AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Have a seat, gentlemen,” she says. “Get comfortable. This is a discussion you’ll want to pay attention to.”
We sit, and she walks over to the door, locking it.
“There,” she says. “Now we can speak uninterrupted.”
She seats herself across from us and removes her sunglasses, revealing a pretty face and piercing blue eyes. She’s certainly in her forties. It’s not just her appearance that tells me that, it’s her energy. She’s poised and calm in the way only a woman with some experience in madness can be.
“I actually owe you two a debt of gratitude, or rather one of you, the blue-haired one. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Everybody calls me Cosmos,” I say.
“Of course they do. Well, Cosmos, you cut off my predecessor’s head, which I have to say really helped me break through this particular glass ceiling.”
She’s Fleisch. The beast has grown a new head. A female one, this time.
“We’ve been aware of your activities for a long time, of course, as our archnemeses. We know all of you. We know your weaknesses and your strengths. We’ve allowed you to continue to exist as an amusing anachronism, but lately your hostility has become untenable. I, of course, refer to the beheading of my predecessor. I would be loathe to experience the same fate. So. I’ve decided to take action. Would you like to know what course of action I’ve chosen? It’s a very good idea.”
“Please, enlighten us,” Bryn says.
“I’m going to take your two angel brides, and I’m going to keep them hostage. I promise I won’t touch their blood. They’ll remain your perfect, sacred vessels. But if you continue massacring my people at the slightest provocation, I can promise you they will be punished in your stead.”
“We will never let you take our brides. Any attempt to do so will be met with an avalanche of violence,” Bryn declares.
Katya smiles as if that does not concern her.
“Fleisch will be heading in a new direction. The old guard was only concerned with reanimating the flesh. I am not a spiritual guardian of the relic. I am a woman who sees an opportunity. Angelic blood is a panacea for a host of ills. Our laboratories are using it to develop cures for everything from menstrual cramps to earthquakes.”
“That makes no sense,” Bryn says.
“Perhaps not to you, an archaic, woefully outdated relic of times very much gone by. I know how to harness power, boys. I know how to ride the waves of chaos. That’s why I came here, to talk to you. And to make it abundantly clear that the dynamic you’ve been enjoying, of attacking our laboratories and slaughtering our staff has come to an end. You’ll need to find something new to entertain yourselves with.”
“As long as you corrupt the blood of angels with your worldly concerns, we will oppose you.”
“And that’s why I’ve taken your brides.”
“What do you mean, taken?”
“I already have them.”
“That’s not possible, we were both with our partners moments ago. I just left Nina upstairs.”
“And my agents on the roof have already taken her. I did not come unprepared, Father Bryn. And believe me when I say I did not announce my presence until both Nina and Elise were securely in my custody.”
I stand up, with the full intention of choking her until she returns our partners. Katya’s eyes narrow a fraction and she gestures down with the nose of the gun.
“Sit, sweetheart,” she says. “I will shoot you if I have to, and I’d be justified in doing so too, considering the little rampage you went on recently. You left our German laboratory looking like an slaughterhouse. You do have a flair for the dramatic, don’t you. Almost artistic.” Her eyes swivel to Bryn. “He appears to have mastered the art of calligraphy in the medium of large intestine.”
Bryn palms his face and makes a muttered appeal to a very specific deity. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
12
Elise
The world has gone very dark. I am being abducted. I know this because it is not my first abduction. Thanks to Cosmos I am very intimately familiar with how it feels to be transported against my will, though the way I’m being dragged and tossed about is rough, even for him. With a hood over my head, my hands bound behind my back, my ankles in a similar state, my major sentiment is oh no, not again.
“Cosmos? Are you trying to teach me a lesson?”
“Shut up.”
The voice that answers has a German accent. I don’t think this is Cosmos. I can hear someone else too. Another girl. Oh. I recognized that voice. Nina is making polite sounds of complaint, saying that the bindings around her ankles are too tight, and could they possibly loosen them, please?
She is greeted with the same terse, curse-based response I enjoyed.
There are clunks, the revving of an engine, and then speed happens.
