Face Behind the Mask

by Leo King

  Without even realizing it, she was blushing. “Hey, Kyle, can you come here a second?”

  “Hmmm?” He put her boots down and slid over. “What’s wrong, Sam?”

  Without a word, she grabbed the collar of his jacket and pulled him down, covering his lips with hers. He tasted like ginger ale, and she held him in place until he finally pulled back. He was blushing furiously.

  “You wanna stay with me tonight?” she asked, sliding her fingers over her hips.

  He looked away and exhaled heavily, gripping her hand with his. “I’d love to, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She frowned, feeling an unpleasant ache in her chest. “What? I’m no good for you?”

  Shaking his head, he looked back. “No, I’m no good. Maybe one day I will be, but not yet.”

  Then he kissed her hand. “Remember, you can trust me. I will never turn my back on you.”

  A glint of metal caught her eye. He was still wearing his wedding band. Staying loyal to his wife, even though he could never be with her.

  “Sleep well, Sam.”

  She watched him as he left, her face still flushed.

  Feeling good, she turned off the light.

  There goes a real man.

  For the next year, Sam’s life and everything she did was directed by GEIST. Her missions took her all over the South. She was even able to go back to Tennessee just long enough to properly say farewell to Caleb and Chris.

  They were among the hardest goodbyes of her life.

  Chapter 36

  Just One More Time

  Date: Thursday, October 31, 1996

  Time: 10:00 p.m.

  Location: Penthouse at 740 Park Avenue

  Manhattan, New York

  It was on the anniversary of Hannah’s death when Dixie finally called Dr. Lazarus.

  She had just put Felicia to bed when she realized how she could best help GEIST. So while Gino queued up a movie for them to watch in their media room, she grabbed their cordless phone and dialed Dr. Lazarus’s number.

  “Who are you calling this late, Dixie?” Gino asked. He was in his bathrobe and looking particularly gorgeous. It was the one night of the week they could be alone together.

  “Andre,” she responded. After achieving closure in her heart regarding Michael, she’d sworn never to lie to Gino about anything again.

  He frowned and poured a glass of wine from a bottle in an ice bucket, draining it in three swift gulps. “Whatever you want, Captain Eliopoulos.”

  She grinned apologetically at him as the other line picked up. It was Camellia. “Office of Dr. Lazarus. May I help you?”

  Dixie was glad she had a direct line. “Camellia? It’s Dixie. Is Andre there?”

  “Well, hello! Yes, one moment.”

  A few seconds later, Dr. Lazarus answered. “Hello? Dixie? It has to be late over there. Is everything OK?”

  “Yes, it is late, but don’t worry. Do you remember how you said if I helped out at Emory, you’d pay it back?”

  “I did, indeed. Anything you want.”

  “And is GEIST close to defeating the Knight Priory?”

  “We’re getting there. My operatives are doing well enough. I’m certain we’ll be ready to strike a decisive blow against them within a year. Why?’

  She grinned. “I know exactly how I want to help put those bastards down.”

  Thirty minutes later, the arrangements had been worked out, and Dixie hung up with a feeling of triumph. Heading back to the couch, she saw that Gino looked disgruntled.

  “Not pleased with me?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  He took her hand. “Dixie, I thought you were done with all of that after Atlanta. You promised no more chances. No more risks.”

  Squeezing his hand back, she gazed into his eyes. “I know you’re trying to look out for me and our family, but honey, you’ve got to understand. If the Knight Priory isn’t stopped, if their power and influence reaches New York, then we won’t be safe.”

  “Then we’ll move to Europe,” he said. “We’ll move to my villa in Ath—”

  She interrupted him with a long kiss. When she leaned back, she saw tears rolling down his cheeks. “Gino, this isn’t something we can run from. You were there in New Orleans when it started. You know what the Knight Priory is capable of. We have to destroy them to be safe.”

  “But, Dixie. Our marriage. Our baby girl.”

  “That’s why I’m fighting. One more time. For you and for Felicia.”

  “One more time?” He put his arms around her. She hadn’t seen him this vulnerable in years.

  She kissed his tears away. “One more time. After I’ve helped GEIST finish off the Knight Priory, I’ll get out of it all. I’ll focus on being a captain, a wife, and a mother.”

  Gino nodded, rubbing his face against her head. “Then one more time, Dixie. Just one more.”

  Chapter 37

  Finally Found a Home

  Date: Friday, June 13, 1997

  Time: 7:30 p.m.

  Location: GEIST Headquarters

  Southern Arkansas

  “I’ll tell you what, Victor,” Sam said as she limped out of the elevator to the domicile floor. Pain rippled through her shoulder from a bullet wound caused by a tkeeus-powered super-soldier in the Knight Priory’s privately contracted army. “I am going to eat every damn thing in the cafeteria tonight. But first, a shower.”

  Victor Bane, a fellow operative, said nothing as he headed toward his room. At six foot three, with a red glass eye and the unkempt appearance of a bum, right down to the dirty brown duster and matted hair, he wasn’t known for being either conversational or charming.

  “Right,” Sam said. “Well, good job today, Big V.”

  He half-turned as he swiped his badge, mumbling “you, too” under his breath and vanishing inside.

  She snickered and gestured firing a gun at him. “Got you to say something. I win.”

  Once inside her own room, she stripped off the twin pair of .45 automatic pistols GEIST had armed her with, placing them on her desk. Then she popped a few hydrocodone painkillers and went to the bathroom mirror.

  She had kept her hairstyle from Tennessee, short in the back and long in the front. The black army pants and black camo tank gave her ease of movement, and the black fingerless gloves gave her a great grip.

  “Well, Sam,” she said as she peeled the compress off her left shoulder, “you’d be the hottest chick on base if not for the large hole right here.” The wound was still oozing blood. She had refused medical attention on the ride back, making sure it was concentrated on anyone else who was injured. Even when she was told to report to the staff physician, she said she’d “take care of it.”

  “Well, let’s get this sucker out before the hole closes back up. Would hate to go through that again.” She unsheathed the combat knife she kept strapped to her pants, as well as a field suturing kit. Then she bit onto a hand towel she kept at the sink. Lastly, she sterilized the blade with some alcohol before unceremoniously jamming it into her wound and rooting around for the bullet.

  The pain was excruciating, and blood poured out as she dug around the wound, finally finding and popping the bullet out. It was a sizeable caliber and covered in chunks of meat and skin. Then she sewed up the wound and placed a fresh bandage over it before spitting out the towel and hollering in pain.

  It felt good to scream.

  By the time she stripped off her clothes and got in the shower, the painkillers were kicking in, and with it the desire to sleep. She took her time to wash away the grime from the mission. When she got out of the shower, most of the hydrocodone had burned out of her system, leaving a dull ache in her shoulder. They’d offered her stronger stuff before, but it didn’t work. Even when she overdosed during Christmas, the medicine was gone before the wound healed.

  Sam had since learned to deal with physical pain by just enduring it, and it ended up being one of the best ways to know that she was alive.r />
  “You ended up being right, Vincent. You are the most alive when you’re in pain. Fuck you.”

  A few minutes later, dressed in a pair of casual shorts and a T-shirt, she was in the cafeteria picking double portions of everything she wanted. It was dinnertime, so most of the personnel on base were eating. Scanning the room, she spied Aucoin eating with a dark-skinned Middle Eastern man dressed in a dark blue, gold-trimmed bisht, an Islamic robe. Away from everyone else, Victor ate alone, peering at the world with what could only be called suspicion.

  She joined Aucoin and the new guy. “Hey, Kyle. Hello, person I’ve never seen before.”

  Aucoin motioned to her. “Hakim, this is Sam Castille, the one Abel told you about during orientation. Just remember, she doesn’t like to be addressed as ‘Your Majesty.’”

  With a polite smile, Hakim tapped his fingers to his forehead and said, “As-salamu alaykum, Lady Castille. This one’s name is Hakim Hassan. It is an honor for him to meet you.”

  Smiling back, she said, “I’m gonna take that as ‘hello,’ Hakim. Pleased to meet you. I’m gonna guess from your get-up that you’re a Muslim, right?”

  Again he bowed his head respectfully. “Indeed. This one is a follower of Allah and the prophet Muhammad. He is also a brother to all men and women and desires only peace and friendship. This one has seen the terrors that lay in the darkest parts of the world, so when Master Abel came to him, he agreed to join.”

  His manner of speech caught her off guard. “Um, Hakim, why do you refer to yourself as ‘this one’ and speak in the third person?”

  “Ah, apologies, Lady Castille. This one struggles with the sin of pride. He speaks in this way as a constant reminder to him to put himself last.”

  She stifled a giggle as his cheeks flared up in embarrassment. We are truly a multicultural organization. That’s awesome.

  “Hakim is going to be an operative,” Aucoin said, breaking the silence. “Operative number four.”

  “Oh? That’s wonderful! What can you do?”

  The blush on Hakim’s cheeks continued to flare up. “This one is forced to confess that he was blessed with precognitive abilities. Lady Castille would call him a ‘seer’ in her language. Also…”

  He held up his hand, showing off a beautiful golden ring set with a large ruby. “This one made a pact with the spirit that resides in this ring. While this one’s guardian is not nearly as powerful as Lady Castille, he hopes it will serve him well.”

  “That’s great, Hakim.” As she moved her fork around her food, she took a few moments to scan the room, even watching Victor as he ate hunched over his plate. This had become her family, and while they had gained and lost people over the past year, never once had she felt unsafe among them. I’ve finally found a home.

  “Meyer should be back from his mission soon,” Aucoin said, pulling her out of her thoughts. “How about we get some practice in the gun range and give Hakim a few pointers? His assessment came back stating he’d need considerable training in firearms.”

  Again, Hakim blushed. “This one is terrible with guns.”

  Looking down at her food, she realized that she hadn’t eaten a thing on her plate yet, just played around with it. And she was very hungry. “Ya know, Kyle, I’m gonna pass. I think I wanna gorge myself, check on Vincent, hit my G-spot like a maniac, and then sleep until noon.”

  Instantly, she could tell from Hakim’s expression that she had made him uncomfortable. “Sorry, Hakim,” she said gently. “They did tell you that I’m fused with a goddess of sexuality, right? And my social skills aren’t so great?”

  He cleared his throat and then said, “This one will remember that we are all different and yet equal under Allah’s eyes. He will also never pass judgment on his brothers or sisters. He will have to get used to such open talk, however.”

  With a laugh, she reached over and patted him on the back. “Hakim, my friend, you are OK in my book. Welcome to GEIST!”

  After stuffing herself until her stomach ached, Sam headed back to her room. Her camos and pants had been replaced by a fresh pair of the same style. Although operatives were allowed to dress in whatever they wanted, most opted to walk around in their field clothes while on base—it showed everyone else, who had to wear some sort of uniform, that no one was better than anyone else.

  Before changing, she took a moment to check the wound underneath the bandage. It had mostly closed up with just a puckering to the flesh. She put the bandage back in place.

  I’m healing faster.

  After putting on fresh clothing, she headed through a security checkpoint to the lab and quarantine section. Inside, a dozen or so experiments on supernatural items and entities, ranging from testing the brain activity of animated corpses to analyzing the containment of ghosts, were taking place in secured glass compartments. Everything was kept sealed off through an elaborate series of lasers, ionized air curtains, and electromagnetic fields.

  She didn’t understand the science behind any of it, only knowing that GEIST was using research from the Eversoll Institute to figure out how to properly ensnare and destroy supernatural threats. Visions of the containment unit from the Ghostbusters movie always flashed in her mind when she thought about that.

  After a minute of walking around the lab, even tapping on the glass of a particularly vicious ghost she had help capture, which made it wail at her, she came upon a man in a slimmed-down version of a white hazmat suit. The helmet was fitted with a porcelain face that was almost creepy. A voice box was attached to the front.

  Tapping his shoulder, she asked, “Julius? Do you have a moment?”

  The man in the suit, Julius Boucher, turned around. A moment later, a mechanical-sounding voice rang out. “Good evening, Sam. How may I help you?”

  Seeing him always made her feel a bit sad. He had been brutally burned by Dallas during his youth and was like a simpleton for many years thereafter. But it had been a single outcry from Julius that had helped Rodger break the new Bourbon Street Ripper case. After that, Dr. Lazarus had worked tirelessly to restore his mind to normal. During his therapy, it was discovered that his mind was sharp as ever, and his aptitude for solving puzzles made him perfect to lead GEIST’s science team.

  “Any luck on figuring out how to destroy the silver pen?”

  He shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We have even tried cutting it with our new CO2 laser. Nothing has worked.”

  “Damn. Well, thanks for the update. I’d like to check on it, though, if I may.”

  “Of course, Sam. If you wish. Follow me.”

  Leading her through the lab, past more experiments and contained creatures, he headed toward the back. There was a vault door marked “Quarantine” which required both of their badges be swiped at the same time to open. The inside was freezing cold, and despite her power, she started feeling numb within seconds.

  The vault was still under construction and had only one item in it. Sitting on a metal block and surrounded by several panes of glass was the silver pen. Dozens of cold lasers were trained on it, keeping its temperature as far down as possible.

  Pressing her hands to the glass, she felt the evil energy emanating from the pen. Julius spoke. “His influence and power is increasing because of his connection to the physical world. Even with the pen in frozen isolation, his ability to exert his will over his pantheon has grown. If the pen is not destroyed soon, who knows what he’ll be able to do?”

  “I won’t let it get that far,” she said. The truth was, however, that due to its extensive use, by herself, Aucoin, and even Rivette, it had no longer needed someone using it to extend its reach. It was growing on its own. For now, destroying it was a priority over destroying Vincent.

  “What is needed to destroy it, Julius? Do you know?”

  “An enormous amount of energy and pressure.”

  “How much? Are we talking coal to diamonds here?”

  “I don’t know for sure, Sam. I’m sorry.”

  “No worries
. I’m certain you’ll find something that can get the job done.”

  “Thank you. Although for now, we should leave. Your lips are turning blue.”

  He was completely unaffected, the insulation of the suit protecting him from the extreme cold. But she was shivering, so she left the vault. Once outside, she warmed up within seconds. Then she cleared her throat. “Hey, Julius. I never apologized. You know, for everything that happened back at Acadia Vermilion when we were kids.”

  Again, he shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Sam. We were all victims. Even Dallas. The real villain has always been Vincent.”

  “Thanks, Julius,” she said, feeling a weight lift off her chest. Walking along the hallways, she decided that she needed some fresh air, so she headed up to the roof. It offered a lovely view of the stars at night, and she often went up there to think.

  As soon as she stepped outside, she felt the spirits around her once again. A few of them nudged against her, a few more circled around her like wisps of smoke, and one or two tried to get her attention. She smiled to herself, reaching out and letting them swirl around her arms and between her fingers. When they weren’t under someone else’s control, most spirits were playful. They felt like children that just needed love.

  Then she went to her favorite spot, the parapet on the far end of the roof. She wasn’t the only person up there—Aucoin was quietly gazing at the stars. She watched him a few seconds, admiring his posture. He hadn’t drunk or smoked anything in the past year. Most members of GEIST used vices to help cope with their constant battle against the Knight Priory. Even she still drank when off duty. But not him—somehow, he managed to stay straight and narrow.

  He’s turned out be my best friend. Heck, I even drink less because of his influence.