Demon Evolution (20 page)

She looked genuinely stunned. “That’s not
possible…I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t really care what you believe. You
will believe it soon enough, once we take you back to headquarters.
Dionysus can tell you himself if you want. He’s the one who
authorized this mission. If you’re lucky, he’ll be merciful. If it
were up to me, the family of the traitor would be executed, too.”
Lucas spat out these last words in disgust.

Helena went to say something, or maybe ask
another question, but Lucas beat her to it. “Okay, Cass. Now you
can shut her up.” A gleam in her eye, Cassandra clamped her hands
together and crashed them down on the back of Helena’s head, like a
sledge hammer. She slumped to the ground, unmoving.

Theodore tried to rise to his feet, but Crab,
with lightning quickness, bludgeoned him in the temple with his
blaster. The only human in the room rolled twice, and then lay
still; a trickle of blood dribbled from his head and began pooling
on the floor.

Peter, still sitting on the couch, hugged his
knees, his eyes wide with terror. Lucas stood over him. “Don’t
worry, kid. We won’t hurt you, so long as you don’t do anything
stupid.” With a wave of his arm, he motioned for his team to exit
the house. They dragged the three prisoners with them.

Once airborne, Lucas announced for his
audience: “Mission successful. Gabriel Knight’s entire family has
been taken into custody. We hope you enjoyed the broadcast. Over
and out.” Turning off his radio, Lucas breathed in a deep breath of
fresh, night air.
If you wiggle a big enough worm, the fish will
come
, he thought to himself. And he would take great pleasure
in personally filleting Gabriel Knight.

“W
ell done,
Dionysus. You did it.” It was Michael who spoke. Dionysus could
tell that his right hand man meant it. He was never really a
suspect, but wanted to keep him in the dark just long enough to
completely rule him out. Dionysus sighed in satisfaction. He
had
done it. Tricked the traitor, tricked the demons. Now,
the trap could finally be set bring Gabriel, and then the girl,
back under their control. But first, he had a mole to catch.

“Thank you, Michael.” Looking around the
room, he asked, “Do you all share Michael’s sentiment? That it was
a job well done? I know at least one of you is not too happy with
the success—bitterly disappointed even. I know at least one of you
is trembling inside, sweating from fear of being discovered,
kicking yourself for being so careless.”

Beneath his white robe, Andrew
was
trembling and he could surely feel the sweat beginning to meander
from under his arms and knees. Trying to keep his face steady, he
felt like his mouth was contorted unnaturally and that one look
from Dionysus would pierce his soul and leave his secrets bare,
revealing his treachery. When Dionysus walked past him lazily, he
stopped breathing until the shadow had moved on.

Dionysus continued moving around the table.
“Duck, duck, duck,” he said soothingly, tapping each Archangel on
the head gently. “Goose!” he said suddenly, whacking Johanna on the
back of her head.

“You think I’m the mole?” She turned her head
to glare at him. I have been one of the biggest advocates of The
Plan from day one. I may not always agree with your methods, but I
have always shared your vision.”

“I don’t know…,” Dionysus mused. “You were
pretty quick to demand an explanation for my actions.”

“I don’t like being held prisoner…and I don’t
like surprises.”

Dionysus considered himself a non-machine
version of a lie detector and, in this case, he didn’t sense a
falsehood. Maybe she wasn’t his mole.

Andrew’s breathing had become shallow, coming
and going in short, ragged intervals. He tried to mimic the
supremely-confident Michael’s position and facial expression—hands
folded casually, he looked completely relaxed, radiating innocence
from his entire being. Probably because he was. Andrew felt a bead
of sweat dribble from his hairline to his eyebrow. Thankfully, it
was on the side of his face that Dionysus couldn’t see from where
he stood.

Dionysus moved on from Johanna. Next to her
was Sarah. “Hmmm, I’ve noticed that you always seem to just agree
with the popular position, Sarah. That would seem like pretty good
cover for a mole, eh? Agree with the majority and then leak our
decisions to the enemy, never drawing attention to yourself.”

“If you are looking for me to defend myself,
I won’t. I’ve been true to this cause since I was born,” Sarah
said.

Again, the lie detector came up empty.
Dionysus had truly believed that the mole was likely to be Johanna
or Sarah, or maybe both of them, so for a moment he didn’t know how
to proceed. Then he remembered the trick up his sleeve: the proof
he had asked his technicians to gather; the damning evidence that
would smoke out the nasty mole.

“Bring in the report,” he ordered, to no one
in particular. Someone was apparently listening and heard him,
because the locked door clicked open and a short, bald angel
entered the room, squeezing through the circle of hefty
guardsmen.

“I have it here, sir,” he said, handing
Dionysus a bound sheaf of papers.

“Thank you. That will be all.” As quickly as
he had appeared, the bald man exited and the doors were resealed.
Sifting the pages of the report through his fingers, Dionysus said,
“Over the last week I have had the technicians focused on one task,
and one task alone: monitoring any communications in and out of
this mountain. While most communications are preauthorized, we have
also noticed numerous rogue transmissions. Tracking and pinpointing
these transmissions is a difficult business, but our technicians
developed an approach that they believe has detected at least 50
percent of these rogue comms. Some they have been able to track to
the destination, others from the source, and in a few cases they
have even managed to record and transcribe the text.

“In my hands, I have the full report, which I
believe will be quite interesting for all of you in this room. This
is hot off the press, so even I have not had the pleasure of
reading it yet. Let’s open it, shall we?”

If Andrew was scared before, he was terrified
now. He was forced to shove his hands under the table when they
began shaking uncontrollably. As his heart raced and the sweat
continued to bead on his skin, he desperately tried to think of a
way to escape. Fight his way out? With the remainder of the
Archangels being loyal to Dionysus, he wouldn’t stand a chance,
even if he could break through the guards. Lie his way out? He was
barely holding it together and was never a very good liar anyway.
The only reason he made it this far was because Dionysus never
suspected a thing. Suicide? That was a viable solution. He had his
light sword under his robe. At least he could die with dignity,
rather than sustaining the torture and mockery that Dionysus would
surely pour upon his head. His hands no longer shaking, he fingered
the sword under the table.

Dionysus said, “First page: blah, blah, blah,
statistics and such, nothing specific enough to condemn anyone.
Second page: more of the same, skip. Third page. Ahh, now here’s
something interesting: a single call was made at 3:00 this very
morning. Who could possibly need to make a call at such an early
hour? Let’s read on.”