Abandoned Warehouse
Tehran, Iran
June 16, 2:32 a.m.
“Do you understand now?” asked Violin, her voice quiet in the pin-drop silence. “Why I had to be careful? Why I couldn’t just-”
“Yes,” I said hoarsely. “I understand.” Though I wished I could tear that knowledge from my mind. I looked at Church. He nodded, his face uncharacteristically sad.
He patted me on the shoulder. “I knew a fraction of this,” he said. “If I had known more… well, the Red Order and the Upierczi would have been more squarely on the DMS radar a long time ago.”
“We’re going to do something about this,” I demanded. “Right?”
Church gave me a fraction of an arctic smile. “What would your guess be?”
In my earbud I heard several of my team softly growl, “Hooah.”
Church turned to Lilith. “You should have told me this a long time ago,” he said, but his tone was gentle.
“It wasn’t your fight,” she said.
Church grunted softly. “Of course it is.”
Violin looked at me. “Joseph, you and your soldiers, you fight against madmen and terrorists to defend the world and a certain way of life, but your fight is a new one. There are older struggles.”
“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “Believe me when I tell you that you’ve made your point.”
She nodded and gave me a small smile that seemed to hold a thousand different meanings. Grace had a smile like that, and for just a moment I thought I heard Grace’s sweet voice whisper my name.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I inhaled through my nose and let out a big chestful of air. “Okay,” I said, “I think I have almost all the players except one. Who or what is Arklight?”
“Arklight was formed as the militant arm of the Mothers,” said Violin, and her eyes were fierce with pride. “Most of the field agents are their children.”
“Dhampyri?” I asked, almost afraid to use the word.
Violin paused for a moment, then nodded. “We are dedicated to the destruction of the Holy Agreement, the Red Order, the Tariqa and the Upierczi. We are the children of monsters, and many of us are the mothers of monsters… but we are not monsters. In comic books and movies dhampyr have super powers. We don’t. Though, there are some useful qualities, I suppose. A few ‘gifts.’ Perhaps ‘side-effects’ is more medically correct. From the Upierczi blood in our veins we have some physical advantages.”
“Speed and strength?” I ventured.
“Some,” said Violin, though she smiled when she said it, allowing me to infer what I could from that.
“What about the age thing. Are you immortal, too? Or-what passes for immortal?”
Lilith shrugged. “Some of us are pretty well-preserved for our ages.”
And I saw a twinkle in her eye that made me wonder just how old she was. And… how old Violin was.
Church consulted his watch. “The president should be calling me any time now. We have to make some decisions, the first of which is whether we continue to work our separate and counter-productive agendas, or whether we combine our resources. The Red Order and the Upierczi are clearly tied to our hunt for the nukes. That makes it everyone’s fight.”
Lilith glanced around at the other Mothers. Some were stone-faced, a few still openly hostile, but most of them had predatory gleams in their eyes. Some of them even smiled. Kind of the way the big hunting cats smile. You don’t want to see that smile coming at you out of the dark.
The older women in the group nodded to Lilith, one by one, and she in turn nodded to Church. Some of the tension seemed to go out of his big shoulders.
“Then let’s go to work,” he said.