The Pact
lobby of the building she hoped never to see again. She had laid down on the leather sofa she hid on earlier when she was waiting for Amber. And now, ironically, she physically was Amber. She had changed into dark dress slacks and a turquoise dress blouse, feeling more herself somehow.
Daylight shone through the glass front, cascading her with warmth.
Since Lorcthe had saved her and taken over Amber’s body and mind, pushing her, gently, to the recesses of falsified reality, Amber still maintained the falsehood as her current experience. A beautiful lake, peaceful, calming, all her problems nowhere in her memory—it was perfect.
Lorcthe had almost gone back to help Boston earlier, just after she had retaken Amber and dropped the reservoir off for Ash, was practically in the elevator, but common sense took over and she left. She had to think about the situation.
Besides, Zander was there for Boston and the others, the good little soldier. He sure did love them. She wouldn’t tell him, couldn’t. Zander wouldn’t understand what had to be done.
She had to do it. As much as she wanted Boston and friends to prevail—which, to her surprise they did over the twisted creature—another problem would always exist: Eziel and his followers. Like her, there was no destroying them.
And yet, just six hours ago while she stood upon the roof of a building near the Nexus, looking down at a city in despair and the city’s people under attack, she saw Boston… everywhere. He appeared—yet it was not him, not really—and destroyed every single void. She had no idea how, but she was impressed at the unending endurance and tenacity.
For the briefest of moments, she thought Boston’s ghostly self would appear at the Nexus and destroy Eziel, his followers, and maybe her too as she was right out in the open. That’s when things got stranger. Something above the Nexus blasted a wall of light down over and around the building, like a massive cylindrical shield. Boston never appeared anywhere in the building or she would have heard about it. Luckily, every single void had been dispatched, so Lorcthe had no doubt they were all gone. But, Eziel and friends were not, and nor was the Opaque. But she’d take the end of the twister and its babies as a win.
She would ask Eziel about that wall of light but not yet. He was thinking and stewing now, for sure. It was an eggshell-walking situation, and she had to be careful. And it was a miracle Eziel would even listen to her. But, once the twister, followed by the voids, was no longer an option, his choices had dwindled. He may be hotheaded, but he was also intelligent, pragmatic, and not completely unreasonable. Boston and Eziel were more similar than not.
An hour later, having fallen asleep on the couch—strangely comfortable in a space that not so long ago was as threatening as anything she’d ever encountered—someone shook her awake. It was one of Eziel’s minions, possessing a young man dressed in a navy-blue suit.
“Get up, Quisling. He’ll see you now.”
“Has he made a decision?” Lorcthe asked.
“I cannot say. He will say. Just follow.”
She did. As they waited for the elevator, Lorcthe asked, “And is she with him?”
“Of course,” the minion said. “He would not meet without her present. You are woefully untrustworthy.”
Yes, that was for sure true when it came to Eziel. To be fair, she never would have considered the proposal if Eziel still had the voids. Boston really came through, for the greater good. And now, she had heard through the grapevine, Boston lay in a hospital, in a coma. Poor soul.
The elevator doors opened, and in they went. Her hands sweated. There were so many ways it could go, one of which was Amber could soon be a corpse, just for Eziel’s amusement, or more likely because they really did ruin his plans. She didn’t agree with them, but in a similar situation, if she thought like he did, she’d be murderous.
When they passed the twenty-fifth floor, she silently breathed a sigh of relief. The elevator doors opened at the forty-seventh floor, which, oddly, were offices. Some company probably bought the whole floor. The offices were mostly open floor plan, with sporadic board rooms along the outer windows and cubicles along the inner wall.
Lorcthe kept her head high as the lackey guided her to a large boardroom that had two older gentlemen, one in a shit-brown suit, likely Sartuish, and no doubt the other in torn jeans and a dirty white T-shirt was Eziel. The glare pretty much clinched it. And Charlie, her roommate, her friend, had a smirk on her face—she maintained her usual hoity-toity formal appearance in a black dress gown. The table was equally as oversized as the room itself, with high-backed leather chairs.
As Lorcthe entered, the lackey remained behind. The blinds were closed and the lights were off, but Lorcthe could still see the absolute hatred in both men’s eyes. “Eziel, I assume,” Lorcthe said, looking at who she thought to be Eziel, and then over to the other. “And Sartuish?”
They nodded.
“Hello, Lorcthe,” Charlie said.
“Charlie,” Lorcthe said, sitting beside her, across from Eziel and Sartuish. “Do we have an accord?”
“We do,” Charlie said. “Myself and the others had a quorum. It was unanimous. Same with Eziel and his…”
“Loyalists,” Eziel said and then snorted and spit onto the table.
“Lovely,” Charlie said.
Sartuish appeared a madman, his eyes wide, a sneer that never wavered, and he wasn’t blinking. But he kept quiet, let his master speak.
“It is fuckin’ lovely,” Eziel said. “Lorcthe, Charlie is the only reason this is happening. I don’t want to see you until, well, you know. One year, as agreed.”
“And… Boston and friends?” Lorcthe asked.
Eziel slammed a fist on the solid dark-wood table. “Yeah, yeah, we won’t touch them. It’ll be all the sweeter, anyway. Lettin’ ’em think they’re safe, and then…”
“We’ll see,” Lorcthe said.
“I’ve no doubt,” Eziel said. “Now, fuck off.”
She did just that, with Charlie. They stood up, and no one uttered another word.
As Charlie and Lorcthe rode down in the elevator, each was lost in thought. Well, Lorcthe for sure was, and she assumed the same of Charlie. She was probably planning already.
Lorcthe’s thoughts drifted back to Boston. Should she tell him? Assuming he came out of his coma. As soon as she thought the question, the answer immediately came back as a strong no. He would only serve to mess it all up.
To her, it was the only way.
Besides, he would never accept that Lorcthe had taken over Amber’s body, and he certainly would never believe that Amber volunteered continued possession.
She would need to be careful, because Boston was not going away. Luckily, he was in a coma, and, hopefully, he would remain that way, at least until it was all done. Time would tell.