Solomon's Sieve (11 page)

“Yes, sir.”

When he was dropped in front of Jefferson Unit, Sol shouldered his duffel and stood staring at the front of the building. If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t really believed he’d ever be back in a body entering J.U. again. He heard his stomach rumble and laughed out loud. He was hungry! Hungry and eager to see what he looked like.

He stepped inside the door and was standing on the outer circle of The Hub a few seconds later. There was definitely more hustle and bustle than the last time he’d stood in that spot. The extra activity looked good on J.U. His entrance hadn’t garnered any attention so he took the moment of temporary anonymity to turn right toward the men’s room.

A man was coming out, someone Sol didn’t recognize, but who had to be a hunter based on his age and the way he carried himself. He breathed a little sigh of relief thinking there was no one else in the restroom, but had to rethink that when he turned toward the mirrored wall.

His first thought was that there was someone else and that he’d have to wait. Then he realized that the stranger looking back at him, mirroring his every movement, was Rev Farthing. He let the duffel slide to the floor and approached the mirror, slowly examining every detail of the reflection.

Cripes!
No wonder the flight attendant was a little gaga. That angel fellow didn’t lie. The kid in the mirror was damn good-looking. Light brown hair, dark brown eyes, and tanned skin pretty enough to be a woman’s. At least he thought that would be the case once he shaved off the travel scruff. He hesitated at the top button of his shirt feeling a little gay about peeping, but by the gods, it was his body and he deserved to have a look at it.

He pulled the sides of his shirt apart to reveal well-defined abs kept in top working condition. His eyes followed a natural path to the happy trail. He asked himself if he had a good excuse for a look at the package and decided that a piss stop was as good an excuse as any. So he unzipped, pulled out, looked up into the mirror and grinned at himself. Yeah. The angel was right. He could have done a lot worse.

Once he got all that pretty hair buzzed away from his head he’d start to settle into the new house of flesh.

Overseer Dimension

“Enforcer. You need to keep an eye on the vampire aberration on that outpost.” Heralda didn’t bother to look at Kellareal when she addressed him.

“Very well. What does ‘keeping an eye’ entail?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “We’ll assist that band of boys. What was the name?”

“Animal House?”

“No. The human boys.”

“The Order of the Black Swan.”

“Yes. We’ll give them just enough support to begin turning the tide their way, but not enough to raise suspicion of divine intervention or something of the sort. The last thing we need is another era of people claiming to have gods on their side.”

“You’re going to sponsor them? Black Swan, that is?”

Huber barked out a laugh, stopped abruptly and began sniffing the air in every direction. “Does anyone else smell irony on the grill?” he giggled. “The mother of vampire is sponsoring vampire hunters. If this ever gets out…”

“Shut it, Huber.” Heralda heaved a sigh while she considered goosing Huber with a small lightning bolt. She turned back to the angel, appearing more bored than anything. “Yes. I will sponsor them. Keep me posted.”

“All right. Do you have a goal in mind?”

“Um. How do they count time?” Kellareal showed her a vision of time in year increments. “Two hundred years.” Kellareal didn’t move or change expression. “Too long or too short?”

“In terms of their life spans, that’s eight generations.”

“Oh. Make it one hundred years then.”

The angel bowed and vanished before she changed her mind. He knew her habits all too well.

CHAPTER 8

Jefferson Unit, New Jersey

Rev Farthing went straight to the Sovereign’s office. He recognized the kid sitting at the assistant’s desk in the outer office. Bo Barrock.

Bo looked up. “Yes, sir? Can I help you?”

“Rev Farthing reporting for duty.” He looked toward the closed door. “Who’s the acting Sovereign?”

“Sir Catch. Glendennon Catch.”

“Sir Catch? Not Sovereign Catch?” Sol felt the same little rush of pride he always felt when one of his boys was inducted into the knighthood. That feeling of accomplishment never seemed to get old.

“No sir. It’s kind of a long story. Basically though, the unit Sovereign passed away and Glen, um, Sovereign Catch is one of the people filling in until he can be permanently replaced.”

“Thank you, Mr.,” Sol made a point of leaning back to read the on-duty-now name plate on the desk, “Barrock. Would it be possible for me to speak with Sir Catch?”

“Just a second, let me ask.” Bo rose and turned his back to Sol to knock lightly on the Sovereign’s door. He opened it, stuck his head in, and said something to Catch.

In another couple of seconds, the door was jerked wide open. Bo had to step out of the way as Glen advanced on Sol smiling with his hand out.

“Glendennon Catch. So glad to have you here.” Sol shook his hand. “You stiff from the flight? What is it? Ten hours?”

“Yeah. About that. And, no, I’m doing all right.”

Glen waved toward his office. “Good. Good. Come on in. You want something?”

“Well, to be honest, I haven’t had breakfast. I was going to check in with you and then try to scare something up.”

“No hunting necessary. We like to take first things first. Bo,” Glen turned to his assistant, “Get the kitchen to bring us the works.” Turning back to Sol, he said, “What do you like?”

“American all the way. Eggs. Bacon. Hash browns. Biscuits. Orange juice. Coffee.”

“No pancakes?”

Sol grinned at Glen. “A side of pancakes with warm maple syrup would be heaven.”

“Heaven, huh? Well, let’s see what we can do.” He motioned Sol into the office while he told Bo to bring the food to the conference room and call when it arrived.

When they were both seated in the office, Glen turned to Sol. “So. Again. Welcome. Bo said you asked to speak to me?”

“I did. I want to apply for the job of Sovereign.”

Glen had just raised a coffee cup to his lips and sputtered a little which caused some of the liquid to go down the wrong way and some to land on his keyboard. When Glen started wheezing, Sol stood up, but Glen stopped him with a wave. “Just give me a second,” he said in a strained and breathy voice as he tried to return his breathing to normal.

When he was once again in control of respiratory function, he looked across the desk at Sol with eyes slightly narrowed and a studious look on his face.

“What makes you think the position is open?”

“The HELP WANTED sign on the door.”

“Very funny.”

“I heard that you’re in line for impending field duty. Do you have somebody in line to take over here?”

Glen shook his head slowly, trying not to do a Snoopy dance in his chair or look otherwise too eager. Personally, he couldn’t imagine why anyone with faculties functioning properly would want the job, but if the guy in front of him turned out to be the real deal, he just might be the recipient of the first kiss Glen ever bestowed on another guy.

He didn’t really care how Farthing knew about the opening. He just hoped he was looking at a real replacement candidate for somebody who couldn’t really be replaced.

“Why do you want it? And what makes you think you have what it takes?”

The two questions that went straight to the heart of the matter. Sol was proud enough of Glen to bust the buttons on his shirt.

“I could give you a bunch of baloney answers, but I’m going to tell the truth even though it’s going to make me sound like an ass.”

“Okay.” Glen looked intrigued.

“I like to run things and I’m good at it.”

Glen stared for a minute and then started laughing. “You want to know what’s funny about that answer?”

“What?”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing the former Sovereign would have said. And there was never one better at the job. Ever.” Sol would have been lying if he didn’t admit that he enjoyed the flattery. It was nice to know that he’d left life with people thinking good things about him. “And what makes you think you can do the job?”

“Give me a try. No harm. No foul. Let’s negotiate a probation period.”

“Well, it’s not quite that easy to get hold of command around here, but I accept your application. Gladly. And will get the two other people who will be most instrumental in making a decision to conduct your vetting.”

“Could I ask who the other two are?”

“I doubt you know them. The head of science, research, and development, Dr. Thelonius Monq and knight emeritus, Sir Engel Storm.”

“You’re right. I don’t know them, but I have heard of both of them. I’ll look forward to the meeting or meetings, whatever the process may be.”

They chatted about various issues of running Jefferson Unit for a while longer until Bo stuck his head in to say breakfast was served. They moved the conversation into the conference room where Glen almost got the feeling that he was the one being interviewed.

The questions that Farthing asked about J.U. were so germane, so pertinent, that with each passing minute Glen was more and more certain that the perfect guy had just come walking through the door asking for the fu...

“If this is an example of the food around here, then I’m in.”

“You know, Farthing…”

“Call me Rev.”

“Sure. I’ll tell you what. There’s an outside chance I might even get the two decision makers in here to talk to you right away. If it’s up to me, we’ll get your tryout.” Sol smiled. “You got a resume?” Sol’s face dropped and Glen started laughing. “Gotcha. Just kidding. Not a resume kind of job. Nothing could prepare somebody. Believe me. Wait here.”

Glen left and, while he was gone, breakfast dishes were taken away and replaced with a fresh coffee service. Since there was nothing else to do, he poured himself a cup of black and settled into a chair. Waiting wasn’t his favorite thing whether it was lying on a grassy knoll or sitting at a conference table. He’d already heard enough to know that time was being wasted, but he understood the need to convince his own people that he should be in charge. It was just weird.

Twenty minutes later Glen opened the door and held it as Monq and Storm entered. It was harder than Sol could have imagined pretending that he didn’t know them. He’d shared considerable history with both those men, but had to act like they were strangers.

They sat down at the table and conducted the interview informally, more like a casual conversation than a tribunal. Sol didn’t have a resume on paper, but he was able to recite his qualifications on demand and make a case for why he should be given a try.

It was a tricky mental exercise, using key points that could only spring from his personal working knowledge of the position without revealing that he actually had personal working knowledge of the position.

He noted the glances that passed between the three as punctuation to some of his answers. After a couple of hours, Storm said, “Will you excuse us for a few minutes, please?”

“Of course,” he said.

In less than two minutes, the door reopened and they filed back in. He guessed from the grin on Glen’s face that he was going to be sitting in his old chair real soon.

“You’re in,” Glen said, looking a little elated and a lot relieved. “Ninety day probationary position. If all goes well, there will be a review by higher ups at the end of that time and then it will be made permanent. Don’t screw up because we,” he motioned between himself and Storm, “don’t want the job back.”

Storm stuck out his hand. “Welcome to Jefferson Unit, Temporary Sovereign Farthing.” Sol took his hand and Storm used his other hand to slap Sol on the shoulder.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Glen said, “I need to make a call to get everything ready. We’d made arrangements to house a new knight and hadn’t planned on opening up the Sovereign’s apartment.”

“Anything is fine. I just need a bed. I’m ready to get started.”

“Come on,” Storm said. “Let me walk with you and help you get situated with credentials and a tour while they’re getting your quarters ready.”

They were chatting as they walked. Unbeknownst to Storm, Sol was asking sly questions for the purpose of getting up to date and up to speed on what was going on in his absence.

He was totally focused on that conversation when Storm stopped and said, “Okay. I’m dropping you off here, but I’ll catch up with you in a little while.”

Sol nodded and turned his attention to where he was.

There were two things that almost caused him to give himself away. The first, and by far more traumatic, was standing behind a counter a few steps away. The sight of her almost made his knees buckle and, at the end of his life, he would say the hardest thing he ever did was to keep from vaulting over the counter and pulling her into his arms.