Robert Browne - The Paradise Prophecy

A sharp knock cut him off.

“ Komm rein ,” he barked.

The door flew open and Vogler’s assistant-Heinrich-stepped inside, hefting the black nylon suitcase he had retrieved from Dimitri Kovalenko’s hotel room. Setting it next to the one on the desk, he unzipped it and threw it open.

They all stared at its contents: five lead cylinders containing fifty pounds of highly enriched U-235 weapons-grade uranium.

The one who called himself Radek eyed it appreciatively. “You see, my dear, this is how it’s done. This is the kind of dance that can be useful to us. No myths, no fantasies. Just good old-fashioned human ingenuity-with us pulling the strings.”

He looked at Belial, a self-satisfied grin spreading across his face.

“Welcome to the end of the world.”

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

He spent his days watching the girl. Jenna.

He’d found a spot across from the shelter, a stretch of curb between two parked cars that he’d staked a claim on. To anyone observing, he was just another homeless waste-of-space waiting for the shelter to serve its evening meal.

In a way, that was true. He was homeless. He’d been thrown out of the only home he’d ever known a long, long time ago and had found himself feeling unsettled and lost, searching for a reason for his father’s betrayal.

But his father had never been big on explanations.

Only consequences.

The shelter was a small, squat building in the center of the block that looked as if it had once been a store of some kind. Record shop. Used books. Auto parts. Pizza stand. Pawn shop.

Maybe all of the above.

It didn’t matter. It was now doing double duty as a bunkhouse and a soup kitchen, with enough room for about ten beds-cots and blankets, really-that were folded up each afternoon to make space for a dozen or more tables and chairs.

He watched Jenna through the front window. Saw her with the woman from the coffee shop, who had apparently asked her and several of the other girls to help out in exchange for guaranteed bed space. They worked with her in the kitchen and carried trays full of food to a long, narrow table in the back of the room, then stacked paper plates and cups and plastic sporks and knives on one end.

At six in the evening, the doors opened and anyone who was hungry was invited inside for a meal.

Deserting his curb, he shuffled across the street and fell in line. He could hear Jenna’s song, louder and more vibrant than ever, and any thoughts that he may have been wrong about her immediately vacated his mind.

She stood with three other girls behind the counter, scooping baked beans with a large serving spoon. She eyed him warily as he approached her and held out his plate, and he knew it must have been an effort not to look away. The skin he’d procured was young, but badly damaged by booze and cigarettes and drugs and couldn’t have been easy to look at.

It served its function, but he knew it wouldn’t last much longer.

“Thank you,” he said softly, and offered her a smile, feeling the song of her soul wrap itself around him as he mentally counted the days until the fourth moon.

Everything would change for her then.

Everything.

And the world would never be the same.

He was sitting at a table, eating his dinner, when the pretty boy walked past the front window and glanced inside.

Zack the drudge.

The punk was merely trolling-just as he had been the other night-but there was a noticeable hitch in his step as he caught sight of Jenna, then moved on.

He’d be back. No question about it. He’d wait for the woman who ran the place to disappear into her office, or go to the coffee shop for an Americano, then he’d swoop in again and give Jenna another try. Pull out all the stops this time to put the lie to the woman’s warnings and charm Jenna into coming home with him.

Could he hear her song, too?

No. Drudges weren’t attuned to such things. But maybe someone had sent him here. He seemed just the type that Belial was drawn to, the kind of perfect specimen she took such pleasure in corrupting, so his presence here could well be her doing.

And that wasn’t good.

Whatever the reason, Zack was an annoyance who needed to be stopped before he got his hands on Jenna again. Something that should have been done two nights ago, right outside that coffee shop.

Better late than never.

It took him a while to find the guy.

As darkness approached, he heard laughter and turned in to an alley off Western, just three blocks south of the shelter. He saw the pretty boy huddled near a cluster of trash cans with another young girl, lighting up a meth pipe. This girl was even younger than Jenna, maybe thirteen or so, with a premature hardness and enough open sores on her face to tell him she’d been on the streets for quite some time.

What a waste.

But he didn’t hesitate. Walked right up to her, spun her away from Zack and the pipe and nudged her toward the mouth of the alley.

“Go home,” he said. Wherever home was these days.

She didn’t have to be told twice, and a moment later she was gone.

Apparently Zack didn’t appreciate the intrusion. He paused mid-toke and exhaled a plume of rancid smoke. “Who the fuck are you?”

“You don’t know?”

“Am I supposed to, asshole? You just cost me a sweet fuckin’ blow job.”

“You really shouldn’t have told me that.”

He shot a hand forward, grabbing a fistful of Zack’s shirt, then shoved him upward against the alley wall until his feet were dangling.

The pipe went flying and Zack struggled, kicking and waving his arms desperately, and you could tell by the look on his face, the sheer panic in his pretty-boy eyes, that he suddenly knew exactly what he was up against. “Holy shit, you’re him , aren’t you? The one they’re always talking about.”

“Who’s your significant?”

Zack said nothing, struggling like an insect pinned to a bulletin board.

“Is it Belial? Did she send you here? Tell you to go after the girl at the shelter?”

Zack kept struggling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go!”

He pressed harder, his knuckles digging into Zack’s chest. “Answer the question, you little shit. Is Belial your significant? ”

“Yes”-the punk huffed, wincing in pain now-“yes, yes.”

“And the girl at the shelter?”

“Just another runaway. I found her on my own. I saw her the other night and decided to make a move.”

“And Belial didn’t send you?”

“No. She doesn’t know anything about her.”

“Good,” he said, then released his grip.

Zack dropped to the alley floor with a grunt, grabbing at his chest, coughing and choking, trembling like a frightened dog. A puddle of urine spread out beneath his feet. “Please . . . ,” he said. “Please let me go . . .”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Reaching under his jacket, he grabbed his knife. It was an old iron Roman folding knife he’d kept with him for many years, still in pristine condition. There was a time he would have carried a broadsword as well, but such things were a bit conspicuous these days.

As the knife came into view, Zack cried, “I can work for you! I’ll do whatever you want. Belial doesn’t need to know. I can be your spy!”

An interesting proposition, but the last thing he needed was a drudge of his own. Especially one who was so quick to betray his significant. He was about to dust the sonofabitch when he heard a shriek behind him and knew that he’d been careless-too quick to assess and dismiss.

The girl with the sores on her face was also a drudge.