Artful Evil Read online

  “And risk losing body parts permanently? No, thanks.” Although, I could get used to her being this close to me without the face punching or ninja headlocks.

  She sat up and looked at me, and I could not help but notice she kept her hand on my leg. “Did you keep waiting for Jake’s nose to fall off?” She snorted. “I thought it might end up in his drink!” She burst out laughing.

  I couldn’t help but laugh too. Then I took her hand and stood. “Let’s walk this off before we head back.” I pulled her up and slipped an arm around her waist ... just for support. “Something tells me showing up to The Judas Agency like this would not be a good idea.”

  Alex let out a breath. “Party pooper.”

  We stumbled along the sidewalk laughing about Jake and the various ways he might find to reattach his appendages. A well-dressed couple passed us offering a wide berth. They probably found our staple comments uncivilized.

  We turned down another quiet street and saw a familiar face exit the building ahead of us. Alex stopped and shot me a glare; an expression I would have thought impossible considering how giggly she had been. “Did you plan this?”

  “No, I swear I had no idea we’d run into him.” I held my hands up. “I didn’t even realize where we were. Let’s turn around and go the other way.”

  I meant it. The last thing I wanted to do was elicit a confrontation with an inebriated Alex on my arm.

  Simeon Scott, or rather Simeon wearing Ryan’s body, strode out of MiRACL headquarters accompanied by a thin, unassuming man I did not recognize. Simeon, of course, looked like Ryan—a Japanese American with large, round glasses and a wispy beard. Unlike our previous meetings with the true and autistic version of Ryan, Simeon carried his body in an upright, confident position. Not at all like the slumped, frightened boy he had been before.

  “Hey, you,” Alex shouted. “Mr. Soul-Jacking Bastard. Hold up a minute. We want to talk to you.”

  So much for diplomacy.

  Simeon and his associate stopped to look at us.

  Alex began to lurch forward, but I held her back, keeping her from launching straight at him. Since when was I the sensible one in these unsanctioned altercations?

  “What did you do with Ryan?” Alex did a passible job of not slurring her words, but they still smeared together a little bit. “Where is he now? Where did you put him? Is he in a teeny, little bottle somewhere?”

  Alex made a squishing motion with her fingers and closed one eye.

  Oh brother. Alex and liquor did not mix.

  I did my best to pull her back and take control of the conversation. Simeon, however seemed more than a little amused.

  “Alex ... and Gabe, isn’t it? Looks like you two enjoyed a day on the town.” He looked at me. “Good for you. Judas Agents aren’t allowed enough time for R&R as far as I am concerned.”

  I made a concerted effort to stiffen my spine, refusing to sway no matter how much the street moved under my feet. “What about Alex’s question? What happened to Ryan? He was a good kid. He doesn’t deserve to be held hostage by a greaseball like you.”

  Simeon crossed his hands over his heart and looked hurt. “There’s no need to get personal. Ryan is right in here.” He lifted a finger and tapped the side of his head. “Safe and sound.”

  He paused for a second as if considering his words. “That may be a bit of an overstatement. He is a quivering mass of jelly, and I could stomp him out like a bowl of grapes. But he’s still in here, nonetheless.”

  I wanted to reach out and strangle Simeon to death, but all that would do is kill Ryan and send Simeon back to The Nine. I did not like the prospect of either.

  “I suppose I have a soft spot for saving wayward souls,” Simeon continued. “That’s a subject you're familiar with, isn’t it, Gabe? Sacrificing self for others. Saving the many at the cost of the few?”

  “Don’t you even talk about the—”

  Simeon leapt forward and clamped his hand over my mouth, trapping my head between his hands.

  “As much as I would enjoy watching you debase yourself, it would be less than satisfying to watch you do it just because you’re drunk.”

  He looked me in the eye, and as soon as he was sure I would not say anything stupid, he removed his hand, allowing me to breathe again.

  “There. Now isn’t that better?”

  I seethed at his condescending tone, but he was right. I had almost blown my Denarii Division secret. And for what, to hurl a few words at him? The coin would have struck me down before I uttered a single, slurred syllable.

  I looked over at Alex to see that she stared daggers into Simeon’s eyes as well.

  “My peach. It’s so good to see you. Can’t we move past all this hostility and go back to the way things used to be?” He held out a hand. “Why don’t you and—”

  That was as far as he got before Alex pounced. She was on him like a starving monkey on a banana ... or at least she would have been.

  Before she got there, the world seemed to crack, and everything vibrated into agonizing, searing sound. It wasn’t just noise. It felt like a physical presence, as if someone had fractured the fabric of reality, and now it shrieked in pain. Everything blurred and hummed at an excruciating rate, forcing me to my knees as I pressed my hands to the side of my skull.

  “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” The voice sliced in over the din of shrieking sound and visual pain like a hammer tearing its way in through wet cardboard. “My name is Robert Beelz. Mr. Scott is my associate and under my protection.”

  All at once, I realized who the unassuming man had to be. The man walking out of the building with Simeon. He had to be a member of The Council of Seven. Who else could wield this kind of raw power? He was about to tear Alex and I apart from the inside out, and there was nothing we could do about it. She crouched on the ground in much the same position I was, knelt on one knee, cradling her head in her hands as she looked up at Mr. Beelz. I wanted to lash out at him for hurting her, for making her kneel like that. I tried to find my feet, but the vibrating agony in my head redoubled, forcing my face to the sidewalk in excruciating supplication.

  “As I said, Mr. Scott is under my protection, and I will not tolerate a threat to my charge.”

  That voice again, shrill and rat-like, cutting in like hot steel. It was almost worse than the torture.

  “We really must be going; however, I look forward to learning about your involvement in Mr. Scott’s affairs.”

  Mr. Beelz motioned toward a long, black blur. I assumed it was a limousine parked on the street, but the buzzing in my head made it impossible to make out. Simeon said something as well, but his words came out equally as muted. The only things that existed in my world was that audible, vibrating pain and Mr. Beelz’s hammering voice.

  Swirling, blurring colors mixed with a screeching buzz and threatened to drive me into a million white, hot needle points of madness. Then all at once, it was gone. Simeon ... Mr. Beelz. The sudden absence was so jarring, I fell the rest of the way to the ground as if someone had dropped me.

  When I regained enough courage to open my eyes, I looked over to see Alex lying on the concrete as well. She wept into her palm, trying to get control of her sobs.

  I crawled over to her, oblivious to the people walking past us on the sidewalk, and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “You all right?”

  Alex didn’t look up at me, but she nodded her head. We both got to our feet and brushed ourselves off, trying to regain some semblance of dignity.

  “Well, that was a sobering way to end an afternoon,” Alex said. “Next time we make drunk decisions together, let’s make sure someone is there to slap it out of us before we follow through.”

  I laughed. The action brought lances of pain back into my head. “Next time we make drunk decisions together, you have my permission to slap me enough for both of us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The moment Alex and I stepped off the Envisage-n
ausea-elevator and back into The Nine, we were hit with hangovers so epic George Lucas would have been jealous. The penance was overkill measured by the megaton, making us both wish we could go back in time and make sure alcohol had never been invented.

  I said goodbye to Alex and watched her stagger toward her apartment to sleep off her malady, but my sentence had just begun. I had screwed up big but allowing Judas to find out about my mistake from someone else would only make things worse. Like the kind of worse where you find yourself pants-less at that Llama castration clinic, and I don’t mean the kind where the Llamas are castrated. Then again, it wasn’t like I had gone up there to see Simeon. Running into him was an accident. Judas would understand. Maybe I didn’t even need to tell him. It would blow over and everything— The Denarius in my pocket buzzed, and my stomach dropped like a lead bowling ball. Somehow, whenever Judas wanted to see me, he could page me through the coin. It was an irritating feature. I shoved my hand into my pocket as if to stifle the buzzing irritation. There’s no way he could know about Simeon. It had to be a coincidence ... didn’t it?

  I staggered off the elevator on the top floor of Judas’s tower a few minutes later to see my favorite executive assistant waiting for me. She stood in front of her reception desk with her arms outstretched holding three little, white pills in one hand and a big glass of water in the other.

  “How did you know ...”

  She nodded toward the closing elevator doors.

  “We have cameras mounted everywhere. This is not the first time I’ve seen an Agent wander in looking like they were on a six-week bender.”

  “We didn’t even have that many.” I popped the pills and drank the water, eternally grateful for both of the rare elements she offered. “I mean we had enough to get a little stupid, but this feels like we drank a gallon of gasoline with antifreeze chasers.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you have one or one-hundred, when you return it’s all the same. This place is supposed to be the ultimate punishment, remember? The establishment does not appreciate it when the residents go Topside for a good time. Sort of a reverse karma on steroids.”

  “Well, reverse karma sucks. Are there any other little idiosyncrasies about going Topside I should know about?”

  “Loads.” She rounded her desk and sat down in her chair again, turning her attention back to whatever task she had been doing before I came in. “It’s way more fun if I let you find out on your own, though.”

  She looked up and shot me a wink. “Friendly tip, stay away from porn.” She glanced down at my crotch and grimaced then looked up at me again.

  “You can go on in. He is expecting you.”

  I stared at her for a moment wondering, then not wanting to wonder what that last bit of advice was meant to warn me against. I resisted shielding my nether regions with both my hands and smiled back at her.

  “Thanks. For the tip and for the aspirin.”

  “Oh, aspirin doesn’t work down here either. Hell, remember?”

  I froze and jerked my head to look back at her. She acted like nothing had happened.

  I waited while she read something impossibly interesting.

  “Don’t worry, they won’t kill you.” A hint of a smile touched her lips, but she refused to look back up at me. “But Mr. Iscariot might if you keep him waiting any longer.”

  I groaned and glanced back at the carved door that led to his office, knowing she was right. If she had poisoned me, it would be slower than a Judas homicide, but they would end the same either way.

  I turned and headed for his office, head cradled in my hands, not bothering to knock or reach for the knob. As always, it swung open on its own, offering me entry to the sanctum of doom.

  I did my best to straighten before rounding the corner and then shuffled forward to meet Judas’s eyes. I was surprised to see he wasn’t at his desk, but rather, he admired a new display on the far side of the room. His office was adorned with all types of paintings, tapestries, statues, and sculptures all portraying some sort of torture or tribulation. The sculpture he doted over now depicted a victorious soldier poised over a bloody battlefield. The soldier, however, seemed oblivious to the peasant who crouched behind him with a spear ready to stick him like a pig.

  “What do you make of this capture in time?”

  His eyes dropped from me back to the sculpture again. As gruesome as the battlefield rendering was, the piece looked incredibly intricate and lifelike. The fallen, both soldiers and peasants alike at his feet, looked to be made of real flesh, blood, and bone. The soldier wore a roman uniform, of course, his gladius held high in the air. The red fabric looked almost supple in the light. Behind him, the peasant assassin looked the most genuine of them all. I could read every line of determination on his face. Every bit of hate and sadness.

  “The peasant has suffered and holds the soldier accountable,” I said. “He wants to kill him for ...” I paused realizing how specific his reasoning felt to me.

  “Kill him for what?” Judas prompted.

  “He wants his life in exchange for his family. He wants the soldier to pay for destroying everything he loved and more.”

  Judas offered a thoughtful smile. “When I look at this piece, I see many things. A soldier doing his job. A peasant exacting retribution.” He paused and placed a protective glass dome over the sculpture. “Perhaps the soldier was called to fight a band of murderous criminals, and he is the only survivor. Perhaps he fights for his country and has stood against the onslaught of countless invaders only to be cut down by a lowly traitor within his own ranks. The thanks he gets for his patriotism.”

  I was taken aback by the other scenarios, seeing the plausibility of every last one of them.

  “I love this piece because it appears to be straight forward, but like life, there are so many sides to consider.”

  Judas turned and walked back to his desk where Procel and Mastema stood in their usual spots. I followed him over and sat down in the bone chair wondering, not for the first time, if they ever left their posts. I supposed Procel had come to fetch me in the past, but he came back as soon as he completed his task. No stopping off at the local Lucifer Mart for gum or a pack of cigarettes. Where did they go when Judas slept? Did they hover over his hammock like a couple of hungry vultures? Did they sleep themselves? All questions for another time. Maybe I could take Procel out for a Coke. Lord knows I didn’t want any more bourbon.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Judas sank back in his chair and steepled his fingers the way he always did when he was thinking ... or expecting to choke me but didn’t know why ... yet.

  “But, you called me.” Confusion kicked around the mass of paranoia already swirling in my brain. He must know now about Simeon. Or maybe he’s waiting to see if I’d admit it. It was a test. Or maybe not. I had no idea what I should do.

  I realized I was staring at Judas with my mouth half open, so I cleared my throat and sat back in my chair, trying to look casual.

  “I mean, we can talk about whatever you want. Read any good books lately?”

  I crossed my legs, uncrossed them, and then settled for clenching my hands onto the armrests as if it were an ejector seat about ready to go off.

  Evidentially casual was not my strong suit today.

  “I wanted to inquire about your freelance job. You seemed unsure about it last time you were here. Judging from your demeanor, I assume something has gone wrong.”

  I shouted out a laugh. “Of course not. What could go wrong? Everything is going right. So right it couldn’t go any righter.” I chucked a few more times but buckled under Judas’s stony stare. “I guess I do have some other information you might be interested in.”

  Judas sighed and waved a hand by way of invitation.

  I opened my mouth and thought for a minute, hoping something ... anything would come out.

  “Jake Trento.” I blurted so loud my voice cracked. “We ran into him Topside. He’s been missing since that whole virus fiasco a few mo
nths ago.”

  I tried not to remind him how I had almost screwed up that mission so bad that Jake and his partner had almost succeeded. I’m sure Judas remembered at any rate. He was like that.

  “Jake said he’s trying to figure out a way to stay Topside ... permanently. I’m not sure how, but he acted pretty hopeful about the whole thing.”

  Judas smiled. “He is not the first one to attempt such a thing, and he will not be the last. No one has ever discovered a way to circumvent the lasting effects of Topside Disease, and I doubt they ever will. It is beyond the understanding of the human world.”

  Judas eyed me and leaned forward in his chair. “Do not attempt to do this yourself. You will never outrun the disease, and its effects are eternal. The short victory you attain Topside will not be worth the eternal torture you endure afterward.”

  I shook my head remembering how certain pieces of Jake’s anatomy fell off at random. “Don’t worry. I have no desire to find out what it’s like to come down with an atomic case of leprosy.”

  Judas dipped his head in agreement. “Is that all?”

  I cringed knowing I needed to drop the bomb one way or another.

  “Well ...” I tapped at my lip as if I were trying to remember any other details I had omitted. “We did a Topside recon of the train derailment; you’ll be happy to know that horrible catastrophe is right on schedule. Puppies and children will be horrified.”

  I paused then raised my finger in the air. “Oh, I almost forgot. Probably not even worth mentioning. Alex and I got drunk and ran into Simeon. He had a guy with him. A gentleman named Robert Beelz. A little chatty but nice enough. Said he was with The Council.”

  I stood up and clapped my hands together ready to make my exit.

  “That’s about it. Have fun with your statues. I’ll let you know if anything way less boring happens, and I’ll keep you posted about the whole train disaster.”

  Judas slammed his fists down on his desk, and his face turned so many shades of purple, I was pretty sure ultraviolet was one of them.