Destroyer of Worlds (8 page)

And if it did work…the other thing he hadn’t
yet brought up would become an issue. Somehow he had to convince
John to let Gray go, against every law and every SPECTR
dictate.

John hung up. “Sean’s going to meet us at an
abandoned house. Kaniyar stuck us on ghoul patrol last week, and
it’s one of the addresses we didn’t check yet. We’ll perform the
exorcism there.”

“
Thanks. How did he take the news about
my breaking out and…everything?”

John’s eyes darkened. “Not bad.”

“
Really?”

“
He’s still processing. But we’ve been
best friends since high school. He knows I wouldn’t just make up
something like this.”

Caleb winced. “I’m sorry about SPECTR.”

John’s mouth tightened. “Not your fault.”

“
I know, but…well, I’d say I know how
you must feel, but truth is I can’t fucking imagine it right
now.”

John shook his head, blue eyes locked on the
road. “Once we’ve removed Gray, the three of us will go to Kaniyar.
Pittman can verify you’re not lying about what happened.”

Caleb thought about pointing out Kaniyar
might very well know exactly what went on at RD. Somebody sure as
hell did; no way was an operation that big carried out without any
knowledge of the higher ups. And Forsyth didn’t have any
higher-ups, except for the Director of SPECTR himself.

But crushing John’s last bit of optimism
seemed too cruel. He rested his hand on John’s knee, denim warm
against his fingertips. “Thanks for trusting me.”

John took one hand off the steering wheel to
cover Caleb’s. “I won’t pretend I didn’t have some sleepless
nights, but…you’re a good guy.”

John trusted him even more than SPECTR. Maybe
he wouldn’t totally freak when Caleb asked him to set Gray
free?

Christ, I hope so.

“
As do I.”

Ironically, their destination lay only a few
blocks from where Caleb had originally encountered Gray. The
neighborhood hadn’t improved in the last forty days: cracked
pavement, faded paint even on occupied buildings, shuttered
businesses. A man carrying a paper bag wandered the buckled
sidewalk, pausing to take a swig out of the bottle inside. Seagulls
dotted the pot-holed parking lot in front of a liquor store not yet
open for the day, their beady eyes bright.

John parked in front of a weathered house,
which looked like it would fall down in a strong breeze, let alone
the next hurricane. Like many old Charleston homes, it stretched
long and narrow to catch the sea breezes, and stood side-on to the
street. The front door looked out on a vacant lot, which had no
doubt once been a verdant garden.

Sean’s sedan pulled up a few seconds later.
Unlike John, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, Sean wore his usual
suit, even though it was a Saturday. Maybe he’d gone into the
office for work?

John climbed out of the car and hurried to
Sean. “Thanks for meeting us.”

Sean reeked of cigarettes even more than
usual, as if he’d been chain smoking for days. “Yeah,” he said,
glancing at Caleb. “No problem.”

“
There’s stuff you need to know,” John
said. “About RD. Things Caleb saw. But it can wait. Are you ready
to do the exorcism I told you about?”

Sean looked at Caleb again. What was his
problem? “I…yeah. Let’s do this.”

John clapped Sean on the shoulder, before
jogging back to the car to grab his bag out of the trunk. “This is
going to work,” he told Caleb firmly, as if he meant to rip Gray
out by sheer will alone.

“
I know,” Caleb said, even though he
didn’t. But he hoped it did.

As did Gray.
“Better John does this to us than strangers.”

Are you sure?

Hesitation.
“Yes. Will you look into his eyes? I would like them to be the
last color I see.”

Caleb’s chest ached, Gray’s grief mixed in
with his own. And he shouldn’t be sad, damn it. He ought to be
dancing for joy.

I’m going to miss you. I hope everything
goes okay for you. You know, after.

“
Do not worry for
me.”

I do, though. I will. I’ll
think about you all the time.
He swallowed against the
irrational constriction of his throat. Damn drakul, making him all
weepy.

“
And I shall carry my
memories of you for as long as I exist.”

Weird, to think somebody would remember his
life long after he was dead and gone. Gray had seen civilizations
rise and fall. Maybe it was a sort of immortality, to think some of
Caleb’s memories would still be around, a thousand years from
now.

John led the way to the house, Caleb
following and Sean trailing last. The lock had been broken sometime
in the past, and the hinges shrieked as John shoved the door open.
The wet reek of mold floated out, and Caleb wrinkled his nose.
Beneath it lay the rotten corruption of ghouls.

“
Ghouls here,” he said dutifully, as he
stepped inside behind John. The floor creaked under his boots, then
creaked again as Sean crowded in after him.

“
Good,” Sean said.

Which didn’t make a lot of sense. Caleb
started to ask why he’d want ghouls there, when something cold and
hard pressed against the base of his skull and—

* * *

John spun at the sound of a gunshot, his hand
reaching automatically for his Glock, even though he’d left it in
the glove compartment of the car.

What confronted him made no sense, a
collection of shapes and colors his brain couldn’t force into
something possible to interpret. Sean stood just inside the door,
gun in hand and a grim expression on his face. Caleb sprawled
facedown on the filthy floor, body limp as a marionette with its
strings cut. A pool of blood glistened in the light, spreading
slowly out from Caleb’s head.

John couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. His
brain spun in circles, like an engine in neutral, as something cold
and heavy poured into his gut.

“
Caleb?” he whispered. But Caleb didn’t
move, didn’t leap to his feet laughing at what had to be a stupid
joke, some crazy prank, because this couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t.

Sean took a step back, the floor groaning
under his shift of weight, the gun in his hand trembling
slightly.

The motion snapped something in John’s chest,
releasing him from stasis. With a hoarse cry, he ran to Caleb’s
unmoving body, only to be brought up short by Sean’s gun.

“
I’m sorry,” Sean said. No color
remained in his face, his skin as bleached white as Caleb’s. “It
had to be done.”

“
No.” No, this wasn’t real. Sean hadn’t
just killed Caleb, hadn’t shot him execution-style in the back of
the skull, hadn’t…

But it was. Caleb had just died at Sean’s
hand. His boyfriend, killed by his best friend.

John screamed, an inhuman sound without
words. Heedless of the gun, he flung himself at Sean. “No, why,
Goddess, why—”

The door burst open. Men and women dressed in
paramilitary gear streamed inside, all their guns trained on John.
“Freeze! Federal agents!” one shouted.

John froze instinctively. An instant later,
rough hands grabbed him, throwing him against the wall and yanking
his arms behind his back. Plastic cuffs snapped into place, and
they shoved him unceremoniously toward the door.

No. No, he couldn’t leave Caleb here. Caleb
depended on him.

He’d promised.

He set his heels, fighting like a madman,
screaming Caleb’s name until his throat was raw. It didn’t matter;
there were too many of them, and within seconds he’d been dragged
from the abandoned house.

Black vans with the SPECTR logo on the sides
sat in the street. The back doors of one flew open on some signal,
and the agents shoved him inside.

“
What should we do about the body?” one
of them asked.

“
Nothing,” Sean said. “It’s not
habitable for the drakul, not with most of the brain gone. It will
have moved on to the next corpse. Let the ghouls clean up the
mess.”

Sean climbed inside, and the doors slammed.
The engine of the van roared to life, and a moment later it lurched
forward, taking John further and further away from the abandoned
shell which was all that remained of Caleb.

* * *

The van rocked as it sped down the highway,
but John didn’t sway with it. He concentrated on holding himself
very, very still, because his skin had turned to glass, just a
thin, brittle shell wrapped around a scream, and any movement might
break him.

Tears slicked his face, running in a silent
stream from his eyes, and snot coated his upper lip. Clogged
sinuses made it hard to breathe, but he didn’t care. He might as
well suffocate here, seated between two armed guards, his hands
cuffed behind him.

“
You’re probably wondering where we’re
headed,” Sean said, as if the silence went on too long, and he
couldn’t stand it anymore. Maybe he couldn’t; there had never been
silence between them, just a conversation stretching back to their
first meeting as teenagers.

John didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. His oldest
friend. His best friend, the one who’d been there for him through
everything, pain and joy, sorrow and triumph. Who’d saved his
fucking life just two days ago, only to destroy it now.

“
RD,” Sean went on. “It’s…well.
Secure.” He shifted on his seat, a rustle of coat and a whiff of
stale cigarette smoke. “I’m sorry, John. Fuck, you have no idea how
bad I feel for you. It had to be done, and you’ll thank me for it
someday, but right now—”

“
Thank
you?”
John almost didn’t recognize his own voice. Lifting his gaze at
last, he stared at Sean, who flinched back from meeting his eyes.
“You murdered Caleb. How could you…why…?”

Sean sighed, shoulders slumping, as if John’s
bewildered hurt took something from him. “Because you couldn’t have
exorcised the drakul. I called Forsyth as soon as I got off the
phone with you, talked it over with him. He knows things about
them, things you and I don’t. Not even the two of us together could
have gotten it out of Caleb. If it had stayed contained at RD…but
it had escaped once already. It was just too dangerous to risk
capturing it, at least while it was still in a living body.”

“
So Caleb had to die?”

“
Yes!” Sean met his gaze defiantly.
“Damn it, John, you’ve been out of control since this whole cluster
fuck started. I don’t know if the drakul screwed with your head, or
if it was all just your damn death wish. If we’d left it in a
living body, we would have ended up with something no one could
control. Do you have any idea how many people would have died,
starting with you?”

“‘
Forsyth told you this, did
he?”

“
Yes, but he didn’t need to. I saw it
for myself, long before. You would have, too, if your head was on
straight.”

How could this have happened? How could John
have missed the signs Sean had turned against him? “You take orders
from Forsyth now?”

Sean’s lower lip jutted stubbornly, an
expression so familiar it brought a fresh wave of grief washing
across the strand of John’s soul. “He tried talking to you, but you
were too loyal to Kaniyar. But he worried about the drakul—”

“
The drakul has a name.”

“
No, it doesn’t. Because it isn’t a
person!” Sean ran a hand over his face. “Just listen to me for once
in your damned life, John. Forsyth asked me to keep an eye on it,
and you. And I agreed, because the drakul…shit. I wasn’t sure if
Forsyth was right, okay? I had my doubts. It hadn’t hurt you yet,
and Caleb seemed like a nice guy, and I thought maybe everything
would work out. Then Will came back into town.”

“
Will?” What the hell did John’s ex
have to do with this?

“
Yeah. He wanted to get back with you.
And it seemed less and less likely we’d be able to exorcise Caleb.
I had a talk with Caleb, to convince him to get out of the way and
let Will have a shot.”

“
You asshole.” Hot anger formed in
John’s chest, and he clung to it because it was small and
understandable, and gave him something to concentrate on besides
the abyss yawning under his feet.

“
You don’t understand.” Sean sat back,
looking tired. “I confronted Caleb, asked him how he could justify
putting you in danger when the thing in his head might go out of
control at any minute. And you know what he said? He said, quote,
‘we would never’ hurt you.
We.”
Sean shook his head. “It had fixated on you, John. And I knew
right then I had to do something, anything, to keep you safe. Even
if you didn’t want me to.”

John slipped further toward the abyss,
its sucking maw dragging him in, like a black hole whose gravity
was grief.
“Ours,”
Gray had
said, after an incubus nearly tricked John to his doom at the
lighthouse.

Gray felt something for him. He’d never know
what, but…something.

“
Goddess,” he whispered, bowing his
head to hide a fresh round of tears.

“
That’s why you’re here now,” Sean
said. “To keep you safe. And I’m sorry about Caleb, I truly am, but
there weren’t any other options left after he broke out of RD last
night. The drakul is weaker in a dead body than a living one. I had
no other choice than to force it into a habitable
corpse.”

Sean’s eyes lost their focus for a moment,
staring into nothing, and he swallowed hard. “No choice,” he
repeated then blinked back to the here-and-now. “But the drakul
might still be drawn to you, which is why we’re taking you to RD
for a little while. If it comes shambling up, it will be a lot
easier to trap now, when it can’t heal the body it’s in. And in the
meantime, you’ll get what you need. Therapy. A chance to rest.”