Eye of Heaven

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “Your view of the situation is limited.” Serena’s voice floated sharply from the shadows. “All you have seen is the medical aspect of his trade. The operation is much bigger than that. Santoso is a human trafficker in the purest sense of the word. Flesh in all its forms. His presence is very strong in the international sex trade, for both women and children, and he is about to strike a deal with the Russians for skin and weapons.”

  “And this guy has Iris? Jesus,” Daniel muttered.

  Blue unclenched his jaw. “Will he sell her?”

  “No. He is enamored with her. Ever since he came to this city he has not missed a performance. All the time, he is at the hotel. He sent her notes.”

  “Yes,” Blue said in a flat voice. “So I’ve heard.”

  “Love letters. Obscene love letters. When I discovered what he was doing …” Her voice trailed off. Blue could not help himself.

  “You kept silent. You let him continue. You didn’t protect your daughter. You fed her to the wolf. You didn’t even tell her you were alive.” Easy words, true words, and each one he spoke made his anger grow, his rage deepen. Hold up a mirror, he knew, and that anger would look like fear—but that was okay. Fear was a good thing. Fear for Iris would keep him from failing.

  But all that emotion made his head ache, and the pain pushed against his shields. Blue forced himself to breathe, to relax. This was all about control now, all about keeping himself together, and the anger was good, great, fine, but he had to move past it into something constructive, had to transform it, had to soothe it before he did anything stup—

  Blue punched the dashboard. He punched the wheel. He punched the ceiling of the car so hard he split his knuckles, and still he wanted more. He wanted to beat the crap out of something and see it bleed.

  “Christ,” Daniel said.

  “Do you feel better?” Serena asked softly. “Would you like to stop the car and do that to me?”

  Cold washed through him. “That’s not funny.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It’s not.”

  Blue looked at Daniel, expecting some similar condemnation, but his brother was staring at his own hands, his expression haunted.

  “Goddamn,” he murmured. “We’re just like our father.”

  Blue’s coldness turned to ice. “What does that mean?”

  Daniel closed his eyes. “Dumb question, Blue.”

  And he was right. It was a dumb question, but it was the only thing Blue could say. He could not bring himself to speak anything else, because the idea of being like his father—with that temper, that abuse—made him want to die.

  “I’m sorry,” Blue said. He thought about saying more, but kept his mouth shut. Excuses were useless. It did not matter how rarely he lost his temper; one time was all it took, one act of violence, and that was something that could never be taken back.

  He waited for a response, but all he received was a low sigh from Daniel, who folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his seat. “I want to know where we’re going.”

  Blue heard shuffling from the backseat, followed by a grunt, another tearing sound. “Santoso has built a state-of-the-art facility out in the desert. On paper it is called a private residence, and on the outside it looks like one, but the facility stretches underground and is immense, both in size and execution. It provides in one location all the services he peddles elsewhere in the world. On-site organ transplants and postsurgical care, along with sex, illegal adoptions, drugs, weapons … everything and anything, as long as clients have money to pay.”

  Blue’s knuckles hurt. “And Iris?”

  “Santoso is immensely proud of the facility, and the security is excellent. I am certain she is there.”

  There, alone, with a psychopath. Blue pressed harder on the accelerator. The Humvee roared. Daniel stroked the gun in his hand.

  “He taught you how to shoot,” Blue said, recalling, long ago, a brief vision of a gun room in his father’s mountain home: rows upon rows of firearms, some mounted on the wall, others under glass.

  “One of the bodyguards taught me on the sly. He worried I would get into situations, that people would try to hurt me. Funny, that. The only person who ever tried to abuse me was him.”

  Him. Father.

  Blue knew that Serena was listening, but he did not care. He looked at his brother and said, “He faked his death to draw you out, and when that didn’t work he got desperate. Blackmailed me on two fronts to bring you home. Threatened my mother and my friends.”

  “And you’re going to do it.”

  “I considered the option. I’ll find another way.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  “Believe anything you want.”

  “But do not be stupid about it,” Serena rasped. “As difficult as that might be for you.”

  “Listen,” Daniel said, but as he turned in his seat, something hard flew out of the darkness and hit him on the head. Blue heard a very loud gasp, almost a shout, followed by, “Fuck, you tossed a grenade at me.”

  “You might need it later,” Serena said. “And don’t look at me.”

  “God help me if I try.” Daniel cradled the grenade in his hands, staring helplessly at it.

  “Glove compartment,” Blue suggested.

  “Oh, sure,” he muttered, and then, quieter: “I’m not going back to him, Blue. I won’t do it.”

  “Okay.”

  Daniel gave him a hard look. “No, not okay. I have a life here, Blue. I made it for myself, with nothing at all but my own hard work. And even if you don’t rat me out, those goons who ambushed me obviously work for someone who knows my secret.”

  “Santoso. What could he possibly want with you?”

  “Ransom?”

  Blue frowned. “What do you know about this, Serena?”

  “Nothing. Which I find odd. Are you certain Santoso’s men pursued Daniel?”

  “It happened this morning. The same bastards tried to take Iris several hours later.”

  “That still doesn’t explain our father’s motives,” Daniel said.

  “Any idea why he would go to that much trouble?”

  “I’m done guessing what goes on in his mind. There might be something genuine about his desperation. I doubt it.”

  “Which means you have something he wants.”

  Daniel sighed. “I was in New Orleans right after Katrina hit, working with the Red Cross. It was easy to slip away in the chaos. But all I took was cash and some clothes. I hadn’t even been back to the old home in months. There’s no way I took anything he values.”

  Unless you’re the prize, Blue thought. “And the circus? How did that happen?”

  “Crossed paths. Or rather, I saw Iris at a diner and followed her back to the big top.”

  Blue gave him a dirty look. Daniel shrugged. “Anyway, the circus was just what I needed. Off the grid, constant movement, dirt-poor. The last place anyone would expect me to be.”

  “And a place where you could practice your telekinesis,” Serena added from the shadows of the backseat. “Ah, well. How unfortunate you have your father’s pride. You brought too much attention to yourself today.”

  Again, Daniel began to turn—stopped himself at the last moment—and said, “How do you know our father?”

  “He used to work for my employer. My other employer.”

  Blue hit the brakes and swerved to the side of the road. Horns blared. Daniel slammed his hand against the dashboard, and behind him a low, feminine grunt of pain filled the darkness.

  “Tell me,” Blue said.

  “There is nothing to tell,” Serena replied coldly. “He conducted business on behalf of my employers. Legal business. He was very good at it, too.”

  “Does he still work for them?”

  “No. He cut ties several months ago. He cited illness as the cause, and we were able to confirm that.”

  “What kind of illness?”

  “Cancer. Aggressive.”

  “Fuck
,” Blue muttered.

  Daniel pressed his forehead against the dash. “Who do you work for, Serena?”

  “None of your business. And frankly, not at all important to the task of rescuing my daughter.”

  Blue pulled back on the freeway and gunned the engine. “So our father worked for your people until he got too sick. I suppose you know about his personality problems, his other not-so-legal dealings.”

  “Of course, but as long as it did not intrude on the business he conducted on our behalf …” Her voice trailed off, but the message was clear. Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. No questions asked.

  “That still doesn’t explain why he wants Daniel,” Blue said.

  His brother snorted. “Jealous?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Maybe you want his money. Maybe that’s why you really caved to help him. Maybe you lied about the blackmail and this is all part of some elaborate scheme to kiss his wrinkled white—”

  Blue’s hand shot out. He remembered Daniel’s warning, but it was too late to stop. He grabbed his brother’s collar and twisted. The air quivered. Blue felt pressure on his throat, digging and digging. The car swerved, but he steadied the wheel, one eye on the road and the other on his brother.

  “You let go of me,” Daniel said quietly. “Right fucking now.”

  “Let go?” Blue bit back a sharp laugh, coughing as the pressure increased. “You first, Danny. Let go of that attitude, let go of the baggage, and don’t you ever fucking say anything like that to me again. You have no idea what that man did to me and my mother.”

  “Oh,” Daniel breathed. “So we’re going to compare sob stories? You think you got it bad? Go to hell, Blue.”

  Blue pushed him away. “Goddamn you, Daniel. You think you were the only one who got screwed over by him? You think he didn’t make my life miserable, just because I wasn’t in the picture?”

  Daniel shook his head, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “I would have taken your life over mine in a heartbeat, Blue, no questions asked.”

  “Enough,” Serena said, finally leaning forward. She was naked except for a tight bandage wrapped around her shoulder. Fur covered the injured side of her body; leopard spots rolled thick and soft over her breasts and arm.

  “The bullet isn’t still in there, is it?” Blue asked, trying to keep his eyes on the road. Daniel stared outright.

  Serena leaned forward and slapped him hard enough to draw blood from his lip. “What did I say?”

  Daniel slumped against the door. “I’m sorry.”

  Serena remained silent. A moment later her hand appeared beside Blue’s face and he got a good luck at the slug. It—and her hands—were still covered in her blood.

  “You have some balls,” Blue said.

  “Yes,” Serena replied. “And I am extremely grateful I have only one child. Your father should have thrown the two of you into a pit when you were young. Let nature take its course.”

  “I suppose that’s what you did with Iris,” Blue said, unable to help himself. “Or Is Santoso your version of the pit? Survival of the fittest?”

  “Be more worried about yourself,” Serena answered coldly. “I have a gun pointed at the base of your neck. I could paralyze you. Condemn you to a life of diapers and bedsores and amputations as your limbs rot off your body from disuse. Do you want that, Mr. Perrineau?”

  “I want your daughter. After she’s safe, you can do whatever the hell you want to me.”

  “Oh, promises,” Serena said, but she leaned away from him, and Blue slowly exhaled.

  The silence continued. Daniel rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. Serena brooded. Blue drove. He thought about Iris as his headlights cut through road and desert. Iris and his father, but mostly just her. He tried not to think about the danger she was in, what already might have been done to her. He remembered her on stage, caught in that net, and the pain that streaked through his heart almost made him breathless.

  Daniel’s breathing deepened. Serena leaned forward, fingers waving over his still face.

  “Remarkable,” she whispered. “I can hardly believe he is your brother.”

  “You don’t know him,” Blue said.

  “Your family loyalty is admirable, but misplaced. He lost my daughter. I cannot forgive him for that.”

  “And me?”

  “That remains to be seen. You are both like your father.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Then you are naïve. All men are products of their fathers. It is inevitable. You, Blue, carry the old man inside you. The way you talk, the way you walk, the way you look a person in the eye. It is him. All him.”

  “You sound as though you know him well.”

  “Business.”

  “Right.” Blue sighed. “So you’re a shape-shifter. Do your employers know that?”

  “Do yours know that you are an electrokinetic?”

  Blue frowned. “I hate it when you do that.”

  “I cannot help that Dirk and Steele’s intelligence is so poor.”

  “And what about Iris? Does she know all of this?”

  Serena hesitated. “No. I never told her.”

  “So you just left her. For years. Did you ever stop to consider how that made her feel? What she thought about your disappearance?”

  “Of course,” Serena snapped. “But I had no choice. Would you prefer that men like Santoso walk free?”

  “He was walking free when you were spying on him. I don’t see that you did much except his dirty work.”

  “Cut off the leg of a dog, and the dog can still walk. Cut off his tail and he can still run. Cut off his head and he is dead and gone. Santoso was nothing but a limb. I needed something more permanent. Which, I say again, you ruined.”

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but bombs will never hurt me.”

  Daniel still slept. Serena drifted closer to Blue; her breath tickled his ear, and in a whisper she said, “You were wrong about me. I did help my daughter, as much as I could, though she might not have felt my presence in her life. With Santoso so close, I could not be obvious. I had to tread lightly.”

  “She misses you. I haven’t known her long, but I’ve seen that much.”

  “You think you love her.”

  “Yes,” Blue said, unable to say that he did not just think it, but that he knew it, felt it, down in his gut. “I don’t know how she feels about me, though.”

  “Are you having sex?”

  Blue tore his gaze from the road and turned his head, forcing himself to look her straight in the eyes. Golden light flashed. He smelled the old traces of fading perfume. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet,” Serena murmured, and then: “My daughter has never been with a man. You must be careful with her.”

  “Okay,” he said, trying not to let his face reveal just how much this conversation unnerved him. Of course he would be careful, but having Serena say as much made him feel like a pervert for wanting her daughter.

  He cleared his throat. “So, Santoso. What can we expect in terms of firepower?”

  “Overwhelming force. The facility is the largest stationary operation of its kind in the world. It is not a backwater hack job.”

  “Someone in the FBI or CIA must know about this.”

  “No. And those who have gotten close are now either very rich or very dead. The stakes are too high for anything else. The money he makes worldwide is already in the billions, and after this facility becomes more established, after he builds his network of them, he stands to gain even more.”

  “That kind of money, he must have an army at his disposal.”

  “Yes.”

  “We need help.”

  “Absolutely not. The three of us are enough. Too many people increase the chances of someone getting hurt.”

  “I think the opposite is true.”

  “This is nonnegotiable.”

  Blue bit the inside of his cheek. “Fine. I suppose you kno
w what you’re doing.”

  Serena did not answer that. She pointed and said, “Do you see that turnoff? Take it.”

  Blue did, the Humvee lurched, and Daniel woke up with a long snort and a cough. Serena grumbled something under her breath and retreated deeper into the shadows of the backseat. Blue, taking pity on his brother, handed him a bottle of water that had been stashed between them.

  “Thanks,” Daniel mumbled.

  “Why’d you run?” Blue asked him. No warning. Point-blank.

  Daniel paused in the middle of drinking his water. “Because he killed my mother.”

  Blue felt the air go very still inside the car. “He killed her?”

  “Not with a bullet or poison. But he did murder her, sure as I’m sitting here. Talked her to death with his meanness. Hit her, too, but the physical wasn’t as bad as the mind games.” Daniel stared down at his hands, the water bottle. “My mother was the only good thing about my life, growing up.”

  Blue thought of his own mother. “She didn’t leave him?”

  “Not for lack of trying on my part. She just wouldn’t do it. She was afraid of him, afraid for me … and she wanted to make sure I got my … birthright.” Daniel said the word as if it were made of nails. “She never said so, but I also think she had been abused before, and in her mind being rich and in trouble was a lot better than the opposite.”

  “When did she die?”

  “A year ago. She cut her wrists.”

  The car swerved just slightly; Blue looked at his brother, at his slack, cold profile, and his dull voice rang again inside Blue’s head with those four matter-of-fact words.

  “I’m sorry,” Blue murmured.

  “Our father was in Jordan at the time,” Daniel explained, still quiet, still under control. “He didn’t come home and he didn’t tell me. The housekeeper let me know, and I was lucky I got to see her body, because the old man had her cremated almost immediately. If I hadn’t gotten there so quickly I would never have found out what happened.”

  Blue chewed the inside of his cheek, wondering how much to say, wondering if there were any words that would not be offensive in some way. Finally he gave what he thought might be the easiest, and said, “The old man mentioned your mother when he first told me to find you. He said she was … beautiful. A good woman.”