Trouble was, things had gotten so advanced in the world—especially now, with living beings from another planet, other humans from another planet, one of them a superman—and a girl, a girl from right there on Earth who could do things no Biblical God would ever have allowed, witch-like violations of nature—in the face of all that he was having a hard time fitting the teachings on which he’d been raised with his current reality. He believed in God. And he did, indeed, pray to him now, as Willet suggested. But was God really such a simple concept? The grey-beard portrayed in his religion? An angry guy who, at best, could call down floods or send a few locusts, who actually wanted the sacrifice of goats or something, as if that mattered, and who, though infinitely powerful, kind of just waited to see what people would do, then punished them if they didn’t do what he expected?
Or was God truly something great?
And as Heath wrestled with this, more than he ever had, perhaps, challenged by so many things in that deadly prelude, on the cusp of his very likely death, he found himself not just praying but trying all over again to believe. To find that old belief in a truly higher force. Bringing with it the thought: What if he could save himself? Of course he always saved himself; he pulled the trigger, he made the moves, he got out of the jams, but if he’d always imagined a higher force guiding those actions …
What if he could be that higher force?
It was an interesting conjecture, and right on the heels of that, wrestling with the ramifications of such a thing, he had the exceedingly pragmatic thought, beyond gods and afterlifes and praying for some other power to help:
They should’ve sent just Zac.
No one else. Now that they were here, now that Heath had seen what Zac could do, firsthand, really seen, he was convinced they’d made a mistake. One that would cost them their lives. Why hadn’t that sunk in before? Why didn’t they have that collective epiphany during all that planning? Team operations were so ingrained, so part of any tactics, the idea of sending one man—one man!—to do the job hadn’t even been imagined. A team. There was always a team. Only … this time, maybe, they needed no team. They knew Zac was what he was. Hell, he was the lynch-pin of the whole operation. Stay behind Zac. Zac goes first. Use Zac. Zac will take care of the Kel. Zac, Zac, Zac.
Why were they even here?
Zac likely couldn’t be killed. He could do this and find a way back, escape capture—whatever was needed to survive. Zac would make it. All the liabilities could’ve been avoided. But it was too late. Far too late. This train was already on the rails.
“As soon as you’re aboard and they realize the gambit,” Fang’s voice was saying over the Kel console, “they might release nerve agents, or flush or evacuate the areas you’re in. Anything to easily kill you.” Heath contemplated all the fun ways to die as Fang went on: “But I can probably create untraceable system failures and prevent that, if you can just plant the hack. You need to make that your first objective. Find a jack, plant the Trojan and signal me.” He repeated, almost emphatically: “Find a jack. First. Plant the Trojan. Then contact me right away. I can help from there.”
“Got it,” Willet acknowledged. Heath took a deep breath.
It was classic sci-fi invaders 101. Their plan, the real plan, the one that mattered, was to infect the aliens with a virus. A computer virus, but it was the same old trope. Bring down the mighty with something impossibly small. David and Goliath.
He took another deep breath. All was quiet. The hum of the craft on ascent was deceptively low. Very little sensation of movement. The blue had deepened and the sky was opening up, blue upon blue, horizon to horizon, shifting to ever darker colors. A clear, so-clear panorama, nothing but wide open space.
Oddly, what Heath regretted most was not that he was about to die in the service of this cause, but that, in dying, he would never know if the whole crazy idea worked.
Maybe he could ask Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.
CHAPTER 29: A PRIESTESS RETURNS
Hansel stood in his usual spot, near the far corner of the expansive penthouse, where he could see the entirety of the Bok proceedings, witness their debauchery, stay clear of the tigers and, generally, be on hand if called upon. Less and less did those requests have anything to do with engaging his services as a skilled mercenary commander. More and more they were the requests of the idle and the lazy. Get another bottle of champagne. Go down to the lobby and pick up a delivery. Fetch something to eat. And so on.
Tonight, late though it was, his employers were actually gathered for State business. Seated around the giant conference table. World business was probably a better way to put it. The Bok were, after all, rulers of the world. Mostly Hansel turned a deaf ear to just about everything they did these days, but over the last hour of increasingly unusual grumbling he’d begun smiling to himself at their clear annoyance. They were being made to work, something they couldn’t actually delegate or shove off elsewhere, and it was killing them. They were far too important, far too imperious for such things, and in a world that had, for Hansel, become increasingly bleak, he found a small bit of pleasure in their current “suffering”.
On his best days he stared for long stretches out the windows, watching day turn to night and, sometimes, night to day. The Bok kept odd hours, and in fact were away from their headquarters there in Hong Kong as often as not. Globetrotting, jet setting—wasting no opportunity to take full advantage of the power, and freedom, they held. Out the windows the lights of the city were as beautiful as ever on this rainy night, and part of him was saddened by the fact that he’d become so jaded as to have lost most appreciation for it.
A solid pop from the far corner of the room, directly opposite where he stood, drew his attention. A few of the Bok looked up. All of the tigers did, heavy gold chains clinking with the movement, ears perked, thick whiskers pitching forward. Alert at this unusual, unexpected sound.
The far door to the roof was swinging open, loose on its hinges. A door that was as decorative as everything else in that posh penthouse, and which had never been used. It was an emergency exit, locked, now there it hung, cleanly, wide open as it finished its inward swing, framing a rectangle of darkness amid the gilded beauty, exposing a plain concrete stairwell beyond.
Now everyone was looking.
Someone was there. In the shadows. Then, stepping through that fresh anomaly, into the light, across the threshold, coming to a halt and an immediate stare-down with the entire room, a figure. Wearing armor, Hansel noticed. Dark, form-fitting armor. A sword handle rose above one shoulder.
It was a girl.
Her hair was pulled into a ponytail that left her entire, young face exposed, set with brilliant …
Yellow eyes.
He felt himself doing a double-take. Yes, yellow. Eyes like those of the tigers. Even from that range, dozens of yards across the giant room, they burned as if shining with a light of their own. Rolled up, partway into her head, chin down, boring into everyone—and everything—in there. All alone. No one else followed her into the light. No team came from the shadows, no group, no single other person with her. Such confidence in those eyes …
Hansel could scarcely believe it.
And yet, to that point, nothing spooked him. It was only now, as he recognized who it was, the girl from the pictures, the one they expected—Jessica—that the spike of fear shot through him and his guts spasmed.
Lorenzo was standing.
**
There were tigers. It was the first thing Jess noticed. Ranged around the room on long, heavy, gold chains, alert and sniffing the air, regarding her with predatory focus. In addition to all else she was trying to manage in that moment the tigers were, right from the outset, in danger of throwing her off. Badly. Before anything even got started she was about to lose her composure over the presence of an unexpected, wild variable she had not imagined and which she had absolutely no idea how to handle.
Why do they have tigers!
Lorenzo was standing.
She knew he must be shocked, though she also knew he must be expecting this moment—certainly having no idea when he would face it—and despite the fact that he’d probably meant to play it cool he’d already reacted by rising from his seat, so he had no choice but to follow through. He finished rising, rested his fingertips smoothly on the table and regained his poise. Like an executive at a meeting, standing at the head of the massive conference table, in charge. The boss.
“Welcome.” He looked past her to the open doorway. “Alone?” He seemed happy with that. “Your friend not with you?” Of course they would’ve been worried Zac would come. Lorenzo was smug.
He gave her a thin, almost pitying smile. “Or will he join us later?”
Let him be smug. Let him fake as much pity as he wanted. All of them. She wasn’t going to lie about Zac to make them nervous. She could say he was nearby, anything she wanted to make them believe, but that wasn’t how this would be played. No tricks. No ruses. No false props for her, no false hope for them. She was the one they needed to fear. Nothing, and no one, else.
This was her. This was them.
And this would be resolved tonight.
She looked around the room.
Lorenzo put one hand in his pocket, keeping the other on the table. “He’s been seen around, you know,” he said, still referencing Zac. Managing, in that action, to look less composed, not more. “I know people who will pay good money. For his head.” Subtly he shrugged. “If you’ve got any tips.”
Then:
The gall!
She took a few easy steps forward, stance ready, mind ready; everything, ready. At the edge of the raised section of floor, upon which sat the giant table, all the Bok seated around it, she stopped. Still twenty feet from the nearest, at least that far from the nearest cat. All eyes in the room, feline and human alike, locked to her.
“I predicted this,” Lorenzo kept talking, including the others in his statement. Desperate, of a sudden, to build agreement, to find the strength he felt was already slipping. The strength that was, truthfully, never there. “I told them you’d come. But this … this is foolish even for you.” He attempted a scoff that sounded more like a whimper.
Weak!
Her turn.
“If you’re going to call the Kel to come save you,” she chose her first words, “now would be the time.” Perfectly calculated, multiple effects achieved. Lorenzo, even if he was going to, must now certainly not involve the Kel. Far too much pride was at stake. And the fact that she would even suggest it … that must certainly drive his fear.
Silence. In the wake of her words, greater silence than seemed possible in that huge volume of space. Her voice had power. Not louder, not different, just … power. The attention of every living thing fell into the void of its passing.
Lorenzo managed a laugh. He looked around at the others.
Put his hands out to the sides. “Let’s just skip to the matter at hand. Shall we?”
“You tried to kill me!” she snapped, not moving; not really wanting to allow emotions into the equation so early but here they came. Anger. Fury. “Me. Zac. My family. You sold out the entire world for a place at the table. You failed me and ruined everything in the process. You’re failures!” She seethed. “Less than worthless! I hope you’ve been having fun with your little vampire club.” She got herself back on track. “Because the party’s over.”
Lorenzo kept up the amused look. “Come, come. Failures?”
The moment was on her. She took a second to assess the room, specifically the great cats. What the—?! Their presence threw off her whole plan. Why the hell were there tigers?! Big tigers. Six-hundred-pounders, easy. They were on display, well fed and lethargic, she could sense that much, but when shit got busy they were unlikely to just lay there. Their chains were long.
She needed to handle this now.
Directing her full attention to the animals, a dangerous moment of inattention on everything else, she took them in collectively, as one, three big pairs of yellow eyes settling directly on hers. Summoned. Waiting. Sensing her in the pause. Not unlike with Erius; the same in fact, and as she felt their awareness she imparted a command.
They got it.
They would avoid her.
And she was back to Lorenzo, eyes squarely on his. His expression betrayed his confusion. Somehow he knew what she was doing, setting the stage for what was to come, but exactly what she was doing escaped him and, as with everything else he could not fathom in that moment, nearly made him lose it. She could feel the tension within him, like the resonant sing of a piece of metal, something you could barely hear but which foretold of imminent failure.
Lorenzo was about to snap.
“We’ve grown more powerful,” he said, speaking when she failed to, holding it together a little longer. Unfortunately for him he kept thinking he could talk his way through this. “Soon we’ll take more than just this world.” He took a step back from the table and stood all the way straight, both hands ready at his sides and, at last, realized this was it.
Bravely he returned her steady stare.
“I hope you’re ready for what you walked into,” he said, voice icy and as real as it had been since she arrived.
She extended one foot slowly behind her.
“You have no idea.”
With a whip the sword was in her hand. Two mighty spins cut the air with a deadly whir and it was in her outstretched grip, over her head and pointed before her toward the floor. Now all of them were on their feet or rising as she passed her gaze across each, every Bok in the room, eyes level, stance ready but unmoving.
Confidence beyond reason.
“You’re the fools,” she said. “Hunting me, planning to make me your little prize.” She held her stance, blasting them with her presence, witnessing the cracks in their bravado. All the little cracks, opening to crevices, full-blown chasms, faces falling as their props fell away and they knew—knew, beyond question—they faced the ages. They faced the sum total of their failed past and it stood before them in the form of her and, to their horror, their time of reckoning had come.
“Well I’ve got news.”
She looked at the lot of them, sword out and down, stance completely unchanged.
Fearless.
“You’re not the ones doing the hunting.”
They came unstuck; began to ready themselves. Preparing for they knew not what but instinctively taking up position.
She turned her eyes to Lorenzo, probing, feeling the uncertainty shaking him harder each second, the internal struggle against mounting terror, continuing to wonder how worried he should be, what one girl could possibly hope to accomplish and just how much he should fear her.
Time to find out.
She whipped the sword through the air again and brought it back on point.
“Let’s bang.”
One of the Bok, the closest to her but still an easy twenty feet away—safe from a girl with a sword, or so he thought—snapped the spell that had fallen over them. He drew a gun, “Fuck this,” aimed and … recoiled as her sword severed his arm and she was in his face, blade coming around in one contiguous arc to finish at his neck. The scream that shocked his expression never made it to sound as his head tumbled away with his arm, throat-hole gurgling with the abbreviated effort.
&nb
sp; That fast.
She was in motion. The one to the left lost her head too—this was to be a fight, after all—the next closest managing to turn and run before the whirring blade caught him as well, hard across the neck just like the last. Three bodies tumbling, three heads rolling in those first instants and Jess reclaimed her stance, blade swinging in anticipation of its next target.
Yells were everywhere. She jumped into the air and threw out a hand, straight down at the massive conference table.
“HA!” force-bounced it, punching it into the floor with a shot of energy like a giant hammer and springing away; a stunner that sent the massive table cracking in half and over, two mighty chunks of wood; big, solid pieces, probably a ton apiece, flipping away from the force and onto the Bok standing aghast at the other side. Frozen, the assault far too abrupt, no one yet with any idea how to react. No one yet able to react. The sudden, dramatic threat got them moving but too slow and a few went down, pinned unceremoniously beneath the heavy table or knocked away. Crushed.
Faster. Landing she moved faster; leapt for the next closest Bok and the melee began. There’d been a dozen in the room when she entered; three were headless on the floor, five on the other side of the table had just been knocked down or crushed and she was onto the next.
Let them die. Lorenzo was the one she needed. Some small part of her had hoped to illicit a different response, maybe a bow to the threat of her presence before she was forced to act, but that was never really an option, was it? Violence.
That was always the way.
Lorenzo was yelling at the other end, moving back, shouting instructions. Hold her! We need her! She heard only pieces of his tirade as she pressed the attack. One of the Bok before her stumbled backward in the face of her furious onslaught, the ancient Kel sword whipping the air as the man frantically threw up force blasts to deflect her strikes—barely. Desperate to finish him, knowing the next attack was coming right behind, she saw he’d staggered close to one of the tigers, tight at the end of its heavy gold chain; straining away from them, ears pinned.
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 37
