Divine Born

by O. J. Lowe

  Nick didn’t have an answer, saw the flicker of one giant white eye sweep past a minicam before claret splattered across the lens and the connection was lost with the sound of the owner screaming his lungs out as he died.

  “Holding team, move in to back them up,” he quickly ordered. “Something’s wiping them out down there. Proceed with caution!”

  Three were down, another went down screaming, eyes went to him and Nick paused, caught his breath in his mouth. That wasn’t right. He’d gone down and there wasn’t anything there, nothing the eyes could pick up. The two guys who’d been left at the entry point were already hurrying into battle. Part of him knew they’d be too late. At this rate, they’d be little more than the encore to this thing ripping through the entire team. He should have ordered them to retreat. They threw the door open, this time accompanied by the full contingent of spirits they had about their persons, not just saxcion hounds but accompanied by the presence of a bear, a horse, a lion and a wolf, as well as a huge bee that would probably have caused an entire ecosystem to collapse if it grew that big in the wild.

  Bees should not grow that big! Somewhere that thought danced about his head amidst the chaos of battle. For the first time, he saw something, that same great golden-green shape bursting out of nowhere and crush one of the team in its jaws, crunch-crunch snap and a scream as brutal fangs split him apart at the top and the bottom of his torso. He managed a spatter of blaster fire into it, not that it did him much good. If the thing felt it, it didn’t show any signs of emotion.

  It was huge, heavy and thick with girth, he didn’t know how something so big could remain so hidden, not at least until it came to a stop and then vanished from sight again.

  Oh…

  Part of him realised ‘snake’ just the same as another part of him twigged onto ‘oh camouflage’. Those two initial thoughts snowballed until the realisation dawned that it wasn’t any sort of ordinary spirit. They’d all seen ones like it before, if not this particular one.

  All spirits out on the screens piled into its last known position, tearing and biting, the dogs had to smell it! The snake didn’t seem to really care, bursting up out of them as if they were insignificant, all six eyes burning into the lens’ that were focused on it. Now the team knew what to look for, they were firing onto it, six blasters singing in unison as they targeted the huge serpent.

  If being shot bothered it, it didn’t show as it lowered its head like a bulldozer and burst straight through the lot of them, bones breaking and screams ripping out over the feed. The spirits of the dead men took one final punt at the snake, determined to avenge their fallen masters, savage attacks that left no concern for themselves. They didn’t last long, crushed in the coils of the snake, savaged by the fangs.

  Fresh blaster fire burst onto the scenes, one remaining minicam showed a few of the spirits go down, shots to the head. A man stepped onto the screen in front of them at an awkward angle, Aurora Four’s neck looked broken at Nick’s best guess. His face couldn’t be seen, up in the shadows but they saw the glint of his eyes, pale and sparkling in the darkness.

  “Bang,” he said playfully, putting one hand on the scales of the snake, rubbing it firmly. “If that’s the best you’ve got…”

  The blaster reported, they saw the flash and the feed went dead. The moment it did, Nick ripped his headset off and slammed it down into the table in front of him, felt it break under the force of his blow.

  “Son of a bitch!” he swore, smashing his palm down into the mangled headset again and again, not letting up.

  “You know what I think? I think you’ve lost someone you were willing to give everything up for. I think that’s the sort of thing that changes someone. I think you’ve realised that nothing is going to be as it was. And I think right now, you’re so consumed by revenge that you’re past caring if you live or if you die in the process. You’re just concerned with the fight. That’s why you’ve been training, I think. You’ve been putting it all in, ready to either go out in a blaze of glory or to come back a hero. I don’t think it matters either way to you.”

  Steinbru paused, looked at him over her glasses. “Can you really tell me I’m wrong?”

  Chapter Four. The Legend.

  “Of the early life of the man known affectionately to his admirers as King Bren, there is little to be said of Brennan Francis Charles Frewster. Most people think he appeared in the public life as a pioneer of spirit calling, of various shows on the viewing screen where his outgoing presence and vivid public persona made him an instant star. He brought with him a knack of making those around him comfortable. Without a doubt, he is perhaps one of the most famous living men from Canterage, a national treasure whose death will doubtless bring about a period of national mourning.”

  Opening monologue from Living with Brennan, a documentary about the known life of Canterage celebrity Brennan Frewster.

  Nick had heard the stories about this man before. There were so many legends about him, it was almost impossible to tell which were real and which were deliberately seeded falsehoods to improve his own reputation. Not all of them were good, some of them made him out to be the sort of man that you didn’t mess about with.

  Back when Unisco had been set up around the time of the unification of the five kingdoms, there’d been five initial agents, one from each kingdom who’d been there to set it all up. They’d sworn under oath to be the first of many, to protect and serve in the best interests of the citizens of those kingdoms. Wherever there were those who abused the spirits in their position, used their power to deny the freedoms of those people, Unisco would step in with harsh and swift retribution.

  Four of the five were dead. Their names remained in legend, they’d been the best of the best back in the day. Ricardo Laszlo from Serran. Thomas Walker from Premesoir. Yukio Singh from Burykia. Nwankwo Boateng from Vazara. Time had conquered all of them. They’d been in their prime some fifty odd years ago. Nick had seen the statue of them outside the main Unisco offices in Premesoir and Canterage. It was the least they could do. Once the last of them died, he’d be added to the pantheon. Yet he’d stubbornly refused to go quietly into death. Worse than that, he’d refused to quietly retire as well. He’d done just about the opposite, building on his notoriety as a spirit caller to jump screaming into the limelight. He could sing, he could dance, even a few sleight-of-hand tricks that looked incredible if you didn’t know that Unisco sometimes taught them in the academies.

  That had been Brennan Frewster. One hells of a showman and a personality that you could light up a room with. He’d been the youngest of the five of them, but even now he was well into his nineties and acting like he wasn’t a day over fifty. Whenever Nick had seen him on the viewing screens, the energy of the man was something to behold. He’d have bet a lot that he’d been one hells of an agent back in the day. One of the best. Whatever he did, he did with a smile on his face, his teeth strangely prominent with his best salesman smile.

  His orders had come in. He wasn’t going back into planning and overseeing operations any time soon. Not without supervision. The reprimand had been polite but pointed. They blamed him for what happened to that assault team that had been torn apart. He couldn’t hold that against them. He blamed himself. He should have pulled them out. They’d still have been alive if it wasn’t for him hesitating. He probably hadn’t reacted the best way after either, smashing his earpiece. Especially in front of Ragwort as well.

  He felt like he’d been in this position before. Had to have been nearly a year ago now. He’d been on an operation in Serran with Lysa Montgomery and she’d been stabbed by a particularly vile specimen named Bertram Avis. His knife had gone straight through her vest, Nick had shot him and invoked the ire of the senior agent. He’d been suspended, had gone back to Canterage for a while. He didn’t want to think too much about the misadventure that had followed in Belderhampton but suffice to say that he’d felt as responsible now as he did then.

  His fate would be de
cided when Brendan King returned from his ill-timed jaunt to Vazara. Privately, Nick felt it had been a mistake for him to run off there with David Wilsin right now, with the way the war was going. King might not even come back. So much for being groomed for a command. It was something he wasn’t even sure he wanted, something he was sure had been offered to him as a bone for saving the director’s daughter from Harvey Rocastle. That hadn’t even been his concern at the time, hence it felt hollow. He’d just wanted to murder Rocastle in as painful a manner as he could. He’d wanted to get his hands around the fat fuck’s throat and squeeze and squeeze until he felt the life drain out of him, despite what he’d been telling Steinbru.

  Still, it had kept him out of the field for a while and he hadn’t realised how much he missed it until he was on the road walking up to Frewster’s mansion, leaving his rented speeder at the gates. The man himself had gotten in touch with Unisco, said he wanted to talk to one of their best agents about a sensitive matter. He’d been flattered they’d sent him, at least until he realised that Icardi wanted rid of him for the time being. Davide Icardi had stepped up to fill in for King while he was away, he got the impression that Icardi would be happy if he wasn’t around. That suited Nick down to the ground. He didn’t like the man, so what if the feeling was mutual? Icardi’s opinion meant nothing to him. It was his position that was a problem.

  Getting his hands dirty again. That was an ideal situation. For the longest time, he’d mourned Sharon. He’d missed her but now he felt like he was ready to start living his life again. He needed this. He needed to smell the air, especially out here in the Canterage countryside where the mansion had been erected. Somewhere he’d seen a story that Frewster had designed it himself and he could believe it. It looked like a child’s imagination of what a house made entirely of candy would look like if it had been magnified times ten. He’d never seen so many pinks and browns together. Some might call it an eyesore, Frewster had named it Withdean, an old Canterage word meaning happiness and contentment. He thought it was charming in a strange sort of way. It didn’t so much look like it had been built as thrown together piece by piece over the years, a smaller house made larger by addition and addition over time. Today, it looked like it could house a dozen people easily.

  He doubted that Frewster had bought it with what Unisco had paid him over the years. More likely it was what being regarded as a Canterage national treasure got you. He’d been given a special award for services to the kingdom some years earlier. He’d presented everything from spirit calling tournaments to game shows to events letting people showcase their talents that weren’t related to spirit calling. The joke used to be, before he’d known the truth about him, he’d do anything for a handful of credits.

  The joke still applied. When you considered his Unisco career though, it took on a slightly more sinister complex. The Unisco of then wasn’t the Unisco of today. Back when they were starting out, their objectives had covered a wide scope of things the agency wouldn’t touch today out of fear of soiling their hands beyond cleansing. There was a much stronger media presence today than there had been back then. All it took was a hint of a rumour about something unsavoury and they were all over it. There was no stopping them. Parasites. Nick had made quite a good living out of being someone in the public eye, it didn’t mean that he had to like it.

  There’d been too much of that when Sharon had died. Too many people wanting an interview, he’d declined them politely at first. Then he’d ignored them. He still remembered that there’d been one guy and his big bruiser of a cameraman doubled as bodyguard who’d refused to take no for an answer, had followed him for two days straight.

  He hadn’t done it for three. Nick wasn’t proud of what had followed on the night of the second day, but he’d made his point in suitably demonstrative fashion. Brennan Frewster wasn’t the only one who knew a few useful sleights of hand tricks. The journalist still didn’t know to this day how Nick’s wallet had wound up in his pocket. He hadn’t been detained for long, but it had done some damage to his reputation. When you’ve got a previous record for petty theft, it was the sort of thing that hangs around your neck.

  Frewster’s door was the sort of door that the average millionaire loved, very big and heavy, a big golden knocker in the shape of a lion head. He doubted it was real gold but still found it quite impressive. Probably gold-painted brass. He clutched it in his hand, felt the weight with an appreciative smile. You knew where you were with heavy things. He crooked his arm, pushed it back hard into the door with a satisfying thud-thud-thud.

  The buzzer to the left of it kicked into life. “Yes?”

  No frivolities, no signs of welcome. Just a question.

  “Nicholas Roper, here to see Brennan Frewster by his own request,” Nick said. “Said it’s a six-six-one-four.” Unisco directive. Roughly translated. Agent requires assistance.

  “Hold one moment.”

  He knew it wasn’t Frewster speaking. Everyone knew that voice, if you’d grown up in Canterage. Nick always remembered it from the competitive Ruin championships he used to watch. Frewster had been a celebrity player, later hosted the event. You got to know the voice. It always gave the impression that Frewster was slightly befuddled by what was going around him, slightly plummy but nobody could ever accuse him of ignorance. The man had been a Unisco agent. He’d learned the hard way that you didn’t go far in the organisation if you didn’t have something about you, despite appearances. There’d been a corrupt senior agent a year ago whom he’d believed to be a fool yet had managed to manipulate the events around him almost to getting away with a whole catalogue of crimes.

  In the aftermath of the Lucas Hobb and Nigel Carling fiasco, he’d made the decision right there. Never again. No matter what Frewster might say or do to make out that he was just a doddering old man, he wasn’t going to buy it. In fact, he’d expect him to lie through his teeth. When you were with Unisco for a good chunk of your life, the habit became a hard one to ignore. Some professions drove you to drink, some to drugs. Working for Unisco, lying became the hardest habit to kick. It seeped into every fibre of your being, made it absolute second nature. To lie was the first instinct, not just to your enemies but to your friends as well. He should know, he’d done it enough himself. He’d spent years lying about what he did to the love of his life and she’d died with him still telling those same lies.

  Probably why that brief reunion in Natalia Larsen’s bedroom had been so satisfying. There’d been nothing he’d held back. No secrets beyond the trade ones that they were keeping. He’d known what she was. Former inquisitor turned liaison. She knew what he was. Agent of Unisco. Nothing more. Not right now. Very little of the man he’d once been. He didn’t like to think of the deaths that could be accredited to him.

  What of Frewster? Did he have those same thoughts now he was reaching the end of his life and the end was close for him? Boundless energy and enthusiasm or not, there was no denying that he had to be coming close to the end of a very long life. He doubted Frewster had expected to live for as long as he had. Nick had always privately felt he’d be lucky if he hit forty, never mind ninety. That was part of the attraction he’d had for the thoughts of leaving the agency and living out his life with Sharon. He’d loved her, he’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, he wanted that life to be longer than it could be.

  He still had her engagement ring in his pocket. Hadn’t removed it since the day the coroner had given it him back. He’d bought it at the Belderhampton carnival, shortly before the stall had been blown to hells. That had just been one of those nights everyone had occasionally.

  The door opened, he saw the stiffly-stood woman in a high collared shirt, her expression one of quiet aggravation at the change to the days schedule. Years of playing Ruin had left him with the ability to conceal his expression at will. They taught it at the Unisco academy to cadets who had problems with that very act. Nothing helped like the prospect of taking credits from people. She wore a sui
t that probably cost more than he’d made in the last year from Unisco, almost military in her bearings and she might well have been for all he knew. Her hair might have been blond once, now there were hints of cloud mixing with the sunshine. Nick already had his Unisco ID out to show her, she glanced at it with more interest than she’d shown in Nick himself, studied it for several long seconds before turning her attention back to him.

  He’d never seen a female butler before, but it didn’t surprise him in the slightest. Frewster was a well-known eccentric, he’d do stuff that nobody else would even think of doing and he’d come out looking a lot better for it. Rumour had it he could throw a pile of credits into a viper nest and come out wearing a delightful pair of snakeskin shoes and a fetching belt.

  “Please follow me,” she said, her voice as stiff as her posture. Over the intercom, he hadn’t been able to tell it as female. Now, he could. Just about. It was the sort of voice that commanded respect and compliance immediately. “The master has deemed your presence acceptable. I will take you to him.”

  She studied him, gave him a final withering look and then turned on her heels and allowed him to pass. As she turned, he caught a glance of her neck and the hint of old scarring there startled him. He managed to regain his composure before he offered her some grave insult.

  “Thank you,” he said, bowing his head.

  She said nothing, closed the door behind him and looked him up and down again. “Are you armed?” she said.

  He was. He considered lying for a moment before realising that this was one circumstance where it probably wouldn’t be smart to do so. “Yes. X95 blaster pistol in holster on my left hip.” He decided to be more honest than he probably needed to be. “X7 blaster pistol in ankle holster.” He hadn’t turned the weapon back in. Very few agents had done so. They’d been made to upgrade their primary sidearm but in times like these, a second weapon wasn’t a terrible idea. He kept quiet about the knife in his pocket. That might be the sort of trick that saved his life.