Korigan’s jaw twitched. “You’re talking about the ODs.”
“I am,” St. Luke said. “Bet your boys weren’t expecting those.”
“They weren’t,” Korigan agreed, suddenly angry. “And neither was I. It would have been simpler if you’d warned me you were trying something new beforehand. If I’d known you were looking to get rid of police informers, I could have come up with something far less disruptive.”
“But if I’d warned you, I wouldn’t have seen just how well you handled emergencies,” St. Luke said. “And that was far more valuable to me than what kind of noise it created. In fact, the noise was a crucial element. It was a test, Korigan. One of many, and you passed your part with flying colors. Seven crazed junkies go flying off the handle over the last twenty-four hours. One even managed to kill a cop, and yet the only blip I’ve seen about it is a statement on the Chicago PD website warning about a bad batch of meth.” He grinned. “That’s some quality situation control, Korigan. That’s why I brought you into my Chicago operation. And now that I know you can live up to expectations, I think it’s time I brought you in on the rest.”
Korigan’s heart skipped a beat, the surprise neatly washing away his anger at being played like a fool. If he hadn’t heard it himself, he never would have believed it. It just didn’t seem possible that after so many years of fighting and crawling and killing his way up the ladder, he was finally being invited into the inner circle. He’d worked for St. Luke long enough to know he was much more than a drug kingpin with a respectable front. The man in front of him represented power on a global scale. Power untouchable to someone like Korigan.
He’d been born with less than nothing, an unwanted child of an unwed mother in the worst days of the failing Yugoslavia. Shunned by his family and branded an embarrassment, Korigan had scraped by after his mother abandoned him for a new husband and a second shot at life, not caring that her son was barely being given a chance at a first. So he’d begged and stolen, done whatever it took to survive until he was old enough to join the one group that didn’t care about his background: the army.
He’d been a soldier ever since, serving first under Tito, and then joining the Serbs when the civil war broke out. He’d served the Croats, too, and the UN when they’d come in. His gun had belonged to whoever could pay, and it shot whatever target got him the most money. Women, children, his own men—it made no difference. He’d already learned that money was the only real power in the world—the force that made good men kill and bad men do far worse. It was literally the currency of life, more precious than blood.
Yet as his mercenary operations expanded and his wealth grew, he began to realize that there was yet another tier. A place above what money could buy. A world inhabited by men like St. Luke, those so rich and so powerful, the price it took to buy them off didn’t exist. From the moment Korigan glimpsed even a piece of it, he knew nothing else would do. It was the ultimate victory, the final goal for a man who’d dedicated his entire life to chasing and hoarding power, forever out of reach.
Until now.
“I see you like that idea,” St. Luke said, his blue eyes flashing as he took in the hunger Korigan knew must be plain on his face. “You’ve always been an ambitious man, Commander Korigan. I’ve always liked that about you. Our ambition is all we truly own in this life… and I’m now going to let you in on a bit of mine.”
“I’m honored,” Korigan began, but St. Luke cut him off with a single raised finger.
“I didn’t invite you for your honor,” he said, shooting Lincoln Black a conspiratorial smile. “I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that we’re working on something… very special here in Chicago. Something beyond the usual narcotics trade. I brought you to Chicago because I needed to see if you could handle it, but I called you here tonight specifically because I want you by my side as we move to the next step. But what I want and what you can give are two very different things…” He trailed off, looking Korigan over like he was trying to find his weakness. “Tell me, Commander, how far are you willing to go?”
To join you at the top of the world? “As far as I have to.”
St. Luke’s smile widened to a grin. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, turning to walk over to the corner of the room. He waved his hand as he went, and the painting-covered wall slid sideways to reveal a brushed steel elevator. St. Luke stepped inside as the doors slid open, motioning for his guest to follow. Heart pounding with anticipation, Korigan obeyed, stepping into the hidden elevator as fast as he could without running. Lincoln Black followed at a more relaxed pace, slinking into the elevator like this was all old news.
When they were all inside, St. Luke pushed the single button on the command console, and the doors snapped shut, sealing them inside seconds before the elevator dropped like a stone.
4
Unclean Spirits
And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits,
to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
The elevator stopped as quickly as it had dropped, the doors sliding open to reveal a hallway very different from the one above. There were no paintings here, no debauched guests, no servants. Just a harshly lit cement-floored hallway stretching off into the distance, its walls lined with iron bars holding back the dark. It was so unlike everything else he’d seen so far, Korigan didn’t actually realize what he was looking at until he saw something move in the dark.
“Is that—” He stopped, swallowing against the sudden dryness in his throat. “Is this the zoo?”
St. Luke chuckled beside him. “So you’ve heard about my collection?”
Of course he’d heard. Every human trafficker and warlord in the world knew about Christopher St. Luke and his preferences. The billionaire famously paid top dollar for the odd and inexplicable. Korigan himself had sold him a pair of albino conjoined twins he’d stumbled across in Africa just a few years ago. But knowing that St. Luke must be keeping a private human freak show somewhere in his empire and actually walking through it were two entirely different things, and even Korigan—who’d walked through the worst of what war could do without blinking—felt himself begin to shake as St. Luke strolled over to the closest set of iron bars.
“I’ve always had a passion for the odd and inexplicable,” he said as he scraped his neatly trimmed nails over the metal. “Even in this dull modern age when all the unknown lands are already discovered, the world is still so much bigger, so much stranger than the human mind can imagine. There are so many mysteries, so many things we don’t, can’t, maybe even shouldn’t understand.” He dropped his arm and turned back to Korigan. “Some men find that frightening, but I choose to celebrate it and, when possible, learn from it.”
He lifted his hand, beckoning Korigan closer. After a moment’s hesitation, Korigan obeyed. As he got closer to the bars, though, he saw that the darkness behind them wasn’t darkness at all. It was an illusion caused by the glass wall just inside the bars, which had been carefully tinted to appear dark, probably so that whatever was inside couldn’t see when it was being observed. From the elevator, the glass looked like a flat black nothing. But when you were standing right in front of it, you could see straight through into the cell beyond, though that didn’t mean Korigan knew what he was looking at.