by David Beers
“People are scared, and their fear is increasing. It’s spreading. It’s amplifying.”
David nodded but still remained quiet.
“Our interviews, people are talking about them. Someone is going to get hurt if we don’t do something. We have to find the traitor, and we have to stop all of this. People need to go back to normalcy. We couldn’t fight the True Faith if they showed up right now. There’s no confidence in the movement, David, and I’ve never felt that before in my life.”
“She doesn’t know what she is,” David said as if Rhett hadn’t spoken at all. “I think what’s happening to her is new. She hasn’t experienced it before, and so she doesn’t know what to expect. She did know I was there, though. She stared back at me.”
Rhett shook his head and looked at the ground. “David … do you hear what I’m telling you? You’re losing control of this.”
He turned around. “Then the Unformed would be losing control, and I don’t believe that.” Shadows hung around him, but Rhett saw no sparks in his eyes.
“What do you want me to do?” Rhett asked. “Tell me, David, because I’m at a loss.”
He came forward, closing the short distance between them. He put his hand on Rhett’s shoulder. “You’re going to go get her, Rhett. You’re going to bring her back to me.”
“What?”
Rhett couldn’t possibly hide his feelings. He knew his face showed every single thing he was thinking, which mostly coalesced into disbelief.
“You’re going to the Old World, and you’re going to bring that woman back here.”
“David? That doesn’t make any sense. If she’s anything like you, what chance am I going to have?”
“You have faith in the Unformed, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, of course, but this has nothing to do with It—”
“Rhett, do you think I’m making this up on my own? Sending you to get her without any forethought?” David interrupted. He removed his hand from Rhett’s shoulder.
“I … David ….” Rhett knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the words … or at least, he didn’t know how to get David to pay attention. He looked down at his feet and decided to try one more time. “There are problems here, and they’re growing. It’s going to keep getting worse, too, unless we find whoever went to the Prevention Division.” He looked up. “David, you’re the one who told us there was a traitor. It was you who said someone betrayed us. If we don’t find them, we’re going to lose everything.”
That was the best he could do.
We’re going to lose everything.
David nodded. “I will handle the traitor. You bring this woman to me, and then we’ll both meet the Unformed together. You’ll be at my right hand, okay?”
Rhett stared for a few more seconds, hearing the promise and hating himself for loving it. He had an obligation to David here, and he felt he hadn’t fulfilled it.
It’s not your job to lead. It’s your job to inform David. You’ve done that. Now you follow his orders.
“Okay,” he said. “How do you want me to get her?”
“Let’s take a stroll and talk about it, alright?”
Eighteen
The True Faith Ministry
Raylyn didn’t want to be in the room with these two men, but felt she had no choice. Someone had to bear witness.
The First Council is already watching, she thought as she walked into the room. It wasn’t the first time she had thought it, her mind trying to keep her from going into Billmore’s cell—finding any possible excuse to keep her out.
Raylyn went in anyway, though. The First Council might see all of this, but something inside her whispered that wasn’t enough. She didn’t like the voice, but it was there all the same. It hadn’t shut up last night, telling her over and over that regardless of what the Disciple said, things were happening that weren’t right.
Even the First Council was fallible, the voice said.
She knew that the Priesthood was most likely capturing those thoughts, but what could she do about them? It wasn’t possible to turn her mind off, even if she wanted to.
The door closed behind her, sounding final.
No, she thought. That’s in your head, too. Rogan might hurt the man, but death is out of the question.
Is it, really? that other voice asked.
Hithram Billmore sat in the corner, looking very different from the man she’d met two days ago. His face was pockmarked with red dots, all of them raised and swollen. His skin, at least what Raylyn could see, had turned mountainous.
He looked diseased.
He is, she thought. He’s forsaken Corinth for a false god.
True, but she still felt … What? Sympathy? Perhaps, and Raylyn didn’t like that either. She shouldn’t feel sympathy for this man, or anyone in his evil empire.
It’s because we hurt him. It’s because we did things that should never be done.
The Disciple stepped forward, moving around Raylyn.
Billmore scooted backwards. He stared at the wall like an animal too frightened to look its abuser in the eye.
Raylyn wanted to stop this before it began. If she could get the man to talk, the Disciple wouldn’t need to do anything.
She stepped forward, coming shoulder to shoulder with Rogan. “Tell us where they are, where your friend went.”
The man said nothing, only kept his eyes on the wall.
“Do you like what happened to you up there? Do you want it to happen again? I promise it will, if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
The Disciple was silent, showing only his usual countenance.
Billmore shook his head slightly, but the message was clear. He wasn’t going to talk.
This doesn’t make sense, Raylyn thought. We have a traitor in the man’s midst, someone willing to give him and everything he stands for up, yet this person who just dealt with unimaginable pain won’t say anything. One came to us, and one refuses to talk. There’s love here, but something else too …
“Where are they?” she said. “Tell us or it all starts again, Billmore. Everything you experienced last time, but worse.” Raylyn heard no sympathy nor fear in her voice. She heard only coldness, which was what she wanted. Her thoughts couldn’t come out of her mouth.
Billmore finally looked up, though not at Rogan. He found Raylyn. “I’m not telling you. Pull the nanotech right out of my skin, but I still won’t tell you.”
Raylyn felt the change and she thought Billmore did, too. She couldn’t have described it if asked, but something in the man next to her simply switched. She had been in charge, just like on the Earth’s surface, but that wasn’t true anymore—and it only took a second for her to realize it.
“You should listen to Director Brinson,” the Disciple whispered. “It’s for your own benefit.”
The man stared at the wall again. He didn’t shake his head, didn’t acknowledge the Disciple’s voice at all.
Rogan gave no sign of displeasure, he simply started walking forward.
Billmore began whining, sounding like a frightened dog.
The Disciple didn’t stop.
Billmore’s whine grew louder and he tried to stand up—clearly intent on trying to get away, because he wouldn’t even look at Rogan, let alone fight him.
Green veins grew across the Disciple’s eyes, Raylyn having missed them last time. They existed for only a second, and then his eyes completely lit up.
Billmore stopped moving, though he was already standing. He kept whining and Raylyn wasn’t sure she could handle it much longer, the sound maddening.
“Tell me,” the Disciple whispered as he stepped forward, his face almost touching Billmore’s. “Where are they?”
The man said nothing, only continued that animalistic noise.
“It doesn’t matter to me if you live or die. You don’t matter, Hithran Billmore, and you never have. The most you will amount to is a nuisance, and I’m okay with allowing a nuisance to live. Y
ou won’t help or hurt Corinth’s cause.”
The Disciple leaned in closer, his lips next to the man’s ears.
“Unless you don’t tell me what I want to know. Then it will hurt Corinth, and that will make me feel one way or another about your life. Do you understand?” The Disciple’s eyes were bright, and Raylyn could see them reflecting on Billmore’s cheek. “Nod if you understand.”
Billmore nodded. Sweat covered his face and his eyes were bloodshot. The pockmarks across his face appeared redder, aggravated.
“So, Billmore, what’s it going to be? Do you want to die in this room, or do you want to live?”
The whine died down and it sounded as if he might be trying to form words.
“Go on,” the Disciple said. “You can talk.”
“Get fucked,” the man whispered.
The Disciple cast his glowing eyes at the floor for a second, and then took a step back. “Feel free to talk whenever you’re ready.”
Billmore’s skin lit up, green lights shining within it. More appeared with each passing second. Raylyn saw them across his arms and legs, their number increasing so rapidly that she thought he would glow like the Disciple’s eyes at any moment.
Then the stretching started.
His skin pulled from the muscle beneath, the tiny green lights pushing out even further than the red bumps. Raylyn could hardly see the pockmarks anymore—they disappeared as the skin stretched.
A harrowing scream ripped from the man’s mouth, the Disciple doing nothing to quiet it. The noise echoed off the room’s walls, battering against Raylyn’s eardrums. She wanted to clasp her hands over her ears, but didn’t. She kept them at her side, refusing to show weakness, but unsure how much longer she could watch this.
“TELL US!” she shouted, hoping her own voice would rise above the man’s she now stared at.
His scream was turning into a screech, high and piercing.
His skin continued pulling away, the nanotech inside him trying to escape, even if it meant ripping straight through his flesh. His skin looked like jagged mountain peaks, hundreds of them across his body, with green particles at the tip of each. An inch, an inch and a half from the meat beneath.
“Last chance,” the Disciple said, whispering, though his voice cut through everything.
A moment passed. Billmore’s skin held still, not stretching any further. On the verge of ripping, but not quite.
The Disciple blinked.
Raylyn didn’t actually see it as it happened, or if she did, she couldn’t fit anything into order. The man had been standing there, screaming, but his skin was attached. Then, he’d still been standing there, but his flesh was dripping off of him. Tiny green particles flew out into the room, hundreds—perhaps thousands, then died almost immediately. Their green glow faded and fell to the ground, though Raylyn paid them no attention.
Her eyes remained on the man in front of her.
Blood didn’t ooze, it gushed from more open wounds than Raylyn could count. His skin was shredded, practically sliding off him, his face hanging down almost to his neck. Skin from his forehead covered his eyes, and pieces of his lips dribbled blood from his jaw bone.
The man stood for another second. Perhaps he was still alive, though his mouth gave no sound anymore. Perhaps he stood as Raylyn did, in shock, though the pain coursing through his body was greater than anything she could imagine.
Finally Billmore collapsed, falling so quickly that his drooping flesh was caught in the upcoming air and floated momentarily above him like a jellyfish’s tentacles.
Raylyn’s hands went to her mouth, hoping to stifle a scream, though nothing came out. She made no noise. Only stood there with tears in her eyes, staring at the bloody flesh.
Am I in shock? she wondered. Yes. Yes, I must be.
Raylyn was in her office with Lynda. The Disciple wasn’t with them and she had no idea where he’d gone. Lynda was saying something, but Raylyn heard nothing. She saw Lynda’s mouth moving, but there didn’t seem to be any sounds coming from it.
She wasn’t thinking about the dead man back in the cell. She was thinking of Manor, oddly enough. Of wanting to be near him. To talk to him. She didn’t want to be in this building anymore. She didn’t care about the possibility of the world ending, nor the Black returning.
None of it.
“Raylyn?”
Her name brought her out of her thoughts, partly at least. She blinked and looked at Lynda.
“What is going on? Are you okay?”
Raylyn nodded without realizing.
“What happened? Something isn’t right. Was it Rogan?”
No. No. Don’t talk about it. Don’t tell her. Nothing happened.
“I’m fine,” Raylyn said. She closed her eyes and tilted her head toward her lap.
Get hold of yourself. Right now. You can talk to Manor tonight. You can deal with what you just saw tonight. Lynda needs you. Regardless of what just happened, you have a duty. To Corinth. To the True Faith. Remember that duty.
She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. When she looked up, Lynda was staring at her, concern across her face.
“I’m sorry,” Raylyn said. “What were you saying?”
“The informant. We’re meeting with them. How do you want to handle it?” Lynda paused for a second, and when she spoke, her voice was a bit lower. “Did you get anything from Billmore?”
His wrecked body flashed through Raylyn’s mind, lying in a heap of stretched and bloody flesh on the floor.
She shoved it from her.
“No. Nothing.”
“Are we going to be able to get anything?” Lynda asked.
“No,” the Disciple said, entering the room. Raylyn looked to him, immediate fear gripping her heart—fingers made of ice wrapping around it. “Billmore won’t be giving us anything. We’re going to have to find another way.”
He won’t give us anything because you killed him. Because you pulled him apart!
Rogan stopped in front of Raylyn’s desk. “What do you have planned for the informant?”
Raylyn didn’t know if her face showed the jumbled emotions inside her body. Fear, hatred, anger. She could barely manage to get words out of her mouth.
“As of this moment, I don’t know.”
The Disciple looked at her as though he hadn’t just torn a man to shreds. “We need a plan. Our connection is an hour from now.”
Raylyn nodded, staring at his ever calm face. Use your head. Think. What would you do if everything was normal?
She looked away from the Disciple, the only way she could focus enough to make any sense. “We’ll have to lie to them. We’ll have to say we know where they are, but we want confirmation.” She nodded, the plan slowly coming together in her mind. “We tell them that if they give us confirmation, we’ll make sure they survive. If they don’t, they’ll die with everyone else.”
The room was quiet for a moment. Lynda spoke, but her voice sounded unsure. She clearly knew all was not right. “What if they won’t give it to us?”
“Good question,” Rogan said. “We need contingencies.”
Raylyn’s face flashed up to the Disciple, wanting to scream, WE’D HAVE FUCKING CONTINGENCIES IF YOU HADN’T JUST MURDERED OUR ONLY SOURCE!
Instead she gritted her teeth, swallowed, and looked away again. “If the informant still won’t tell us, we cut them off. We don’t threaten it, we actually do it. We say we’re not dealing with them anymore, and let them know they’ve chosen their side.”
“How do we find them if this doesn’t work?” Lynda asked.
“There are other ways,” the Disciple said before Raylyn could open her mouth. “Not ways I want to use, but we can, if we have to.”
The traitor opened the screen, pushing it back to get a clear view of it. The Prevention Division would be connecting soon and the traitor wanted a bit of time to gather their thoughts.
They weren’t regretting their decision. They’d known since the beginning that
this would most likely fail. They weren’t only going against David and the Unformed, but also facing the True Faith—and every other Ministry in the world. The traitor had demanded safe passage, but that had only been bluster. When they made the decision to out David and this whole movement, they understood they were guaranteeing their own death.
Still, things were deteriorating quicker than the traitor had thought they would. They hadn’t planned on David knowing so quickly. Precautions had been taken, slowly, over the course of years. The traitor figured David would eventually discover what they’d done—his blood flowed through their veins, after all. Only, it’d been almost immediate.
He doesn’t know everything yet, though, they thought.
Stellan floating above the crowd. His body burning from the inside.
The traitor shoved the thought away. They might have cared for Stellan, but the man had been on the Unformed’s side. The traitor didn’t want everyone to die, but David had to be stopped.
He doesn’t know your name, or else you would be dead.
That was true. The traitor was still breathing, still in the compound.
They checked the time. The connection would form shortly. They shouldn’t have chosen this way to reveal David. The Prevention Division was apparently full of incompetent idiots, and the traitor already knew why they wanted to talk. David’s location.
Which they wouldn’t get, not yet.
There was real guilt and depression around Stellan’s death, but the traitor had to focus on the end goal. Stellan’s death, while tragic, had been a necessary sacrifice. Yet, they wouldn’t sacrifice everyone. They decided long ago that they would give up David and anyone who chose to fight with him, but they wouldn’t create a massacre.
This wasn’t being done out of hate.
Truth drove it. Even love. Regardless if anyone ever saw it that way.
David would have to be taken alone. That’s what the Prevention Division refused to see. Otherwise, too many people would die, on both sides.
We give thanks. The words rolled across the screen, the expectation that the traitor repeat them back. Always with the thanksgiving, but the traitor wouldn’t repeat it. They would sacrifice David but not their own soul. They would never drink the blood of Corinth, nor any other false god.
