Blood Oath

by Christopher Farnsworth

  Their nerves, exquisitely tuned, thrummed and burned, back and forth between them, the moment stretching out, seeming like it would never end—

  Until she sang, like a flock of birds moving swiftly by in flight.

  Cade shuddered and bucked, and then they both stopped moving, suddenly as still as the grave. They lay there, piled on each other, instantly in the comalike state that passed for their sleep, dead to the sunlit world outside.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Zach never considered himself a tough guy—he would complain if a restaurant overcooked his eggs—but he’d always held a secret belief that he could hold up well under torture. He’d spent days on his feet, working with no sleep, eating practically nothing. In that place in his mind where he starred in his own action movies, Zach thought he could handle it, at least for a little while.

  He was wrong.

  Ken made a phone call. Reyes arrived in a few minutes. Together, they stripped Zach naked, barely looking at him.

  Zach made a joke about how this was further than he usually went on a first date.

  Reyes, with the same bored look on his face, punched him hard enough to make his nose bleed.

  They went back to tearing his clothes off.

  They found the duct tape Cade had wrapped over Zach’s ribs and cut that away, slicing skin.

  When Zach was naked, Ken cuffed his hands behind him and pulled them up to the level of Zach’s shoulders. Zach doubled over from the pain. Ken yanked him over to the wall and hooked the cuffs over a peg. Reyes put a hood over Zach’s head.

  He stood there, his knees bent, his ass hanging out, his arms behind him and higher than his head.

  He waited for another punch, or something worse.

  He heard the door slam. They were gone.

  He didn’t know how long they left him like that. His legs began cramping immediately. His fingers went numb. His knees wobbled, but every time he started to lean forward, the pain in his shoulders brought him back up.

  He tried not to make a sound. He really did. But after a while, he heard something. A low-pitched noise, almost like a growl of an animal in pain. For an instant, he wondered if they had put someone else in the cell with him.

  Of course, it was him. He was singing out in pain.

  The door opened, and light flooded back into his eyes as the hood was snatched away.

  Zach blinked and looked up at Ken. Ken smiled back.

  “That didn’t take long,” Ken said. He pulled the cuffs off the peg—Zach thought his shoulders would separate completely—and then dropped them. Zach collapsed on the concrete floor.

  Tears of relief welled up in his eyes.

  Ken gave him a full ten seconds of lying like that—the blood rushing back into his limbs, the nerves waking up with urgent messages of pain—before dragging him back to his feet.

  Ken looked into his eyes. Zach blinked away the tears.

  “I’m not going to talk,” Zach said.

  Ken laughed. “Who cares?”

  He knocked Zach flat on his back with a hard slap.

  “Let’s get to work,” he said, as he kicked Zach in the side of the head.

  KEN NEVER asked him a question. Not once.

  Not when he went to work with the Taser, shocking Zach over and over again on his bare skin.

  Not when he beat Zach with the baton. Or when he poured a Diet Coke—a frigging Diet Coke—down Zach’s nose, causing more pain than Zach thought possible, nearly drowning him in the process.

  Or when he brought the dog in. Or when he just punched him.

  He never asked a single question.

  Zach offered. He offered whatever he could think of. Which wasn’t too much, actually. But he thought, maybe if I can get him talking ... And then he thought, Jesus Christ, only make it fucking stop.

  It didn’t matter. Zach didn’t have anything Ken wanted to know.

  So he just kept working, not saying a word.

  He did whistle occasionally, however.

  THE BOY TRIED to raise his head. Ken punched him hard, breaking the skin on his knuckles.

  He put his hand in his mouth and tasted blood. The bleeding stopped. Ken hit the boy again.

  Ken didn’t think the kid had any info, but even if he did it wouldn’t matter. He knew Helen wanted the boy to die in the interrogation room. She did the big lovey-dovey act just to get him in the mood. He wasn’t that stupid.

  He knew Helen was using him. He didn’t mind. His whole life, he’d done what other people said, and it was boring. Sure, he was successful, but he’d always stayed within the proper boundaries.

  When Helen recruited him, he thought it would be more or less the same. Then he learned that following her orders, he could do all kinds of things that had previously been forbidden. It opened new vistas for him. It changed the rules. He was free to be just as evil an SOB as he wanted, and he could consider it part of his duty to his country.

  He felt Helen understood that, on a level too deep to talk about. He was sure they would end up together someday, and they would look back on these early years fondly. Like an extended courtship.

  In the meantime, even without Helen in his bed, Ken was happy enough. He enjoyed the job.

  He took his time with Zach. He wanted to make it last.

  FIFTY-TWO

  MURDERS DISTURB CALM WATERS OF LAKESIDE TOWN

  BLAIRSTOWN, N.J.—Residents expected some pranks from the teenagers and staff at the newly re-opened summer camp on the shore. At worst, the local sheriff says, people worried about vandalism.

  Instead, seven grisly murders have shattered the idyllic calm of the small town. Motives are unclear. The sole remaining survivor is in psychiatric treatment, her identity protected. One source close to the investigation said, “The girl is out of her head, talking about some boogeyman that sliced up all her friends.”

  State police referred all inquiries to federal authorities, who have assumed jurisdiction over the case. Special Agent William H. Griffin refused to comment, and the Federal Bureau of Inves- tigation declined to provide any further details.

  —Newark Star-Ledger, June 15, 1980

  Gruff went home and stayed there. He didn’t know what else to do.

  He sat in the Barcalounger in his living room and turned on the TV just for the noise. He looked at his creds and his badge. Like the gun, they hadn’t taken them away. But they might as well have. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do for Cade or Zach. He was frozen out.

  He looked at the photo on the creds. In his head, he could almost see it play out like time-lapse photography: a series of photos on all the government ID cards that made up his life. Starting with the photo the army took when he was twenty and in the Signal Corps, training in intelligence. A kid with a shaved head and a dumb-ass smile on his face. Then his first FBI badge—as a trainee, then as a special agent. Longer hair, sideburns. Glaring at the camera like it had done something. And then, year after year of the generic White House priority pass, the one that didn’t have any department or title on it but still got him into every locked room. Growing fatter, balder and grayer in each one, until this last ID, which had an old man’s face above his name.

  He put the ID down and looked around his house. Mostly empty. Not much to show for a life. No wife, no children. With what he did, what he’d seen, it was hard to justify bringing anyone else into his world.

  Fuck it, he decided. He got up out of the chair and went over to the liquor cabinet. His fingers traced dust on the knob. He’d stayed away from the stuff since his first diagnosis, over three years ago.

  He got out the bottle of Bushmills—government salary—and poured a tall glass. He threw it back, felt the pleasant burn in his throat.

  His doctor wouldn’t approve. Fuck him, too. Sometimes, all there was to do was get tore up from the floor up. Like the kids would say.

  He noticed the blinking light on the answering machine, but couldn’t work up the effort to listen. Probably just a telemarketer anyway
. Nobody called him at home.

  He knew he was sulking. Knew that he should get off his ass and try something—anything—to solve the problem. Save the day.

  But he was old and he was dying, and they’d managed to disgrace him on his way out. That hill was just too steep to climb tonight.

  He settled in the chair, keeping the bottle with him.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Konrad took one look at Helen when she showed up, and he knew.

  He saw the bandage on her neck. That stupid little bitch. She couldn��t do anything right.

  Cade was still alive.

  He was ready to unleash his full venom on her when she spoke.

  “I want what you owe me,” Helen said.

  Konrad had centuries of practice at hiding his true thoughts, but, even so, he nearly laughed out loud. She was trying to lie her way out of her failure.

  Unbelievable. He thought about slapping her. Or killing her with his bare hands. All his effort, for nothing.

  But it was irrelevant, really. He was out of time. So was Helen. She just didn’t know it yet.

  He forced a smile. “Come in, my dear.”

  She stepped into his living room, over the stain on the floor where the pimp’s body had rested. It was barely visible. Ken had sent the Company’s cleaners, and they did a good job. Even with the really weird shit.

  She sat down on the uncomfortable, low-slung couch. He went to the bar. “Do you want a drink?”

  “I want what you owe me,” she said again.

  “The plan isn’t yet complete,” Konrad said. “Not until after the attack. We agreed—”

  “I’ve done everything you asked,” Helen said. “I don’t want to wait until after the operation is over. It’s time for you to meet your end.”

  He turned, a glass of champagne in his hand. “You’re right.”

  Helen froze. “What?”

  “You heard me,” he said, handing her the glass. “I’m going to give you what you’re owed. It’s time.”

  She took the champagne with trembling fingers. “Is this ... ?”

  He smiled. “No. I thought you’d be in the mood to celebrate.”

  She downed the drink in one gulp and then threw it across the room. Before he could say anything else, she sank to her knees before him, already tugging on the belt of his slacks.

  He grunted with satisfaction. “You know, you could have just said thank you.”

  EVENTUALLY, THEY MOVED to the bedroom. Helen woke up sore, and bruised, and hungover from the one drink she’d had. The blood loss had lowered her resistance to the alcohol, and Konrad had been as demanding as ever.

  None of it really seemed to touch her. She was finally going to be free. Free of fear. Free of the worry of sagging, coughing, pissing, spitting up blood, all those sad biological functions that take over your life as you fade into a shrunken parody of yourself.

  She was going to be free of death itself.

  It was about time.

  Konrad yawned and stretched. He was awake now, too. She checked the clock. Getting close to sunset. Time to go. Get the Elixir and then get out.

  She rolled onto her side to face him.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Getting a bit impatient?”

  “I’ve been patient enough.”

  “Yes,” he said. “You have.”

  He rolled over and reached for the bedside table, rummaging in a drawer there.

  “Right now?” Helen said, voice trembling a little. “Now?”

  “I keep my word, Helen.” He turned, the needle in his hand, filled with a yellow fluid.

  She started to get up, but he gestured her back to the bed.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “Just relax.”

  She seemed worried. Perhaps this was too easy. Greed fought with confusion in her eyes. “What about the mission? You’re still leaving the country next week, right?”

  “Oh. That,” Konrad said. “Yes, well. About that. I lied. The attack is tonight.”

  He plunged the needle into her neck.

  Her reflexes were admirable. She slapped the needle away, knocking her fist into the side of his face. She almost got up.

  The serum hit her bloodstream. Her body went rigid and settled back into the sheets.

  Konrad watched as the paralysis spread. Her eyes darted at him, panicked, as she struggled to breathe.

  “It’s nothing you really need to worry about,” he said.

  He dressed in fresh clothes, then went to the bedside table and retrieved his watch.

  Helen followed him with her eyes, struggling to say something.

  “Why? ... Y’din’t haveto ... dothis ...”

  Her speech was slurred. Konrad was amazed she could speak at all. The paralysis should have set in completely by now.

  “Why? Oh, it shouldn’t be that hard for you to figure out. Revenge. Not just against Cade. This whole, arrogant, adolescent country. The one that destroyed my home twice in the last century. That put a military base on the ruins of my family’s castle. I want to see someone inflict the same pain on America that they brought to the Reich. I want to see their dream turn to a nightmare, like mine. I want them to wake up screaming.”

  Helen managed a small shake of her head. Konrad understood what she’d really been asking.

  “Oh, you mean why did I do this to you?” he said. “That’s actually much simpler: I don’t like you, Helen.”

  She glared at him. It was all she had left.

  “Bassard ... Yyyyu prmssssd ...”

  Konrad smiled. “I kept my word. You won’t age another day. You’ll see.”

  The Elixir of Life. He’d made the serum from the bones Tania had brought to him. It was basically the same formula he’d found centuries before, the one that gave him his first step on the path to eternal life.

  But, as he told the vampire, eternal life and eternal youth are not the same thing.

  In its raw form, the Elixir was capable of animating dead flesh while making it stronger than leather and wood. Injected into live tissue, it froze all cellular movement. Helen would never age, true. She would also never move again, her metabolic processes slowed to geologic time spans.

  He noticed the broken needle and syringe on the floor. She’d managed to snap it before all of the fluid made it into her bloodstream.

  It didn’t matter. There ought to be enough, Konrad thought. Still, he had to give her credit for trying.

  He patted Helen on the thigh, picked up his suitcase and walked out the door.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Tania parked on Wilshire, across from the Federal Building. The street was empty. Only the occasional car sped past, streetlights flashing briefly on their windshields.

  “You think he’s really here?” she asked. It was the first thing she’d said since they rose together and left the hotel.

  “If he’s not, someone will know where he is.”

  “They’ll be waiting for you.”

  Cade shrugged.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I have to,” he said. “You know that.”

  She grimaced. “I suspect you would do it anyway. Even without your precious oath.”

  “We’ll never know,” Cade said, and opened the car door.

  She looked across the seat at him as he got out. “I won’t be here when you get back.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” Cade said, and got out of the car.

  Cade strolled across Wilshire, straight toward the front doors. Just like any regular visitor.

  REYES SAT IN HIS OFFICE, monitoring the security cameras through a hidden feed. He’d tapped into the lines, at Helen’s insistence, so the team would always be able to see what the building’s security force saw.

  Which, right now, was a whole lot of nothing. But Reyes couldn’t escape the feeling that this whole thing had gone foul.

  Reyes was a lot of things, but he wasn’t dumb. Sure, you could argue he’d made bad choices,
but they were never foolish choices. And he always knew when it was time to cut his losses.

  When he was twelve, he’d joined a gang. When he was sixteen, he saw what happened to everyone over thirty in the thug life: jail or death. He picked a new career: cop. At nineteen, he left the police academy and hit the streets in uniform. His old buddies didn’t mind, because he fed them information. At thirty-seven, in plainclothes, working both sides finally caught up with him. He’d been one of a few dozen cops indicted in a wide-ranging scandal. Cops ripping off drug dealers, planting weapons, lying in court and murdering anyone who found out.

  He was looking at a heavy prison sentence. Or a bullet in the eye if he flipped and turned state’s evidence.

  That’s when the Company stepped in.

  The Company had a network of dealers in L.A., selling drugs to fund a bunch of dirty little wars. Reyes had been asked many times to look the other way by guys with government credentials. But he went even further, getting prisoners released, losing evidence and passing information whenever it was necessary.

  His indictment got shredded. He got a new badge, and a new boss: Helen Holt.

  That was two years ago. Now he was feeling the itch again, like a target on his back.

  Helen had been out of contact for hours. Down in the holding cell, Ken was losing it on the little pendejo from the White House.

  Then there was Cade. Reyes looked at the bolt-gun Helen had given him earlier. R&D really thought this would stop a vampire? It didn’t seem likely. Helen could have put a .50 caliber rifle with depleted uranium ammo in his hands—something powerful enough to punch a hole in tank armor. Or flamethrowers. Or white phosphorus grenades. Any of those would have had a better chance at killing Cade.

  And Reyes knew if they didn’t kill him at the first chance, that bastard would put them down a second later. No hesitation. He’d seen it in Cade’s eyes.