He strode over to the desk and searched amongst the empty pill bottles.
“What did you take?” He bent to study the score of pills on the floor. “Is that it?”
“Not enough,” I said, thinking about the Coumadin. In a few hours, a wrestling match like that might have killed me.
He clutched my shoulders and stared at me with intent, certain eyes. “You can’t do this.”
“I’m waiting for my reason.” I glared back.
“For the kids.”
“We’re too late.” My voice broke. I’d never voiced my diminishing hope. Doing so sapped what energy I had left.
He waved back at desiccating Charlie. “Then because you might be right.”
“How’s that?”
He dropped his chin and his volume. “Before Morph died, she told me that she suspected some of the Euths were manufactured. That she’d go into the database and pull up nothing, then a day later, up would pop a perfect match.”
A thrill shot along my spine, and I remembered Morph’s deathbed warning. She had known something was amiss as well. But suspicions weren’t worth much.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, but you were on the ledge. And …” He flushed, and I grabbed his wrist. “And I’m not sure I wanted to believe it.”
Attila was thin. Most of the men I’d known were muscular, military, beefy types, and I found his strength surprising.
Releasing him, I brought out the iPhone and connected to the Terminal’s database.
“What are you doing?” He shuffled close, so his shoulder rubbed mine.
“With access to the case registry, we can figure this out.” I thumbed the buttons and entered Morph’s username and password.
“What was Siam’s last name?” I demanded.
“Rattanakosin.”
“You’re kidding?” I tried to smile, looking up. “Going to have sore thumbs.”
I held my breath as I punched in the surname and brought up Siam’s medical history. When I had it, I turned the screen so he could see. Doctor Siam Rattanakosin, Professor of Egyptology and Archeology at Hart University, was diagnosed on May 23rd. Months before the cult leader committed suicide and left his missive. I frowned. Siam couldn’t have been manipulated.
Attila’s black eyes still burned with anger and betrayal over the pills. “Morph was wrong? Maybe you’re wrong?”
“Charlie was diagnosed three days before Hillar was gunned down,” I added. “That’s a big coincidence. I’m sure the general is creating terminals when he needs them.”
“Before doesn’t help you. If it was before, then it throws that theory out the window. The general can’t be manufacturing diagnoses of esoteric religions before he knows he needs them.”
“Not necessarily, not if the general likes to plan ahead. What’s the worst that could have happened, having delivered a terminal diagnosis to a monk in the middle of nowhere?”
“Miraculous recovery?” He shrugged. “It probably would have been taken as a sign from God.”
“Not sure if that’s true in Charlie’s case, but you’re right. Nothing would have come of it. Isn’t it suspicious that the Euth turned out to be the same expert that headlined on the news? The general hedged his bets.” I pointed the phone toward Purgatory. “Was Siam autopsied?”
“Never. Terminals and Euths are never autopsied; they’d find the euthanizing drugs in their systems.”
That made sense.
“Charlie’s still here. He could be autopsied and we’d know for certain if he had pancreatic cancer.”
“We’d have a lot of questions to answer.”
“Who cares?”
Attila glanced at the puddle of pills and back. “I do. I don’t want to kill myself. I don’t want everyone knowing that I can talk to the dead. I’d never be left alone. Here … here I can …” His brow furrowed and he looked away.
“Do more good than harm?” I asked, and he sighed. “How do you know?”
“Not every case results in officers killed, Colonel,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of good.”
I turned as if slapped. “It’s just me, then.”
“I didn’t mean …” Attila dropped his arms.
“No, I know.” I ground the pills into the skin of carpet.
“So what do we do?”
“We don’t let anyone else die who shouldn’t be dying.” My fingernails raked over the iPhone.
“Including you,” he said. “Will you promise me you’re not going to try this shit again?”
I’d made that promise to Charlie already, and he’d failed me, causing the deaths of as many people as we were trying to save. No more promises.
“I’m not letting Wilshire die for seventy-five grand.” It was no answer to Attila, but it bought me a few more hours. At least until the Coumadin kicked in.
“Your need to die, Chris …” Attila lifted his hands in exasperation. “Why are you so hard on yourself?”
In the last six months, I’d caused the deaths or injuries of men and women in three separate incidents. Inaction, incompetence, or ignorance. None of them were excusable. I didn’t answer.
Attila held aloft his doorknob. “The jury is still out on you.”
“We’ve had the verdict.” I sniffed, and headed for the door to Purgatory, but he moved to block me.
“Tell me about another soldier in your platoon who died. A freebie.”
The doorknob caught the overhead light and flared when Attila held it up. His arm was like iron as I tried to push it away.
“Take a chance,” Attila said.
I grunted at the firm set to his jaw. But I needed him to lay off and could only see one way to ensure that happened.
“One more,” I replied. “If this last gives me the thumbs down, you’ll leave me alone.” Attila nodded and I continued, “Lieutenant Sonya Alphonso. Formerly of New York City,” I said without hesitation.
“Tell me something personal about her, what was she like?”
“Hardcore.” My eyes watered and I blinked them clear. “So proud to be an officer.”
I told him about Sonya, most of it anyways. Sonya came from a poor family. She was fiercely religious. Chewed gum constantly. I bet Attila could find her by following a trail of spearmint and gum wads.
“Sonya Alphonso, Colonel Christine Kurzow wishes to speak with you.” Attila fondled the crystal between his palms.
I shivered with the chill that comes just before a dreaded answer. When the doctor speaks. When a mother takes a midnight call.
At the C-Town grocery, Sonya Alphonso watched her husband and son check out. On the conveyor was a twelve-pack of beer, six bottles of assorted hard alcohol, frozen French fries, pizza, and four bottles of soda—she noted that Smarmy, their cat, was relegated to dry food now. Her boy tugged at his father’s sleeve.
“Can we buy some hamburgers, Dad?”
Sonya had always been proud that her son was tallest in his class and now wondered how many inches of height he’d give up for the sudden lapse in nutrition. When home, Sonya had controlled the household finances, pleased when her husband left for work in neat, clean clothes and her son dressed in a way that reflected her own appearance. The man at the checkout had already degenerated into a drunken ass, and at the current rate of consumption, he’d piss away the hundred-thousand-dollar survivor death benefit in a year if he didn’t gamble it away sooner.
She’d done everything she could to become a commissioned officer, including some things she wasn’t entirely proud of. And just when she’d made it, when she could have been the one leading the patrol, she’d taken the blast at waist-height, literally blown away.
“Colonel Kurzow has asked for your forgiveness.”
Sonya whirled on the voice, but there was only a man pushing a shopping ca
rt.
“Kurzow?” she answered, coughing with sudden amusement so that she nearly lost the gum in her mouth. Sonya would give Kurzow something all right, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be forgiveness. That bitch had never liked her. Her lips smacked as she chewed a stale wad of gum.
“I’m buying your French fries,” her husband said to her son. “Listen. Momma’s gone; things are going to be real tough.”
Her son’s whine filled her with longing, a hunger that would never be sated, like the dream of a future for her son.
“I am with Christine Kurzow and she seeks forgiveness for not shooting the child. She’s considering suicide in recompense.”
Sonya spat out the gob and drew a deep breath. “You kidding me? How can I forgive her?” Her gaze scanned the dull sadness in her son’s eyes, the scruff of her husband’s cheeks, and the single silver bar on her lapel to which she would never add another. Kurzow had taken more than her life. She’d taken her family legacy. “Too bad I can’t help her do it myself.”
I could tell by the look on Attila’s face that the answer hadn’t been one he had expected. He sighed and shook his head. “Who could shoot a child?”
“A trained soldier with a gun,” I said.
I hadn’t needed to hear Attila say it to know that Sonya would convict me. She had hated me, and I had returned the sentiment. She slept with the other men in our platoon. She used her femininity to obtain what she wanted, anything from a decent meal to a promotion. This in the theater of war where the Army had forbidden hugging and holding hands. Maybe I should have ratted her and the men out, but something had always told me I didn’t have the right. Here I was, using her to get Attila off my back. Or was I? Was I really hoping to convince Attila that I truly deserved to die? Or was I trying to convince myself?
Attila checked the time on his phone and swore.
“Julie Wilshire’s ETA is fifteen minutes. I have to be on the helipad when she touches down.”
“You’re supposed to meet her?” My eyes widened when he nodded. “Change of plan.”
Chapter 27
Gooseflesh bubbled up over Charlie’s skin. Although glad for the return of his hands, he rubbed at his skeletal arms to stave off the sudden winter. His fingers traced tendons made prominent by a death-camp physique. He wobbled on bony legs. Still, he felt stronger, buttressed by his love for Angelica. Snow surrounded him. It stretched out, a stark plain broken only by the stalks of last season’s grass. His feet already ached in the snow. No other footprints penetrated the crust; he had simply appeared here. Wind whipped him, and he quaked in the impossible cold.
Hillar’s footprints were also absent, but Charlie had to be sure before he named the next Archon; once through to a new deep, there could be no returning. The only sound was the scouring of snow streamers crossing the land, their crystals like tiny knives against Charlie’s thighs.
He trudged to the top of a hillock and scanned the area. A distant wolf howled at the slate sky. A second voice returned the call, barking several times before lifting its voice again. Then another.
“Shit,” Charlie said, without shelter—and without a weapon. Hearing the thinness in his voice, he shuddered. He’d failed.
He turned his back on the calls and took several toddling steps, searching for a sign of Hillar’s passage. The granular snow cut into his footpads, and the crust chafed his ankles and wasted calves, but this was little when compared to the pain of the bone-hook sea, and nothing when measured against his mother’s accusatory stare. A dozen howls formed a gleeful pack that hooted as they gathered, still distant. Charlie took lurching strides up another hillock.
Before long he couldn’t feel his feet due to the cold, but still he broke trail, at times the snow drifts to his groin. The yips and calls numbered in the hundreds now, a cacophony of wild, when suddenly it fell to silence. Charlie’s heavy breaths coned in the frosty air. The howls were gone, but quiet hung just as menacing. From his nights in the wilderness of Vermont, Charlie knew that when at hunt, wolves cease to howl.
“Happy hunting grounds, indeed,” Charlie grumbled, trying to breathe through his nose to stop the burn of cold from entering his lungs. He whirled at the snap of dry grass behind him, but nothing moved except the wind. He trudged a few paces, tripped over a buried stone, and fell. Unable to feel where he placed his foot, he pushed hard on his knees to stand. The plain undulated slowly toward the horizon, its waves enough to hide a wolf or Hillar, but not enough to give hope that civilization might prevail beyond a ridge. Desolate. No life. No killer.
Charlie knew what was to come next.
In the final tally, would the pain and loss of his life be worth tracking his nemesis through hells, he wondered. It was Charlie’s destiny. That is, if he truly accepted Jo’s teachings. In the monastery, it had been easy to make his quest academic, a hobby pursued through books and not based on belief. The truth had been too twisted in his love for Jo and now Angelica. It had taken forty years, but he had to believe. He’d felt Hillar draw him. As he had … Angelica. And there it was. He no longer felt Angelica, but he still felt Hillar. No pull, no Angelica.
The prior deep had been illusion. His greatest fears and regrets lay bare. The deep had forced him to clear his conscience. Angelica wasn’t dead. A nearby wolf barked, perhaps an eager young pup desperate with hunger and not yet mature enough to restrain his impatience. But while Charlie’s body trudged in snow, his spirit lifted and walked on with a kind of lightness.
Still, his physical form weakened. Something dark lingered within, something he hadn’t yet told himself. As his extremities numbed, his brain seemed to dull as well, driving out thoughts of death and faith and destiny. He lumbered like a dumb animal, sensing only the slender thread of his remaining life.
At some point the cold began to feel warm. When he toppled next, the wintery bed cushioned him as a blanket, the cold a pillow for his mind. His will to move ebbed. What had once been a clear sky changed, and snow was falling. Hell can do whatever the hell it wants with the weather, Charlie thought, before fading blissfully into unconsciousness.
A pinch roused Charlie, but he was helpless to the nips. Two wolves wrestled with a strip of gristle, and part of him knew from where it came. He wanted to scream the Archon’s name, to have him fetched from this deep, but he was torn by the need to find Hillar. The snow had stopped. Blood splattered the fresh powder.
A wolf skulked toward him, yellow eyes aglow in the winter moon. Charlie saw no fear. Feral hunger on stained lips, but no fear. The terror that rose in Charlie was different, more distant, a primal urgency to survive that his cerebellum acknowledged and let loose. Charlie was a stray from the herd, a sick animal to be culled.
As the jaws opened, Charlie lifted his arm to club its snout, but the arm he swung was a ragged stump. He tried to cry out, but the jaws clamped at his neck, and it shook him savagely by the neck. The snarls of other wolves filled the crisp air, which misted red as they fought for their grips. He lifted from the snow, suspended by the teeth of wolves. He let his horror empty to the bloodied plain. He was food. A meal.
Adonaios! he thought, giving in, and he was sure he heard a whimper before he was gone.
Intact once more. Charlie, dismayed. A body was only yet another chance to be flayed, hacked, or chewed.
At first, it felt as though Charlie’s skin warmed, prickling with the heat as blood flow returned to numb limbs. He relaxed into it, drifting. The fetal darkness, the warmth, it suggested a great womb. Except that this womb had no comforting press of uterine wall. Its warmth moved. It writhed, making wet slippery sounds. His arms slowly cut through the mass until he broke free. He struggled to find purchase with his feet, and once grounded, he surged to a stand.
Charlie wore a robe and grasped its collar, pulling it down over the light that emanated from his chest. No longer was it a pale subtle light, but blue at its center, fading to yello
w, orange, and red as it struggled through the ribs of his chest. It lit a mass of maggots roiling at his navel. Black slugs flipped and tumbled over one another. Charlie hauled his legs through the mass and came up against a black wall that glistened like a shard of obsidian, reflecting the light of his chest and the likeness of his nearly mummified form. Charlie was a desiccated carcass. He followed the wall and found it circular, holding him and the maggots in, with no sign of an Archon. Beneath Charlie, a muffled voice called something.
Charlie tried to kick out at it, but nearly fell as his foot passed ever so slowly through the gelatinous mass. A mound began to form in the centre and grow upward. Maggots took human shape, but wriggled and twisted. Hands reached up and clawed the goo from its eyes, and spat the slugs from its mouth.
“Hillar?” Charlie searched for the crystal, but it was either covered in maggots or missing. Hillar’s hands passed over his arms and chest, unleashing a luminous red light that occluded Charlie’s weaker blue. “Where’s the crystal?”
Hillar lifted his hands to his shoulders in a shrug, and then shouted: “Horaios.”
He grimaced and then looked down at the maggots with disgust.
“This demon bitch is fucking deaf.” Between two fingers he caught a maggot and brought it up to his eye. Then he flicked it into his mouth and chewed. Immediately, he spat it out, face twisting in repulsion. When he regained control of his stomach, he shook his head. “Nasty.”
Charlie was still focused on the crystal. “Where?”
Hillar’s hand swept over the surface. “I had her when I came in, you’d better start fishing, time’s a-ticking.”
Charlie’s gun was back in his hand.
“No forgiveness from a monk?” Hillar let himself fall into the mass, and the gunshot went long, raising a geyser of offal. Arms wrapped about Charlie’s legs and he was pulled down beneath the tide of larvae.
The Terminals Page 18