Page 3 of Avenger of Sins

Gray picked up on his alarm.“Does John wish he was still with the telepath?”

No; of course not.

“Then explain it to me,” Caleb suggested, keeping his voice as gentle as he could.

John wiped at his eyes. “When he revealed himself to Jo and me…it was like coming home. Even before I got my memories back, I felt a connection to him. I thought it was because we were related, but no. It went deeper than blood.”

A wash of concern from Gray. Caleb breathed deep, not wanting to add to it. There were a lot of advantages to being a drakul, but emotional feedback loops could get overwhelming fast. “I hear you. But he wasn’t the boy you knew back then.”

“Of course he wasn’t.” John shot a bitter glare at the camera monitoring them from the corner. “The rest of us got out. But he was stuck in a lab foryearsafter they realized he was a true telepath. He sacrificed himself for us, and I didn’t even remember his face.”

In Caleb’s opinion, none of the test subjects had gotten out. One had been abandoned in the ruined Center to be transformed into a naga, one put in a different lab, and the rest parceled out to state schools for the paranormally abled, to be swept up in SPECTR’s claws once they were of age.

The people at the state schools must have known, at least the principals, or headmasters, or whatever the fuck they were called. They’d steered certain students right into SPECTR’s academy.

Had someone been keeping an eye on John all these years? Maybe not Kaniyar or any of John’s direct coworkers, but some quiet operation still ticking along within SPECTR?

He tucked those unpleasant thoughts away for later. “I know,” he said. “And I know those years in the lab changed Ryan. And that’s not his fault! Far from it. If you want my opinion, all the blood is on SPECTR’s hands here. But Ryan knew you’d never go along with his killing spree, so instead ofrespecting your decision, he forced you to carry out his orders. That’s not love, John.”

John sat still for a long moment, before sliding his hand over and taking Caleb’s. Caleb gave his fingers a gentle squeeze, and Gray hummed just under their shared skin.

The door opened, and Kaniyar walked in, followed by a Black man with a green armband on his sleeve. An empath. Right on cue, he looked at Caleb and recoiled slightly, unable to sense his emotions thanks to his possessed state.

Kaniyar looked grim, even for her. “I’ve made some phone calls to warn potential victims,” she said, taking a seat at the head of the conference table. The empath sat down uneasily, as far as he could get from Caleb and Gray. “So it’s time to start talking.” Her eyes fixed on John. “Tell me what Ryan Starkweather’s next move is.”

TWO

“Thank you, Director Kaniyar,”Reid Harlow said into the telephone on his desk. “Yes. Of course I’ll be careful. You don’t have to worry about me.”

The call ended. Harlow sat back in his chair and contemplated his mahogany desk.

So. One of the Operation Mephisto subjects—Fifteen, the telepath—had a mental breakdown and was now out looking for revenge against anyone involved in the project.

The complacency that had allowed Fifteen to escape was one of his great regrets. What they could have done with him, if they’d only been successful at controlling him. If they’d been able to inspire a patriotic attitude, he would have been useful outside the lab. But unfortunately no amount of drugs or audiovisual reprogramming had worked.

Instead, all the time they’d been working on him, Fifteen had been working on those studying him in return. Until one day, the people in charge of the facility simply let him walk free.

God,what they could have done with his talent.

Harlow rose to his feet and walked across his spacious office to a shelf decorated with service awards. Distinguished PublicService, National Security Medal, half a dozen others…there would be even more if Operation Mephisto had continued.

They’d been doing good work. If the subjects had just cooperated, national security would be leaps and bounds beyond what it was now. Soldiers with paranormal abilities, enhanced by controlled Non-Human Entities…the United States would have the most fearsome army in the world.

Instead, things had ended up with Executive Assistant Director for the Non-Human Entity Research Division, Graham Forsyth, trying to field a demon army without any guardrails. Of course it had ended up messy; what had Graham expected?

But that was all in the past. Harlow turned away from his awards and wandered past the two women sitting side by side on a couch discreetly tucked in one corner. Demon armies weren’t the way to go now, after Graham’s debacle. Armaros Corporate Solutions pursued a much more subtle approach, funded generously by the Pentagon.

His instincts suggested there was something more to the situation with Fifteen. Things Director Kaniyar wasn’t going to tell him, as they had no political ties.

A shame—but hardly an obstacle. There were always ways of finding whatever information he required. Any security system was only as good as the humans embedded in it, and social engineering was painfully simple. He already had friends within SPECTR who would pass along information, either for old time’s sake or for a magnanimous payout.

Somethinghad set off Fifteen’s killing spree. Something had enabled him to carry it out. His telepathic ability had been impressive, but when it came to manipulating other people, it took time to change their thinking. Years, in the case of the lab he’d escaped from.

The only time he’d been able to do more, faster, was when he’d been in Operation Mephisto. Possessed.

Was he possessed now? Or was something else going on?

Well, Harlow would find out soon enough. Kaniyar had offered to send SPECTR agents for security, but he had no intention of allowing her to pry into his business.

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