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  Vox groaned and pawed at his mouth. His lip was pulped and bleeding and he stared at the red smear on the back of his hand. Despite Toys’s warning, Vox growled, “If you want all of it then take it and fuck you. The bank codes are in—”

  “I have the bank codes,” snarled Toys, “but I don’t want your sodding money. Piss on you and every penny of it. Keep it and choke on it.”

  Vox turned his head, ignoring the presence of the gun, and he glared up at Toys. “Then what do you fucking want?” When Toys did not speak, Vox chuckled. “Well goddamn,” he said wonderingly, “I can see it in your eyes, boy, you really have lost your fucking mind and found Jesus. Ho-lee shit. I thought it was a scam. I thought you were running some kind of schuck, or maybe going through some kind of spring cleaning of the soul. Shit, I thought it was a frigging phase and—”

  “A ‘phase’?” echoed Toys softly.

  “Of course,” snapped Vox, “and that’s what it damn well is. You’re feeling some dumbass Catholic guilt because I filled your head with a bunch of bullshit about Judas last year when I was trying to get you away from that dickhead Gault. There was a point to all that, kiddo, and I thought you understood it. What, did you think I was proselytizing? I was trying to get you to understand about necessary sacrifice and how sometimes we all have to make a hard choice. Was I wrong about you? Are you too fucking stupid to understand that?”

  “No,” murmured Toys, “I understood you perfectly.”

  He cocked the hammer of the pistol, and it was the loudest sound Vox ever heard.

  “Listen to me, Hugo,” Toys said, so very softly. “Try to understand. Try, for once, to listen objectively. Don’t filter it through your own agenda. Just this once. Can you do that?”

  Vox cleared his throat. His face and back hurt. The food was trickling down inside his clothes. “Yeah, sure, kiddo. Say your piece.”

  Toys leaned so close that his voice was a hot breeze on Vox’s ear. “You lied to me, Hugo.”

  “Fuck it, kid, I lie to every—”

  “Shhhh. Don’t say anything. Just listen.” The barrel of the gun slid along the line of Vox’s cheek. “I never wanted your money. You thought I did because that’s all you’re capable of thinking. I almost pity you. Even Sebastian wasn’t like that. At least he could love something. Amirah … your mother. Sebastian loved her. But you, Hugo? You don’t love anything. I doubt you ever have.”

  Vox started to say something, to protest that statement, but Toys leaned toward him, forehead to forehead, the pistol now touching the point of Vox’s chin.

  “Please,” begged Toys, “please don’t say anything. Don’t say that you love me. I’ve heard that. You said it a thousand times. That you love me like a son. Don’t let me hear you say those words. I can do more than kill you. I will if you say that.”

  Vox said nothing.

  “I’m not like you, Hugo. I’m not like Sebastian, either. I’m not strong in the same way … but I’m not weak in the same way, either. I didn’t know that before. I thought I was weak, I thought I was broken. A broken toy. Quaint, I know. Corny. But it isn’t the way things are, and I didn’t know that until I read the files. I could have forgiven you about the money. After all, it’s not even your money to give. It’s all stolen, it’s all blood money, and I have enough blood on my hands as it is. I could have forgiven you about Upier 531. A gene therapy that could cure your cancer? Something that could make you live for years? Maybe forever? That’s wonderful, Hugo. That’s magic, even if it’s unproven. I could forgive any risk you’d take to change that.”

  Tears welled in Toys’s eyes and fell on Vox’s cheek.

  “But the price you were willing to pay. Good Christ, Hugo. All those people? What is it with you? What was it with Sebastian and the Seven Kings? Are people unreal to you? Do you think they’re simply bit-part players in your personal drama? No—don’t say anything. I know the answer. That’s exactly what you, and what people like you, think. No one else is real, no one else matters. Only you, your power, your profit, and whatever pieces of the world you can steal.”

  He sniffed, but the tears still fell. Vox was frozen to stillness.

  “Hugo … you think that I’m like a son to you. Or, you thought so. When you found out you were dying I was the only way for you to become immortal. Fathers do that with their sons. That’s what you thought you were going to leave behind. Me—a clone of you, someone to carry on the things you’ve done your whole life. More murders, more plots and plans. More chaos. When you looked at me, that’s what you saw.”

  Toys pressed the pistol harder against Vox’s chin.

  “How could you hate anyone so much that you would want them to be like you?”

  A last tear rolled from Toys’s eye and fell, striking Vox on the lips.

  Toys straightened and stepped back, his arm out, gun pointed, the barrel trembling but only slightly.

  “You are a monster, Hugo,” murmured Toys. “I’m not.”

  Vox sat up and wiped away the salty tear on his lips. He sneered at Toys. “Yeah? Then what the fuck are you?”

  The answer was there in the young man’s eyes for Vox to read. The hand holding the pistol stopped trembling, the black eye of the barrel stared without pity.

  Then Toys dropped the pistol onto the tile floor.

  “I’m damned,” he said.

  Without another word, he turned and walked through the house and out the front door.

  * * *

  Vox refilled his glass and drank.

  He stared at the bank account log-in on the screen, seeing a smeared version of it through the hot tears in his eyes.

  Beneath his skin he could feel the changes, feel the tissues moving and adapting.

  He drank the Scotch.

  “Fuck you,” he said aloud.

  And reached for the bottle.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Hangar

  Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

  June 15, 1:30 a.m. EST

  The president of the United States was ten feet tall.

  Even seated behind his desk in the Oval Office he was a giant, towering over Mr. Church, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back. The giant plasma screen in the Hangar conference room had flawless fidelity and except for the disparate scale, the president might have been there in the room.

  “I wish I had more encouraging news, Mr. President,” said Church. “However, we are still assessing the intelligence brought to us by Captain Ledger.”

  “I have to admit that I’m disappointed. I expected more. I expected to hear that you’d at least confirmed the location of all seven of the devices.”

  “When I learn to perform actual magic, Mr. President, I will make sure you receive the memo.”

  The president said nothing. With anyone else from the president of Russia to his own chief of staff he would have fired back a retort and fried them. Instead, he cleared his throat.

  After a moment, Church said, “We have, in fact, established probable locations on four of the devices. There is a high probability that the one in Rasouli’s photo is located in or near the Aghajari oil refinery in Iran. There is a slightly lower but still actionable probability that the other three are at the Beiji oil refinery in Iraq, the Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia, and the Toot oil field in Pakistan. DMS teams are en route to those locations. When and if we get locations on the other three I want to do a coordinated and simultaneous soft infiltration of all seven. We should get the best JSOC teams in the air.”

  The Joint Special Operations Command included many of the nation’s elite teams, including Delta and the SEALs.

  “What about the device here in the States?”

  “We need to remain at our highest state of readiness without doing anything that sends a signal. Not to our allies, not to our enemies, and not to the world press. At this point we don’t know if there is a device on U.S. soil, and if there is we have no idea where it might be. It could be a red herring, or it could be real, we don’t k
now. So far there are no hints on Rasouli’s drive beyond a possibility of our unknown enemies targeting oil fields.”

  “We have a lot of oil fields, Deacon.”

  “I am all too aware of that, Mr. President.”

  The president sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. “I want to hang Vox’s head on the Capitol building spire.”

  “Get in line,” said Church dryly. “But as much as we both want to see that happen, we don’t know if Vox is our enemy in this particular game.”

  “He steered Rasouli toward Ledger.”

  “Yes, which means that our only source of information about a potentially catastrophic situation came about because of that.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting that Vox has had a change of heart and now wants to help us avoid an act of terrorism. You couldn’t sell that on a soap opera.”

  “I believe you know my take on Hugo’s patriotism.”

  “Then what is his role in this?”

  “He is a trickster and manipulator. If he delivered a workable cure for cancer I would look for an angle. If he’s helping us then he has a way to profit from that.”

  “Enemy of my enemy?” suggested the president. Church shrugged.

  “Unknown. Now that we know the scope of his treachery as the head of the Seven Kings, we know that he has more friends in the Middle East than he has here. Iran would be in that family.”

  “So … he could be helping Rasouli,” ventured the president. “If this is a real threat to Iran’s oil fields, then Vox could be using us to help an ally.”

  “Yes. That’s likely, but it doesn’t mean that it’s Hugo’s only motive.”

  “I’m putting a lot of trust in you and MindReader, Deacon. We have to find those nukes. We can’t allow a single device to detonate.”

  “We may not have a choice, Mr. President. I believe that it would be prudent to begin working on how to manage a crisis based on a variety of worst-case scenarios.”

  “I just had that conversation with State. No matter where a bomb goes off it creates a different political nightmare. At this point it’s impossible to determine which worst-case scenario is actually the worst. On one side there’s the risk to civilian populations, on another the risk of contamination to the oil fields is considerable. And the political fallout, pun intended, could cripple us in the region.”

  “I wish Captain Ledger had been able to record that conversation. We’d be able to haul Iran before NATO and the world and hang them out to dry for consorting with Vox. They would have to back down on their nuclear program—”

  “Which would be nice,” interrupted Church, “but it would still leave us with seven possible nukes in place, and no one to blame.”

  “We can blame Vox and the Seven Kings.”

  “We could,” said Church dubiously, “but we would be guessing. That might sharpen focus or distract it entirely. Guesswork doesn’t put our true enemy in the crosshairs.”

  The president looked at his watch. “I’m heading to the Situation Room now. We’ll conference you in. Two minutes.”

  “I’ll be here,” said Church.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Kingdom of Shadows

  Beneath the Sands

  June 15, 10:01 a.m.

  The King of Thorns stretched out a pale hand to accept the cell phone offered by his fourth son. Grigor’s fingernails, thick and dark, curled around the slender phone, trapping it in his palm like a tiny mouse caught by a spider. He was familiar with phones, but he did not care for them. All they possessed was sound. No smell, no taste. With a small sneer of distaste he put the phone to his ear.

  “Yes.”

  “Grigor,” said Charles LaRoque, “Your knight failed.”

  “Failed?”

  “Yes, and I am very disappointed,” said LaRoque in a waspish tone. “I was led to believe that the knights were more capable than this. A simple hit on a single target. Perhaps I should have hired someone who understands his profession.”

  Grigor’s fingers tightened on the phone. Cracks jagged their way through the plastic cover.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Who cares how it happened? It happened. He failed. You failed, Grigor, because you chose the knight. You chose someone who apparently could not complete a simple mission, and now we have a potentially catastrophic situation. His body is still at the target site.”

  “I—” began Grigor, but the Scriptor cut him off.

  “Don’t humiliate yourself with excuses, Grigor. Clean it up and complete the assignment. Do not disappoint me again, I’m warning you.”

  The line went dead and Grigor lowered the phone from his ear. He regarded it with hooded eyes as if by looking at the device he could see the weak, doughy face of the new Scriptor. His white fingers curled around the phone until they formed a fist. There was a screech of protesting metal and plastic, and then Grigor opened his hand to let the mangled pieces fall.

  Silence washed through the darkness for several moments.

  “Nothing ever changes, does it?” asked Hugo Vox.

  Grigor turned. Vox stood at the foot of the dais, a glass of Scotch in his hand. In the year since he had first met the former King of Fear, Vox had dwindled from a bombastic fat man to a ghost. His flesh was as loose as his clothes, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  “You heard everything?”

  Vox nodded. “Charlie’s old man treated you like dog shit and so did his grandfather. How the fuck did you put up with it this long?”

  A grunt was Grigor’s only reply.

  “Are you going to do what LaRoque wants?” asked Vox.

  “Yes,” said Grigor.

  The American nodded. “Because you want to, not because you have to, though. Am I right?”

  Grigor gave that a single nod.

  “Good,” said the American. “That works for us.”

  Grigor made a slight gesture and one of his aides came hurrying out of the shadows. Grigor spoke to him in the language of the Red Order—a language Vox had learned well enough over the last year to catch the gist of Grigor’s orders. The aide bowed and scuttled away.

  “It will be so delicious to hang him by the heels and let his blood rain down. I would not even drink it. I would let it pool upon the ground and then piss in it.”

  “I like the way you think,” said Vox, “but we need him alive for a little while longer. Him and Rasouli.”

  “Why? All we need now are the codes.”

  He gestured to a small device that lay on a brass table beside his throne. It was a converted satellite phone that had been rebuilt with Vox’s own scrambler technology.

  “Everything’s in motion, Grigor,” assured Vox. “A little more patience, a couple of tweaks, and then you can start your revolution and crack the pillars of heaven.”

  The King of Thorns glared with red hatred into the shadows. “I wonder sometimes if I can trust you, Hugo.”

  “You can definitely—” Vox suddenly doubled over as a ferocious coughing fit tore through him. He spat out the whiskey and reeled, catching himself on a stone wall as the coughs racked his wasted frame. The coughing fit lasted a whole minute during which Grigor did nothing except observe with a faint smile of amusement on his lips.

  Vox tore a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his mouth as the last deep coughs shook him. When he removed it the center of the cloth was stained with a few drops of blood. The scent of it perfumed the air.

  “God,” he wheezed. “Goddamn it…”

  Grigor traced the contours of his own mouth with the tip of a black fingernail.

  “What does it feel like to be so weak? To be sick?”

  Vox glared up at him from beneath knitted brows. “Fuck you.”

  The King of Thorns laughed.

  “You’d better step up the goddamn treatments,” rasped Vox, “because that scrambler isn’t worth shit without the access code, and without that scrambler you and your bloodsucking freak show of a race are going to
remain slaves for the rest of time. So wipe that shit-eating smile off your face and find out where that asshole Dr. Hasbrouck is. I need my shots.”

  The smile on Grigor’s face faded only a little as the echoes of Vox’s words bounced off the cold stone walls of the caverns. “The doctor says that you’d never survive the last round of treatments.”

  “You better pray he’s wrong, Grigor.” Vox spat onto the floor. The sputum was dark with blood. “If I die then all your dreams die with me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Golden Oasis Hotel

  Tehran, Iran

  June 15, 10:02 a.m.

  Ghost and I made it down to the hotel’s basement laundry without being seen by anyone. I opened the back door and listened for commotion or sirens. There were none. I was right—no one had heard the fight and the shot was either silenced or fired from a great distance. It felt a little weird to me, even after everything I’ve done, that such a traumatic and dramatic moment could go unnoticed by people a couple of floors away. It makes you wonder about all of the ghastly things that happen every day all around us.

  There were so many things about what had just occurred that I didn’t know where to begin thinking about them. No—that wasn’t true. The goon with the fangs knew about the flash drive, and he seemed pretty damned stunned when I mentioned the nukes. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Did it mean that he knew what was on the flash drive but didn’t think either Rasouli had told me or that I’d had a chance to check the drive’s contents? Or was the nuke thing a big surprise to him?

  Or did I not yet know enough to ask myself the right question?

  Yes, muttered the Cop in my head.

  The Warrior was still freaked out about the goon with the fangs. When you spend most of your life training in martial arts, military technique, and the specialized skills of special ops as I have, you come to accept that combat in all of its forms is a science. It’s largely mathematical. If you hit someone in a specific part of the body at a precise angle and with sufficient force there is a predictable response, give or take some necessary variables. The same applies for a wide range of things, from lifting a barbell full of weights to shooting a pistol at a target. For some of this stuff there are thousands of years of trial and error as well as data collection to support what we know. Not what we guess but what we know. When you separate it all from sports or esoteric pursuits, combat is a science. I’ve dedicated my life to that science; if I have a church then that’s it.