that he would never start again. So, instead he chewed a piece of gum very slowly and precisely, and he grinned at the hikers and their families.
It was Bunny who finally spoke, starting the process of talking about it. “Smith should be here pretty soon.”
Top nodded. Smith had called from a border post right before climbing into a jeep with a Kuwaiti sergeant. “Any time now.”
A few seconds blew by on the hot wind.
“You think the Cap’s okay?” Bunny asked.
Khalid caught two grapes in his mouth, bobbing and weaving like a boxer to get under each of them. “Cowboy’s always okay.”
“Uh-huh,” agreed Top. It was a lie, though. Their captain spent as much time being stitched and splinted as the rest of the team put together. And they all knew that he was half crazy. Maybe more than half crazy. No one had the details, but rumors had leaked out in DMS circles that Captain Ledger had a party going on in his head. Not that it mattered to them. As far as Top was concerned, the captain could have the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “Ave Maria” in his head and it didn’t change a thing. Ledger was their captain and their friend, and they’d follow him into hell. Top thought about that and smiled ruefully. They had followed him into hell.
His earbud buzzed and he tapped it. “Go for Sergeant Rock.”
“Sit rep,” said Mr. Church crisply.
“Sir, all quiet on the western front. Waiting on Chatterbox and Cowboy.”
“Give me a status report on combat readiness,” interrupted Church.
Top winced and almost cursed aloud. He was bone weary, and he ached for a hot bath, a cold beer, and twenty hours of sleep. Preferably with someone curvy, brown, and warm snuggled up against him.
“Always ready to rock and roll, sir,” he said with energy in his voice that was a total fabrication. “What’s the op?”
Khalid and Bunny shot him looks that went from inquisitive to surprised to murderous in the space of a second. Top spread his hands in a “what can I tell you” gesture.
Bunny bowed his head and sighed. “Oh, man…”
“We are at Firehall One,” said Church. That rocked Top and slapped all the fatigue from his nerves. Firehall was DMS combat code for a nuclear threat.
“Jesus…”
“Acknowledge,” snapped Mr. Church.
Top stiffened and the others caught the sudden jerk of his body. They clustered around him.
“Acknowledge Firehall One, sir,” said Top, and the others exchanged stunned looks. “Echo Team is ready to respond.”
“Then listen closely,” said Church. “Time is critical…”
Chapter Twenty-One
The Kingdom of Shadows
Beneath the Sands
One Year Ago
The King of Thorns rose from his chair and loomed above Hugo Vox. In the dense shadows pale figures crept closer, surrounding Vox with burning red eyes and hungry mouths.
Vox turned in a slow circle, looking at the twisted figures. Some were vastly old, with crooked bodies and crippled limbs; some had the blank moon faces of deeply inbred retardation; but seeded throughout the crowd were creatures like Grigor. Taller, whole, and powerful, their skin the color of milk, their eyes blazing with intelligence and an unnatural vitality that seemed to burn into Vox, threatening to steal away his life and breath.
Vox held up the detonator. “Careful now,” he murmured in a ghost of a voice. “Let’s all be very, very careful.”
“I am not afraid of your bomb,” sneered Grigor. “The Upierczi do not fear death.”
That annoyed Vox and he snapped, “Don’t lie to me, Grigor. Not to me. Everyone fears death. Even monsters like you. And… monsters like me. I’m not here to bring death and you damn well know it. I brought the bomb because I need to speak openly with you. No coy bullshit. We don’t know each other enough for trust, so shared fear is a good platform. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Grigor ran his tongue over the serrated ridge of his teeth.
“Talk,” he said.
Vox took another step, which brought him to within reach of Grigor, but the pale man remained motionless, his eyes glittering.
“The Scriptor and the Red Order don’t give a shit about you unless they need you to do their dirty work,” said Vox. “To do the work they are too weak and too afraid to do themselves. Isn’t it time to stop being their dog?”
Grigor’s eyes seemed to blaze with real heat. “Yes.” He hissed the word, filling it with endless hatred and cold fire.
“Yes,” agreed Vox.
“I know what happened to you. I know that eight hundred years ago Sir Guy LaRoque, the first Scriptor, sought out the Upierczi because the Order had a need for killers. Not any killers, but the best. Better than the Hashashin the Tariqa were using for their part of the so-called Holy Agreement. Nicodemus told LaRoque where to look, and he found an Upier in England, in Newburgh. He found another in France, and more in Italy, Poland, Russia… all through Europe. Not a community of you. Individuals. Hunted, wretched, hungry. Persecuted by the church. Condemned as monsters, as demons, as the unholy. LaRoque brought the Upier back to Nicodemus, and the priest created the Order of the Red Knights. Must have sounded pretty great at the time. To those poor, miserable fucks who had been hiding out in crypts and forests and ruins-to them it must have felt like they were people. Like they mattered. And, I guess they did matter; but only in the way a bullet matters if you want to shoot a gun. That’s what the Upierczi were, no matter what fancy-ass labels the Red Order hand out. Tools, weapons, slaves. For you guys, all three words mean the same thing.”
Grigor gave a single, slow nod.
“But the Order hit a snag with you. Something Sir Guy and Nicodemus didn’t foresee. You guys can’t breed worth shit. There are no female Upierczi, which screws things up from the jump. You guys are genetic freaks, a sideline of human evolution that didn’t pan out. The genes that make you what you are rarely present in females, and when they are the females look human and they sure as hell don’t want to breed with you. Not by choice. That meant that the Red Order had to start a forced breeding program. How many women did they take over all those years? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? More? And every one of them had to be forced. Eight hundred years of rape isn’t a legacy to be proud of.”
Grigor sneered. “They are women. Who cares?”
Vox smiled. “Yeah, I’m the last person to throw stones. Anyway, the breeding program hit some of its own snags. Turns out only one in fifty or a hundred women was able to give birth to a healthy Upier. Most of the babies were-how should I put it? Less than successful? Stillbirths, freaks. Once in a while one of the breeding slaves popped out a half-breed. Always female, though, right? Whaddya call ’em? Dhampyr?”
“Abominations!” The word rippled through the darkness, spoken by a hundred mouths.
“Glass houses, stones. Any of that ring a bell?” asked Vox, amused. To Grigor he said, “The real bitch of it all was that the Red Order focused their breeding program on those few women who could produce Upierczi. They bred them and their children, over and over again, which left a pretty shallow fucking gene pool.” He gestured to one of the Upierczi who had mongoloid features and a vacuous expression in his eyes. “Inbreeding didn’t work for the Hapsburgs, and it sure as hell didn’t work for you.”
“That is the past,” growled Grigor.
“I know,” said Vox, smiling broadly. “I know that really goddamn well, which is why I’m here. Charlie LaRoque’s dad, who was probably one of the better Scriptors, as far as that goes, decided to try something different. Genetics. Gene therapy, gene splicing. Not rebreeding but a careful and deliberate remodeling of the Upier
