Primordial (Lilitu Trilogy Book 2)

by Toby Tate

  He knew that the people he would be dealing with were ruthless, but then, so was he. There wasn’t much they could do that would frighten him. He had seen things, hell, had done things that would make most people cringe. The world was a dangerous place, and sometimes dangerous games had to be played, especially if you wanted to get ahead in a big way. It was all about risk.

  He set the drink down on the bar and checked the clock—eight-thirty p.m. Another hour and he would be meeting his contact. He had made sure every call was untraceable, every meeting clandestine. He had frequently worn disguises and driven long, complicated routes to make sure he wasn’t being followed. It wasn’t that he was paranoid; it’s just that he was careful. There was a difference, although a subtle one—paranoia tended to make one psychotic after a while.

  He felt a little guilty about lying to that woman, the other CIA operative, but this was just too big for him to pass up. He had set up the entire operation, was her “inside” man. He pretended to pay her back for favors she had done him in the past, and had in fact kept his end of the deal. Mostly. She completed her objective, which was to kill that big, hulking beast they had been studying in a research lab for the past few months. The fact that she wanted him to go a step further, to accomplish one additional task, was just more than he was willing to do. But he had kept that secret to himself. What she didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt her.

  He took another sip of wine, ran a hand over his unruly hair, grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. It was time. If things went the way he hoped they did, he would be coming back home a rich man. Powers grabbed the keys to his BMW and made his way out to the garage, whistling the melody from Bach’s Fur Elise as he walked.

  II.

  The seedy hotel on the outskirts of DC was the perfect place to meet his clients—the hotel owner was a friend of his, a contact from one of his earlier witness protection ops. Powers had wired the room in case anything went bad, and even though he would be dead and considered a traitor, at least the agency would know who had killed him. He had also placed information about their dealings in safe deposit boxes in several different locations—the who, what, where, when, and why—with instructions to open the boxes upon his death. Just a little insurance, in case his “friends” decided to renege on their bargain.

  He eyed the “package” which lay sprawled out on the bed, in a deep state of sleep caused by heavy sedation. By all appearances, it was a boy of about twelve, but looks were deceiving. He felt a little weird about bringing him inside, but he couldn’t leave him outside. He made sure to get a room on the back side of the hotel, where he wouldn’t be seen from the road, or by the other occupants. Business was a little slow, so luckily, there weren’t many people renting rooms at the moment. He had also made sure his friend’s surveillance cameras were temporarily shut down for “maintenance” while he was here making his little transaction.

  He checked himself out in the hotel room mirror, eyeing the brown mop of hair that still grew thick where most men were going bald, and thought that he looked like he could probably use a little more sleep. He sat in one of the hotel room chairs and checked the messages on his iPhone. Nothing so far. They would probably be at the room any minute.

  He reached down into his ankle holster and grabbed the small Beretta PX4 Storm 9mm pistol, checked the clip, and then slid it back, pulling the leg of his blue jeans over it. You could never be too careful. The room was suddenly bathed in light from an approaching automobile, and he knew they had arrived.

  Powers closed his eyes and waited, and seconds later came a knock on the door. He stood and unlocked the deadbolt, pulled off the chain and swung the door open. Three dark-skinned men stood looking at him, their faces grim and unreadable. They all wore dark colored casual clothes. He was sure that two of them were probably former Saudi Special Forces hired as bodyguards. The man in front was holding a briefcase and was likely a scientist working for the military. All he knew was that they had been the highest bidders. And why not sell to them? The US had been supplying the Saudis with arms for fifty years. They were, after all, our allies.

  Without a word, he ushered them into the room and closed the door. The two bodyguards glanced around the room, taking in everything. There was no chance of them spotting the microphones or camera he had hidden in the vent, but he knew that they probably knew this transaction was being recorded. He had also told their leader, who went by the name of Muhammad, about his safe deposit boxes, just so there was no mistake that he held all the cards.

  The man with the briefcase nodded toward the bed. “Is that him?” he asked in a thick Saudi accent.

  Powers nodded. He walked to the hotel room desk and opened the top drawer, pulled out two leather cases, each about the size of a hardcover book, and then held them up for the Saudi to see.

  “This case holds twelve ten milligram vials of Immobilon, a mix of etorphine and acepromazine maleate…”

  The man’s brows shot up. “You’re giving him animal tranquilizers?”

  “Hey, do I look like a doctor to you? All I know is you need to keep him pumped full of this stuff until you get him where he’s going. Otherwise, you’ll have some serious problems on your hands, trust me. The other case has the Revivon antidote, diprenorphine. Give him about one milligram of the Immobilin every few hours.”

  “One milligram?”

  “Look, you’re not dealing with a normal human here. He doesn’t look like much, but he’s strong enough to toss all four of us around like crash test dummies. Make sure you keep him sedated and behind bars with enough tensile strength to hold a gorilla. Otherwise, good luck.”

  The scientist shrugged and walked to the bed, then opened the briefcase and put the cases of vials inside while the two bodyguards looked on stoically. He snapped the case shut and gazed at the sleeping boy. He was dressed in blue jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of Adidas sneakers. He had blonde hair and perfect, Nordic features, just like his mother. He could have been any kid from anywhere in the US or Europe. But he was much more than that—he was the first of a new species.

  “What did you say his age was?”

  “He was born, or whatever you want to call it, about four months ago.”

  “And he’s grown to this size in that amount of time? Astounding.”

  “In six months, he’ll be the size of a full-grown man.”

  “What about his intelligence?”

  “Not measurable.”

  The Saudi scientist cocked an eye at him. “What do you mean?”

  “No one has ever seen an IQ as high as his. There are other things—he seems to be able to see through solid objects, and can read human thoughts.”

  “Can he speak?”

  “He can, but his vocabulary is limited so far. He only learned to speak English a couple of weeks ago. He learns faster than they could even teach him, usually after only hearing or seeing something once. He definitely has a photographic memory. But like I said, I’m not a doctor, and he doesn’t come with an instruction manual.”

  The Saudi reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, and then hit speed dial.

  “We have the package,” Powers heard him say in Najdi Arabic. “You may wire the transfer.”

  Powers grabbed his own phone and thumbed it on. He opened his PocketMoney app and checked his account deposits. After a few seconds of waiting, he saw the numbers change—he was looking at four deposits of ten million dollars each. Bingo.

  He thumbed the phone off and smiled at the Saudi. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. He’s all yours.”

  The man waved his companions over and they grabbed the boy, one by the hands, one by the feet and hoisted him into the air. He opened the front door and held it as they whisked him outside and into the back of a black Chevy Tahoe with tinted windows. The Saudi scientist grabbed the briefcase off the bed and pulled the keys from his pocket, started the engine with the push of a button and stepped outside without a word as Powers pushed the door shut b
ehind him.

  Holy shit. He had just made forty million dollars, tax free, without even blinking an eye. Then why the hell didn’t he feel like jumping up and down and screaming like a little girl?

  He turned from the door and took a seat in the chair, thumbing his phone back on, checking and re-checking his banking app. There it was. It wasn’t a dream. He had really done it. He was rich, finally in the upper one percent.

  So why did he felt like shit?

  This is a hell of a time to grow a conscience, Gordon.

  He thought about the implications of what he had just done. The son of Lilith, a beast that theoretically should not exist, was now in the hands of a country known to produce terrorists hostile to the United States.

  But they are also our allies—don’t forget that.

  Besides, as far as everyone knew, the boy had been destroyed. That had been Powers’s job—to get rid of the boy and leave no trace, just as he had promised Gabrielle Lincoln he would do. He had given her access to the research facility, staged the biohazard contamination alert, clearing all personnel from the area. His job was to take care of the boy, who was in another part of the facility. But instead, he took the boy home.

  Powers sat for a few moments thinking, staring into space.

  Well, it was done now, and it couldn’t be undone. Time to go enjoy all that money.

  He stood from the chair, jammed the cell phone back into his pocket, and then headed out the door and into the night.

  About the Author

  Toby has been a writer since about the age of 12. Inexplicably drawn to all things dark and macabre, he began penning short stories and publishing his own movie monster magazine.

  An Air Force brat who never lived in one place more than five years, Toby joined the Navy soon after high school and ended up on the east coast of the U.S. He has since worked as a cab driver, a pizza delivery man, a phone solicitor, a shipyard technician, a government contractor, a retail music salesman, a bookseller, a cell phone salesman and a recording studio engineer.

  After earning his English degree, he became a full-time graphic designer and newspaper reporter for five years and published hundreds of stories with the Associated Press and his local paper. He has since been published in The Pedestal Magazine, Voluted Tales magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Scary Monsters Magazine, and websites like eHow.com.

  Owing to the inspiration of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King, Toby became an author of what he likes to call "high-octane sci-fi, fantasy and horror" and has published several books.

  Toby is also a songwriter and musician and lives with his family near the Great Dismal Swamp in northeastern North Carolina.