Stupid. He shook his head, wishing he could dig the thoughts out of his ears with his little fingers. He wondered if Antigone thought the same way he did, but he wasn’t about to ask. Not ever. She cried, but she always ended with a smile. If she thought things would get better, he should keep his own sour thoughts to himself. He could put the ache back on its leash and drag it behind the old bars. He could renumb the raw, if only for a while.
Across the little room, Antigone sniffed and wiped her eyes. And she smiled.
“We’ll get Dan back,” she said. “Somehow.”
Tight-lipped, Cyrus returned her smile. And then out in the Polygon, the door squealed open and heavy feet found the planks.
“Sir,” a girl whispered. “I’d really rather not.”
“Fine,” a man said. The voice was Rupert’s. “Just give them to me and go.” The door closed. “Hello? Anyone here?”
Cyrus looked at his sister. She shrugged. “All the way back!” he yelled.
When Rupert Greeves ducked beneath the showers, his arms were stacked with folded blankets and towels, capped with three bulbous pillows. He stopped at the hole and leaned in.
“May I?” he asked Antigone.
She nodded.
He stepped inside, filling what was left of the small yellow space. He was wearing a loose linen shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The neck was unbuttoned low enough that a cluster of bulging old scars were visible on his dark chest. His brows flickered when he saw Nolan, but he focused on Cyrus and Antigone. “I brought you some things, though I see you’ve found some for yourselves already. Your deposit is listed as paid, but the maid service didn’t want to come down. So here I am. Special delivery.” He set the pile on the floor.
Antigone smiled. “Thanks.”
Cyrus said nothing.
The big man eyed him, scratched his pointed beard, and then twisted his head, looking at the skull-inked photos still dangling from Antigone’s fingers.
“Cy found these in Skelton’s truck,” she said. “Pretty sick. Take them.”
Antigone handed over the pictures and watched Greeves thumb through them. He focused on each image without any reaction and then fanned all three out. Cyrus stared at the calloused and battered hands holding the photos. One of Rupert’s fingernails was black with old blood.
“There were more,” Cyrus said. “Other people. I only took those three.”
Rupert nodded. “Unpleasant. I’ll have someone collect the others.”
“Unpleasant?” Cyrus snorted. “I don’t know. I love having a picture of my mom with a skull drawn on her face. And the one of Dan bleeding has a nice note on the back, too.”
Antigone slid to her feet. “Ignore him,” she said. “It’s been a rough day.”
“Rough?” Cyrus asked. He wanted to be angry at Greeves, at someone, but he didn’t feel up to the effort. He sighed. “That’s one way to put it.”
Antigone collected herself. “I have a question. Two, if that’s all right. Maybe three.”
“Maybe twelve,” Cyrus muttered.
“Ask,” said Rupert. His eyes were on Cyrus. His accented voice had grown an edge.
Antigone looked at Nolan. “You think he’s going to be okay?”
Rupert nodded. “Yes. Nolan is always okay.”
“Dan,” Cyrus said. He had to keep his voice calm. “What are you doing to find our brother? What’s happening? Where is he? What do you know?”
The big man straightened, his head nearly grazing the ceiling. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news,” he said. “Maxi sent him to Phoenix, his handler. They used a small grass airstrip not far from your motel, and I have a description of their plane. But where Phoenix is right now, I cannot say. In the last ten years, I have flushed him out of dens in Paris, Miami, and Quebec. I’ve even put a bullet in him. He’s not immortal — nor even transmortaled, I suspect — but he has some vile charm about him. Tonight, I have people and”—he paused, rubbing his jaw—“things searching for where he might be. In a few hours, I will be joining them.” He raised his eyebrows, turning from Cyrus to Antigone. “What might Daniel have that Phoenix wants? Does he have any particular gifts, strengths, abilities?”
Cyrus shook his head slowly. Greeves continued. “Did Skelton give him anything before he died? The doctor always has a twisted reason for what he does. He’s after something.”
Antigone swung meaningful eyes onto her brother. “What’s he after, Rus?”
Rupert waited. Cyrus chewed his lip. “I want to come.”
Greeves crossed his thick arms. “I beg your pardon?”
“You said you were going to be looking for this Phoenix guy tonight.” Cyrus cleared his throat. “I want to come. I can’t stay here, sleeping in this … basement. I have to do something. Let me come.”
Rupert Greeves leaned forward slowly until he was eye to eye with Cyrus. For a moment, the man simply stared, and Cyrus struggled not to squirm, not to blink or shuffle or look away. When Greeves finally spoke, his voice was soft. “Rightly or wrongly, you feel some guilt for this. Now, do you want to make yourself feel as if you are helping me find your brother, or do you want to truly help?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “What does Phoenix want? Why take Daniel?”
Cyrus exhaled. “I don’t even know who Phoenix is. How should I know what he wants?”
“Who is he?” Antigone blurted. “And don’t say we don’t need to know.”
“Right,” Greeves said. He ran a hand over his tightly shorn head. “Phoenix is someone I hope you never meet. In his own mind, he is the greatest of all altruists, philanthropist to the natural order, god to new races, savior to the world. In reality, he is a soul-crippled, subhuman devil of a man, part scientist, part sorcerer. He was expelled from the Order when I was young. He should be an old man now, but he still appears relatively young. I have no doubt that he robbed the collections of Ashtown before his expulsion, but there is very little order to them, and the darkest collections are sealed. Few people would miss anything. If I knew what he took, I might understand his weaknesses better. Then again, I might not. There may not be any weaknesses.”
“What did he do to get kicked out?” Antigone asked.
The big man’s jaw rippled, clenching. He pulled at his pointed beard. “The truth will not be reassuring. Phoenix began by secretly conducting experiments — as cruel as can be imagined — on animals in the Order’s zoo. He moved quickly to working on Acolytes, staff, and poor ignorant wretches he and his friends collected from the surrounding population — pulled from farmhouses, bus stops, schools.…”
Rupert’s scarred chest inflated. His eyes lost their focus. He was looking straight through the stone wall and into memory, seeing old horror. Cyrus glanced at his sister. Her eyes were wide, worried.
“Ten years ago,” Rupert said quietly, “I found the … remains … of seven Acolytes hidden in the floor of his old rooms. I dug graves for them myself. Among the murdered was my elder brother, missing from my childhood. Also among them”—Rupert’s eyes found Cyrus’s, and they were heavy, glistening—“were the bodies of Harriet and Circe Smith.” He turned to Antigone. “Your father’s sisters.”
Antigone blinked.
“What?” Cyrus said. “What? Our dad didn’t have … How do you know?”
“Because Phoenix labeled them.” Rupert’s voice was cold and level, his face undisturbed. “Phoenix is why I strove to become the Avengel, and I am why he lurks in shadow, afraid to show himself. The blood of the Order that he spilled is mine to avenge. And so help me God, I will leave his lifeless body to the birds so that he might be spattered across the land. But if, through witchcraft and devilry, he now numbers among the transmortaled, I will prepare for him a place in the Burials of Ashtown, deeper in anguish than any before him.”