Division Zero: Thrall (42 page)

“You’re still bleeding. Take a stimpak before you get sick.”

Kirsten made a noise somewhere between laughing and crying. Evan tugged at her until she stood, and had to drag her to the bed. As she sat on the edge of the Comforgel pad pushing a stimpak between two claw punctures on her arm, he traded his soaked PJs for a dry towel.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“It’s four in the morning.”

Arms folded to his chest under the terrycloth wrap, he walked right up to her with a serious face. One droplet of water fell off his nose. “Are
you
going back to sleep?”

Kirsten leaned out and ruffled his hair. “Mocha.”

he din of voices tugged at the edges of her consciousness. Kirsten moaned: a noise that began deep in her brain as a request for a few more minutes of sleep, but entered the world as a monosyllabic grunt. Her right forearm balanced over her face, and as her sphere of awareness widened, she noticed the absence of Evan. Her most recent memory was of him curled up next to her. With another groan, she moved her arm, letting it arc upward before falling heavily onto her gut and sliding off. Cold floor across the back of her knuckles reminded her she was on a sofa in the squad room.

She pawed at the cushions, searching for the missing boy, sitting up after she found no trace of him. White socks at the end of her black leggings confused her. She did not remember taking her boots off, or even putting her uniform on. Morelli was the only other person in the room, and as usual, he made it a point not to look directly at her at any time.

“Dorian?” she rasped, forcing herself to swallow.

Morelli fumbled something small and plastic, which clattered to the floor.

“Evan went to school about an hour ago. Someone from the dorm came to escort him over.” Dorian coalesced nearby. “I’m to tell you Eze wants to see you when you wake up.”

Kirsten held her face in both hands, elbows on her knees, trying to rub wakefulness through her eyelids. “How long was I out? Wait, Eze can see you?”

“No, he just spoke assuming I was here. It’s about ten now. The two of you arrived a little after six in the morning. Bad night?”

She stared at her boots, unable to fathom how to work the five fasteners along the outer edge. The act of sliding her legs into them made the task automatic, and she stretched away the discomfort of a too-brief sofa nap.

“An abyssal came after us in the apartment last night. Bastard thing got me half-awake, slipped into my head. My defenses weren’t ready.”

Dorian put his hands on his hips. “Evan gave me the rundown.”

“Someone tried to get me to…” She pivoted toward Eze’s door. “Now I’m pissed.”

“Oh, shit.” Dorian held his hands up. “Look out.”

“Dammit, I’m serious.” Kirsten managed to stop glaring by the time she entered the captain’s office. “Sorry for passing out like that, sir. I had an event at home last night.”

“Yes, so I hear.” Eze looked away from his terminal, chair creaking as he leaned back. “The boy filled me in.”

“Did he sleep at all?”

Eze laughed. “He said he’d nap in math class. To be honest, I’m not sure if he was kidding.”

Sounds like something my kid would say.
Kirsten smiled. “Sir, I’m at a loss. I have scraps of things that don’t make sense and some theories―but no evidence I can take to the council.”

“Alright.” Captain Eze steepled his fingers to his chin. “Let’s hear it.”

She sat facing the desk, casting a brief glance over the row of four-inch ceremonial African masks. “Okay, I went to the morgue…”
Shit, I forgot to type the reports.
“I had a suspicious feeling about some recent deaths. I went to the RTC to follow up on it, and found evidence of what appears to be some kind of ritual murders. While I was there, one of the clerks called to warn someone I was getting too close. Then he tried to kill me. I chased him, but he shot himself and destroyed his NetMini in the process.”

Eze reached toward his terminal, swiping through a few screens. “I read what Div Two filed; however, the investigation has stalled pending your reports. Do you think Hassan acted of his own volition?”

“I never got the chance to find out. I didn’t see a spirit lingering after he died, nor did I feel Harbingers around. If he had a ghost, he ran off before I got into the room.”

“If?” Eze leaned back with a raised eyebrow. “I did not think spirits were optional.”

“I…” She gazed into space. “Dammit, I have so many reports to write up. The incident at the Pentecostal place, B. G. Wallis. The people the Div One officers killed had no ghosts; they were bodies worn by demons. I still don’t know if they were killed ahead of time, displaced, or stolen from a morgue.”

“So there were just abyssals inside them?”

“I think so, sir, yes. They were dark spirits; however, they were weak. They ran at armed officers with nothing but knives. They were trying to get killed, like some kind of trap.”

“I spent two hours with Chandrasekhar yesterday afternoon.”

“Who?”

“Division One Bureau Chief. I had to give a statement about what happened at the church. He asked how you were doing.”

Kirsten frowned at the little masks. “I couldn’t save Womack. The man was so strong, he threw me around like a rag doll.”

“They don’t blame you. You tried everything you could think of to keep them outside. It was my error insisting they accompany you.” He tapped his finger on the desk and met her stare. “I wanted to apologize for over-coddling you.”

“No offense taken, sir.” She couldn’t quite smile so soon after remembering the death of a police officer. “It’s nice to be cared for. Back to the case, I think the nexus of it is a man named Yevgeniy Suvorin. He is the majordomo of Kukla Investment Corporation. I can’t see any other common thread among the dead.”

Kirsten recounted the bodies. Arris, the security guard from the Archives. Connected via the Konstantin having an office there. Donn, the engineer, worked for EnMesh, which Kukla recently purchased―direct connection to Yevgeniy. The woman, Munoz, worked for RedEx, which VSKK just acquired―connection: Konstantin. The two men appear to be friends, which links both spheres together.

“What of Mr. Rosa?” asked Eze. “Did he not manage security at the Municipal Complex?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Commissioner Vernon is under the influence of a paranormal entity, much the same way one tried to make me hurt Evan.” Kirsten scrunched her fingers into the seat cushion. “I bet they took Mr. Rosa first to get inside, and got rid of him when he was no longer useful. The trade deal being pushed around now would benefit the entire ACC.”

“Need I remind you your friend Konstantin’s company
is
ACC. Sure, they are in a moderate quasi-republic, but they are still loyal to the ACC when push comes to shove.”

Kirsten’s head shook with an emphatic negative. “That’s the whole point. Yevgeniy is trying to ruin him!”

“What convinces you Konstantin is a target and not an actor?” Eze’s face changed from deep chocolate to a light brown as the holo-terminal bathed him in light from a new page. “He does possess familiarity with the archaic language you keep finding, does he not?”

She gawked at him. “How could you even suggest that? He loves me!” Kirsten covered her mouth with both hands and swallowed. “Sorry, sir.” Her gaze fell into her lap. “I mean, if he had anything to do with it, why would he try to cuddle up to me? I’m the one chasing the abyssals around. Hell, he gave me Charazu’s name―I couldn’t have destroyed it without that. I think Yevgeniy has been after him for years; he had to learn Sumerian to protect himself. Over there, the government just kills people for being psionic. Who knows what the hell they’d do to a person for claiming to be at war with demons. It’s probably no big deal to him anymore.”

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

“Sun Tzu?” she asked.

Eze smiled. “Not exactly. It’s from
The Godfather,
I think. Did you ever consider he may just want you where he can watch you?”

Kirsten shuddered. “No, that can’t be true. He’s so sweet. I feel safe around him.”

“Have you considered the possibility he is influencing you?”

“I’m a grade three suggestive. If he was doing something to me, I’d feel it. I’d know.”

“Perhaps a telempath?”

“I…” She stared down. “I don’t think so. Telempathic manipulation feels false once they stop concentrating on it. If it’s powerful, it seems genuine in the moment, but the victim always gets a sense that they were manipulated later. I don’t get that from him. I saw one of the murders happen in the memories of a witness.”

“Oh.” He perked up. “What did they see?”

Kirsten relayed the scene of Alaina Munoz’s murder: the four men, the mask, the chanting, and rambled through a ten-minute grumble about Lace and Brooke’s plight. When she reined in the runaway emotion, she gave him a forlorn pout. “I have two men in my head I can see, but I have no way to connect them back to anyone.”

Eze spun in his chair, taking a small black case from the shelf behind him. He whirled back, peeling plastic film bearing a Teradyne logo away from the thin plastic box, which he opened. She sat, quiet and patient, watching as Eze unpacked a blank holodisk and inserted it into a writer on his desk. Four two-inch silver disks on a central spindle vanished into the device as a motorized hatch closed and it spun up to speed.

He leaned forward, left hand on top of the holodisk writer. “Focus on the memory, Kirsten.”

She sat up, hands on the edge of the desk, and locked eyes with him. Relaxing, she let his telepathic feelers enter her thoughts. Kirsten called the murder of Ms. Munoz to mind, trying to pay attention to the faces of the two men holding her arms. Fatigue came over her from projecting it into Eze, and after a moment, she sagged back in the chair, out of breath. When she looked up, she stifled a gasp with her hand. Eze’s eyes had faded to plain white, and the small electronic device beneath his hand whirred and beeped.

After the writer wound down and stopped, he put a hand to his tired face. When he lowered it, his eyes were brown once more. Captain Eze touched a button and the writer whirred open. He put the disk back into its case and handed it to her. “Here, you should be able to get a searchable face print from this.”

Kirsten accepted the holodisk as if it were a holy relic, cupping it with reverence in both hands. “I had no idea you could do that.”

“It is a simple thing, Wren. No different than someone with a wire.” He poked himself behind the ear. “It is just a link between my mind and a device; the writer did all the work.” He winked.

She stood, still cradling the disk, and ferried it out to her desk. Whatever Eze had done transferred her memory onto it as if it were a video recording taken through an old lens. After popping it in her terminal, she spent a few minutes pulling her fingers through holographic panels to move it frame by frame to a point she could isolate a still image of their faces. The distant city had strange artifacts, products of blurry memory or random subconscious flights of fancy. In almost all glass surfaces, a phantasmal version of Konstantin appeared, gazing at her. The faces conveyed no emotion, but every one of dozens stared right at her.
He’s watching me.
She felt warm inside, hugging her hands to her chest. Absentmindedly, she stroked the bracelet.
I guess I’m thinking about him when I don’t realize it.