The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (31 page)

              A buzz rippled through the Vaqueros but no one spoke up. Nico pushed upright on his knees and managed a snarl at Grisner.

Grisner looked at Julius. “Persuade him like your life depended on it,” he Grisner.

              Julius shot Grisner a rebellious look, but turned back to Nico and unleashed his fury on Nico’s face. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth. Julius swung him around and hammered his elbow into Nico’s back.

              Quinn gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. When she dropped them she found little Marisol looking at her. Marisol shook her head.

              Nico was helpless, allowed upright only through Julius’s generosity. “Tell him,” Julius whispered.

              “What is it you want, Grisner?” rang Quinn’s voice as she swept quickly down the stairs.

              Julius looked the most relieved and dropped Nico in a bloody heap where he was.

              “So it’s true. You’re here,” said Grisner, a strange tone in his voice. He glanced at Nico and Julius. “Hey, did I tell you to stop? Get him on his feet, we’re not finished here.”

              Julius looked around the Vaquero fighters who knew better than anyone when a guy was done. “I’m telling you he’s finished,” said Julius.

              “No,” said Grisner. “Get him up.”

              Quinn ventured closer to Grisner. “What do you want?”

              “In a second, sweetheart, we’re not quite finished here.” He glared at Julius. “On his feet.”

              Fighting his instinct to rebel, Julius lifted Nico up with one meaty arm.

              “Finish him.”

              Julius readied a fist, but instead of hitting him again he grabbed Nico with his second hand and launched him through the air into a pile of trash in the near distance. Nico didn’t move. He was out cold.

              Grisner nodded and gave Julius a mirthless smile, which Julius did not return. “Well, if that’s the best you can do.”

              Julius dusted off and tried to regain his dignity in front of the Vaqueros, but it was clear there was nobody to admire here.

              Quinn started for Nico but Grisner wrapped her hand in his. “It’s time to start forgetting about him—unless you want to see the job finished in person. Here and now.”

              “What do you want from me?” Quinn asked quietly.

              “You’ll find out.” He guided her to his car.

PART THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

              Nico lay where he’d landed. It was hard to tell if he was still breathing and nobody went close enough to find out. His blood seeped steadily from the many cuts Julius had opened. It ran off the pavement and mixed with the rivers of rain that now pelted down on the sports arena.

              Hours later, the torrents of water had forced the rats out of their underground burrows and up into the world. Nico had felt them running across him, stopping and sniffing to see if he were edible, and he’d managed just enough movement to avoid becoming supper.

              A pair of feet approached the broken warrior. They seemed huge to Nico, but as he forced his blood-swollen eye to focus he realized they were tiny but very close. They belonged to Marisol. She extended a hand to him. With her help he raised himself up, inch by painful inch. Marisol wasn’t tall enough to carry him but she moved herself into place to function as a human cane. Kicking away the newly interested rodents, and fighting their way through the virtual rivers of water, she slowly guided him away from the sports arena.

Magda emerged from the darkness as soon as they were out of sight of the Vaqueros. Nico jerked away and put up his hands defensively, unable to see her… or unable to distinguish who to trust, Madga wasn’t sure.

“Oh, little brother, what have they done to you?” she said, rushing to wrap his arm over her shoulder to carry him. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

The strange trio continued through the darkness jolted by the heart-stopping blasts of lightning all around them. They followed the same route Madga had used to bring Quinn to the sports arena in the first place. Regret and ambivalence plagued her as they made their way along. If Magda hadn’t brought Quinn to him, Nico might have remained himself. There was no pretending that change was good, not when it was change like this.

An hour later they arrived at Madga’s house. The relentless rain had revealed the extent of Nico’s gashes. Magda went about cleaning his wounds and dispensing as much comfort as she could, but was consumed with curiosity.

“Is it true what they’re saying? Did Julius really do this to you?” she asked.

Nico nodded. “Grisner made him.”

“You know, Nico, I told you he had a heart. Well, I’m going to show you that heart. I’m going to cut him open. I’m going to cut through those nine layers of fat with a rusty knife. I’m gonna–”

Nico leaned back and closed his eyes, turning off the world. Marisol brought Magda another alcohol drenched rag.

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked.

“I have the feeling he’s been a lot less than okay for a long time,” but she shot Marisol a hopeful smile. “But I think he will heal. He’s a tough
hombre
. Lotta hard bark on him,” said Magda wistfully.

Marisol looked confused and let Madga pull her into a hug. Together they sat in vigil over their damaged icon.

* * *

              Quinn had tried to get a look at the high-tech facility into which she was led by Grisner, but he was in no mood to allow her to see beyond the hallways and airlocks that led to his private lair. The skylights overhead let her see the incessant lightning, but she couldn’t hear a thing. They arrived at what was part office, part apartment, and far from comfortable. It was the essence of practical. Simple furniture, wooden floors, ordinary appliances, nothing as grand as at Celeste DiPietro’s in Grand View Heights. Except for the incredibly modern police technology, that is, the CCTV monitors and computers, the place was practically… Spartan. Grisner guided her in, locked the door with the flick of a remote and deposited her in a chair. She knew his silence was a trick designed to freak her out and put her off her game; despite knowing this, it was working.

              She watched as he went to the kitchen area, produced some cheese and apples, which he sliced, and returned, serving them, the perfect host.

“One hundred percent organic,” he said.

She merely glared at him.

“Go on,” he said. “You must have been famished all these weeks with those Banger vermin.”

Quinn just watched him as he stuffed his mouth with cheese and fruit. She was starving but there was no way she’d give him the satisfaction of eating.

“What’s a Neo-Spartan doing down here? Why did he send only you? That old chestnut, ‘It takes only one Spartan’? Let’s work it through, you tell me when I’m wrong. You’re not Kilbert’s big guns… you’re here because…” He stopped and smiled. There was only one slice of apple remaining. “Are you sure?” he asked, offering it to her.

Quinn bit back her hunger. He wolfed down the slice.

“You’re here because it’s personal. You’re connected to somebody. A recent arrival, I would say.” He punched buttons on his phone. “Our patients. Assemble them in the hallway outside their cells.” He listened a moment. “Aw, the poor lads. I don’t care if they’re on life support, assemble them.” He clicked off and pulled Quinn to her feet.

“Is there any more of that apple?” she asked.

“Trying to delay this? Hmm, I must be onto something.”

His fingers dug into her arm and he pulled her from his lair. He guided her through a series of corridors that led to a vast lab installation, a longish hallway populated by glassed-in cells. Neo-Spartan boys in various states of recovery from Demon Juice were forced into a haphazard military-style line-up in the hallway. Quinn knew all their faces and in many cases their names too. It was heartbreaking seeing these boys in such dismal condition in such a clinical venue. They belonged in their outdoor Neo-Spartan enclave with the Triffid Forest watching over them.

“Now then, who knows who?” said Grisner as he led Quinn along the row of boys. He guided her along ever so slowly, eyeing the boys and her, looking for recognition, pity, empathy. Despite all those emotions working over-time in Quinn she maintained her composure and revealed nothing. The boys also withdrew; they knew better than to participate in anything Grisner was supervising.

An air lock swooshed open and Gabriel was led in from another area. He saw Quinn, but his face didn’t show a thing. Internally, of course, he was cartwheeling through a universe of emotions. How did they find her? Would she be proud of how he’d forced the powers that be to delay? What did Grisner know? Gabriel was placed at the end of the line and Grisner slowly guided Quinn toward him. Gabriel furtively wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. Quinn kept careful watch over her curiosity… she was dying to see how Gabriel had fared. At length, they stood across from each other. Grisner studied their faces. Nothing obvious showed, nothing at all, but still, something struck him as he studied Gabriel. Grisner couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He looked hard at Gabriel’s eyes. And then at Quinn’s… and it hit him what it was he saw in their eyes. That razor sharp determination, that steel-hard look he remembered from his youth. It was Declan.

“You know… the only time I ever saw a face that hard it belonged to a fool and coward… named Declan McKenna.” Gabriel maintained the stone face. Grisner glanced at Quinn and saw the same expression there. The same expression. Struck with an idea, he placed Quinn so that she was standing next to her brother. A crooked smile cracked open on Grisner’s jowl-ridden face. “Oh, that is rich. You two don’t look alike at all. But blood lines don’t lie. Together you look exactly like what Declan and Rose would produce. Oh, that is rich! I have Declan McKenna’s kids right here!” he howled.

Gabriel could no longer stand it. He leapt at Grisner with a flurry of chops and thrusts, but the much larger Grisner held him at arm’s length. “Well, well, somebody’s feeling better, enh? You little weasel, you’re the one that poisoned your buddies too I’ll bet. Very inventive.” Social Defense Forces appeared and subdued Gabriel. Grisner turned to Quinn. “Well, I guess we know why you’re here, don’t we. What else do you know?”

“Everything. So does Kilbert. And if you think he’s going to let you get away with this–”

“I think if old man Kilbert were going to do anything you wouldn’t be here now, would you?”

Quinn lowered her eyes. The list of recent failures weighed on her. She could find no adequate comeback.

* * *

Gabriel and Quinn were unceremoniously separated. Gabriel was placed in solitary confinement with all points of egress guarded, including the ceiling. But Grisner forced Quinn to accompany him to his private lair. With every passing minute Quinn grew more wary. It wasn’t just the peculiar vibration she’d felt emanating from him; she knew that she’d served her purpose. She’d explained who she was, what Gabriel had done, she might even be in line to offer a kidney or a lung to Grant Hughes. But she had the eerie feeling it was more than that. Call it women’s intuition; call it recognizing a crazy man when she saw one. There was more to it.

As they settled into Grisner’s private residence he looked at her, this time straight on, no stolen glances as before, and it was as if he’d read her mind.

“You must be wondering why you’re not in a cell like your brother and the rest of those little heathens. Traditionally when the conqueror captures the enemy the choices are clear, he either keeps them locked up for life or he kills them. You know this. It’s why you’re so nervous. But that’s tradition, and if there’s anything you and I have in common, it is twisting tradition on its ear,” said Grisner. “Would you agree with that?” asked Grisner.

He’d stopped talking about killing or imprisoning her. It was an improvement. “Um, yes, I’d agree with that.”

“Well, maybe we have the beginning of something. Would it be safe to say that you’d accept a pardon, and that you’d agree with the idea that your brother could be freed?”

All she could do was nod.

“I can offer that.”

“You’re not at the top of the power pyramid.”

“My only superior is on a respirator upstairs. I believe he’ll be co-operative. Will you?” he asked.

Her head spinning, all Quinn could do was nod and utter, “I’m open.”