The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (23 page)

He calmly considered the sale he had ahead of
him. He had just received a call from history. It was like the
phone had rung across two decades. It was a job, but there were
sticky elements to it. Tiny was a salesman, and he knew his
product: Money. It was good timing. They were dipping into the last
of their savings. But it would be sticky.

“Shit!” Tiny said, as he walked into the
house, across the kitchen and to the bathroom mirror. He pulled the
door shut.

“You handsome Devil.” He smiled at himself
with twin rows of bottom teeth—like a shark’s. His blue eyes
twinkled from beneath a small forehead on either side of a large
nose. His bony hands retied his tie, and then straightened his
jacket. He primped a little styling mousse into his hair, just to
tame the curl, and then felt his thin cleft chin for stubble.

He walked to the base of the stairs and
yelled: “Driver!” The Texan slept during the early part of the day,
partly because he liked late nights and tequila, but mainly because
that was how they did things in Texas.

“Do I need my guns?” came Driver’s calming
tenor.

“Yes. I’ve got to talk to Bloody!”

“Well, shit, he’s okay. Just the other day he
didn’t shoot nothin’.” A pause. “You got work?” Cowboy boots
thumped on the floor. “I heard the phone.”

“Yeah, and Bloody may not like it.” Tiny lit
a cigarette.

Driver appeared at the top of the stairs. His
black hair and goatee were wild as he walked down. He wore denims
over a pair of tattered pink long johns. “Why? Bloody’s okay.” He
flicked twin index fingers at Tiny’s chest. “‘Besides, any problem?
You
can talk him into it.”

“I know, brother.” Tiny held out his
cigarettes. Driver took one. “But this is a tough sale.”

“Why?” Driver stared through the cigarette
smoke. “Who we workin’ for?” The Texan smoothed his wiry hair and
beard. He was tired of spending more than he was making. “A big
job?”

“Big money.” Tiny walked over to the sink,
drained off the last of his coffee. “Providing protection.”

Driver helped himself to a piece of bread and
then paused for his ritual morning toast of tequila—to break the
tension.

“Who?” Driver mumbled, digging his palms into
his eyes.

“The heat’s on a guy so we’ll earn our money.
We got to keep him and a girl safe.” Tiny knew that money and girls
mentioned in the same breath always sold Driver.

“
Girl
?” Driver picked at the edge of
his goatee. “Hell, Tiny I don’t mind earnin’ my keep.”

“I know.” Tiny flicked ash down the drain.
“But we need Bloody.”

“Hey, a job will get Bloody out of them
Orbison blues.” Driver straddled a kitchen chair like it was a
horse. “Who’s hirin’ us on?”

“He just called.” Tiny leveled his gaze at
the Texan.

“Who?”

“Him and you got on well in the day.” Tiny
dropped into a seat across from him. “Felon.”

“Felon?” Driver’s face dropped.

“Said he’s in shit.” Tiny watched Driver’s
face. “He’ll pay us a hundred grand each to cover him.”

“Whoa!” Driver breathed, “A hundred
grand!”

“He’s going to need protection, about a
month. We might have to move around.” Tiny stood up. “Would be good
to have Bloody along.”

Driver shook his head. “That’s sticky.”

“Think I don’t know?” Tiny released a little
pressurized ire.

“Som’ bitch.” The Texan squeezed his forehead
with thick fingers. “Poor old Bloody.”

“It was Bloody’s fault!” Tiny hissed. He knew
they might have to take the gunman out, and they had a long
history.

“Yep. Bloody never did know better.” Driver
reached for another cigarette, got up and walked to the window. “We
ain’t his nursemaids. Let’s go tell him. If he don’t want to come
in with us, he can go to hell. I’m gettin’ tired of his shootin’
and cryin’ and that damn old tape… This Change just screwed
everythin’ up, otherwise we’d be droppin’ flowers at his grave.” A
whimsical look passed over his face. “You know, we’d have got him a
nice piece of marble or some such, could’a carved somethin’ sweet
on it about tiptoeing through them tulips like we done after Killer
got blowed to smithereens.”

“Yep.” Tiny checked the action of his gun. It
was the same one that Driver had given him a century before. Much
of it had worn away and been replaced, but the body of it belonged
in a museum. “Do you know what they were fighting about when it
happened?”

“I believe it was a squabble over a gun,”
Driver sighed, and looked out toward the driving shed. “Felon was
always a straight shooter. I just wished he hadn’t pumped eight
bullets into old Bloody.” He looked at Tiny. “Didn’t need
eight.”

“If you were killing Bloody, wouldn’t you put
eight into him?” Tiny joined him at the window. “Felon was always
an overachiever though. He was the best because of it. Eight’s a
lot to you and me and Bloody, of course; but to a guy like Felon
it’s just doing business the right way.”

“Still,
one
bullet and we could’a sold
Bloody on it bein’ a crime of passion.” Driver studied his nails.
“
Eight
is just plain
mean
.”

“You got to be mean in this business.” Tiny
smirked, studying the round stones of the barn’s foundation.

“Let’s tell him.” Driver’s face was dark. His
eyes flashed like cash registers.

“Let’s tell him in the desert. We got to meet
Felon in the City of Light in two days.” Tiny grabbed the first
hint of a sales plan.

“Two days? With them bad roads, and only one
rusty ferry to cross the Mississippi Sea!” Driver frowned. “That’s
quite a drive.”

“That’s why we call you Driver.” Tiny
laughed.

32 – The Captive

No one was guarding the dark blue door as the
Prime approached. There
were
guards, but the thing needed
more than Authority Enforcers to keep it captive. Learning a way to
bind it had taken years—and gave him an education written in blood.
But the Prime had to increase his Powers, and those of his allies
to fix the final locks and set an invisible watch upon the
prison.

The somber Central Operative walking beside
him was silent. He hadn’t uttered a word in the elevator as they
had dropped to the Tower’s lowest level. The leader of the western
world did not make a habit of inviting mere soldiers to his inner
sanctum, but he had long encouraged a campaign of disinformation to
keep his military arm dubious to the realities of his other
research. He had no wish to share his true might with them.

The Prime had a section of Central Operations
devoted to Powers research and trained its members as adepts. His
Operatives collected information about Powers but were encouraged
to doubt them. The Prime felt the blind necessary for two reasons:
It was none of their fucking business. And secondly, they were less
likely to abuse information they discovered if they didn’t think it
was real. Some of his adepts were beginning to suspect that there
was more than scientific research going on, but those could be
dispatched, as others had.

The Prime could name two that had just
participated in his Sending who were one mistake away from being
ground up and fed to the Tower gardens.

He came to a halt at the end of the hallway.
What would look to the Operative to be eight yards of gray polished
tiles was actually a mini-biosphere of Infernal creatures. The
Prime had painted the protection symbols himself. They were the
culmination of fifty years of top-secret investigations combined
with Powers loaned him by his allies. He would not trust his adepts
to do the spells. There were arcane symbols painted in the
Ardor
of Fallen. Knowledge of those symbols meant knowledge
of the Powers upon which the Prime based his ambitions. With the
symbols in place, he could maintain his grip on the Divine plan. He
wouldn’t even imagine what would happen, should they be broken.

It was simple for him to walk across the
tiles without alerting any of the invisible defenses. The path was
ingrained in memory. He was obsessed with it. Sometimes on his
sleepless nights he would traverse the corridor to gaze upon his
prized possession. He was the only human being who could do that.
Since the Prime had laid the symbols, he was able to move by them
without disturbing the Powers they contained. They were drawn to
keep Divine and Infernal Powers away.

God help any man or woman that tried to walk
them. The invisible creatures turned the color of blood as they fed
upon the unwary. In a moment of indulgence, the Prime had tested
the protective spells on an unwitting functionary from the mayor’s
office. His empty husk was burned in the Tower incinerator.

Today, with his companion, he’d have to be
sure that none of the symbols were disturbed. This Operative had to
survive the meeting because he needed to know the truth of magic,
so he could investigate the events of the last two days. He turned
to the man’s impassive black face. “Place your feet where I set
mine.”

The Prime then gingerly, energetically danced
his way past the symbols and to a broad step before the dark blue
door. His business suit constricted his actions, and he pined for
the freedom of his Sending robes. It was still impressive. How a
man of his bulk could move with such energy was a mystery; but none
knew of his Powers or his Union.

The Operative waited. The Prime watched his
features, waited for the first sign of mockery. But there was
nothing of the kind, the Operative followed, mimicking the
movements exactly until he stood breathlessly beside his
superior.

The Prime had already explained the symbols
to the Operative. He accepted the information with a shrug. An
Operative might think the Prime had gone insane but would never say
it. The Prime turned to the door. He waved a hand across its
unmarked surface—and it answered the gesture with the grate of
brass on steel—a deep boom, and the door slid into a recess in the
wall. Before them was a foot-thick window of polycarbonate that
covered the doorframe from floor to sill and was blemished with
three small holes half way up its face.

Beyond the covering was darkness. The Prime
was pleased that some small cloud of apprehension had appeared on
the Operative’s features.

“You!” The Prime tapped the plastic barrier.
“I command you to speak!” He paused to drink in the wonderful
moment of anticipation. He noticed sweat on the Operative’s
brow.

As always there was never a sign of life
behind the wall. The black was complete. This darkness held a
moment longer, its opacity reflecting their images on the plastic.
Then the Prime felt it—a presence in the black, as absolutely
powerful as the darkness that imprisoned it. The leader of
Westprime tapped the barrier again. He knew that a being was inside
watching him. He could feel its hatred. So many years had he kept
it in darkness, he wondered from time to time if it had gone
insane. Perhaps time was different to it.

“You will do as I command you.” The Prime
matter-of-factly studied his nails, a show of bravado for the
Operative. These things hated insolence.

The air around him changed, it grew
chilly—the Operative looked at him uncomprehending. The Prime knew
it was an attempt by the captive to Send Power. The damned thing
always tried something. He could see that the Operative was
unprepared—the Power had rocked him on his heels and he’d taken a
step back. The Prime broke the spell.

“Stop or go to Limbo!” His voice echoed into
his face. “Do as I say.” He paused a moment to let the Operative
see he had control. “Now!”

“Your time is running out!” a voice whispered
through the holes in the acrylic. Its tone held husky secrets. “You
do not understand this Prime.”

“Silence! I didn’t ask you to speak.” The
Prime’s cheeks flushed scarlet.
Threaten me in front of the
help
?

“And yet, I speak,” the voice carried on.

“Silence!” The Prime had a second of doubt.
If he lost control, if someone had tampered with his
protections!

“I taste your doubt!” Urgency had crept into
the voice, a hint of passion.

The Prime turned his back on the blackness.
He had to prove his power. It seemed that something was changing.
And the thing had said that his time was running out! But that
could be taken many ways. He had too long relied on the prescience
of the Infernal and the Divine to distrust it now, and yet, it
could be an attempt to unhinge him—they were all capable of lying.
It was a vain attempt to win advantage over him. A lie! It had to
be punished. If he no longer controlled it, he was about to find
out.

“You doubt, Prime,” the voice said.

“Doubt this!” The Prime lifted his hands as
he spoke the words. With one he stroked an invisible symbol on the
left side of the door, with his right, he touched a mark opposite
it. “I command you to obey, by the Power of the Lake of Fire!”

A tortured scream answered from in the
black—a terrible sound that started low like breaking rocks, then
swept upward toward a screech of pain that threatened to shatter
the acrylic—then nothing.

“Now!” The Prime stood so close to the wall
that his belly touched it. Glancing to his right he saw that the
Operative was shaken. “You will obey my commands and speak only
when I allow it.” His voice turned to acid. “Do you hear me?”

The darkness was broken by the gray
suggestion of a weary man’s shoulders—then the voice. Weak now, it
whimpered, “I hear.”

“You hear—what?” The Prime felt pride swell
his body and stiffen his cocks.

“I hear,
Master
.” The voice was
beaten, its passion muted. “I shall hear your command and
comply.”

“This Operative must be given the power of
spiritual silence. No one among your kind or among your enemies
must be able to read his thoughts.” The Prime pushed his face,
livid with unborn curses, against the plastic. “Now!”