Lies of the Prophet

by Ike Hamill

  “We have to go,” said Lynne. “It’s the cops.”

  “And leave her? What if she’s got information?”

  “We’re not getting anything out of her. Let’s go,” said Lynne. She grabbed Jenko’s bag.

  Carol considered for a second, but another bang from the front got her moving. The women hunched through the back hall, across the kitchen, and through the back yard. Jenko’s privacy fence kept them hidden from the neighbors. They found a back gate and slipped through to an alley. To the right they found big hedges for excellent cover. One of the yards on the left didn’t have any fence and the thoroughfare past the small house looked well-traveled and anonymous. The women moved fast, but tried to look casual. Lynne’s cat bounded alongside.

  On the sidewalk they moved side-by-side at a good pace.

  Carol started trotting.

  “Hey,” said Lynne. “Wait up.”

  “Come on,” said Carol.

  Lynne caught her at the bus stop. The driver pushed the door back open to accommodate them.

  “Good idea,” said Lynne. “Where does it go?”

  “I don’t know,” said Carol. “But I saw your doppleganger riding and figured it must be the right bus.”

  “My what?”

  “You’re on this bus,” Carol said to Lynne.

  “Stand there for a second,” said Lynne.

  Carol positioned herself in the door but stopped at the bottom step. Behind her, shielded from the driver, Lynne crouched and opened Jenko’s bag. It was heavy, but the black bag was pretty big. Domitius knew what to do. When Lynne opened the bag, he jumped inside. She closed it carefully and followed Carol into the bus carrying the black bag with both hands.

  The driver shot her a look and waited for Carol to put money in the slot before he pulled away from the curb.

  Chapter 17

  Marta Hunts

  “TICKET?” ASKED THE YOUNG MAN. He hadn’t asked any of the people in front of Marta. She looked at his face to try to find a reason he’d chosen to address her. Marta flipped back the edge of her cape and pulled the thick ticket from her pocket. The corners of the cape had small weights sewn in so they would hang, and flip, correctly. The weight clanked against the line-rope stand when the cape fell back into place. The clang caught the man’s eye as Marta held out her ticket.

  “Can I show you to your seat?” asked a tall man who approached from the left just as Marta moved past the ticket guy.

  “I’m fine, I’m sure,” said Marta.

  “Please, allow me. I can show you through here,” said the man. He pointed Marta towards a door marked “VIPs Only.” She wasn’t fooled by the moniker. She’d expected that they would be waiting for her, but she had no idea why Gregory would already be concerned about her.

  Instead of making an immediate scene, Marta moved with the tall man through the VIP door.

  “Why am I getting the VIP treatment?” asked Marta. “I just had a normal ticket. I couldn’t afford any VIP thing—it was two week’s pay just for the cheap seats.”

  “We just like to make sure everyone feels taken care of properly at one of Gregory’s exclusive events,” said the tall man. He followed her very closely down the hallway—his feet easily falling in time with her steps.

  “That’s a lovely lie,” said Marta. “But I can find my way from here.”

  The tall man stretched out on his toes as Marta kept walking. He looked like a clumsy ballerina for a second and then crashed to the ground, dead. Marta kept moving—she felt all-powerful, like she could stop the sun from shining if she needed to. The next door she came to was unlabeled, but it led through a small room and then to the back of the auditorium. Marta returned to her hall—she wanted easy access, not a room full of fanatics. She pulled her hood tighter around her forehead.

  Hunger rumbled in her stomach. She had discovered it was easier to work when she felt empty.

  Heavy footfalls came from around the corner—she heard them at the same time that she felt their presence. Three men, big, raced towards her. When the they reached the corner, just before they came into view, the first went down. His legs stopped mid-stride, and his momentum carried him forward—a tumbling rag-doll. His arm cleared the corner, and Marta stopped when she saw it. The guard directly behind him, unable to stop, attempted to leap. His heart stopped while he was in the air. His eyes registered the approaching collision to his dying brain. When his foot caught on the dead man, the second guard began to tumble. His forehead hit the tile first, and his arm flopped up behind his back.

  The third guard tried to twist away from the wreck of bodies and died lying flat on the tile with his face to the wall.

  Marta turned the corner, stepping carefully over the guards, guns, and batons that littered the floor.

  She could feel the others, hunched in the room ahead, waiting for her to come through the door. They were watching her from some hidden camera. Waiting with weapons drawn as they looked at her reach out to grasp the door handle. Marta dropped them all from the other side of the door.

  The security room had two panels with a dozen monitors showing every angle of the venue. Most of the flipping views displayed the rivers of people making their way through the concourse to the corridors and aisles. A few locked screens showed the access hall she had walked through and the dead guards she had left behind. Marta studied the switches and panels until she had everything set up the way she wanted. It wasn’t difficult. The systems were designed so that a minimally-trained security person could figure out how to work them from the simple labels next to each control. On the left, Marta raised all the views she could find of her immediate surroundings. On the right, she lined up the best shots of backstage and the landing pad on the roof, where Gregory’s helicopter would come in.

  Nothing happened for several minutes. Seats filled; more guards worked the floor. A light flashed and Marta traced it down to a headset jack. She donned the headset.

  “Falcon one to Snow Cap—we’re out fifteen,” spoke a voice with drawling confidence.

  “Snow Cap to Falcon—confirmed. Snow Cap to Barricade, we’re in fifteen, can you give me final auth on incoming?” asked another voice. This person sounded efficient and orderly. His tone said right away that he would accept no bullshit.

  There was no answer.

  Marta realized with dawning horror that she sat in the dead ruins of the base they’d named “Barricade.”

  “Snow Cap to Barricade, do you copy?”

  Marta took a deep breath and keyed her microphone—“Barricade to Snow Cap, we copy. All is confirmed,” she said. She tried to mimic Falcon’s easy assurance, and thought she did a pretty good job.

  “Snow Cap to Barricade—we’re looking for final authorization for Falcon. Please provide proper handshake,” said the by-the-book voice.

  “Barricade to Snow Cap—we are all clear. Go ahead,” said Marta. She hoped to bluff, but that hope evaporated quickly in the silence that followed her transmission. On one monitor she saw a clump of guards having a conversation in the corner of the auditorium. They turned as a group and moved off with purpose.

  “Snow Cap to Falcon—scramble on no-auth,” said the man.

  “Copy that, Snow Cap,” said the pilot. “We’re on full scramble.”

  “Shit,” said Marta under her breath. She reached out to feel the pilot or any of the passengers, but she couldn’t sense anything except the giant mass of people sitting in front of the big stage. They’d all come for a chance to see someone immortal, and now Marta kept their mortality just outside of her mental fist. Gregory couldn’t be reached, but she could take out her frustrations on a legion of his followers. She fought the urge. She didn’t want to tire herself out just yet.

  Her closest display showed a contingent of guards starting down one of the hallways that led to her location. Marta waited for the door to swing shut behind them, and for the lead man to get within a few feet of her door, before she snuffed them. They collapsed In a big pile of use
less muscle. Marta flipped her hood back up and began her own retreat.

  Traffic was light—only late stragglers were on the road and Marta was going the opposite direction from them, so she escaped the city fairly easily. There were so many hotels around, she hadn’t bothered to book a place to stay. She wanted to get a decent distance before stopping. The rental car reached speed easily on the highway. Marta found a news station on the radio for company. They’d already picked up the story of how Gregory had cancelled his event that evening. The organizers didn’t have any comment.

  Nobody talked yet about mysterious deaths at the gathering. She suspected that it never would get wide coverage. Gregory’s people somehow always managed to keep bad news out of the mainstream press, leaving the brave independent news outlets looking like crackpots.

  Marta gradually became aware of the presence behind her. She couldn’t read minds or know what anyone was thinking, but she did have a general sense when someone was following her, or hunting her. Her speed nosed above eighty—she wanted to know for sure. The pursuers kept pace. They stayed far enough back that she could barely see their headlights in the rearview mirrors; though they were close enough that she could reach them with her empathy. Marta puzzled over this as the miles ticked away—how did they know to follow her, and how did they manage to do it at such a distance?

  Her eyes were tired, and she was coming up on the last suburban town before a big stretch of countryside. She would need to pick her hotel soon. Marta reached back with her senses and her heart and swatted away the pursuers. The three people in the car—they were too far away for Marta to know if they were men or women—died instantly, too far back for Marta to even know what happened to their car. Within a few moments, another group appeared, slightly farther away—at the edges of her senses.

  Marta leaned way forward and studied the sky. Her only guess was that they were somehow tracking her from above and communicating with teams on the road. If they were up there, she couldn’t see them.

  She jammed on her brakes to test the theory. On the shoulder of the highway, she leaned back in her seat and sensed the other driver. If he’d kept going, if he’d appeared in her rearview and continued past her, she could have been fooled. Instead, he pulled over and stopped on the other side of a big hill a couple miles back. She considered her options—she had nothing but a working theory that they were spying on her from the sky and communicating with chase teams on the ground. Either that or her rental car had some kid of transmitter that communicated her location.

  An inspiration hit and she realized that the first idea was the easiest to test. She eased the rental car off the shoulder of the highway and accelerated back onto the travel lane. She kept her speed to forty, noting that her chase-vehicle mirrored her speed, although after a noticeable lag. It didn’t pull out at exactly the same moment she did, it took several seconds before starting out. She found the perfect test a couple of miles down the road. Marta checked her mirrors and then slowed further to use the emergency turn-around to switch to the east-bound lanes of the highway.

  A full minute after reversing her direction, Marta passed he pursuers. At their closest point, she winked out their lives. She found one more carful of attentive souls trailing a couple miles behind that. They were exiting the highway when she came across them. Marta waited again, until they were as close as possible, and blinked them away. The thought crossed her mind again—how certain was she, really, that these people were actually following her? But, in the end she knew she couldn’t be too careful. Her mission was important enough to demand a few friendly casualties, if that’s what it took.

  She felt clear. She couldn’t sense anyone in her radius that seemed like they were paying any attention to her at all. No peering eyes or thoughts set off her mental alarms. She still had one more step, just to be sure. She almost missed the exit; she had to slow way down and cross over the solid lines to get back on track. Her mind had been elsewhere, probing, trying to expand her perception, and looking for anyone following her. At the end of the ramp, she merged with sparse traffic. Signs everywhere marked her different options for arriving and departing. This was the one place she could think of where nobody could pursue her from the skies. She was no expert, but figured that the airspace around the airport would be strictly regulated. If she still had people chasing her after coming here, she would have to consider the idea that they’d somehow gotten a transmitter into her car.

  Marta decided not to take the chance. As long as she was here, she might as well return the rental and find some other way to get back to the city. It was easy. They didn’t even ask why she was returning the vehicle early. When she’d finished that chore, she simply fell in behind a well-dressed man who took the shuttle to the parking area. She followed him, dragging her own bag from her rental’s trunk, and pretended that she was looking for her car in the huge parking garage. Her mark moved with confidence; he knew exactly where to go.

  She stopped and waited for him to unlock his SUV, put his bag in the back, and then move around to the driver’s door. Her mind moved with delicate precision to take him down so his body would fall away from the car. She strode up, put her bag in the back of the vehicle, and stopped. She bent at his warm corpse, and grabbed his keys and wallet. She backed out and left the man in the shadow of the adjacent car. His parking ticket wasn’t under the visor, but as she waited to pull up to the booth, she found it in his wallet. She paid with his cash.

  Back on the highway she sensed no pursuit—she finally felt anonymous again.

  Her day had been unsuccessful. She would have to make another attempt at Gregory. Next time he would be even more prepared for the attack. But Marta had learned something too. She’d figured out how they could track her.

  Chapter 18

  Carol and Lynne

  CAROL TOUCHED LYNNE’S ARM and signaled her to stop. On the ground between them, Domitius stopped as well. Carol could see Billy’s house through the woods. She remembered the Striker; remembered being circled in the back yard by the thing that had taken over Billy’s body. She figured it was unlikely that the Striker had returned, but she felt unnerved to be here without Jenko. He seemed to know what to do when confronted with that type of situation. Lynne had a cool head, but she knew even less than Carol.

  Earlier that day, Carol would have thought it impossible that they would ever be able to find Billy’s house again. It had turned out to be pretty simple. The bus they’d boarded had delivered them right to the same bar where Carol had found Jenko drinking. Jenko’s friend Jerky had been right at the same table. He knew nothing, but the bartender helped them track down the cab company. From there, it didn’t take much prompting to find the right driver. With a generous tip from Jerky, the driver was persuaded to bring them to the same spot on the same road.

  The rest was dumb luck and good memory. Carol stumbled around a bit more than Jenko had, but she found Billy’s house in the woods.

  “That’s it?” asked Lynne.

  “Yeah,” said Carol. “Keep it down.”

  “Why?” whispered Lynne.

  “Billy doesn’t like unexpected guests,” said Carol. “At least that’s what Jenko said.”

  “Well we didn’t come all the way out here to turn back now,” said Lynne. She tromped through the woods, keeping a margin of trees between herself and Billy’s yard, and circled towards his driveway. Carol jogged behind her to catch up. They came out of the woods onto Billy’s gravel driveway. The house looked closed up and uninviting.

  “Billy?” Lynne called as she walked up his drive.

  Carol walked alongside her.

  A window to the right of the front door opened a few inches and the two women stopped.

  “Go away,” yelled Billy.

  “We’ve got to ask you some questions,” said Lynne. “Jenko sent us.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” said Billy. “Bud’s gone, and I know you know that. You two are screwing around with some really dangerous shit, and I
don’t want any part of it. I don’t owe you anything.”

  “You’ve got to help us get back at the people who are responsible for Jenko’s death,” said Lynne. She moved forward towards the house. Carol held her ground.

  “They weren’t people,” said Billy. “I know what killed Jenko. It was that thing that you invited into my body.”

  “I didn’t invite anything,” said Carol.

  “I’ve found some things out since you left, Carol. You duped me, and it’s not going to happen again,” said Billy.

  “Look,” said Lynne. She walked forward even closer and lowered her voice. Carol had a hard time hearing here from where she stood. “We’re in a lot of trouble. There are people hunting us, and we’ve got this little Changeling bitch making everything miserable. Now the cops are on our ass too.”

  “Those weren’t cops,” said Billy. “You’re having a hard time putting this all together, aren’t you? I can make one thing perfectly clear—I’m not going to help you. Now get out of my yard before I make things even worse for you and your friend.”

  Carol had crept closer, just so she could hear. Now she tugged at Lynne’s shirt.

  “He’s not going to help us,” said Carol.

  “What choice do we have?” asked Lynne. “We have no idea what the hell is going on. If he won’t give us any answers, where are we going to turn?”

  “Why don’t we go back to Veyermin?” asked Carol. “They hired you, maybe they’ll help us out. Or at least we might be able to find something out about what’s going on.”

  “Oh, Jesus, don’t do that,” said Billy from his window. “Those people don’t know anything except how to line their own pockets.”

  “We don’t have any other choice,” said Lynne.

  “Billy, I didn’t mean to invite anything in,” said Carol. “Can’t you just tell us what you know? You’ve obviously already got some information. Can’t you just fill us in on that? We want to figure out the right thing to do, but at the moment we don’t even know what’s going on.”