life.
I reached over and tapped her arm.
“We’re here,” I said.
Interlude Forty-three
Chamber of the Seven Kings
December 21, 5:19 A.M. EST
Toys sat alone in the Chamber of the Kings. Now that the second phase of the Initiative was rolling, the individual Kings and their Consciences had all left McCullough for undisclosed locations. If something went horribly wrong tonight, none of them wanted to be in any predictable spot. Considering what was happening, it was too dangerous to congregate; and trust only went so far, especially bearing in mind the lengths to which Aunt Sallie or Mr. Church would go in order to get information.
Gault and Eris were on her yacht, far out to sea. Probably shagging like rabbits, too.
Toys put his feet up on the table, crossed his ankles, and stared at the screens. The wall of screens showed ninety different news channels. The London Hospital bombing was no longer the lead story. Nor was the catastrophic drop in the stock market or even the massacre at the Starbucks in Southampton. Now it was the “Death of the Firstborn.” CNN was the first network to put the story together—fed, Toys knew, by agents of the Goddess—that the children of America’s elite families were being murdered. All of the other stations had similar titles, rife with biblical references. Most had nice graphics, and Toys wondered if each network had a graphic artist on standby or if titles of this sort were premade and ready for their inevitable use.
He sipped a martini—his third since he arrived—and watched the reporters give hysterical accounts of the mounting death toll. Every law enforcement organization in the country was “being mobilized” or was “racing against time” or “actively hunting suspects.” All bullshit. Toys sipped and scowled. No mention of the Department of Military Sciences, of course.
The martini was nearly gone before the ABC News anchor speculated on a connection between these murders and the shootings in Southampton and Jenkintown.
“Took you bloody long enough!” Toys yelled at the screen.
He sighed and set down his glass, and as he leaned forward to do so his gaze fell on the phone the American had given him. Toys’ nerves were still jangling from having called Joe Ledger. Few things had ever scared Toys as much as hearing that psychopath’s voice on the other end of the call. Toys snatched up the phone and shoved it into his pocket. With a grunt he thrust himself out of his chair and staggered over to the wall of screens, carrying the half-empty pitcher with him instead of the glass. A glass was too slow.
Toys drank from the pitcher and watched the press chow down on the firstborn story.
“First-bloody-born,” Toys said, and then laughed at the slur in his own voice. “I’ll bet you’re watching this, aren’t you, Sebastian? Does it make you feel like a god? You and that wrinkled slut. Gods? What a laugh.” He suddenly bent forward and pressed his face against the screen and yelled at the top of his voice, “
He beat his fist on the screen. Over and over and over again until the screen cracked and blood splashed across the hissing, distorted image. Then a fit of laughter rippled through him like an uncontrollable shiver.
He drank a huge mouthful, but the motion of leaning back to drink made him lose balance and he staggered backward five wobbly steps and then sat down hard on the floor. The American’s phone fell out of his pocket and the pitcher dropped, too, and smashed, splashing him with booze and broken glass. He stared at it for a long moment, and then burst into tears.
“Oh, bloody hell,” he said between sobs. “I’ve become a sloppy crying drunk.” Weeping turned to laughter and back to sobs.
Eventually, drunk and exhausted, his face streaked with tears, Toys climbed slowly to his feet and brushed glass gingerly from his clothes. He picked up the phone and stared at it, suddenly horrified about what he had done.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the empty room. “Oh, God … I’m sorry.”
“There are no gods here,” purred a voice behind him. Toys screamed and whirled. “Only a fool and a King.”
A man stood in the doorway to the Chamber of the Kings. He was tall and handsome, and he was smiling.
Sebastian Gault raised his pistol and pointed it at Toys.
Chapter Seventy-one
The
December 21, 5:26 A.M. EST
The chopper touched down on a helipad that extended out from the foredeck on massive hydraulics. As soon as the door was open, deck crew ran to escort us down a ramp and into a protected receiving alcove. Our gear was loaded onto railed carts that whisked them away. Then the rope was unclipped and the bird rose and headed back across the black water toward Rio, on the mainland of Brazil.
The alcove doors closed and a tall man who had a smile that could burn your retinas and a hairpiece that had no origin in nature entered and shook Circe’s hand.
“Dr. O’Tree, so
“Miss this?” Circe said with a good affectation of genuine surprise. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world!”
His smile never wavered. He was of the kind who would roll with anything short of having Ghost hump his leg without allowing his professional demeanor to falter.
“Mr. Alesso, I’d like you to meet my aide, Mr. Kent.”
Alesso shook hands with Church, who managed a convincing smile. I wish I had a photo of it. I could win bets with it.
“It is very much my pleasure to meet you,” said Alesso. He was probably the real deal, but he sounded like a bad actor in a pizza commercial.
She turned to Gus, who was in a crisp white naval uniform. Ghost sat primly by his side, playing his role. “And this is Chief Petty Officer Wayne. The Navy thought we could use him.” She lowered her voice to a confidential tone. “His dog’s a bomb sniffer.”
“Ah!” said Alesso, arching his eyebrows as if we were all part of a wonderful bit of intrigue. “And these other gentlemen are here for Ms. Lavigne?” He pronounced it “La-vig-ne.”
Circe began to introduce me, but I alpha-maled myself into the moment.
“Je m’appelle Jean-Francois Fieuzal.”
Alesso blinked at me. “Perdono?”
I rattled off my full credentials in French, watching to see if he got any of it, but after a sentence or two it was clear I’d left him stranded on the beach.
“I’m sorry. I don’t speak—”
“Mr. Fieuzal is with the Canadian Cultural Liaison’s office. They arranged for the additional security.”
My apparent inability to speak English cut short any need for polite chitchat.
Alesso looked at the “security team.” They were really working it. All five of them wore identical sunglasses despite the early hour, none of them had a flicker of expression on their stone faces, and they stood as tall as
