Promise: Caulborn #2 (31 page)

“You’re sorry,” she said coolly. I looked up and she’d assumed her diplomat mask. “I see. Would you care to explain why you didn’t tell me this sooner, Vincent? Did you think I wouldn’t see that promise for the nicety you intended it as, rather than an all-binding oath? Do you think me that unreasonable or unfair?”

“No, that’s—”

“And because of your lack of trust in me, a good man is now lying in a magical coma in the next room. A man who, according to Gearstripper, violated his own personal code of ethics to protect me. A man who went down defending my helpless body.” Her eyes were so cold they might as well have been chips of ice. “And now you stand here, not a scratch on you, and tell me that you’re sorry.”

“Megan, I—”

“Get out of my sight, Vincent.” The mask broke, and I saw Megan honestly and truly angry for the first time. Her jaw was tight and her body was actually shaking with rage. It was her eyes that made me step back. In them I saw a barely restrained wrath that I wouldn’t have thought possible from someone normally so perky. Her left hand clutched a bunch of the blanket at her waist. The outline of a pocket cannon kept flickering into her right. “Leave now,” she hissed. “Now!”

I fled from the room, the door shutting automatically behind me. On the other side, I heard Megan break down in sobs. Mrs. Rita brushed past me and went into Megan’s room. Doc Ryan came around the corner, a cigarette between his fingers. He jerked his head to a side room and stepped inside. I followed him.

Doc leaned against a window, his back to me, a tendril of smoke spiraling up to touch the No Smoking sign. “You heard Wallenby is comatose, right?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. I nodded. He turned back to the window and took a drag on his cigarette. “We have no accounts or data on what happens when the Rosario’s poison is applied to a human. It was only intended to weaken paranormal beings.” Another drag. “Best I can figure, the poison targeted Herb’s necromantic powers.” Doc turned to me, still leaning against the wall. “When a necromancer forces the dead to do his bidding, he’s exerting a part of his spirit over the deceased’s. The poison’s embedded itself between Herb’s spirit and his body, preventing his consciousness from returning.”

“Will it wear off?”

“Can’t say. A paranormal immune system, like yours, is used to supernatural pathogens and knows how to handle them. So you’d naturally break the toxin down over time. Herb on the other hand, is just a plain old human. His body has no idea how to fight this stuff.”

“Can you create an antidote?”

Doc gave me an exasperated look. “Jesus Christ, Corinthos, do you think I just stand around here smoking all day? I’ve had the computer analyzing this particular flavor of poison all morning long. I’ll have a better feel for what can and can’t be cured later on.” He crushed out the cigarette against his heel and dropped the butt into the wastebasket. I unconsciously extinguished the butt completely so he wouldn’t burn the place down. “I’m telling you all this because, quite frankly, Herb’s chances don’t look good. Megan seems pretty attached to this guy, and if he kicks it, she’s going to be a wreck. So you mind your manners and keep your nose clean around her, got it?”

A little late for that, I thought. Just the same, I nodded and he patted me on the shoulder. “One other thing,” he held up a finger under my nose. “If you ever, ever disobey an order from me to stay in Medical again, I will have Galahad throw your ass out of the agency so fast your head will spin. You got lucky, Corinthos, but you could’ve just as easily been killed running off in your condition. Don’t ever do that again. Got it?” I swallowed and nodded. With that, he left the room, muttering about upstart punk ass kids.

Galahad walked in then and beckoned for me to sit down at the table. “Vincent, we need to talk.”

A feeling of complete dread filled my stomach. When your boss or your girlfriend uses that phrase, things are going to be bad. I sat down and folded my hands in my lap. Galahad took the seat across from me and rested his palms on the table.

“Vincent, when you first came to us, you were a thoughtful, reflective young man who wanted to protect people from paranormal threats. Over the last eight years, that desire to protect has grown stronger, and I respect you for that. However, since the Urisk adopted you as their god, I have watched you become more and more reckless.” Galahad’s voice was dead level; the kind of dead level that meant he was only a hair’s breadth from completely losing his temper. “You act first and think later. You rush into danger, heedless of the consequences. Each time you do that, you put yourself and the other agents in peril. Your partner does not deserve that, nor did Mr. Wallenby. Caulborn agents understand the risk associated with this line of work, but Wallenby is a civilian. And you roped him into something that should’ve been handled by the agency.”

I looked at my hands in my lap. What was I going to do, argue with him? He was right and I knew it.

“You are not a bad person, Vincent,” Galahad continued. “If I believed there was even a hint of malevolence in your actions I would call the Inquisitors in to deal with you.” That got my attention. The Inquisitors were the Caulborn’s secret police; invoking their name was not something you did lightly. They dealt with paranormal threats that no one else could; they were the people who’d see fighting a half-god as part of the daily routine. I realized just how angry Galahad was just then, if he was bringing them up. “But you are not malevolent. I believe I have failed you, pushed you into a role you were not properly prepared for. When you came to us, I put you to work in a support role, but the powers you acquired from the Urisk made you uniquely qualified to be a field agent. Perhaps that was a bad decision.

“I am putting you on probation for thirty days, Vincent. When Kristen returns from Oklahoma, you will report to her daily. If you demonstrate behavior fitting a Caulborn operative, then you and I will forget this conversation ever happened. Do I need to explain what will happen if you do not?”

“No, sir,” I whispered. I’d get kicked out of the Caulborn. I might even be marked as a paranormal threat. In short, my life would completely change, and not at all in a good way.

“Good,” Galahad stood and put a hand on my shoulder. “You are a good person, Vincent. The Caulborn need you. Don’t let us down.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze and left the room. I put my head on the table and just sat there for a moment. When I picked my head up again, the room had vanished and I found myself in that space between dimensions. Orcus stood before me, his pedestal behind him.

“Come to gloat?” I asked.

Orcus shook his head. “Kid, you got me all wrong. You think I’m the bad guy here. I’m just here to keep the rest of the gods humble.”

I got to my feet, the spectral remains of my chair fading as I did so. “Well what you succeed in is teaching us to play games with our words instead.”

Orcus let the comment slide and jerked a thumb at the open book behind him, which was still open to my page. “With the Keepers dead, the promise is back on you.”

“I figured as much.”

“So now you can set this right.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, you must’ve heard the conversation Megan and I just had. She won’t even speak to me.”

“She’s angry, kid. And she has every right to be.” He scratched at his head with a thick finger. “Thing is, she probably won’t stay angry forever. When she cools down, try and have a decent, honest conversation with her. I’ve been watching you grow up, Vincent. I know you’re a good person at heart. You stay sharp, and you’ll find a way to fix this. But in the meantime, you need to make sure she stays fine.”

“I will,” I said through clenched teeth. Orcus’s domain faded and I was back in Medical. I needed to get out of here, and I needed time to think. I left the office and caught the train back to my apartment.

I stood in my bedroom, just staring into the mirror.

“Ah, good, you’re home,” Commander Courageous said as he animated on my dresser. He cocked his head to one side as he regarded me. “Feeling blue?”

I barely resisted swatting him off the dresser and into the laundry hamper. “I’m exhausted. Galahad’s put me on probation. Herb’s in a coma. Megan hates me. Petra’s gone. Yeah, I guess ‘blue’ covers it.”

“You might want to spend some time with your followers.”

“I made contact with the Urisk earlier. There’s a ceremony tomorrow to mourn those Urisk who didn’t make it through the eclipse. I’ll go to that and stay for a while after. Hopefully I can help them find some peace.”

“I meant your other followers.”

I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

Courageous rolled his plastic eyes at me. “Vincent, the Glawackus looked right at you and didn’t see you. Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“It was dark, I was hiding in the mist, and the Keepers had just performed surgery on the thing.” I said. “It’s no surprise that it missed me.”

“And yet you felt tingly when its gaze passed over you, right?”

“Yeah, but I figured that was from when I’d been electrocuted.”

Courageous sat down cross-legged on the dresser and put his head on his fist. “All right, Vincent. Close your eyes and open your mind to you followers. Listen very, very hard. Tell me if you hear anything different.”

I was dubious, but did as he asked. I heard the Urisks’ daily litanies, a few conversation-like prayers from Urisk who asked me to comfort Daimin, and then, in the very back of my mind, I heard chanting.

The chants weren’t in the Urisks’ language, they were in English. They almost sounded like—

“Is that a drinking song?”

Courageous laughed. “I suppose you could call it that. Do you recognize the voices?”

“Kleep and the other kobolds.” My hands started to sweat. “What are they doing? Why are they worshipping me?”

“They see you as someone worth following, Vincent. They knew of your reputation as god of the Urisk and saw you in action beneath the castle. You helped them, unasked, at risk to yourself. So when you faced the Glawackus, you weren’t just hiding in the mist; you were
completely invisible
. You were out of Urisk faith, but there was a tiny, tiny bit of faith there from the kobolds. You tapped that and successfully concealed yourself from the Glawackus.”

“I remember Kleep turning invisible at Cather’s place,” I said, my eyes widening. “And when Kleep and I communicated telepathically when Cather was under attack, I was hearing him the same way I can hear Lotholio.” Holy crap. How was that possible? “It took years for the Urisk to accept me as their god. How is it the kobolds did it so fast?”

Courageous opened his hands. “Vincent, who is Zeus?”

“What does—”

“Just answer the question.”

“The Greek god of the sky and thunder.”

“And who is Freyja?”

“The Norse goddess of fertility.”

“Do you worship either of those deities?” Courageous asked.

“Ah, no,” I said.

Courageous nodded. “Exactly. You don’t worship them, and yet you
know
who they are. That knowledge gives them power, just as prayers would. To you, it’s not a belief that Zeus can smite you with lightning, it’s a fact. The kobolds, redcaps, and even the hobgoblins are starting to see that in you. To them, you
are
a god of fire and force. Didn’t it seem strange that you were able to do all those miraculous things on the Bright Side while your followers were encased in amber? You could do those things to the hobgoblins because
they believed you could
.”

I swallowed while that sank in. “Does that mean I don’t need worshippers anymore?”

Courageous shook his head. “You’re not there yet, Vincent. Years from now, when your legend has grown on the Bright Side, perhaps. Zeus and Freyja have millions of literature students to give them power, because those students are taught who they are. You don’t. You’ll be relying on faith batteries for a long time to come.

“Speaking of which, since the number of kobold followers you have is very small compared to the number of Urisk, you now have just a tiny bit of kobold-based faith reserves.”

“You mean their faith is separate from the Urisks’?” I asked.

“Yes. Think about it like this. The Urisk see you differently than the kobolds, and both species have different abilities. There are some commonalities, I suppose, they both can sling fire, but with the Urisk, it’s pyrokinesis, and the kobolds possess a form of elemental magic. However, their faith in you is different, and the gifts they bestow upon you are different, so you now have two sets of faith reserves. One for Urisk powers and one for kobold. And, before you ask, no, you can’t use kobold faith for Urisk powers.”

Dang, how had he known? “Why not? It’s just faith, right?”

“Think about Fallout 3 or any of the other FPS games that you and Gearstripper play. You have shotguns, 9mms, laser pistols, and other weapons. They’re all guns, but they all use different ammo. Think about faith like that. It’s different ammo for different weapons.”

I rubbed a hand over my face. “This means I have two peoples I have to watch out for. I don’t know. I haven’t been great for the Urisk.”

“That’s crap and you know it, Vincent.” Courageous said as he stabbed a plastic index finger at me.

“Daimin would probably disagree with you,” I said.

There was a pause. “Yes. Daimin. He probably would.” Courageous was quiet for a moment as if considering something heavy. “But, Vincent, regardless of what one individual thinks, your Urisk followers are loyal to you and love you. Every religion and every god goes through what you did at one point or another. And now another group sees you as someone worthy of their faith. So get your tail down to the Undercity and spend some time with them.” With that, he went rigid and became a plain action figure again.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. Part of me was terrified at the thought of having new followers. It had been hard protecting the Urisk, but on the plus side, there weren’t that many kobolds, and they lived with a dragon to boot. So it wasn’t like I was their primary source of protection. The other part of me was absolutely thrilled at the new powers I’d been granted. Invisibility, fire, and a touch of healing magic. That was going to be damned cool and quite handy.