Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(24)

The group that had followed him had been fresh and at full strength, in the morning of their first birth into this world. They had just recovered their full memories from their earlier lives, and they had acted in concert to take him by surprise. Barely escaping with his life, he had been forced to go into hiding deep underground in the dark, airless catacombs of his city.

One of his enemies at the time had written: How the oppressor has ceased! How his insolence has ceased! . . . How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!

But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit. Those who see you will stare at you, and ponder over you: Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who would not let his prisoners go home?

The author of that histrionic piece had been a stinking prophet with the burned gaze of the mad. He had come from an aggrieved and superstitious desert people that had been comprised of twelve tribes.

They had been too ignorant to realize the value of what he had brought to his kingdom, or the value of what he could have given to them, the education and learning, the technology and the civilization. They preferred to wallow in the heat and dust, and to plunge into constant petty wars as they worshipped their angry, vengeful God.

It had taken the man a long time to heal from the wounds he had gotten in that first battle on this world. But he had, and he could not forget, and he did not forgive. Among his many other projects and hobbies, he had made it his mission to hunt down the group who pursued him, and to destroy them. In fact, in that endeavor, he had enjoyed some degree of success.

The old bitch, though. He shook his head as he straightened his tie. She was a pistol. She’d gotten mighty dexterous at avoiding him throughout the centuries. But he had one huge advantage over the group that had come after him. He did not have their code of ethics. He had no ethics whatsoever that would hold him back from using his special talents in whatever way he wished.

The folks from home had liked to call him an aberration. He preferred to think of himself as unique. It had a much more positive spin.

As a result he was as strong and fresh today as a man in his prime, with all memories intact and all grudges well-nurtured. From what hints he’d been able to glean from the psychic realm, the old woman had let herself become frail as well as elderly. That wasn’t the brightest of ideas when involved in a long-term war such as theirs.

Over the ages he had accumulated an awful lot of grudges against her.

Triumphing over her was going to be downright orgasmic.

But first things first.

About that chess piece he’d just removed. The bishop. Nicholas Crow had been too educated for a normal human, too much of an adept in things that most people knew nothing about. The old bitch had scattered her teachings like a virus throughout the first nations, so it was actually possible that Crow had been taught what he had known by a native elder.

But he had to wonder. Perhaps the old bitch herself had trained Crow. If so, the man might find a trail of breadcrumbs in Crow’s past that would be advantageous for him to follow.

However, the very next thing the man needed to do was hunt down Dr. Mary Byrne, who had turned out to be a rather surprisingly slippery fish. And loud. Her psychic energy was blazing like a comet. At the rate she was going, she’d be a burned-out husk in a day or two. That was not the preferable option of events.

He had to find Mary fast if he hoped to get anything useful out of her. Just out of curiosity, he also wanted to find out what had happened to his two drones. They had almost gotten her, but then he had lost his connection with them. Now he couldn’t make psychic contact with either one. Neither was answering his cell, so the man had to assume for the moment that they had somehow been destroyed.

Also, the police reports he received about what had happened in Mishawaka were preliminary and confused, but rather interestingly freakish. He needed to get a more accurate account of what had happened, so he could determine what forces had been involved and decide what to do next.

He knew one thing for certain. Mary Byrne was acting in an unpredictable manner. Keeping track of her comet blaze in the psychic realm wasn’t much of a problem, but actually catching her in the physical realm was going to be more of a challenge, which was why he relaxed in the back of his limousine while his driver took him toward northern Indiana.

Old adages became adages in part because they were true. If he wanted something this important to be done right, he was going to have to do it himself.

“Enough about me,” he said to his companion. “Tell me about yourself. How are your teeth? Healthy? They look good.”

His companion sat in the seat opposite him, a handsome dark-haired young male with a clever, narrow face. The male had been bound with expert care to ensure his captivity but minimize bruising and stress on the joints.

“Fuck you,” the male hissed.

Oh dear. He was too bored to roll his eyes. He just could not get a decent conversation off the ground with this one.

He straightened the cuffs of his suit jacket. “Yes well, we don’t have time for that. Tell me about your medical history. You look like you work out. Do you have cancer, a congenital defect, or a heart condition? How about an infectious disease?”

“You kidnapped me to talk about chess and my medical history?”

Yawn. “Very well. If you’re not in the mood to talk about yourself, let’s talk about your ex-wife, Mary. I want you to tell me everything you know about her.”