Page 90 of Pride
“What’s that?” Mary asked.
“Immortality.”
The laughter stopped.
“That’s assuming he still wants it,” Liza said. “Daisy destroyed any chance he had of replicating his original family. Maybe he just wants to watch the world burn.”
Parker tapped the data files on the world Syndicate leaders, a glint in his eyes. “Except he’s not in control, like he led us to believe. They are. What Julius wants is personal, and we’ll dangle it in front of him before taking it all down.”
32
“You need to see this.”
Julius ignored Van Jansen and put his Glock down to wash his hands under the stream of water in the bathroom sink. He scrubbed, turned the faucet off, and then dried his hands.Can’t even take a dump without being interrupted. He stared at his fingers—the lock of hair had fallen off. Washed down the drain. Again.Damn it. A quick dip into his pocket and he pulled out the manicure scissors. A glance into the mirror and he snipped a longish chunk of white hair before tying it to his index finger.
Much better.
He finally turned to Van Jansen, standing at the bathroom door, and caught the scientist’s alarmed gaze locked onto Julius’s head. Thenerveof him to interrupt here, of all places. Julius picked up the gun. Van Jansen quickly blurted his reason for being there.
“I looked into what the Sinner told us, and I think maybe she’s right. I know you said not to waste my time, but I tested the theory out, and, well… come. Youmustsee this. Before we lose them.”
Julius tried to understand what the man was talking about. Something the Sinner had said? Which one? Who? Where? They’d failed in containing a single one of those bitches. He tuned back into what Van Jansen said.
“… the one in custody in Columbia. She said some things when we were there. Do you remember? About the action of the uncontrolled replicates, ja?” At Julius’s blank look, Van Jansen elaborated. “The Sisterhood thinks the replicates are trying to get to Hell.”
Oh. The Sinner in Columbia. Julius stifled an eye roll. He was not in the mood for theological theatrics. Not now. Not when nothing seemed to be working. Julius tucked the gun into the back of his waistband and then hid the firearm with his jacket.
“You must come quickly,” Van Jansen insisted.
“There is no Hell,” Julius gritted out. “There never has been. Now, don’t you have another treatment to administer? And”—he slammed his palm on the bathroom mirror, shattering the glass—“why haven’t we found a new enforcer? Where are the damned Faithful?”
Van Jansen jerked back, blinking. “That is not my department.”
“Right.” Julius tapped his chest. “Right. That was my darling’s department.” He shook his head, clearing the fog. Despair was out of commission. She’d betrayed him. Someone else had been helping. What was his name again? The fireman? “But he messed up. Again.”
“Julius,” Van Jansen said. “Listen to me.”
“There is no Hell!” Julius slammed his palm, cutting it on the broken mirror. If Julius believed in Hell, then he might believe in Heaven. Then his wife and daughter would never return to him because they werethere. And there was no way to bring someone fromtheretohere.
“Aah.” Van Jansen put up a finger, recklessly excited. “But alternate dimensions have long been postulated over in the scientific community…. Quickly. Follow me.”
The scientist rushed off, his white lab coat flapping.
Julius put his hair-tied-finger on his lips, then touched his heart and prayed for patience before following the white coat through corridors of their building, down the rabbit hole into their basement, past the replicate tanks gurgling and bubbling, all the way to the darkened back end and through a strange hole in the wall that hadn’t been there before.
Blood smeared scratches around the edges. Had fingernails made those?Impossible.
Footsteps echoed through the hole in a short tunnel that ended in what, he guessed, was the underground sewage network of the city. Water dripped from the ceiling and splashed onto the muddy floor where footprints paved the way forward.
What the...
“Hurry, or we will miss them.” Van Jansen’s voice bounced off the tunnel walls.
Julius chased his lead scientist through the rat-riddled maze until they found them—four replicates. Each more crazed and decrepit than the first, and each trying to dig their way down into a muddy part of the sewer. With their fingers. Which were now bony stumps.
“What is the meaning of this?” Julius asked, easing his firearm out of his waistband.
“Look.” Van Jansen pointed into the murky water.
