Chapter XVI

Through Jude’s recommendation, they eventually decided the ambush was to take place in a church – specifically an abandoned though not yet deconsecrated church-turned-office-space in an equally empty part of fortieth.

‘Do you know how they make those?’

Morgan pulled his gaze away from the night sky and the twin moons cradled in starless, inky blackness. He leaned his arms on the handrail and the rusted metal protested with a whine. The precinct sprawled before him in a massive valley of red rock, scrub and the derelict exoskeletons of abandoned buildings. Morgan knew little about the place except that it had once been a rural village until some tragedy had befallen it, leaving the few miles of land neglected and barren.

He snatched the red candy from between his teeth. ‘If you’re asking me that I’m guessing it isn’t good.’

Shalia joined him unflinchingly at the railing with the ease of someone born with wings. ‘Depends on your point-of-view. Synthetic haemoglobin – human – crystallised with biochemicals and packaged like candy. Not something I’d put in my body. But well, you smoke, too.’

He pondered a few replies to that, the bitter candy thick on his tongue. ‘You rather I do the alternative?’ he asked, watching carefully for the corporal’s reaction.

Coolly, ‘No, I suppose not. Immortal or not, doesn’t it weigh on you, though?’

The corporal’s expression was open – not inviting exactly, but curious and just a bit clinical. He found, through a thin veneer of bitterness, that he wanted to answer her honestly. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he said, ‘but you have the luxury to pick and choose what weighs you down, corporal. Someone like me doesn’t have that luxury. If I were to worry and obsess over every moral wrongdoing, I’d probably be dead by now. Maybe you think that makes me a shitty person. That’s fair. But I’ve got a long, long time to be obsessing over things, so I can’t afford to get caught up in the small shit. And anyway, since I have the power and the fuckin’ time to help people, wouldn’t my effort be better spent doing that?’

Shalia, still cool and calm, carefully tucked a brown lock of hair behind a tapered ear. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way, sir. You know, I’m not that much older than you are.’ She turned back toward the railing, amber gaze focused not on the scenery but some distant and unknowable future. ‘I guess I haven’t thought of things long-term. In the grand scheme of things, what is atonement and forgiveness? At some point, to a life that long, all those things cease to matter.’

Morgan crushed the candy between his teeth. ‘It’s a scary thought, huh?’

‘So, why do you bother with it all? The smoking? Even the alcohol – you told me you can’t get drunk.’

He met her unwavering gaze. Then his eyes travelled lower, to the base of an exposed throat, where even under the darkness of night he picked out the rush of blood suffused with sunlight. Shalia’s lips parted, just a fraction, and she paled like a deer caught in the gaze of a wolf. Morgan dared a step closer – they might die in the coming battle, after all, so why not live a little – and she went very still. He ran his tongue over lengthening teeth. And when she didn’t pull away, brushed his lips against her throat.

Softly, ‘Maybe I’ll tell you why I do all those things, corporal.’

She swallowed beneath his lips –

‘Prep’s done, I think. About as much as I could do with this place. Ravens didn’t leave much for me to work with.’

They separated like magnets with opposing polarities. Jude studied them from a few feet away, frozen in the act of running a black, ink-stained rag through his fingers. The church lurked at his back, a two-floored building of degrading concrete, leafy vines climbing its walls and interior lit by dim candles.

Without missing a beat, Jude continued scrubbing the ink from his fingers, a smile tugging at his lips. ‘If you’re both ready, we can get started.’

Shalia straightened her collar and jacket. A bead of sweat glistened on her brow. ‘Lead the way.’

He shouldn’t have teased her like that, knew in the moment that it was wrong, but found he had wanted to see how she would react anyway. A twisted thought, reminiscent of how the Vorvintti would treat their victims – playthings, not people. Morgan swallowed past the sour taste in his mouth and followed.

Nothing about the church really screamed a place of worship, but from what the exorcist had explained, it had once served as a base of operations for the Order of Ravens, a strict and powerful organisation whose main mission comprised of tracking down and either slaying or detaining creatures like Morgan. Though they had been rising in political and militaristic power thirteen or so years ago, Morgan had heard little of them since his recruitment by the bureau. He thought the cult had died out; there was an equal number of humans and non-humans residing in Joudai, after all. It wasn’t exactly the best foundation to facilitate a crusade.

Just before the threshold, Jude placed a hand on Morgan’s chest. ‘Just a second, darling.’

‘I’ll meet you inside,’ said Shalia, frustratingly neutral, her boots crushing broken glass in the entranceway.

‘Something up?’ he asked, peering at the hand on his chest.

‘The grounds are consecrated.’

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

‘And?’

‘And…Empress, you’ve never been in a consecrated building before, have you?’

‘If you haven’t noticed,’ said Morgan, ‘there aren’t that many churches in the city.’

Jude shook his head. ‘Oh, I know that. Churches aren’t the only place that can be consecrated. Oh, man. Amateurs.’ He removed his hand, took a step back and waved him inside. ‘By all means.’

Morgan looked at the doorway. Looked at Jude. Back at the doorway. ‘This is gonna hurt, isn’t it?’

‘If our job were that easy, I wouldn’t bother with all the prep. It doesn’t hurt, but you should get a frame of reference in case you step into a consecrated building by mistake in the future.’

Morgan clicked his tongue, ceding the point, and stepped across the threshold.

Nothing. He wasn’t struck by lightning, or turned to ash. ‘So, what’s supposed –’

A nausea so acute and sudden it made him stumble; he clutched the doorframe for support as his knees grew weak. The Sleight sleeping in his veins awoke with a start of its own accord, lines of liquid fire crisscrossing over the skin. The sudden rush of heat made him dizzy; it wasn’t a frenzied blaze, like what he experienced in battle, but a smothering intensity like fever. He tripped back over the doorframe onto his ass outside the church.

A beat. When the fever running through him cooled and the sickness in his gut vanished, he said, ‘Christ, Jude you asshole –’

Jude, smugly from the doorframe: ‘But did it hurt?’

He ran his tongue over his lip; his teeth had cut a gash in the skin when he fell. ‘…No. But I’m not doing that again. If I can’t get inside the building, how’re we supposed to do this?’

Jude flashed him a self-satisfied smile and, kneeling at Morgan’s side, said, ‘Why, with a spell, of course.’

‘Lieutenant? Are you alright?’ Shalia emerged from within the building.

‘Yeah. Consecrated ground, as it turns out, sucks ass.’

She watched him for a moment. Sighed. Then, a small smile. ‘It sure does,’ she said, and joined them.

Jude worked his magic, weaving a spell together in the air from neon purple with his slim fingers as Morgan and the corporal watched. The exorcist wove the huge pattern of crisscrossing lines and words together into a thin band of light and reached for Morgan’s other wrist, the one without the Tape bracer. Morgan offered his arm and the light encircled his wrist, where it floated in place until it vanished. He couldn’t feel it there.

‘That’ll last maybe ten hours or so,’ Jude explained as he got to his feet. ‘If we haven’t got Wrath by then, it’ll have to be reapplied.’

Morgan climbed to his feet as well and dusted the glass from his ass. ‘So, I can go in? No problem?’

‘Sure.’

Shalia and Jude ventured inside, and after a tentative step across the threshold, Morgan trailed in behind them.

The place was barren inside as well. There were no pews or alters, but empty cubicles and chairs suggesting that in this room at least, office work once got done here. Jude had pushed all the tables and chairs to the walls to clear a space in the centre of the office, where a massive magic circle of black ink was inscribed on the concrete floor. Shalia went to the edge of the inscription and studied the circle by the candlelight at their feet. ‘I’ll give you this,’ she said, ‘you do impressive glyphwork.’

Jude stood in a small circle of his own to the left of main one, the two connected by a line of text in a language Morgan didn’t know. ‘That’s not all I do that’s impressive, darling. But anyway, we’re sure we’re just arresting Wrath, not killing him?’

Shalia, exasperated, ‘Yes! Obviously!’

‘And you, lieutenant?’

Morgan chewed a fingernail. He couldn’t meet the corporal’s eyes. ‘…If we can’t arrest him, we kill him.’

‘Lieutenant!’ She came over and grabbed him by the shoulder. ‘There’s still due process we can’t ignore! Are you really going to be judge, jury and executioner to this man’s life?’

Gently, he pulled her fingers away from his arm. ‘And what about Wrath? What do you think he was doing when he killed all those people? What about their due process?’

‘What about yours?’

He went very still. ‘What?’

‘If the bureau director had killed you instead of arresting you? If he’d been judge, jury and executioner at that very moment? He could’ve easily covered it up, if he wanted to.’ She winced. ‘You’re hurting me, lieutenant.’

Morgan let her fingers go, his own bright with the burning blood, and turned his head, unable to meet her eyes. ‘Maybe he should’ve killed me.’

‘And maybe he gave you the chance to make things right. Shouldn’t we do the same?’

He removed his glasses and ran a hand down his face. ‘Alright. I – you’re right. Dammit. We arrest him. Bring him in alive. But corporal, if it’s between me or him, or, Empress, if it’s between you and Jude or him?’

Shalia took a step back, her hands clasped behind her back. A bead of sweat ran down her neck. ‘I understand. I won’t stop you.’

As Jude finished the circle, Morgan and Shalia took position just inside the doorway as Morgan retrieved his Glass.

He looked first at Shalia for confirmation. She nodded and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her Austere, although her face pale. Nerves, thought Morgan. There was no way to predict how Wrath might approach them. Next, he nodded to Jude, who smiled and gave him a wink.

Morgan placed the call.

The dial tone chirped in his ear for several heartbeats. He almost thought the call wouldn’t go through.

‘Yeah?’

It was a perfectly normal voice, belonging, he guessed, to someone the same age as him when he’d been human, perhaps a little older. It wasn’t a voice he recognised.

‘Oh,’ the man continued. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? Morgan.’

‘I saw what you did to Ling.’ It slipped out before he could stop himself. ‘Nice handiwork, by the way.’

‘Ling? Oh yeah, I did do that, huh? Forgot. Loose end. He shouldn’t have talked shit about me. I thought I smashed his Glass.’

‘You did.’

Wrath made an approving noise with his throat. ‘You got this number anyway. The fucking ledger, I bet. Told Ling that thing would get him in trouble. You called me just to chat?’

Morgan took a breath. ‘Let’s finish things. I know you want me dead. Almost got away with it last time. So, you and me.’

Silence. Then a ripple of husky laughter. ‘Where’d you hide Killian?’

Morgan froze.

‘Off-world?’ Wrath continued. ‘Smart. Should’ve killed him first, but that other one, that Vorvintti that looks so much like Erin? Couldn’t resist. Your little brother died, right? A real shame that. What, you tried to replace him?’

Morgan wordlessly handed the Glass to the corporal, who took it and put it on loudspeaker. He let the anger boil through him; if he’d been holding the communicator, it would have melted in his hand. ‘Why?’ he ground out between his teeth.

‘Ah. I was waiting for that. The begging. I didn’t wanna just kill you – it’s a cliché, they say it all the time in movies – but I wanted you to suffer first. Those guys up at the bureau must have shit for brains, because they let you go free. Well, I know they suck at their jobs anyway. Not just because I’m still walking around, but because they let monsters like you live with ordinary, law-abiding citizens. Crazy, right? Family was the next obvious thing, but damn, guess Red Dawn ain’t in power for no reason, huh? So, I thought, “How else can I get to him?” A Vorvintti that ain’t got ties to people, that don’t give a shit if they live or die one way or the other. That’ll forget about you like last week’s news? A conundrum, that. But, shit, I’ve had twelve years to think of a way to make you suffer – I mean well and truly suffer, not just a temporary thing that won’t leave scars.’

‘You like to talk, huh?’

Another throaty chuckle down the line. ‘Not really. I just needed to stall you for a bit.’