“Until Li breaks in.”
She arched her eyebrows, smiled. “You tell me why you're here.”
He thought about it, how wonderful it felt to see his sister again after all these years. “To see you?”
“Sounds like a good answer to me.” She closed her eyes, smiled, tilted her head as if basking in the warmth of the sun. “The world out there, Dylan. It's crazy, and it's mean, and it's dangerous. I can't protect you from it. You can't protect you from it. This kill box can't protect you from it. But the thing is, when you swallow all that hate and pain out there, the world changes. It becomes magical and beautiful and wondrous.”
“So you're telling me not to be scared.”
“Not at all. Being afraid is part of being human. But it's also the doorway to greater things.”
“I'm sorry,” he said, without thinking about it.
“For what?”
“You were my little sister. I was supposed to protect you, but . . . you always protected me. The one chance I hadâ”
“Don't go there.”
“Why not? It's the five-hundred-pound gorilla, isn't it?”
“No gorillas in here. What happened . . . you keep blaming yourself for it. That only feeds the dark part of your mind. The only person you need forgiveness from is yourself. Once you let go of thatâonce you let go of meâyou'll see the greater things that lie beyond.”
Dylan felt tears forming in his eyes. “So I have to let you die? That's what you're trying to tell me.”
“You have to let the pain die, the regret die.”
“I'm trapped inside my own body. I . . . I can't control anything.”
“But God can.”
“How?”
“When you've found the answer to that question, you'll be able to leave the kill box again.”
Abruptly, the room stopped shaking, and stillness descended.
“What . . . what happened?” Dylan asked.
“You're in the box, Dylan, but you're still outside the box too. You just haven't let yourself feel it. Yourâwhat did Quinn call it?âyour separations. Everything you need to know is here.”
Dylan stood, feeling the pain start to seep back into his leg. Ahead of him, the white began to darken, turning a gray, and then blackening.
Joni approached, wrapped him in her arms, kissed his cheek. “You've let the demons chase you long enough, Dylan,” she whispered into his ear. “It's time to chase them.”
Back in his own mind, his dark mind, Dylan swam in sickness. Everything felt slow. Awkward. Polluted.
Dylan
, Li's voice said brightly. A little too brightly. Dylan felt like throwing up, but his own body wouldn't even let him do that.
Nice to have you back
.
Dylan stared through his eyes (Li's eyes), and found they were walking through the front door of the Village Center.
You're just in time for a little meeting
, Li said.
A meeting I think you'll enjoy. I know I will
.
Li paced through the corridor into an office off the main commons area, smiling magnanimously as he entered.
For you
, Li said,
this should be like a little reunion
.
In the office sat Webb and Quinn, side by side, facing him.
“Thank you, Jeff and Elise,” Li said, dismissing them with a wave of his hand.
Jeff seemed about to say something, but thought better of it and left, closing the door behind him.
Li stood in front of Webb and Quinn, rocking back and forth on his feet, barely able to contain his utter joy.
Or Dylan's utter joy, as the case may be.
“Well,” Li said aloud. “Color me surprised.”
“I didn't recognize you until you talked, Dylan,” Webb said.
“Like Li?” Li answered, cutting him off. “Just one of my many gifts to your friend.”
Inside, Dylan felt Li scanning . . . something like a picture book of moving images, searching for a connection to Webb. Nothing was there, thanks to Quinn's exorcism.
Li turned Dylan's body toward Quinn. “I've been telling Dylan how much I wanted to meet you, and look what happens: you walk right in.” He went to the desk, sat in the task chair behind it, rocked back, put his feet on his desk. “So tell me, you two,” he said. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
Webb seemed on the verge of getting sick, as if being hereâinside the HIVE againâwere poisoning him. Dylan knew the feeling.
“I'm here to make a trade, Li,” Quinn said to him.
“A trade?” Li said with obvious delight. “Oh, I do like to bargain. Tell me what you have in mind.”
Quinn's face betrayed no emotion. “I think you know.”
“Why, I have no idea,” Li said with mock sincerity.
“Me for Dylan. You leave Dylan's body, enter me as your host.”
Inside, Dylan felt numb for a few moments. Quinn was ready to sacrifice herself for him. It made no sense. His anger, his disgust, his full wrath and fury overtook him, and something unexpected happened: he felt Li slip.
For a moment, maybe celebrating his joy and victory too much, Li forgot about Dylan. And in that moment, Dylan regained control.
“No!” he thought, and this time his mouth and vocal cords responded, forming the word and screaming it.
Then the moment was gone. Li rolled inside, and Dylan was pushed back underwater, back into the depths of pain.
Webb jumped as the word escaped Dylan's lips, but a slow smile crossed Quinn's face. “Troubles at home, Li?”
The demon ignored the question.
No!
Dylan screamed inside again, but this time his body didn't respond.
Shut up
, Li replied.
“Dylan's still in there, fighting, making it . . . difficult for you, isn't he?”
Again the demon ignored her but answered her previous question. “I will accept your trade.”
Quinn nodded. “Couple conditions, of course.”
“They are?”
“You have your drones bring us IVs and a bag, and we do it right here in this office. Right now. We lock the door, and Webb here watches everything.”
“Done,” Li said.
“When we're finished, I take Dylan and Webb out of here, put them on the road. Within a few hours, you'll be in total control of my body.” She paused. “And you'll know the secrets of the Falling Away.”
Li studied her expression for a few moments, then nodded. He went to the door, opened it, motioned Jeff over, and told him to have Nancy bring a blood bag and two IVs.
Jeff nodded, as if this were the kind of request he received every day, and left immediately.
Li closed the door, turned back to Quinn, smiled. “You're betraying your kind, Quinn. No one in the Falling Away has ever been consumed by a demon.”
“Yes,” Quinn said simply.
Li's smile grew. “I like it.”
“I thought you might.”
“But is he really worth it, this Dylan?” Li asked.
Quinn stared, and Dylan knew she was staring at him. “Is sacrifice worth pain? Is selflessness worth suffering? I think those questions were answered two thousand years ago.”
Li seemed disgusted. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole crucifixion thingâyou know how many times I've had to listen to people talk about it? As if I wasn't there.” He smiled.
A knock came at the door, and Li went over to open it. Nancy wheeled a cart with a silver tray into the room, looked around nervously.
“Nancy, thank you for coming so quickly,” Li said.
She smiled. “I . . . well, you know, with the medical center right here at the Village Centerâ”
“Of course,” Li interrupted, impatient. “If you could arrange for a blood transfusion between myself and the lovely young lady over there.”
“Oh, so you're giving blood again,” Nancy said dreamily. “You're very thoughtful to do so.”
Li smiled, looked at Quinn. “Yes, well, I'm told sacrifice and selflessness are worth pain and suffering,” he said.
Nancy brought her tray of supplies to the desk, then peeled the packaging away from an IV. “I think we'll have to do this in the opposite arm,” she said, “since you just had an IV in your left arm.”
“Of course.”
Nancy hummed, oblivious to the thick tension in the air as she placed the IV in Dylan's arm, pulled the tube, attached it to a bag, and began collecting blood.
Then she pulled off her gloves, put on a fresh pair, and turned to Quinn with packaging for a second IV. Quinn barely flinched when the needle went into her arm.
Listen
, Dylan said, going into bargaining mode with Li.
You don't have to do this
.
No, I don't. But I
want
to
. Dylan felt the smile.
Don't you need to kill my body afterward, anyway? To get full control of hers? Like you did to . . . Wes?
Well, truth be told, Dylanâand I'm not always so good with the truthâI didn't really have to kill Wes. But I
wanted
to
. Another grin.
And it got your attention, didn't it
?
Butâ
What makes you think I have the least bit of interest in you anymore, Dylan? You're a chosen. It's not often I get to consume a chosen, but I've done it before. Joan of Arc, for instance. But to see inside the Falling Away . . . well, that's something new. And I like new. After thousands of years among humans, there's very little that's new to me.
But she doesn't have anything to share about the Falling Away
, Dylan tried.
She told me: they're like independent mercenaries, no real connections among them
.
No connections
yet
, you mean. Think of what I could do inside the Falling Away: access her memory banks, find out all about her training, find the person who trained her . . . well, I could do some real body hopping. Might even be interesting enough to leave this place behind and do some traveling
.
Li turned Dylan's head toward the bag collecting blood, admiring the deep pool of red in the bottom of the bag. He turned back to Nancy, the nurse. “You can leave now, Nancy. I think this is something I'd like to do myself,” he said, smiling.
Dylan thought about the pool. About Biiluke, jumping into the pool, sacrificing himself. As a chosen.
That's a nice story, Dylan, your Apsáalooke origin story
, Li said.
I was there too
.
There how
?
Why, I was the archer at the base of the cliff, of course. I will always be the archer, and I have lots of arrows. So by all means, go ahead and jump
.
“Thor's freaking,” Sergeant Gilbert said as they stared at the screen.
“Not freaking,” Dylan answered. “Freaked. He's not going anywhere for a few minutes.”
They stared at the screen as their remote-controlled, tracked robot sat motionless no more than twenty yards from the front of their vehicle.
Sergeant Gilbert pointed a finger at one of the other Humvees. “It's that Red,” he said. “It's jamming Thor.”
“You know the drill, Sarge,” Claussen said. “We can get a better signal outside.”
Gilbert ran a hand across his brow. “Right,” he said. The three of them left the vehicle once again, scrambled to the back of the Humvee, watched as Claussen tried to regain control.
Nothing.
They could wait a few minutes, try to reboot the robot, hope they regained the signal and control over Thor's movements with a hard reset.
Whether it was interference from the Red Warlock radio jammer or not, none of them knew. Not even Sergeant Gilbert. As it was, bomb disposal robots such as Thor had frequent breakdowns and glitches. The price of high tech.
“I'll cowboy it,” Dylan said after a few seconds, pulling on nitrile gloves, feeling the powder of them mix with the sweat of his hands.
“You're an Indian, not a cowboy,” Claussen said.
“But you're not much of a comedian. Next time you pray, ask for some new material.” Dylan took a few deep breaths and ran out around the protection of their Humvee, not giving Sergeant Gilbert a chance to say anything. If he'd given the sarge that chance, he knew he would have been ordered to stay put.
Dylan felt his heart pounding in his ears as he approached the robot. Quickly, he pulled out a plastic baggie, retrieved the walkie-talkie from Thor's clawed arm, and bagged the black box. Back at the workshop, they'd turn it over to CEXC, the Combat Explosives Exploitation Cell, whose brainiacs would dissect the walkie-talkie the way CSI investigators analyzed crime scene evidence. That's why Dylan wore blue nitrile gloves and bagged the walkie-talkie before touching anything else: to protect the evidence. CEXC researchers would scan it for fingerprints, for DNA, to see if they could link it to other bombs being made. They would also analyze the receiver's frequency to make sure all Warlocks in the field were programmed to jam the new signal, whenever they found one.
Jamming the receiver into his pocket, he glanced down at Thor. The robot was just a couple feet high, about three feet long, little more than two giant tracks and an articulated arm. He could probably pick it up, hoof it back; it was only twenty yards, after all. At roughly 120 pounds, it would be difficult, but he'd be saving a key piece of $125,000-equipment; in an odd way, Thor was as much a part of their team as Sergeant Gilbert, Claussen, or himself.
He stooped down to the robot, then jumped when it leapt to life once again. The robot pivoted its arm for a second, as if beckoning Dylan to follow, then turned on its tracks and began scuttling back toward the pod of Humvees. Dylan jogged along behind it, thinking he'd reach down and scoop up the machine if it showed any more signs of crankiness. Even so, he was glad he didn't have to pick it up and carry it.
Thirty seconds later Thor and Dylan slipped behind the Humvee again. Sergeant Gilbert just gave him a hard stare for a few moments, then a slight nod. It was an acknowledgment that Dylan had rushed into something he shouldn't have; he'd put his life in danger, running out into the open without an order and without cover. As an EOD tech in an already-small company of twenty-one soldiers, he was too valuable.