"We've long suspected that angels might walk the world," Ascii continued as if the dam had broken and the floodwaters would not stop. "Time and time again we'll find a demon nest ransacked and all that is left will be ashes. When we had you in our power at Eden Court, though, only Core recognized you—but he was touched by God."
"What?" The cult had held Ukiah prisoner at one point? But if he was going to keep pretending to be Ukiah, Atticus couldn't ask straight-out. He scrambled for another question. "Were you there—at Eden Court—when I was?"
"I'd gone on to the Western Reserve." It took Atticus a moment to realize she meant northeast Ohio, the infamous western reserve of Connecticut. "I wasn't there when Ice first captured you and Core shared you with Ping." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "They say that's why the house was destroyed—because Core drugged you and took you against your will."
They had raped Ukiah? "Why?" He caught hold of her by her prison uniform and could barely keep from shaking her. "Why would you do that to anyone?"
She didn't seem to notice the violence of his actions, gazing up at him without flinching. "We wouldn't have attacked you if the need wasn't so great!"
"What do you mean?"
"There has been a quickening to the demons' plans. A shift. Something has changed and we don't know what. We thought it was the events of June, but wiretaps we've translated recently mention Boston, and something of great importance. We might be too late already. It's taking us too long to work through the translation. We had to have help. We needed you!"
"What are the demons trying to do in Boston?"
"We don't know. We can't translate their conversations. We've tried to torture the information out of the demons, but it's quite impossible. They shatter down to mice without talking."
"So coming to Boston had nothing to do with Loo-ae?"
"Ice says if we have to, we will use Louie—Loo-ae—to kill everything that moves in Boston."
Ru rapped a signal on the door. Time was up.
Atticus scrambled to squeeze in Agent Zheng's second question. "What are you planning to use as a key for Loo-ae?"
Ascii gazed up at him, eyes wide and bright with religious fervor. "You."
CHAPTER SEVEN
MCI Framingham, Framingham, Massachusetts
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
The public defender who was assigned to Ascii stormed into the room. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing. Anything she's said isn't admissible in court."
"So far all she's talked about is angels and demons." Atticus retreated to the door. He didn't want to discuss in front of this man the madness that suddenly was his life.
"Really?" The attorney made a note on a legal pad. "Then insanity is a possible plea."
Atticus fled the room. He knew that what made America great was that everyone was assumed innocent until proved guilty and that it was an honest attorney's job to do everything in his power for his client, but still, it grated. By her own admission, this woman had run a man down, shot him in the chest while he was helpless, and stolen his dead body. All evidence said that if Atticus hadn't rescued his brother, she would have hacked him to pieces and burned him to ash. All that, though, was inadmissible. She'd do a little time, if any, and be released. Yet all the time in the world wouldn't erase her discovery that it wasn't that hard to kill; and like everything else in life, it would only get easier with practice.
The guard who had been absent when Atticus entered the room stood quietly now in the corner. Agent Zheng waited beyond the two-way mirror, making notes in her PDA, no clue of what she was thinking on her face. It bothered him that he couldn't read her.
"This is insane," Atticus whispered to her. "Werewolves. Aliens. Angels. Demons. Everyone seems to be running with their own version of reality."
"Yes." Zheng put away her PDA. "But that's the way it's been from the beginning of time."
Inside the questioning room, the public defender introduced himself. Under his polished manner, he put out mixed signs of anger, impatience, and concern. The intercom was turned off, yet it was clear that the muted conversation ground down as the attorney met a stone wall of silence from Ascii.
Zheng had been correct when she guessed that Ascii would talk only to Atticus.
"I'd rather not be here when he gets tired of beating his head against the wall." Zheng picked up her black trench coat. "Let's find someplace private to discuss this."
He nodded—he had a million questions to ask her. Atticus expected another walk around the grounds of the prison, but storm clouds filled the sky, pouring down sheets of gray rain. They paused in the doorway, judging the rain and each other, being jostled by damp visitors dashing in from the downpour.
"I've got a suite at the Residence Inn," Zheng said, naming a hotel chain. "It's about a five- to ten-mile drive. We can talk there."
"We'll follow you," Atticus promised.
Zheng turned up the collar on her raincoat and went out, unhurried, into the rain.
"I don't know about you," Ru said as he watched the FBI agent stride purposely across the parking lot, "but she really creeps me out."
***
Atticus drove on mental autopilot, following Zheng in an SUV with Massachusetts plates—apparently a rental car. Angels. Demons. Evil aliens—Ontongard, Zheng had called them. What did this make him? Where did the Pack and Ukiah fit into this mess? Nothing in the reports Kyle pulled up suggested that the outlaw biker gang was hell-bent on global domination. And how did this fit into the shooting at Buffalo?
"The Ontongard," he murmured.
"What?" Ru asked.
"What if the shooters weren't Pack or the Temple of New Reason, but this third group? The Ontongard."
"The demons?"
"Yes. The cult steals Hu-ae from the Ontongard and starts producing Invisible Red and sells it via Animal. Only the drug leaves a trail back to the Iron Horses. The Ontongard tracks it back to the Buffalo chapter and ambushes the buy, looking for the cult and their machines."
"So you believe Agent Zheng's claim that the cult is using these alien machines to make Invisible Red?"
He had no problem accepting it. Why? Once he considered the drug's structure, he realized it was far more complex than anything he'd ever dealt with before. "Most drugs are a couple of molecules hung together off of sugar. This stuff . . . it reminds me of DNA; it's an incredibly dense lattice. And it can change. Daggit and I handled the same substance, and it reacted to us both as it came in contact with our skin. With me, it seemed like it was simplifying. But with Daggit, it grew more complex, like thorns growing. It was sensing us, and . . . and . . . unfolding . . . differently."
"Unfolding?"
"I think it's like a computer program. Parts of it were being triggered, going active, while other sections . . . terminated."
"So for you, it's safe to take, but it's going to kill Daggit?"
"Possibly."
" It's death," Ukiah had said " They're all dead men. You're a breeder. It will make you want to have sex but it won't hurt you. It was made to make you breed."