The Prime shifted uncomfortably on his stool. The salesman walked over and took the next seat.
“We’ve been living by the sword for over a hundred years, Mr. Prime.” Tiny let that sink in. “And we’ve buried every gunman who thought he was better.”
The Prime listened. A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth.
“And sir.” The salesman sipped his drink. “We have schooled ourselves in all the deadly arts.”
The Prime burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you little shyster bastard!” He pounded the bar. “You come here and pitch yourself and your partners like I need you more than my entire defense force. Do you know we’re being monitored? If I make a signal, twenty Enforcers will come in here and beat you until you give us Sister Cawood.”
“But you won’t, Mr. Prime.” Tiny tipped his drink until the ice cubes rubbed his nose. “You’re not a stupid man. You’ve got to realize that I’ve survived in a very dangerous business for a very long time. I wouldn’t come here like this unarmed, without some kind of back up plan.”
“Bunch of talk!” The Prime looked around nervously.
“Maybe, but if it isn’t?” The salesman smiled.
“Mr. Tiny, you’ve got nerve.” The Prime’s eyes grew dark, and then twinkled with frustration or madness. “I’ll give you that.” The Prime’s manner hinted at absurdity. “Fine, give me Cawood, and you’re hired.”
“Almost done.” Tiny reached out and shook the Prime’s powerful hand. “As a sign of good faith, I’d like a retainer of a hundred thousand dollars just to cover our expenses. And so we can get set up in town.”
“Ransom too,” the Prime hissed. “You want a job, and payment for the nun!” The big man chuckled and gestured at the windows. “If you knew what was happening out there, you’d laugh along.” He smiled sickly. “I’ll give you the money, cash, when I see Cawood.” He chortled. “Money’s irrelevant.”
“Not to me, sir.” Tiny showed his teeth.
“Fine, I’ll have the money sent up.” The Prime’s smile flexed unnaturally. His eyes glimmered like coals. “Try anything and you’ll die.”
“Understood.” Tiny stepped off his stool, releasing the Prime’s hand. “Thanks for the drink.” He wiped his palm on his jacket pocket. “If I could make a call, I’ll tell my partners to bring her up?”
“She’s in the Tower?” the Prime asked, incredulous.
“Used her key too,” Tiny said and nodded.
79 – Primed for Action
The Prime needed, fuck, yearned to question his captive. When you know the God-wife Cawood before me, all the world will tremble. What the hell did that mean? Knowing was Bible-talk for fucking, so that was easy enough. The world trembling was another matter. Events were moving at dangerous speeds and he had to deal with riddles. That could prove lethal to his plans, even heaven forbid, to the leader of Westprime. Earth shattering Powers were on the move and he was doing hostage deals and job interviews with gangsters. He took a breath. Was it overconfidence?
He had the First-mother. I can’t wait for a piece of that. The Demon organ twitched with sinister anticipation. Cawood was almost in his grasp. Nice to get a piece of that too. With a single command, General Topp had orders to fry ‘B’ group targets in the other primes. And his Final Solution was ready too. At the first sign of betrayal or defeat, the Prime would burn the City to cinders.
So why so glum?
He just needed to check in. He needed something concrete to work with. His plans were in place but this was based on what his captive said or insinuated. Oh, never a straightforward story. Nothing obvious-it was always fucking riddles. Oh, I taught him a thing or two about those fucking riddles over the years. But it seemed the Divine Compact governed the beast even in bondage. Which meant that so much of what he had set in motion had depended on augury and coercion. And you know what they say about confessions gained from torture.
“Stop it!” he growled to himself and hurried along the corridor to his office. His Demon organ twitched to life as he thought of his captive and the day they caught him.
Fifty years before, he received a call from Westprime Radar Defense alerting him to a “situation.” Two objects flying twice the speed of sound were spotted approximately two hundred miles south of the City of Light and closing. None of the other cities would lay claim to them. F-45 jetfighters were scrambled. They were the top of the line in reverse engineered battle technology. They closed on the targets in minutes.
And things got weird.
Colonel Nathan Grant, a veteran of three pre-Change wars reported seeing Angels flying in a south to north trajectory at close to Mach 2. Angels. Everybody had a big laugh about that one until he clarified.
“Angels you assholes,” he reported: “Angels like you’d see in the Bible.” And a quote: “Nasty fuckers too with Roman armor and swords.”
The chuckles stumbled awkwardly around defense control until Grant’s wingman Cubby Livingston confirmed the sighting.
Two Angels-one flying in hot pursuit of the other were locked in mortal combat. That was confirmed later by radar operators who watched the two blips on the screen perform a fantastic dogfight. The blips engaged again and again at incredible speeds and altitudes. The pilots reported flying through shockwaves and seeing blasts of fire. Then one of the targets disappeared from the radar. The Prime later watched tapes of the fight on monitors in his office.
Then the pursuing Angel engaged the jetfighters.
After one pass there was nothing on the radar. Half the Westprime Air Defense was in the air minutes later.
Rescue and fire crews were dispatched toward columns of thick black smoke. The F-45’s were scattered over a couple miles of blackened terrain. They found Grant writhing in the remains of his parachute. He was severed across the legs and one arm. The wounds were cauterized. He reported that the Angel had taken his jet out with one chop of a flaming sword. He would survive but the Prime didn’t think there was much point. The sword didn’t just remove his legs. The wingman’s body was never recovered.
It was supposed that the blip that vanished had somehow slipped under the radar but the Prime saw another possibility. He ordered up one of his personal helicopters and gave its navigator the information regarding the unidentified aircraft’s last location. The navigator set up a search grid in an area fifty miles from the City over which the second blip had flown before disappearing.
They reached the location in less than twenty minutes. For aircrew, the Prime had chosen his own pilot, navigator and two Operatives he kept as constant bodyguards. They all died later in an unavoidable and catastrophic accident. The Prime chuckled, remembering. You’ve got to be careful around jet fuel.
When the pilot saw a naked man draped over the low branches of a scorched and smoking cedar tree, the Prime ordered the helicopter to land. He remembered the scene very well. The injured man had a great mane of dark brown hair. His features were European, definitely European. He was without apparent injury-a masterpiece of muscle and sinew-a beauty so profound the Prime immediately recognized its supernatural underpinnings. But he wasn’t breathing.
The Prime ordered the corpse taken to the Tower for dissection. The Tower was under construction then, and his offices were rising with it. On the way back to the City-the corpse took a breath, and showed signs of returning to life. It was brought in through one of the Authority safe houses on Zero because the Prime didn’t want competing interests to know about his discovery. The creature did not regain consciousness for three years.
A good thing too, the Prime remembered, since it had taken his Demon Ally that long to teach the incantations that would keep the thing captive. They installed its prison at the base of the Tower and there it stayed for decades-probably going mad in isolation.