Spires of Infinity (20 page)

“I am the Apostle of Cain.”

“Yes, but what’s your name, beautiful. I imagine pillow talk gets a little clunky calling you Apostle of Cain all the time.”

“That
is
my name.” Pillow talk? What in Cain’s name was
that
?

Cain cackled madly in her head, but she ignored it.

“That’s sad. Well, let’s see. I know. Mara. You look like a Mara. So then, Mara, how do you like it?”

Taken aback, the Apostle stepped away. What was he trying
to do, put her off guard by acting a ridiculous fool? Or was he actually just a ridiculous fool. His behavior made very little sense and she did not understand half of what he said at all.

“You don’t like it? Oh well. I thought that was perfect for you. Let’s see. Ah, I know. How about Cora? Queen Cora was a great heroine on some other world long ago.

I’d be honored to be named after her, if I was a girl.”

“Shut up! Stop spouting gibberish!”

Trying to clear her thoughts, she began pacing again. Everything was much

clearer before the fool male opened his mouth. Had she actually been impatiently awaiting his awakening?

“He has to have been sent by the Council,” she muttered to herself, unaware that she was speaking aloud. “I’ve never seen another Subject outside of the facility. They must have discovered that I—“

“Uh, excuse me.”

She glared at him and he flinched back from her.

“Ah, well, I was gonna say,” he said rather weakly, “if you’re confused about me having a tail and not being from where you’re from. I can explain. I mean, that is . . . I swear to god if you bite me I’m going to be very annoyed with you.”

When she gave him no reaction, he sighed and let his head thump back to the

table. “Not even a smile. Jeez lady, don’t you have
any
sense of humor?”

“You will explain,” the Apostle ordered.

“You and I are Heretics. A Heretic is born when a Demon is summoned into a

human host and then mates with a human. We’re extremely rare, because most worlds don’t even know Demons exist, much less how to summon them. Plus, a human mind must be irrevocably destroyed in the process.”

Continuing to pace, the Apostle suddenly realized that procreation must be the purpose for the coupling between males and females. But what about the females that bore offspring without a male partner? She still understood too little. Besides, she’d been grown in a laboratory. After becoming aware of herself, she’d seen other Subjects being grown in huge plastic tubes full of clear blue liquid. Therefore, what this male said about so-called Heretics did not seem to apply to her. They might look alike, but it was clear that there were still differences between whatever he was, and a Subject.

Still, if he spoke truth, it could mean that he had nothing to do with the Council at all, which was, in itself, a great relief. It meant that the Council still did not know about her plans regarding them. However, where had he gotten the crystal that allowed travel between worlds? That detail was still troubling.

Glancing for the first time at the broadsword leaning against the wall in the

corner, the Apostle thought he had to be extraordinarily strong and dexterous to swing it with much precision. Someone that strong could make a powerful ally against the Council if converted.

Bursting with anticipation, Cain seemed almost giddy at that thought. It was like having a bomb straining to explode in the back of her mind. She could not help but think that he knew something she didn’t about her prisoner.

Stepping to Jonathan’s side, the Apostle leaned over him, staring into his strange, bestial eyes. Stirring, Cain moved forward until he was right behind her eyes, staring into Jonathan’s soul. Though he tried to struggle at first, the combined gaze of the Apostle and Cain soon mesmerized him. Intuitively, she knew the darkness that lay at the heart of every living being. All of his fears, resentments, hatreds, and annoyances, were laid out before her like an open book. She did not understand much of it, but she didn’t have to in order to exploit it.

“Poor Jonathan,” she cooed at him. “Always one of a pair, but never an

individual. You hate that Michael has your face and that everyone treats the two of you as a single person. You were born first after all. And if wearing your face wasn’t bad enough, he’s the one that always has the good ideas. He got the brains, and you got nothing. Those ideas should be yours. You’re jealous of him, and resentful of him. If he were gone, no one would ever mistake you for someone else. No one would ever refer to you as only half of a pair again. You want to kill him, because if he had never been born, you could have been so much more. Kill him. I command you to
kill
your brother and return to me.”

“That’s a really neat trick,” Jonathan chuckled, “but it’s easy enough to defeat.”

“Impossible,” the Apostle spat. Only the insane had been able to shrug off Cain’s control so easily!

“What you say does make a sort of morbid sense. Of course I’m resentful of my brother from time to time. He’s my brother! It’s like a commandment from god. Thou shalt periodically be annoyed by thy siblings! It’s a fact of life. My sister gives me a hell of a lot more trouble than he ever will. Sure I’m resentful that no one ever thinks of me as an individual. Maybe he achieves a little more than I do. But you know what? I love my brother. He’s like half of myself. I couldn’t live, knowing I’d killed him, because it was his pushing me to become better, and striving always to outdo him that made me who I am. You see much, but you understand nothing. All it takes to break your silly mind trick is a little strength of will.”

“You –”

“So then,” Jonathan winked. “Do you like Cora? I could pick another name for you if you prefer, but I really think that Cora fits you even better than Mara does.”

Staring, the Apostle was almost
certain
that he was mad. That was the only explanation. He was a raving lunatic. That had to be how he fended off her powers.

“Cora it is, then. How about a kiss to commemorate the day you received your

very own name, Cora?”

Bringing his head up abruptly, he pressed his lips to hers.

Stumbling back in startlement, the Apostle brought a hand up to her lips and

wiped them free of his saliva before giving him her sternest glare.

“What? Why did you? You will
never
touch me in such a way again!”

With that she strode forward and drove her gauntleted fist into his face with all of her strength, knocking him senseless.

Breathing hard, the Apostle could not remember ever having so much trouble

controlling her anger. Forcing calm, she lifted her hood back to cover her wolf ears and replaced her mask. Doing so felt like replacing a part of herself that she’d lost.

Cain howled with laughter.

Without any visible effort at all, the prisoner had been able to completely and totally frustrate her to the point of showing open anger. Even bolted down to a table and stripped of every shred of clothing, he’d been the clear victor of their confrontation. She knew too little about social interactions, ignoring such things as unimportant and irrelevant to her mandate, and her true, hidden desires.

Fuming over her failure, the Apostle needed more experience in social situations to even come close to understanding this fool! She needed to observe how humans acted with one another. She needed to learn. If she met many more people that could break her control so easily, she needed to learn other ways of controlling them. She needed to understand what Jonathan had been saying to her, and why. If she had any clue as to what his comments and actions were designed to do, she could better control her anger and frustration while dealing with him in the future.

Wanting to shout in frustration, the Apostle knew no word with enough strength to convey her emotion.

“
Males
!” she decided on, and that seemed good enough.

Leaving the cell, she turned to Yuri, the guard outside. Being a big bear of a man, he had a special governmental license for his non-conformity in size. He was an excellent questioner, and his size invoked quite a bit of fear in people who believed that all things should be uniform and unchanging.

“Find out where he came from, and anything else you can dig out of him,” the

Apostle ordered. “I want to know everything about him. Find out what he knows about beings that he calls Heretics. Use any means necessary except electric shocks. He has an extremely low tolerance, and you might unwittingly kill him.”

“Yes Apostle,” Yuri bowed. “It shall be as you command.”

Eyeing Yuri for a second, the Apostle wondered if
he
thought that she was a male as well? Unable to tell from his behavior, she supposed that it did not matter so long as he followed orders.

Chapter 18: Control

Pacing up and down her office, the Apostle of Cain realized that she was counting steps rather than thinking about what to do with her prisoner, forcing herself to stop. It was not long afterward that she realized she’d begun counting each time she crossed the room and growled in frustration.

Out of the thousands of males she’d met, the Apostle could not understand how

this one could frustrate her so completely. As the last of the Subjects she’d thought herself unique, but that was no longer true, and she didn’t quite know how she felt about that. It was somewhat troubling. Though they’d come into being through highly different processes, they seemed very similar. As like beings, she should be able to understand him, but he made even less sense than the humans did!

These thoughts should not have shaken her so, but she could not stop thinking

about him. Unable to understand why, or what she was feeling, she felt as though she was falling through a maelstrom, unable to tell up from down. It was almost as though he’d kicked her in the head, and turned half of what she’d believe about herself upside down.

Sighing deeply, the Apostle sat on the edge of her desk. Why was she so

obsessed with this one male? It didn’t make any sense to her. She had no doubt that she could bring Jonathan around to joining her eventually. The problem was that she had grown lazy over centuries of travel and conquest. Few people could resist her powers of persuasion. In relying so heavily upon them, she’d neglected learning any other way of bending a person to her will. Keeping him close and restrained was probably the best course of action until she could think of something else.

Once Jonathan saw the importance of her vendetta against the Council, he might be reasonable and join her of his own free will. They were both Subjects. Perhaps he would feel some sort of obligation to help her. Perhaps if he could see her at work, and how powerful she was, he would come around.

Standing, the Apostle walked around her desk and dropped into her chair, pulling up the holographic computer interface. Perhaps seeing him again would help her to think of how to deal with him. After typing commands into the glowing keyboard hovering above her desk, a camera feed from the interrogation room winked on at eye level. Biting back a curse, she saw that Yuri was removing the bolts from Jonathan’s restraints! She could not believe that she’d missed an infiltrator so high up in the ranks!

Leaping over her desk, the Apostle flew from her office. With speed far greater than any human could manage, she ran through the halls, startling everyone she passed.

Bounding off of walls to round corners, she slowed for nothing. The elevators would be too slow so she took the stairs, dropping over the railing to the next flight several times until she reached the right floor and burst through the door to the containment wing.

That Subject belonged to
her
! How
dare
the resistance even
think
to take him from her!

Without slowing, she drew the sword hidden beneath her cloak. Its black blade flashed in the light as she kicked the correct door so hard that it broke off its hinges and crashed to the ground inside, revealing a very startled Yuri and a half freed Jonathan.

Without hesitation, the Apostle strode forward and drove her blade through Yuri’s heart, killing him instantly.

“Figures something like that would happen,” Jonathan sighed. “I rather liked

him.”

“You may finish freeing yourself. You will be coming with me.”

“Ooh! Our first date. Where to, Cora?”

“My name is the Apostle! You will address me as such, or not at all.”

Watching Jonathan free himself, the Apostle gestured to his clothing and sword in the corner. Allowing him to keep his weapon was a slight risk, but she needed him to think he could trust her.

“Clothe yourself, but make no sudden movements. The floor will electrify if the computers believe you’re escaping, and that would be bad for both of us.”

It was a blatant lie, but she was good at lying, especially with her face covered.

He would believe it.

Eyeing his naked body with natural curiosity about something she had little to no experience with, she watched him dress. When he was clothed, he reached for his sword, hesitating for a second, but when she did not protest he strapped it on.

Stepping to a cabinet that held drugs and other such questioning tools, the Apostle withdrew two metal rings with electrodes placed evenly on the inner side.

“Put out your hands.”

In turn she released the catch on each of the rings and clipped them around his wrists. Once they locked closed, the red light near the clasps began flashing to indicate activation.

“Those are stun cuffs. If you move them more than seven inches apart, try to

remove them, or make any sudden movements, they’ll shock you with ten thousand volts.

Enough to stun a human, but far more than necessary to kill you. I suggest you be
very
careful.”

“I’ll cherish them always as the first gift from you, oh beautiful one. Speaking of jewelry, did you happen to see a necklace with a purple crystal on it around here? It doesn’t seem to be with any of my things.”