Angel Descended (The Awakened Book 6)

by Matthew S. Cox

  How can I tell him I’ve been asked to do a hit for the Syndicate? Much less on a cop. Kate picked at a deeper carving where Juanita and Lucinda swore their eternal love for each other. How long ago had that happened? The table could’ve predated the war given its condition; the two lovers may well have been centuries dead.

  David startled her out of her daydreams by setting a glass of orange liquid in front of her. She looked up and smiled before the pungent sourness of alcoholic citrus assaulted her nose.

  “It was either that or the ‘rust water,’ which I assume to be their version of beer. Figured I’d err on the side of caution.” He sat.

  Kate sipped enough to get the taste on her tongue. Fizziness carried a war of sweet and bitter, tinged with more than a little alcoholic burn. “Wow, this stuff…”

  “Yeah, we’d better pace ourselves.” He took a sip larger than hers and grimaced as it went down.

  The crack of pool balls breaking and scattering around a table in the back made her jump.

  “Okay, it’s been days. What’s wrong?” David gave her that imploring look she found so irresistible—somewhere between begging puppy and dashing pirate.

  She stared at the fizz bursting on the surface of her drink, knowing she couldn’t lie to him. He’d sense it. Deception had never been her strong suit. Fire fixed her problems more easily. Unlike lies, she didn’t have to remember ash piles. “I still feel lost. I can’t stop thinking about when you found me. Two seconds later, and…”

  “Is that where all that guilt’s coming from?” He let off a faint sigh. “Kate, you don’t need to be with me as some kind of ‘thanks.’ If you’re not—”

  “No.” She reached across the table to take his hand. “No, no. It’s not like that. I’m not with you out of some guilt thing. I—”

  “That Esteban fellow?”

  “No.” Kate laughed. “That was desperation. Twenty-five years old and I’d never been touched. I don’t mean touched. I mean anything… holding hands, someone grabbing my ass, kissed. I feel different about you, David. I want it to be perfect.”

  “Take your time.” He squeezed her hand, smiling. “You are worth waiting for.”

  “Hah.” She laughed. “I’m as broken and fucked up as they get.”

  His face twisted into a doubting smirk.

  “I’m afraid of chasing you off.” More guilt.

  “So what’s bothering you then?”

  Kate took a mouthful of the pulpy concoction, coughing from the sensation of so much at once. “Maybe after two more of these, I’ll be able to enjoy it.” She thumped herself on the chest and coughed again, eyes watering.

  “Aye,” said a sixtyish woman in a flannel dress. “Takes getting used to.”

  I’ve been alone for so long. Everyone who’s ever tried to help me has always just wanted something. She stared into David’s brown eyes. What’ll I do then? Kill a cop and hope the man’s as dirty as El Tío says? “I told you about my past.”

  David’s expression hardened, as if bracing for bad news. “You did.”

  “Paul found me at a Cyberburger. I must’ve been a sight. Fifteen, naked, stuffing my face with hamburger meat like some feral creature. They saw me roast the manager.”

  “You had a perfect mixture of innocent appearance and lethal ability.”

  “Yeah, something like that. They wanted me to kill for them, figuring half the time I could get in as an underage sex toy. It didn’t take long for them to figure out why that wouldn’t work, so I just did it the old-fashioned way.”

  He sipped his drink. “I can’t say I’m happy about what you had to do, but you were a child being exploited by someone in a position of trust… sort of. This El Tío assumed a quasi-parental role over you, and you had a strong need to please him. Perhaps you were afraid if you upset him, he’d cast you out.”

  Kate held her glass with both hands on the table, spinning it in a series of quarter turns with her thumb. “At first. When I got a little older, I was afraid he’d kill me if I didn’t do what he wanted. I’d seen him get angry at those who he felt betrayed his trust.” She looked up, forcing herself to make eye contact. “I… wasn’t all truthful with you before.”

  David summoned his best ‘it’s okay’ face.

  “When you first interviewed me, I said everyone I killed had been dirty. That wasn’t completely true. Two of the people hadn’t done anything other than want to change employers. Though, both did steal secrets when they left. One was a geneticist. His begging didn’t bother me at the time.” She shifted her jaw, avoiding eye contact with David. “I saw him like one of the bastards who created me.”

  “How do you feel about it now?”

  “I wish I’d stayed in the wilds and never come to the city. After I woke up here, after Althea did whatever she did to ‘fix’ me, all the guilt hit me at once.” Kate’s eyes watered, though she resisted the urge to weep. “I wasn’t on the outside anymore. I didn’t destroy everything I touched.”

  Her gaze fell into her lap. David scooted around the table, pulling a chair with him so he could sit next to her. She leaned on him, shuddering with the battle to keep her composure. His arms holding her felt wonderful.

  After a moment, he leaned closer and touched heads. “You’re supposed to feel better now. Your guilt is getting stronger.”

  What if he decides to turn me in if I tell him? She shied away to the right, no longer able to hold back the tears as she saw the look on his face. “I-I can’t get away.”

  “What?”

  “He called me. El Tío. He wants me to do another favor for him.” She shivered. The truth hovered at the tip of her tongue like a venomous kiss. Her voice dropped to a weak whisper. “The job’s on a cop. A Zero.”

  His arms tightened around her. “You should’ve said something sooner. When we get back to the city, we can file a report and Div 9 will take care of it.”

  “You mean kill him.”

  He seemed less than thrilled about the idea, but nodded.

  “But…”

  “If he cared about you, he wouldn’t have put you in this position. Any sense of loyalty you have to that man is misplaced.”

  “How is Division 9 killing him any different than what he had me do for him? Besides, he says the guy has gone rogue, and the government wants him dead, too.”

  “A fugitive?” David blinked. “Who?”

  Kate glanced around to make sure no one eavesdropped. “Pryce. Aaron, I think. He said I was a last resort, tried to sound all sympathetic to my situation. They haven’t had much luck doing it themselves because he’s psionic. Apparently, some kind of badass since he’s killed two dozen enforcers and one of the higher-ups already. They want me to handle him.”

  He rubbed her shoulder. “If the Syndicate is trying to kill him, they’re either out of their mind with rage, or this guy is really disavowed. Nine would be all over them if they put a hit out on a cop otherwise.”

  “What should I do?” Kate shivered as soon as she asked. She hated herself for the lapse of independence, trusting someone else—and a man at that—to take control. That wasn’t the kind of woman she had ever been nor cared to be. Still, this entire situation made her feel like a little girl trapped in a tank, surrounded by scientists who wanted to kill her. Then again, man or not, she’d longed to have someone she could confide in for years. “If he did go rogue, maybe I should do it. It’ll get El Tío off my ass and might score some points with the brass.”

  “If.” David shifted as she leaned more of her weight into him. “No matter what, he was still one of us once. You shouldn’t hunt him down like a dog.”

  “I’m not exactly good at the whole ‘subtle’ thing. Besides, if he’s been able to stay a step ahead of the Syndicate, I shouldn’t give him a chance to kill me, too.”

  “You’re scared.”

  “Yeah, I am. Been a while. It’s easy to be fearless when you don’t care if you survive and have nothing to really lose. I guess I’m a cop now. Doing
a hit for the Syndicate seems like a one-way ticket to a small room at best, constantly looking over my shoulder or dead at worst.” She snuggled into him. “I don’t want to die.”

  David’s kiss lingered on her lips for minutes. After he leaned away, he smiled. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that.”

  Kate strolled down the streets of Querq, holding David’s hand. Most of the locals kept a cautious distance from the pair. Small children ran over to get a closer look at David’s ‘light gun,’ while a handful of adults returned grateful nods for the help the ‘city people’ brought to Querq. More than a few remembered her initial arrival and gave her the evil eye. She looked down, accepting the guilt their stares held.

  She smiled at everyone, wary and welcoming alike. They crossed most of the city and stood in the shadow of the west wall, by a long row of small houses made from the back ends of ancient trucks. Everyone who lived in one of the trailer-dwellings was single, mostly men. Along the inner side of the street, old storefronts still bore the logos of their former franchises. Large windows left obvious the internal barriers erected to separate the commercial spaces into individual homes. Quiet pervaded the street. Aside from a handful of elders, the people who lived in this part of town had gone out to work at that hour.

  A woman with long black hair and dark skin pushed a glass-paned door labeled ‘Subway’ open with her backside, carrying a large plastic crate full of dirty clothes. Her cream-colored dress stopped an inch above her knees, and a silver ring around her left second toe gleamed in the sun. Sandals made from old tire rubber scuffed on the paving as she passed, and she offered a bashful smile at the two of them.

  “They seem so happy here,” said Kate. “Like they don’t care at all they’re living in the stone ages.”

  He glanced up at a man clanking along the metal walkway atop the outer wall. “It does have a certain rustic charm. No pressure of an office job, no traffic, no alarm clock, no taxes, no rat race.”

  “No real hospitals or GlobeNet access.”

  “You grew up in the wilds.” David slid a hand around the small of her back. “Would you miss the net if you never knew what it was?”

  She watched the woman round the corner at the end of the street, headed to the gate to take her laundry out to the creek. Memories flickered in her mind of living alone in the wilds, unaware of such a thing as cities, cars, or technology. “I suppose not. I didn’t really need it back then, but I got lonely.”

  “That’s unusual. Most feral children I’ve read about had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to civilization. Even the ones we found in disavowed sectors or living in The Beneath. Usually takes quite a bit of therapy and patience.” David rubbed his head. “Ugh, this one boy with mind blast we found in the grey. He was… difficult.”

  Kate shrugged. “Guess I have wolf blood. I wanted to be social.”

  Shepherd went by, carrying a Fubox power cell on each shoulder. The man lugged the three-foot cubes as if he carried hollow plastic toys. He watched her as they passed; a trace of unease narrowed his eyes.

  “He doesn’t trust me.” She found herself leaning into David.

  “Althea’s influence has left him overprotective. Besides, he doesn’t distrust you; he distrusts whatever influence sent you here in the first place.”

  David must have sensed the fear rising in the back of her heart. His arm tightened around her.

  “I don’t trust me here either.” She bit her lip. “She did something to me, too. I’ve never had a kid, but whenever I look at her, I understand how a mother gets when their child is threatened. I’d melt down the whole city to protect her.”

  He stared into her eyes. Odd feelings cascaded over her brain, as though ghostly fingers stroked it beneath her skull. The sensation weakened her knees, and she held on to him to keep from swooning to the ground.

  “Shepherd exhibits similar psychic imprints. You both tried to kill her, though I’d venture to say she found him more frightening based on the depth of the mark. As a guess, I’d say it’s some kind of panic-driven instinctual response on her part. In your case, I think she made you feel parental to give you something to help you resist that anger. Like a rock in the middle of a river you can cling to in order to avoid being swept away with the current.”

  “She wanted to make sure we couldn’t bring ourselves to hurt her.” Kate smirked, unsure how she felt about being ‘programmed’ to like the girl, even if she owed the child so much.

  “It’s primal,” said David. “Strong and simple. I don’t think she put a lot of premeditation into it. A child’s id screaming ‘don’t kill me’ is about the extent of it.”

  “Thanks. I didn’t feel guilty enough about that already. Now, all I can see is her staring at me begging for her life.” Kate rubbed her face.

  A large, white goat walked by dragging a scrawny boy of about eight along by its leash. He yelled, “Parar! Cabra tonta!” and tried to set his heels on the pavement. It pulled him off his feet, but he refused to let go, despite his shorts sliding down to his knees as it dragged him.

  Kate cracked up giggling.

  David made a sharp clicking sound, which attracted the goat’s attention long enough for him to influence its emotion and make it stop. The boy leapt upright and fixed his pants before seizing the animal by the collar. He grinned at them, waved, and led the goat away, muttering scolding things at it in Spanish.

  “I’m starting to like Querq.” Kate waited for another member of the Watch to clank past on the wall overhead before kissing David on the lips. “Do you think we could spend a little more time here?”

  “There aren’t a lot of officers eager to get stuck out here.”

  He leaned in about to kiss her, when a loud wooden crash echoed from the far end of the street, followed by clattering metal. Whatever sight greeted him when he peered over her shoulder left him laughing into the crook of her neck.

  “Cabra tonta!” yelled a small boy.

  15

  Not So Frictionless

  Aaron

  Children squealed and screamed four stories down, chasing an improvised frictionless stone that one of the technokinetics had managed to cobble together from parts scavenged in the yard. As they had no armored boots, they’d covered the thing with padding. Aaron leaned against the railing on the patio of a former employee lounge. He chuckled at the spectacle of it, as though a group of ruffians had decided to gang up and abuse an ambulatory pillow.

  Gunshots snapped in the distance every so often, followed by the occasional clank of something hitting the exposed girders of a nearby building. Only the two English girls, the new arrivals, showed any reaction to the shooting, ducking and cowering behind a central air unit. The rest disregarded it as background noise. Many of the ones from Europe had grown up with war always in the distance.

  Shadows moved within the darkness of the ruined offices high up on a tower across the street. The denizens of the black zone, lured by the echoes of playing kids, came to investigate. Except for one almost fully augmented man covered in metal plates, they took cover from the security detail taking pot shots at them with submachine guns.

  One of the Russian boys handled his weapon like a trained soldier, despite being only fourteen. Most of his bullets hit the aug in the chest, not that they did much other than make the armor plated man laugh.

  What is Archon thinking putting all these people in the middle of a disavowed sector? This won’t end well.

  A brief peek at the aug’s surface thoughts relieved Aaron to a point. He had no interest in the small ones, he wanted women—plus whatever weapons, food, and expensive shiny shit he could steal.

  A casual tug with telekinesis pulled the man clear of the window, floating him over the street eleven stories down. The cyber-ganger flailed and kicked, releasing a half-human digitized scream. Aaron squinted up at him, sending a telepathic message:

  Oy, Mate. If I was you, I’d leave well enough alone. Nothin’ in here for you but a bad da
y getting worse.

  He flung the guy back into the office, unconcerned with how gentle a landing he provided. Hopefully, an aug’s fear of psionics would keep him away for the long term. Aaron resumed watching the game, surprised at his utter lack of missing the limelight.

  “It is good to see them in high spirits,” said Archon, from behind.

  Aaron glanced back. The Lord of Tweed hovered in the door to the lounge area, amid a patch of shadow. Above him dangled the remains of a light that had been shot out years ago and never repaired. Archon stepped over a permanent green-black stain seeping from a dead food assembler, weaved among a few round, white tables, and joined him on the patio.

  “Aye.”

  “I realize you are unhappy with my bringing Talis here.” Archon paused to let him respond, though he said nothing. “You must understand we all have to make concessions for the cause.”

  “Aye.” Aaron narrowed his eyes, looking past the game to the rotting cyborg corpses forty yards behind the more distant goal. “She didn’t know Allison was my wife, right? No harm done.”

  “Sarcasm does not suit you.” Archon offered a professional smile. “You have every right to be angry; however, consider what she has done for you.”

  Aaron shot him a glare.

  “Of course I do not mean your wife. You are Awakened now, because of her.”

  “A great bag of wank.” Aaron slouched over the railing. “You know I’d rather have her back.”

  “Rumor has it a certain child has brought back the dead.” Archon lifted an eyebrow. “Is it true?”