But it all depended on the thrust of this knife by Lucas’s hand.
As Lucas bent over Jonah in the stillness of this cramped space, Caleb backed away. Lucas had been told what he had to do. He held the knife ready, the point facing down toward Jonah’s bared chest, but it was quivering so badly Jonah thought he might drop it.
“It’s all right,” Jonah whispered to him. “This is but a small payment for the sins I’ve carried out.”
“Quiet!” Caleb snapped from the darkness.
Lucas’s nostrils flared. His eyes stared deeply into Jonah’s as his fingers flexed over the knife’s worn leather grip. The blade’s edge reflected the candlelight with a wicked gleam, but to Jonah it looked like the light that was still hidden deep within him, and it only served to remind him how dark his life had been. Jonah shared this with Lucas now—the demons scrabbling inside him, the veil between worlds, the fact that Jonah acted as the conduit, the medium between the two—and he prayed the boy would understand.
“Do it now,” Jonah whispered.
“Quiet!”
Lucas’s fingers adjusted their grip.
“Do it!” Jonah pleaded.
Caleb stalked forward, ready to silence Jonah by force if need be, no matter what the ritual called for.
“Do it, please!” Jonah shouted at Lucas. “Release me!”
“No!” Caleb yelled, understanding finally coming to him. He lumbered forward, reaching for Lucas.
Lucas’s expression, almost crazed with worry before, went soft. He’d seen. He’d seen at last the torment within Jonah, but more importantly, he’d seen what might happen were Jonah not taken now. Just as Caleb reached for his collar, he brought the knife down, sharp and hard, into Jonah’s chest.
Jonah felt his body twist away from the pain. He heard Caleb screaming at Lucas as he pulled the boy violently away and sent him skidding across the dusty floor. He saw the worry in Caleb’s face, and Henry’s and Gilland’s as they came to stand over Jonah, who had begun to return to his natural form.
The pain of it was like distant thunder. What Jonah felt was not his physical pain, nor the worry he’d had only moments ago, but the sense of deep satisfaction as the gateway—embodied in him since Gideon’s death—began to unravel. The demons were torn away, sent back across the void to the dark beyond. And the gate itself began to close. It would take months, perhaps years, to close fully, but eventually it would, and that in turn would remove one of the pathways for the demons to enter the world.
Caleb, enraged beyond reason, snatched the knife from Jonah’s chest. “Why?” he screamed.
Jonah didn’t answer. He merely smiled as Lucas scrabbled away and fled the cellar. As the wooden door slammed open in his wake and the cold wind howled down and over Jonah, he heard not the laughter of the demons, nor the sharp questions of Caleb, but the keen ringing of a bright and beautiful bell somewhere in the distance.
No Viviremos Como Presos
Miguel jogged up the last flight of stairs to his grandfather’s fourth-floor apartment, but stopped short when he realized a bald man in a gray herringbone suit had just closed his grandfather’s door and was now walking toward him. The guy had the look of a lawyer all over him. He paced down the hallway and tried to sidle past Miguel, but was forced to stop when Miguel placed his linebacker’s frame into his path.
Miguel glanced at the briefcase. “Were you here to see Sandro Rivera?”
“That’s confidential.” The man at least had the decency to look a little nervous.
“Not when my grandfather’s the one you’re talking to.”
“Do we have a problem here?” he asked while touching his ear. He’d no doubt primed his net phone and could have the Vero Beach PD here in minutes.
“Look—” Miguel softened his expression and jutted his chin down the hallway “—he’s my grandfather. I’m just trying to protect him.”
“Be that as it may, any business I have with Mr. Rivera must remain between me and him.”
Miguel wanted to wipe the I’m-the-one-in-control expression off the guy’s face, but instead he tongued the control that activated the camera embedded in his artificial eye. Miguel’s vision blinked almost imperceptibly as the shutter release captured the image. Over the next few milliseconds, the microprocessor at the base of his brainstem intercepted the picture, sent a copy to permanent store and embedded another inside a message addressed to Rich Carlsen, asking him to track down the suit with the Post’s facial recognition software.
Miguel would find out who he was one way or another.
Miguel stepped aside. “Got a card?”
“Sorry. Fresh out.” And with that the suit was past him and headed down the stairs.
Miguel continued to his grandfather’s apartment. When he stepped inside and saw Sandro, he shifted up three f-stops and immediately tongued shutter release.
Sandro’s gaze is lax and unfocused. The beaten armchair cradles him, as if he might shatter if released. His weathered cane sits forgotten between his knees, and though the shade behind him is pulled low, the sun is bright, casting ochre shadows over the geography of Sandro’s face.
He labeled it: Sandro, just before I tell him I’m moving back to DC. He wasn’t all that surprised that Sandro looked so morose—he’d been like this for the last several months—but he expected something different with the lawyer having just left. He scanned the room, trying to find any papers or memchips or anything else that might give him a clue as to why the lawyer was here, but there was nothing.
The newsfeed was playing on the holovision in the corner. It showed a portion of the US-Mexican border wall in Nogales, Arizona, one of five cities receiving strong opposition against the newly announced Customs and Border Patrol project to control immigration, but the sound was muted, and Sandro might as well have been watching a children’s show for all the attention he seemed to be giving it.
Five minutes ago, Miguel would have said that the drama unfolding in Nogales was the cause of Sandro’s depression—Sandro had entered the US through Nogales when he was only thirteen, and Miguel had simply assumed it was the yearning for his childhood that had started his latest bout with depression. But now? Now he wasn’t so sure.
“You all right, Grandpa?”
Sandro’s gaze shifted to Miguel as if it pained him to make that one small effort.
Miguel took a seat on the bright orange couch, sending dust motes to dance in the air between them.
Sandro lifted a finger and motioned toward the HV, which was playing a clip of armored border patrolmen routing three Mexican men into a van. The CBP had just activated the one-week test of their new immigration control system. In a single day, seventeen migrants had been tagged by the new RFID launchers and ferried back across the border. A press release from the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security deemed it an “unmitigated success.”
“I haven’t been following it much,” Miguel said.
He pointed again. The camera view, apparently captured from one of the new border patrol bots, showed an elevated view of the American side of Nogales’s thirty-foot wall in night-bright green. Ropes hung down from the top and four men wearing tattered jeans and wife-beaters were slipping down the ropes. The footage slowed. Even so, the RFID devices were barely visible as they slid across the distance and struck each of the men in turn.
“They’re shooting them like dogs,” Sandro said, “dragging them back across the border.”
The view switched to 3D. A diagram of a human skeleton, skin highlighted in transparent blue, floated out from the plasma and twirled a few times. A blue graphic of the RFID spyder landed on the shoulder. The view tightened on the spyder, which was burrowing beneath the skin, using local anesthetics and anticoagulants. Once subcutaneous, it made its way down the ribcage before settling posterior of the sternum. It was meant to make the devices nearly impossible to remove without great expense.
“They’re hardly getting shot like dogs.”
“What do you call being tagged and tracked and thrown back across the fence? Told to stay where you are?”
“I’m not climbing over my neighbor’s fence after the sun’s gone down.” Miguel showed Sandro the back of his right hand, and tapped the location of his RFID chip. “I cross them legally.”
The comments seemed to drain Sandro even further. “You’d think you didn’t have Mexican blood running through your veins.”
Miguel leaned back into the couch, wondering where the hell Sandro was going with this.
“They could use a man like me there,” Sandro said.
A shiver ran down Miguel’s back as Sandro continued to stare at the HV. Miguel actually believed, right at that moment, that Sandro meant those words.
“What did that lawyer want?” Miguel asked, trying to break the spell.
“Who?”
“The lawyer, the one that was here five minutes ago.”
Sandro glanced up at the door. His eyes regained a bit of their usual intent, and his back straightened. “What? Him? Nothing. Something to do with my IRA.”
“You didn’t sign anything, did you?”
Sandro frowned and opened up the battered wooden chess box on the table next to him. “I’m not stupid, Miguel.”
Sandro continued preparations for their weekly match, so Miguel moved to the chair across from Sandro and helped place the pieces.
“Then what did he want?” Miguel asked, moving the final piece, the black king, into its starting square.
“Nothing.” Sandro slid his King’s pawn to D4.
“Grandpa…” Miguel countered with his Queen’s pawn.
Sandro looked up, annoyed. “Aren’t you always telling me I need to take better care of myself? That I need to be more responsible?” He made another move, slapping the piece down noisily. “Well maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s long overdue. This is my business, Miguel. I’ll handle it.”
It was true. Miguel was always saying that, from Sandro’s gambling on Vero Beach’s “riverboat” to buying too much World War II memorabilia to his penchant for giving downtown bums wads of cash. One time he’d even paid for three of his Vnet friends to fly in and visit, this from a man who lived on the joke social security had become and his vet benefits and the not-insignificant amount Miguel contributed to his bank account every paycheck. So why would a lawyer suddenly make him shape up?
It wouldn’t, Miguel told himself. Something had clearly shaken Sandro up, but it would wear off in a few hours or a few days, and he’d be back to his same old self.
The chess match progressed to middle game, and Miguel’s mind shifted to the reason he’d come here in the first place. His mind kept trying to formulate the right words to tell Sandro his news. Nothing sounded quite right, especially in light of Sandro’s odd mood. But then he realized he was only stalling. Sandro was going to act wounded no matter how carefully he formulated the message.
Miguel suddenly realized Sandro was leaning back and smiling broadly. He inspected the chess board. Sandro had won, something he accomplished only once or twice per year.
“Grandpa,” Miguel said, “I got the call from DC.”
Sandro’s smile withered. “Oh.”
Miguel had been bucking for a promotion for years now, and he’d been given the chance to head the Post’s photo studio. Twice. But both times Sandro had developed debilitating migraines that went away after Miguel had turned down the promotion.
“I’m going to take it,” Miguel said. “They want me to fly up tomorrow to start working out the details, then I go straight to the G10 gig in Tokyo, and then I’ll be back here for a week or so to get things settled before I move.”
Sandro leaned back in his chair, frowning at the chess board. “Oh.” He glanced across the room at the HV, which showed a CGI image of a man running down a street lined by transparent trees and buildings, the spyder in his chest pinging his location like a sonar beacon every few seconds. Sandro raked his fingers over his stubble a few times, then nodded. “That’s good, Miguel. That’s good.”
Miguel could only stare. He was speechless. Both of the last two times he’d told Sandro about the promotion offer, Sandro had immediately listed a dozen reasons why it was a bad idea to accept. He’d practically begged Miguel to stay, though he’d never come right out and said so. He was too proud for that.
Using his cane, Sandro levered himself out of the chair and shuffled toward his armchair. “Mind if we cut it short today?” He pointed toward the holovision on top of the bureau. “I have a meeting with the boys.”
Miguel stood, feeling completely out of sorts. He thought he’d be here all night reassuring Sandro that everything would be all right. “I thought you met on Thursdays.”
“Emergency meeting.”
“About what?” Miguel quickly surveyed the landscape of Sandro’s apartment again, hoping to find some clue about the lawyer.
“Members only, Miguel.” He led Miguel to the door. “Members only.”
* * *
Jet lag was usually not a problem for Miguel, but it was killing him three days later on the morning of the G10 commencement in Tokyo. He had just managed to fall asleep when a high-priority call came in—the only type besides Sandro’s that he allowed at 3 AM.
It was his new boss, Marianne.
He levered himself up in his hotel bed and took three deep breaths before tonguing the accept.
“Rich said you wanted to know right away,” Marianne said.
Miguel stood and walked to the window, his brain refusing for several long moments to remember the picture of the lawyer he’d sent to Rich Carlsen the other day. Marianne’s tone made her words sound like an apology, but the truth was she’d somehow intercepted Miguel’s request and wanted to show him she was the one in control. She was like that.
“It’s for Sandro,” Miguel said in a hoarse croak.
“I gathered, which is why I allowed it. But I won’t do it again, Miguel, even for my new head of photos.”
“It’s one search, Marianne.”
“It’s one more reason for legal to crawl up my ass, Miguel. And that ID subscription doesn’t pay for itself. It comes out of my budget.”
“Okay, okay. I get the idea.” Miguel softened his tone. He was tired and cranky, but he didn’t need his new life at corporate getting off on the wrong foot. “What did Rich find?”
“The guy was a lawyer, one Hilden Gramercy.”
“Hilden?”
“Yeah, go figure. Works for an outfit called Ernst, Grobel, and Spitz out of Dallas.”
“Profile?”
“They’ve got over two dozen lawyers on staff. Apparently Gramercy’s a junior member, only been with them for a couple of years.”
“Okay, now comes the million-dollar question: What was he doing at my grandfather’s?”
“You requested an ID, amigo. You’ll have to take over from there.” There was a brief pause. “Now get some sleep. You have a G10 to cover for me in the morning.”
Miguel hung up and checked for Sandro’s online presence. It was evening back in Vero Beach, but Sandro’s avatar was grayed out, which was odd since he usually left it active 24/7. He called Sandro’s apartment. No luck. Miguel found himself annoyed that he hadn’t pushed harder for Sandro to buy an embedded phone.
Miguel flopped on the bed, exhausted but beyond sleep. He felt shitty. He’d felt shitty for the last three days. That had been the wrong way to tell Sandro about his promotion, but he’d never been able to find a right way. Sandro always twisted it to look like Miguel was abandoning him.
The thing that bothered him most was Sandro’s easy acceptance of the news. Why hadn’t he done the same thing as before? What had that lawyer dropped off for Sandro?
Suddenly Miguel realized he might be looking at this the wrong way. Sandro might have contacted the lawyer. He and his online cadre of armchair politicos were always preaching that they needed to do something, to take a stand. Maybe he had taken a stand.
Mi
guel accessed Sandro’s banking account. Why hadn’t he thought of this before?
There was twelve thousand in his checking, ninety-three in savings, and another forty-eight in his IRA. That would be about right. But when he went to the transaction history for Sandro’s checking account, his feet went cold. He sat up in bed, dangled his legs over the side of the mattress, and stared at the display.
Seven hundred thousand dollars had been deposited two days ago. That same day, it had been transferred to an account held by the Bank of Ireland (I.O.M.) Ltd. Miguel tried accessing the account using Sandro’s credentials, but was refused access.
He returned to Sandro’s account. The last activity, posted only twelve minutes after the transfer to the Bank of Ireland, was the purchase of an airline ticket to Nogales, Arizona.
He tried Sandro’s phone again.
Nothing.
He packed immediately, booking a scram to Nogales and then sending four messages to contacts that might have some clue about Ernst, Grobel, and Spitz. He sent another message to Sandro’s bank, disputing the deposit. Hopefully he’d be able to find out where it had come from.
He sent one last message in the cab to a private photog forum, offering a subcontract for the G10 meeting, enabling a trigger so that when someone accepted, another message would be sent to Marianne with the relevant details.
She was going to be pissed, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had to find out what was going on with Sandro.
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