Faith Defiled (Gray Spear Society Book 14) (42 page)

Iris looked over at Laurence. He didn't know what she had seen, and it was probably better that way. He was a loyal assistant and far from cowardly, but he was smart enough to realize staying with her could be suicidal. The monsters were coming for her.

The Boeing 717 parked in front of her, but the engines continued to run. Iris and Laurence stayed far away from the huge jet intakes. Airport workers rushed a staircase into place, and Iris began to climb even before the wheels were locked. She reached the hatch just as it opened.

Her pilot looked out. "Where to, ma'am?"

"Fly west until we're clear of any radar," Iris said. "Then turn south. We're going to Rio de Janeiro, but don't take the direct route. Avoid population centers. We don't want to be tracked by anybody."

"Yes, ma'am. I understand."

* * *

Hanley was buzzing through the parking lots around San Francisco Airport at six hundred miles per hour. His body was the size of a gnat, so no civilians noticed him as he zipped past at nearly the speed of sound.

He was looking for a high-end black Mercedes sports car. He had already found a few, but none of them had turned out to be the right one.

Hanley was passing through the lot near the executive terminal when he spotted a McLaren that looked promising. He instantly popped to the tiny Pacific island where Walfred was being kept, grabbed his hand, and brought him to the car. Donning the appearance of a normal human, Hanley stood beside Walfred in front of the car.

"Is that it?" Hanley pointed.

Walfred was still recovering from teleportation. Hanley waited impatiently for him to gather his wits.

Finally, Walfred nodded. "I think so. It looks right."

Come here,
Hanley thought. Ipo and Katie got the message and appeared beside him. After realizing where they were, they also switched to a normal appearance. Ipo was once again a big, beefy Hawaiian with his hair in a top knot. Katie had the same light-olive skin and blue eyes. Hanley noticed she was distinctly skinnier than she had been as a human, and he smiled at her vanity.
Some habits are hard to break,
he thought.

Katie went forward to examine the car.

She touched a smudge on the hood. "Pine tree sap." She knelt down and rubbed the hubcap. "Pollen. It could've been in the mountains. And something else..." She closed her eyes.

"What?" Hanley said.

"I see a face. Black, gently curled hair and a stylish mustache. His name is Grupo. The Goddess is going to meet him."

"Huh? How do you know that?"

Katie opened her eyes and turned to him. "I just do. Wesley told me the aperture might give me psychic powers, and it looks like he was right."

"That's very convenient. What else can you tell us about Grupo?"

"Nothing." She shrugged. "A name and a face is all I got."

"So the convenience has limits." Hanley looked around. "Let's talk to air traffic control and find out what planes have taken off recently. We'll pretend to be FBI agents."

"What if they want to see our badges?"

He focused on his hand. It required some mental gymnastics, but he found he could extend his fingertips and flatten them into the shape of a card. It took a little more effort to form the right colors and words on the surface.

He showed Katie the badge. "Good enough?"

"Cool," she said. "I didn't know we could do that."

"It's all a matter of being in the right frame of mind. Let's go."

* * *

Yang was watching Jia sing a lullaby to Olivia. The song was in Chinese, and Olivia probably couldn't understand a word, but the music was doing its job. The little girl's eyes were gradually closing. She was lying in one of several big beds in the enormous hotel suite, and it made her look tiny.

Yang still loved both of them even though they were made of flesh and he wasn't. If anything, his transformation had purified his feelings. He understood the profound importance of love and why it should never be denied. His human neuroses were gone.

Jia turned off the light and padded out of the bedroom. When she saw Yang standing at the door, she jumped in surprise.

"I didn't know you were there," she whispered.

She and Yang stepped out of the bedroom, and he closed the door.

"We need to talk," he said.

"Yes. You can start by explaining how you pop in and out like that. Is that a gift you got in Chicago? It's extremely impressive. And what happened to the men who were attacking us? Are they dead?"

He looked around the luxurious hotel suite. The witches were in another room performing some kind of ritual, so Yang and Jia had some privacy.

"Before I answer you," he said, "promise me you won't scream."

"Why would I scream?"

"Just promise."

"OK," she said. "I promise."

Until now, Yang had only showed her his original human form. He switched to his preferred representation, a creature made of yellow crystals and white flame. The form expressed some inner truth, although he couldn't explain it in words. It just seemed to fit his soul.

Jia stifled a scream.

"I'm not human anymore," he said. "I'm an immortal entity with powers you can't comprehend. All the surviving
legionnaires
are like me now."

"Surviving?"

"Many died."

"What about Ipo, Katie, and Hanley?" Jia said anxiously.

"They're fine. They're chasing down the Goddess as we speak."

Emotions played across her face. She was obviously having a hard time dealing with the revelation.

Yang guided her to one of the couches, and they sat down. The couch had purple satin upholstery, but the softness didn't give him much pleasure. He no longer experienced human sensations.

"The Lady of the Society, Marina, ordered me to protect Olivia," he said. "I expect that will be a permanent assignment. The Lady also told us to retain some assistants for the new Society, the ones we think are especially talented. I choose you, and I want you to help me with Olivia. In other words, the three of us can stay together as a team. We'll be her family."

Jia furrowed her brow. "I don't understand. I'm a hacker in the Gray Spear Society. I have duties."

"The old Gray Spear Society no longer exists. I'm sure the Lady will agree to this arrangement. I'll argue until she does."

"Does that mean you still love me?" she said softly.

"Of course," Yang said. "I think I just proposed to you."

"But you're some kind of supernatural alien thing."

He changed his appearance back to human form. "I can be the man you need in every way that matters."

"And what happens when I get old?" Jia said. "You won't."

He made his hair gray and added wrinkles to his face. "I can look the same age as you. Nobody will be able to tell I'm immortal."

"But one day I'll die."

"And then I'll be very sad, but I won't worry about it until it happens."

Her eyes widened. "Could you make me immortal?"

"I'll ask," Yang said, "but the answer will probably be 'no.' You aren't a
legionnaire
. All I can offer is a lifetime of love."

She smiled slightly. "I guess that's not so bad."

"It's pretty good, actually." He kissed her on the lips. "We'll watch Olivia grow up and marry Wesley. Their children will be like our grandchildren. Those memories will carry me through the rest of eternity."

Her smile grew. "Now tell me exactly what happened in Chicago. I don't want any more surprises and secrets between us."

"Sure. It turns out everything was about the twins and their amazing machine..."

Chapter Twenty-three

Hanley, Ipo, and Katie were soaring over the Pacific Ocean. According to air traffic control in San Francisco, a suspicious Boeing 717 had departed from the executive terminal at about the right time. It seemed likely the Goddess was aboard that jet.

However, the
legionnaires
were having a hard time finding it. According to its last known position, speed, and heading, it should've been two hundred miles due west of San Francisco. Hanley's sharp eyes saw nothing but black water. Clearly, the airplane had changed directions, and finding it would require searching thousands of square miles.

He was about to give the order to his teammates when he heard a voice in his head.

"Hanley," the Lady of the Society said, "have you found the Goddess?"

She was still in Chicago, but that didn't matter. He would hear her commands from the far side of the universe.

"No, ma'am, but we're getting closer."

"Tawni is interrogating two prisoners who may have relevant information for you. Go to her. Tawni, did you hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," a female voice answered. "The prisoners are cooperative now."

Hanley had never met Tawni. She had gone to Washington, DC with Ethel to rescue the President while everybody else was in Chicago. Aaron and Marina had used their new powers to add Ethel and Tawni to the Society after the aperture was gone. Hanley had heard Tawni was a very nasty individual.

Hanley, Ipo, and Katie followed Tawni's voice to her. It turned out she was in an armored bunker at the bottom of a deep coal mine. The place had been wrecked, but Hanley saw plenty of evidence of a major operation. There were rows of high-tech control consoles, and computer displays were hung on the walls. The bodies of many men in military uniforms littered the floor. Hanley guessed the enemy had controlled the U.S. Army from here.

Tawni had taken on a frightening form. She was a vortex of black mist and gleaming silver blades. Except for a silhouette of a female face, there was little evidence she had ever been human.

Tendrils of mist reached out to a man and a woman lying on the cement floor. The supernatural darkness penetrated all their orifices in a way that Hanley found repulsive. It looked too much like a kind of rape. The victims were twitching spastically and obviously trying to scream, but only choking noises came out. They were in excruciating agony and helpless to protect themselves. Their faces were almost purple.

"That's enough," Hanley said. "We need to talk to them."

Tawni withdrew her mist. The prisoners sobbed and curled into fetal positions. A strong odor told Hanley they had soiled themselves. He heard their hearts pounding rapidly and irregularly.

"Focus on the woman," Tawni said. "Her name is Erika, and she's the queen of the Pythagoreans." She went on to explain who the Pythagoreans were.

The revelation intrigued Hanley. Here was an enemy that knew about the Gray Spear Society and was capable of creating the angel illusions in San Francisco. The Goddess was almost certainly a Pythagorean.

Hanley stood over Erika. "Tell me about the operation in San Francisco. Who is trying to kill Olivia Bellar?"

Her bloodshot eyes looked up at him. Her eyelids were half-closed from exhaustion.

"Talk," he bellowed, "or I'll bring the darkness back."

Her face twisted in terror. "It's Iris! She took the assignment!"

"Tell us about her."

"A master of deception and illusion. She always stays hidden. And she has this ability..."

"What?" Hanley leaned down.

"She can lock onto a person's eyes and look through them later," Erika said. "She sees what her enemies are doing without them knowing. It's a kind of clairvoyance. It's very powerful."

He looked over at Ipo and Katie, and he knew they were thinking the same thing. Iris' strange gift would explain how she could follow people so easily.

"She went to meet a man named Grupo," Katie said. "He has a big mustache. Who is he?"

"How do you know...?" Erika said.

"Answer the question!" Tawni yelled.

Her black mist snaked across the floor and attacked Erika's face like a hungry animal. Erika couldn't breathe. She silently thrashed on the floor and clawed at the mist, but she only gouged her own skin.

"Let her speak," Hanley said.

He had seen Marina perform interrogations, and she was certainly cruel, but Tawni was a true sadist. He decided he didn't like her much.

Tawni withdrew her mist.

Erika gagged and heaved. Convulsions made tears fly from her eyes. Hanley almost felt sorry for her, but then he remembered how many people had died because of her. Innocents were still dying as cannibals continued to terrorize Chicago.

"He's a Pythagorean in South America," Erika said at last. "He lives in Rio de Janeiro."

"Where, exactly?" Hanley said.

"I don't know. We don't tell each other those kinds of details. Iris has a personal relationship with him."

"How do you make contact with him?"

"Red Eye radio."

She pointed at a red device on a table. The table was inside a broken glass enclosure which also contained a bed and other furniture. A large entertainment system included a television and a stereo. Somebody had been living in there.

Hanley walked over and grabbed the radio. It was as big and bulky as a Vietnam War walkie-talkie. There were just a few knobs and switches which didn't have labels. He played with the controls but nothing seemed to happen.

"How does this work?" he said.

"A retinal scanner activates it," Erika said. "Most of the Pythagoreans carry one. Grupo uses it, but Iris doesn't."

"Why not?"

"She only trusts her own technology."

"Probably wise," Hanley said. "We can trace the signal to Grupo and wait for Iris to meet him. We'll bag two Pythagoreans at once."

Erika shook her head. "Impossible. Nobody can trace the Red Eye radio. That's the whole point."

"I doubt that's completely true. Who invented this wonderful technology?"

"A benefactor gave the secret to Dr. Sigmund Eppinger. His team builds the radios for us."

Hanley guessed the term "benefactor" referred to God's enemies.

"Then he should know how to trace the signal," Hanley said. "How do we find him?"

"His research center is at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The Pythagoreans have a large facility down there."

"Very clandestine. Where, exactly?"

"The Leviathan gas field," Erika said. "They use the gas for power."