she struggled to rise. He knew he wouldn't be able to hold her long, but he kept her in a scissors lock, trying to squeeze the air from her. She pushed his legs down, so that he only had her stomach, and tried to squirm free.
Olivia saw his predicament and dropped on the girl, crushing the air from her lungs.
The last of the Draghoul acolytes rushed from a back room, pistols in hand.
Bron never saw the priest draw his own weapon—just heard a shot. The young Draghoul reached up and grasped his neck. A dart stuck there, a bit of white wool at its end.
The young man touched it, then his eyes rolled and he crumpled.
The priest rushed into the room. The young woman gained her feet and tried to attack with her sizraels, but the priest's helmet foiled her. She couldn't reach his head.
The priest threw the girl against a pillar so hard that bones cracked. The girl stood there for a moment, stunned, out on her feet. The priest grasped her skull.
Almost instantly she flew into convulsions, her eyes rolling back, spittle rising from her mouth.
The priest held her gently as he let her sag to the ground, and then crouched above her as he looked for others. "Is that all of them?"
Olivia nodded wildly.
He stood for a moment with one hand upon the girl's forehead, almost as if he were feeling for a pulse, but Bron realized that he was reading her memories. "They've already cleaned the police logs for us, taken down the security cameras. But there are a couple of officers that know that you were picked up tonight, Olivia. We'll have to clean them. And we'll need to wipe this place of prints—any room that you entered."
The priest got up, took a key-card from their captor, along with some normal keys, and unlocked Olivia's cuffs. He grasped Olivia's head for a moment, like some old-time street preacher bestowing the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Olivia's mouth flew open.
"Thanks," was all that she said. She rushed back to the interrogation offices to wipe any prints.
The priest grabbed Bron's skull and held him for a moment. Bron felt something inside him click.
"I can talk!" he said.
"And you can use your sizraels now," the priest added. He unlocked Bron's cuffs.
He knelt over the old man, Blair, and just held him for an instant. Bron saw vivid blue lights pulse at the priest's fingertips.
"What are you doing?" Bron asked.
"They can't be allowed to remember that we were here," the priest said. "I have to clean their skulls out, sanitize them."
"Of everything?" Bron asked.
"By tomorrow," the priest said, "this man won't know his name, his phone number, or how to put on his socks."
"You'd do that?" Bron asked.
"They're lucky," the priest said. "I could make their hearts forget how to beat."
Olivia returned, making a final visual inspection. "I count fourteen dead police officers, and one dead civilian." Her voice was ragged with shock, regret.
The priest went from Blair back to the girl.
Olivia erased the third boy, then finished up with Riley. He was lying asleep at Bron's feet. Suddenly his eyes flew open.
Olivia suggested, "Go to your car, sit inside, and wait for us." Riley stared at the ceiling blankly for a moment, got up, and ambled out the door, as if he were a zombie.
Olivia did the same with the girl, and soon all of the Draghouls had wandered from the room.
"What are you going to do with them?" Bron asked. He could think of nothing worse than finding your mind wiped—having no memories, being unable to speak, to dress. "Kill them?"
The priest looked to Olivia, as if to ask, "Is he really that stupid?"
Olivia said, "No, Bron, we won't kill them, if we can avoid it. We'll convert them."
"Convert them to Christianity?" Bron asked.
The priest gave Bron an odd look. "You could say that, I suppose. I'll empty them of memories, and then insert my own. I'll turn them into copies of me."
"We'll 'possess' them," Olivia explained. "Think of your memories, your consciousness, as software. We'll just pull out all of the old programming, all of the faulty stuff, and replace it with something better. When we're done, the possessed are called poppets."
"I can't believe that you'd do that," Bron said. "It sounds so ... vile."
"It's not so bad," the priest said. "You'd be surprised at how quickly the poppets begin to differentiate, develop their own personalities."
"Bron," Olivia said. "What do you think they planned to do to you? At the very least, they were going to take all of your memories. They could turn you into a child, make you forget how to open a door. They could put you in a room and make you forget that there's a world beyond it. Keeping you captive would be nothing. They could keep you dumber than a cocker spaniel. Or, if they wanted, they could wipe out your mind completely, and fill it with one of their minds, one of their personalities. Their Shadow Lord would have done that, made you two people with one mind, one heart, one goal. Just one night with the enemy, and you could become the enemy."
Bron's face must have been a study in shock. The priest smiled. "It doesn't hurt them, Bron," he said. "I should know. I was one of them, once. I was one of the Draghouls, a Dread Knight. I served the Shadow Lord for three hundred years."
Chapter 22
Do Overs
"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'"
— John Greenleaf Whittier
Olivia sent Bron to her car to wait while she cleaned up. Bron sat nervously watching the parking lot. A few minutes later, the priest came from the police station, jumped in a car with the four prisoners, and drove away.
Draghouls, the priest had called them. Bron's head was spinning. He'd met a guy who fought like a Kung Fu master. He'd met a man who claimed to be more than three hundred years old. The strangest part was, Bron believed him.
Two minutes later, Olivia rushed out to the car. "The police will be here soon, I think. Let's get out of here." She started the ignition. The car lunged as she sped away.
"What now?" Bron asked. "What do we do next?" He imagined fleeing, driving as far away from here as they could, as fast as they could.
"Go home," Olivia said. "Get to bed, and act like none of this ever happened."
"What do you mean?" Bron said. "How could we act like none of this ever happened?"
"Simple," Olivia said. "You go to school and take your classes. I go and teach."
"But the priest said that there were some cops who knew our names, who might piece things together."
"And there are more hunters in town. The priest knows where they
're hiding. He saw them in the enemies' minds. He'll go after them, first."
Bron sat in the car as she drove out of the city, peered out at the desert beneath a waxing moon. The cliffs were the color of dark blood as it pools.
Olivia shook her head. Bron could tell that she was still nervous, nearly unhinged.
"What are you thinking?" Bron asked.
"Those people scare me."
"Tell me more about Father Leery?" Bron asked.
"Not yet," Olivia said. "There aren't many of us. The enemy has made sure of that. Hiding is our best defense."
"But you know him?" Bron asked. "You know how to get hold of him?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"Is he really three hundred years old?"
"Yes," Olivia said. "The Draghouls have more than one way to... extend their lives."
"Do all masaaks live that long?"
"No," Olivia said. "Not normally. Eighty, ninety years."
Bron considered. Up ahead, a fox was crossing the road. Its eyes glowed yellow-white in the headlights, and then it leapt into the mesquite and was swallowed by the desert. "You should tell me about them," Bron said. "I should know everything."
"I'm not sure of you, yet," Olivia said, "and for good reason."
"What reason? Why wouldn't you trust me?"
"There's a coldness to you."
"I'm not that cold."
Olivia sighed, and asked, "What's your favorite quote?"
"From a famous person?" Bron asked. Nothing came to mind, but he seized on one: "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."
Olivia grinned. "Nietzsche. I knew you'd choose that one." Bron realized that she really had known. She'd been inside his mind, and maybe she knew him better than he knew himself, in some ways. "He's a little grim," she confessed, "more quotable than wise. Sometimes bad things happen to you, and they leave scars—a car wreck, a shocking revelation about a friend. There's another German philosopher I like, Martin Buber. He said: 'It is possible to silence the conflict in the soul, but it is not possible to uproot it."
Bron considered that. It sounded like she was saying that you could never really escape the past. Even the most peaceful men bear scars: Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King.
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