"Locker room," I said finally, my confidence in Michael renewed. "Through the office to the locker room. It leads to a parking lot. But, I wanted ... I wanted to get files ... Jordan ..."
"There's no time." Michael's breath tickled at my ear, and I shivered.
"Very nice," Morningstar said warmly, as Michael started down the hall. "I feel you stepping just that much closer to me, dear brother."
"It was necessary," Michael said.
"It's also distinctly against the rules. And, here I thought you were so very 'by the book.' After all, you're always so careful to use doors and cars and all these earthly crutches. WE could just leave, you know. Speed would save her."
"I will not cheat, simply because it is easier. That's your way, not mine."
"Is it?" Morningstar said. "You're willing to ask me for a miracle you won't do for yourself. How is that different – besides being more cowardly?"
Michael said nothing as they walked on. Each step he took jarred me painfully where I was cradled against his shoulders. I shut my eyes. Fighting to remain conscious, I concentrated on the sound of their voices. I could hear the click of Morningstar's steps fall into rhythm with Michael's.
"You have forgotten the rules, haven't you?" Morningstar's voice was swelled with glee. "Or are you willfully ignoring them?"
Michael's grip tightened around my shoulders. He said nothing for a long moment. I must have drifted out of consciousness because the next thing I knew Michael was trying to rouse me. "Deidre?"
I opened my eyes to look around. Michael had brought me as far as the main hub of the station. People ran around us as if we were invisible. The room was a tangle of desks and chairs. Half-eaten sandwiches littered several tabletops. Every desk's monitor blinked in protest of the power outage. A hiss came from the main precinct hologram, and it flickered unsteadily. Hundreds of red dots littered the surface of the map, each indicating a reported crime in process.
The wide glass of the captain's central office reflected the chaos. Beside me, I heard Morningstar let out a satisfied sigh. "Beautiful."
"Behind the captain's area, there's a door," I said. "It leads to the locker room, from there you can get to the parking lot. But ... there are security cameras ... automated checkpoints ... all these cops, surely one of them will stop us..."
"Don't worry about that right now, Deidre," Michael said. "We'll take care of that."
"We?" Though I couldn't see his face, I could hear the smile in Morningstar's voice.
Michael grunted in response. He started toward the door, without another word. My head started spinning with the motion. I focused on the sight of my own shoulder. My fingers and Michael's were entwined. Blood outlined each digit of my hand, filling in the crevasses of wrinkled skin. Michael's hand was smoother than mine. I might have been beginning to hallucinate, but I swore the blood seemed reluctant to blot his perfection. Where my hand was blackened by the flow, his appeared nearly spotless.
I heard a door spring open. "After you, my dear Alphonse," Morningstar said.
Wordlessly, Michael descended the stairs. I reached up with my other hand and grabbed a fistful of Michael's jacket. I squeezed it at each step. It didn't replace a bullet to bite, but it helped.
"Don't get too familiar, Morningstar," Michael commanded. "You're mistaken if you think I trust you for a moment. For all I know, you set this whole thing up."
"Why would I do that?" Morningstar asked.
"To hurt Deidre. To separate Jibril and me. To weasel me into a position where I would ask for your help. Who knows? Maybe all this is just to aid Letouraeau. He is one of yours, isn't he?"
"That would make things easier for you, wouldn't it, Captain?" Morningstar said. His voice had a seriousness in it I hadn't heard before.
Michael said nothing. The pounding of his steps was the only response he gave. The sharp echo in the narrow staircase sounded like a hammer. Each ringing blow felt like someone was driving a hot spike through my should der. My vision blurred from tears of pain. I held on to Michael's jacket, swaying on the fringe of consciousness.
"What if I told you Letourneau had nothing to do with me?" Morningstar said, when Michael didn't respond. "Maybe all of this is part of the plan. Did you ever consider that? What if you and I are still just puppets? It wasn't we who tasted the fruit of knowledge. It wasn't we They made in Their image."
"Your jealousy is so apparent, Morningstar." Michael's voice was a fierce growl in my ear. "You will not corrupt me."
Morningstar laughed wickedly. We had reached the bottom of the stairs, and Michael stood in front of the door. He tried to use the hand that held my legs to work the knob. His grip shifted me awkwardly; I cried out in painful protest.
"Allow me." Morningstar laughed again. This time the sound was soft, but it was still as mocking. I heard the latch click and felt a cool breeze rush in. "As for your corruption, my dear, dear Captain, it's not up to me. It's you who will decide if the flesh will corrupt the spirit or make it stronger."
Michael stood in the doorway. His breath came in sharply. "Decide?"
"Yes. Freewill, Michael. It comes with the territory. I tried to warn you earlier. Spirit united with flesh, it seems, breeds it ... like a disease. For once in your miserable existence, the choice is yours. You could make a mistake. Perhaps you already have."
"No," he whispered, still not moving.
"Yes," Morningstar said firmly. A small chuckle escaped his lips, "An interesting dilemma, isn't it? Your light has certainly shone brighter; will your darkness eclipse even mine?"
"You lie," Michael snarled.
"Sometimes Truth can be the greatest of Adversaries."
"No!" Michael shouted.
A strange sound tickled the edges of my consciousness. It reminded me of a sunny day, when my mother would hang the clothes out to dry. Eion and I would run between the sheets that flapped in the wind.
Darkness swallowed my vision; I felt myself floating away. From a distance, I heard a voice say: Forgive me, Father...
* * *
LAW Chat, on the legal bandwidth of the LINK, October 12, 2075
[email protected]
"I'm from the District Attorney's Office in New York. I'm looking for advice on a very unusual situation that we've got here. A couple of our detectives actually put their hands on hard evidence linking a power reroute hack on the New York node to a perp code-named the Mouse. They nabbed him real-time here in New York. The case against him is pretty solid. That's not the problem.
"My problem is with his AI. As strange as it may seem, there don't seem to be any precedents on the books about the culpability of an AI in LINK crime. Mouse's attorney wants to make the case that since the AI did the crime, the AI should do the time. Any advice?"
[email protected]
"First of all, the AI can't do the time. There's no way to bind a free agent like an AI. The only solution would be to deactivate it, which would be tantamount to a death sentence. For a power boost that seems a little excessive, don't you think?"
[email protected]
"If I may interject? There aren't that many true, operational AI's out there. Mouse's page and the Dragon of the East, the two notable exceptions. Still, there's no way to prove that the AI, even Mouse's AI, is truly responsible for its actions and not behaving according to some deeply programmed code.
"The Vatican policy is that an AI is similar to a soulless golem or an elemental [See the vatican.va file AI7-23.] under complete control of the wire-wizard. The wizard is ultimately responsible for all of the AI's actions."
[email protected]
"I am pleasantly surprised, (although I should not be, I suppose), to find my esteemed colleague at the Vatican familiar with the Jewish concept of a golem. Likewise, I agree with the bulk of his statement. There simply is no way of telling if Mouse's page or The Dragon of the East aren't just extremely detailed programs that are operating completely at the will of their makers, even if they appear to operate independently."
[email protected]
"Russia, my proudly atheist country, runs almost completely via mouse.net. We recognize Mouse's Page as a full citizen and grant him all according rights, including that of asylum which, I must inform you, he is exercising at this moment. Ms. Marshall, I suggest we continue this discussion on a private band."
Chapter 11
"Forgive me, Father, for intruding at such an earlyhour," a voice said as I opened my eyes a crack. Morning sun filtered through stained glass. Deep reds glowed in the tunic of the mosaic: Christ the Shepherd. Black lead outlined a clear piece of glass representing a halo. Unadulterated sunlight shone through it, contrasting the surrounding browns and blues. The lamb draped over Christ's rounded shoulders rested its head under the crook of Christ's jaw.
Like the lamb, I was being carried. My head was nestled against smooth, cool skin. The flesh was almost as cold as the air in the drafty cathedral. I looked around dreamily. Speckles of sunlight did their best to warm the wood of the pews, but the church felt distant and as empty as a tomb to me.
This is no place for refuge anymore. Not for my soul, not for my body. Surely the police will find us here, I tried to say, but my voice was too weak. All that came out was a helpless-sounding croak. I barely recognized it as my own voice. Cradled like a fragile doll, I tried to move. My body felt too heavy to lift. My left arm swung uselessly at my side. A heavy pain thundered in my shoulder.
"Shhhh," a voice cautioned. "Save your strength." His warm breath tickled my cheek. I could feel strands of his hair, feather-light against my nose. The sensation distracted me from the pain. I shut my eyes and held on to the softer feeling.
"I'm just vesting for Matins," an apparently famliar voice responded. "You'll have to wait, my son. I can't let you in. The church isn't ready."
"Hagia Sophia. She is always here, is She not? Besides, your sign claims twenty-four-hour service. I need your service now. I can't wait fifteen minutes until 6:00 A.M."
"Yes ... but ... that woman needs medical attention, not prayer."
A growl rumbled near my ear. "Does the parable of the Good Samaritan mean nothing to you, priest?"
"Of course! But, this is no place for the wounded..." The priest's words ended in a soft, "oof." It was the sound of surprise, or of being pushed against a wall.
"Yield or I will destroy you." A blinding light penetrated behind my eyelids. I jerked open my eyes to the sensation of a sudden strong wind. The priest collapsed against the marble basin of holy water. His hands raised as if to ward someone off. The priest's face was turned away, hidden against the folds of his black robes, but I recognized the silver-in-blond hair.
"Eion," I whispered.
At my voice, Eion looked up. "Dee ... Oh my God," Eion murmured, but was interrupted with a hiss. My head bobbed as I was carried farther into the church. Bootheels crashed against the stone floor, sending noise ricocheting against the vaulted ceilings.
The somber-colored banners that hung along the processional fluttered in the aftereffects of a sudden strong wind as I was marched toward the altar. I bounced painfully as he took the low stairs two at a time.
"No," I moaned weakly. My mind protested, I'm bleeding, please, not on the altar cloths.
"No!" Eion's usually commanding voice was tinged with hysteria. "You defile the church!"
"Blood is part of your covenant with Him, yes? Besides, in the old days They were quite fond of grand gestures like this. Remember Abraham and Isaac? Trust me. If anyone knows how to get Their attention – I do."
Reaching the dais, I was laid gently on the altar. I looked up into his face. Chestnut brown eyes met mine, not the flashing gray I expected. "M ?"
"Morningstar, though I would prefer to have been introduced as Sammael," he said, with a slight upturn of his mouth. The expression was somewhere between a grimace and a smile. "Sammael was my given name. Michael likes to call me Morningstar to remind me of my little tumble from grace."
The church echoed with Eion's gasp. "Satan ..."
"Satan ..." Morningstar hissed out the name, savoring it. "Did you know that 'satan' used to be a generic term implying any adversary?" Morningstar asked me, ignoring Eion. "Now I'm the only one worth mentioning. Fortunately for you, priest," Morningstar said over his shoulder, "I'm arrogant enough to appreciate the compliment."
He glanced over at the crucifix suddenly, as if it had spoken to him. Auburn curls brushed the hard angle of his broad shoulders and fell loosely across his muscular back. Flecks of red-and-blue light speckled his black designer trench coat.
The hazy light of the cathedral seemed to illuminate a ghostly form underneath the image of Morningstar. It was as though his clothes were a thin gauze wrapping. Underneath another image glowed. A frayed tunic hung limply across his naked shoulder. It was pure white in places, but dark soot stained most of the fabric to a dull shadowy gray.
Hovering on the edge of consciousness, I could see a glimmer of enormous wings, the span of which must have reached twenty feet. Like the tunic, they were blackened and tattered. Almost completely featherless in most places, a few patches of white clung stubbornly to wounded flesh. The angle of one of the wings was askew, and the sharp edge of bone poked out, painful and raw-looking. He held the broken wing close to his body, as though it were still tender.
"You've been reading too much Milton," Morningstar sneered in my direction. Snapping back into focus, the trench coat solidified. Like a blanket thrown over a lamp, it blocked out most of the image, but I still saw a bright light glowing at the center of his chest.
"Don't fool yourself with such romantic images. We aren't even crafted from the same stuff as you. What I truly am you can't comprehend, just as you can't comprehend God." Morningstar's brown eyes bored into me. "Though in so many ways you are more like God than I will ever be."
My head felt light. I was hallucinating, clearly. "Michael?" I rasped, "Where is ... ?"
"He's left you in my more-than-capable hands, Deidre." Morningstar dusted off the edge of the altar and sat on it. "It seems Michael needed some time to think."
"Get off the altar! Get out of my church!" Eion yelled, rushing down the processional toward the altar dias. In his hands he gripped a gilded cross like a spear.
Morningstar recoiled as though someone had slapped him. Heat rose on his cheeks. "Your church?" Standing up, he snapped his coat out behind him. "You would do better, priest, to remember by whose grace you were elevated from animated clay to the likes of gods."
Eion stopped at Morningstar's admonishment. His hands trembled, but he remained firm. "This is His church," Eion repeated. His unfinished vestments hung loosely around him like a dressing gown. The fire in his eyes contrasted the vulnerability of his undress. "If you are ... what you say you are, you don't belong here," Eion commanded.
Morningstar's back straightened. I saw fists clench at his sides. Then, with a forced breath, his shoulders relaxed. "We are all God's creations. I belong here as much as any, perhaps more. I was the first, the best."
"Yes, you were." Michael stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the morning sun. His shadow stretched nearly the length of the processional, its edges protectively touching Eion's shoulder.
I tried to sit up. My shoulder came away from the altar cloth with a wet sound. I no longer felt any pain, or, rather, I felt as though the pain was distant from my consciousness. Morningstar's hand touched my chest, pushing me back down. The pressure of his hand seemed to anchor me in the present. I wrapped my hand around his and held on as though my life depended on it.
"I was and I still am." Morningstar sat back against the altar, his hand resting lightly on my stomach. "What you can't stand, dearest brother, is that even now, after everything, They still love me."
Michael's jaw flexed. Then with a shrug, he said, "Thank you for bringing Deidre safely here. I'll take over now."
"Dismissed with a shrug? Fuck that." The hand on my blouse balled into a fist. I was jerked upright. "I could
kill her and destroy your plans."
I tried to pull away, but my body no longer seemed to be under my command. I could hear someone gasp and murmur a prayer. It had to be Eion, because Michael pounded toward the altar. A crackle like flame brushed my consciousness. I turned my head toward the sound.
Large pure, white wings billowed from behind muscular shoulders. The feathers were fanned out, completely obscuring the church from my view. Looking twice his size, Michael held a flaming sword in one hand – ready to strike.
"Sheathe it, Captain," Morningstar said with a smirk. "I have no intention of cowering like a snake at your feet."
"I'm willing to bet that I'm faster than you."
"You are?" Morningstar's voice was full of surprise. "That's an awfully devilish risk you're taking."
Michael said nothing, holding his position.
I groaned. Using all my reserve strength, I pitched myself forward, trying to distract Morningstar. My arms flapped against him uselessly. He laughed. Still gripping my blouse, he pulled me closer. The smell of patchouli and sweat overwhelmed my senses. It was a strangely appealing yet repulsive smell, and not at all what I expected from the dapper Morningstar.
"When this is over," Morningstar whispered, "remember me. Some things done in the name of love have a bitter edge."
With that, Morningstar let go of my blouse. Michael's reactions were fast enough to cradle my head before it smacked against the stone. I felt so foolish being tossed around like a rag doll between these two men, especially in front of Eion.
"I hate it when you rescue me." I tried to prop myself up by the elbows. Michael helped me into a more upright position. In his arms, the pain in my shoulder settled into a dull ache.
Archangel Protocol Page 12