Avenger of Sins (SPECTR Series 3, #6)

Chapter 11

ELEVEN

“This could be another trap,” Caleb cautions unnecessarily.

Gray pauses at the doorway, peering inside. Beyond lies a large room, its walls reaching high above into the darkness. Silver lines gleam faintly from the floor, connecting to more silver inlaid on the walls, as if the room is a giant circuit. The walls above are covered in sleek panels of black glass.

A mortal—female?—slumps against the wall, her hands behind her. Blood drips from her nose, smelling of rotting roses and rancid flesh thanks to the demon inside her. His stomach cramps with hunger, but he pushes it aside.

He switches places with Caleb, who says, “Hello?”

She shrinks back against the wall, her demon no doubt scenting the two predators so near. Even so, she manages to say, “Please. I don’t want to be here! They grabbed me, forced a demon in me. I tried to fight back, so they locked me in here. I don’t feel good—they hit me a lot.”

“Fuck. Okay.” Caleb holds up his hands and crosses into the room. Night follows. “Don’t be scared—we’re here to help you.”

Her eyes dart from him to Night, then back to them. She swallows, throat working, but forces herself to sit straighter.

“Thank you,” she says. “But you should worry about yourselves instead of me.”

The hum of electronics suddenly fills the room. Lights switch on, glowing brightly. The blank panels above become translucent, revealing people sitting on the other side, each in their own small cubicle. Strange bands encircle their heads, wires trailing into what appear to be consoles in front of them.

Night snarls and turns toward the open door, ready to run. But the shadows fail her; she stumbles, then goes to her knees, then collapses limp to the floor.

A great weight seems to press down on Gray. He tries to move, but their body is far away and getting farther. The lights grow smaller and dimmer with each passing second.

Somewhere, far above, Caleb shouts for him. He tries to reach back, but even as he does so, he is swallowed up by blackness.

John’s blood froze in his veins. This man, this plain, unassuming guy who looked like he spent his days golfing with other rich men, was the architect of Operation Mephisto. The one who’d ordered Ryan to be locked away in a lab. The reason John barely knew the truth about his own life.

Then the rest of what Harlow said hit him. Looking forward to working with them again. As if they’d been co-workers in an office, or at least willing participants.

Nausea clawed the back of his throat, but he forced it down. Gray and Night would get them out of here soon. They’d find a way around the blast door—there had to be more than one route through these underground tunnels in case of emergency, right?

In the meantime, he needed to think. Harlow was possessed, he could feel the etheric energy, though it was strangely muted. And he wasn’t the only one.

Not the guards—they seemed clean. But behind them, he caught a glimpse of two people dressed in business-casual rather than flak jackets. Each wore a metal headband of some sort, and all their attention seemed focused on Harlow.

What the fuck was going on?

In case Harlow had some lingering loyalty to SPECTR, he said, “I’m Special Agent John Starkweather, SPECTR. One of your men has my badge.”

One of the guards hurried to pull it out and hand it to Harlow. Harlow didn’t so much as glance at it before tossing it in John’s general direction. It hit the floor and skittered to the center of the room. “I know exactly who you are. I also know you’re officially not here.”

Not good. There was a leak somewhere; there had to be.

“What do you want from us?” he asked, hoping to keep Harlow talking.

“Your cooperation, nothing more.” Harlow folded his hands behind his back, his brown eyes studying first John, then Ryan. “Obviously you’re a valuable asset, Fifteen, and we really do need to get new designations for you.”

Ryan showed his teeth. “You can call me ‘Mr. Starkweather.’”

“Cute.” Harlow turned back to John. “As for you, I have plenty of exorcists already in my employ.” He nodded toward the two possessed women in headbands. “What I don’t have, until tonight at least, is someone whose mind has been altered by a telepath. The data we can get from you could prove invaluable to national security. And don’t worry—it will only be a few interviews with our psychologists, filling out some questionnaires, maybe a scan or two of your brain function. A few days of your time, and then you’ll be free to go—with a hefty payment to a secure bank account.”

John didn’t need to be a telepath to know it was a lie. He wasn’t leaving here alive; once Harlow had what he needed, he’d wind up on an autopsy table having his brain dissected. Harlow had been a ruthless bastard before; if he had a demon urging him to violence, it would be even worse.

He needed to stall until the drakul arrived. “I might be interested—if I knew more about what you’re doing here.”

Harlow looked pleased, apparently believing John could be talked around into cooperating. If he’d been smart enough to have an empath with him, it would never have worked, but he struck John as the sort of man who thought highly of his own opinion. Maybe not enough people had told him he was wrong.

“I know you can sense the NHE in me,” he said. “Do you know the legend of King Solomon and the demons?”

“Vaguely,” John said. He’d delved through too many medieval grimoires not to have at least passing familiarity. “He was supposed to have a ring that allowed him to command Non-Human Entities, correct?”

“Very good.” Harlow smiled approvingly. “It allowed him to place a seal—presumably some kind of spirit ward—on them. The seal allowed the possessed to access the strength of their NHE, while subduing its growing impulses toward violence. A myth—but perhaps one with some truth behind it.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” John allowed.

“Exactly.” Harlow flashed his unnaturally white teeth. “Now imagine the implications. How useful would a covert operative with all the strength of a demon, but none of the drawbacks, be to our country? Alternatively, a seal could be placed on an enemy combatant, who is then released back into the population. His possession remains undetected up until when the seal is removed or broken, at which time he attacks his own forces. A devastating assault with zero chance for American casualties.”

He delivered his list of horrors in a calm, even voice, like a man discussing the projected growth for next quarter. That, more than anything, made every hair on John’s body rise. “Is that what’s happening here? With the headbands and all?”

“Very crudely. Obviously this particular method won’t work in the field. But it does allow me to do this.”

Harlow stretched a hand out in front of him. A moment later, John’s badge rose into the air, then slowly crumpled into a ball, the brass bending under Harlow’s enhanced telekinesis.

He let it fall to the floor with a pleased smile. There had been no point to the demonstration other than to show off his power, to make them feel weak and afraid, and John despised him for it.

“And how do we fit into Project Solomon?” he asked, keeping his voice calm so as to give nothing away.

“A telepath would certainly be useful in choosing proper targets.” Harlow nodded in Ryan’s direction. “Let’s say you’re an additional project that has a great deal of synergy with our existing goals.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Ryan muttered.

One of the guards murmured something in Harlow’s ear. Harlow nodded, then said, “Project Solomon still has quite a way to go, but I’ve arranged a larger demonstration of what we can accomplish.”

The guard handed him a tablet, which he turned so John and Ryan could see it. The image appeared to be from a security camera, mounted high on the wall of a large, round room. An intricate spirit ward flashed on the floor—set in silver, maybe? Bands of what might be silver encircled the walls, more silver lines connecting each ring to form something like a circuit.

He had just enough time to see Night and Gray enter the camera’s field of view, before something went wrong.

There was no sound, so Night’s collapse came in eerie silence, her limbs folding beneath her and her body crumpling like the dead thing it was. Caleb stumbled, then frantically ran his hands over his body, mouth moving as he shouted some protest John couldn’t hear.

“I hope you weren’t counting on your associates to save you,” Harlow said, handing the tablet back to the guard. “Both drakul have been safely suppressed by my exorcists. Now, I need to go and oversee their disposal, so you’ll have to wait here until I get back.”

The door slammed shut, lock engaging with a sharp click. John stared at it blankly, his mind spinning.

Harlow had done something to the drakul—bound them with a larger version of whatever seal he was using on himself. He and Ryan were locked in an office, with no weapons and no way out.

And no one was coming to save them.

“Gray?” Caleb’s voice scraped coming out. “Gray!”

His head spun, disorientation threatening to overcome him. There was a hole in his mind, his soul, his very being, and his frantic calls vanished into it with no response.

For the first time since encountering Gray in an abandoned house, Caleb was alone in his own skull.

It was horrible—wrong. He cast about frantically, trying to make sense of what happened. Night lay sprawled a short distance away, a marionette with her strings cut.

Panic licked his spine, and he tried to shove it down. Looking up at the row of people hooked into whatever machinery was behind this, he shouted, “What have you done to Gray?”

“He’s…suppressed, you could say.”

Caleb spun. The woman who had played the victim now stood up her, hands unbound. Her nosebleed—the only mark on her—was already stopping.

They’d known this was a trap. They’d thought they were ready to handle anything, turn the tables on whatever Harlow could do to them.

They’d been so wrong.

Gray’s absence was like a missing tooth. No—a missing limb. Several missing limbs. Caleb reached for him instinctively, needing that foundation of certainty Gray brought.

But it wasn’t there. He was alone.

“Bring him back,” he snarled at the woman.

“It’s not me who’s doing it.” She gestured at the windows above them, the ring of people wired into the machinery of the room. “Each exorcist is possessed by an NHE to amplify their power. And Armaros’s proprietary technology then boosts their ability even farther, allowing them to create a circle where their control over etheric energy is complete. These are early days, but imagine the applications on the battlefield. Suspect NHEs are in a village? Suppress the entire area, so troops can go in and safely remove enemy combatants.”

“Or people with the wrong skin color,” he shot back. Her calm put his hackles on end. She clearly had no fear of him, was certain of her own position in this scenario.

He reached for Gray again, found nothing again. He needed to think, but emptiness threatened to overwhelm him, send him into a spiral.

He’d lived most of his life alone and never felt incomplete. But Gray’s silence, absence, was a gaping chasm, and he teetered on the very edge, trying not to fall inside.

“If they don’t bring Gray back right now,” he said, trying to sound authoritative and failing miserably, “I’ll fucking kill you.”

She laughed in his face. “You can’t hurt me. My NHE might sleep as well, but I still have her power and her strength. So just hang tight—they’re on the way to secure you. I hope you like this room. You won’t be leaving it for some time to come.”

Oh hell no. He’d been through the whole government captive thing with Forsyth; he wasn’t about to go through it again. Panic receded, driven back by anger.

How dare they do this? How dare they try to keep Gray and him apart?

“Fuck you,” he told her.

Her smug smile was enraging. “Just relax. You and the two former test subjects are going to do your patriotic duty. Whether you like it or not.”

John bowed his head. What was Caleb going through right now? Were Night and Gray okay?

They were caught in Harlow’s web, just like he and Ryan had been all those years ago. Doomed to become lab animals, experimented on until they were of no more use. Only this time, there would be no release back into the outside world.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “I tried to push at his thoughts, but I’ve got no strength left. Even with rest, it took me years to manipulate the doctors in the lab where I was held. Without drakul blood or possession…” He trailed off.

John only shook his head. “What did you think you were going to do when you came here?”

“Kill him, somehow. I don’t know.” Ryan shook his head, as if at his own folly. “I’m sorry. Once you came into contact with me, it was only a matter of time before SPECTR scooped me back up. And once you started to get your memories back…even without the drakul, SPECTR was never going to let you go. You’re one of their dirty little secrets in the flesh.”

John leaned his head back against the wall. “Funny how we’re the dirty secrets, not the people who actually ran Operation Mephisto.”

“Yeah.” Ryan shifted slightly. “Listen…I am sorry I had to kill the empath. Pittman. That wasn’t justice.”

“No. No, it wasn’t.”

“Just know, he would have killed every one of us if Kaniyar had told him to. He hated you for what happened in Charleston, and he hated Caleb just as much.” Ryan paused. “You should know, he and his boss spent a lot of time brainstorming what to do if they think they need to destroy your vampire.”

It made sense—or at least, it had back when Caleb was first possessed. But Kaniyar hadn’t known just how hard a drakul was to kill at that point. Most of her brainstorming must have come after.

Could he blame her? Without Gray, they couldn’t have stopped Drugoy. With no other living vampires to take him on, Gray could cause untold havoc. He wouldn’t…but Kaniyar couldn’t take the risk of certainty.

“I’m not really surprised.” John scrubbed his face. “Goddess. I hope Caleb is okay.”

He wasn’t, though; John knew that. In this vulnerable state, could Caleb be killed? And if so, would Gray jump bodies, or die with him? Or be returned to the etheric plane like any other NHE?

Or would Harlow keep them in this state and run his experiments on Caleb? Torture him, like the kids at the Center had been tortured?

He wanted to scream with frustration and anger. Wanted to pound on the door until it gave way before him, run to save his lovers and Night. Anything but this promise of captivity followed by death.

“It can’t end like this,” he whispered.

“It won’t,” Ryan said.

John turned to him. Ryan looked like he needed a shower and about fourteen hours of sleep. Maybe even a hospital, given the blood under his nose, the ruby-red of his eyes. “You sound certain of that.”

“I’m spent. And probably in serious danger of frying my brain.” Ryan wiped at the blood beneath his nose; it flaked off and was replaced by a fresh trickle. “Harlow thinks I’m helpless, and at the moment, he’s right. But he doesn’t know about you.”

John frowned, nonplussed. “What about me?”

“That your powers are boosted. That you can exorcise without a circle, thanks to your…intimate relationship with the drakul.”

“How does that get us out of this room?”

“Because if you can exorcise without a circle, I’m guessing you can summon without one.” Ryan met his eyes. “Put a demon in me, and I can get us out of here.”