Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (4 page)
Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
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"What
are you saying, Mr. Loring, Mike?" Anxiety vibrated off Tadd like tones from a tuning fork.
"How
could he do any
thing to Mickey? What kind of sicko monster is he? Mickey's just a 5-year-old lit
tle boy."
How do I explain what a Dark Lord is to someone like Tadd Farber?
"You're right, he is a monster. What he did to your son, though, is welcome in many ways. He fixed your son's cleft palate. He repaired all the damage done by the chronic ear infections. In Mickey, I can see bits of you, just as I can in your lovely daughter here." I stood and purposefully refrained from glancing out the window. "I don't want to scare you, because Mickey is in far better shape than any of us could have imagined. I just want you to be
ready, because he is not the same little boy you remember."
1 laid my left hand gently on Tadd Farber's forearm as he rose from his chair. "One thing I do want you to understand, Tadd, is that Lorica Industries is pledged to seeing to it that Mickey will be taken care of for his entire life. You need not worry about him or your daughter or yourself."
"Why? You're not responsible, are you?" Tadd regarded me with the haunted wariness I'd expect from a beaten animal.
"No, I am not, but that does not excuse me of feeling an obligation to your son. May I be frank?" As he nodded, I tightened my grip on his arm and brought his hand up to eye level. "Your watch was made in Bulgaria. Your suit was probably sewn together in a Belizan factory. Your trip here was your first time
on a plane and quite probably the first trip outside the
United States. Your monthly income in dolmarks barely covers your expenses, and I imagine that the
food you had in the airplane is probably the best and most nutritious of meals you've had in over a month.
Am I close?"
"Yes," he whispered hoarsely. I could feel him trembling and saw that he did not look at his daughter while she stared daggers at me. "I don't understand why you want to help us."
"The world is an evil place, Tadd. Your son and daughter have been touched by that evil—with Mickey
facing the brunt of it. Even so, your children are resilient and have a will to survive. Nurturing them, and people like them, means the world may become a little less evil."
I gestured at the finery in the office. "All of this, Tadd, is very expensive, but it is worthless if it is not used correctly. Others would see what I have here as a goal, but I see it as a means to a goal. I know life has not been easy for you, and I suspect it will get worse before it gets better. I just want you to know that it will get better because it is imperative to me that the world gets better."
1 felt the emotions rippling through him as if my fingertips were reading some ethereal Braille. The
insecurity and self-doubt that had begun as I spoke gave way to pride in his children. Part of him resented the directness of my approach; he felt honored that I thought his children were worthy of salvation.
Finally, as 1 pledged to help him and them, he grew stronger because the burden of their future had been
lifted from his shoulders.
"Shall we go see your son now?"
"Please."
Leaving
through the side door, we crossed the tiled
landing, and I hit a button that summoned the elevator. The doors opened to reveal a glass-walled cage
that went up and down on the outside of the Galbro building. Dorothy preceded the both of us into the
box and pressed her hands against the window of the far side. "Hey, someone's fighting down there."
I smiled and pressed the button marked "Ground." "Some of my people use the courtyard for martial arts training."
Tadd smiled. "Mickey would like that. He always liked watching karate movies on the TV."
1 nodded but said nothing. As the elevator descended, it became easier to see the two combatants. They
fought in the center of a rain forestlike garden with walkways paved with crushed stones of white. In the central area, where the walkways became a wide, white ring edged with slate-gray stones, the two men
circled each other cautiously. Just judging from the comparative size of the two men, the outcome would
have seemed obvious.
The larger of the two men looked huge even from a distance. Heavily muscled, he had countless scars
criss-crossing his bare torso. The dark-haired man towered over the other fighter by almost a foot, yet
remained back and in a low crouch. Bat feinted with his balled fists, but did not step in and pound his foe to oblivion.
The other fighter moved with a fluidity that matched his slender, whiplash body. His dark brown hair
trailed behind his head fakes, and a broad smile lit his face. Like Bat, he wore only a pair of gym shorts, so it was easy to see the intricate intaglio of thick and thin black lines swirling over his body. The lines followed and defined his musculature as if they were tattoos, but watching closely I once again saw that
the line moved
with
his muscles, not above them as a tattoo might.
Bat's left fist hooked in hard at the smaller man. Before the fist had gotten even halfway to its target, the tattooed man danced back and to the right. His right hand swatted the fist out of the way like a kitten
batting at a ball of yam. The small man ducked his left shoulder and lunged forward in a move that sent
his fingertips grazing across Bat's washboard stomach.
The tattooed man retreated, then giggled aloud. "I tickled you again!"
The explosive oath Bat offered in reply seemed to shock his foe, but the thick foliage and wall
surrounding the courtyard cut off any vision of the two fighters at that point. Tadd stood on his tiptoes to catch any last glimpse, then smiled. "That was Bat, wasn't it? I've seen him in some of the fights televised from Eclipse."
1 nodded. "Yes, that was Bat."
Tadd shook his head. "I seen him fight a whole bunch, and he's always been a winner for me. That guy he's fighting, though, he's a razor. He's incredible. What's his name?"
"I'm glad you think highly of him." I waved the two of them toward the opening elevator door. "He is Mickey Farber. He is your son."
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"My son?"
"Your son," I replied, nodding as Tadd slumped against the elevator wall. "Dorothy, the path here will take you directly to him. You father and 1 will be along presently."
The girl looked up at him and reluctantly accepted her father's weak nod as confirmation of what 1 had
said. She ran off, and 1 kept the elevator door open. "There is a bench over there. I can try to explain."
Tadd's head came back up. "I hope you can explain." He rolled his shoulders, then straightened his jacket and walked to the bench. Confusion and anger and sorrow surrounded him like a cloud, but he kept his
head up and exerted control as he sat down. "How can that be my son?"
1 took a deep breath and read the emotions Tadd was putting out. Rajani, the Yidam's daughter, had
reported meeting Tadd once. She said he had some inner strength, but it was fragile. She felt he had
reordered his life around and for his children after she brought them back to him. She also strongly
suspected that losing Mickey and the shock of his returning in this modified form might crush him.
And now, to that, I had to add an utter shift in his whole worldview. I stood before him, keeping my feet shoulder-width apart and my hands open. "Mr. Farber, do you think of evil as something you can touch, something that is personified?"
My cautious tone and the nature of my question cut through his growing sense of self-doubt. "Evil? 1
guess so, I mean, I don't think there is a devil or anything but I guess I think some people are born evil."
"Good, because there are creatures in the universe that are born evil or choose to become evil. For lack of a better term, I will refer to them as Dark Lords. Consider their outlook one where black is white and
white is black. A kindness repels them, but misery draws them like a flame draws moths."
His face tightened. "Dorothy told me about fleeing from a loup-garou in the forests near Flagstaff. I thought she was..." His voice caught in his throat. "Was that real?"
"As I understand things, yes, it was. The creature they faced was not a Dark Lord per se, but was one of a legion of creatures that Dark Lords are capable of using to further their ends." I let my hands knot into fists, then forced them open slowly. "Your son was abducted by a Dark Lord we call Pygmalion. Like the sculptor, he made your son over into a work of art. He also made him into a prototype for a killing
machine,"
"Mickey?"
"Yes. Luckily, we have dealt with the problem."
"What's been done to him?"
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1 shr
ugged. "I don't know all of it. The Dark Lords have unbelievable powers at their disposal. Pygm
alion
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has access
to a place where time moves at an accelerated rate. There he was able to let your son gro
w up
a bit and train. You obviously will not recognize the
package, but it is your son inside."
Tadd Farber looked down at the ground and shook his head. "This is insane, you know that, don't you? If I told anyone what you have just told me, I'd be locked away in a booby hatch faster than I could spit."
"Which is exactly why your son was chosen. If he did return to you and if he was able to recount all that happened, you would be thought mad when you reported it."
Farber's head came up sharply. "How do I know you are not one of these Dark Lords?"
His question lanced up into me. To him, to billions of people like him, I was as far above him as
Fiddleback was above me. I described Dark Lords as having incredible power, yet to Tadd Farber the fact
that he was in Japan talking to
a
man who ran a multinational corporation was nothing short of
miraculous. For all he knew or could determine, I might have changed his son, then brought him here to
emotionally torture him with my handiwork.
"That is a fair question." I dropped down into a squat. "I am to the Dark Lords what Lucifer was to God. I was groomed by a Dark Lord—without my knowledge—to become his weapon against other Dark Lords.