15.
“I crafted my pets from raw clay,” Elmer told me, “but the Network—they saw their true potential. For an organization whose survival depends on secrecy, what could be more useful than a parasite that can compel one’s silence?”
I turned from the pit, fighting to ignore the hissing, squirming sounds echoing up from the shadows. I had to get out of here, but right now I needed to keep Elmer talking while I figured out an escape plan.
“Which is why all the Network’s flunkies have them,” I said. “They can’t rat you out when they’ve got a magic roach nestled in their guts.”
“We started with the lowest levels of our outer cells, yes. A proof-of-concept run, to make sure there were no long-term side effects. And I’m pleased to say it’s been a smashing success. We’re ready to move to phase two.”
I shook my head. “Meaning?”
“Oh, Dan.” He looked disappointed. “Use your imagination. My pets don’t just compel silence, they compel obedience. Anyone, with a parasite and a little hypnotic conditioning, can be turned into a Network asset. If done properly, they don’t even know they’ve been turned.”
“Anyone.” The skin of my chest prickled as the implication dawned on me. “Or everyone.”
“Now you get it. Alas, it’s not to be so. Not in the short-term. My pets don’t reproduce as quickly as the roaches of your world. Their incubation period is nearly a year long, and all attempts to modify them for faster breeding have failed utterly. We simply can’t mass-produce the little beauties, let alone keep up with demand. Yet, anyhow. Phase two is about targeting more valuable hosts. Setting our sights a bit higher than the rabble we have pushing our narcotics.”
Behind my back, my fingers felt along the rim of my belt. I’d done this move more times than I could count under Bentley’s guidance. Theoretically, it was simple: dip my fingertips behind my belt, pry the tiny key loose from the blob of putty holding it in place, twist it around, and unlock my cuffs.
With an audience watching me like a hawk, that theory fell apart. Any hint that I was doing something suspicious—my shoulders shifting, my forearms wriggling—would give me away. I had to be slow, glacier slow, my every move perfectly natural.
“Is that why you’re making nice with the King of Worms? Hoping he gives you the secret to better roach breeding?”
Elmer cupped his palm over his mouth and chortled. “No, no. I seek his blessing not for my glory, but for his. If he sees fit to reward me, of course I won’t deny his will. And it’s fair to say that becoming his emissary will boost my standing in the Network considerably. Why, I’d be a regular rock star. Imagine that.”
I held his gaze and kept him talking. Not just for the information: if he was looking in my eyes, he wasn’t watching the slight twitch of my arms as I hooked two fingers around my belt. One fingertip grazed the hard edge of the handcuff key.
“What are the kings?” I asked. Elmer gazed across the three pits in rapt contemplation, like a mystic composing a prayer.
“They’re us, Dan. They’re the original us. The perfect us. To commune with the kings is to find perfection within our mortal flesh. If you’d made more of an effort, well, our positions might be reversed right now. The King of Worms offered his gifts to you! Do you know how rare that is? You should have prayed to him when you had the chance.”
“I’m not religious,” I said. “Also, unlike you, I don’t dance like a puppet when somebody puts a little fight music on. Don’t be a chump, Elmer. This ‘game’ of his isn’t about picking the best man for the job, because I was never going to take the job. He just wants me gone, and he’s using you and the Network to do it. Once you kill me, don’t be surprised if he stops taking your phone calls.”
For the first time since he arrived, his cheerful smile wilted. The big moons of his eyes narrowed.
“I would say that you’ll see the error of your ways, but, well, you won’t. I think I’ll re-animate your body after I sacrifice you, in the hopes that some tiny part of your brain retains just enough consciousness to feel regret.”
Almost there. I had my fingers in position behind my back, ready to dip and pry the key loose. Once I had it, I’d be halfway home.
I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do once I got my wrists free, or what Elmer was capable of, but I figured I’d start throwing punches and improvise from there.
“Diminished brain capacity?” I said. “Strong sense of regret? You just described how I wake up most mornings.”
He wagged a finger at me and cracked a fresh smile. “This. I’m going to miss this. We had such a short time together. I really think we could have been friends. I don’t have many. People around here, well, they find out you’re from a parallel Earth and they start treating you like some kind of alien.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell ’em about how you used to wear a human-skin suit. That turns people off.”
“Maybe so, maybe so.”
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “If all you have to do is off me, and the king—allegedly—is going to swoop down and put his holy halo on you, why the wait? If I was you, I would have killed me five times over by now.”
“Alas, my hands in certain matters are tied. I oversee this particular branch of the Network’s operations, but I answer to a higher—” He paused as three knocks sounded at the metal-sheeted door. “Ah, there we go. Enter, please!”
The door swung wide, and one of the last people I expected to see strode into the chamber. Ms. Fleiss, draped in her purple leather trench coat, eyes shrouded behind onyx shades.
“You’re kidding me,” I said, glancing between them. “The Enemy and the Network, teaming up.”
“You’re late,” Elmer told her.
“Stuck in traffic.”
“Where?” He squinted at her. “Three planets away?”
“If you must know, yes.” Fleiss turned my way. My reflection doubled, trapped in the frames of her long, oval glasses. “We meet again. For the last time, thankfully. Howard Canton’s wand—where is it?”
“The one place not even your boss will go looking for it,” I said. “I hid it…in New Jersey.”
Her gaze snapped to Elmer. “He hasn’t been implanted with a parasite yet?”
“I was waiting for you,” he sighed. “As I was instructed to, so don’t get snippy with me. He’ll answer all the questions you have for him—and truthfully—once one of my pets is snug inside his belly.”
Fleiss’s heels rang out on the concrete as she stepped closer. She loomed over me, wearing a withering scowl.
“What did you do with the Cutting Knife you stole from us?”
“You mean, what did I do with your sister?” I asked.
Even the impenetrable glasses couldn’t keep the flicker-flood of emotions from Fleiss’s face. Her lips twitched and her cheeks went tight, and she showed me every card she was holding: worry, pain, disgust, fear.
“I have no sister,” she said. “I am unique.”
I was sitting, handcuffed, between an immortal monster and a pit of giant roaches. Not the best place to push my luck, but she’d just shown me a crack in her armor. All I could do was drive a shiv right into it.
“Your sister,” I said. “Circe. You remember her.”
“I have. No. Sisters.”
“Why did you say that?” I asked her.
“Because it’s true.”
“No. Your choice of words. I said sister. You said sisters. Plural. Like, say…eight of them? You remember, don’t you? You know who you are. Who you were, before the Enemy sank his teeth into you.”
Fleiss’s hands curled into fists. “Shut up. Stop talking.”
“To answer your question, I took Circe home, to the Low Liminal. To the Lady in Red. Your mother. Would you like to go home, too? I know the way. Say the word and I’ll take you there right now. You can be home in an hour—”
Her coattails flared as she wheeled around. She flung out her hand and pointed at me as she turned her fury onto Elmer. “I want him implanted, muzzled, and ready for transport. I want it done now!”
Elmer’s chair clattered back as he jumped to his feet. “Hold on. What? No. No, he’s not being ‘transported’ anywhere. He’s not leaving this facility. Not alive, at any rate. You’re welcome to his remains once he’s been sacrificed. I’ll even reanimate them for you, so you don’t have to carry the body. But he’s not leaving.”
“Oh, shit,” I said, “looks like this weird little alliance is hitting a few rocks. Could it possibly be because…ooh, right. See, Elmer, you need to sacrifice me to the King of Worms to get your prize. But the Enemy, he needs me to die in a prison cell, per the terms of his little magical reliquary, or he doesn’t get his prize. You can’t both get what you want.”
“We already thought of that.” Elmer pouted at me. “I’ve had a cell, a perfect replica of your cell at Eisenberg Correctional, constructed here on-site. I kill you myself, inside the cell, and all conditions are satisfied.”
Fleiss gaped at him. “No. Under no circumstances. I was not consulted about that. A replica cell, on land that’s never been used as an actual prison? We have no guarantee that the ritual will succeed. We’ll only get one shot at this. It has to be one hundred percent perfect.”
“Well, Mr. Smith told me to build it. If your office and his aren’t communicating, that’s hardly my problem.”
“I’m making it your problem.” Fleiss punctuated her words with a finger jab to the breast of his oversized jacket. “Faust is coming with me. No arguments.”
I felt the heat in the room rising between the two of them, and my life depended on fanning the flames.
“I wouldn’t trust her, Elmer. All she cares about is making the Enemy happy. If he tells her to screw you over, you’re gonna be screwed over royally. And if she kills me herself, well, you can kiss your new job goodbye.”
“I did,” he said, his voice on the edge of a whine, “exactly what Mr. Smith instructed me to do. I was promised I could kill him here, as long as it was done inside the replica cell, and after you were done questioning him.”
“I didn’t make that promise,” she told him.
“Oh, hey,” I said, “that reminds me. Fleiss? Why are you teaming up with the Network? I mean, they’re building some kind of empire across…how many worlds, Elmer?”
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he snapped his response. “Many.”
“Okay. And the Enemy wants to burn the entire multiverse to ashes. Now, call me crazy, but it sounds like you folks have some serious irreconcilable differences there. The only way I see this working out is if both of you went in with the intention of pulling a double cross at some point. Hey, is that today, do you think? Fleiss, do you think the Network might be deliberately trying to screw this up, to make sure your boss never ever gets all of his power back? I’ve got no proof, but I mean, that’s what I’d do if I was them.”
Neither one answered me, but I could see from their faces that I was landing some direct hits.
“I’m calling Mr. Smith,” Elmer said. Fleiss followed him to the door. He stopped short with his hand on the knob. “What are you doing?”
“Not letting you out of my sight. We will call Smith and my lord, at the same time, and the four of us will get this sorted out together. Just to make certain that there are no further ‘misunderstandings.’”
“What about him?” Elmer asked, nodding my way.
Fleiss spun on her heel and stalked toward me.
“There is one thing we do agree upon,” she told him.
Fleiss lifted one leg and pressed her spiked heel to my chest. Then she gave me a shove. I felt myself teeter back, then fall, wind roaring in my ears as I plummeted into the breeding pit.
“Let the roaches have him,” she said. “They’ll take good care of him until we return.”