Age of X01 - Gameboard of the Gods (37 page)

“My mother wanted you to have this,” the girl said shyly, setting the tray on a small table. “She’s finishing up some business but will be ready to talk soon.”

Justin vaguely remembered a name. “Persia?”

She flushed with pleasure. “Yes.” To Mae, Persia said, “Do you need help?”

Mae glanced at the tray, face cold. “No. I’ll do it myself.”

Persia gave a small nod of compliance and moved toward the door. “Thank you,” said Justin, not entirely sure how to interact with this serious-eyed woman-child. She nodded again and disappeared.

Mae picked up the bottle Persia had left, uncapped it, and sniffed. Seeming satisfied with what she found, she began cleaning and wrapping the cuts on her arms with military efficiency. When she finished the ones she could reach, she turned around and peeled off her tank top, glancing at Justin over her shoulder. “Will you help me?”

Not even he could find that sexy, though he was charmed at her modesty, considering everything she’d done. His efforts were clumsier than hers, and he cringed when he applied the antiseptic to the cuts caused by the barbed wire. For her part, she didn’t even flinch.

“Are you going to finally tell me about Callista?” Mae asked.

“She’s the one who used to work with Golden Arrow.” He paused to tape down some gauze. “She’s apparently traded employers, though. Or,
well…just morphed her goddess a little. Amarantha’s kind of a combined goddess, drawing mostly from Artemis and Hecate, the last I knew. It’s not that out there, since the goddesses have some overlap. In the ancient world, they got blurred together a lot, and some viewed them as faces of a triple goddess: virgin, mother, crone. I guess the virgin thing—Artemis—wasn’t working for her.” That must have been what Raoul meant about Nadia’s changing allegiances. She’d left her Celtic moon goddess for this Greek one and pooled resources with Callista.

He finished his first aid handiwork. Mae donned her tank top and overshirt again before turning to face him. “How can a goddess be all those things? Or a merging of multiple ones?”

“It’s a common thing in religions. Deities are all-encompassing.”

He didn’t quite know how else to articulate it, and she obviously didn’t follow. Gemmans who didn’t make careers of religious history had very two-dimensional views of gods and goddesses.

“You seemed surprised by all of this,” said Mae.

“The knife fight? Yeah, that was definitely a surprise.” Bringing it up made him think of the elephant in the room, the topic Mae was pointedly avoiding: the part where she’d gone on a superhuman rampage. Ignoring it for now was fine with him, because he didn’t really know what to say either.

She shook her head. “I mean the religious developments. Even I know this group isn’t licensed, and there’s no way they fall under the law for acceptable religious practices. Even the secular practices don’t. You’re going to report this, right?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “We’ll see.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief, but her protests were interrupted as the door opened again. Persia returned with two armed guards. “My mother will see you now—just Dr. March.”

Mae strode across the room in seconds. “No. No way is he going without me.”

Persia turned nervous, but a stone-faced guard took over. “Callista’s orders. He goes alone.” He tightened his grip on his gun, and Justin
could tell from Mae’s face that she was already planning how to disarm him or pull her own gun.

“Let me go,” Justin told her. He’d seen too many guns today and didn’t want a shoot-out. “Everything’s okay.”

“Going off with unlicensed zealots with illegal guns?” she asked incredulously. “Nothing about that is okay.”

The guards’ faces darkened. Persia stepped forward. “I swear, nothing will happen to him. My mother just wants to talk.”

“Please,” said Justin, meeting Mae’s eyes. “Trust me on this. Remember—we’re tracked. And you’ve got your ego too if I don’t come back.”

Mae said nothing for several tense moments. Finally: “Fine. If he’s not back in an hour, I tear this place down around you.”

The guards looked skeptical, but they stayed outside the door when Persia led him away. She took him to the far side of the house, to double doors that opened into a bedroom. Callista sat at a vanity, clad in a long silk robe, brushing her hair in the mirror. She glanced up at their approach. “Thank you, dear. You can go.” Persia retreated, closing the doors behind her.

Justin stood there waiting as Callista finished her hair and then rose gracefully to her feet, managing to do it in a way that let the robe make the most of her body. “Always drama with you,” he said as she walked over to him. “But I guess that’s part of the job.”

She brushed her lips against his cheek. “Lovely to see you again. Shall we talk?”

“Here?” he asked.

“I didn’t think you’d mind, but if you’ve gone chaste on me, we can go outside.” She glided over to a set of glass doors and stepped out into the warm night. Justin followed, finding a table already set with candles and wine on a garden terrace. More drama.

Callista poured him a glass without asking and then leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs so that the robe slipped off of one of them. She gazed up at the starry night and then looked back at him with a smile. “Are you here to arrest me? How did you even find me?”

“Luck, more than anything else.” He took a drink of the wine, some kind of deep red that Dominic could’ve learned a lot from. “I got a tip after paying your former associate a visit. I actually came here for Nadia, though you were the one I ultimately wanted.”

“So flattering. How is Mr. Arrow these days?”

“Awaiting trial. He tried to drug servants of the government.”

Callista’s lips curled in disdain. “He was always so stupid. Using tricks instead of the discipline needed to get real power. It’s half the reason I left.”

“That, and it’s easier to gather followers in unregulated borderlands?”

“It’s becoming more and more regulated every day,” she said. “Bit by bit, the RUNA’s blanket of uniformity is enveloping this place.”

Justin wasn’t fooled. “Don’t act like that’s a bad thing. You grew up in civilization. You know it’s better than having a bunch of armed nutjobs running around, no matter how gullible they are.”

“Speaking of armed nutjobs…” Callista’s expression of easy charm transformed, making her the hard-edged leader who had ordered around Menari’s people. “What the hell were you thinking bringing her here?”

“Why do you keep saying that? I didn’t bring her to you. We were captured.”

Callista traced the edge of her wineglass, gazing into its depths by the candlelight. “I never thought I’d see the day someone like you was traveling with someone like her. Of course, from what I can tell, a lot’s changed with you.”

“Traveling with a prætorian’s not that weird,” he countered. “Especially in light of today’s events.”

Callista jerked her head up. “She’s a prætorian?”

“Isn’t that what you’re talking about? How else do you think she did what she did?”

“You know how she did what she did! She’s an undisciplined and uninitiated elect,” she snarled. No more flirtation now. “Chosen by someone powerful from the looks of it. It was a wonder the rest of them couldn’t see the glamour—and don’t act like you couldn’t. You’ve got a
lot more control since the last time I saw you. I didn’t actually think you’d embrace your calling.”

“I haven’t,” he said firmly.

Callista’s face said she didn’t believe that. “What god follows her?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s not my concern.”

“It should be! A prætorian elected by something that strong? That kind of combination is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.”

Justin decided it probably wasn’t a good time to bring up Mae’s nigh-perfect genes.

“She needs to deal with whatever’s following her,” continued Callista. “She needs to either embrace it and get some control or else get rid of it.”

“I don’t even think she knows it’s there,” he said.

“Well, she should. You should enlighten her.” She seemed to calm down a little and poured more wine for both of them. “It’s fitting that you’ve found this path, you know. There’s no better advocate than someone who used to persecute believers. Do you know the Christian story of Paul?”

“Of course I do. And don’t use the past tense. I still ‘persecute’ believers.”

“You let me off,” she said softly. “And that was before I slept with you.”

He said nothing right away. Neither of those past actions had been smart. “You were the first person I ever saw who…” Even now, he couldn’t give voice to it. It was something he’d kept buried inside all these long years, the secret he’d told no one. The secret that could have worse consequences than what he’d already faced.

“Who showed proof of the supernatural?” Callista said.

“I’d lose my job for that,” he said. “Or worse.”

“Your secret’s safe with me. I could tell then you had the signs of an elect. The potential for power wreathed you. But you had no god then. Who do you serve?”

“I don’t serve anyone, Internal Security aside.”

“But you’ve got something with you,” she insisted. “It isn’t blatantly out of control like hers, but I can sense it.”

“It’s unwanted,” he said.

That hurts,
said Horatio.

“And I don’t know who,” Justin added. “As I’m often told, gods don’t like to give up their names.”

Callista reached across the table and put her hand over his. “I’d be happy to help you explore…a number of things.”

He smiled but didn’t take back his hand. “Thanks, but—”

“Callista!” A man came frantically tearing out of her bedroom door. “Juan and Eduardo are unconscious, and the castal woman’s gone!”

“What?” Callista jumped to her feet. “Get the others and find out where—”

“Relax,” came a smooth voice from the darkness. “I’m right here.”

Mae strolled out of the shadows of the nearby trees, a gun in her hand and displaying a casualness that made Justin despondently think she’d been at ease there for a while. And, judging from the look on her face, she’d also overheard a number of things she shouldn’t have.

Well,
said Horatio optimistically.
It had to happen sooner or later.

CHAPTER 21

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

“My job’s to protect him,” Mae told Callista in a voice that chilled the warm night. “Admittedly, I didn’t really realize what kind of danger he was in.”

Justin had the grace to look embarrassed, but Mae wasn’t sure exactly what part of the madness she’d just heard was responsible for it. It could’ve been anything from the part where he had slept with a cult leader to him admitting he was a believer in the supernatural. For now, she couldn’t spare the mental energy to process it all, not when Callista’s guard held a gun and others were coming.

“I thought we were here to track down a ritual murderer,” added Mae.

That actually seemed to startle Callista. She turned to Justin. “What?”

He sighed and apparently decided to just make the best of the mess he was in. “Call off your dogs and let Mae join us. Secrecy’s blown, and she already knows what I’ve come to talk to you about.”

Callista gave Mae a long, considering look. “If she puts away the gun.”

Mae glanced at the guard. “Him first.”

Callista gave a small nod, and he lowered his weapon. Several moments later, Mae followed suit. Callista dismissed her reluctant guard and beckoned Mae over to sit.

“I can get you a glass.” Despite the offer, Callista didn’t sound nearly as hospitable as she had for Justin. Had Justin really slept with her? Had he liked it? Mae refused to speculate.

“No thanks.”

Callista shrugged. “Suit yourself. Now what’s this about murders?”

Justin looked like he wanted to sink into the ground—as well he should have—but recovered himself enough to begin explaining the story. He told Callista everything.
Everything.
Even the part about the video they weren’t supposed to talk about. Whatever regard Mae had developed for Justin began to crumble away as he spilled secrets to this zealot-turned-lover.

When he finished, Callista took her time to process his words. “So. You’ve come to me because you think I might know something about a moon deity whose followers wield silver daggers.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Or maybe you think I serve one.”

“Probably not,” he said. Mae wondered if he’d used his brilliant deductive skills to come to that conclusion or was simply too blinded by her.

Callista chuckled, though there was no amusement in her eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And no, I don’t know about this. I have no reason to kill patricians.” Her eyes rested meaningfully on Mae as she said that. “I don’t know of any other group who’d do something like this either…but I’d be very interested in finding out more. There’s power in blood. You could be dealing with a very, very strong deity.”

“So you favor a cult over a vengeful geneticist?” he asked.

“Why are they mutually exclusive? I wouldn’t mind a few genetically perfect followers. The gods are choosing their elect. You think they choose randomly? There’s a reason you were chosen. Both of you,” Callista added reluctantly.