Meri finally caught up with him. “Anne Marie says to let him go for now. She and the Ancestors are already talking about what we can do to get him back.”
“It’s my fault they took him,” Wes said, turning back to Meri and pacing back and forth along the sidewalk in front of her. “Jez had been recruiting me before I was picked up by AfterLife. Of course she would go after my brother. We have the same genes! Maybe they have a quota on how many people they have to recruit.”
“This isn’t your fault, Wes,” Meri said and then lowered her voice as a lady walked by huddled in her coat. “This has nothing to do with you.” She took out the earpiece she was using to communicate with Ops and placed it in her pocket.
Wes knew it had everything to do with him. It had to. It wasn’t a coincidence that the very person who had tried and failed to recruit him was also trying to recruit his brother. Now if he and AfterLife couldn’t find his brother before the life was sucked out of him, he would become a Mortui too. He didn’t want that for Lyall.
“We have to do something fast. How long do they wait before they finish the recruiting process with a person?”
“Look,” Meri said, taking Wes’s arm again and guiding him in the direction of their apartment, “for now we should go home and wait for the Ancestors to decide what they want to do. We don’t know how far along Jez is in the recruiting process. They might not tell them what’s happening, but they try to develop a relationship with the person to make them feel comfortable before they’re killed so they’ll want to stick around after they become a Mortui. That’s one of the ways they ensure retention of their new soldiers. Look at what happened with you. You thought you were in love with Jez. We may still have some time before that happens to your brother.” She led him back toward their apartment. “Maybe our walk should be done for today.”
“So we can do what instead? My brother just got in a cab with the enemy. He kissed her. I’d say he’s feeling pretty comfortable with her already, wouldn’t you? I’m not sitting around in the apartment waiting for instructions!”
“Then what are you going to do, Wes? Take on the Atumra by yourself? You don’t have to think like that anymore. It’s not just you against the world. Be patient just a little longer and you’ll get more help than you’ll know what to do with. Besides, what choice do we have? Do you know where they are? Do you know where Jez was taking him? Oscar said he’d let me know as soon as they come up with anything, and as soon as the Ancestors decide what to do next. Between you and me, I think they’re probably more worried about losing your brother to the Atumra than you are.”
“I don’t see how. To them it’s just another recruit they’ve lost to the bad guys.”
“No, Wes, I’ve heard what you can do when you sync. If your brother has those same abilities and they can recruit him, they’ll have a very powerful weapon in their ranks. It makes sense they would want to recruit him.”
Wes hadn’t thought about his “special” syncing ability in a long while. It wasn’t something he did often. In fact he’d only done it a few times with Emily and Ken while training in Charleston. Ken had been helping him determine the extent of his ability, and they had made some discoveries. Still, for the most part he followed the advice he was given not do it until he knew more about it.
“The Atumra couldn’t know that I have that ability. No one knows but the Ancestors, Emily, and you.” Wes slowed his pace and looked down at Meri suspiciously. “How do you know, anyway? I never told you.”
“Emily told me to watch out for it,” Meri said, looking up at Wes. She was still hanging on his arm, and smiled a lopsided smile at him to ease the tension. “Actually, she had a long list of things I should look out for. She also said I should sync with you so that if anything were to happen to either of us we’d be able to communicate.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe we should do that when we get home.”
Dusk was settling in when they got back to their apartment even though the hour was still early. Wes tried to read for a couple of hours to get his mind off his brother. It didn’t help. Meri finally went into meditation and Wes decided he’d follow suit and do the same.
He closed his eyes and retreated into his mind. He stood in the nothingness trying to decide where to go. He didn’t think his park would offer the comfort it usually did. Not tonight. There was too much on his mind, and it wouldn’t disappear by simply walking through false fantasy lands. He had to concentrate on how he could free Lyall from the grip of the Atumra.
Once he calmed down enough to think rationally, he realized he couldn’t save his brother by himself. There was wisdom in Meri’s pleadings to wait for the Ancestors to devise a plan. AfterLife would be there to help him and he needed to be patient enough to let them. Nothing would be achieved by separating himself from Meri and the rest of their organization. For the first time in a long while he allowed himself to depend on someone else, and it was pleasantly surprising how reassuring it was to admit he not only needed, but had others who supported him. Others who cared about him.
As he moved through the nothingness, Wes realized there was something he could do. His conversation with Meri reminded him that he didn’t need satellite tracking equipment and spy cameras to find Jezebel. He could talk to her regardless of her physical whereabouts. If she was the actual reason for his death and not the pills as Anne Marie theorized, then she had synced with him. If she had synced with him once, he should be able to connect with her again. The power to talk to Jez had been his since the night of his death.
He focused on Jezebel and concentrated his thoughts on only her. The darkness swirled around him and soon he was walking along a path in a beautiful botanical garden. Small puffs of clouds crawled across a dazzlingly blue sky that contrasted with the deep greens and glowing hues of the flora. As his surroundings came into focus he saw her ahead of him sitting cross-legged on the grass surrounded by flowering bushes. She was twirling a vibrant purple flower in her fingers and staring at it with the appearance of mental preoccupation.
“What kind of flower is it?” Wes asked as he approached.
Jezebel looked up and the flower stopped dancing in her fingers. Her eyes widened as a look of surprise came across her face. “Wes?” The word “How” was formed by her lips but no sound accompanied the question.
Wes ignored her shock and sat down on the grass next to her. “It doesn’t matter how, does it? I’m here and we can talk uninterrupted.” Wes motioned to the bloom she was holding. “The flower?”
The surprise on her face disappeared as quickly as it had materialized, and she looked away. She started spinning the flower again. Its long stem ran through her fingers to small bell-shaped purple blooms that opened up at the top. “It’s hyacinth; one of my favorites.” The flower spun in a circle one way and then back around the other way a few times as the two of them watched. “All the flowers here are my favorites.” Her free hand pointed to some bushes to their right. “Those are oleanders there, and over here I have monkshood and begonias. On the other side of the walkway I have geraniums and dahlias. I usually sit over there, but tonight calls for oleanders.”
“Well, for someone who has no heart, this is a very pretty place.” Wes nodded as he looked around at the garden.
“I was expecting a verbal assault. I just didn’t think you’d get to it so quickly.” Jez turned her head toward him and tucked the black hair on one side of her head behind her ear. “You hate me. I know that.”
“I don’t even know you Jez. I don’t know you well enough to hate you. I don’t know you at all, in fact. How much of the person I knew when I was alive is really you?”
Jezebel looked up at passing white clouds in the blue sky. She bit her lower lip and then slowly released it from the grip of her teeth. “There was a little bit of me in that person.” She lowered her chin, her eyes avoiding Wes’s, and began rotating the flower in her fingers again. “You don’t understand, Wes.”
“I understand that yo
u lied to me. I understand that you killed me. I understand that you have my brother. How long before you kill him too?” Wes’s voice was firm.
“I didn’t kill you, I saved you.” Jezebel said, her voice hardening. “You might not believe it, but I did what I thought was best for you. However, this isn’t about you and me. It never has been, and you’re naïve if you think it is. By now you know I’m a soldier for the Atumra. You were a recruit, an assignment. I did to you what I’ve done dozens of times before, and I’ve never considered what would happen to any of the people I’ve recruited. Until you. If you remember that night correctly, you’ll have to admit I didn’t kill you, you were killing yourself. If anything I saved you, and then I left you to be found by people you could be happy with. Just so you know, my actions had consequences for me, too.” She stood up and threw the flower she was holding at him and began walking away.
Wes stood up and followed after her. Catching up, he grabbed her arm to stop her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be so emotional about this. I appreciate what you did, and you’re right, I think I knew I was dying.” He had only ever thought about how his becoming a Mortui had affected him. He’d never considered it from Jez’s point of view, or the penalty she might have to face for failing to recruit him.
“Like I said, you don’t understand.”
“No, I guess you’re right. I don’t.” Wes dropped his hand to his side. “I’ve been trying to understand all this for a while now. You’re good at recruiting though. I completely fell for you. I thought I was in love with you, you know.”
“I know. I could tell you were falling for me. It’s what I wanted to happen. What I didn’t expect was …” She paused and lowered her head. “What I didn’t expect was that I’d fall for you, too.”
“I don’t believe that.” Wes turned away. He didn’t want to hear those words from her, truthful or not. He discovered he felt nothing for her but pity.
“I didn’t expect you would, but there it is, take it or leave it. I have nothing left to hide.”
“You’re hiding my brother.” Wes turned back to face her.
“Look Wes, you may have a chance to save Lyall. He’ll be making the final transition to Mortui tomorrow night at the Atumra headquarters here in Chicago. Seth wants all the new recruits to make their final transitions there. He doesn’t trust us to do it anywhere else; not after I screwed up with you.”
“Who’s Seth?”
“He’s who I report to, the head of our local division. He reports to the Body.”
Even though the hierarchy of the Atumra had been explained to him during his training, he didn’t quite remember all the details. “Where’s the headquarters?”
“Do you remember that cupcake place we used to go to when I was recruiting you?”
Wes thought for a minute and remembered the small bakery she was talking about. “Yes.”
“That whole building is it. In fact, all the shops and the pub along the street are operated by Atumra Mortuis.”
“What am I supposed to do? Do I just walk in and get my brother out of a building swarming with Atumra soldiers? That doesn’t exactly sound like a very good option.”
Jezebel shook her head. “No, the building will be almost empty. None of us actually live there. We live all over the city like you do.”
She was right. None of the Mortui in AfterLife lived at the Hub. They lived, as Emily had once put it, among the living. The only people who were at the Hub regularly were the Ancestors and Oscar because he was in Ops. In fact there were times when it was almost empty.
“I’m not saying it’ll be easy,” Jezebel continued. “Seth will be there and a few soldiers, but if you bring some backup I’m sure you could free your brother. They’ll be completely unprepared for any type of intrusion so the element of surprise will be on your side. No one’s ever tried to break in before.
“There’s a stainless steel door next to a garage door in the alleyway that runs down the back of the building. I’ll leave it unlocked. Your brother is being kept in the basement; that’s where we do rebirths. There are sensors and cameras of course, but I’ll take care of them for you. I can distract the guy who will be on surveillance.”
Wes wanted to believe Jezebel, but this didn’t feel right. She’d lied to him before and he was sure she was lying to him now. It sounded like a setup.
“Look, Wes, I’m recruiting your brother because I have to. I made the mistake of letting you get away, and to make up for it I had to bring in Lyall. Part of me did have feelings for you. There was a part of me that wanted to leave you to live the rest of your life in peace. Except I couldn’t do that. The Atumra would never have allowed it. If I didn’t recruit you, someone else would have been sent to do it. Then, when I came across you lying on the floor dying from an overdose, I found a way to help you escape the slavery I face every day. Now I have to pay for the loss of a recruit. I realized soon after joining the Atumra what a mistake it was, and I have been trying to free myself from them ever since. The problem is that I’m further from freedom than I’ve ever been.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears as it fell forward into her face again. “Use the information I’ve given you. They’ll never know you’re coming. I’m not going to tell them or they’ll know I’ve talked to you. That’s the last thing I want. I’m in enough trouble.”
Maybe he could trust her, Wes thought. Her words seemed genuine. Besides, who would know they had talked? No one in the Atumra could possibly know of his ability. If she revealed this meeting and she really was the slave she claimed to be, the punishment would be worse than anything she was currently facing for losing him as a recruit.
Jez led them back to where she had thrown the purple hyacinth at him. “I want you to have this,” she said, picking up the flower and handing it to him.
Wes took the flower. “I should probably go now. I have to plan a rescue mission.”
She nodded as she tucked her hair behind her ears. “Yes, you do. Be careful. Remember the oleander.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” She waved him on. “Forget it. You should go now.”
Wes turned and walked down the path away from Jezebel and the garden slowly faded around him. There was a lot to consider. If Jezebel was telling the truth he would have the opportunity to free his brother from the Atumra. If she wasn’t, they would walk into a trap. Either way, it was time to share the information with the people who would be helping rescue his brother.
Chapter 23
Seth sat behind his desk gazing at the shadows that flittered around the room. They were caused by the rays of the various street and business lights on the street below. It was a quiet night; the sounds of the city never reached his office or dared to permeate his private domain. Jezebel lay on his office couch in meditation. He was hoping Wesley had taken the bait. They had purposely made sure he would see Jezebel with his brother earlier that day, and if the information about Wesley’s ability was true, he expected Wes would sync with Jezebel to find out what was happening. His hope was that Wes was synced with her at this very moment, and if so, the next part of the plan depended on how well she played her role. She had better play it well, he thought.
Destroying Wes and assimilating his brother were his first priorities and represented a major portion of his strategy to reestablish his competency in the eyes of the Body. He needed everything to work according to this plan, and he wouldn’t allow Jezebel to interfere. He watched her on the couch, her eyes closed, and thought how vulnerable she was. He could end her existence instantly if he wanted. This whole situation was due to her incompetence. Unfortunately, he needed her for the plan to be successful, but once she served her purpose, he had every intention of throwing her into the incinerator in the catacombs. Her demise would serve to illustrate his control over the soldiers under his command.
Bored with waiting for Jezebel to wake from meditation, Seth chose to check on their newest recruit, Lyall. He made hi
s way down the maze of hallways below street level to the room where the antemort lay subdued on a metal table. Doc, stationed in the room to monitor the boy’s vital signs, sat in a chair reading a book on a tablet. He was charged with the task of keeping Lyall unconscious but healthy; Seth had plans for the antemort. Tomorrow night, following AfterLife’s vain attempt at freeing him, he would make sure Wes watched as he sucked the life from his brother. Then, after witnessing his brother’s transition from antemort to Mortui, Wes would be severed – a task Seth would enjoy doing himself.
Lyall’s breathing was shallow and Seth watched as his chest slowly rose and fell. The boy’s body was in good shape; he would make a good Mortui soldier and would be a great addition to Seth’s ranks. In addition, there existed the hope that he could astral sync like his brother. If so, he would be invaluable to the Atumra.
The idea truly angered him. How could such an incredible ability rest in the weak antemort that lay before him? It should be his, Seth thought. He would know how to use it properly. He stepped up to Lyall’s body and reached out to place one of his hands on Lyall’s throat. One squeeze, that’s all it would take, and he could kill this boy in his weak antemort state. It was possible that he might become a Mortui anyway, but there was also the chance he would sever in the process. Seth knew how, under the right circumstances, to stop the change in others. He could do it with this one, too. The power to kill this antemort was in his hand. It was power that didn’t rely on Jezebel or the Body. He could end this antemort’s life, and possibly prevent him from becoming Mortui. It wouldn’t matter if the boy possessed a power Seth didn’t; he would be dead, and would never be able to develop the exceptional gift he held.
Seth knew his thoughts were mutinous. If the Body knew he was even considering going against their orders he would be terminated from his position, punished harshly, and severed. It was the same punishment he would receive if Jezebel failed in her attempt to lure the recruit she’d lost. Seth closed his eyes, his hand still resting on the antemort’s neck, and listened to the sound of the intravenous solution echoing in his mind as it slowly dripped into the living body. One squeeze was all it would take.
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