Darkest Hour (22 page)

Lockman stood. “Thanks for your time then.”

Obstermeyer puffed out his cheeks. His eyes popped out a little more. His hair did its waggle dance. “Whatever, man.” He stood and hustled out of the room, shoulders hunched as if expecting someone to throw rocks at him on the way out.

“That was nice and pointless,” Adam said. “When are you going to get over that war?”

The way Adam said war, he couldn’t have meant the one with the vamps. But Lockman didn’t know what the hell war the ogre was talking about. “Come again?”

“That battle inside of you about the use of magic for good or ill.”

“There’s no war. It’s called caution. And common sense. I can just see them playing around with wormholes while conjuring a spell. It’s the mad scientists meet the crazy wizards. Bad idea.”

“So we stick to the current timetable?”

“He said he didn’t even know how to do it.”

“Of course not. It wouldn’t be his job to do it. We have practitioners to perform the actual magic.”

“And what happens if they tear timespace in half and we all get sucked down to hell?”

Adam’s laughter boomed through the War Room. “A shortcut to Hell or a shortcut to Alaska. What’s the difference?”

Christ. These were the kinds of decisions once made for him. If the Agency had wanted to send a team through a wormhole straight into the Earth’s core, Lockman would have said “hoo-rah,” grabbed his rifle, and charged in. Now he found himself interviewing physicists and debating the high level tactics of a war that had so blurred the lines between right and wrong, natural and unnatural, sane and deranged, that Lockman didn’t know how to proceed. Every option seemed like the wrong one.

“I can’t stand waiting, giving Gabriel a chance to get up there before we do.”

Adam said nothing. Not helpful.

Lockman pinched the bridge of his nose. The headache had crept over to behind his other eye. The muscles in his neck began to ache as well. “Fine. Let’s build our great big wormhole into hell and send an army through it. At this point, I don’t know if things can get any worse.”

Adam grimaced. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

It only took a second for Lockman to remember all the near scrapes he’d made it through while thinking it couldn’t get any worse. “You’re right. I’m just going to assume it will get worse. If we’re lucky, I’ll be disappointed.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lucia lay on the leather couch in the central living space, naked and bleeding from the ornate carvings Gabriel had drawn in her flesh. Her four-hundred-pound body sagged from head to toe. Saggy arms, saggy legs, saggy breasts that flopped clear down into her armpits. The sag of her belly mercifully covered her privates, which he had learned when he first stripped her also sagged.

Flaying her with a knife didn’t faze him. But seeing that? Horrifying.

Does this disturb you?
he asked Jessie while cutting another line with the paring knife he’d found in Lucia’s kitchen.

She didn’t answer, all her bluster from before evaporated.

He finished his crude tattooing and stepped back to admire his work. Oozing blood blurred many of the lines, but the pattern still looked beautiful, even on the taffy flesh of a fat woman.

With the tip of the knife, Gabriel pricked his finger. He pressed the bead of blood that formed on the fingertip into one of the lines he’d drawn into her face. “My blood to yours and yours to mine,” he whispered. Then he concentrated, imagining not only his blood, but his essence mixing with Lucia’s.

A darkness passed.

Seconds? Minutes? An hour? Gabriel wasn’t sure how long he lived in that darkness. When he came to, he found Lucia sitting upright on the couch, eyes wide, the blood gone, leaving behind a roadwork of scars.

Gabriel smiled. “Call me Master.”

“Master,” she said. She reached out and touched his face. “What can I give you?”

“Your power. You must send me away.”

A tear slipped down her scarred cheek. She frowned. “I just found you. I don’t want you to leave me.”

“It is the best way to serve me.”

“Shall I wait for you here?”

He didn’t care what she did. If she could send him to Barrow, that was all he needed. He could probably release her once he was gone. He could also make her sit on the couch and wait for his return. She would starve to death waiting. The best option, the safest so as no one happened to find her and ask questions or she didn’t go off talking about their encounter, was to have her commit suicide after he was gone.

He took her hand and patted it gently. “You must make the ultimate sacrifice once I’ve left. You must give your life to me.”

Another tear dripped from her eye. “Okay.”

“Are you ready to help me go?”

She nodded.

“We will need more blood,” he said and handed her the knife.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kate had never seen such a spread in real life. The dining room looked like something out of one of those British TV shows about wealthy families with servants living below. Crystal glasses, ornate China, vases bursting with colorful plants that had surely come straight from the rain forest.

The long table sat fifteen, and every chair held an occupant. Kress sat at the head of the table, of course. Kate sat to his right. Mica to his left. Kate also recognized Wertz a few seats down. Even Thom the Ghost occupied one of the fifteen chairs, though Kate was pretty sure ghosts didn’t eat.

The other faces—if the creatures seated at the table
had
faces—were all new to Kate. A few looked human, or close to it with varying shades and texture of skin or added frills like horns or an extra set of teeth. Others looked entirely alien. One diner was little more than a blob of clear liquid perched on a chair.

Before coming down to dinner, Kate had examined the contents of her new bedroom closet and came out with an off the shoulder black dress and a pair of matching heels. She didn’t recognize the label, but she knew it was way out of her normal price range. She picked the dress after Kress warned her that the dinner would be formal, though not to expect everyone in black tie. Now she got the joke. Some of the creatures at this table didn’t have necks. Some of them couldn’t even wear clothes at all—a la Mr. Blob.

Strange company aside, it still felt nice to dress up for a fancy dinner. She could not remember the last time she had done so. The night Craig had proposed? Heavens, she’d barely been out of her teens at the time.

The warm smoothness of Kress’s hand touched Kate’s bare shoulder. She blinked out of her thoughts and smiled at him. The smile felt crooked to her. While no food had yet been served, she could smell shades of onion, garlic, and roasting beef. Her mouth watered.

“Those you see before you,” Kress said, “are the full members of our team. We have a few who do contract work for us. Not often, however. I would hope, over time, you come to think of these companions as your family. We are all very close. And we care for one another fiercely.”

His last sentence sounded like a threat, though Kate didn’t get the sense he had directed it at her. Instead, she thought he might have been cuing her into another benefit of sticking with them.

She had to admit that many she sat with now scared the hell out of her just by their looks. Most of the non-humans she’d come in contact with before proved dangerous and evil. Except for the ogres, like that friend of Craig’s with the foul mouth. There weren’t any ogres at the table, though.

Kress then turned to address the group around the table. “As some of you already know, this is Kate. She is the mother of the Chosen One.”

Kate felt the increased attention and wanted to shrink. Her face turned warm. She waved. “Hi.”

No one returned the greeting. They all stared. Of the faces she could read, she thought they looked worried more than anything. Who knew, though? She was the only human in the room. She could be totally misinterpreting their expressions.

After a few seconds of this increased scrutiny, Kate felt ready to unzip her skin and walk out. The arrival of dinner saved her.

A platoon of servants burst into the room carrying trays of food and beverages. They swirled around the table, a practiced swarm that knew right where to go with what. Within minutes, those who could eat and drink had their plates piled high and their glasses full. They dug in. Some did not eat. They either sat quietly, or spoke with those around them, casual dinner conversation without the dinner. Many furtive glances came Kate’s way throughout the meal.

The smell of the food in front of Kate—mashed sweet potatoes, roasted beef glazed with sautéed onions, a spinach salad—intoxicated her. She thought of the cartoons from her childhood where the scent of something would hold a character by the nose and float them through the air to the source. Despite her hunger, she felt too self-conscious to eat.

Kress nudged her with an elbow. “Perhaps some wine first, to relax you?”

Kate nodded. Kress poured from an unlabeled bottle a dark red wine into her glass.

“This is my own recipe,” he said. “Even the grapes are mine. I own a vineyard in Northern California.”

“I remember reading about it,” Kate said. Some entertainment magazine or tabloid had done an interview with Kress at the vineyard. She picked up the glass and saluted with it. “Thank you.”

The wine awakened taste buds that must have died years ago. After only a couple of sips, she took up her fork and knife and began eating. For a short while she forgot about everything else. The meal tasted as divine as the wine. She couldn’t help wonder if some magic were involved. The thought ruined some of her enjoyment. Made her think about her arm and Mica slammed up against the wall, Kate momentarily unable to stop from continuing to crush her.

Then she thought of Jessie.

She set down her fork and pushed back from the table.

“Everything all right?”

“Why are we wasting time? When do we find Jessie?”

Kress sipped his wine before answering. “I want you comfortable here, Kate.”

Four days had passed since the ritual in the room with the pentagram and the mural on the ceiling. In that time, Kate had discovered her bedroom was attached to a larger suite with full kitchen, living room, and luxurious bathroom with a shower big enough for four and a hot tub that could accommodate at least that many. The living room had shelves full of books and DVDs, a massive plasma television, stereo system with a seemingly infinite digital collection of music, and even a video game console that didn’t interest Kate in the slightest. Plenty of things to keep her occupied, in other words, while they asked that she stay in her apartment until they were ready for the next step in finding Jessie. Kress had visited her daily, begging for her patience as they “prepared.”

But she could only read so much. Only listen to so much music or watch so many movies. They had also provided her a treadmill and she had put more miles on the thing than she had probably run in a month’s time back when running was part of her morning ritual. Stir crazy no longer qualified as a descriptor for her state. They told her she was not a prisoner, that she could leave at any time if she so chose, and every time the subject came up, Kress worked his guilt trip about saving the world.

Admittedly, the formal dinner was a nice change. But too little, too late.

“If Jess is in some kind of danger like you suspect, my comfort’s really a luxury, isn’t it? Does it matter?”

“It matters.”

The glances from the others around the table came more frequently as they overheard the conversation. Kate tried not to notice, at least not to care.

“I doubt I’ll ever feel totally comfortable here. No offense. But I think we’re better off if we move on with this.”

Mica said something under her breath that sounded snide.

Kress flashed her a disapproving look, then returned his attention to Kate. He rested a hand on her arm—the formerly wounded one. “Yours is not the only comfort I’m concerned about.” His eyes tracked along the table. “For what we face, we will have to work together in the most intimate of fashions. Rituals, as you’ve seen, are dangerous and leave us vulnerable.”

“Okay, I think I understand. But I still think any more delay is a mistake.”

Mica dropped her fork on her plate with a clank. “Is that ‘cause you’re worried about your pretty little daughter, love? Or ‘cause you actually give a fig about The Return?”

Kate opened her mouth to answer. Kress cut in.

“We’ll not argue.” He stared pointedly at Mica.

She hunched her shoulders, picked her fork up, and started stabbing at her roast without actually eating anything.

To Kate, Kress said, “I understand your impatience. I share it, in fact. But once we find Jessie, things around here will change drastically. Those you dine with tonight have pinned all their hopes for a future on the fate of your daughter. We cannot take this lightly.”

“Believe me,” Kate said. “I’m not taking anything lightly.”

“Good, because there is one more reason why we cannot rush. You are not ready.”

Her first instinct was to snap at him, tell him she damn well was ready. He was the one who kept telling her they needed time to prepare. She checked herself. She remembered her lack of control with Mica. If this new power in her could lead her to Jess, she wanted to learn how as quickly as possible. She also understood, however, that she knew absolutely nothing about how it worked. For example, could using the power to search for Jessie also harm her in some way? Still, she wasn’t content to sit through luxurious dinners when Kress and his people could at least
start
getting her ready.

“How is this,” she gestured to the table, “going to make me ready?”

Kress swallowed. His eyes flicked down to her plate. “Have you had enough to eat?”

She followed his gaze and surprised herself to find the plate empty. She’d been hungrier than she thought. “I’m fine. Now tell me—”

He held up a hand, cutting her off. Then he stood.

All the chatter and clink of silverware against China stopped at once. The focus of everyone at the table turned to Kress. He stood for a silent moment. “My friends, we find ourselves at a precipice we have prepared for over a century. Many of you have been with me since the beginning. The newest of you still know me as well as any.”