The Apostle shut his eyes. Opened them again. The bone gleamed with an unholy sheen. “This is the second time I’ve called you.”
“Is it?” The Apostle heard the continuous beeping of a game. “The gods of Valhalla needed my assistance.”
“I assure you I don’t know what that means.”
The Apostle heard the digital clang of swords, the computerized sound of someone dying a horrific death. “Nailed him,” Colton Price said, not to him. Then, “You should get into gaming. It might be good for your ulcer.”
He could not see how hacking ogres to bits with a sword could be remotely good for his ulcer, but he refrained from saying so aloud. Instead, he shut his eyes and drew a breath. He counted backward from ten, which his therapist had politely suggested he try as a means of quelling his rage.
It wasn’t that he was an angry man by nature; it was just that Colton Price was masterful at pressing buttons. The Priory had set eyes on Price the very moment he’d arrived at Godbole. They’d invited him to pledge, not because he’d rushed, but because he was the unequivocal best at what he did. A marvel, this boy who’d cheated death—who’d grown into a man capable of tearing open the sky.
But there was no denying Colton Price was difficult to work with.
“There’s been a hiccup in the plan,” the Apostle said.
Price sucked air through his teeth. “I’d argue Julian Guzman biting the dust is a little bit bigger than a hiccup.”
“All is not lost. We’ve still got Kostopoulos.”
More pinging; steel met steel. A voice screamed, high and tinny. “He won’t do any better,” Price said. “They’re canaries in a coal mine. Maybe you should take the sign for what it is.”
A twitch began in his eye. He rubbed at it with a finger, determined not to shout. “Remind me what it was Thomas Edison said about failure.”
He knew Price would know. The boy was a walking encyclopedia, unforgivably smug in the understanding that he was, more often than not, the smartest person in the room. “?‘I have not failed ten thousand times,’?” he said, speaking over the muffled clash of swords, “?‘I’ve successfully found ten thousand ways that won’t work.’?”
“One of them will take,” the Apostle insisted, and said nothing else.
In the ensuing silence, Price let out a laugh. “All right,” he said. “I can hear you stewing through the phone. Break a few more light bulbs. Kill a few more canaries. I don’t care.”
“You should. Need I remind you that the results of this project affect you as well as me?”
The game beeped. A winning bell sounded. “Maybe.”
The Apostle scowled down at his phone. He didn’t like that response.Maybe.It reeked of belligerence. Colton Price, with all that beat in his blood, needed to be very carefully controlled. He wasn’t a boy; he was a weapon. And he knew it.
“I do hope you’ve been staying sharp, Mr. Price.”
“As a tack,” he replied, without missing a beat.
“Really?” The Apostle pressed his hand to the case. The bone shard winked up at him, milky with moonglow. “Because I’ve had reports that you’ve been spending your mornings with Ms. Meyers-Petrov.”
For once, the wearisome Price didn’t instantly supply a witty response. To anyone else, the silence would have seemed like contrition, but the Apostle knew better. Colton Price had never been contrite a day in his life. He was, as a rule, utterly disdainful. He wasn’t the sort to bother with excuses. He most likely didn’t even care that he’d been caught. In the background, the game began anew. Something snarled, the sound bestial in the quiet.
“You know the risks,” the Apostle reminded him. “You know the price you’ll pay should you become worthless to the Priory.”
“I don’t plan to become worthless.”
“Then keep your distance. I trust Meeker gave you the reports?”
“Yeah,” Price said. “I’ve got the folders.”
“Study them. Look for patterns. Find out what the others did wrong. That’s your job. It’s the only job. Nothing else.”
The line went dead.
The Apostle pried the phone from his ear. It was hot in his hand. Clouds had slipped across the moon during the call, muting the light so it fell in through the windows in obscure strips—too dark to see by. The bone shard blackened, turning obsidian in the gloom. It sent—though it should not have—a thrum of disquiet down his spine. He felt his way to the desk and slumped in his chair, startling slightly at the creak of leather beneath him.
At the far end of the room, the thin arms of dark dragged nearer. Talons dug into the floor. A head coalesced, the wrongness of it never failing to strike cold into his heart. He tried not to look at the figure directly as the darkness staggered to its feet, skull concave, mouth gaped like a wound. The smell of putrefaction permeated the room, mildewed and horrible and unyielding. He’d spent the past ten years trying to air it out. Windows open, candles lit, air fresheners hung. It was no use.
