“Didn’t care much at the time.” Lee’s throat clicked, her voice gluggy from the fluid slowly filling her lungs. “I was busy working with the tribes in S-S-South America. Until J-July. D-Dove a new cenote. Deep… deep, beautiful waterhole, never touched. Reached the bottom, got sucked in through a cave system into… into Eden. Found… found crystals, everywhere. Beautiful… so beautiful. All white, silver, pink. Picked one up… got hit with all this… all this shit.” She choked out a small, bitter laugh. “Too much knowing. Scared me into a r-religious experience. Went back to Dad, told him. I didn’t know he was wr-wrapped up with the V-Vigiles. J-Just thought maybe… maybe he was right. Fucker gave me to them.”
“To the Vigiles?”
“Yeah.” Lee’s eyes closed. “Gave me to these freaks. First round of torture, no luck. I dreamed of a woman in a tree. She spoke to me every night. Teaching me… reassuring me. Stopped the Vigiles freaks from getting in my head. One day, on transport, this little guy hijacked the truck. Took me somewhere in the f-forest. Leader called himself ‘Deacon’.”
“The Templum Voctus Sol,” I breathed.
“They had… this Tree down there with us. The Tree spoke like the woman in my head. She was so small. So sad. These men, they were evil. Blind, didn’t know they were evil.” Lee’s face rippled with momentary pain, and she grunted, shifting on the floor. “At war… with Vigiles. Spy told them I knew where the Shard was, so they asked me. Round two torturef-fest. Still didn’t say a d-damn fucking thing.”
A tree. A… MahTree? Kristen’s message had said something about a ‘MahTree’. At a loss, I took her hand in mine. “You’re stronger than me, then. The Deacon kicked my ass.”
“Hah.” The touch seemed to help. She shuddered and relaxed again. “A guy came to h-help me. Pretty boy. Said name was Zealot. Worked for ANSWER.”
“Answer to what?”
“Don’t know. It’s an acronym.” Lee swallowed, trying to clear her mouth. “I knew ‘em already. Big Dog, Norgay, they helped me in South America. ANSWER… helps the tribes. Weapons. Advice. Fight against corps, government.”
“Was ‘Zealot’ an Asian man?”
“Yeah. Let me free. Turned back for the T-Tree. D-don’t th-think he made it.”
Angkor. I looked down, stunned into silence. “I know him. He did make it… we—me and my friends—we rescued him from the Deacon.”
“Good. Vigiles picked me up again. I was stupid… hid for a while, slummed it. Went to a biker bar, talked to some bikers who s-said they’d take me to Mexico. Took me to the Vigiles instead.” Lee’s voice had lost its hard edge, softening as the life gradually drained from her. “Couple d-days ago.”
Bikers? I scowled, and was about to ask her if any of them had been named Otto when Lee reached up and grasped my wrist with a callused, strong hand.
“Zealot’s alive?” Lee asked.
“Yes,” I said. “He is.”
Her eyes were still closed. “Tell him from me. Seventeen. Thirty-seven. Zero Two point nine, north. Eighty... eighty-nine. Thirty-seven. Zero nine p-p... p-point two, west.”
A chill passed through me. Coordinates.
“You have to t-t-tell th-them.” She broke off into a weak, rumbling cough. The blood that bubbled at the corners of her mouth was bright red and frothy. “Tell them. The Garden. CIA wants it. To weaponize it. Tell them… ANSWER.”
Then it was true. There was a Shard of Eden here, on Earth. I tried to imagine someone like Agent Keen or the Deacon walking on that pure, silver soil, plunging their hands into it and turning it gray and leaden. In my mind’s eye, I saw it blacken at their touch, the fragile creatures that lived there recoiling from them, their bodies crushed by tractors and hard, black leather boots.
A tremble passed through my jaw, and after a moment’s consideration, I stood. I went to one of the windows, punched it, and brought back a thin shard of glass.
“Repeat those numbers,” I said.
Struggling for breath, Lee stammered out the coordinates a second time. I dutifully carved them into my arms, coding them along the way. I used the Glagolitic script, an ancient Slavic alphabet, substituting each number with its gematric letter association. I ended up with two lines of practically indecipherable code etched into my flesh. Lee’s face was ashen by the time I finished. Her eyes wandered over the runes.
“Tell Norgay... They have the Mother. I can hear her. She’s somewhere cold.” She whispered.
“I will.”
“Do you know... my father? What happened to him?”
“Dead,” I replied. “Someone killed him.”
She heaved with a racking, clogged-fluid sound, head lolling. “Good. F-fuck him. Fucking asshole... got me into this. Trusted him. He gave me to the c-cops. His... fucking... stupid... cult.”
“Listen, try and save your strength,” I said. “Try and relax. The round had to have missed anything serious for you to make this far. I might be able to stop the bleeding.”
Her eyelids cracked open, unfathomably dark in the gloom of the boat. Glassy, distant eyes. “Don’t lie. Doesn’t... suit a face... like yours. D-Don’t worry. Death’s... death’s okay.”
Lee’s eyes didn’t close again.
Some deaths, I could literally watch the soul slip its skin. It was like a ripple through water, or like the way that a TV’s faint discharge stopped prickling the air when it was unplugged. Some people died hard, others died soft. Lee had it soft. I kept the vigil during her final dive, holding her callused hand between my thin-skinned ones. It took a while. The process of dying isn’t as fast as the movies make it out to be.
Lee was a stranger to me, but in that one frantic hour, I’d felt the strength of her personality, her will, her… courage. She’d done something I never had. She’d fought for something: the cenotes, the forests, endangered species. For Eden. Things that could not even thank her for the work she did, and she’d done it anyway. And now, all that strength was gone. Her potential, the friendship we might have had, was gone. All because the Deutsche Orden wanted to use Eden as a weapon.
Once I was sure she was dead, I proofed Lee’s body against necromantic revival, cutting out her heart and tongue with the piece of glass I’d used earlier and throwing everything overboard. The boat was old. I had the mental strength for one more spell—the one that could set the dry interior timbers ablaze. The oil-soaked hulk exploded as I stole out of the ships’ graveyard. I swam doggedly across the Kill until I reached land, and began walking toward the lights of Staten Island’s suburbia. When I was far enough away to look back, I saw the helicopters circling the boats.
Grief sometimes felt a lot like disgust. Exhausted, wet, and filthy, I spat it out on the road, and limped off to find a ride back to the city.
Chapter 28
I ended up stealing a boat, not a car, and had my first go at navigating a watercraft in what had to be the worst weather possible. The storm that had started with the bug rain had not stopped and showed no sign of slowing down. After what felt like hours, I ran aground somewhere up the Rahway River, stumbled my way through a park thick with young beech and elm trees, and found an empty parking lot on the other side.
This was bonafide New Jersey suburbia: clean, pretty family homes, no fences, no fear of crime. I stuck to the trees, following the sound of traffic. Fumbling my way along in the dark and the rain, I avoided the houses and found a gap between the tall concrete fences separating the ‘burbs and the Turnpike. My heart lifted at the sight of it—cars slushing along in near blackout conditions, water pounding the asphalt. Somehow, I was going to make it… provided I avoided the toll booths.
I ended up borrowing a car from one of the quiet streets near the highway, but didn’t go out onto the toll road. Instead, I followed Route 9 all the way to Jersey City, twenty miles or so, and left the highway before reaching the Holland Tunnel. Even from a distance, I could see the red and blue flashing lights. My escape had triggered a full-scale manhunt.
The best way to
avoid getting caught would be to swim the mile across the Hudson, but I just couldn’t do it. Exhausted, half-starved, I’d burned out my remaining energy to just stay on the road and not run off into the grass on either side. Instead, I swung into a Target parking lot, curled up on the front seat of the car like a shrimp, and slept a black, heavy, troubled sleep. I startled myself awake every five minutes, spasming at the ghosts of explosions, guns going off, screams. It was still dark when I woke up, which was disorientating, because the parking lot was now full of cars.
When I finally opened my eyes, I took some time to fumble through the glove compartment, under the seats, and around the transmission to see what I could dig up. The glove compartment had a fistful of singles and coins—change for the tollway—and more scattered coins around on the floor. There was a sweater on the rear seat, black leather shoes, and a peacoat in the trunk that was slightly too small across my shoulders, but at least gave me something to wear besides my prison pajama pants. I found another twenty bucks in the coat.
I tied the coat off like a bathrobe, got out, and went to do some shopping. Food—I was delirious with hunger—a pair of discounted blue jeans, a pair of socks, and a razor. The Yen wanted beer, but we didn’t have the money for it and I was too tired to bother trying to steal a six-pack of something I hated. I shaved my head and eyebrows in the store bathroom, put the shades on, and headed for the train station with the last of my change jangling around in my pockets.
There were police at the station, but they didn’t give me a second glance as I blended in with those taller than me. I was alarmed to discover that it was close to seven p.m. when I ran into my first clock. I had no idea what day it was, how long I’d been sedated in the Vigiles’ holding cell, or whether I still had a home to go to. What I did know was that I had a car with all my things in it—wallet, gun, clothes—parked in an underground lot near an urgent care center not far from Hell’s Kitchen.
An hour later, I slunk through the rows of vehicles, trying not to look shifty as I approached my sedan and picked over it, searching for bugs or traps. When it turned up clean, I blew a short sigh of relief, broke in, and turned the engine. My things were still here, including Binah’s food dish. I didn’t have the keys, but that hadn’t ever stopped me before.
Every aching joint in my body was screaming the same thing, telling me to go home, get coffee, go to bed, get antibiotics, and heal the throbbing, hot wounds I’d taken: the punctures and scratches and bruises. I looked like a sick bird, panting and pale; I had a fever, shaking with the effort it took to turn my head and reverse the car out. But I was alive—and for now, free. If I wanted to stay that way, there’d be no return to Strange Kitty, no contact with the Twin Tigers, no going back home.
I drove to a Dominican bodega and bought up their stock of Ampitrex, the easiest antibiotic to find on the street. From a pharmacy, I got saline and peroxide, rubbing alcohol, and bandages. There was a clean scalpel in my first aid kit. Hidden down a dark street, I lanced the angry bullet puncture so I could clean out the pus and mud and pack the wound. There was a lot of both, but at least I’d had my shots at the beginning of the year. One of those other, unromantic details of hitman life – I always stayed on top of my vaccinations.
The miserable reality of my situation began to sink in as I worked. I was homeless, again. Without my cat—again. My final remaining possessions were at Strange Kitty, the last things I had, many of them irreplaceable. Photos of the Lovenkos, me and Vassily. My college photos, photos of my horse, the one or two pictures I had of my mother. Expensive, one-of-a-kind books— the Red Book first among them—and my personal grimoires. The Hammer. All of it was gone.
There was little point in pining. Keen wasn’t stupid, and he’d made a career out of catching spooks like me. He’d have my things under watch, and as it stood, I’d already put the Tigers at risk. If the Vigiles caught me, I wasn’t going to escape a second time. They’d mine Jenner’s secrets from me, or Talya’s. GOD, Talya wouldn’t survive prison. No. It wasn’t worth it. Precious as my things were, they were just things. And if I played it right, there was a way I could get them back, AND help the Tigers scatter before the net closed in.
I ended up wandering back into Manhattan, where I found a payphone not too far from the place where I’d busked tarot readings for money in August. I dialed the phone number for the club. No one answered the first couple of times, but the third time, Ron picked up. “Strange Kitty, whozzat?”
“Ron. It’s Rex. Is-?”
“You listen to me, you fuck.” Ron didn’t let me get another word in, dropping his voice. “Jenner says you’re out. You stood us up last night, and now the place is fucking crawling with cops because of you. You’re an SOS now, okay? Shoot on Sight. You got that?”
“I want my stuff,” I snapped. “Arrange a dead-drop.”
“It’s gone. They took your fuckin’ cat, everything. Now scram.”
“Ron, listen to me-!”
He hung up, leaving the phone buzzing in my hand.
I slammed it back into the cradle and leaned against the glass, battling down the wave of rage that threatened to drown me and send me out onto the street swinging at the first person to cross my path. Ron was lying. I knew he was lying. I wasn’t going to get the chance to prove he was lying his fat fucking ass off.
“Piece of dog shit!” I snarled in Ukrainian, punched the side of the telephone booth, and stomped back out to the car. I climbed in, slammed the door, and got back on the road to... wherever the fuck I was going to sleep tonight.
Caught unawares, again. Homeless, again. Rage vibrated through my fingers, made them clench around the wheel so tightly it creaked. It took a few minutes to let the fury blow over, to simmer down, turn cold, and purify. Objectively, it wasn’t as bad as last time. I had my wallet, a gun, some medical supplies, a change of clothes, some burner credit cards under IDs the Vigiles still didn’t know about, cash they couldn’t trace. Last time, I’d had nothing at all. I needed to calm the fuck down and think.
The cops would be looking for this car, so the first thing I needed to do was change rides. Then I needed to find a way talk to one of the other Tigers—Jenner, Zane, or Talya. But first, I needed to speak with the Deacon.
Chapter 29
The ruined church Glory had directed me to swelled out of the ground like a giant’s ribcage, surrounded by shattered piles of scorched rubble. The ceiling was intact, but the walls were crumbled down around the thick pillars and iron frames that held it up. As I got out of my car, I noticed the rain was being replaced by snow.
The Deacon looked much how he had when I’d caught him and his merry men about to fuck and murder Angkor on an altar. He wore a clean but ragged robe that was a deeper shade of black-violet than the night outside. His hands were gloved, but thin and elegant. His face was nothing but a long, flat mask. It was the color of old bone, with three asymmetrical black slashes where eyes and mouth should have been: a mockery of a human face. He was waiting for me on the raised dais where the altar had been, standing beneath the frame of the church’s rose window. It was now nothing more than a gaping hole in the wall.
“I hoped you’d come. And right on time, too,” he said, once I was within easy earshot. His voice was level, well-educated and calm. “Did my herald advise you of my offer of parley?”
“He did.” I came to a stop around ten feet away. "So now I’m here, and if I don’t hear anything I like within a minute, I’m leaving. Parley away."
“A minute will not convey much. You can relax. Tonight, at least, I would speak to you as one of the Wise to a fellow magus.”
With Lee’s glassy stare burned into my memory and the location of the Shard carved into my arm, I wasn’t much in the mood to parley with a child-murdering rapist, but enemies were sometimes better resources than friends. “Then speak.”
The Deacon tilted his head at an angle and stared down at me. “The fall of human flesh over Wall Street and the rain of Philimites a few d
ays ago. I don’t know if you’ve followed the news since it happened, but the CIA—and therefore the Government—have declared that the former occurred due to an upper-atmosphere incident with a Chinese jetliner. I know for a fact this is false. The cause of the rain is known to me.”
That gave me some pause. After a quick glance back over my shoulder, I folded my arms and waited.
"They were members of a cult in Eastern Siberia and the Korean peninsula," the Deacon continued. "They called themselves Odaeyang, or the Salvation Sect. Every member of their order was killed in what appeared to be a mass suicide. Their remains were sucked up by their ritual working and teleported to the Financial District of New York City. A well-staged dramatic incident, to be sure, and a pointing finger to those of us who know how to read these signs. Surely the intention of Mrs. Soong-mi."
South Korean? A nasty hint of suspicion curled through me, quickly crushed. "And the main event was…?"
“The transportation of an artifact from the West Coast to New York City,” he said. “By Deutsche Orden operatives in the Vigiles Magicarum.”
The Tree? “What artifact? Do you know?”
“I don’t think that information is relevant to this discussion.”
“I do,” I replied, as inspiration suddenly struck a match and lit a deep, slow burn in the pit of my gut. “And I’m willing to trade information, quid pro quo.”
“And what do you think you could possibly offer me?” The Deacon tilted his head to the side.
“The Organizatsiya, and Sergei.” I kept my voice and expression level, but couldn’t suppress a small, savage thrill of pleasure. “He screwed you over.”
The Deacon didn’t have facial expressions to distract me, so I could often read him better than most people. Without his saying anything, I knew he was interested.
“I’ll give you names, locations, operational capacity, weapons, known businesses, their contacts. Accounts, dead-drop locations. A graveyard full of bodies. And if what you say is good enough, there might be more.”
Zero Sum: An Alexi Sokolsky Supernatural Thriller (Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden Book 3) Page 25
