Avenger of Sins (SPECTR Series 3, #6)

Chapter 10

TEN

Gray slams his fists into the blast door. It refuses to yield, so he scores it with his claws, leaving only shallow gouges behind.

They are cut off from John.

“This will not work,” Night observes calmly. “You waste your strength.”

Gray snarls, not at Night, but at the layers of steel separating them from John.

“We could attack the stone wall around the door,” Caleb suggests without much hope. Such an attempt didn’t even work with the bank vault, which was much smaller, the walls merely reinforced concrete rather than a mountain of stone. Given enough time, they might be able to dig their way through, but that would be the work of months. Years.

He steps back reluctantly. “You are right,” he admits to Night. “These side doors are smaller—perhaps we can find a way through one of them.”

Night watches him expressionlessly. “Destroy this body. Perhaps I can free you from outside, rather than trapped within, as I did before.”

“No,” Caleb says. “John was right—Harlow has an informant inside SPECTR. This was a trap, set up for us. Night might not be able to get back in. Or they might find another way to grab her. We can’t split up.”

“No,” Gray tells Night. “There is no knowing if you could return. Or how far away the nearest suitable body might be.” This area appears empty of human settlements. Unless some foolish mortal has succumbed to the elements while hiking the forest, there seems little chance of a nearby corpse. It might take Night days to reach the compound again, if she were separated from her current body.

“As you wish,” Night replies. “We will do as you suggest.”

She strides down the vast corridor away from the sealed blast door, trying the smaller doors along the left side of the tunnel as she goes.

Gray grips the handle of the nearest door on the right and tugs on it. It has an electronic lock, and when he raps their knuckles against it, it feels and sounds like solid steel.

Caleb’s unease grows stronger. “What the hell is this place? Why do they need this level of protection? Are they expecting an invasion, or…?”

“Here,” Night says, as a door on the left swings open at her touch.

“ Nope, this is wrong,” Caleb says . “These doors have electronic locks; it has to be disengaged on purpose. Another trap.”

Gray growls softly. Then we will spring it, and let the one who has set the trap know they have made a grave error.

Night steps into the corridor beyond the door, then pauses. “Demons,” she says, nostrils flared to catch the scent.

Memories rise up, these in full color. The SPECTR black ops site they were taken to for testing smelled faintly of demons as well.

“This is another goddamn Forsyth situation,” Caleb seethes. “Of course it is—look at what they were doing with John and the other kids. Harlow is still carrying on experiments with possession. These secure doors are to keep them in if they get out of control.”

“Be careful,” Gray tells Night. “We have encountered mortals like these before. Their actions are foolish, even for their kind.”

Fluorescent light illuminates the corridor, its walls of stone. An older memory teases him, from his host who worked in such a place, extracting coal from the surrounding rock, until his lungs grew clotted with black dust.

The doors in this tunnel are less sturdy. He tries the nearest one; it is locked, but it is a simple matter to tear it free from its hinges. The small room beyond is largely bare, except for weights of various sizes. The concrete floor is heavily scarred, as if they’ve been dragged back and forth, and the stone walls bear pits where something has been flung into them. He recognizes it as a telekinetic testing room; Forsyth had asked Caleb to move such weights with his mind as part of the tests he’d performed on them.

Night opens another door with a squeal of bending metal, revealing a similar room, this one covered with scorch marks. “This is like the Center,” she observes. “There were such chambers there, though fewer in number.”

Caleb’s anger sparks along their nerves. “Nothing ever fucking changes with these people. They can’t just leave well enough alone—no, they have to go around sticking demons in people for power, or money, or ‘national security,’ or whatever excuse they can come up with. Forsyth, Harlow, Lydell, all of them are just the same. They can’t even be original about it.”

The scent of demons grows stronger as they proceed down the corridor. A whiff of smoke and rancid flesh, mingling with mange-clotted fur and slime. “There is more than one kind of demon here,” Night observes. “We will feast tonight.”

“They may yet be able to be exorcised,” Gray cautions. “Do not forget.”

“How could I? You will not let me.”

Gray ignores her disgruntled words. At the end of the corridor is another steel door like those in the main tunnel. Though it is open now, it is surely ready to snap shut.

He approaches slowly, senses alive to any sound or smell that might betray the nature of the trap before them. The whisper of mortal breath drifts to him, accompanied by the tang of wet stone, the whiff of rotting roses.

He approaches cautiously, Night nothing but a flickering shadow behind him. As they draw level with the door, a frantic voice calls out.

“Who’s there? Help! I’m a prisoner here! Oh god, please help me!”

Men dressed in paramilitary gear streamed out of the open door into the corridor, their M-16 rifles trained on John. “Drop your weapons!” one yelled.

John held his hands up, willing his heart to calm its frantic racing. “I’m John Starkweather, Special Agent, Strategic Paranormal Entity ConTRol. My badge is clipped to my belt.”

“I said put down any weapons!” the man yelled again. “Now!”

Fuck. “I’m going to reach into my coat and take out a Glock,” he said, as calmly as possible. “I’ll put it on the ground in front of me.”

He moved slowly, and thank Sekhmet, none of the guards—mercenaries?—pulled a trigger as he removed his Glock and carefully laid it on the floor.

The second the weapon was out of his hand, they rushed him. His back slammed into the wall, and the barrel of a rifle ground into his temple, while multiple pairs of hands searched him. One picked off his badge and handed it to their leader, who glanced at it absently before putting it in one of the pockets on his tactical vest.

“I’m an agent of the federal government,” he said firmly, even though it seemed they didn’t care. He’d hoped it might give them at least some pause, but no one even looked straight at him.

“He’s clean,” reported one of the men who’d patted him down.

The leader nodded. “Let’s go, then.”

They pulled him off the wall and hustled him down the hall they’d come through. About twenty feet down, they gathered around what looked like an office door, albeit one with an electronic lock. One man swiped a card across the door’s sensor. The moment it clicked open, three other men swung into the doorway, rifles trained inside.

“He’s still out!” one called.

“Proceed.”

John found himself quickly shoved inside. The door shut behind him with a definitive click as the lock engaged.

The room looked like a hastily repurposed office, all of the decorations and furniture removed except for a couch.

And on the couch lay Ryan.

John bit back a gasp and hurried to him. He looked terrible, the area around his eyes deeply bruised, dried blood forming a crust beneath his nose.

There were no obvious wounds, but that didn’t mean anything. John shook Ryan by the shoulder, was rewarded by a sharp moan of pain. Ryan’s eyelids fluttered, revealing eyes so bloodshot there was no white left, only red.

“Fuck,” John muttered. “Ryan? Can you hear me?”

Ryan’s brows drew down, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing. “John?” Then his gaze sharpened, and he grabbed John by the wrist. “John!”

Ryan flung his arms around him. And, Goddess help him, John found himself hugging Ryan back. Despite everything—the murders, the burning building, the coercion—Ryan still felt like family.

“I should have known you’d show up,” Ryan said, voice rough. “Fuck, my head.”

“What happened to you?”

“Tranq dart.” Ryan made a face and touched his shoulder, where John had gripped him earlier. “Got me right here.”

Tranq darts weren’t cleared for use on unpossessed people. It was too easy to get the dose wrong. But he had the feeling Armaros Corporate Solutions didn’t really care much about the law.

John sat back. Now that his relief over finding Ryan alive had passed, the bitterness and anger began to seep back in. “You controlled my mind. Against my will; without my consent.”

Ryan struggled upright. “I know.”

“The Ryan I knew would never have done that.”

“The Ryan you knew didn’t yet realize his life was over.”

“But it wasn’t.” John leaned back against the nearest wall, then slid down it. Ryan mimicked his motion, moving off the couch. They both sat on the floor, level with one another. “You escaped. You could have gone anywhere.”

“With no money and not so much as a high school degree?” Ryan’s mouth twisted. “I had to rely on Jennifer and Marc just to set up a shitty false identity that wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny.”

“Did they pay for it willingly?” John asked, though he knew the answer already.

Ryan gave him a look that said he knew that John knew. “Don’t play dumb. Of course they didn’t. Everything that happened was their fault. They gave me over, then took cold, hard cash to participate in the cover up. The fact I couldn’t use my real name, that I didn’t finish high school—that’s due to their choices. I just took what I was owed.”

It made a twisted sort of logic. “What about Jo and me? Did we owe you our free will?”

Ryan winced. “You wouldn’t have gone along with my plans.”

“Of course I wouldn’t have!” Anger finally eclipsed betrayal. “I would have tried to come up with some other solution! Something that didn’t include murder.”

“Or you would have gone back to SPECTR. Turned me over, maybe. Not because you’d want to,” Ryan added quickly. “But because they’d leave you with no other choice. Do you think I don’t know the hold the vampire has over you? Or the hold SPECTR has over him?”

John wanted to argue, because he didn’t want it to be true.

But it was.

If it came down to a choice between protecting Caleb and Gray, and protecting Ryan…it would be agonizing, but it wouldn’t truly be a choice at all.

One corner of Ryan’s mouth twisted up slightly in the shadow of a smile. “I’m running on empty, but I can hear enough of your thoughts to know I’m right.” He waved a hand weakly. “There were no good choices for either of us, Jonny. You came as far as you could with me. After that…it was up to me to make the hard choice.”

“Mind-controlling us. Taking our agency away, just like SPECTR did.”

That hit home; Ryan flinched slightly. “I just wanted justice. You wanted it, too. Don’t pretend you’re sorry any of them are dead: Walsh, Foster, Lydell, Jennifer, Marc. They were all monsters in their own way. And one thing I know about you is that you fight monsters.”

John shook his head. He’d tried to save Lydell, even though, yes, she was a monster. He had no illusions that she’d come to feel remorse over what she’d done. “Maybe it’s not about them,” he said after a moment. “Maybe it’s about us. About the choices we make.”

“They took our choices away!” Ryan insisted, and John was certain he believed it. But SPECTR hadn’t forced him to drug his parents and set their house on fire. And SPECTR hadn’t forced John to try and save Lydell when she lay dying in front of him.

Ryan closed his eyes. God, he looked tired—battered. This had taken a toll on him, physically and mentally, and the sight made John’s chest ache despite everything.

“Gray and Night will get us out of here,” he said in a low voice. “Just hold on.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ryan murmured.

Movement in the corridor outside caught their attention: booted footsteps, lots of them, followed by an electronic beep.

The door swung open, rifle barrels trained on them. “Stay where you are,” one of the guards ordered coldly. “If you so much as twitch a finger?—”

“That’s enough,” said a new voice. Its owner stepped into the doorway.

He looked like the CEO of some bland company: a White man, fit and tanned, dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt tailored to his form. Expensive-looking shoes, Rolex watch, and an unnaturally wrinkle-free face thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery. The harsh lights of the office shone on his immaculate silver hair, his perfect white teeth.

And he had a demon in him.

“Fifteen, Nineteen,” the man said with a pleasant smile. “It’s good to finally meet in person. I’m Reid Harlow, and I’m looking forward to working with you again.”