The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons (18 page)

“Make sure everything’s secure downstairs,” Tower said to her.

She turned and strolled away with the Glock in her hand, crossing the bridge. Both men studied her swinging hips, and Jake wondered if Tower had fucked her, too. Kira closed the office doors behind her.

The old man faced Jake. “I’m a busy man, and my time is limited. We didn’t give you emergency access to my quarters so you could just drop in uninvited whenever you please.”

Jake stared into the man’s good eye. “I’ve been here exactly twenty-four hours. During that time I’ve seen those—
creatures
—in your big fishbowl, and a woman whose murder I investigated on Monday just walked into your downstairs lobby and melted all over my hands!”

Tower seemed unfazed by Jake’s outburst. “So you’ve been inside the Demonstration Room? Another surprise. How resourceful of you. But there’s no need to concern yourself with my Biogens. They’re just product, completely unrelated to the occurrence downstairs.”

“‘Biogens?’“

“Biogenetic Life Forms. Weapons made of flesh rather than steel.” Tower scrunched his face into a monstrous countenance and snapped his teeth at the air, imitating the creatures in the globe. Then the snarl transformed into a smile. “‘Let slip the dogs of war.’ My grandfather built the family empire with munitions, you know.”

“The chromophobes are right,” Jake said in a tight voice. “You’re screwing around with nature.”

Tower rolled his eyes. “We’ve
destroyed
nature. Now I’m rebuilding it. Those specimens you observed are prototypes designed for a specific environment. They’re incapable of reproducing, and since the only thing they crave is human flesh, the ecosystem is safe. My people engineer them with a predetermined life span, so they expire whenever we want them to. We’ve also integrated an Achilles’ heel as a control factor.”

“You’re selling those things to Seguera to use on his own people.”

Tower wagged one finger in the air. “Terrorists, Jake. I have what Kimo Seguera needs: a solution to his domestic crises. And he had something that I wanted in return.” Reaching inside the collar of his shirt, Tower brought out an aged bronze amulet suspended on a rawhide strap. “This is an Anting-Anting, a Philippine talisman used to ward off evil spirits.” The amulet bore the image of a muscular warrior slaying a scaly demon. “I refused to do business with Kimo unless he gave this to me first. The Anting-Anting only maintains its power when it’s given willingly.”

Jake’s mouth hung open. “There are a dozen ghosts outside this building right now!”

Tower shrugged. “I call them Soul Searchers.”

“Call them whatever you like. They were murdered by the Cipher and now they’re knocking on your back door. I want to know
how
and
why.”

Tower smiled. “There’s really no need to fear them, Jake. They’re harmless enough. Nothing but excess spiritual energy.”

“‘Excess spiritual—?’” Jake stepped closer to the old man. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit, you understand? I want some straight talk and I want it now.”

Tower looked amused. “Certainly. If that’s what you think you want. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you can intimidate me. I won’t be threatened by my subordinates. We’d have brought you up to speed soon enough. Let’s walk.” Turning on one heel, he headed up the path, away from the stream.

Falling into step with the old man, Jake stared at the multicolored flora around them. “I’ve never seen plants like these.”

“They don’t exist anywhere else. Do you know that the first genetic experiments on Earth were conducted in 5,000 B.C.?”

“When the spacemen landed at Stonehenge?”

Tower ignored his comment. “Early Homo sapiens discovered that by planting the seeds from only their heartiest vegetables, their crops proved bountiful the following year. This was the first step in manipulating life to suit our needs, which, of course, is the goal of genetic enhancement and therapeutic cloning.”

The path split in two and the men followed the trail leading to the brick structure at the park’s epicenter. Jake stared at purplish, melon-sized growths hanging from the branches of the trees around them. Translucent membranes covered them. He thought he glimpsed movement inside them, like human fetuses in wombs.

“Forbidden fruit,” Tower said. “At least in the eyes of the FDA. These strains were developed to produce DCL-21.”

They stopped at the brick building, and Tower gestured at two black metal doors. “Dante wrote, ‘Ye who enter here shall leave all hope behind.’ Are you sure you want to continue?”

Jake stared at the doors. He had come too far to turn back. “I’m positive.”

Tower’s good eye twinkled. “Excellent! You need to fully comprehend the scope of this operation if you’re going to protect me from my enemies.” He thrust the doors open and motioned for Jake to enter. “After you …”

Darkness yawned before Jake, who wished he had not given his gun to Kira. Sweat formed on his scalp, causing it to itch. Taking a breath, he crossed the threshold. As soon as his foot touched the floor, fluorescent lights flickered above him, triggered by motion detectors, and he dropped into a fighting crouch. Tower strode by him to the floor-to-ceiling hub of the structure. Red faced, Jake stood straight. The hub, constructed of vacuum-formed plastic, had a rectangular viewing window twelve feet wide. A metal cylinder, ten feet long and three and a half feet in diameter, lay horizontally on a base near the window. Hoses and cables connected it to the wall, the apparatus resembling an oversized iron lung. Pistons hissed and monitors beeped, reminding Jake of a life support system in an emergency room.

“That’s just part of the climate control system,” Tower said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain
, Jake thought as he joined Tower at the window.

The old man nodded at the chamber’s interior. “Look in there.”

Jake stared through the window. The circular chamber had a mosaic floor thirty feet in diameter, with massive Roman columns rising to the ceiling. A shaft of multicolored light descended from a skylight constructed of pentagonal panes of stained glass. The panes reminded Jake of both a church and a diagram of the sugar phosphate backbone of a DNA molecule.

“Aren’t they magnificent?” Tower said in a reverent tone.

Jake followed Tower’s gaze to the empty chamber. “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because you lack vision. But I assure you that they’re here, in my Soul Chamber.”

Jake stared at Tower, afraid to speak his mind.

Tower read the expression on his face. “Do you believe in God, Jake?”

Jake sighed. “Can’t say that I do.”

“May I ask you why not?”

“Let’s just say that I have a problem with omnipotent authority figures.”

“You must believe in something?”

Jake stood silent.

“How about an afterlife?”

“I don’t buy into fairy tales.”

“Then how do you explain the Soul Searchers downstairs?”

“I don’t.”

“If there’s no heaven, where do you think our souls go when we die?”

Raising his eyebrows in an exaggerated manner, Jake aimed his eyes at the Soul Chamber. “There—?”

Tower leaned closer. “I’m no fanatic, but I’ve proven the existence of souls.”

Jake glanced at the empty Soul Chamber, then back at Tower. “I find your evidence less than convincing.”

“The Soul Searchers are fragments of the souls contained in this chamber. They’re energy combined with memory. Through tremendous willpower, they’ve manifested themselves as facsimiles of their former shells. But they’re unable to maintain the charade, and they want what I have.”

Jake narrowed his eyes. He disbelieved the old man’s claims, but he could not rationalize Shannon’s miraculous reappearance and disappearance.

“I’ve always had a burning interest in archaeology and world religions,” Tower said. “When I inherited this company from my father, I invested millions of dollars into a vast research project I hoped would prove the existence of a spiritual or supernatural afterlife. The greatest scientific and theological minds money could buy spent nearly two decades investigating religion, mythology, and the occult on my behalf. They verified the existence of human souls and discovered a method of capturing and containing them.”

Jake maintained his poker face. “Oh, really? And how did they do that?”

“In Central America, one of my teams uncovered evidence of an ancient religious sect called—roughly translated—’Soul Catchers.’ They were Mayan priests who believed that a man’s dying breath contained his living soul. Their ritual required a priest to purify an acolyte by cutting his throat and chanting a secret verse. Then the priest sucked the acolyte’s soul out at the precise moment of his death. Too soon or too late and the ritual failed. But when performed correctly, the priest absorbed the soul of the deceased. The longer he held the acolyte’s breath in his own body, the more of the man’s essence he absorbed: his knowledge, his wisdom, even his memories. My people found an old man who had witnessed the ritual as a boy, and he described the process and chant in detail.”

“For a modest sum?”

“Naturally.”

“So you spent a small fortune for some reprobate in a foreign land to regurgitate a local myth. Doesn’t prove a thing.”

Tower’s eye gleamed. “The process works.” He gestured at the Soul Chamber. “And I have modern technology to prevent the souls my Soul Catcher has captured from escaping. Of course, every system has its flaws: during the ritual, a small amount of energy inevitably escapes from each sacrifice, resulting in the creation of a Soul Searcher. We could eliminate this side effect by performing the ritual here, in a controlled environment, but the risk of discovery would be too great.”

Jake eyed the Soul Chamber.
“Your
Soul Catcher.” He pictured the Soul Searchers downstairs. “The Cipher works for you.” Investigative instincts kicking into gear, he suppressed his excitement. “Who is he?”

Tower shrugged. “I don’t know him from Adam. We outsource that.”

Jake’s facial muscles tightened. “So he isn’t a serial killer. He’s an assassin.”

“Does it matter? Let me remind you that you’re no longer a policeman. You’re my director of security.”

Jake stepped back. “Not anymore, I’m not. Get yourself another hired gun. I don’t pretend to understand what happened downstairs, and I’m not buying into your mumbo jumbo. All I know is that you’re having people killed, and I want nothing to do with it. Even you have to answer to someone. My former colleagues in Homicide will be happy to discuss theology with you.”

Tower seemed unconcerned by Jake’s abrupt resignation. “You signed an ironclad confidentiality agreement, not to mention a one-year contract.” Tower held out the palm of his right hand, reminding Jake of their handshake. “A deal is a deal, after all. Besides, I just took you into my confidence. It will be difficult for me to protect you if you resign now. Your soul might end up in this chamber.”

Jake’s heart skipped a beat. The crazy old bastard had just threatened his life! Before he could respond, the lights went off and a deafening alarm filled the darkness, like a battle klaxon on a submarine. The overhead emergency lights came on, turning the viewing room red. Tower clutched Jake’s arm, fear spreading over his gnarled features.

Red alert
, Jake thought. “What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack,” Tower said, his eye bulging in its socket.
“The Reaper
is here!”

B
athed in red light, Jake sprinted across the atrium. He charged through Tower’s office, where the lights faded up and down as the alarm roared. On one of the monitors, he glimpsed Graham standing at his station, a phone clutched in one hand. Jake pulled a stainless steel lever set in the wall, and the massive doors rumbled open.

Kira met him in the anteroom, holding his Glock out to him. “Get downstairs!”

Jake snatched the gun and bolted past her. He pulled back its slide as he ran through her office, then kicked open one of the doors and rushed to the security station. No longer on the phone, Graham turned to him, fear etched on his face.

“What’s happening?” Jake said over the screaming alarm.

“We’ve got a breach in the lobby,” Graham said. “The intruder took out one camera.”

Had Shannon Reynolds returned with a vengeance?

Jake focused on the two security monitors covering the private lobby. The first displayed only a field of electronic snow. The second showed Laddock and Birch moving behind their station for cover. With their blazers unbuttoned and their Glocks drawn, they fired at an offscreen target at the same time. The screen flared with hot spots from the gunfire, which reminded Jake of his battle with Dread and Badly. A moment later, a massive figure stepped into the frame, and the guards shot at it from point-blank range. Jake squinted at the monitor, trying to discern details of the statuesque intruder, but the image turned to snow. His eyes shifted to a third monitor, which had a solid black background. Red, yellow, and orange light pulsed within a humanoid silhouette closing in on two smaller silhouettes, both of them soft pink.

“What’s that?” Jake said.

“Heat sensors.”

“My God, he must be on fire!” Jake raced to the entrance and palmed the lock release on the door. “You stay here.”

“Don’t worry!” Graham unbuttoned his blazer and drew a Glock from the holster on his belt.

“And call nine-one-one!” Jake ran to the elevators and pressed a call button.

Graham looked puzzled by Jake’s order, but he reached for his phone anyway. As the elevator doors closed, Jake saw Kira emerge from her office and join Graham at the security station. He doubted she would allow Graham to make the call. The alarm faded as the elevator descended to the ground floor and he took several deep breaths to calm his nerves.