and experience, was a softie who really did believe that the good guys won in the end. Lydia also had a lot of heart beneath the wisecracks and trash talk. And Khalid, the scholar of the team, was a deeply passionate man, very religious, strongly invested in social justice and ethics. They would cry. They were all probably fighting tears now.
But Smith? Smith never showed a thing. Not a goddamn thing. Not when he killed. Not when his comrades went down. Not when he took a bullet. He was the only person who showed less on his face than Mr. Church.
And yet this-what the woman Lilith was saying, what they were all finding out about the strange mission they were on-was turning dials on the man.
Smith must have sensed him watching and turned slightly toward Top. He touched his left thumb to the tear glistening in his eye then reached out and smeared the wetness along the barrel of his rifle. He said nothing, did nothing else. It was a statement and he let Top interpret according to his own understanding.
Top nodded.
Maybe he did understand.
Chapter Ninety
Abandoned Warehouse
Tehran, Iran
June 16, 2:32 a.m.
“Do you understand now?” asked Violin, her voice quiet in the pin-drop silence. “Why I had to be careful? Why I couldn’t just-”
“Yes,” I said hoarsely. “I understand.” Though I wished I could tear that knowledge from my mind. I looked at Church. He nodded, his face uncharacteristically sad.
He patted me on the shoulder. “I knew a fraction of this,” he said. “If I had known more… well, the Red Order and the Upierczi would have been more squarely on the DMS radar a long time ago.”
“We’re going to do something about this,” I demanded. “Right?”
Church gave me a fraction of an arctic smile. “What would your guess be?”
In my earbud I heard several of my team softly growl, “Hooah.”
Church turned to Lilith. “You should have told me this a long time ago,” he said, but his tone was gentle.
“It wasn’t your fight,” she said.
Church grunted softly. “Of course it is.”
Violin looked at me. “Joseph, you and your soldiers, you fight against madmen and terrorists to defend the world and a certain way of life, but your fight is a new one. There are older struggles.”
“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “Believe me when I tell you that you’ve made your point.”
She nodded and gave me a small smile that seemed to hold a thousand different meanings. Grace had a smile like that, and for just a moment I thought I heard Grace’s sweet voice whisper my name.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I inhaled through my nose and let out a big chestful of air. “Okay,” I said, “I think I have almost all the players except one. Who or what is Arklight?”
“Arklight was formed as the militant arm of the Mothers,” said Violin, and her eyes were fierce with pride. “Most of the field agents are their children.”
“Dhampyri?” I asked, almost afraid to use the word.
Violin paused for a moment, then nodded. “We are dedicated to the destruction of the Holy Agreement, the Red Order, the Tariqa and the Upierczi. We are the children of monsters, and many of us are the mothers of monsters… but we are not monsters. In comic books and movies dhampyr have super powers. We don’t. Though, there are some useful qualities, I suppose. A few ‘gifts.’ Perhaps ‘side-effects’ is more medically correct. From the Upierczi blood in our veins we have some physical advantages.”
“Speed and strength?” I ventured.
“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.
Chapter Ninety-One
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
