Exeter Global Services
Cleveland, Ohio
8:30 p.m., Dec. 24
“Where the hell is Lester?” Dana wrapped her arms around her body. She was cold. She was constantly cold, it seemed, especially since Lester had dropped his little bomb at the cathedral.
Her parents had gone to the dark side, he’d said. He’d ranked them up there with criminals. Warmongers. Defilers of all that was right and good in the world. His words came back to her, crushing in on her throat, her lungs, robbing her of breath.
She should call Claire—she knew she should, and yet—what would she say? Hi, Mom, I know you’ve been lying to me all this time, but that’s okay, Dad was too?
Dana rubbed her forehead and paced back toward her desk. They were all in her satellite office with Lester’s workspace, Max working outside the door on a computer he’d hacked into. Finn was watching her cautiously, too cautiously, as if she might break at any minute. She scowled at him as Max poked his head through the doorway. “We’re making progress out here,” he said. “The partial list you got from Lester is helping a lot, so is having access to Exeter’s files from inside Lester’s own system. But I should probably ask—when’s he due to show up?”
“Any minute, and I’m not sure we’re going to have much warning. How long will it take you to get out and make it look like you’re doing nothing but taking up space?”
Max tilted his head, considering. “Couple of minutes, tops. I’ll be at the ready for emergency stoppage the minute you say the word. Hey—” His face lit up. “We’ve got his goons at the front door too. They’ll sound the alert when he comes in, won’t they? That’ll help.”
“Yes, it will.” Dana pulled out her cell phone to contact Lester’s chief bodyguard as Max returned to his work, leaving Finn and her alone. The place was crawling with security, posted at odd intervals up and down the cube rows. Lester had sent all his shift-work staff home other than the guards—at 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, he knew no work was going to get done. And considering who he was housing in his private office, the fewer people who knew about the activities of Exeter, the better.
After relaying directions that she figured had about an eighty percent chance of being followed, she pocketed her phone and looked at Finn. “Are you going to say anything or just stand there staring at me?” she asked him as she glanced at the paperwork on Lester’s desk. It was the next year’s planning for Exeter’s security upgrades, which she’d had couriered over early, because it was one of the few things she could get done even from her home. She’d spent hours on the document, tracing Lester’s activities for the past year, calculating his expenses in services and personnel, trying to guesstimate what the new year would have in store.
She frowned down at the stack of pages. Just yesterday, this information had seemed the most important thing in the world to her. She’d needed to get the document on Lester’s desk, then return to sort through her emails, maybe even addressing the end-of-year budgeting process that should have been done six weeks ago.
Now it seemed as if it was paperwork from someone else’s life, far, far away. “I wish I understood why this is happening,” she muttered.
At this, Finn decided to rouse himself. “You’ve had a significant shock, Dana. You need time to process it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have any time to process it,” she snapped, shoving her papers out of their tidy pile and into a scattered heap on the desk. “You saw Lester. He’s off his nut. He’s dangerous, and I don’t think you realize that. You’re leaving in a little over three hours, and for what? So I can cope with the fact that I’m the only Dawn Child out there who knows what we are, what might become of us? How am I going to protect them if I can’t explain to them why?”
“That’s why Lester is—”
“Lester is wrong,” Dana cut him off. “It’s one thing to protect a group from harm. It’s another to lie to them their entire lives, orchestrating their every move because they’re your special puppets. When I think of all the times he was there for me, watching over me, I want to throw up. I wasn’t a favorite niece of his,” she said, self-disgust threatening to choke her. “I was a favorite pet.”
“The Society of Orion correctly identified the children who were the most at risk given their genetic makeup and life circumstances,” Finn said reasonably. “If Lester had known you were likely going to die or be turned by your birth parents, it is not at all unreasonable that the society would intercede. Imagine where you would be if he hadn’t found them—found you?”
“Yeah, Lester’s a real humanitarian. What was I thinking?” Dana glanced at him, but her eyes sheared away before she could make real contact. “Do you know? Who my parents really are?”
“No, I don’t,” he said. Finn’s voice was warm, comforting, but there was too much distance between them. Something that she’d need to get used to, she supposed. “Your adoptive father and mother were there for you, though. That’s more than many mortal children can say.”
“Yeah, but Walter did more than I ever have for others, and he wasn’t one of the chosen elite,” she said bitterly. “He was simply a man trying to do his best…and doing far more than he should’ve been able to do. God! My mother doesn’t even realize what her own husband did in his free time. Can you imagine the level of deception that has to exist in order for Orion to even survive? I can’t even wrap my head around it.” She shook herself, tension riddling her. “I’ve gotta go see what Max is up to.”
“Max will tell us when he’s found something,” Finn said. “I think you need to take some time to assimilate what you’ve learned about yourself.” He waited a beat. “And about me.”
She looked at him, and her blood pressure spiked. “All I need to know is that you’re leaving in a few hours,” she said warningly. “That helps put everything back into perspective.”
“Perhaps for you. I, however, have one or two more things that I need, if that’s all right.” He got up, smooth as silk in his dark clothing, and moved over to the office door. He stuck his head out and spoke to Max, but Dana couldn’t understand the words. She caught the sound of Max’s affirmative, however, and Finn pulled back inside the door before she could challenge it. He pushed the door shut, resting his hand on the knob for a brief second before pulling it away.
“I don’t have time for a fireside chat.”
“Neither do I,” Finn said. And he took one step toward Dana, then another.
Unexpected heat flared deep in her belly as she stared at him. “Um, are you going to be okay?” she asked as he moved toward her. “You—you said something in your sleep that I couldn’t understand, but it didn’t sound good. Something about—about forgetting. Not wanting to forget.” She was scooting back from him as she spoke, suddenly unsure, and Finn’s grin, hard and bitter in the harsh fluorescent lights, stopped her.
“There’s a great deal I’m not going to be able keep, Dana,” he said quietly. “Not beyond this night. I would ask, then, for something else to remember.”
Dana could practically feel her pupils dilating. “Oh,” she whispered. “I’d like that too.”
“Yo, Dana, Finn!” Max’s voice came through the door, urgent and excited, a moment later he pounded on the wood for emphasis. “Sorry to interrupt, but stop whatever you’re doing and come out here. You’re really going to want to see this.”
It’d been nearly five minutes since Max had interrupted what Finn had been pretty damned sure would’ve been the second most transcendental experience of his existence, and Finn still wanted to kill the man.
Instead, he watched Dana stare at the computer screen, the lines of strange symbols and glyphs slowly moving into intelligible language.
It was a list of names, dates, and locations, each with an additional code that Max had already tracked to another portion of Lester’s vast computer system, and was working with an experimental decoder to unlock. Lester had never shown up, never called. But with any luck, Finn thought, they wouldn’t need him anymore.
“That file is massive as compared to this one,” Max said. “Unless he’s encoded actual DNA in there, the only thing it can be is a multimedia file—photos, scans, that sort of thing.” He was clicking through the last commands on the file search command, glancing over to watch the progress of the main list. “I’ve cross-referenced it with the list Lester gave you,” he said, “and the names match up at the very end of each cycle. There’s no doubt about what this is.”
“A genealogy tree,” Dana murmured. “What’s the earliest date on record?”
“Unknown seems to be a favorite one on a lot of them,” Max said. “Earliest known is a couple of centuries BC. I don’t think they did so well on record keeping back then, or it wasn’t a big enough deal to track down ancient census lists.”
“Primarily Middle Eastern?” she asked, scanning over the spooling rows of names and dates.
“All over the place. But the Middle Eastern trails are among the oldest.” He sobered. “Of course, those tended to end the earliest too.”
“End?” Dana frowned and looked at him. “How many trails do you have here? All told?”
“Over five thousand,” Max said. “Lists with open-ended results is fourteen hundred ninety-six, but a lot of those are pretty much gobbledygook.”
She nodded, and Finn watched the play of emotions on her face. “Call up my name, please,” Dana said.
Max started typing furiously. “I knew it,” he nearly cackled. “I totally knew it.”
A noise sounded behind him, and he turned, searching the brightly lit room full of cubicles for movement. And first, nothing stirred, and then…
No. He was imagining things.
“Has Morrow reported in?” Finn asked, his eyes narrowing on the far doors. Guards stood there, and this was only the innermost set of doors. Lester had constructed his office floor to specific requirements, he’d told Finn. Requirements that included three lines of interior walls, each with fireproof doors. Fireproof, bulletproof, and blast proof, Max had confirmed. They were safe inside Lester’s little fortress, he’d made sure of it. Finn looked down at Max, who was watching him with curiosity. “What did you say?”
“I just got word this second. Lester is on his way. He said all systems were go for the list, he’d gotten the last approvals,” Max reported. “He has his own men with him, he told me to tell you, Dana. A half dozen, I think. I don’t think he’ll get into any trouble.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Dana said thinly. She glanced up at Finn as Max turned back to the monitors. “What do you make of this?”
He looked at the screen that was populating with Dana’s family tree. He recognized none of the names, but beneath her two parents—both indicated as Dawn Children—her name had been inscribed in the same bright blue font color as her sire’s. Everyone above that trio was recorded in dull gray font. He looked back at her, and her smile faltered.
“I think that means they’re still alive,” she said. “My biological parents.”
“This could be an old list,” Finn warned. “There’s no telling when it was last modified.”
A knock came at the door, and Finn turned—then lifted his brows in surprise.
“Sir.”
Finn looked down at the same young man who had held a gun on him not sixteen hours earlier, his expression open and unmarked by guile, his eyes a soulful blue. Beside him, Dana stiffened.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Timothy Rourke, ma’am,” he said with a curt nod, his attention straying only for a moment from Finn. “Sir, there’s something coming up through the elevator shafts.”
Max piped up. “You have visual in the elevators?”
“We do,” Timothy said. “But it doesn’t make sense. There’s something there—but not there.”
“Demons,” Finn said curtly. “Not Possessed, but actual demons. They can cast an illusion, take on different looks if they want, or no look at all.”
Everyone in the room stared at him. “But…the surveillance system tracks heat signatures too,” Max offered.
Finn shrugged. “Great with humans. Not so much with demons.”
Tim squared his shoulders. “Well, I can sense that something is coming, and I want to move you into Mr. Morrow’s secure room. He left us with specific instructions that none of you were to be harmed, and so I ask you—”
“What do you think is coming up, Mr. Rourke?” Dana asked coolly, her eyes challenging the young guard. “Did Morrow prepare you for this?”
“Not exactly,” he said carefully. He flashed a smile and looked all of twelve years old. The effect wasn’t wasted on Dana. Even now, she was standing more at ease, her head canted forward, her eyes gentle in the face of the boy’s feigned nervousness. A master manipulator, Finn thought. “Morrow doesn’t know I’m pushing the panic button here. But I suspect that what’s out there isn’t going to be pretty, and I’d rather you be smart and alive than cocky and dead.”
“Sounds like good reasoning to me,” Max put in, and Finn fought a smile. The tech specialist had been eyeing the rifles and guns they had been sporting, and his mind had clearly been turning. “I really don’t want to lose what we have here, Dana, if we can avoid it. Even if it’s a false alarm and not demons crawling up the elevator ducts, we need to protect the data.”
Dana shook her head. “Fine. But where else are we vulnerable? They’re going to have to get humans in here too, I’m thinking. That was more Bartholomew’s MO, not full-on demons. Where would they come in?”
“The freight elevators,” Finn said in tandem with Max.
Finn glared at the teenager. “Tell three guards to meet me at the side wall of elevators. Those are the freight ones, right?”
“Yes,” Max said, flinching away when Rourke scowled at him. “Hey, hey, hey, back it down, buddy. I’ve lugged plenty of computer stuff up those elevators. I know the layout.” He turned to Finn and Dana. “It’s an open floor space there. Nothing to hide behind for either party.”
Dana moved over, frowning, and stopped in her tracks. “What are these, Max?” she asked, and Finn stepped in for a closer look as well. The pictures currently flashing up on the screen weren’t randomly scattered photos—there was a pattern to them, a familiarity, which apparently made a more than passing impact on Dana.
Finn moved a step right, but as he did so, he heard it again. A low, guttural, scraping noise, overridden by dozens of feet stomping in unison, the rush and tumble of voices sounding like only one thing.
Demons.
He turned to Dana. “They’re here,” he said.
She grimaced. “How many of them and where?”
Rourke’s earpiece crackled, and he tapped it, instantly wincing at the loud burst of static that hit him. “Report!” he said sternly, and the voices came back clear and steady through the rain of machine noise.
“We have visual,” someone said, and Max looked up, instantly changing the screens over. From lines of text with ancient secrets, he moved to a thumbnail scan of all computer surveillance images—there were more than thirty of them.
Lester apparently didn’t believe in taking chances.
“There they are,” Max said, but the words were weak.
Finn stepped in immediately when he saw what was slinking its way down the corridors. At least thirty demons, armed to the hilt, fresh into a possession and ravening with hunger.
“I’m going to have to take them,” he said to Dana, and she shot up in response.
“Not alone. How many men do we have, Rourke?” she asked.
“Eight total. Six within the building, two guarding the perimeter with on-foot surveillance.”
“Try to reach them if you can—” Dana began.
“We can’t wait for that,” Finn interrupted her, shaking his head. Bartholomew wouldn’t underestimate the humans again. “Rourke, how long have you been working with Lester’s combat unit?”
“Three years,” Rourke said, and Finn took his rifle out of his hands before he could blink, sighting through it.
“Where can we get more of these?” he asked.
“Weaponry cabinets are on each level.” Rourke spoke quickly as he turned, and Finn could already hear the cries of the men on the outermost doors. Lester’s façade was bulletproof glass, but a wall of glass seemed like pale security against a demon.
“We’ve got an eye-witness sighting,” Max called out. “And from the looks of it, a couple of seriously freaked-out security guards.”
“This isn’t your average group of punks,” Finn said. “Their leader will kill his own men if he has to.”
“Bartholomew will be with them?” Dana asked, and Finn nodded.
“Oh, I don’t think he’d miss this.” He tore Rourke’s earpiece-mic unit out and held it up to shout into it. “Aim for their legs, their arms—any extremity. Do not shoot to kill. Do you understand me? Unless—” He shot a look at Rourke. “Are there any more as good as you?”
Rourke frowned, shook his head. “No.”
“Then do not shoot to kill. There’s no point. Wait for us to do that.”
The man on the other end of the line bristled. “Who the hell are—”
Rourke pulled the mic out of Finn’s hands. “Lester called. He’s put Finn in interim control of security. Do what he says,” he said. “What’s the status of the intruders?”
“Well, they’re not doing much of anything,” the man said. “They seem to be getting louder, though, their words—I can’t understand a goddamn thing they’re saying.”
Finn nodded. “They’ll keep doing that until they’ve built up enough of a field to crash the glass. Physical bravery is beyond them, but hive mind rules.”
Dana stared at Finn. “What are they here for? We don’t have the full list yet.”
“Apparently, they don’t know that,” Finn said. “You need to stay safe.”
“Bullshit. I’m going with you.” She pulled on her own rifle, flipping off the safety. “Rourke, we need someone to stay with Max.”
“Max is going to be just fine packing up all this prize data and getting the hell out of here,” Max interjected tartly. He pushed a small tech gadget at her. “Put this in your ear. I’ll radio you my location and you can come pick up what’s left of me, if something goes south.”
“On second thought—” Dana pulled her Glock out of her shoulder harness, and handed it to Max, butt out, trading it for the comm unit. “I know you know how to fire one of these things. I’m hoping that we can keep them out of here, but if anything gets too close, blast first and radio us second. You say the word, we’ll come back for you.”
“Roger that,” Max said faintly, looking down at the gun. “You know, on second thought…maybe I’ll call in some backup. I got some guys who owe me…God knows we’ve got enough weapons here to spare.”
“Do that,” Dana said sharply. “But tell them to be careful.”
Over the radio, they heard another scream, and then the sound of crashing glass.