Jonathan Maberry - Assassin's code

“Some,” said Violin, though she smiled when she said it, allowing me to infer what I could from that.

“What about the age thing. Are you immortal, too? Or-what passes for immortal?”

Lilith shrugged. “Some of us are pretty well-preserved for our ages.”

And I saw a twinkle in her eye that made me wonder just how old she was. And… how old Violin was.

Church consulted his watch. “The president should be calling me any time now. We have to make some decisions, the first of which is whether we continue to work our separate and counter-productive agendas, or whether we combine our resources. The Red Order and the Upierczi are clearly tied to our hunt for the nukes. That makes it everyone’s fight.”

Lilith glanced around at the other Mothers. Some were stone-faced, a few still openly hostile, but most of them had predatory gleams in their eyes. Some of them even smiled. Kind of the way the big hunting cats smile. You don’t want to see that smile coming at you out of the dark.

The older women in the group nodded to Lilith, one by one, and she in turn nodded to Church. Some of the tension seemed to go out of his big shoulders.

“Then let’s go to work,” he said.

Private Villa Near Jamshidiyeh Park

Tehran, Iran

June 16, 2:39 a.m.

Hugo Vox punched the wall.

He punched it for two reasons. The simplest was that it was the handiest wall, right there next to his desk. The other reason was far less obvious, even to him. It was a reason rooted in fear and hope, and that reason had a name.

Upier 531.

The wall was smooth, with painted drywall over lath. In his youth, Vox could have put his fist through a wall like that all the way to the elbow. He’d done it in college and in at least two boardrooms. Since the cancer took hold, his rage had not manifested in outbursts of that kind. Energy was to be conserved, and he feared the frailty which had transformed him from a robust bear to a tottering old man with bones of matchwood.

All of that, though, was yesterday’s news.

When he woke up after a midnight nap, his whole body was on fire. Not with pain… not the gnawing, destructive pain. No, this was something else entirely. This was a swollen pain, and expanded pain. When he’d gotten out of bed he’d actually yelled. Not from hurt, but from the sheer joy of having enough breath to do it.

Here in the office he’d spent the rest of the predawn hours working at his computer, his fingers flying over the keys. Playing. Twisting things for the sheer nasty joy of it. The fuck you fun of it. It felt like playing chess against an opponent who was bound and gagged. He moved all the pieces around on both sides. The Red Order, the Sabbatarians, the Tariqa, the Upierczi, Arklight. And Church.

As Vox thought about his old “friend,” he felt his mouth begin to turn down into its usual frown, but the burn wouldn’t let that happen. Instead his mouth twitched and rebelled and broke into a grin. A big, happy, malicious grin. The old bear’s grin.

He launched himself from his chair and slammed his fist into the wall.

All the way to the elbow.

“Fuck yeah!” he roared, and with a grunt he tore his arm free. The splintered lath tried to claw at his skin, but even though it drew blood it could no more stop him than the cancer could. Not anymore.

Not any fucking more.

He roared again and laughed, and punched the wall again and again.

Then he poured a huge glass of Scotch, gulped it down, and flung himself back into his chair. The computer was still on and he scrolled through his list of names, considering each player and the general chaos in which they all floated. All of them searching for meaning, fighting for it, killing for it, dying for it.

And not one of them-not even Church-appreciating that chaos was its own end. Chaos was its own formless agenda.

“Fuck you, Deacon!” he bellowed and pounded his fist on the table hard enough to make his whiskey bottle dance.

His phone rang and he frowned at it.

There was no screen display at all. Not even one to tell him that it was a blocked call. Vox smiled and picked it up.

“Hello, Uncle.”

“Hello, Nephew.”

“I feel fucking great today.”

“I know. It’s good to have you back.”

“Back? Hell, I was never like this before. I feel… I feel…”

“I know. It’s delicious, isn’t it?”

“Yes it goddamn well is.”

The caller paused. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

“You know there’s no going back?”

“Shit, don’t try to scare me with burned bridges, Uncle. I’m ready to light the match.”

They both laughed quietly about that. Vox, perhaps, laughed a little bit louder.

“Then let it all burn down,” said Father Nicodemus.

Arklight Camp

Outskirts of Tehran

June 16, 3:04 a.m.

We had a quick strategy session during which Lilith told Church that he could have Arklight teams to assist with the refinery raids. He accepted without hesitation. While they began working out the details, I moved outside, needing some space to process everything.

Violin found me in the shadows outside of the warehouse. We stood together looking at the stars. Then she said, “This must be so hard for you. So strange. You, an American soldier… fighting monsters.”

“Since I joined the DMS last year, nothing has been normal. I’m not sure I even believe in that concept anymore.”

“This is normal for me,” she said. “This is all I’ve ever known. I was born into this world.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. It is what it is. Perhaps someday I’ll find another kind of normal.”

“Maybe I can help you look.”

“Maybe you could.”

“About the Sabbatarians,” I said. “You guys seem to hate each other worse than the Dodgers and the Giants. But you’re both kind of on the same side, right? So what gives?”

“‘Same side’?” she snorted. “Hardly. They know that most of us were either breeding stock for the Upierczi or born from those forced matings. The Sabbatarians, in their great Christian mercy, consider us Satan’s whores. The dhampyri doubly so.”

“Jesus.”

“They long ago named us enemies of God and marked us for extermination.” She shrugged. “We have responded in kind.”

“Then I’m glad we put a bunch of those assholes down.”

Violin nodded but said nothing.

Above, the Milky Way pivoted around us.

“You know, one of the things that’s eating at me here,” I admitted, “is Nicodemus. Who the hell is he?”

A haunted look flashed through Violin’s eyes. “As long as there has been a Red Order there has been a Father Nicodemus associated with it. My mother thinks it is the same man, but I don’t believe that. I don’t believe in ghosts or demons; I think it’s part of the propaganda the Red Order has always used. Besides, it’s probably a title passed down from one person to another, much in the same way that ‘Scriptor’ is passed down through the LaRoques.”

“Don’t priests sometimes take new names when they take holy orders?” I asked. “Biblical names?”

“Not as frequently these days,” said Violin, “but yes.”

I pulled my cell and called Bug and told him to hack the Vatican or whoever certifies priests. “If these Nicodemus guys are legitimate clerics,” I told him, “then there should be records in the registry of holy orders. Find out.”

I slipped the cell back into my pocket.

“Nicodemus is a strange man,” said Violin. “I saw him a few times when I was a little girl down in the Shadow Kingdom.” She cut me a look. “That’s what they call it.”