Merciless (9 page)

15

As Ethan told them his tale, Daniel sat and listened, Lisa at his side on the sofa holding his hand in hers. The young man named Trevor lingered alone immersed in the television, constantly flicking through the channels.

Before losing himself in the terrible images, Trevor offered his own history, explaining that for most of his life he’d been forced to work for the Secretum. The unique power his Ring gave him—to suppress the mental abilities of other Ringwearers—was of particular use to them. He explained how the Secretum had now all but disappeared from London, leaving him on his own for the first time he could ever remember. And he told how he’d tried to help Grant when he was in London, and how he pointed Grant in the direction of the Middle East in his quest to find his sister Julie.

Ethan took over the story from there, giving them a twenty-minute explanation of his new status. Lisa looked at Ethan, listening to him talk. Daniel stared absently out of the attic window to the streets below, which flickered in the distance with firelight from the rioting mobs.

As Daniel took all this in, Ethan explained how he’d been freed from a British police station several days before time stopped, and inducted into a secret security task force whose existence was known to only a handful of people around the world. It was this task force that explained Oblivion to him, and that the Secretum’s endgame was to birth this creature into human flesh.

“Who are they?” Daniel interrupted.

“What?” Ethan paused.

“This ‘secret task force’ you mentioned. Who are they and what’s their interest in all this?”

“Plus, how do you know they’re the good guys?” Lisa added.

Ethan peered out the window, and Daniel had the impression that the blond man was searching for words. “That last part, you’re just going to have to take my word for. I have my reasons for taking them at their word, not the least of which is that I’m a good judge of character. Always have been. Remember, I believed in Grant when no one else in the FBI did. I was the one to quit so I could stand at his side.”

Even Lisa had to acknowledge this point; she sat back in her seat but continued listening and watching him. Daniel didn’t move, nor had he, since this conversation began. He sat perfectly straight in his seat, one hand on his cane, which stood beside him, and the other holding Lisa’s hand.

“Regarding who they are,” Ethan continued, “they call themselves the Appointed. They haven’t been around as long as the Secretum—only about five hundred years or so. But it is—or it
was—
their mission to stop the prophesies on the Dominion Stone from coming true. They apparently thought I could be of some help to them, though I don’t know why they picked me.”

“Well, these Appointed—this ‘anti-Secretum’ group— couldn’t have been trying very hard, could they?” Lisa blurted out. “
We’ve
been trying to stop the prophesies from coming true for months, and where were
they
in all that time? Why haven’t we ever seen them?”

Daniel knew it was a rhetorical question, but he watched Ethan’s expressions carefully, and for a moment he almost thought Ethan was going to answer her. But the moment passed.

Ethan had already explained the mission the Appointed had sent him on, to infiltrate the Secretum’s underground city in the hopes of stopping Grant Borrows from entering there should he ever attempt to. It was to Ethan’s great shock and horror that Grant and his friends had already beaten him to the place by the time he got there. He then told them of Grant’s fate.

The part about the underground city, Lisa had the most difficulty swallowing. Daniel, meanwhile, rarely said anything, unless it was to clarify something Ethan had told them. But he never released Lisa’s hand.

“And Grant’s dead? You’re sure about that?” Lisa continued. “And some . . .
thing
. . . called ‘Oblivion’ has taken up residence in his body? And his being here is somehow causing the world to undergo this drastic physical change? And it’s caused time to disappear too?”

“That’s more or less the size of it,” Ethan replied.

“So what do you expect us to do?” Lisa asked. “And why can’t these Appointed do something to stop Oblivion?”

Ethan let out an impatient breath. “My understanding is that their entire focus was on keeping Oblivion from coming into being, at any cost. I didn’t get the impression that they had a contingency plan for what to do if it ever actually happened.”

“This is all just so
big
,” Lisa sighed. “What are we supposed to do?”

“We do what we always do,” Ethan said, sounding almost offended that she had to ask. “We help Grant. We finish what he started.”

“How?” asked Lisa, incredulous.

“The Dominion Stone,” Trevor spoke up, surprising everyone with these words. Daniel turned to face him, and the others did the same. But Trevor’s attention never wavered from the television set in front of him. “I heard them talk about it loads; they were always intent on keeping it as far away from Oblivion as possible. As much as the Secretum reveres it—I think they’re afraid of it too.”

“I think we could work that,” Daniel said softly. His mind was spinning, and he didn’t miss the expression on Ethan’s face either. This was clearly news to him as well.

“We have to get to Los Angeles,
now
,” Ethan said. Daniel nodded in agreement.

“You’re both crazy!” Lisa cried, nearly jumping up from her seat and pointing to the TV. “Have you seen the news reports? It’s the end of the world, and you two think you’re suddenly action heroes! According to your own words, Oblivion is all-powerful. He’ll squash us or suck out our brains through our noses or—”

“If Grant really is dead,” Daniel interjected and Lisa fell silent, “and his entire team is out of the picture, then it falls to us to take action. There’s no one else.”

“But it’s hopeless!” she nearly shouted. Daniel was beginning to realize that she had changed since their experiences in jail. Where she once would brave the unknown, something about their shared time together, the things that had been said, and nearly losing him again had caused her to become much more apprehensive in the face of danger.

Lisa collected herself and then spoke with more calm.

“Daniel, you’ve been through a second terrible ordeal in less than a year’s time. I’m not sure you’re thinking clearly . . .”

“No, I
am
thinking clearly, finally,” he said, turning loose of her grasp and wobbling precariously to his feet. It was meant to be a gesture of bravado, but his broken body couldn’t quite pull it off. “We have to do this because it’s what Grant would do. It’s something he tried to teach us through his actions.”

“What did he try to teach us?” Lisa asked, and he had Ethan’s full attention now too.

“On principle alone, evil must be fought,” Daniel concluded. “The line between right and wrong has to be held. Good has to stand up to evil and not back down. Even if there’s no chance of success, and there may not be for us—that fight, the struggle against darkness . . . it
matters
. It matters beyond the here and now.”

In the silence that followed, Trevor turned up the television volume a bit, and the room’s attention turned toward the latest report.

“ . . . and though government officials are staying mum on the subject, it seems that there can now be no doubt that an international coalition of military forces is gathering in southeastern Turkey. We have no information as of yet regarding what the military buildup intends to do there, though there have been rumors that the devastating changes to the environment have their origins somewhere in Turkey. But as one eyewitness to the mass troop mobilization put it, ‘They have enough weapons to take on God himself.’ ”

“They’re doing it,” Ethan whispered, and it didn’t escape Daniel’s notice. Daniel looked at the blond man and noticed that his entire body language was changing. He was sitting forward in his seat now, more alert. His eyes were focused on something far away, and his expression was grim and determined.

He suddenly stood from his seat. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” Daniel asked.

“They’re going to try and take on Oblivion with military might. I told them not to, but . . . they won’t listen . . . So I have to go. I have to go where they’re going to be—to the battle.”

“But what can you do?” Daniel asked, logic racing to the front of his mind. “You already said they won’t listen to you. You’re just one man, Ethan.”

“One man
without
superpowers,” Lisa chimed in.

“I’m a trained, highly skilled federal agent, and I’m not going to run the other way while American soldiers are about to engage in a fight they have no chance of winning.”

“But how do you know that?” Lisa asked. “If the TV report is right about how many troops are being sent, what makes you think they don’t have a chance against Oblivion and his army of—what, twenty Ringwearers? At most?”

“You don’t understand!” Ethan said, rounding on her with a fiery expression. “Everything I’ve been told by the Appointed has come true, and the one thing they told me repeatedly was that
nothing can stand in Oblivion’s path
. If this coalition army gets in his way, he will mow them down without even slowing down.”

He knows more than he’s saying,
Daniel thought, wondering just what these Appointed had told him of Oblivion’s capabilities to make him so adamant about this.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Daniel said, and now he stepped around to block Ethan’s path. “If Oblivion and his army are as powerful as you say they are, what can one mortal human hope to accomplish in opposing him? If you’re determined to do this, I think at the very least, Lisa and I should come with you.”

Lisa blanched at this suggestion; Ethan shook his head violently.

“Not a chance. No offense, Doctor, but neither of you have any training for armed conflict.”

“I know how to fire a gun,” Daniel said, intentionally not letting his gaze wander to Lisa, who alone among them would understand the significance of this. “I’m a good shot too.”

Ethan examined Daniel carefully. “Are you good enough of a shot to kill your teammates—your friends? Because that may be what we’re talking about here. I promised Alex I would save her and the others, and killing them may be the only way to do that. Could you draw a gun on
Alex
and put a bullet through her heart?”

Daniel frowned and finally shook his head.

“Look,” Trevor said quietly, and for the first time he wasn’t staring at the television. He was staring out the attic window behind them.

In the distant horizon, the faint but unmistakable edge of dark boiling clouds were visible. The clouds seemed to be holding back an inferno of flames that wanted to dance upon the planet’s surface. And they were coming this way.

Ethan grabbed his small pack of belongings, then took Daniel’s hand in a shake. He uncharacteristically placed his other hand on top of the two already clasped and squeezed tightly. “You two find that Stone. It may be humanity’s only chance. If I make it through the fight, I’ll find a way to meet back up with you in Los Angeles. Good luck.”

Daniel turned loose of the handshake. “And to you.”

With nothing left to say, Ethan stepped past them and made for the kitchen door.

“Hey,” Lisa called, her voice curious.

Ethan turned back, pausing.

“These Appointed people . . . did they tell you what Oblivion is here to
do
, exactly?” she asked.

“Not in specific terms.”

“I’ll settle for nonspecific.”

Ethan’s expression was firm and rigid. “If he can’t be stopped, Oblivion will systematically exterminate every living thing from this planet, until
nothing
—not a single bacteria—is left alive. He has the power and he has the will, and he won’t stop until it’s done. The Bringer brings Oblivion . . . and Oblivion brings all-encompassing death.”

He grasped the door handle and turned away from their faces, which were filled with shock and fear as they looked after him, and he summed it up for them. “He’s here to kill us all.”

INTERREGNUM

“T
HINGS ARE FALLING APART
, aren’t they?” Grant asked.

“Why do you say that?” the other man replied.

“I’m not sure. I just . . . Things are unraveling somehow. I can feel that they are. War is brewing . . .”

“Things are unfolding according to plan, yes. But why do you care about what’s happening to the world, Grant Borrows? You’ve left it behind.

Your earthly troubles are over.”

“I care about my friends. Are they all right?”

Mirror Grant shrugged. “They’ve had better days.”

“Then I need to get out of here. I need to help them,” Grant said slowly, adding weight to each word.

His doppelganger shrugged again. “You know as well as I do that they are not my—that is, our— concern. They never really were. What can I say?

We’re that selfish.”

Grant took a step backward, examining his double. “Then what is our concern?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Why don’t you tell me what our concern is.”

Grant wasn’t breathing, so he couldn’t sigh. He frowned instead. “I’m not sure I can. Right now, my main concern is helping my friends.”

Mirror Grant watched him closely as if reading his thoughts. “No, that isn’t true. And I’ll prove it. Take a look, here’s something you’ll probably find interesting . . .”

Mirror Grant made no gesture at all as he stepped to Grant’s left, and in the dark space there formed a scene inside a three-dimensional box. It was like watching a live play, only in miniature, and Grant could walk around it and look at the stage from all sides.

Inside, a lovely woman was in a great deal of pain on a hospital bed. Her legs were in stirrups and she was crying as she bore down and tried to push. A man stood next to her, gently telling her to push harder, holding her hand and drying her brow with a towel.

“Come on, sweetheart, you can do it!” the man said with conviction. His expression was a mixture of emotions . . . He was watching over her with great tenderness, but also trying hard to be strong and reassuring. There were traces of pain on his face as well, but he was doing his best to hide it. It seemed that watching his wife endure so much was deeply agonizing for him to watch.