“‘Says’ he used to be in the Navy? You sound skeptical.” I cocked my head.
“I was in the Marines: Combat Assault Battalion. He claims he was in Operation Game Warden, but none of my old Navy buddies remember him,” Mason said, shrugging. “Far as I know, me and Jenner were one of maybe five or six Weeders in that war. Doesn’t mean I don’t believe him, because he’s got the medals to show for it. Still don’t mean shit to me unless someone remembers you sticking your neck out for them.”
That made plenty of sense to me. Backing up your people in a crisis was something I understood. I spread my hands. “You came out for me back there, and I’m willing to help you find your children. I can keep looking into the occult angle, but I have a couple of things I want to chase up. Pastor Aaron is of the same denomination as Lily and Dru, correct?”
“Yeah,” Mason grunted.
“If he could arrange a meeting with the local leader of their church, I’d be interested to talk to him,” I said. “Given how much the Vigiles have already missed, I might learn something from him that they didn’t.”
“We can do that,” Jenner said. “He doesn’t have to know that Ayashe’s on the warpath. I think we should go check out the forest cabin. Aaron probably knows where to find it.”
“Did the Vidge go through the place?” Zane’s brow furrowed in thought.
“Don’t think so,” Mason said. “Michael won’t tell anyone except that one guy. He disappeared, so now it’s even more secret Pathrunner business.”
“The other thing I want to do is talk to some of my contacts… one in particular may be able to turn up some useful information.” I let Binah down to the floor. “He costs money, but now that I have money, I’m willing to front.”
“If he knows something, we’ll pay half.” Mason didn’t even bat an eye. Instead, he clapped his hands on his knees and stood. “We’ll handle the phone calls. You guys get some rest and some chow. We’ll deal with this later in the day.”
* * *
I hadn’t realized just how tired I was until I was in the bedroom and away from other people. I didn’t even undress: just sunk down onto the thin mattress, rolled onto my side, and passed out.
Shouting broke through the fugue of sleep after what felt like minutes, shaking me from a vague dream where I was looking into a pit at the upturned faces of tens of children… children missing their eyes, faces blank and bloody. I rolled to the side and clapped my hand down on my knife, bringing it up as I swung my stiff legs around and got to my feet. For several thick moments, there was no sound other than my constricted heartbeat rattling against my ribs. Then I heard something again… the dull rapport of a slamming door.
“- so many better things to do than be arguing about some boxes, okay? I don’t care what you think. Throw them out on the damn street, and I’ll pick them up. Look… no… I’m getting my shit back and there’s nothing you do about it. Yeah, no, you don’t get to say who I do and don’t bring. I don’t care. I stopped caring when you threw me out of your fucking apartment after screwing around on me while I was fighting for my life in the goddamn desert…”
Zane on the phone again. Groggy and mealy mouthed, I lay back down and listened in the dark as his one-sided conversation trailed down the hallway away from me.
The lack of external stimulation in the dark made me unpleasantly aware of the parasite wrapped around and through my chest. I had to lift my legs to the floor, and then heave myself upright, leaden, to reach the bathroom and shower. Binah followed me like a ghost, napped on my towel while I cleaned up, and was disgruntled when I turfed her to the floor.
I found Zane banging around in the kitchen, angrily washing up while eggs and steak sizzled on the stove. When he turned and saw me, a ripple of something I didn’t recognize passed behind his eyes. Fear? Embarrassment? It was as brief as it was elusive.
“Mason says he’s made a time for you with Aaron first thing tomorrow morning,” he muttered. “He’ll come and pick you up, take you to the Voicer building in Manhattan for a meeting with some bigshot Pastor.”
“Wonderful.” I shuffled onto a chair at the table, rubbing my eyes. “Coffee. Please.”
“Coffee’s cold,” Zane said. “How do you like your steak?”
“Blue. Sear it until it stops bleeding, and serve it up.” I said. “Runny eggs.”
“Good man,” he replied.
The promise of caffeine was enough to spur me to new heights. I dragged myself to the coffee maker, added some water to the cold coffee, and poured it back through the machine.
“What… are you doing?”
I looked back to find him with food dished up on a plate, staring at me in consternation.
“What?” I dumped half a cup of ground coffee into the filter and set it to brew.
“You just…” Zane sighed, and slammed the plate down on the table before turning to get his own food. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s like those master stocks they keep in Chinese restaurants,” I said. “You know how they keep the same soup boiling for ten years or so? It’s the same thing.”
“No, Alexi. It’s not the same at all.”
“Life is just too short for weak coffee.” I hadn’t had steak in a long time, and I intended to try and enjoy this one. Under normal circumstances, I didn’t eat a lot of red meat. It reminded me too much of work.
“When you put a spoon in it and the spoon melts, it’s not coffee anymore.” Zane slumped into the chair across from me and set into his food like a hungry dog. Or lion… or leopard. Whatever he was. We ate for a while, him in sullen silence, me with what I hoped was a polite level of enthusiasm.
“So…” I said. “Someone giving you trouble?”
“Mm?” Zane swallowed, brow furrowed, and cut himself a piece of steak.
“You were arguing with someone on the phone before,” I replied. “You need me to help sort something out for you?”
He barked a harsh, derisive, bitter laugh. “Sort him out? What, Russian Mafia-style?”
I stared at him until he stopped trying to shrug me off. The light in his eyes and his smile faded over seconds.
“Wait. You’re serious?”
“I am always serious,” I replied. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s, uh…” Zane licked his lips, for once at a loss for words. “It’s just my ex, you know. Girlfriend. She has some of my stuff at her place, and her new guy isn’t letting me go over and pick it up.”
Vassily had a word to describe people when they were like this: ‘cagey’. I wasn’t sure why ‘cagey’ was the term used to describe that weird mixture of hesitation, anger and fear of being caught out, but I could accept it descriptively.
“So we go over and beat the shit out of him, get your stuff, and leave.” I shrugged.
“I can’t.” He shook his head, stuffing steak into his mouth. “It’s… complicated. Nothing I can solve with getting physical.”
“So shoot the lock out of the door as a warning and then go call them again on a payphone. Ne vopros.”
“Look, Alexi… you can’t fucking shoot all of your problems away, okay?” He threw his knife and fork at the plate and stood, too agitated to stay at the table. “That’s not how the real world works.”
“You don’t shoot anyone during an intimidation. It’s supposed to be bloodless,” I replied, sawing off some meat. I was confused, but not so put out that it turned me off my food. “But if you don’t want to stand up for yourself, I won’t push.”
“That’s generous of you.”
Coming from someone who’d apparently forgotten what his 1% patch meant. “I’m going to handle some chores today, and after we visit the church tomorrow, I’ll go and see my contact.”
“Whatever. I’ve got a fight to train for.” Zane was too large of a man to properly sulk, but he was unmistakably petulant as he gathered his dishes and scraped the leftovers into a foil and paper takeout container, washed his hands, and stormed off into the
house.
Chapter 20
I was no cop, but I knew that every day that went by without recovering the children was a bad day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be much good if we couldn’t get the dirt on where to find them, and that required money.
The first thing I did was to go and check my accounts. To my surprise, my savings accounts were untapped. My credit cards had been maxed out – no shock there – but the banks could send angry letters to the bombed out shell of Kostya’s home for as long as they pleased.
Second stop was a pet store. I returned with a litter box, litter, and black nylon harness and leash for Binah. My familiar was asleep on our bed. I pulled her into my lap, drowsy and pliable, and sized it for her. She yawned, and rolled onto her back as I fed her legs through the holes.
“Here you go, Binah.” I attached the leash and put her on the ground, standing up behind her. “Now we can go for walks together.”
Binah wobbled forwards in consternation, picking up her feet as if she’d forgotten how to walk. When she reached the end of the leash and jerked back, she flopped onto her side on the ground, glaring up at me. As if to drive home the point, she lashed her tail, thumping it against the floor.
I toed her with a shoe, trying to get her to her feet. She slid across the floorboards, as limp as the head of a mop. “You are quite literally the most ungrateful creature I have ever met.”
The tail thumping increased in frequency and velocity.
“Honestly.” I unclipped the leash and rolled it up, but left the harness on. “Get used to it.”
Aaron was early, as promised. It was still dark when I heard the wheels of a car crackle on the gravel outside. The sound stirred a vague concern about the FBI and SWAT vans, so I set down my notebook and picked myself up, the Wardbreaker in hand. I heard a door slam, and then feet on the ground outside. One pair of feet.
“Good morning, Rex.” Aaron peered in around the edge of the unlocked door, his polite smile wilting around the edges when he saw me holstering my weapon. I had much the same impression of him that I’d had on first meeting: the priest was gym-fit, with a pleasantly attractive round face and an annoyingly thin mustache set beneath two button eyes. “Sorry to disturb you. All ready to go?”
“Almost.” I packed the books away into a suitcase, slung my overcoat on, and wrapped Binah’s unattached leash around my hand. She had come out to sit and study with me for a time, but had now made herself scarce. Following my intuition, I went to the bathroom and found her scrabbling in the new litter box. Just as well: I doubted the senior pastor would be amused if she were to borrow a corner of his office.
“You… uhh…” Aaron reached up to adjust his collar when I returned with Binah clinging to her favorite place over my shoulder. “Is that..?”
“She’s a necessary tool of the job.” I walked past him without pausing. Someone who didn’t stop to permit criticism was often allowed to continue doing what they were doing. “Today will be interesting. I don’t know much about the Church, but I had a colorful encounter with a member of your congregation once.”
I’d expected an NYPD police chaplain to arrive in a squad car or a mid-range sedan of some kind, like a Volvo or a Camry. Instead, I passed through the garage door and found myself before a very large, very new top-of-the-line Cadillac. It crouched like a panther, gleaming under the lights over the entries to the clubhouse and Strange Kitty.
“Colorful?” Aaron went around to the driver’s side with the casual bearing of a man who wasn’t immediately conscious that he was getting into a thirty-five thousand dollar car.
“Uh… yes. Colorful.” I swallowed, recomposed myself, and opened my door to sit down. Binah and I were immediately engulfed in padded black leather, polished wood, and the unmistakable smell of new money. “He was a violent, judgmental sort.”
“Violent? If he’s part of Pastor Christopher’s congregation, I hope he’ll teach this man that the only one around these parts who’s allowed to judge anyone is God.” Aaron fired up the car and started us on our way. The mouthfeel of the engine was at least as pleasant as Zane’s Harley. “Where was this?”
“Outside the Manhattan Center.”
“He may have been dropping in for his first service,” Aaron said. “We get a lot of crazies come in just for the coffee, too. A lot of people attend church with this very superficial mentality, you know… “I’ll just pray and everything will be fine.” They think they’ll just turn up and not have to do any work. But that’s not what being human is about… real effort is the best form of worship. Jesus was a carpenter, for crying out loud.”
I stroked Binah’s head and nodded along. I couldn’t disagree with the sentiment, but according to the Bible, I was also a heretical inheritor of Simon Magus and expressly condemned to eternal torment. I had never seen eye to eye with the religious.
“Well, looks like I got ranting again. I get a bit carried away sometimes.” The Pastor laughed a little, starting us north towards Manhattan.
“To be very honest, I’m mostly sitting here and wallowing in your Cadillac. The NYPD must be paying better these days if you were able to buy this without selling your kidney.”
He laughed again, louder this time. “Oh, this? Well, like I said… work is the best form of worship. I work two jobs and have a few investments tucked away.”
The cynic in me had to wonder if those investments were of the kind able to be cut and snorted, but I erred on the side of social grace and held my tongue.
We didn’t go to the Manhattan Center. Instead, we went to Times Square and rumbled down a one-way side-street, pulling up to park across from an elegant Art Deco facade. It was built into a strip of stately old hotels. The flagpoles outside carried an American flag, and a royal purple and gold INRI flag with the cross and crown.
“You know, I always wondered something about, well, sorcerers,” Aaron said, once we were out on the pavement. “What your familiar actually do?”
“She likes to eat shoelaces and vomit them on the bathroom rug.” I set her on the ground. Binah froze in place, watching cars rush by. What little fur she had stood on end, so I sighed, scooped her up, and put her on my shoulder to cross the street. “I think it’s less about what she does, and more about what she is. What she is, is deeply attuned to me and my work. She sees a lot of things I would otherwise miss… I’ve noticed that my memory has improved significantly since she came into my life.”
“Oh, I see. Well, perhaps you should get her one of those little service animal vests? It’s hard for people to know why you’re carrying her around, otherwise.” Aaron smiled, a little frazzled and a little tired, and then led the way in through the rotating glass doors.
The doors led into an ornate Gotham foyer: black marble floor, dusky granite walls, a lot of glass and old polished wood. There were two receptionists, one male and one female. Banners and flags were on display in here, too, along with a large gold crucifix mounted on the open balcony railing, directly over the reception desk.
“If services are held in the Hammerstein, what’s this place for?” I asked, as Aaron led me up one of the swooping staircases to the balcony level.
“We mix around a few venues, actually. The mass public services are for Receiving members and seekers, people who are curious or who would like to worship in a safe space,” Aaron said. “This is our headquarters for the East Coast. We hold services and classes for Confirmed members of the Church.”
“Confirmed?” Both Binah and I were looking around as we were lead an open-plan bookstore. It was comfortable and elegant up here, but a little less personal than a pre-modern church facility. I felt a twinge of instinct as Binah looked towards a room off-side the bookstore. The wall was painted in intricate Biblical murals which prominently featured a very blond, remarkably fit White Jesus. There was a bean-shaped sofa, and a video playing on a large screen in front of it. I caught a glimpse of a man speaking at a lectern across a massive sweep of congregation. Father Zach’s TV sho
w, I supposed.
“The Confirmed are people who have been baptized into the church. They make some pretty strong commitments to banish their inner evils, commit to work and grow into the rewards worship offers.” Aaron drew up at an inset door at the back of the room, swiped a card, and punched in a sequence of numbers to let us inside. “We’re fundamentally a Reformed denomination, so Confirmed members are those who have been ‘confirmed’ as elect.”
“I see.” I’d never heard of ‘banishing inner evils’ as being part of any Christian denomination, but humans were always finding new and elaborate ways to beat themselves up. “How do you determine if someone is… ready for baptism?”
“They have talk to one of our auditors. Counselors, basically. They work through their goals and their strengths and weaknesses with them, look at what they need to fix inside themselves and in their relationships with other people and God.”
We emerged into a narrow white-brick service hallway, and took another door into a larger, far more welcoming corridor. The old hotel rooms had been converted to what looked like glass-fronted classrooms or seminar rooms, a few of which were already occupied with teachers setting up for the day. Tables and chairs, books on the tables, whiteboards up front. The rooms were all named according to the donors who had furnished them.
On the way past, I leaned back to look through the window to glance at the cover on one of the books. Financial Breakthrough: Find Your True Wealth. “Are there many of these counselors?”
“In New York? Quite a few.” We drew up to a door at the end of the corridor, where Aaron knocked. There was a murmur from inside. With a smile, Aaron opened the door and held it for me. It was time to meet Pastor Christopher.
The room was quite immediately blue and red: dark royal blue walls, red chairs, stained cherrywood furniture. The Pastor rose to his feet with a placid smile, and for a moment, I froze in the threshold. Christopher was tall and lean, handsome, very pale-skinned, very dark-haired. My mind transmuted his face into Vassily’s for a moment, because they looked so similar… right down to their ink-blue eyes.
Stained Glass: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 2) Page 19
