by Brian Fuller
The even-keeled Sixwing clearly didn’t know how to deal with Cassandra’s hurt rage. He stood. “I’ll send a technician in to get you all prepped for the courier. The entire Archai will be at Deep 7 when you get there. These are dark times. If Goldbow can do this undetected, who knows how many others the Dreads are using in the same way?”
“Can I talk to Goldbow?” Helo asked.
“No,” Sixwing said. “He’ll be with interrogators until he leaves us at dawn. Sorry.”
Cassandra raised her hand. “Can I go kick Goldbow in the face? I’ll be quick.”
Sixwing shook his head and left.
Chapter 35
The East Wind
“Dude!” Corinth said as he and Dolorem descended the stairs into the torn-up Midwest Operations Center. “What happened?”
Helo filled him in. “Get in line to have your hearts cut out, guys. We’re headed to Deep 7.”
“Deep 7?” Dolorem said. “Wow. Do they have snacks?”
“Where’s Cassie?” Corinth asked. “Is she on a rampage?”
Helo glanced over his shoulder “I’m not sure, but she is one wrong word from a rampage, so watch what you say.” Helo hoped he was listening. Corinth’s mouth didn’t always consult with his brain before he talked.
Dolorem extended his hand, and Helo shook it. “Corinth tells me I owe you, Helo. Why didn’t you ever mention you saved Tela? I was there in the audience, you know. When I saw all those Dreads and then the Sheid walk out onstage instead of her, I rode all over town searching for her. I thought she was dead until I saw her arrive back at her hotel with a bunch of Ash Angels around her.”
“It never came up,” Helo said.
Dolorem hugged him. “Well, I think I understand why I’ve had two visions with you. Divine karma. The next greasy food joint we hit is on me.”
“Looking forward to it.”
The door to the extraction room opened, and Cassandra stepped out. The vulnerable sadness that helped her accept some show of compassion from Magdelene had, with the nearing of dawn, turned into the same anger Helo remembered from the first days of his training. The bitter eyes and hard, flinty face regarded him for a moment, then turned away.
Corinth stood tall. “Hey, Cassie, good to—”
She walked by without a glance.
The extraction tech stuck his head out. “Next.”
Helo stepped in, laid back on the table, and raised his shirt.
He still couldn’t sort his own feelings out. At least he could understand Goldbow’s dilemma. Once he had made the mistake of rejoining his family, protecting them afterward was the right thing to do. Did he really love Cassandra? His desperate attempts to get her back seemed sincere. Cassandra probably thought he’d just used her to get closer to Trevex and blow up their missions every time they turned around.
He doubted they would ever know the truth. Goldbow’s fate was anyone’s guess. A captured Ash Angel could suffer indefinitely. Their instructors at Trevex told stories of Dreads submerging Ash Angels in water up to their necks and subjecting them to all manner of torture, the dawn erasing the wounds so they could start all over again.
Through all the cuts and slurping sounds of extraction, Helo’s mind kept turning back to his conversation with Cassandra in the Morse house. They both carried broken hearts. Hanging on to his new life as an Ash Angel helped him, but where would Cassandra go to ease the pain and start over? Could she start over? Every turn in her life and afterlife had led to pain and betrayal, and he feared the only path she had left to run was one of anger and revenge, the path of a Dread.
“Access denied!”
Deep 7’s high-tech door was as unyielding as ever. The welcoming Anna stood stuck in her animation loop, red error text plastered over her midsection. Helo pulled the zipper of his navy-blue jumpsuit up to his neck and banged on the door, resisting the urge to do it with his head. He didn’t have to wait long. The door hissed open, two uniformed Michaels with tree-trunk biceps waiting for him.
“This way, sir.”
Still a criminal. They marched him down the hall and out into the lobby near the central elevator where Corinth, Cassandra, Dolorem, and Magdelene waited. Cassandra looked ready to kill someone, and Dolorem looked like a sheep who’d accidentally gotten left in the lion’s cage.
“Why are you still guarding this man?” Magdelene asked.
“Orders from Archus Ramis,” one of them answered.
“Ugh,” Corinth said quietly. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that word in front of his name.”
Cassandra set her jaw and folded her arms. “So where are we off to, fellas? Do we all get to have more humiliating playtime with Faust? What does he do when he’s not hurling unsupported accusations at Blanks?”
“You’re to go to the council chamber, ma’am.”
Magdelene’s eyebrows shot up. “Are we facing a tribunal?”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
The Michaels herded them into the elevator and punched the pad, the elevator whirring to life. The council chamber occupied a floor above the reliquarium at the bottom of the complex. When the elevator settled with a click, Helo gaped at the palatial foyer before them. It was a work of art wrapped in a technological shell, a mixture of functional needs and the grandeur of a throne room. Burnished nickel etched with airy, delicate angels formed high walls softly illuminated by diffuse lights in the glassy floor and domed ceiling. A gilded statue of Michael crushing the neck of a dragon dominated the center of the oval landing area. The serpent’s tail encircled the archangel, pushing visitors toward two arched entryways to their left and right.
Under better circumstances, Helo would have liked to examine the detail, but the Michaels hurried them toward the left archway. Ten steps curved downward, flaring at the base, and emptied into a gallery of plum-colored seats gently sloping down toward a dais. Polished white marble, looking almost wet, reflected the even glow of light emanating from the oval dome in the center of the ceiling, concentrating the most illumination on the dais. At the bottom of the slope, a darkly stained walnut divider separated the gallery from two rows of dark chairs just before the dais. Two plum-colored banners were draped from ceiling to floor on either side of the dais, each decorated with a golden halo-sword symbol halfway down. The room looked like a mix of court and cathedral.
“Sit front and center,” one of the Michaels ordered.
Cassandra rolled her eyes and plopped down on the back left.
Helo took a seat nearby, still taking in the artwork etched into the metallic walls. On the dais, two luxurious seats awaited the Archus and Diarchus at the center, three lesser chairs stretching out to either side. All were empty. On the wall behind them, facing the dais, hung large glassy monitors as thin as a sheet of paper. Dark walnut doors behind the dais suggested rooms beyond.
“There’s one chair too many,” Helo observed, noting an eighth chair on the dais.
“That’s for any Unascended resident in Deep 7,” Magdelene explained. “Rachel would sit there when Gabriel asked her to, though she rarely said much.”
A door behind the dais slid open, and Diarchus Joan walked out alone.
“Welcome and thank you for coming,” Joan said. “You two,” she ordered, indicating the two guards. “You may leave.”
“Archus Ramis indicated we should remain with Helo until he explicitly ordered otherwise, Madam Diarchus.”
“I am explicitly ordering you otherwise.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The two guards left in a hurry, and Magdelene stood and greeted the Diarchus with a handshake. “Is this a tribunal?” she asked.
“Not officially, no,” Joan answered. “But it’s going to feel like one. These are strange times, Maggie. We’ve never been so off-balance, and I don’t think we’re handling the situation well. We’ve gotten used to being on top of the Dreads, and we’re not on top anymore.”
The door behind her slid open again, and the entire Archai f
iled out to stand in front of the seats. Magdelene indicated they should stand, and Helo did. Cassandra took her time. They all waited until Grand Archus Gabriel took his seat before settling in themselves. They were dressed in the same navy-blue jumpsuits as everyone else, though theirs were trimmed with gold, each bearing their angel name and patch of office.
Helo recognized all the faces now. It was evident gravity hung heavily on them. Silence fell while everyone waited on Grand Archus Gabriel, who consulted a tablet in his hand. Cassandra bent forward in her seat, head in her hands.
“Where’s the guard I ordered for Helo?” Archus Ramis stuck in during the silence.
“I ordered them off,” Joan informed him. “I’m not sure why you see the necessity for it. What danger does he pose? We know who the traitor was.”
“I beg your pardon, Diarchus,” Ramis apologized. “I should explain myself. It is because of his connection to this Dread Dahlia. I fear he is being manipulated. Tell us, Helo, have you been in contact with her again?”
Helo recounted his encounter with her at the Redemption Motorcycle Club, every eye on the dais drilling into him as if trying to bore into his soul and pull out the truth. He left out the part where Dahlia had begged for death after she had been defeated.
“And you can confirm this?” Ramis asked Dolorem.
“Yes. Though I couldn’t hear the entire conversation from the back room, where I was bent like a pretzel. She used at least three Bestowals on me.”
“Impossible!” Archus Ebenezer screeched. “These two are not credible!”
“Why not?” Gabriel said.
“An Old Master and a trainee with a questionable record?” Ebenezer argued. Ebenezer said Old Master with a heap of disdain. Dolorem sat back and folded his arms.
“Are you saying they are liars or that they have been tricked somehow?” Diarchus Joan asked.
Ebenezer held up his hands. “All I’m saying is that something else is at work here. None of you has asked Helo the obvious question. Here we have an Ash Angel who manages to defeat a Dread woman who is a Vexus receptacle, Vexus drained from an atrocity site he was personally connected with. He has the time and the means to finish her off, and yet he decides to leave her there. It was his duty to end her! Any other Ash Angel would have done it. If he was not under her influence, why would he let her live?”
“Which,” Ramis popped in, “is exactly why I have ordered him under guard. This close, personal contact with a Dread may influence him to undermine our operations.”
Gabriel turned to Helo. “Their question is valid. Why not end her life?”
“Because Rachel the Unascended told me that I should believe her and that one day Dahlia would save my life.”
“How dare you perpetrate such a slander on an Unascended!” Archus Ebenezer said, rising from his seat with fervor. “No Unascended would condone a course of action that allowed those animals and their darkness to persist!”
“They aren’t animals!” Archus Simeon said. “Some have turned.”
“Not enough to matter, Simeon. Get off your bleeding-heart, Dread-saving platform. We must kill the Dreads as fast as we can. I’m sure Archus Mars agrees with me.” Ebenezer said.
“The only time we should let them live is when there is a tactical advantage to doing so,” Mars clarified.
Ebenezer sat back down. “There wasn’t one in this case.”
Diarchus Joan turned on him. “Helo believes she will save his life. That would be a tactical advantage for him, at least.”
Ebenezer snorted. “You don’t honestly believe an Unascended would condone letting a Dread live?”
“I think it would be foolish to assume you can say what an Unascended would or wouldn’t do,” Diarchus Joan retorted. “Rachel was a pacifist in life and in the afterlife. The Unascended have as many different opinions among them as we sitting in this room do. Their lack of ascension doesn’t suddenly bless them with more divine insight. Long study does, and Rachel studied those books in the reliquarium more than anyone here. Calling Helo a liar is uncalled for and disrespectful.”
Ebenezer opened his mouth, but Gideon raised a hand to end the discussion. “Archus Lux, have any of your Visionaries or Cryptics had any visions of Helo, Dahlia, Devon Qyn, or Goldbow that might aid us right now?”
Lux, who’d largely avoided the arguments that seemed so common among the others, sat forward in her chair. She was slender, with nearly white hair and a thin, pale face, her features and large eyes giving her a fairylike appearance.
“I reviewed the latest visions and dreams before I came, and there was nothing in them that would aid us,” she reported.
“Rachel saw Dahlia and me,” Helo offered. “She saw the tattoos on Dahlia’s arm that I saw when she absorbed the Vexus at the crash site.”
“Oh,” Ebenezer mocked, “and I suppose we’ll just have to take your word for that, too?”
“She drew pictures of us and the symbols. They were down in the reliquarium. I asked Cassandra to let the Scholus know before I was forced out.”
“I told Ebenezer,” Cassandra said. “I messaged him before Gold . . . before I left.”
“Did you look into it, Ebenezer?” Gideon asked.
“I get a lot of messages. And we’ve been too busy to go chasing idle tales.”
“This tale is appearing less idle by the minute,” Gabriel said, voice disapproving. “Control, please contact Naomi in the reliquarium.”
A few moments passed, and Naomi’s voice flooded the room. “This is Naomi.”
“This is Gideon. Have Rachel’s effects been removed from the reliquarium?”
“No, Grand Archus.”
“Do you have a mobile camera there?”
“On my phone, yes.”
“Rachel has—Rachel had—a desk in the back of the library. Will you give us a live feed of what is there?”
“Um, sure. One minute.”
“Thank you,” Archus Gideon said. “Primus, establish a live link with Naomi’s camera in the reliquarium and project the image on screen three.”
“Link established,” Primus said.
Those facing the dais craned their necks around as Naomi’s shaky cam provided them a view of the reliquarium door sliding open. Once she got to the desk, Gideon asked her to show them the sketches on the walls.
“That’s me, and that’s Dahlia,” Helo narrated, “and those are the three symbols I saw on Dahlia’s arm. Rachel told me she saw the two of us in her head, me for years. Said others had too.”
“Do you recognize those symbols, Archus Ebenezer?” Gideon asked.
Ebenezer cleared his throat, looking a little sheepish. “Well, one is familiar from the writings of Micah, the medieval researcher considered the father of the Scholus. He claimed one of the Dreads he was torturing drew that symbol. It was the beginning of Micah’s fruitless hunt for the fabled Dread Loremasters that got him nothing but thrown into a well.”
“What’s the symbol mean?”
“We aren’t sure, but having the other two might help,” he conjectured. “However, I don’t think we have time for this line of research right now. We need to keep our resources focused on Devon Qyn. He’s bringing in new weapons and equipment, and we have to find out how. Not to mention he’s probably using the Vexus from the air disaster for some dark purpose. My guess is Sheid creation.”
“I agree,” Gideon said, “but this is all tied together somehow. We’ve never understood how Shedim were created from the Vexus of atrocity sites, but we’ve just got our first clue. Since Helo saw these symbols on Dahlia after she was healed by the arrival of dusk, that means they are not temporary. And if they collected the Vexus from four atrocity sites, they are clearly up to some plan that probably ties in with the new threats we are seeing.
“Ebenezer, you assign a team to go down to that reliquarium and see what else Rachel had down there and figure out what those symbols mean. At the very least, this exculpates Helo from any suspicion. As an Unas
cended, Rachel was a Visionary, and I won’t have him reprimanded for following her advice.”
Ebenezer nodded and turned to his data pad.
The room settled, and Gideon leaned back in his chair. “Let’s turn to Goldbow. Magdelene, could you and Ramis narrate how this leak was exposed and the basics of the operation to extract Goldbow’s family from their residence, please?”
Magdelene and Archus Ramis told the story. Cassandra scowled at a wall. Helo could tell her friends were trying to protect her as much as possible.
Archus Ebenezer wouldn’t let that happen. “Goldbow led a group of Possessed—and now dead ones, I might add—to the Midwest Operation Center. It is forever and expensively compromised. And why call Helo to investigate? Cassandra should have contacted you, Ramis. If she would have done her duty and called this in, it wouldn’t have happened, and lives—normal lives—would have been saved.”
Archus Ramis turned on the man who had been his ally for most of the proceeding. “Archus Ebenezer, with all due respect, you and the Scholus have no idea of the emotional rigors of being a Gabriel agent in the field, and you certainly know nothing of Cassandra’s personal history that might help you view this event with a little more compassion.”
“Well, why don’t you enlighten us, Ramis, if you’re in the know,” Ebenezer spat back.
“All you need to know is that Cassandra and Goldbow were involved romantically while Goldbow was still involved with his wife and family. And if you can’t understand what that would do to a woman, then maybe you really have forgotten what it is to be human. Cassandra is my agent, and I will deal with this issue. She was the one instrumental in discovering Goldbow’s treachery, and you should be thanking her.”
Helo raised his eyebrows. Ramis’s fiery defense had caught Ebenezer off guard, and Ebenezer wasn’t the only one with wide eyes. Silence reigned for several moments before Gideon stepped in.
“The long-reaching effects of Goldbow’s actions will take some time to unravel, but whatever he’s done, he’s paying for it now. I will leave the matter of Cassandra’s discipline to Archus Ramis. Did Goldbow’s interrogation reveal anything, Mars?”