Page 21 of From the Noblest Motives
"Shower. Guns. I'm not playing spies smelling like three days of desert driving, and I'm not going without every piece of arsenal I brought with me."
That might have been the most comforting thing about Blaze—that he was consistently, always just so very Blaze.
Shelley Lake wasright on the pod lines, so they went over to the pod queue a block from Dr. Parma's house and took a two-person headed that way. Transport pods had always reminded Damien of melons and, despite the boulder of anxiety growing in his stomach, the thought of Blaze climbing into a melon was amusing. It helped, in a strange way.
Their pod climbed the docking gantry to connect to the cable twelve feet over the street, then followed the zip line through residential areas and out to the park. The day was already warm, not one of those soupy, steamy days of summer but too warm for the duster Blaze wore to conceal his guns.
Damien hoped whatever this was didn't take so long that Blaze fainted from heat stroke. Though that seemed unlikely. Blaze was too stubborn.
"Okay." Blaze checked his readouts as they approached the path around the lake. "Your coordinates are here-ish. One of those three benches, I'd say."
All the benches were empty. "All right."
"And I know you'll be careful, but still." Blaze shrugged out of his coat and dropped it to the grass, where his weapons clunked and clattered as they hit. Probably an unsubtle message to anyone watching. He pointed to the tree they stood beside. "I'll be right here pretending I don't give a shit about what you're doing."
Since Blaze pretended about as well as he lied, which was not well at all, Damien couldn't help a little smile. "I'm glad you're here."
Blaze huffed and plunked down next to his coat, his face bright crimson. Probably from the heat. After another visual sweep of the area that included just one woman walking her dog, and several pigeons, Damien wandered over to the central bench of the three and sat down to wait. An eerie calm settled over him, the sun making everything sharper, hyperrealistic. He doubted he was in any real danger. If someone wanted to kill him, they would've shot him and gotten it over with. This astoundingly elaborate bid for his attention was just that—someone wanted to talk to him.
Very badly.
At precisely eleven o'clock, not one second more or less, a man sat on the opposite end of Damien's bench. Though most of his face lay hidden in the shadow of a wide-brimmed straw sun hat, the veins and spots on his hands gave away his age. He wore loose pants and a buttoned up short-sleeved shirt, both in shades of beige, as if he were trying to be as uninteresting as possible.
"Hello, Damien." His voice was soft and gentle, maybe worried that Damien might flee. He held out the food container in his right hand and offered a pair of sticks. "Gyoza? They're mushroom ones."
Not the start to the conversation Damien had anticipated. He accepted the sticks, once again reasoning that poisoning him now would be absurd, and dug one of the little dumplings out. The strange circumstances didn't prevent him from enjoying the fried, garlic-laden goodness, and they both ate in silence for a few moments.
Once the gyoza had been devoured, the man set the empty carton beside him on the bench and his hat in his lap. Damien blinked at him, startled enough that he edged away on the bench. It was like looking at one of those programs that ages a photo—himself, thirty years in the future. Not entirely identical in the shape of the ears and eyes, but enough to be shocking.
Certain things clicked together in Damien's brain. "You're going to tell me you're my father."
"Rather blunt." The dark eyes that met his were amused rather than annoyed. "But yes. I am Cyril Hazelwood."
Where have you been? Why weren't you there when she died? Why didn't you come for me? Why did you let me grow up broken and scarred?The small child inside Damien wailed these questions while he fought against twitching or reacting. "Why now? Why… at all?"
"Because now you're grown and comfortable in your considerable talents. You have someone with a warrior's skills at your back." Cyril nodded to Blaze lounging under the tree. "You have friends in important places. I'm no longer the danger to you that I once was, and it's time. Things have begun to escalate."
"I don't know what that means." Damien unclenched his fists, suddenly aware of his nails digging into his palms.
"I know. And I'm sorry." Cyril watched his hands as he turned his hat around by its brim. "I wish it could have all been different. But they changed everything when they killed your mother."
Ice ran down Damien's back. What little he remembered… It had been dark. Sharp pops and shattering glass. Someone screaming. The world covered in blood. His mother slumped over the steering wheel. He was shaking her. Crying. Policeman pulled him out of the car…
His whisper hoarse and raw in his ears, he asked, "Who killed my mother?"
"I can't give you a name. Some assassin hired by the government. A certain variaphobic arm of the government, to be specific."
"How did they—" Damien cut himself off. The question of how they got away with it was naïve.
"In some ways, times were very different. The Guild didn't have the reach and the power it has now. The conservative arm of the government had been in power for some time. To be a variant was to be extremely careful, to walk quietly and never speak out. Speaking out was dangerous. Your mother and I were still young enough to believe ourselves invulnerable."
Damien struggled with the darkness on the edges of his vision, breathing carefully. "You… were supposed to die."
"I was. They expected me to be in that car instead of on my way out of the country." Another turn of the sun hat. "We never thought they would resort to murder."
The gyoza wasn't sitting well in Damien's stomach. He wanted to put his head on his knees, but it wouldn't be a good idea to alarm Blaze. "Why?"
"A broad question, covering many things. Why did I leave the country? We were hoping for support from Europe. Why did they want us dead?" Cyril let out a soft sigh. "Damien… I've been a variant activist almost from the moment I could hold a sign. There will always be ungifted who hate us. Fear us. Subconsciously, they know we are the next branching of the evolutionary tree."
