Читать книгу Angel Of Doom - James Axler - Страница 13

Smaragda sat at the conference table, her shoulders slumped, shocks of her white bangs hanging low over her baggy eyes. She stared at the top of the table, but she was so deadened, so numbed by the trauma of losing her platoon, she didn’t even register the grain of the faux wooden veneer topping the furniture in front of her. All she could do was fight the need to close her eyes, to dispel the horrors of her platoon’s swallowing, to keep the echoes of their screams from ringing in her ears.

She was clad in a nearly shapeless sweatshirt that covered her arms, hiding the recent work she’d carved into it with a razor. The flesh of her forearms was heavily checkered now and was raw from the disinfectant she’d poured over the dozens of new cuts to prevent sepsis. Smaragda hadn’t cut herself since she was a mere teenager, the focus and élan of being with the New Olympian military stealing not just privacy for the act, but also drowning out the need for controlling her pain.

Now her forearms stank of hydrogen peroxide, dampened somewhat by the loose bandages and the rumpled sleeves of her top. She didn’t know if her acknowledgment of the odors was just a strong memory or if she truly was literally reeking of it. Either way, it was too late now as the lights came on in the conference room, people filing in through different doors. Smaragda’s eyes rose slightly and she watched her queen roll herself along on her wheelchair.

Their eyes met as they were at the same level, and Smaragda instinctively looked back down, wishing that she could wither away, shrinking into the ground and out of the presence of Queen Diana.

She pressed her forearms harder against the tabletop and the pressure on her skin allowed slowly healing snips and cuts to pop open. It wasn’t the same kind of rush as she got from pressing a razor blade against it, but the pain still clouded her perceptions, taking her out of the moment, out of her self-loathing for…surviving.

Conversations murmured around the corners of her consciousness and it was something that helped her to muffle the distant memories of her dying friends. If only she’d stood her ground…at least she wouldn’t have felt so useless. No, she would have had the beautiful darkness of oblivion, her body and soul swallowed completely by the Stygian cloud, her suffering ended by its ravenous greed.

“So we have a new development,” Diana announced, her voice cutting sharply through both the conference room and into Smaragda’s numbed mind. “Our people are still alive.”

Smaragda looked up, staring at her queen, her hands clenching into tight fists so that even her closely trimmed nails threatened to spear through her palms. “What?”

“They are alive and under some form of mind control, or have had their bodies commandeered by the Etruscan menaces,” Diana clarified for her. “We have video of both the intruders and our missing people, thanks to Edwards over there.”

Smaragda glanced in the direction Diana pointed and saw a brawny, brooding figure, he having cast his eyes downward.

“Just trying to get as much as I could. I sure as hell was useless in terms of fighting those two,” Edwards grumbled.

Smaragda turned and glanced toward the screen, the lights dimming.

“Myrto, see if you can recognize anything off of the initial parts of the video,” Diana ordered. The queen’s voice held more than a little concern, something the disgraced soldier couldn’t understand. If anything, she should have been executed for such a disgusting failure.

Why worry about me? Smaragda mused silently. Why even have me here at this table?

But even as she did so, a small monitor was slid to her section of the table and she looked at the flying entities.

“Did you see anything like that?” Brigid Baptiste asked.

Smaragda shook her head. “The only thing any of us saw was a literal flood of dark, churning smoke. However, we were in the woods, and I couldn’t see through the canopy of trees.”

Brigid nodded. “Perhaps that is why there was that form of manifestation.”

Smaragda looked down at the screen, watching as her friends suddenly appeared, deposited on the ground by streams of light emanating from the torch held by the flying female figure, Vanth.

She could recognize them by the subtle differences, the little bits of customization on each of her fellow soldiers’ armor, even before the camera focused on the faces inside their open-visored helmets. She looked at one set of eyes and her heart sank. Every instinct was to grab the tiny monitor and hurl it aside, but she didn’t even possess the will to lift her arms, to even touch the image of lost brothers.

Edwards leaned across the table, his long arm snatching up the tablet and turning it away from her.

“She doesn’t need to see that shit,” the big man gruffly announced. “Pardon my language.”

“It’s excused,” Diana stated. “I’m sorry, Myrto.”

The failed soldier just shook her head, tried to say, “It’s okay,” but could only manage a mumbled, garbled semblance of human speech.

“Are you sure you’re all right to continue this debriefing?” Edwards spoke across the table.

A hand rested upon her shoulder and she looked up to see that it was Brigid Baptiste. Her touch was delicate and her expression was one of concern. “Let me talk with her alone, everyone.”

Smaragda shook her head. “I can be useful…”

“We know that,” Brigid answered her. “I just want to talk to you. One-on-one.”

Smaragda looked into the emerald, shining eyes of the tall woman, seeing a warmth that made her dislike herself even more, not wanting to deserve any of that for all that she’d failed to do. And yet the offered hand was irresistible and she rose, guided to a doorway.

* * *

EVEN IF BRIGID BAPTISTE were not possessed of a photographic memory, enabling her to recognize the signs of severe emotional trauma, she would have noticed the turmoil that wrapped up the frost-haired Smaragda. Taking her into the hallway, away from the presence of others, she managed to give the young woman some privacy. The corner of the corridor was well lit, but no one was using it.

“I’m sorry for dragging down the debriefing…” Smaragda began.

“You aren’t,” Brigid told her. She braced Smaragda’s face in both of her hands, locking eyes together. “Just look into my eyes and concentrate on my voice.”

“Why? What are you doing?” Smaragda asked.

“First, I’m going to get your complete testimony without causing you more conscious mental harm,” Brigid explained. “I’m hypnotizing you now, lulling your senses, making you feel more and more comfortable. As the notes of my voice strum gently in your ears, I am commanding your visual attention. With sight and hearing focused, calmed, you will become more attuned toward the cues that interfere with your detailed memory, as well as separate yourself from your emotional barriers.”

Smaragda’s dark, red-veined eyes slowly unfocused with Brigid’s continued description of the hypnosis process, calming her, fixating her until Brigid was able to draw her hands away from the girl’s cheeks.

Smaragda stood stock-still and the Cerberus archivist began asking her questions and receiving honest answers. The trick to hypnosis was simply a case of distraction of the conscious mind, taking away filters of behavior and emotion that would otherwise interfere with clarity of communication.

The shell-shocked soldier was much more forthcoming in her responses, and didn’t seem as if she wanted to fold herself away under the table. And since this was Brigid Baptiste, not a single syllable, not a single impression, would be forgotten or lost in the translation. Her brilliant mind absorbed every fact and description uttered by Smaragda, as well as opinions and impressions on things she could only speculate about.

The whole hypnotic session took only fifteen minutes for the direct questioning and Brigid was partially of a mind to continue, digging into Smaragda’s self-loathing and attempt to take care of it, like a surgeon having discovered a tumor in the midst of an operation. However, Brigid realized that if she attempted to dig too deeply, she could cause as much harm as she’d attempt to undo. No, meatball surgery on the traumatized young woman was not going to be on the menu today.

Smaragda’s healing would have to come from a more conventional source, but even as Brigid closed out the hypnotic session, she complimented the woman on her observational skills and her ability to bring vital intelligence to New Olympus. Positive reinforcement on the subconscious level could be a minor salve, but it wouldn’t upset the Greek woman’s thoughts such as an attempt to bury her feelings of self-loathing and survivor’s guilt. Putting that down deeper in Smaragda’s mind would be exactly the opposite of removing a tumor; it would be pushing a packet of septic and diseased flesh into a vulnerable set of organs, waiting for one moment to split and infect the rest of her, poisoning everything else she did.

No, Brigid couldn’t sublimate the raw feelings on Smaragda’s part. She could only attempt to leave an impression that she actually had done some good.

With a snap, Smaragda blinked her bloodshot eyes.

There was a moment where the soldier seemed unsteady on her feet, but Brigid assisted her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“What happened? It feels like I fell asleep,” she said.

Brigid nodded. “In a way you did. I hypnotized you.”

Smaragda’s brow wrinkled as she looked up at the tall Cerberus woman. “Hypnotized. You didn’t do something like make me cluck like a chicken if someone says ‘dinner’ or something, right?”

“Nothing like that,” Brigid answered.

Smaragda managed a brief flicker of a smile before she cast her gaze to the floor. “At least I was good for something.”

Brigid put her arm around the soldier’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s get back to the meeting.”

This time she sat Smaragda right next to Edwards. The big man seemed confused for a moment.

“She’s too hard on herself, just like you,” Brigid murmured. “Maybe keep an eye on her and take your mind off of your ill-perceived failures.”

The CAT member nodded. “All right. I can take a hint,” he added with a mock growl.

“How’d you screw up?” Brigid heard Smaragda ask as she returned to the head of the table. At this point, Kane and Grant put away the cards they were toying with as they’d waited for her to return. She chuckled at the two of them sitting back up and looking interested, as if they were schoolboys afraid of being busted by their teacher.

“I thought you would be getting more information from Diana and Ari,” Brigid said.

“We did. But after we got all of that, and showed more of the vid, we had time left over,” Kane told her.

“What did you get?” Grant asked her.

“I got deeper information on the situation,” Brigid said. “And it contrasts with the interview in only a few minor errors and differences.”

“I told the truth,” Smaragda interjected.

Brigid nodded. “You did. But human memory is, for most people, a fickle thing. The human mind alters perceptions upon reflection, adding details that might not have been there in the original case, and ignoring others that seemed irrelevant at the time. A study in the late twentieth century proved that eyewitness testimony was only accurate in one instance out of ten where there were other forms of corroboration such as audio and video recording.”

“Really?” Kane asked.

Brigid nodded. “In my instance, that kind of filter for memory is missing, most likely a genetic anomaly.”

“Like a doomie.” Edwards spoke up.

Domi shook her head. “Brigid’s too smart for that. Doomies can’t handle the future. They get crazy. Brigid looks straight back.”

Brigid managed a weak smile. She didn’t want to correct her friend and oft-times student Domi. She could see the future, but only via educated calculations based upon prior data, a cause-and-effect form of premonition. She didn’t engage in it too often, only for the purposes of planning for battle and avoiding dangers. And even then, her calculations were not one hundred percent.

“Did Myrto see anything?” Diana asked.

“She described the fog she mentioned in detail,” Brigid stated. “And as our initial evaluation of potential myths, there was a Stygian aspect to the cloud. And yet there was something equally familiar to us. During a recent expedition to Africa, we encountered a similar unnatural darkness. To every one of our senses, it was something that was a truly physical entity. Not even a flashlight or high-tech optics could cut through it.”

“What was it really?” Aristotle asked.

“It was a psychic projection. One that was so strong, it even numbed tactile senses,” Brigid stated. “So, what Myrto saw could have been something similar. A form of smoke screen.”

“Why not just use an actual smoke screen? Wouldn’t that take a lot of energy?” Aristotle persisted.

“Because they were facing soldiers. There had to be a focus for them to counter. Something akin to my hypnosis of Myrto,” Brigid explained. “The black, invulnerable fog was something that could draw the fire of the Olympian troops without endangering them in the process.”

“You mean that my men were opening fire on a cloud that wasn’t there, and it wasn’t even concealing the ones attacking us?” Smaragda asked.

Brigid felt some relief as the soldier regained some of the fire in her belly.

“It may have, in some instances. But being a black fog to your conscious mind, it allowed you to shoot into it and not even register any impacts. You could even have been steered to shooting between your friends. Or have known, subconsciously, where your brethren were. It is no good to take people as zombie prisoners when their own compatriots open fire and cut them down,” Brigid told her. “In that way, you protected your brethren, deliberately shooting not to hit them.”