Demorn: Soul Fighter (The Asanti Series Book 3)

by David Finn

Madisyn said, ‘I rep Kim Golding, she won an Oscar. It’s kind of a ten years later thing, you heard the pitch.’

  Iverson couldn’t help but be interested in the small talk. He noticed the way Madi moved, how little she took her eyes off him, starving Wolf out. If this was a prison, it was one unlike anything he had ever seen. There was a side entrance and nobody else in the room. He could see the Shrine emblem etched into her desk and on the ceiling.

  Iverson tapped the card against the desk before putting it inside his suit pocket. ‘What was the original girl’s name? Stunning woman.’

  Madisyn blinked slowly. She looked to a poster on the wall. Without even looking Iverson knew it was a retro Super Force title.

  She said, ‘You’re talking about Kate, hon. We don’t really talk too much about Kate in here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Madisyn looked as if she wanted to say more than one thing, but she just gave the barest of a shoulder shrug. ‘She’s a lost soul, hon. LA is a vampire that eats you up.’

  There was a finality which Iverson didn’t press.

  He said, ‘I’ve never been there. Is this really a prison?’

  Madisyn rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I’m still making money and looking good but I can’t walk out the door you walked in from, Iverson. I call that close enough to prison. You know I’m in here, don’t you? I assumed you were cops or the Mob.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s always cops or the Mob. Nobody else knows this place is even here, wherever here is.’

  Iverson glanced at the walls. The hit movies. The beautiful goldfish tank. The huge, expensive TV and the faint smell of an intoxicating perfume.

  ‘I wouldn’t have a clue as to why they have you here, Madisyn. I put a lot of people in prison but this isn’t like any prison I know.’

  Madi leaned back in her chair. She was smooth and cool and totally in control. ‘You raise enough red flags, this is where you go. They imprison bloodlines. Mine is one long red flag. Blood everywhere. Power. Money. Terrorism. Bad politics. Questionable alliances and challenges to reality that stretch all the way back to Rome.’

  She clicked her long polished fingernails while her cool, shaded eyes stayed on Iverson. Iverson said, ‘Challenges to reality? Sounds serious.’

  She said, ‘I choose a different occupation. I’m in entertainment. I can live my life. There’s a tennis court and I swim a lot. Most of the time I don’t remember what this place is.’

  Iverson felt dislocated and out of touch. Wolf was gone, his chair empty. ‘Where is he?’

  Madi shrugged. ‘This is a very harsh place. He wasn’t bringing much energy. He’s back on the lift, he’s rising back up, but he’ll be awhile.’

  ‘Did you do that?’

  Madi shot him a smile. ‘No, they did.’

  He started getting heated. ‘Who’s they? Who makes this call? I haven’t got a thing on the Order File about this place. Wolf only knew about it because he was undercover with Josephine. Who’s making the call on who goes up a level, or down a level, or even lands here in the first place?’

  Madisyn pressed two fingers so close together there was a just a pinprick of distance between them.

  ‘The people exactly one level higher than me do this. Sometimes it’s my people. This time, it’s theirs.’

  ‘Do you want out?’

  Madisyn’s smile had the passion of a viper. ‘Out is on my terms. With total immunity, and real power. Frankly, out is a lot more expensive than you could know or I want to pay right now.’

  Iverson glanced again at the beautiful office. ‘You look like you’ve got a fair bit of power right now.’

  Madisyn chuckled. ‘I’m looking to sign my number one client to this Super Force reboot. She’s been very clever in keeping her career half alive until the stars align. It’s driving dollars. I’ve got a couple of other clients close to major deals. If this reboot takes off, you might have a whole different answer on how much I will pay to walk away.’

  She leant forward, conversational. Her beauty was as distracting as it was powerful. It was all a game, a game mostly played cruel, that’s what Iverson’s first instructors had told him about all diplomacy. People didn’t just get hurt, they played to wound.

  ‘What’s her name,’ he asked.

  ‘Kate. She was in the first incarnation of the show, does a ton of conventions The fact is that Kate is a good girl, very pretty and very young. She’s 23 and looks younger, William. We can’t have her screw half the goddamned Teen Power Legion, or whatever the hell they call it. My Dark Universe won’t be so dark. She will kill the necessary amount. She will kiss the necessary amount.’

  She shook her head, laughing and flashing perfect teeth, leafing through digital comic copies which she let fall onto the glass table, glittering holographic images.

  Madisyn sighed. ‘The whole industry is so fucking sexist it would make me sick if I let it. But I cope to stay afloat.’

  Iverson laughed. ‘That’s too funny.’

  Madi gave him a wise look. He heard Wolf call out from outside, but it was a distant echo, dimensions away.

  ‘Sure it is, Iverson. Well, I’ve got wall to wall appointments the rest of the afternoon and Kate at ten. Remind me why you came here.’

  ‘I’m on the trail of somebody who passed through here.’

  Madisyn’s eyebrow raised ever so slightly. ‘Who?’

  ‘Do you know the Lady Josephine?’

  Madisyn didn’t even blink. ‘The Wicked Bitch of the West, I know all about her. She’s not good for your little friend. She’s half the reason the prison just made him ride the elevator again.’

  ‘Agreed. But she’s with another woman that I’m chasing. Demorn. She’s a mercenary—’

  Madisyn smiled then, her hand flying to her throat. ‘My god! She’s a little more than that! DEMORN, how charming! A genuine LEGEND! A swordswoman of renown! Of course I know her! From Firethorn, the White Fort by the Sea. What do they call her? The Wandering Sword?’

  ‘Something like that. I had no idea she was so famous.’

  Madisyn was watching him with a different expression. An air of cautious judgement overlaid her purple-shadowed eyes.

  ‘You know who she dated don’t you,’ Madisyn said.

  Iverson ran his hand across her face. ‘I just got the case and I’ve been non stop. It’s a long list, models, singers, there’s a masseuse in Bay City she has ties to, likes brunette or blonde with big tits is my read so far . . .’

  Madi tut-tutted. ‘Dalliances of the lonely heart. She only has one true love, or so they say. She was with Kate, my client. It was all quite salacious way back when.’

  Iverson couldn’t help but be impressed by the synchronicity. ‘You should see the ass on the masseuse. She’s a knockout.’

  ‘Well, maybe two loves.’ Madi laughed.

  Iverson pointed to the shelf which had swung open, revealing hardbound copies of many books and comics. ‘I like the digital versions you keep in your bracelet, but I love your collection.’

  Madisyn giggled, gathering up the digital copies from the glass desk. ‘Thank you. I’ve been here a long time. I like to read. I like superheroes.’

  Iverson got up. The air was colder in the room now. ‘How long have you been here?’

  Madisyn shook her ankle, the chain tinkling. ‘It’s almost like home but it’s not home. I’m at the highest level, I’m almost out. They take off ten percent of my monthly take. The agency understand it’s a complicated situation. Carson is handling matters in LA.’

  ‘Are you in a jail or are you a slave?’

  Madisyn smiled that perfect smile. ‘It’s better to think of it like a sales tax, honey.’

  ‘It’s not though.’

  Madisyn popped a mint. ‘Maybe not. But it’s better to think of it like that. Look at you, Order Investigator Iverson, in your black leather suit and your military haircut.’

  She ran a friendly hand across his shoulder and massaged his
neck. Iverson gasped at how good it felt. Iverson picked out a bound copy of a Sandman comic. Wolf was still nowhere to be seen. He wondered how long she could keep him trapped in the lift. Or was it this place that did it?

  ‘What do you like about them, William?’

  He said, ‘The drama. The hope. The sense of wonder. I like what happens when they die and are reborn.’

  ‘Most readers hate that. Because death isn’t permanent. Nothing means anything if you can just come back from death.’

  Madisyn was up from the seat, he could feel her drifting close. He glanced at her. The word that flashed through his mind was imperial.

  ‘I don’t know if I buy that,’ he replied. ‘We all change. You fly twelve hours to the north and the world is on fire, Madisyn. These stories, these characters, are like icons in a changing world. If they don’t change they don’t just die. They are buried.’

  ‘Do you know what I love, Order Investigator Iverson? I like to remember what happens to the worlds they shatter and they save. In the comics there is always an event, a crisis.’

  Iverson put the huge book back on the shelf, giving it an appreciative pat and a glance of longing. Madisyn pushed the shelf shut.

  He said, ‘Well good luck with the show. I love comics.’

  She gave his shoulders a firm squeeze. ‘And I love you. So why has the Wandering Sword come through here? And why do you follow like some errant child calling for your mother?’

  Iverson laughed. ‘Surely she’s younger than me.’

  Madi was completely still. Perhaps her cool eyes glowed, or perhaps that was a trick of the ambient light. ‘Oh no, she’s not, William. She’s far older and more dangerous than either of us ever could be.’

  Iverson felt movement behind him. He turned. A millisecond of a door opening to an ice white cold. Wolf in silhouette. Aged twenty years, maybe even thirty. Savage, his teeth bared. Same clothes ragged and worn to the bone. A scimitar wrapped in his gloved hand.

  Fur covered his face partially, white and grey patchwork beard over his older face. Bizarrely him but not him. In slow motion, Iverson spun around, pulling the Glock, pushing Madisyn behind him.

  ‘Slow down, Wolf! Jesus! SLOW DOWN!’

  Wolf did slow. The crazed glow in his eyes seemed to dim. Iverson could see the Bankers key hanging around his neck. It was a precious thing. Too precious for Wolf to keep. Madisyn pressed her hand against his back, and moved out from behind Iverson. He could hear breathing, mixed with an intoxicating perfume. Madisyn’s LA tan had caught maybe a slight pallor but her attitude had lost nothing.

  ‘Do you want to kill me, Wolf?’ Madi asked. She pressed a single finger to her chest, between her breasts. ‘Put a sword in me if you can get through Black Army Leather here, but it’s not me who sent you back down the lift, Wolf. It’s not me! It’s this jail, it’s the machine, you idiot!’

  Wolf’s eyes seemed to clear. The years faded off him. Ten. Twenty. Almost thirty. He lowered the scimitar.

  ‘No, I don’t want to kill you,’ Wolf grunted. ‘But they’ve told me I need to meet your boss.’

  They, Iverson, thought. They. I’m going to find out who they are. I’m going to wait. I’m going to find out who did this to Wolf. I’m going to kill them. He holstered the Glock.

  7

  * * *

  ‘You want to come, Madisyn?’ Iverson asked.

  Madisyn flashed perfect teeth. ‘Oh, they don’t let me anywhere near him.’

  She shook her long leg. Both Wolf and Iverson took a look. A long thin, white diamond chain coiled out from the desk, locked around her ankle. ‘It’s a prison after all. And we almost destroyed reality, didn’t we?’

  Wolf was still wearing a thousand mile stare.

  ‘Oh, don’t be coy, you’re Shrine now, Wolf. I can see it in your eyes. You know things. You remember things.’

  Wolf looked away.

  I wonder what you saw out there, Wolf. I wonder what she did.

  Madisyn caught Iverson as he went to leave, gripping his arm. He froze as her eyes caught his. Madisyn brushed his face tenderly, like an old lover or friend. They hung together for a long moment, time seemed frozen. He thought he’d forgotten how to feel. He could feel the Shrine mark on his wrist. He could see the flame in Madisyn’s eyes. A glimpse of the dark god whose name eluded him again. He could see beneath her perfect angles, beyond the cheekbones that would last. He could see the bruises and the tear tracks and the shadows. He could see the determination that defined her and the fear that drove her. They take so much more than ten percent, he realised. They take so much more.

  ‘I feel like I’ve known you before,’ Iverson murmured.

  Madisyn gave him a hug and a light kiss on the cheek. ‘We have old souls, comrade. We have both known many lives.’

  Madisyn released him. She looked perfect. Iverson’s eyes were filled with tears. Ever since his wife went missing, Iverson had grappled with an emptiness, an aching space that Iverson feared said more about his own weakness and nihilism than how much he was capable of loving or grieving somebody properly.

  Iverson shrugged it off like a pro, but he could see the jealousy in Wolf’s eyes. Whatever had happened on the lift had changed him. Pushed him further toward wherever Josephine was taking him. A white staircase spiralled downward. Wolf’s voice echoed and bounced. The glow of the stairwell lit up sheer walls with strange writing and symbols carved upon them. Bizarrely, Iverson recognised the names of popular singers and TV shows scrawled alongside the names of war gods and cities lost to rubble at the Front. Maybe it wasn’t so bizarre. He had sat in bomb shelters as neutron bombs hit Ceron City, with teenage kids playing top-40 music and playing video games and pretending like they weren’t one moment from destruction. People weren’t so different.

  ‘She’s dangerous,’ Wolf said.

  Iverson gave Wolf a tired look as they descended the spiralling staircase together.

  ‘Madisyn’s not the enemy. She’s trapped and alone.’

  Wolf’s voice cracked. ‘I was alone for eons on the elevator while you were busy flirting. So much for your wife—’

  Iverson shoved him again the wall, hard. Wolf flexed against him but Iverson didn’t back off, holding down his shoulder, squeezing pressure points, almost enjoying the pain on Wolf’s face.

  Iverson growled, ‘She’s an agent, you’re a trained military man. I don’t care what they did to you. Get some goddamn self respect!’

  Iverson pushed him off the wall. Wolf gripped the rail. Iverson had taken just about enough attitude.

  ‘You can leave if you want. Whatever is down there, whoever is down there. I don’t need you if you’re not all in.’

  Wolf looked him straight in the eye. ‘You don’t care about anybody else really, do you? It’s just the Order. I saw the files on Xaniath. I saw what you did.’

  Iverson checked his gun. ‘Of course I care, kid. Why would you doubt that?’

  ‘How many worlds have you blown up, Iverson? How long before this one goes?’

  Iverson didn’t respond at first. His implant was suddenly flicking more on than off. The age of Wolf was flickering in his electronic eyes. 20. 30. 40. 50, on rotation. The lines around the eyes and the stubble seared across his face. And no matter what age, all he could see was fear. There was almost nothing left of the young man he had met on the Front. The years between them were a chasm. It was sad how that never could be recovered.

  ‘What are you so scared of, Wolf? We’ve faced horrors before.’

  ‘You think she’s harmless, but none of the Shrine are. None of them.’

  His hands were shaking on the rail.

  Iverson said, ‘They’re cultists. Of course they’re dangerous. They’ve always been dangerous. But so are the Prussians and the bombs hitting Ceron City. So is the comet over Bay City. We’re at war, Wolf. We can’t just deal with those we consider safe.’

  Wolf’s eyes were haunted. He’s lost. He’s gone from us, Iverson realised. He’s
gone from us and he knows too much. If I don’t kill him, somebody like me will. Iverson glanced down the spiralling staircase. Energy swirls. Patterns.

  Iverson said, ‘Nobody is harmless. Nothing. You wanted to pull deep cover. I didn’t force you.’

  Wolf looked him bleakly in the eyes as Iverson fired the gun. Back at the Order the recruits called it a Jitter gun. The beam shuddered over Wolf, purple beams lighting up Wolf’s face, stripping away the skin. His body pressed against the railing. Iverson could see the Shrine markings all over Wolf, head to toe, code spirals lit up by the Order tech. Wolf didn’t go for his gun. He didn’t make a sound. He just kept looking at Iverson with blank eyes until he was gone, his body fading in the purple beams. Iverson’s eyes felt cold and unexpectedly filled with tears.

  Iverson put the gun away and walked to the spot by the railing where the traitor had been. Because that is what he was now, Iverson thought. He is a traitor and I am the one who converted him when we were young and raw. I was his handler. I sent him on the missions, I kept it cold, I kept it professional, I kept him focused on targets and killing without guilt. I let him go deeper and deeper into cover. Until he was no longer here and I let Josephine and the Shrine take the rest.

  Iverson was staring down at the energy spirals surrounding the descending staircase. The air was frigid against his leather jumpsuit. His implant switched on, harsh coded chatter.

  AGENT RETRIEVED AGENT RETRIEVED.

  WIPE THE AGENT, Iverson commanded through the implant.

  He waited while the system ran through security checks. His clearance was top level and the call was unquestionably his. Wolf would be frozen and put in the Vault. Wolf would never be Wolf again. Whatever the Shrine had done to him would be dissected. The Order would try to reverse engineer the process. They would try to weaponise it and feed their efforts back into the War. Wolf would never be Wolf again.

  It was so cold. Iverson knew he could easily wipe the emotional memory from his brain. The worst part was that he knew he wouldn’t have to. It was just one more deal, one more decision on somebody he used to believe he cared about. The chasm had eaten into Iverson, it had taken enough that he could do these things and keep pressing forward. He kept walking down the staircase.