His hand slid over my face, hot and smooth, and his lips drew towards mine quickly. Vassily, Zmechik, struck with his mouth like the snake he was named for. It was sweet, so sweet, a moment of contact as natural as breathing. It might have lasted for a moment or an hour, but it was not forever. We broke apart. And that was okay, too.
He smiled at me, the lines beside his deep blue eyes creasing. “Don’t worry about anything. Just Everything.”
My body struck the bed so hard that I bounced, a jolt that woke me and sent the world reeling. No roof, no floor: a tangle of blankets and I hit a solid surface with a short, harsh cry of pain. There was little light in the room. A car thrummed from outside. Beeps and clicks, the tick of a clock. Everything seemed overwhelming, too hot, too intense.
Angkor was sitting beside me, head dropped down to his chest, eyes closed. He snorted, half-asleep, and his fingers tightened and then relaxed.
“What?” I croaked. The tube was gone, but my mouth was parched.
Angkor startled up, and dashed at his eyes as he mumbled something by way of reply. Then he focused on me, and relief flooded his face. “GOD underfoot, Alexi. You’re alive.”
“Guhh.” Orientation took a couple minutes. I had an IV in, and I was still in bed. The clamor of surgery was gone; there was only the quiet hush of the overhead heating vent, the beep of the monitor, and the squeak of cloth against cloth as I pushed myself up to sit. “I’m… not sure of that.”
“It’s been four days,” Angkor said. He frowned for a moment, and rubbed his face. “No… wait. Five. You died like three times.”
I’d been out for five days? “I feel like a washed up jellyfish. What did they have to do?”
“Not as much as they should have, but you were really not doing so great,” he replied. “Ruptured spleen, torn stomach, trauma to pretty much everything between sternum and bladder. Broken ribs, busted shoulder. They pulled a bullet out. I did what I could for you to stop the bleeding and passed out afterward. Did more on the sly when you were in ICU.”
“Why?” I squinted at him.
“Why would I do that?” Angkor shrugged. “I’m a doctor. Among other things.”
My dream was fading, but the warmth of the momentary contact lingered. When I closed my eyes, I didn’t see Vassily: The images of Jenner being lifted off the ground, of the shipping container tumbling off the back of the trailer flashed through my mind. “Where’s Jenner? Zane, Talya? The kids?”
“The kids are all safe,” Angkor said. “The ones we found.”
My eyes narrowed, and he sighed.
“There were only eleven of them on the truck. All Weeders.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The rest of them are AWOL. Either the Templum Voctus Sol shipped them to Texas already, or they’re dead.”
Three dead, twelve rescued… that left six unaccounted for. “Twelve out of twenty-one. It’s not good enough.”
“I know. But better than I expected.” Angkor pulled on one of his earlobes, then looked at his fingers: anywhere but at me. “I doubt the others are alive, or… HuMan. Like, they’ve probably been, uhm… re-purposed. Morphorde are like that.”
Exhausted or not, I knew guilt when I saw it. It was written in the slump of his shoulders and the way he kept touching his neck and face. “You know something about them. The Templum Voctus Sol.”
Angkor licked his top lip, glancing up and then away. “Not that much. Whatever new things I learned about them, I can’t remember because of the Deacon’s rape-and-torture-fest.”
“What do you know?”
“Well, they’re descended from a legitimate international fraternity that was around since at least the early nineteenth century. It’s less of a cult and more of a… a syndicate, I guess. A group of loosely affiliated interests.” He still didn’t look up at me, picking at his cuticles in his lap. “The Voctus Sol has money, that much I know, and human resources. Skilled operatives, maybe links to private security or military. Maybe even government.”
“Are they connected with the Church of the Voice?” I pushed the blankets back and had a look at my stomach. It was better than I expected: a clear plastic wet dressing, no drainage bag.
“I don’t know. I wondered that myself, and I remember looking into it before I came to the USA. The Church isn’t just big in America: It’s pretty much taken over the Evangelical scene in Korea, and also has huge missions in parts of Africa. Liberia, Ghana, Congo, Nigeria. Places where there are weapons and mineral resources, and some really fanatical believers.”
“Korea?” I squinted. “Christianity in South Korea?”
Angkor shook his head. “South Korea is majority Christian, and has been since the War. Specifically, Evangelical Protestant. So on top of this pre-existing faith, many people in Korea are very goal-orientated… it’s not universal, but we’re given a strong message in school and home life that we’re supposed to be successful in our lives, or we have failed. As you can imagine, the self-help aspect of The Church of the Voice is really appealing.”
“Kind of like how worth is measured by wealth here,” I said. “America is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
He smiled, but it was wan and bitter. His voice was orange. “That’s true in South Korea as well. Now, the thing is… the Church doesn’t just exist on this Cell.”
“Cell?”
“A Cell is a planet. You know, Cell of GOD. This world. I’m a sort of… euun… sort of a traveler between worlds.” Angkor scratched his head, grimacing. “I know you probably don’t believe that.”
While Angkor talked, I reached for Kutka. I felt as weak and rusty inside as I did outside, but he was there. The brief mental contact flushed my mind and mouth with color and energy, and the suppressed tension in my gut released. With it went some of the pain. “I don’t know. These days, I’m willing to believe some pretty weird shit.”
“Fair enough. Anyway, back to the Temple. I learned something about them before the Deacon took me out, but I really don’t remember any of it.” Angkor squeezed my arm and stood. He was creaky, but functional. “They kept hitting me in the head. When I have the energy, I’ll find a lab and try to repair the concussion damage. All I know that it was the Deacon who killed the Wolf Grove couple, but he was with someone else. I can’t remember who.”
“I think Lily and Dru had a revelation. They became lucid, and realized what they were doing.” I said. “They tried to break out of the business. They killed the courier from the bratva. Nicolai – the boss of Brighton Beach – was working with the Deacon from August, at least. What could temporarily cure them of this Yen virus?”
“Gift Horse blood, like I said.” Angkor cocked his head. “You know… It’s actually possible that they were out in their changing ground and encountered a Gift Horse in the forest. That’s kind of why Gift Horses exist. They turn up where they’re needed, often without any real idea why they’re there. If they caught a Gift Horse and ate them, they’d have a period of lucidity. Once you have a Horse in an area, they’re generally stuck here until their mission is complete. You Hunted in this area not long ago, didn’t you?”
“Do you count butchering someone after hauling them out of a giant shell to be hunting?” I leaned back, exhaling. I hurt, but I was okay. Walking was a possibility. Running… probably not. “There was a Gift Horse here, but she’s dead. I killed her.”
“Did you eat her?” Angkor’s expression was suddenly very intense, his eyes very steady. The rakishness and anxiety was gone in a flash. There was only a peculiar intimacy, his sense of entitlement to an answer.
I drew a deep breath. “Yes. Just blood. A little.”
Angkor relaxed, leaning back away from me. He nodded, and exhaled heavily. “Alright, that’s good. If you ate part of her, she’s come back to life.”
I digested that news for a moment. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. They call it the Pact. Horses heal by dying, and when they’re eaten, they’re reborn. The necessity of the Pac
t is why they need Hounds.”
Zarya, alive. I couldn’t really believe it. People didn’t just… come back to life when you stabbed them in the chest. But if she was alive… that meant I could find her. And then I could kill her again, for lying about Vassily.
“It sounds like she came to this Cell, this world, in a Rind,” Angkor continued. “Rinds are protective cases… they can travel through some rough seas, so to speak. Where did you find it?”
I snorted. “It turned up in Jersey Bay, of all places. Two Mafia soldiers fished it out while dumping a body off a boat. It killed a bunch of wiseguys when they tried to crack the shell. They needed a Wise Virgin to break in and fish out the woman inside, and I was unlucky enough to be the only viable candidate.”
“Oh my god.” The other man clapped his hand to his mouth and let go of my arm, sitting back. “You’re a virgin? And a mage?”
“Huy na ny,” I groaned. “Not you too.”
“No no, I mean… euhhn… I mean that I’m really sorry for coming on so strong before, you know?” Angkor covered his teeth with a hand, blushing a delicate rose-gold. I noticed, quite arbitrarily, that he had freckles. I hadn’t seen them before, but his skin was not only naturally brown, it was sun-kissed. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have just, you know… I would have not done that.”
I grunted, and jerked my shoulders back. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m mostly just grateful that I don’t have to live with a colostomy bag for the rest of my life, thanks to you and your efforts to heal me more than once.”
“Like I said, I’m a doctor. Hippocratic Oath and all that.”
I drew a deep breath. “You didn’t answer me about Jenner and the other Tigers.”
“Uh… well… they’re due back here any minute now.” Angkor checked the clock on the wall. “So-”
“SCHWARMA, BITCHES!” The door flew in and banged against the opposite wall, admitting a wall of leather, spikes, and combat boots. Jenner was in the lead, a foil-wrapped kebab in each hand. Her face was twisted up in a scar-slashed grimace, the keloid still pink and new. She had an eye-patch on that same side. “Oh, shit. You’re alive!”
Zane was right behind her, and Talya was behind him. She’d changed out the brown wool and tweed for a white tanktop and jeans. To my surprise, she now had tattoos and several piercings: three rings through her bottom lip, and a fall of vertical lines and black-work from just under her mouth all the way around her chin. When she saw me staring, she smiled prettily and flushed.
“Feel like you can eat something, white boy?” Jenner came up to bed and pushed herself up to sit on the end of it. “I didn’t get you anything, but you can have Ang’s.”
“Over my dead body.” Angkor groped for his food, and Jenner held it back and away. I couldn’t deny it: I was glad to see she was still alive.
“So, wanna hear some gossip?” Jenner passed the wrapped kebab to me, and though he pouted, Angkor didn’t stop me from opening it. The sterile room was now redolent with the smell of lamb and garlic sauce as the others took their seats where they could find them. “Not only was John not an Elder, or even a fucking Weeder, he wasn’t Nakota. All the photos of him at Pine Ridge were when he visited once as a tourist. None of the people there know him or kept records of his birth or naming.”
“He didn’t have any degrees or anything.” Talya shook her head. She was cross-legged on the floor, hands gripping her ankles. “The Smithsonian is so pissed off. They’re making everyone go through background checks.”
“He’d faked everything,” Jenner said, cramming food into her face. “So I was right. All these privacy rules in the Laws are total crap. He would have been screened out if people weren’t so prudish about changing and sharing and shit.”
“That degree of deception and persistence is… quite spectacular. Did the Vigiles turn this up?” I knew the ins and outs of using fake identities – it was one of the key survival skills of the career killer, after all. But faking a life, making up achievement after achievement instead of living them?
“Yeah,” Zane said. In contrast to the others, he seemed tired and morose. “Ayashe went digging. He was just a poor white guy from this po-dunk town out West.”
“Sth Drrkota,” Jenner mumbled. Yogurt ran down her chin.
“Pretty amazing how far some people will go for a fantasy.” Zane jerked his shoulders.
Suddenly, I was considerably less hungry. I handed the barely touched shawarma to Angkor, who cocked his head curiously even as he accepted.
I bowed my head. “Jenner. Do you mind if we speak in private for a moment?”
“Sure thing. Scram, kids.” Jenner made a little shoo-shoo motion towards the door.
“Yes, mom.” Talya got to her feet, rolling her eyes, and headed out with Zane in tow. Angkor’s eyes gleamed with interest, but he bowed from the waist to Jenner and then followed the others out, closing the door behind him.
Jenner sighed, and some of the tense energy left her shoulders once the others were gone. “Phew. Well… glad to see you made it, Rex. It was a bit touch and go there.”
“How many of the Tigers survived?” I asked her calmly, hands resting on my lap. They were ungloved, but the cotton blanket was soothing against the smooth skin of my palms. I could tolerate it.
Her lips pressed together in a grim line. “We lost all but five of the Big Cat Crew, counting Talya. It was a fucking bloodbath, but everyone left says they feel like they did something right for the world. Eleven kids are having warm meals in safehouses now. And that was always the point.”
I looked down at my fingers, considering what I should or could say. In truth, I was at war with myself. Kutkha’s scintillating omnipresence had returned to me, and I could feel the stir of magic in my blood. I had money, and my familiar. Europe and an escape into anonymity was still possible, and I knew without hearing that these relationships were still at a point of potential severance. There would be no debt between us.
“I had planned to leave the country before I got drawn into this,” I said, haltingly. “It wasn’t just the children. To be frank with you… this is the first time I have ever done anything like this. For anyone.”
“Well, you sure as hell stuck it out.” I could tell that Jenner wanted a cigarette, but she continued to occupy her mouth with food. After a bite of her wrap, she swallowed and leaned back on her hand, pointing at me with her shawarma. “Lemme tell you something though, Rex. You can run from the Third War, but you’ll never escape it. You don’t even escape it when it’s over and done with. Mason never got away from it. I never got away from it. Sometimes, I wake up and I smell this horseshit-and-plastic smell on everything. You know what that is? Agent Orange. That memory’s just from the war in this lifetime. I know what the trenches smell like. I know what the French Revolution smelled like. I’ve gone from war to war to war. Every one of them has stuck with me, and you know why?”
I thought for a moment. “Because there’s a bigger war underpinning all of them, and your Ka knows.”
Jenner kicked her feet into the air. “Bing-bing. You are correct.”
“Against the Templum?”
“You’ll always find something like the Temple Vox Sol, or whatever they are,” Jenner said. “I can tell you that things have been headed somewhere bad for the last three hundred years. That’s the limit of my memory, and most of that’s short and nasty. Twenty Years War, Chinese Revolution, Ethiopia, Vietnam, fuck… but I tell you now, this lifetime has been the worst by a long shot”
“Why?” I frowned.
“Because we drank the Kool-Aid.” Jenner’s face was eyepatch side-on to me, the blank leather inscrutable in a way her face never was. I could tell she was still in pain from the impalement, but she was being tough about it. “It started with Game Theory, the idea that HuMans can quantify everything they do with formulas, and that altruism – real HuMan compassion and cooperation – doesn’t really exist. Not only that, it’s bad for us. The Prisoner’s Dilemma. The Coord
ination Game. The guy that formulated this shit, John Nash, was schizophrenic. Want to take a guess why?”
“Mister Patroclus helped him with his theorems,” I replied. “The Big Black, as you call it.”
Her mouth quirked up at the corner. “He looked into the Void, and the Void gave him Game Theory, Rex. He made it sexy. He made it appealing to the people with money, with power. They really like the idea of a Zero-Sum Game with an outcome they can control. They want all of the money, all of the power. They think they’re better and they deserve better. Everyone else is just there to lube their way up Jacob’s Ladder.”
Itty-bitty machine parts. “I believe that when Nash’s theories were tested with real subjects in face-to-face situations, that they didn’t instinctively act out the Zero-Sum Game. The math predicted that the only path they could take was to sabotage one another. Instead, people in the Prisoner’s Dilemma experiments tried to assist one another. They were altruistic, not paranoid. They only engaged in the theorized course of action when directed or coerced.”
“Yeah. But the powers that be, they love this shit.” Jenner shook her head. “Thatcher. Regan. The current fuckwit in office. All of them… doesn’t matter what party they’re in. They want the Great Zero. They don’t want reality, altruism, or courage. They want obedience and fear. They want a fucking Apocalypse, because they think they’re the chosen few and the Sky-Daddy’s going to come down and take them to the land of eternal ice-cream and ponies while everyone else screams and burns.”
Her words hung in the air for several minutes. She ate, I brooded on what she’d said, and Kutkha watched on in patient silence.
“My Ka had a story for me, Rex. They tell you things, sometimes.” Jenner crumpled up the foil and threw it at the trashcan. It hit the edge and tumbled in. “Tiger’s got her own mind, you know. She tells me the same thing every time I change, every time we hunt. ‘Don’t look up’.”
I frowned, puzzled.
“Up is where the NO is,” Jenner said. “Queen Tigger says that if you look up at the Void, it sucks your eyes right out of your head, and then you’re gone. That’s how I knew I’d lost Mason. When I saw him that first time, and his eyes were missing, I knew he was walking dead.”
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