by Joss Ware
Was it possible? The sudden weight in his belly indicated that it probably was—that in spite of his loathing for Fielding, Quent’s whole life had been influenced by that very man.
Fed by hatred for the physical abuses, an underlying competitiveness and the absurd need to be seen as formidable—worthy—in his father’s eyes, Quent had allowed those emotions to drive his actions since he was a teen. Nearly everything he’d done—seduced and bedded beautiful woman after beautiful woman, embarked on daring and dangerous escapades in search of treasure and wealth that hadn’t come from his hated father…even given publicly of his time and money to charitable causes, to people and places in need—all of it had been a big damned fuck-you to Fielding.
A way to jab his middle finger right in his father’s face. A way to have Fielding see him as a equal, as strong and confident in his own right.
Fielding was right. He had controlled Quent’s life.
“What’s wrong?” Zoë broke the silence, and he realized he’d frozen as the unpleasant realization settled over him. “Quent? Are you in the black pit?”
His mouth flattened. Right. This was a pretty dark pit of self-realization. He wasn’t too certain he liked himself much right about now. “I’m fine. Just…listening. Are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready,” she said, characteristically impatient. “Are you?”
Feeling the solidness, the realness, of Zoë’s fingers now in his hand, all at once, Quent wondered if he was making a mistake.
They could leave now. Leave and likely escape over the walkway, or even steal a protected boat from the docks. He had his Taser, Zoë had her bow and arrows. Together, they’d be a force to be reckoned with.
Most importantly, he had Zoë.
He could get her out of here, safe and sound, and tell her what he needed to tell her. Find a way to let her know how he felt. And then if she wouldn’t stay, if she left him again…then he could come back.
But for now, the boiling, driving need to annihilate Fielding had eased to a simmer. Not because he’d forgiven the man, but because he realized what had happened had been a long time ago. Fielding didn’t have power over him anymore. He couldn’t hurt him any longer.
And if he left now, without ending his life, Quent could relinquish his father’s power over himself, no longer letting Fielding drive his actions.
He still loathed the man. Hated him for what he’d done to him, and to the rest of the world. Hitler had nothing on Parris Fielding.
He swallowed and looked down at Zoë. She’d never looked more beautiful than she did now, her hair every which way, smashed flat on one side, the winging curls limned with silvery moonlight, her almond-shaped eyes big and dark, steady. The curve of her cheek, the long sweep of her neck and throat and delicate collarbones, strong arms bare and gleaming with light.
I love you.
The words sat on the tip of his tongue. But he held them back. It wasn’t the right time. He wasn’t ready. His palms dampened and he thrust his nerves away.
“We could leave now. Forget everything and get out of here. Or we could try to steal the Atlantean crystal. What do you want to do?”
Surprise widened her eyes and she pulled her fingers from his hand, stepping back to look up at him. “And Fielding?”
Quent took a deep breath and shrugged. “Walk away.”
“You’re asking for me to decide?”
He nodded. It’s the only way I can show you how much I love you. Give you control.
He opened his mouth to say it, to leap across that abyss, but she spoke first. “The crystal. We have to get the crystal. It’s got to be you, Quent. No one else could ever do it. And you’ll never have another chance. If you leave Mecca, you’ll never get back in.” She looked up at him, gripping his arms. “It could make a difference for all of us. It could help us stop the Elite.”
All of that without one curse word. He almost smiled. Was his Zoë softening?
“Right,” he said, anticipation sparking him. This was it. The biggest treasure he’d ever had the chance to find. “Let’s do it.”
He touched the hidden panel, grasping Zoë’s fingers once again as a way to ground himself. Reading the memories, he concentrated and memorized the code for opening the door.
Moments later, it slid open, just as silently as it had earlier that day. Zoë grinned and slipped through, and Quent followed. The only illumination was an occasional small covered bulb near the floor, spilling a small ellipse of light. He didn’t need to employ his ability to navigate back through the corridors, down to the end where the second secret door was, but he did use his fingers to brush along the wall to see if anyone had come by recently. He sensed nothing alarming and they hurried on.
The second secret panel slid open as easily as the first, but this time he had to concentrate harder to “read” the process to open the actual door to the chamber. The images blurred, dark and murky, layered with malignance and cold. Fielding. All Fielding, strong and malevolent.
Zoë’s warm hand, slender and steadying, was the only thing that kept him from sliding into that greasy black pit.
And when he at last came out of the trance of images, he realized his breathing had increased. Sweat trickled down his spine. It was too dark to see more than a shadow, but he got the sense she was looking at him with concern.
“That took too damned long, Quent,” she said, an edge to her voice. “What the hell’s wrong?”
He couldn’t put it into words. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine. It was…dark. And there’s a lot of evil here. My father.”
She squeezed tightly. “Are you all right? We can forget it.”
In the dark, he felt the warmth of her curves as she shifted toward him, the tickle of her unruly hair over his jaw, the low bumping sound of her arrows adjusting in her quiver. “It’s up to you. I’m fine. I want to do this.”
Zoë nodded against him, then pulled his face down. In the dark, he recognized the curve of her smile and he gave her the most tender, the most loving of kisses—short, sweet, with a bit of a tongue-slip. “Let’s go, genius,” she murmured. “I’m here.”
He pushed the buttons on the keypad, fighting this time to hold back the black images that lurked. Tension settled over his shoulders and he hesitated on the last digit. Nine or eight? He closed his eyes, let them flood him once again, dark and threatening…and then, a bit breathless, settled on nine.
The white wooden door to the secret chamber slid open. The ice blue glow of the crystal spilled its hue over the octagonal space, reflecting lightly off the glass walls of the aquarium room. Other than that, the place was empty and dark. Even the moonlight didn’t shine this far down through the water.
Quent felt Zoë’s intake of breath at the sight of the stone and gently eased her into the chamber. The door closed behind them and he felt the surge of excitement. A treasure beyond all imagining. From it, he could learn the history to a lost civilization, the key to understanding the men who’d destroyed the world. And, he was certain, formulate a weapon to stop them.
It was at that moment he realized why he’d been given the cursed psychometric ability. He was the only one in the world who could translate the stone and learn both past and present from it. The only one who could ever have found it, hidden here in his father’s private holding room.
What an irony for Parris Fielding, whose experiment in the Sedona cave had backfired and made his son the only person who could destroy him.
Quent pulled the swath of sparkling white material he’d cut from Zoë’s dress out of his pack and stepped toward the crystal. There was no bloody way he was touching it directly until he was somewhere safe and secure.
Who knew what kind of dark pit it would drag him into.
Just as he was about to drape the material over the crystal, he hesitated. With a quick look back at Zoë, who stood near the closed door, he said, “Be ready. I don’t know what will happen when take it off the pedestal.”
“Nothing
,” said a voice. “Nothing will happen because no one can access this room except for me. Or so I thought.”
Quent froze, then looked over to see one of the glass panels of the octagon swinging inward. Fielding stepped in, and the door, which was a thick glassed-in slab filled with water—a perfectly camouflaged door—closed behind him. He was holding an object that resembled a gun, but it was unlike any firearm Quent had seen. Where the chamber would have been on an old pistol glowed a large yellow crystal. He suspected bullets weren’t the ammunition that came out of that piece.
“I’m not certain whether to be disappointed in you or complacent with myself for my correct assessment of your character.” He moved into the room, closer to the large crystal on the pedestal, his eyes steady and cold. The weapon was aimed a bit unsteadily at Quent, and he knew without being told that his father would shoot—or whatever—to kill. “Once a disappointment, always a disappointment.”
Quent heard Zoë’s breathed fuck behind him, but he was too pissed off to find it amusing. “So sorry to have not measured up to your standards once again, father.”
“You failed the test, but what I cannot understand is how you found your way into this room,” Fielding said. His eyes were bright and he moved slowly. “You were not meant to. Only to set off the alarm at your attempt. How did you do it?”
“Your little experiment,” Quent told him. “Obviously backfired on you.”
“I would have given this to you,” Fielding said, reaching to languidly caress the crystal. He seemed to take in its power, giving a little shudder as he did so. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger, the hand holding the gun steadier. “I meant for you to have it. If you’d but waited. I have—had—plans for you, now that you’d returned.”
“You can’t seriously believe I would have come to join you.” Quent edged back toward Zoë. “After what you and your cult did to the world? And the continued suppression. Kidnappings, enslavement, and zombie attacks. How could you imagine I’d ever want to be part of that?” He couldn’t keep the loathing from his voice any longer.
Fielding looked aggrieved. “A rare misjudgment on my part. I suppose a father can’t help but hope his son will follow in his footsteps.”
“Good thing Hitler never had a son.”
Fielding’s face tightened and the gun lifted. “Hitler had his points. The idea of a master race isn’t so farfetched, particularly considering Darwin’s theories. Hitler simply went about it in the wrong way.”
“Yes. He was overt about it, and thus stoppable. You didn’t give the world a chance. How did you do it? How did you annihilate the whole bloody earth? Did you use that?” He gestured to the crystal even as he stepped another bit backward. Zoë’s warm hand brushed his from behind, then withdrew. He realized what she was doing—sliding the weapon-cane from where he’d stuck it through the belt loop in the back of his pants.
“No, that crystal wasn’t used in the Evolution. I told you—that’s my connection to the Atlanteans. They were the ones who designed and implemented the Evolution, with my help of course.”
“I’m sure you were instrumental to the whole project,” Quent said dryly.
“Of course. They were fortunate that it was I who acquired the crystal. No one else would have managed to learn how to use it to communicate with them.”
“So you were able to reach the Atlanteans. Tell me about them.” Quent’s curiosity warred with his revulsion for the man and his cohorts. And if he kept him talking, Zoë might have the chance to make a move. He knew she wouldn’t stay still for long. Yet, they still didn’t know which side his crystal was on.
Fielding’s breathing rasped in the space as his eyes lit with delight. “You see, the Atlanteans had been banished to the depths of the ocean for millennia. They wanted to return to the earth’s exterior, where they’d lived so long ago. They needed the help of mortals on land in order to raise their city back to the surface.”
“And in return for your help, they offered you and your cult immortalizing crystals.”
“Yes. It was a bargain I couldn’t refuse. And without me, they would never have been able to return. They should have been grateful to me forever.” His jaw tightened, making his voice tense.
“You and Remington Truth.” Zoë spoke, and Fielding seemed to notice her for the first time. He shifted the gun barrel toward her. Quent wished she’d kept her bloody mouth shut, but that was too much to expect from Zoë.
“Truth was a brilliant man, but weak. Guilt-ridden sap. That was Hegelsen’s mistake, wanting Truth to be part of the Inner Circle. I knew he was a bad choice, but Liam claimed we needed him with his connections and knowledge of the American military.”
“Remington Truth. He disappeared shortly after the Change and you’ve never been able to find him. What secrets does he hold that you’re so desperate to get him back?” Quent asked, turning Fielding’s attention from Zoë.
“Too many.” Fielding wasn’t taking the bait. He looked at Zoë again, the gun shifting toward Quent. “And you. I could have used you, and you would have lived happily and in luxury forever.”
“Why did you want me to kill Liam Hegelsen?” Zoë asked. Quent had to resist the urge to spin and look at her in surprise. “And how the hell could I do that if he’s crystaled?”
“It’s no matter now,” Fielding replied. “It’ll all be taken care of shortly. If my son wouldn’t have disappointed me, I would have employed your talents to rid him of the man who’d rival him. But since he’s made the decision to come here, well, I’m simply returning to my original plan.”
“Which is what?”
“Well, I’m delighted you’ve asked,” Fielding said. He shifted suddenly, changing the gun’s aim. Quent moved, slamming Zoë to the ground as a ricochet of something like lightning sizzled through the room, zapping at the keypad beside the door through which they’d come. As they tumbled to the ground, a yellow-orange light flashed, lighting the dark space, and the smell of burning plastic and something else sharp and pungent filled the air. Quent looked up to see the panel smoking.
“You won’t be leaving that way.” Fielding smiled, walking toward the solid door to examine his handiwork. “In fact, you won’t be leaving at all.”
Suddenly, something shushed through the air and Fielding cried out in surprise and fury as one of Zoë’s arrows pinned him by the arm to the door. She glanced at Quent, smiling with bravado. “Was wondering how I was going to get him over there.” She surged to her feet, pulling another arrow from the quiver.
Fielding still had the weapon, and he was trying to pull his arm free, which had been shot through the upper bicep, without dropping the gun. He grunted in pain and frustration as Zoë sent a second arrow. Another quiet shush, and his left thigh was pinned. Fielding screamed in pain and dropped the gun, struggling to pull the arrow from his leg.
Zoë looked at Quent, then gestured with her hand as if to say help yourself. He walked over to his father and yanked the two arrows free as Zoë swooped to pick up the gun. Fielding staggered away, blood spattering the white tiled floor.
“I didn’t know immortals bled,” Quent said callously. “Too bad you can’t bleed to death.”
“Bastard,” gasped Fielding, reaching toward the crystal as if he were a junkie grasping for a fix. His hands trembled and as he moved, he staggered.
“What’s wrong with you?” Quent had a sudden prickle of unease. Elite couldn’t be murdered. Any flesh wounds would heal quickly, according to Marley. Even a bullet to the head or chest would simply heal around the slug if it remained in the flesh…so why was Fielding so weakened? “You’re injured.”
His father, having touched the crystal yet again, seemed to regain some strength. He looked at Quent, a strange light in his eyes. “Not because of you, fool. You couldn’t have finished me. Only my own mistake. My own goddamned mistake has brought me to this end.”
Those words, so unexpected from a man who accepted nothing but perfection from himself and t
hose around him, caught Quent’s full attention. Fielding was drawing on the collar of his button shirt, pulling it away from his throat.
Repulsed and fascinated, Quent realized the man was showing him his crystal. At least now he knew which side it was on. But when Fielding opened his shirt, exposing his entire chest, Quent saw the darkened skin. He looked up at his father for confirmation and read it in his eyes.
Instead of a single crystal, like Marley wore, Fielding had not one, but three glowing stones embedded in his skin. One of them, on the right side, appeared to be identical to the one Marley had. The other two were different—one was lavender and one opalescent.
But on the left side, the skin had turned black around the lavender crystal. Even from where he stood, several feet away, Quent saw that the flesh had hardened and turned shiny, and that the black infection had spread over his shoulders and chest, down to his belly and beyond.
“Three crystals. Instead of one,” Quent said. “Why? What more did you seek besides immortality?”
Fielding nodded. His face suddenly looked old and craven. “You are well informed for being an Outsider. One for strength. And one to regain my youth.”
Quent made a soft sound of disgust. Which one had brought the malady into Fielding’s body? Which one had been his downfall? Greedy bastard. “There’s no cure,” he said, knowing that was true.
Even Elliott, who could heal anything, had been unable to cure a young Elite woman with a similar ailment. Quent knew from his friend’s description of the hard and shiny black flesh that his father suffered from the infection that would very quickly take over the body and kill him.
“If the body rejects the crystal and becomes infected with the Dark Syndrome, there is nothing to be done,” Fielding said, nodding in agreement. “So that was why I was doubly grateful that you’d come. You’d have been the one to take over my role, Quent. Live here in luxury and carry on the tradition. Damned Liam Hegelsen would have no choice but to accept it, if you had the crystal.”
“How long do you have?” Quent asked.