Sinister: A Paranormal Fantasy (Sinisters Book 1) (15 page)

“I like to think of humans as God’s little experiment. Every other creature was created with a specific purpose in mind. Plants produce the oxygen that maintains the balance of air’s elements. Gazelles eat the plants so they cannot overwhelm the earth, choking out all other life. Lions hunt gazelles to keep their population from growing too large and eating all the plants. Each creature has its place.” He chuckled softly, his blue eyes dancing. “Except humans. Humans are not necessary for the life cycle to be complete. God created you to know the unknowable, as only he can. How do creatures eke meaning out of a life that has none?”

“Do you mean to tell me there’s no meaning to life?” Oliver sounded indignant. “Here I’ve been slaving away in philo class, and it turns out the philosophers are all full of crap!”

Matt laughed. Trust Oliver to make a joke out of this. His knees still felt unsteady, so he plopped down hard onto Oliver’s futon. A cloud of dust puffed up, racing down his throat and instantly clotting his nose. He coughed, eyes watering as he tried to breathe through the fog. “Geed, Oliber, do ‘ou eber clean dis ding?”

The redhead grinned shamelessly. “Nope.”

More wheezing and hacking followed. Matt finally recovered his breath and took in a few gulps of air, both to clear the remaining dust from his lungs and to steady himself. Luke seemed to be constantly upending his view of the world. He was beginning to wonder if anything he believed was true. Big gasp in, slowly let it out. Big gasp in, slowly let it out. Anna’s feet tapped the rhythm of his breath on the base of her stool, and after a few taps, he began to feel calmer. Why was everything he believed wrong? It’s probably part of free will, he thought wryly. You can’t have infinite choices and get it right every time.

“So what’s the purpose of angels?” Matt heard himself asking.

“We correct the balance if it tips too far in one direction,” was the prompt response. “Each individual angel oversees a particular area.”

He held up a finger, reminding Matt of his seventh grade Literature teacher. She would raise her finger in just that way every time she had what she thought was an interesting fact to share with the class. “Incidentally, angels are actually the reason for the so-called gods of the Romans and Greeks. Since we oversee the balance of one area, such as weather or crops, the peoples in those times began to believe we were gods of those areas.” He frowned. “Of course, since I oversee the balance of good and evil, humans consistently try to make a scapegoat out of me. They do not wish to believe that the evil comes from themselves, so they place the blame on me.”

Thoughts crowded Matt’s head, each pushing to be the first out.

“Huh,” he finally managed. Then his eyes narrowed, his suspicions from earlier finding an outlet. “Why are you volunteering so much info now? You were Mr. One Word earlier.”

Luke tapped a finger on his cheek, looking off into the distance. “Mr. One Word…I have not heard that particular name before. I shall see if I can add it to my business card, beneath ‘Beezlebub’ and ‘Son of Perdition’.”

Anna laughed in delight. Matt rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t stop the smile that crept onto his face. Luke may have overturned his entire worldview, but at least he was funny about it.

“To answer your question, Matthew—you asked me questions I could not answer previously. This message about free will, however, is something God has tried to communicate to humans for thousands of years. You seem to almost willfully misunderstand. Your religious leaders constantly have debates on this very subject, and yet no one believes us when we tell you that you possess free will.”

“We like to argue. But I never really doubted I had free will.” Anna spread her arms expansively, looking as though she were trying to hug the entire world. “Life is what you make of it.” Her hands dropped to her sides, making an audible smack as they hit her jean-clad thighs. “Speaking of which, we’ve got some bad guy arse-kicking to do. What’s the deal with Caracalla?”

Luke looked exasperated. “As I have said—”

“I wasn’t asking you, Your Hellishness. We’ve gone over the whole ‘I can’t tell you about him’ thing only about a million times.” She rolled her eyes and swiveled the barstool back toward Matt. “I was asking you.”

Matt tugged on his lower lip, lost in thought. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “He said it would be done soon, whatever it is. We know he can raise souls from the dead.” He spread his hands. “Which apparently we can do too, but I think we have to assume that he’s using them somehow.” He remembered ordering the black cloud back to hell and added, “Apparently we can control them, so he can too.”

“Can you?” Luke interjected softly. “All of you?”

Matt threw him a sharp look. “I thought…” He called to mind the scene that had taken place in the room only hours earlier. Anna had opened the portal to hell, true, but she’d nearly killed herself in the process and therefore had been too weak to do anything against the soul that emerged. He had been the one to command it back into the pit. At the time, he’d assumed Anna could do the same and was just too weak to try to control...control it! He groaned. Apparently Caracalla’s and his disturbing ability to control people extended to the dead as well.

Luke’s expression was almost sympathetic, but since he was the cause of these abilities, Matt assumed he just had indigestion. “This is why you’re so important, Matt. You are the only one who can counteract Caracalla’s powers.”

“Whatever happened to turning the other cheek?” Matt asked wistfully. “An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind?”

“Screw that.” Matt was shocked by the vehemence in Luke’s tone. “When you turn the other cheek, it gets slapped as well. Did you not see how well appeasement worked for England prior to World War II?” His eyes had taken on a reddish hue beneath the blue, a disturbing reminder of what Luke was. He sucked in a breath, visibly calming. His eyes faded back to icy blue, and his standard slight quirk of the lips returned. “In any case, this mission is not revenge. It is about ensuring the scale of good and evil does not tip too far to evil.”

“Hey,” Oliver interrupted, curiosity laced through his words. “Does that mean you sometimes have to stop too many good things from happening too?”

Luke’s laugh was bitter. “In all the years humans have walked the Earth, that has never been a concern.”

“We know it’s got something to do with math, and probably controlling someone.” Anna said for the fourth time, throwing a quick glance to Luke. The three of them had taken to looking at Luke after everything they said, hoping he would give any sort of sign that they were on the right trail. His face, as always, remained frustratingly impassive.

“And we know it happens soon. Probably this week.” Glance. "Anything big happening this week?"

"Besides the possible end of the world?" Oliver quipped.

Matt chuckled at that. His friend lay on a pile of clothes on the floor, absentmindedly flipping a quarter into the air with one hand while he ate noodles with the other. Up it went, spinning round and round, until it landed flat in his palm again.

"Who could Caracalla want to control?" Anna asked, almost to herself. "And what would he gain from it?"

"Well, he is CEO of a company, right?" Matt said. "Maybe he wants to make his business do well and is controlling—I don't know—someone who will buy lots of his machines?" It sounded flimsy even to him.

Oliver shook his head. "VoTech makes millions, if not milliards, of dollars every year. If he is controlling someone, it started a while ago. In any case, he would have to keep control of the chap, right?" Glance.

“Hey.” Anna shot up in her seat. “Isn’t the election this week?”

“Yeah!” Matt sat up as well. “And they’re using his software! But what would he get from that?”

Luke finally spoke, though it wasn't quite a response. "Peter started a successful company because he can see the big picture. He will not aim for one meaningless act. Whatever he is trying to do, it will be big, and it will take long-term effects into consideration."

Matt tried to imagine what a man as rich as Caracalla would want. It clearly wasn't about money, since he had plenty of that. His business was doing well, and as CEO he probably got handed a lot of things most people wouldn't. What did people want? He thought about his political science classes, where most of their discussions involved countries fighting over land. A lot of it was valuable land, which would be the monetary motivation again, but sometimes the arguments were over useless tracts of land just for the sake of having land. It all came down to money or power. But..."What kind of power would Caracalla need?"

"Power?" Oliver repeated. "I dunno. Why d’you reckon he's after power?"

Matt faced his friend. "It's either money or power. That's what people always fight over."

"But who is he fighting?" Anna sounded perplexed. She looked at Luke. "You?"

Luke shrugged. "It is not precisely a fight. It is more that we have different views of the same issue and are wont to attempt different solutions."

Matt shot him a sharp look. "What issue are you trying to solve?"

Luke stared at his hands as he twined his fingers together. "I have told you my purpose before. It is the balance of good and evil. Considering Caracalla's skills and a few things he mentioned to me, it is likely he seeks to correct the balance on his own."

"So..." Matt trailed off as he thought through the implications. "Caracalla is doing something evil, but if he's trying to solve the same issue—doesn't that mean he thinks he's doing something good?"

Luke looked up from his hands, though they continued twisting. "The simple truth, Matthew, is that people rarely want to believe they are bad." He turned his palms up. "Of course, they are also very adept at convincing themselves they are in the right, regardless of fact."

A clank sounded as the coin Oliver had been tossing struck the floor. "Damn." He scooped it up and threw it again. "Right then, he thinks he's doing good. So fixing the balance, most like. But how?"

Matt was watching Luke, who had resumed twisting his hands, his face implacable once more. A suspicion was growing in him, one he desperately hoped wasn't true. Luke was definitely lying to them about something, though he didn’t know what, exactly, that something was. “You sure are saying a lot for someone who isn't allowed to tell us what Caracalla's doing."

Luke raised his head, and his face gave Matt a sudden, sharp reminder that he wasn’t human. "Within the confines of what I am allowed, I am."

"Is that so?" Luke's eyes were boring into his, but he wouldn't look away now. His eyes burned. "It kind of seems like you're lying. It sounds a lot like you don't know what's going on either."

Luke's expressionless eyes continued to drill holes through his brain, more piercing than any stare should be. He fought but was finally forced to look away. He blinked fiercely as Luke finally spoke, his tone as cold as the northern lakes on a winter's day. "You have a job to do. What I know and do not know has no bearing on the task at hand. Focus on the facts you do have and do not waste time speculating on what may be."

Anna shuddered and mouthed "Ouch" across the room. Oliver, for once, didn't have a quip to throw back, but he did look thoughtful as he studied Luke and Matt in turn. After a long minute, he resumed tossing the quarter. Matt let Luke's comment slide without response, but he was surer than ever that Luke wasn't telling them something. At best, he truly didn't know what Caracalla was doing and needed them to figure out. But if that were the case, why not just tell them? One thing was certain: he couldn't trust the devil.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Oliver said, dropping both the quarter and the spoon. He leapt up from the floor. "We need to see what he's doing."

Matt screwed up his face. “But how—hey, did you eat all the Ramen noodles?”

Oliver grabbed his bowl and slurped down the contents. “’at ‘oodles?” he mumbled, broth dripping down his chin.

“Oh, I must have imagined them,” Matt said sarcastically.

Oliver nodded, expression serious. “Must be one o’ those leftie things where you see things I can’t.”

"Oliver's right," Anna said. "We can speculate all we want, but we're not gonna know for sure unless we catch him in the act."

"So we need to spy on him," Matt stated flatly, "and hope he does something he shouldn't. All without him noticing we're watching."

"Or," Oliver said, "We could just ask him."

He looked completely serious. Maybe Anna hadn't been joking when she said insanity ran in the family.

"Sure, Oliver, you do that. Let me know what he says, ok?”

Matt glanced at his watch and realized that once again, he was running late. They’d have to figure out what to do about Caracalla when he returned. “I told my Mom I'd be home for dinner, so I need to go. Don't do any burglary without me!"

His last look before he left was at Luke. He sat perfectly still on the stool, staring back with his fathomless eyes.

Footfalls thudded, loud even against the carpet, as Peter Caracalla paced inside his office. His brow was furrowed, and he was unaware of his feet shaking the ground with each step. His focus was all internal. There had to be something he could change to make the experiment work. He had to make it work--the fate of the world depended on it. If Luke hadn't— he clenched his fists as he shoved the thought aside. It was useless thinking about the past. Nothing could change it, and he needed to fix the problems at hand, not invent new ones. He’d been at the warehouse earlier that week, attempting yet another experiment, and once again it had failed. He was more thankful than ever that Levi had rented the space through a dummy corporation with no ties to himself. Should anyone ever figure out about the space, they wouldn’t know he was involved.

He rubbed his forehead.
Think,
he berated himself.
Think. How can you make it work on—

"Mr. Caracalla?" His secretary's blonde head poked through one leaf of the massive wooden door to his office. Though it was Saturday, he always had Heidi come in for a few hours to finish anything they didn't get to that week and plan for the following week. "Ted Swanson is on line one."

Peter forced a smile. "Thanks, Heidi."

As he walked to his desk, he heard the soft thud of the door closing. He turned his thoughts to the gubernatorial candidate waiting on the telephone for him and grimaced. The man had been difficult from the start, and, even worse, he was a craven. Strong opinions he could work with, but cowardice he couldn't abide by. He'd had no choice, though. Swanson was the only person in state politics that met his requirements, and as distasteful as it had been, it was better than letting the world fall into the total chaos that threatened. It had been simple enough to get to him as well; the man was more than happy to meet with a major donor like Peter.

He allowed himself one sigh as he picked up the phone, and then plastered on a smile as false as George Washington's teeth. Business had long ago taught him that smiles could be heard in a person's voice.

"Hello, Senator." Though only a junior state senator, the man insisted on being addressed as such at all times. He humored the man to let him think he had some power.

"Peter." The man's voice was grating, and Peter found himself clenching his teeth against the pain in his ear that was nearly physical. "I just wanted to confirm everything is ready for Tuesday. You've taken care of it, right?"

He tamped down the anger welling in him, waiting until he felt calmer before answering. Anger made people do stupid things. He never allowed himself the luxury of forgetting his rationality, as so many people did with strong emotions. Weak people allowed emotions to overcome thought. He refused to be weak. "Of course. It couldn't be easier. The program is already set; it will modify the numbers as they come in and ensure the outcome. Although with the media hubbub around the current governor’s dissolution of collective bargaining and the ensuing protests, you might win outright."

The senator let out a braying laugh. Peter ignored it as he once more considered his plan. It really couldn't be easier; he'd simply needed to insert a few lines of code into the software that tracked the total votes. The program would simply modify each district by a fraction of a percent as needed. It would be undetectable, since the exit polls only gave a rough estimate, and it ensured that the right person would be in power. And the right person was, naturally, the one who would be controlled by Peter. It was illegal, of course, but legality often didn't correspond with right. Sometimes the only way to make the world better was to break the rules.

Then, once the election was over, he would be able to fix the...personality issues of the governor at his leisure. That part of the plan had been as easy as could be. It was the other part...

"Good, good." He no doubt intended to sound jolly, but Peter thought that if the man were Santa Claus, he would be a strung-out Santa who needed to get his daily crack fix.

After a few more pleasantries, he returned the phone to its cradle and his thoughts to the problem at hand. He needed to perfect it by Tuesday, since Swanson couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut once the election was over. He also had a lot to lose if the truth came out, but one could never be too certain.

No, it was best if he ensured the senator would keep quiet. He had a lot to do before Tuesday, it seemed. It was time to get to work.