Darkness of the Soul (17 page)

A
fine
experiment
and
a
fine
game,
but
the
time
for
playing
would
soon
be
over.
Karesh
could
already
feel
the
song
of
his
master
spinning
through
his
bones,
calling
him
back.
It
wished
to
be
transported
across
the
oceans,
to
travel
to
the
Americas,
where
the
blood
of
its
makers
still
flowed
fresh.
Soon,
he
would
make
the
journey,
and
new
games
would
begin.

He
rises,
pulling
his
hand
back
from
Salia
despite
her
pants
and
mewls
of
protest,
and
shoves
her
face-first
into
the
corpse.

“Resume
your
meal,
my
pet.
And
forget.”

Punctuating
the
words
with
a
stab
of
his
mental
knife,
he
burns
away
the
memory
of
his
presence.
She
would
remember
only
what
she
had
done,
not
that
he
had
been
there
to
witness
it.
He
considers
it
unfortunate
that
he
would
not
be
present
to
see
her
captured
and
punished,
but
the
taste
of
her
broken
and
perverted
spirit
would
stay
with
him
through
the
years
to
come,
he
is
sure.

Chapter
13
 

4:30 am, December 14, 1999

Karesh’s eyes opened slowly, the reverie of that old atrocity still one his mind sought when he needed peace or when he believed his grip on his destiny or the
talu`shar’s
might be slipping. That lovely game had been his favorite, and when he had shared it with his master, he had discovered that even the old Beast within the painting had not seen every possible form of depravity. Its pleasure with his game had been palpable, and his rewards had been great. But thinking of the past would prevent him from focusing properly on the future, or so he told himself, and thus he forced his mind back to the present.

Karesh sat in the overstuffed hotel chair, staring at the horrid paisley pattern on the walls without seeing it, his nearly black eyes unfocused and seeing things that were happening elsewhere, as he picked up thoughts and images from places of far more interest to him.

He had left the wake not long after the telepath had departed, thinking he’d known all he needed to. Returning to his rented accommodations, he had passed into sleep, hoping to catch up while he still could. The voice of the
talu`shar
had woken him in time, a pull on his will that he could not resist. He had risen from the bed, come to the chair, and then allowed his mind to drift. It had come to rest on Woods and Brokov, granting him the discovery that his mental bet had been wrong. The woman was in no way remarkable, and the man was far more than just a latent.

He had watched through Damien’s mental eyes as the youth dreamed of his mistakes. When he came to the part where Damien was named Disciple, even Karesh trembled, for those of his ilk were rare indeed and nearly on par with one such as himself. The
talu`shar
had spent many years instructing him on its enemies, warning him of other beings of power who would attempt to oppose the opening of the path, and among those it had warned him of was the daeva Shurill, one of those responsible for the entrapment of the thing that lived within the
talu`shar
.

Watch
for
those
who
speak
this
name,
it had said to him,
for
the
Disciples
will
seek
always
to
block
you.
Those like Drakanis he didn’t spare much concern for; they were barely above latents in the scheme of things, and that was assuming someone bothered to explain their heritage to them—just another gnat that sometimes had feelings or knew what card was next in the deck. Those who were like this Woods appeared to be, however—those with raw power, chosen and then cultivated—even struck a chord of fear in whatever passed for his master’s heart. They had both the power and the will to cause serious damage to the plans of the
talu`shar
, and the Wardens who had not been slain by those who coveted their positions had always been put down by Disciples; only luck had kept the
talu`shar
itself out of their hands at times.

Karesh broke off the connection as Woods slipped back into bed, satisfied that the Disciple had been unable to learn anything of consequence from his communion and further satisfied that the fool didn’t know enough to pinpoint him, yet. If things went as planned, Woods would never be able to mark him. A tragic accident was not too far in his future, Karesh wagered.

He tried to focus his sight on Drakanis and was not totally surprised to discover that something was blocking him from such scrying. Karesh assumed Woods was up to something, trying to provide a bit of a blind for his champion, his martyr. Not that it would matter in the end, Drakanis was still too unaware and sorely lacking in the main factor he would need to wake up to what was going on: time.

Karesh allowed his consciousness to drop back into his body. He leaned back in the chair, unworried when it creaked and the sound of nails bending reached his ears. He would be in a different room tomorrow and yet another the next day, so little things like broken chairs posed him even less worry than they did the average three-year-old.

So
sorry
you
won’t
have
what
you
need,
dear
Michael.
You
might
have
been
a
worthy
adversary
had
you
not
wasted
all
this
time
with
stupid
moping.
Perhaps
I
shall
do
you
a
favor
and
remove
your
heart
before
you
die,
so
you’ll
not
be
troubled
by
such
pain
in
whatever
darkness
awaits
you.

He would do no such thing, of course; it had been explained to him, carefully and with great detail, precisely what he was to do with Drakanis, and at no point did death or release enter into it. The good detective had drawn a much less desirable card from the deck of fate, and the killer was most certainly not going to deny him the blessings the
talu`shar
wished to grant its enemy.

Karesh rose from his chair, walked to the window, and looked out over the street. Despite the dim hour of the morning, many braver sorts still prowled the streets, and he took a special pleasure in tapping into their thought-lines, tugging at the information there and giving it subtle twists. Unlike many previous Wardens, Karesh had discovered in himself a particular talent for warping the desires of others, causing them to act on the darker thoughts and impulses that resided in every human soul, taking even the virtuous and turning them into beasts ripe for the slaughter.

Those below him, crawling among the pawnshops, casinos, and twenty-four-hour diners were not very promising victims, however, and after a moment, he turned away, satisfying himself only by leeching away some of their vitality. These were already broken and would provide no pleasure for either his master or himself.

That
is
exactly
the
problem
in
such
a
place.
Far
too
few
are
truly
innocent.
While he understood this to perhaps be an exaggeration—some spark of innocence could be found in nearly anyone—he also knew that were this place not so tainted by shattered dreams and the rabid addictions that only a legal vice could provide, it would not be able to host the opening of the path. It was the very nature of this place that allowed the
talu`shar
so much power here; it was the reason it had chosen the place for the grand event.

Karesh turned away from the window. He supposed he should be getting ready; his absence from work on this day might be noticed, and he had something to prepare for Woods. Still, he lingered a moment longer, drawing in the air around him, feeling through the ether for any sign of what was coming. The air gave him no response except for a vague feeling of anticipation, as if the universe itself was holding its breath, waiting to watch the outcome of these events.

It
will
be
a
very
messy
one,
he said to the winds of change.
But
all
will
be
well
in
time.

Chapter
14
 

5:00 am, December 14, 1999

Parker tried to stifle a yawn as he set the bottle on the table. His arm came up, and that was okay. He managed to cover his mouth, and that was okay too. It was only when he spewed vomit all over that hand and then knocked the precarious stack of bottles beside him to the floor in an explosion of glass and beer fumes that it was not okay.

“Fuck, you’re drunk,” he muttered to himself before leaning over in the easy chair to let another letter to Ralph join the beer ruining his shag carpet. He wasn’t sure how many bottles it had taken him to get to this point or how long he’d been at it after Drakanis had left. Now that most of the bottles were shattered on the floor, it’d be impossible to tell for sure on either of those counts.

Well,
how
the
fuck
else
am
I
gonna
think
about
any
of
this
shit?
It’s
not
like
you
can
sit
there
and
sort
through
something
like
this
with
a
clear
head
or
anything.

While that might have been well and true, it was probably just as true that trying to think of any aspect of a murder—or series of them—while under the effects of at least a case of longnecks was not going to produce much in the way of appreciable results either.

He turned his attention away from the art deco and the smell forming on the rug and glanced back at the small glass table he’d set up in the middle of the room. He’d dragged it in from the garage. It had been rotting in there since Amanda left. It was some piece of crap one of her hippie friends had made for her—quite possibly even the one she had left him for. The thing was four feet high—four and a half if one counted the gargoyles perched at the corners. The overlong top made it just the right size to strew the contents of several police files across it, and the weird height made it good for pacing up and down along as he tried to make a time line of sorts.