by John Corwin
"This is executor they took recently," Mikhail said.
Swain leaned over the body. "They converted one executor, but not this one?"
"I don't know how it works. I don't know why it failed."
A startled yelp sounded. Anne-Marie. Mikhail and Swain ran in the direction of the sound. Anne-Marie nearly collided with them as she fled from the opposite direction. Mikhail grabbed her by the shoulders.
"What is it?"
"We should go," she said. "Those monsters. It's horrible."
Mikhail let her go and moved past. The stench grew overpowering as he proceeded. Swain caught up with him and shined the flashlight ahead. A decaying arm protruded along the floor from a showcase entrance ahead. Swain's light moved further to reveal a dark lump in the hall. Dread crawled into Mikhail's throat. In all his years he'd rarely felt such a strong sense of that particular emotion. Before these ghouls he had not known true fear. Despite the disagreements between factions, no Scion feared for his life. Only nature or accident could claim the life of a Scion. That or a sanctioned execution, unheard of these days.
Mikhail pulled the top of his shirt over his nose. Swain followed his lead. Every step closer to the arm felt more leaden. Every heartbeat pounded harder. Moisture evaporated from his mouth. Such incredible fear. Mikhail paused for a moment to savor the experience. This was how chum must feel. This explained their need to wash away daily existence with drugs, alcohol, and sex. Yet, they survived. Most of them, anyway. Perhaps this fear drove Andre to his current stance. He was deathly afraid. Once Mikhail controlled the ghouls Andre would have even more reason to fear.
Provided the ghouls didn't destroy them all.
"Maybe we should leave," Swain said.
"No."
"These creatures are going to kill us. That is if the methane from rotting flesh doesn't do us in first."
Mikhail managed a smile. He took another step forward. Quickened his pace. The suspense was almost too much to bear. Swain strode ahead of him and reached the outstretched arm first. His eyes widened. He convulsed. Heaved a stream of vomit against the wall. Mikhail stopped and watched his executor, one of the most composed people he knew, lose control.
When he reached the arm, Mikhail understood. The sight that greeted him was beyond anything he'd expected. A pile of bodies in various states of decomposition dominated the center of the showcase. They'd been casually tossed in like litter. Broken furniture and garbage lay amidst the bodies. Rats swarmed around the edges. They scurried from the beam of the flashlight. The odor was suffocating even through the shirt.
Many of the bodies were dressed in soiled ragged clothes. The gray skin on those bodies was already wrinkled and ravaged by weather and abuse. Homeless people, perhaps former denizens of this place. One dead man wore a torn business suit. Another's attire consisted of filthy coveralls. A utility worker, perhaps. The bodies of several females also lay in the ghastly pile. The ghouls had not discriminated between social classes, races, or gender. Chum from every walk of life had been forced into the stillness of death.
Mikhail stopped breathing through his nose and switched to his mouth. He could almost taste the odor. He knelt to examine familiar shapes. Stones. They were mixed in with the bodies and scattered in the surrounding area.
Sobbing echoed from the dark hallway. Anne-Marie.
"I need you," Mikhail said.
A moment later, she approached.
"Were they latent Scions?"
She clenched her jaw and put a hand over her nose. "The ones I can see are—were chum." She dry heaved and turned away.
"Let's go." Mikhail led them back the way they'd come until the odor faded. "They have been experimenting."
"I saw the stones," Swain said. "Turning chum into ghouls?"
"Unsuccessful."
"Yeah, but it didn't work on that last executor either. Why did it work on the first one they took but not the next?"
"We can be thankful for the failures. Four ghouls will be hard enough to deal with."
Anne-Marie perked up. Her eyes scanned the darkness ahead. "Someone has arrived from the Blight."
"I felt the vibration too," Swain said.
Mikhail sent a tentative probe ahead toward the disturbance, using it like a flexible periscope. In the center of the warehouse, the hallways dividing the showcases met in a large open area. Without exposing his probe he could sense seven people. A sickly sweet taint marked four of them as ghouls. One seemed even more tainted than the other three. Their latest addition, perhaps. There was something different about one of the people. He realized what it was. Released the probe. Excitement perked his senses.
"The ghouls are here. They have visitors. One is an arbiter."
"They'll detect us in no time," Swain said in a low voice. "Should we send for backup?"
"No. A show of force is last thing we need. They would run or fight. We want neither."
Swain pulled out a pair of candy bars and wolfed them down. Like some Scions, he had an odd method for keeping his energy levels peaked. Despite research, no one had determined why some Scions had such specific metabolic needs. After swallowing the last bit of chocolate, Swain took point.
Anne-Marie followed in back, her eyes dark with the Blight. Voices echoed down the hall. They mingled, rose in volume. Clearly an argument. Swain turned off his flashlight. A bright halogen glow emanated from the central area. Even with his senses in passive detection, Mikhail felt the deep taint of the ghouls grow stronger as he neared them. He wondered why the arbiter with the ghouls had not yet detected them. Perhaps he was too engrossed in the argument. Perhaps he didn't expect company in this wretched place.
Swain halted at the end of the passageway. Mikhail stood by his side. He drew in a sharp breath. The ghouls had Lucas and Alexia. The arbiter was no stranger to any of them. Martin Augustus, former grand arbiter of the Transcendists, stood near Lucas. He was reasoning with a black ghoul. Lucas was on his knees. He stared blankly at the floor. Alexia was pleading with the ghouls.
"He's mind-locked," Anne-Marie said, talking about Lucas.
Mikhail had already guessed. What concerned him most was the presence of Martin. Was he the rogue arbiter? It hardly seemed likely. Martin had long ago left his position with the Transcendists before Mikhail had achieved his post with the Statists. So far as Mikhail knew, Martin's tenure had been unremarkable. Most grand arbiters remained in office for life but Martin had stepped down of his own accord and gone into seclusion soon after Andre Feno had taken the reins.
The ghouls apparently needed answers. It was simple to reason they wanted to reproduce Lucas's feat, resurrection. Now they had him and a powerful arbiter. This made Mikhail's task doubly difficult. He had to control the ghouls that already existed before allowing them to create more. Swain cut his eyes to Mikhail. His eyes bore uncertainty. Understandable. The sight of the arbiter heaped fresh doubt on everything. Mind-locking Lucas, however, had to be a strain. Keeping any Scion docile and under control required significant effort for even the strongest arbiters. That explained why Martin hadn't probed for unexpected visitors.
Swain twirled his finger in the air. He wanted to circle around. Mikhail shook his head and pulled Swain back into the shadows. The longer Martin had to control Lucas, the weaker he'd be when the time to approach came.
How does Martin's pattern look? Mikhail asked Anne-Marie through a probe.
It's diffuse, she sent back.
Every arbiter had a unique pattern to their probes. Nobody knew whether the patterns were significant or not, but when the arbiter's energy waned, the pattern weakened and smoothed. Martin could not keep up his efforts much longer. If he didn't rest, he could lose consciousness.
The new ghoul's aura is heavily tainted, Anne-Marie sent.
Yes. The ghouls converted him. Perhaps not a complete success.
He certainly doesn't appear well.
Mikhail homed in on Adam, Marissa Dumare's former executor. The ghoul was sweating profusely.
His face was waxen, almost blue in tint. His eyes rolled on occasion. When they did, his knees buckled.
You should see this, Anne-Marie said. Look through my eyes.
Using his probe, he tapped into the feed from her optical nerves as she looked into the Blight. Greasy spots of black flecked Adam's aura. It looked like the flame from a burning tire, orange with black smoke. But that wasn't what had attracted Anne-Marie's attention. Most healthy auras glowed like a pure white flame. Adam's flame appeared to be leaking. Strands of his aura escaped like solar flares and vanished several inches above his head. Despite his limited knowledge of these creatures, Mikhail was certain this ghoul was dying.
The other ghouls did not seem to suffer from the same issue. Though tainted, their amber auras remained stable. Lucas's aura was white but muted, an effect of the mind-lock. His aura brightened perceptibly in waves but dimmed again. Either Lucas was fighting, or Martin's strength was almost gone.
"Savior-Creator will help us now," the black ghoul said in a loud bark.
Martin recoiled.
Anne-Marie directed her ear toward Martin. Seekers had excellent sight and hearing. Mikhail maintained his connection and tapped into her aural nerve.
"He needs to be conditioned," Martin said.
"No. You are lying."
"He is not your Savior-Creator, I am. I created him."
"You did not rescue us. You did not create him. You corrupted him." The black ghoul's face contorted. "Release him now. Now or die."
"Attack me, and I'll kill him."
Mikhail directed his attention to Martin's probes. The pattern had all but faded. Unfortunately, it wouldn't require much strength for him to trigger a deadly event in Lucas's brain. Not when he already had him mind-locked and open. Scions learned at an early age how to protect themselves from unwanted intrusions. Usually it took two arbiters to lock down an experienced Scion. Lucas had no such training. His mind had no passive defenses.
"Release Savior-Creator," the black ghoul said again. His hands balled into fists. The other ghouls coiled, ready to spring.
"For God's sake, let him go," Alexia said, her voice hysterical. "If you kill him, they'll send you to the afterlife. You don't want to go there. It's Hell."
Mikhail and Anne-Marie flinched in surprise. The afterlife? The word keyed a memory. An old memory. There had been whispers about Martin's departure from the Transcendists. Most had been chalked up as untrue rumors. One in particular claimed Martin believed in an afterlife. He had, in fact, tried to direct his faction to research if such a place existed.
"Our answers lie there," Martin said. His voice was almost dreamy. "Lucas must be conditioned. He must follow my directives and take us physically back into the afterlife. God is there. He can answer all our questions."
"There is no God in that place," Alexia said. "Only the tortured spirits of the dead."
The black ghoul's body tensed. He stepped toward Martin. "Release him now."
Mikhail sensed and saw the change in Martin's probe. The man was insane. He was prepared to die and take Lucas with him.
Alexia looked at Martin and screamed. "No!" A probe burst emanated from her mind. Martin's passive defenses absorbed the shock.
There wasn't enough time to think about the significance of Alexia's abilities. She couldn't handle Martin on her own. Mikhail sent a storm of probes at Martin. In Blight view, they looked like missiles. Each curved in varying arcs, homing on their target. He directed each tendril at a different point of Martin's defenses. They impacted simultaneously. In his weakened condition, Martin couldn't hope to withstand the onslaught. Martin staggered. Mikhail wrapped his probes around Martin's mind-lock tendrils and uprooted them from Lucas. As they pulled free, a stream of commands that would have destroyed Lucas's brain dissipated into the ether.
Lucas slumped to the side. Toppled over. His recovery should have been immediate. Something was wrong. Anne-Marie gasped and broke contact with Mikhail. Swain leapt in front of him and pushed him back. Snarls echoed from the room. Four ghouls approached, murder in their eyes.
Chapter 36
Tollee sat with a large group of Scions at Leon's Full Service, a restaurant in downtown Decatur. It was an interesting place, formerly a gas station. The owner, a Scion, had bought it and converted it into a trendy restaurant with a cool bocce court outside. Scions crowded into the small place, filling the chairs and overflowing into the bar area. Tollee stared at the bocce court outside and wished she could be playing it instead of scheming for a way to save her life.
She dropped back into her booth seat, pinned between two women. She glanced at them through the Blight and identified one of them as an arbiter. A chill raised goose bumps on her right arm. She tried to relocate to another chair, but the crowds prevented her from moving. A Blight hop outside would only raise suspicion.
Vish latched the front door of the restaurant and raised his thumb to Lucinda who was currently pacing in front of everyone. She stopped for a moment and swept her eyes across the packed Scions. Vish brought her a barstool then lifted her up to stand on it.
"Some of you think I'm crazy." Lucinda locked eyes with someone. "Some of you are too gung-ho." She swiveled her gaze across the crowd. "What most of us agree on, however, is that Andre and his underlings are on a slippery slope. A downward path that goes totally against what the Transcendists stand for, solving the Mystery."
A few people clapped.
"Lucas Fowler may hold the key to everything we believe in," Lucinda said, her voice filling the room despite her petite frame. "Just think how valuable an asset he could be. Imagine the research. Whatever allows him to use the abilities of both seekers and executors could also enable chum to ascend to Scionhood."
A knot of people with a Bohemian look in the back whooped and pumped their fists. Sickening idealists, Tollee thought. It had to be impossible. Chum couldn't become Scions any more than a dog could become human. These people were missing common sense and they were missing the point. This wasn't about Lucas. It was about stopping that maniacal arbiter, Martin.
Once they'd quieted down, Lucinda continued. "Somewhere along the way, Andre and Marissa forgot our primary mission and started their own crusade."
A male seeker bolted out of his chair. "Lucas Fowler is a murderer. You can't possibly justify keeping someone that dangerous alive."
Vish's eyes flared. "He was coerced. Find the arbiter responsible and he's no longer a danger."
"Maybe the arbiter that controlled him switched on his abilities. Maybe he's the one with the answers," the seeker said back.
Lucinda held up her hands. "You're both right. Lucas and the arbiter should be our primary goals. One or both may have the information we need."
"I'm sure there's a seeker involved somewhere," said a tall gangly girl that looked barely into her teens. "He couldn't have found Lucas without one."
Tollee's skin went cold. If they discovered her role in this, what would they do to her?
"I doubt the seeker would know much," Vish said.
Tollee knew too much. If they found out just how much she could never justify her actions. She'd be pegged as much a murderer as Martin.
"How else could an arbiter find latent Scions to kill?" the girl asked. "The seeker involved was actively helping and knew the plan."
"They should all be executed," someone said from the back. "Let the scientists study the bodies."
"Imprison them for life and study them," a woman's voice said, rising above the growing murmurs in the room.
Fear gripped Tollee's stomach. Her hands started to shake. Coming here had been a bad idea. She'd hoped for understanding, maybe a chance to fix all the problems she'd caused. Most importantly, she'd wanted a way to rid herself of Martin. These people didn't care. She was simply a criminal. A scapegoat. She had to get out now while she could. A potty break maybe? The bathrooms were at the back of the bar.
The arbiter sitting next to Tollee faced her. She narrowed her ice-blue eyes in c
oncern and took Tollee's hands in her long delicate fingers. "Are you feeling okay?"
Tollee nodded, afraid to speak because her voice might shake. Not only that, she might blurt her sins for the world to hear. A potty break wouldn't be a lie. Now she really did have to pee. Static brushed Tollee's hair. Was the woman looking in her mind?
The woman's eyes flared in surprise. Answer enough. Her delicate fingers tightened their grip. Two large hands settled on Tollee's shoulders from the booth behind.
"I believe we have a third of the puzzle right here," the woman said, her voice sharp enough to draw the eyes of everyone in the room.
Lucinda's forehead wrinkled as her eyes settled on Tollee. After a second, it smoothed. Her eyes widened. "Bring her up here, please."
The air seemed to blacken before Tollee's eyes. She felt her head loll, and remained upright only because the strong hands on her shoulders shifted under her arms. Someone picked her up and pushed through the crowd, carried her to the front of the room. Her flight instincts kicked in but her mind was locked down. She couldn't summon a scar into the Blight. It wouldn't matter anyway. With so many seekers present she wouldn't get far.
Tollee opened her eyes. Lucinda stood a few feet away, her eyes narrowed. Tollee could feel the electrical currents in her hair as the arbiter looked inside her mind. It was too late to care. With a despairing wail, Tollee lowered her walls and bared everything. Lucinda flinched. Her eyes sprung wide. Two other arbiters stood next to Lucinda, their expressions undergoing similar changes.
The procedure seemed to take forever. Tollee wondered if this was a truthing session. Thus far she'd felt only slight discomfort. Then again she hadn't tried to hide anything. The fingers of electrical current lifted from her hair. The three arbiters conferred.
Lucinda faced the crowd. "We have the seeker in question."