by Frank Morin
“And wasn’t Mai Luan a coo-something?” Sarah asked.
“Cui Dashi,” Gregorios said with a grimace. “She’s involved somehow, but the council would never involve itself with such a monster.”
“So tell them the truth about Tereza’s connection,” she suggested.
“It’s not that easy.”
“But they have Eirene.”
“Perhaps,” Gregorios said as Tomas pulled up to a weed-choked lot not far from the airport.
It looked like it had stood abandoned for a while, its appearance decrepit even in comparison to other nearby industrial buildings. The lot was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, which did still look in good condition. A small parking lot held only a single pick-up facing the simple two-story building that spanned a hundred feet on each side. Rust-sprinkled shutters concealed all the doors and windows.
Everything looked exactly as it should.
Tomas jumped out to unlock the gate, so Gregorios pulled the rental into the parking lot close to the side door. When Tomas led them inside and flipped on the lights, Sarah paused and stared in surprise at the comfortable living room that greeted them. Twenty-foot ceilings with soft lighting illuminated the room. The walls were painted in warm colors. Thick carpet covered the floor. Comfortable couches and chairs faced either a cold fireplace or one of the two flat-panel television sets. The air smelled fresh, so the exchangers were still working.
A chef-worthy kitchen opened off the living room, with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. The cupboards were stocked with enough food to last the three of them for months.
Sarah trailed him into the room. “What is this place?”
“Safe house,” Tomas said. “There are dozens scattered around the world.” He turned to Gregorios. “Won’t the council look for us here?”
“Unlikely. Eirene used to work logistics, and she confirmed this one hadn’t been used for decades before we moved in a few weeks back. We haven’t seen any sign that anyone’s aware we’re here.”
This place had been the closest thing to a home for them in far too long. He’d find her and they would start another life together. By all the forgotten gods, anyone blocking him would face his wrath. He rarely let himself get angry, but he could feel his rage stirring. This time, he didn’t feel like snuffing it out.
“She’s a good housekeeper,” Sarah said.
“A hired service checks in periodically and keeps it stocked and cleaned,” he explained. “But the money’s handled automatically and many of these safe houses get forgotten for a while. We make sure we’re not around when they’re scheduled to clean. They’ve never seen us, and I doubt anyone other than Eirene remembers this one even exists.”
Tomas showed Sarah around and she chose one of the available suites upstairs.
“Plenty of hot water?” Sarah asked, moving toward the bathroom.
“Yes,” Gregorios said. “But that can wait. I have to do something, and you’ll want to see it.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked as he led them down to the medical bay in the basement. The cool air smelled stale, the soft hum of machinery the only sound. Every surface was stainless steel or white cloth.
“You want to be a part of this,” he said. “So you can help Tomas prep for my transfer.”
He ignored the treatment and operating rooms and headed for the long cooler, similar to ones used by morgues. He selected the third door and slid it all the way open to reveal the hibernating body, his current home suit. The body looked healthy and ready to go. In its mid-thirties, it was toned and fit, stood exactly six feet, with several tattooed enhancement runes in strategic locations. The hair was black, Eirene’s current favorite choice. It wore only boxer shorts.
Tomas and Sarah transferred the body to a gurney while Gregorios lay down on the empty bed of the cooler tray. He shivered at the touch of the cold metal, which reminded him of his own long dispossession so many centuries ago. Tomas moved to stand by his head and signaled he was ready. It was so much easier with competent help.
Gregorios embraced his nevra core, his soul center. When transferring the souls of others, or when forced to transfer himself without help, he worked through his hands. With a trusted assistant, all he had to do was sever all ties with the host body and set his soul free. He directed his nevron against the soul points that anchored his soulmask to the host body. Located along the jawline, under the nose and behind both eyes, they were intangible to anyone not possessing a nevra core. That core was the center of his soul, the well from which sprang his soul force. The fuel cell, so to speak. The nevron was the energy pouring out of that core, the power of his soul that he manipulated now to perform the soul operation.
His senses contracted, draining away until he felt nothing but his face. “Do it.”
Tomas grasped him just under the jaw, and Gregorios focused his nevron again, severing the final connection to his host. Purple flames rippled along the edges of his face as Tomas lifted.
Gregorios’ soulmask pulled away from the skull with the wet sucking sound he had grown to hate. Flesh slipped free as his soulmask disengaged from the underlying skeletal structure. As it emerged, Tomas lifted him higher. His vision altered until everything looked black and white and strangely angular. His sense of smell vanished, and his hearing expanded tenfold.
With experienced precision, Tomas carried Gregorios’ soulmask over to the body waiting on the gurney. To Tomas, his soulmask would look like a shimmering face mask trailing rainbow smoke. Tomas positioned it and pressed it onto the new host.
Sarah stood nearby, one hand raised to her mouth, eyes wide. She’d experienced more soul transfers than any mortal, but she’d been drugged prior to most of the sham operations. She’d seen a couple honest soul transfers, but she needed to be here, to witness it again. This was the world she was entering, and mortals usually found it unsettling in the best of times. She couldn’t afford hesitation if she was called upon to help in the future.
Gregorios’ soulmask connected with the body and dove into it. His nevron sealed the connection and restored the soul points, linking each sense to the host. Since no soul had inhabited the host, it welcomed him without resistance. Flesh flowed up over his soulmask as it bonded with the bone structure of the host skull and began to subtly alter it to fit his facial profile. His senses expanded as he fused with the new host, and every molecule of the new body clamored for attention. Despite the countless times he had transferred, he shook under the flood of sensation and his body rattled on the gurney.
Tomas leaned over him, holding him down until the tremors subsided. Sarah joined him, bracing Gregorios’ legs. The longer the dispossession, the more traumatic the experience. Since he had only been dispossessed for seconds, and had worn this particular body for years, reconnecting came swiftly.
After seven seconds he drew in a steady breath. “Stable.”
Tomas helped him up and he donned a set of clothes from a nearby shelf. “It’s good to be home.”
“So this is your real body?” Sarah asked, glancing from him to the suit he’d left on the cooler tray.
“It is the primary host for this life.” Gregorios gestured at the one he’d just abandoned. “I took that one from a man who had helped steal the body of a young woman for another to use.”
“Oh.” Sarah looked satisfied.
One of the functions the council oversaw was managing host bodies and transfer vehicles. The world could be an ugly place, and there was always a demand for healthy young bodies, but they avoided affecting unwilling mortals as much as possible. Occasional rogue facetakers wreaked havoc by aggressively taking souls and were put down before the public became aware of the existence of their kind. Facetakers possessed great power, but mobs of angry mortals had destroyed more than one careless facetaker through the ages.
“I think it’s dinner time,” Gregorios said.
“After I shower,” Sarah said, heading for the door, looking
eager to escape the room.
Tomas helped him clean up. The group who serviced the safe house would see to healing the broken arm of the empty host. It’d be ready for him in a couple of months if he needed it again. Empty host bodies fell into a hibernation-like stasis, alive but able to linger for many months with little to no care if properly stored. That state slowed healing, but allowed them to maintain a ready stable of specialized suits.
“I can’t wait to get back to Rome,” Tomas said as they headed for the stairs.
“Have you told her?”
“Not yet.”
“She needs to know.”
“I’m planning on it,” Tomas said a little defensively. “Alterego left scars. I’m trying to do it gently.”
“Don’t wait too long. It’ll only make it worse.” Sarah was proving to be interesting for a mortal, but Tomas was not doing himself any favors by keeping secrets.
They returned to the kitchen and Gregorios cooked a full meal of steak and au gratin potatoes. He left the hood fan on low until the room filled with the mouth-watering aroma of grilled beef. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. This was Eirene’s favorite meal. He’d cooked it for her countless times, using every imaginable form of fire. He could imagine her sitting at the table, calling to him not to burn the steaks, even though it’d been lives since he’d last made that mistake.
The room seemed far emptier when he opened his eyes.
Tomas returned from his room, dressed in jeans and a loose t-shirt. Sarah joined them just as Tomas finished setting the table. She had changed into a comfortable pair of shorts and a soft, cotton blouse that looked fantastic. Of course, just about anything she wore would look good. Tomas gave her a little kiss on the cheek and Gregorios noted her expression. She didn’t look satisfied with that reserved show of affection.
Tomas definitely needed to tell her soon.
She sniffed deep. “That smells amazing.”
“It’s sort of a specialty,” Gregorios said. “You look lovely, my dear. Now that we’ve all changed, let’s eat.”
After eating quietly for a few minutes Sarah asked, “What now?”
“Now I talk with an old enemy.”
The army enhanced with my runes is the true nobility of our country.
~Napoleon Bonaparte
Chapter Twelve
After dinner, Gregorios fetched a soul coffin out of a closet where he had left it two days before. He hated the little prisons, but they served a necessary purpose. So he forced down the memories of dark imprisonment they always triggered, even though his had been a different form of incarceration.
“Let’s see if we know the right questions now,” he said as he placed it on a table in the living room.
“Wait, who’s in there?” Sarah asked.
“A facetaker I captured on a remote island,” Gregorios said. “Involved in a clandestine soul gathering operation. She and one of her assistants got in my way. That’s where I got that temporary host. I believe her activities are somehow tied to Mai Luan.”
He flipped the coffin open to reveal two soulmasks. They had been dispossessed only a few weeks, so were almost full size. They had faded from shimmering translucence to gray, but the rainbow mist hadn’t withdrawn and still floated with only slightly muted colors. Over time, dispossessed souls would shrink, eventually to the size of china dolls, their misty tendrils drawn inside as the soul faded into a hibernation-like state. People were not intended to live dispossessed, and most minds broke down quickly in the forced solitude of soul coffins.
Sarah grimaced and rubbed her arms. Gregorios knew she had seen coffins like this before. It was a good sign that she already disliked them.
Gregorios set aside the soulmask of the man he knew only as Curly, whose damaged body he had just left in the medical bay. The soulmask felt cool and unresponsive. As Sarah and Tomas leaned closer, he set his internal defenses, then carefully extracted the second soulmask. The rainbow mist of her soul latched onto his arm and her nevron slammed against his, but rebounded against his already activated core.
Dalal was a dangerous adversary, but in her dispossessed state she could not hope to overpower him. After the initial assault, her will subsided and she hung docile in his hand.
“Who is that?” Sarah asked.
“A bad person,” Tomas whispered, then motioned her to silence.
“Well Dalal, how are you feeling?” Gregorios asked.
“You know better than anyone how I feel.” Her shrunken lips twitched and her voice sounded no louder than a high-pitched whisper. Although lacking the physical form needed to produce speech, soulmasks held the power to project limited sound.
“Indeed. How long you get to enjoy that state is up to you.”
“What do you want?”
“Information, of course. How much does the council know of your activities?”
“Give me a body and I’ll explain everything.”
“You’ll remain dispossessed until I believe you’ve shared in good faith.”
“Then you get nothing.”
“So be it.”
He moved her over the coffin and she quickly added, “Know that my actions were sanctioned.”
“Including your involvement with the heka?”
“Why such an interest? I told you I didn’t have Eirene.”
“She turned up elsewhere.”
“Where is she? I haven’t seen her in decades.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Soft, helium-high laughter rang from her soulmask as it expanded slightly. When she spoke her voice came stronger. “You’ve lost her again so soon?”
Gregorios forced down a flash of irritation. “Where would a council-sanctioned facetaker acquire a couple occans and a gang of charlies?”
“Surprised, no?” Dalal asked. “That must tear at you like daggers. So much work to find her and now the council has taken her away again.”
“So it was on council orders?”
Curly, who had lain quiet on the table, twitched and his face brightened a bit. His whisper-voice spoke for the first time. “The council does not command everything.”
“Silence, you fool,” Dalal said.
Gregorios banged her soulmask against the side of the coffin in warning and focused on Curly. “You assume to know the will of the council?”
Curly’s laughter rippled into the air. “Those old fools think they’re in control. They see only shadows of truth.”
“Your lies are making matters worse,” Dalal said.
“I’m tired of sharing that prison with you,” Curly replied. “I will speak on condition of freedom. They cannot stop us anyway.”
More and more interesting, Gregorios thought.
Sarah spoke up. “You said ‘we’ let them believe they’re in control. You’re not referring to Dalal, are you?”
“Dalal is but a tool of the master like the rest.”
“Shut up,” Dalal’s voice was almost a shout and her will struck at Gregorios again in a futile gesture of anger. Something Curly was saying terrified her.
Sarah leaned a little closer. “You’re heka, aren’t you?”
“How can you know that? Who are you?”
Tomas looked just as surprised as Gregorios felt. Sarah was a new player, how did she figure it out before the rest of them? Curly’s body had not worn power runes and Gregorios had dismissed the man as a simple servant.
Gregorios lifted Curly’s soulmask to look into his half-sphere eyes. “Tell me what your group’s done with my wife, or I swear you’ll suffer like no embodied soul ever has.” He directed a pulse of his nevron against the soulmask and purple fire danced along the outer edges of the floating rainbow mist. It jerked and coiled up closer to the soulmask. Even the dispossessed could feel pain.
“It wasn’t us,” Curly assured him quickly.
Sarah shook her head. “Now you’re contradicting yourself. First you said the council doesn’t know, that your group is secretly
in control. Now you’re saying you’re not responsible after all.”
“You cannot speak of this,” Dalal said. “Gregorios, your threats are meaningless. Eirene was taken recently, no? After we were imprisoned here. We know nothing of current events. You must speak with the council.”
“I plan to,” Gregorios replied. “And I’ll discuss with them the full extent of your activities. They may decide to ask a few questions themselves.”
With that threat hanging over them, he returned both soulmasks to the coffin and latched it shut.
Tomas hugged Sarah. “You were awesome.”
“I don’t like liars.”
“I think you ended the interrogation early,” Tomas said. “We should pull everything out of them.”
“We don’t have time,” Gregorios said. “I’ve heard enough. There’s always heka plotting against the council or trying to unleashing plague on the world. Our top priority is finding Eirene, and I got the clues I need.” He forced calm over his growing fear for her. “I cannot allow them to lock her away again. You don’t know what that does to a person.”
He trailed off as shadows of remembered horror shook him, but those were not his worst fears. Heka could do far worse to Eirene than kill her.
“Then what will you do?” Sarah asked.
“Somehow the council’s involved. That’s where I need to find the answers.”
“You can’t go to them,” Tomas said. “You’re still most wanted on the rogue list.”
“I can go to one.”
“Who?”
“The one they’ll never expect me to approach.” He took a deep breath, focusing on the need to find Eirene. That need settled his thought, firmed his resolve.
“We’re going to Los Angeles.”
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent, especially when you wear the rune I do.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
Chapter Thirteen
At the wheel of a rented sports car, Gregorios approached a gated estate in the hills above Los Angeles, with views of the distant ocean and Santa Monica beach. He passed the main entrance without slowing and turned at a secondary drive. A solid steel gate blocked the road, but he pulled up to the keypad and punched in a sixteen-digit universal facetaker code.