Apocalypse Cult (Gray Spear Society) (36 page)

"That statement is typical of an undisciplined, ignorant infidel like you," Job said. "How dare you speak for God!"

Aaron felt the weight of the revolver hidden under his shirt. If he whipped it out, he could kill one of the bad guys, two if he were lucky, but Job might survive long enough to detonate the bomb. It was a bad plan.

"You're a doomed man," Job said, "but if you answer my questions truthfully, I might consider letting you survive a little while longer."

"Go on."

"The voice I heard on the phone wasn't really Simon."

"You just figured that out?" Aaron said.

The burning in his veins was painful. God was becoming impatient with all this useless talk.

"It was a good impersonation," Job said. "How did you get my number? How did you find this ship? What happened to the
Scimitar
?"

Aaron sneered as he continued to limp forward. "You really want to know? We got your phone number by cracking open Simon's secret safe. We also got the names and addresses of everybody else in your little cult. Soon all of you will be dead. The Church of One Soul will be wiped off the face of the Earth. We're the ones who ambushed Simon at the campgrounds and killed his lieutenants."

Job swallowed. "Where is Simon?"

"I watched him die. While we're on that subject, I should mention the entire crew of the
Scimitar
is also dead."

"No." Job shook his head. "It's all a lie."

"Do you want to know how Simon died? Sraosha killed him.
Sraosha!
Your so-called angel was worried Simon would spill his guts under torture. He probably would've, too."

The two crewmen glanced at each other, and they lowered their assault rifles an inch.

"That's even more ridiculous than your other lies," Job said in an uncertain tone.

"The truth," Aaron said, "the
truth
is you're playing for the wrong team. You were deceived."

"No."

"Because Simon told you? One fool leading another. Seriously, how can killing thousands of innocent people and throwing the entire world into chaos be a good thing? I mean, who came up with that stupid idea?"

"God."

Aaron snorted. "Come on. Why would He wreck His own creation?"

"My faith is unbreakable."

"It's easy to have faith when you're holding the guns."

"What's your faith?" Job said. "Do you believe in anything?"

Aaron paused before answering. He wasn't religious, even now. He had always led a very pragmatic life with simple goals. Philosophy bored him to tears.

Thinking about the question, he had a moment of clarity. He saw his entire life as a whole with all the decisions fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. Even the insanity of the last few days was a seamless continuation of everything that had come before. For the first time, it all made sense to him.

"I believe I was made for one purpose," Aaron said. "It took me a long time to figure it out. My years as a cop were just a rehearsal. My purpose is destroying assholes like you."

He saw the bomb trigger in Job's hand. It was a small, red box with a radio antenna and some buttons. Job held the box tightly.
I'm close
, Aaron thought,
but not close enough.

His muscles were on fire. He had never felt this kind of excruciating pain, and strangely, he liked it. It was what he needed. It made him stronger and faster.

"In other words," Job said, "you want to be a hero. You seek fame and glory."

"Not at all. The world will never know my name."

Aaron flexed his hands. His plan was to grab his gun and start shooting. It was all he could do. Hopefully, he would kill all three men before he died. If it worked, Marina would be the lone survivor on the ship, and maybe she could defuse the bomb. Aaron gave the plan a one percent chance of success.
Better than zero percent.
He took a deep breath.
He we go!

An odd sensation stopped him. The Presence was inside him. For an instant that seemed to last an hour, Aaron understood he was a very tiny part of a very large universe. The vastness and complexity of it was far beyond human comprehension, but that fact did not make him insignificant. He was loved and cherished like all living things. Stars didn't have brains and planets didn't have hearts. Aaron's brief passage through the cosmos mattered in the biggest of all big pictures.

The Presence was enraged though. All that anger condensed and collected in Aaron's mouth until it became a molten ball of fury. His tongue and jaw were transformed in that crucible. His mouth became a weapon.

The Presence left.

Aaron knew what he had to do.

He spat at the trigger in Job's hand. With supernatural force and accuracy, a blob of yellow liquid splashed onto the device. There was a loud hissing sound as it crumbled into fragments. Job never had a chance to press the button. Then Aaron spat at the AK-47s in the hands of the two crewmen, and the metal parts fell apart like ice melting under a blow torch. Hazy, yellow smoke smelled like burnt toast. Aaron's saliva seemed to have no effect on living flesh.

He whipped out his revolver and fired. He used three bullets on each of the crewmen, but the revolver only had six chambers. When it clicked empty, he threw it aside.

Job started to run away. Aaron grabbed a rifle from a dead body on the floor and shot Job in the legs. He fell. Aaron held the trigger until the captain's legs were shredded meat and the magazine was empty.

Aaron limped forward until he stood directly over the enemy.

Job rolled onto his back and tried to shield himself with his hands. "Who are you?"

"I am an instrument of God's will, a divine weapon made of flesh." Aaron grimaced. "The Lord demands retribution, and I shall deliver it!" He flipped the rifle over and bashed Job in the face with the stock. Aaron kept pounding and pounding until gray brain matter splattered onto the floor.

He dropped the bloody rifle. The battle was over. The enemy was destroyed.

He went back to Marina. When he pushed the lid of the crate off, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Hey," he said softly, "it's just me."

"Did we win?" She lowered the gun.

He nodded. "I'll carry you out."

He very gently helped her out of the crate. Holding her in his arms like a child, he went into the corridor.

"Whoa!" she said. "Hold on."

He stopped. "What?"

"This mess."

He looked at the many corpses in the corridor. They had died in different ways, none clean or pleasant.

"Is there a problem?" he said.

"No problem at all! This is great work, Aaron. For a rookie, it's fabulous! And I thought you were soft." She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. "I love you."

"You haven't even seen the best part."

He walked up to the locked hatch. He spat a yellow glob, and the chains fell apart.

She stared at him. "What was that?"

"A gift from God." He grinned.

"That's impossible. Nobody ever gets a gift on his first mission. You're supposed to wait years."

He kicked open the hatch and looked at the bomb. Like the one aboard the
Scimitar
, it was made from layers of different materials. Drums of kerosene and bags of nitrate fertilizer formed the outer layer, then came many crates of Tovex, and then came more crates of plastic explosives. He couldn't even guess how much damage the explosion would do. The detonator in the center was protected by a glass box covered with sensors. Aaron suspected just tapping the glass would set off the bomb. He was lucky the grenades had not triggered it.

"Damn," Marina said. "This is going to be a problem."

He spat at the glass box. The yellow liquid bubbled frantically, and a hole formed big enough for him to put his arm through. He spat through the hole at the detonator itself. The device crumbled into smoking pieces of plastic and wire. The liquid even dissolved some of the dynamite beneath the detonator. When a drop struck the metal deck, it went right through.

"Or maybe not," she said.

He carried her back out of the room and into the corridor. The wound in his thigh was stinging, but her injury probably hurt a lot more, and she wasn't complaining, so he trudged on. He still had to climb two flights of stairs to reach the main deck.

She touched his jaw. "Does it hurt?"

"At first it did," he said. "Now it just tingles. Did it hurt when you received your gift?"

She rubbed her fingernails. "It still does sometimes. How do you feel? This is fantastic! Are you happy?"

"I don't know. It's very... strange."

"I understand what you mean." She nodded. "You're different from everybody else now. A monster. A freak."

"I have a purpose too. I know exactly what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, and who I'll share it with."

She kissed him on the lips. "Me, too."

It took a while, but they finally reached open air. He carefully set her down on a deck chair and stretched his tired arms. A spectacular sunset made the famous skyline of Chicago look like a picture on a postcard. He enjoyed the natural beauty of the world for a moment. The crowds on Navy Pier continued to party, unaware of how close to death they had come.

A U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat was approaching at high speed. Aaron stared at it, too exhausted to worry about this new complication. He would deal with it. Compared to what he had just survived, getting arrested seemed like a trivial concern.

When the boat got close, he saw Ethel at the wheel. He waved to her, and she waved back.

She drove over to a ladder and climbed onto the deck with her usual extreme agility. She wore nothing except black tights and her phone.

"What's your status?" she asked.

"We're all done here," he said. "The enemy is dead. The bomb is defused."

"Casualties?"

"Marina took a bullet and needs medical attention, but she'll live. I was shot in the thigh. That's not as serious."

Ethel relaxed visibly. "Excellent! Great job, both of you. I'm very impressed."

"I had help, ma'am. A gift." He spat at the deck, and his saliva burned a clean hole about the size of his fist. The reaction was startlingly energetic.

She stared at the hole. "I've never heard of anybody getting a gift on his first mission. This is a unique event. The Big Man must have special plans for you."

"We'll see."

"Call headquarters and give them an update. Tell them to send an ambulance for Marina and you."

"What about this ship, ma'am?" he asked. "It's full of dead bodies and high explosives. We can't just leave it here, but the engines are disabled."

"Nancy and Edward will help me get them working again. We'll drive this ship into the middle of the lake and blow it up. There will be no evidence left behind."

"Is that what happened to the
Scimitar?
"

"Yes," she said.

"And how did you get the Coast Guard boat, ma'am? I assume it came with a crew originally."

She frowned. "Don't worry about that. The good news is we're near the end of the mission. I don't think any more innocents will die."

"Good," he said, "because I've seen too many dead bodies lately. Now I know what it's like to be a coroner."

"You still need your initiation ceremony. We'll combine it with a big party to celebrate our victory today and, just as important, God's gift to you."

"That sounds like a great idea." He nodded. "Can I get some sleep first, ma'am?"

"Of course." She grinned.

Chapter Twenty-six

Ethel wore formal gray robes with braided hems and an elaborate, layered hood. She stood on a dais at the front of the room with a long spear in her hands. The spear, her face, and her hands were covered with gray ashes so that she was the same dull color all over. It was a reminder that a thousand years ago members of the Gray Spear Society had camouflaged themselves with ash when performing missions at night.

Aaron knelt before her with his head bowed. He didn't carry a spear, but he did have ashes on his face, which itched mercilessly. It was all he could do to keep from scratching. Also, his knees ached from kneeling on the cement floor.

Marina sat just behind him in a wheelchair. There was an open space left for Victor. It was a nice gesture, although nobody had expressed much grief over his passing. Indeed, Aaron could hardly remember hearing his name mentioned at all.

The
legionnaires
wore plainer gray robes than their commander. The supporting members of the team—Jack, Yvonne, Edward, Kamal, and Nancy—formed a line at the back of the room. Their faces were clean, and they just wore gray pants and shirts.

"Finally," Ethel said, "we come to the oath of membership in the Gray Spear Society. I must remind everybody that violating the oath is a grave offence, and the penalty is always death. Once the oath is sworn, it can never be retracted. We are not permitted to quit the Society. Aaron Glade, do you understand?"

"I do, ma'am," Aaron said.

"Do you swear to fight the enemies of God with all the strength in your body and mind?"

"Yes."

"If necessary, will you sacrifice your life and all you hold dear for that cause?"

"Yes."

"Are you even prepared to sacrifice the woman you love?" Ethel looked meaningfully at Marina. "As she would sacrifice you?"

Aaron frowned. He didn't believe this question was part of the traditional oath. "If necessary. Yes."

"Good. God demands we remain covert. Do you swear to conceal the Gray Spear Society at all times and in all ways?"

"Yes."

"Will you take our secrets to the grave rather than reveal them?"

"Yes."

"Finally, will you obey the orders of your commander and trust her judgment in all matters of importance?"

"Yes."

"Then, stand up," Ethel said. "I hereby award you the rank of
legionnaire
with all the attendant rights, privileges, and responsibilities. Bring honor to the title, and welcome to our ancient Society!"

Everybody clapped loudly. Aaron turned and smiled to the rest of the team. When the applause went on, he took a bow.