King Among the Dead (Hell Theory Book 1)

by Lauren Gilley

  ~*~

  Beck spent three days holed up in his study, consulting maps, searching news and gossip sites, scribbling notes on yellow legal paper. Kay gave up trying to coax him to the table, and she and Rose took turns taking him his meals.

  Rose spent the time she wasn’t doing chores training. She cartwheeled down the balance beam, and worked the heavy bag until her shoulders burned. She emptied magazines into targets and threw knives until five out of six hit the bullseye. Beck’s mania was catching: she felt driven. Felt like every exercise, every repetition was crucial for what was to come.

  On the fourth morning, he called her into his study, and he walked her through the plan. Showed her every angle, every exit, painted intricate portraits of the way it would all go down.

  “And one last thing. The most important thing.” He looked at her, fixing her in place with an earnest gaze. A burning gaze. “If I tell you to run, I want you to run.”

  “What about you? What if you need me?”

  “Promise me, Rosie. I won’t take you if you won’t promise.”

  She swallowed around a sudden thickness in her throat. Gritted her teeth. “I promise.” She held crossed fingers behind her back, and wondered if he could tell.

  She dressed with care that night, in her own room – where she rarely spent any time anymore. She wore black, and laced her boots up tight, and situated all twelve of her knives to within easy reach. She braided her hair in front of the mirror, smoothing back all of the little flyaways.

  She contemplated herself in the mirror, startled by what she found there.

  She’d undergone another transformation, a subtle shift, like when she’d first started to feel at home here. She In her black, with the collar of her coat lifted up around her throat, she looked like a wild thing. Sharp-eyed, unforgiving, ready. Like a predator. Like Beck’s mate.

  She touched the crown she wore beneath her clothes, felt its ridges through the fabric of her shirt, then she went down to meet her partner.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The warehouse huddled on the edge of the river, belching dust-colored smoke against the snarled black of the stormy sky. Lightning flashed, illuminating a puddled yard full of vehicles, and armed guards. Thunder followed, an ominous rumble.

  Rose crouched beside Beck, the two of them pressed together, sealed within a pocket of quiet by the steady drumming of rain on all the corrugated steel around them.

  The warehouse was part of a sprawling industrial complex, one that had been around since before the Rift – and which looked it. Rusted, tumbled-down, a veritable maze of buildings of all sizes. Beyond the main warehouse, she spotted several stacks of old shipping containers, peeling paint and blurred white lettering in the next lightning flash. The property was ringed with rusted, but tall wire fences, new signs warning off trespassers at intervals. Beck had pointed out new security cameras, and slipped expertly through their blind spots. Eventually, someone would spot the hole they’d cut in the fence, but that could take days, given the slow routes of the patrols, and they’d be well away before then.

  Rose couldn’t get her heartbeat to settle. It skipped and skittered like a frightened animal. This wasn’t the normal thrill of the hunt; this was no ordinary strike in the dark. What was he thinking? How did he expect this to go off properly?

  Kay had pulled her aside before they left, when she was waiting for Beck in the kitchen. “This is suicide,” she’d said, big-eyed and earnest. Frightened. “I won’t bother telling you not to go – God knows you wouldn’t listen, and he needs someone watching his back tonight. But try to pull him out before it’s too late. Beg, play dirty if you have to. But he can’t fight them all. Not even with your help. Don’t let it go south, honey.”

  That was a lot of pressure.

  A pressure she would have carried herself even without Kay’s urging. There was every chance they’d die tonight, but she wouldn’t turn back and abandon him. It didn’t matter if this plan was crazy – if he was. He was hers, the best thing she’d ever had, and like hell would she walk away now.

  As they watched, a low-slung black car, so clean as to be out of place, slid around a corner and rolled into view, blue-tinted headlights cutting across men dressed in black.

  “That’s him.” Beck sounded eager. “Let’s move.”

  They swung wide, slipping between the narrow pathways between outbuildings, stepping over old, half-melted bundles of cords and wires, treading through puddles deep enough to lap at the tops of their boots. Castor was wasting massive amounts of electricity on this place, trying to create a secure perimeter with floodlights, but there were gaps, and Beck knew all of them.

  It was slow going, but they finally found themselves at an exhaust grate along the back of the warehouse, in a nook between two old dumpsters that reeked of something fouler and more frightening than garbage. Rose kept watch, but no one happened past, and Beck made short work of pulling off the grate. He motioned her to go ahead of him, and she – balked.

  It was dark in there. Musty. Close. Her heartbeat swelled up into her throat, and every instinct told her no. But she took a deep breath, and crawled inside.

  She had a flashlight in her pocket, and she fished it out and clicked it on as Beck crawled in behind her, and pulled the grate back into place so no one would notice anything amiss from the outside. Her flashlight revealed a dusty, cobwebbed ventilation shaft that forked ahead of her.

  “Go left,” he said behind her, and she crawled forward on hands and knees.

  Long coats weren’t made for this. The water dripping off them caused an occasional squeak, and she would stop, and wince, wait. She couldn’t hear voices, but there was a steady sort of thrum overhead, a vibration that grew stronger the deeper they went.

  Slatted light appeared on the floor of the vent ahead, and she shut off her flashlight. The next turn revealed another grate, rusted, in terrible disrepair. The tin snips Beck had brought would make short work of it.

  But first, they paused, pressed up against the metal, listening.

  The thrum was like a pulse now, a regular, loud throbbing. Machinery of some kind, though it sounded unsettlingly organic. Voices: indistinct murmurs somewhere over her head and to the right.

  And something that wasn’t a sound at all, but a feeling. A pressure in the air that raised all the fine hairs on the back of her neck and down her arms. She fought off a shiver.

  Beck cut the grate, pushed it out – they both caught it with their fingers curled through the mesh, and set it down silently. Then they crawled out into the heat and light of a fully-functional drug factory.

  The duct had spit them out behind a stack of tarp-covered crates. A peek around them revealed an old factory fixed up and retrofitted, shiny and bustling. Assembly lines snaked up and back the length of the vast building, some carrying piles of white pills, others vials of measured product ready for sale; others powder. The belts climbed up and down gentle slopes; dumped their loads into vats, where great waterwheels churned and then bucketed up to other belts. It was hot; some part of the process emitted a thick, white steam, and the women working the line wore surgical masks, and little else, most stripped down to knotted tank tops or bras, sweat gleaming on their skin.

  A few brutish, shirtless guards with cudgels paced up and down the length of the lines, ready to give someone a knock if they slacked off.

  Across from their position, along a far wall, stood a second-floor office with a whole wall of windows and a balcony, a metal staircase leading down to the main floor. Men with closed-cropped hair and black clothes stood on the balcony, guns visible at their hips, and in their hands: compact assault rifles on neck straps, held casually, at the ready. This was the guard Beck had mentioned before: Castor’s personal death squad. Not meatheaded, neckless toughs, but lean, hard, battle-honed professionals.

  “Is Castor in that office, you think?” she whispered.

  “Undoubtedly.”

  A wide roll-top door off to the left rolled
up, startling her at first. Men came in on foot – heads tipped back, mouths open in shock. They wore no uniform: some were skinny and black-clad, some beefy in stained white t-shirts. An array of body types, different shades of professionalism. They elbowed one another, and talked amongst one another, though she couldn’t hear the words.

  “New recruits,” Beck explained. “This is their test. This is meant to impress and frighten them.” His voice was tight; she felt his muscles tense where they were pressed together, side-by-side.

  The door rolled back down. Some of the newcomers whirled to watch the rubber seal hit the cement of the floor. Others stared at the machinery.

  Others looked up toward the office, like they knew what was coming – and dreaded it.

  All at once, the assembly lines halted. Steam hissed, metal screeched, and visibility was cut down to nil. The sound died away slowly.

  Voices became more distinct – shouted questions, shouted orders. The shuffle of feet.

  Beck grabbed her hand, and tugged her forward. She couldn’t see at all for the thick, white clouds of steam, but she trusted Beck to lead them true. Hurried after him, jogging on the balls of her feet, soundless. If the steam cleared…if someone spotted them…

  But no one did. He pulled her up on top of another stack of crates, and they crouched down behind a bit of blue tarp.

  A voice boomed out of the swirling vapor, a sharp northern accent. “Gentlemen, welcome, welcome!”

  A high, whining sound snapped on – fans, she realized, as the steam began to dissipate in tatters. They ran for maybe a minute, and when the steam was only a few cottony shreds, they cut off.

  The voice sounded again, rich with laughter. “Welcome,” the man said again, and this time she could see him.

  He stood on the balcony outside the office, large hands on the rail, rings catching the light. A tall man going heavyset with age, square-faced, and big-voiced, his dark hair slicked back, tight and shiny as a helmet. Dark eyes, and a wide smile that turned her stomach. He wore a black suit with a red tie.

  Tony Castor, in the flesh.

  He was flanked on either side by the death squad; two members stood at the top of the stairs, a human shield between their boss and anyone stupid enough to try and charge up toward him.

  But then her gaze shifted to the man standing to Castor’s left, and her throat went dry.

  Superficially, he was unremarkable: medium height and build, blunt-featured, hair a nondescript brown, clothes rumpled and too-casual.

  But he glowed.

  White light seemed to emanate from his skin; it poured out of his eyes so they looked like beacons, like searchlights. She thought that if she were to touch his skin, it would feel as hot as a running car engine.

  This, then, was the conduit. The man Daniel said to be the host of the angel Gabriel.

  Castor smiled down at the gathered dealers and thugs below him. “I’d like to assume that no introduction was necessary,” he said, chuckling again, projecting his voice so that it carried, and echoed off the metal of the huge space. “But I’m not quite so vain as that.” He pressed a hand to his breast with a demure expression. “I’m Tony Castor, and you’re all here tonight because you’ve been selected as excellent examples of our retail business.”

  A darted glance at Beck proved his jaw was set, and his eyes blazed, gaze pinned on Castor with undiluted hatred.

  “Tonight,” Castor continued, “you have a rare opportunity: the chance to watch the production process up close and personal.

  “All of you have been selling our most in-demand product: heavensent. Everyone wants to escape for a while. To kiss heaven. And tonight you will see it made.” He gestured to the man – the conduit – beside him. “At the hands of our most esteemed Daniel.”

  The conduit didn’t acknowledge the low, awed murmuring that followed.

  “Daniel, if you would.” Castor made an elaborate gesture.

  One of the death squad stepped forward and produced a bottle from inside his jacket. Held it out, as if in offering.

  Slowly, Daniel lifted his hand, produced a knife with the other, and sliced his own wrist. His tipped his hand so that blood pooled in his palm, and he poured it neatly, in a dark, viscous string, into the bottle. The glow around him seemed to pulse.

  When the bottle was mostly full, Daniel placed two fingers against the wound in his wrist; the light swelled, and the slice healed, as if it had never been.

  The guard carried the bottle down the stairs with slow, courtly grace. He had sharp, handsome features, and his short, dark hair was trying to curl in the remnants of steam, a touch of softness across his forehead, where the rest of his face was nothing but hard angles.

  The dealers parted at the foot of the stairs – not in deference, but in a mad scramble to avoid touching the guard, and the bottle he carried. Some stumbled; some fell over one another.

  The guard walked across the wide factory floor, drawing step-backs and wary glances from the workers who’d been tending the lines. Walked all the way over to a vat, and upended the bottle into it.

  More steam rose, immediately, boiling and black, then white. A whir, a chug, and the assembly lines started up again, everything waterwheeling, and turning, and stirring, and working to create the poison that sent humans into oblivion.

  “Never call this a drug,” Castor said, making a face. “This isn’t a sin. This is us mere mortals being touched by the divine.” He lifted both hands overhead, triumphant, beaming.

  The great vat tipped, and the liquid it poured onto the sluice was molten and golden, glowing. Heaven made physical. It chugged down the line, and wound up in another vat, this one stirred.

  “Now,” Castor said, clapping his hands together, the sound thunderous despite the new noise of the machinery. Rose wondered if some sort of magic projected his voice; if conduits were real – which she could now see – and their blood was this powerful, then surely they could assist with something simple as voice projection. “This demonstration will require a volunteer.”

  The bodyguard who’d poured the blood into the vat moved toward the crowd of dealers, and one of his friends came down to assist. They looked them over like cattle headed for auction: assessing, up-and-down scrutiny, knocking feet apart, tipping caps back off foreheads. One looked especially sickly, pale and sweating, hollow-eyed; he looked like a dealer who sampled his own product too often.

  The two guards converged on him, and he realized too late what was happening. Tried to scramble. “No, no–” But he was slow, unsteady, and they took him easily by the arms. Propelled him up the stairs; he tripped, and stumbled, and the light caught the sheen of tears coursing down his cheeks. He didn’t look like he was resisting anymore, but like his legs were too wobbly to support him.

  The knot in Rose’s stomach tightened as she watched. She didn’t know what would be done to this man – this volunteer – exactly, but she knew it wasn’t going to be good. Was already half-sick in anticipation of it.

  Beck vibrated beside her.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Castor said, still smiling, when the dealer was maneuvered into position in front of him. “Daniel?”

  The conduit stepped forward, face totally blank, and stared at the dealer a long moment, while the dealer shook and fought back sobs.

  “Will he do?” Castor asked. Still projecting his voice – he wanted everyone to hear this exchange, though Rose couldn’t understand why.

  “Yes.” The conduit’s voice was eerily hollow and monotone. It didn’t sound like a voice that could be produced by the physical body from which it came.

  “Please–” the dealer began.

  The conduit struck. So quickly the movement was a blur, but suddenly his hand was inside the dealer’s stomach, and the dealer was screaming.

  Rose watched, slack-jawed, as the dealer threw back his head, and his scream tapered off – and he seemed to shrivel. His skin grew dry, and stretched-tight, and he crumpled like paper. Folded i
n himself, until he was a husk – and the husk collapsed, leaving a pile of greasy clothes and ashes.

  The conduit’s hand hovered in the air, red with blood and viscera. The glow around it swelled, pulsed, and the gore fizzled away with a last burst of white fire. Clean now, Daniel curled his hand into a fist, and pulled it up to his chest. Closed his eyes, and breathed a moment.

  “Acceptable?” Castor asked.

  “Yes.”

  Rose turned to Beck. “What was that?” She could hear the panic in her voice. “Beck, what the hell did he do to that man?”

  His throat jumped as he swallowed, but he didn’t look at her. He didn’t look shocked, either. “That’s what conduits do. The divine presence is too much for the human body, and they have to consume the lives of others to stay bonded to their conduit.”

  She knew, then, with aching clarity, what had happened to Simon. She wanted to lay a hand on Beck, to offer words of comfort – insufficient, she knew.

  She glanced back toward the balcony, where a guard was sweeping away what remained of the consumed dealer, and where Castor and Daniel were descending now to the factory floor, surrounded by armed guards.

  The faintest rasp of wet leather sounded beside her: Beck drawing his gun. This was the plan happening, finally. Reckless, dangerous, maybe stupid…but he’d been firm on it. They’d studied every entry point of this building, knew all the pathways that would offer an escape. The head has to come off the snake, he’d said. That’s what matters.

  She’d wanted to argue with him: he’d said himself that there was always a new crime lord ready to take the place of a fallen one. Killing Castor would create turmoil in the short run, but underground politics were too strong and chaotic for the death of one man to grind everything to a final halt. The gears would turn, the machine would run, and someone would step forward to take Castor’s place as the most powerful.

  But that wasn’t what Beck was worried about. Right now, this was wholly personal. Whether he’d had only months to live or not, Castor had killed Simon – had offered Simon up to his conduit. And Beck was going to settle that score, no matter how crazy and risky.