“Why’d Church call you in on this?” I asked.
“I think he wanted Circe more than me. This is her field more than mine.”
“Not if the nukes go off,” I said.
“Mother of God.”
“Speaking of Circe-how’s she doing?”
Dr. Circe O’Tree was a PhD in a handful of overlapping subjects including Middle Eastern history and religions, cults, anthropology, psychology, and a few others I’m probably forgetting. She has more letters after her name than anyone I’ve ever met. She was also Mr. Church’s daughter, a fact that was shared by only a few people and that I’d only found out by accident. Although Circe now worked for the DMS, she and her father had been estranged for years. I was under very specific orders from Church not to mention the family connection. To anyone. Ever. He didn’t actually come out and threaten to disappear me, but I didn’t want to push the issue.
“She’s wonderful,” said Rudy.
I smiled. I’ve never seen Rudy happier. Even though I hadn’t yet heard him throw around the L-word, whenever he looked at Circe there were little red hearts floating all around him.
“Tell the missus I said ‘hi.’”
“Cowboy,” he warned, but I laughed at him. Laughing felt good. It felt like I was still in the real world.
My phone pinged softly. Someone else was trying to reach me.
“Hey, Rude… I have another call coming in. I’ll talk to you soon.”
I disconnected and looked at the screen. No caller ID. Church said he would have Abdul, our local asset, call me, so I punched the button.
“Hello,” I said in Persian.
“I see you got a new battery for your phone,” she said in English. “Sorry I made you throw out the last one.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Golden Oasis Hotel
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 9:03 a.m.
It was her. Same voice, same hint of an Italian accent. A bit more pronounced now. I fought the urge to check my body for laser sights. There were none, but I moved out of the line of sight of the hotel window.
“What is it now?” I asked. “You want to set me up for a playdate with Satan?”
She laughed. At least someone thought I was funny. “No,” she said, “you said you wanted to meet me.”
“I do.” I tried not to sound too eager. I used my thumbnail to slide back a panel on the side of my phone. I pressed a button that activates a trace. “Name a place. I’ll buy the coffee.”
“Sorry… it will have to be over the phone. I want to ask a question.”
I almost laughed. “Why on earth would I want to answer one? Last time we chatted, you put a laser sight on my balls.”
“I could have shot your balls off. I did not. You can check if you like. I’ll wait.”
“Okay,” I said, “admittedly you get some Brownie points for not blowing my balls off. Thanks bunches, but it’s hardly a basis for enduring trust.”
“‘Brownie points’? You are a strange man, Captain Ledger.”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe I do.”
Before I could respond to that she came at me out of left field. “What did Rasouli give you?”
“What makes you think he gave me anything?”
“He said he wanted to give you something.”
“Okay, there’s that. He’s your boss, why don’t you ask him?”
She made a gagging noise. “God! I would rather shoot myself than work for such a cockroach.”
“Didn’t look that way an hour ago.”
“Eh,” she said dismissively. “It was contract work. Believe me, Captain Ledger, it is all I would ever be willing to do for him.” With her accent she pronounced my last name as “La-jeer.” I liked it. Made me feel exotic and mysterious.
“Even so,” I said, “why not ask him?”
“He doesn’t know me. I’m a voice on a phone to him. Why would he trust me?”
“Why would I?”
“I am asking very nicely,” she said.
Despite everything, I laughed. She did too. “I’ll think about it.”
“I promise not to shoot you.”
“Yeah, that earns you those brownie points, but so far you’re only a sexy voice on a phone line. You don’t have enough points to buy much more than civility.”
There was a short silence as she considered this. I looked at the display on the side of my phone. The trace was about halfway completed.
“Maybe I can earn some extra ‘brownie’ points,” she said.
“How?”
Instead of answering she asked, “Can I call you ‘Joe’?”
I smiled and shook my head in exasperation. Ghost looked at me in disgust. He would have hung up a long time ago, I suppose. “Only if I have something to call you.”
“You have to know that’s impossible.”
“Then give me anything. A nickname.”
“I have a thousand names.”
“Yes, that’s very ‘international woman of mystery’ of you, but I only need one.”
After a few seconds she said, “Violin.”
“Violin,” I said, testing the name. “That’s pretty.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll bet you are, too.”
“No,” she said, “I’m a monster.” And in those four simple words her tone changed from playful humor to something else. She packed that word with such intense sadness that I was momentarily left speechless. Before I could fumble out a reply the line went dead.
I stared at the phone. The LED tracer went from green to red. Trace incomplete.
“Okay,” I said aloud. “That was surreal.”
Ghost stared at me with huge doggie eyes. Sadly he offered no wise insights into what the hell was going on.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Kingdom of Shadows
Beneath the Sands
One Year Ago
They walked through the shadows, two incongruous figures that did not look like they belonged in the same century let alone the same reality. Vox found it very amusing even while it was frightening. He admitted to himself that Grigor scared him. In Vox’s estimation, Grigor-with his pale skin, black clothes, and otherworldly demeanor-would scare anyone. He wondered how much of it was window dressing to sell the idea of immortal monsters, and how much of it was the real deal. Not knowing the difference is what made the fear sweat run icy lines down Vox’s back.
After all, Grigor was in many ways the real deal. He was one of Upierczi, the reigning king of his kind. Ancient by any ordinary standard and, if the stories the Scriptor’s father had told him were true, faster and more powerful than any of his followers-and they were faster and stronger than…
Than what? He asked himself. Than humans?
As they walked, Vox pondered that question and his fear grew and grew.
Grigor led him through a maze of tunnels, some of which looked to be centuries old. Some of the tunnels opened into well-organized living quarters, with proper lights, rooms like dormitories, niches for worship, mess halls, and many rooms for training. There were cells down there, too, and as they walked past, Vox could hear the wretched whimpering of female voices.
He paused. “What’s that?”
Grigor turned and regarded the line of cells with heavy-lidded eyes. “Breeding pens.”
“Who are those women?”
“They are not women,” sneered Grigor. “They are cows. If they are lucky, if God favors them, they will bear a Upierczi son.”
“If they don’t?”
“Then they are less than useless to us.”
He spat on the floor and turned to continue down the long corridor.
Vox lingered for a moment. One voice, a very young voice, suddenly screamed with the absolute and immediate horror of someone who was being brutally used and who knew, with absolute certainty, that no one would ever come to rescue her. It made Vox feel sick. He tried to tell himself that it was the chemo upsetting his stomach. If it accomplished nothing else, the lie at least kept him from vomiting.
He hurried to catch up to Grigor.
After another quarter mile, Vox stopped again, this time to peer at a piece of broken mosaic on a cracked wall. When Grigor saw him staring at it, the pale man said, “That is Darius the Great being crowned. It was placed there on the first anniversary of the Persian king’s death. This wall was made four hundred and eighty-five years before the birth of Jesus Christ.”