The Seventh Immortal (Hearts of Amaranth #1) Page 5

  Chapter Five

  Christa Xander was a dreadfully imposing woman, with dark brown hair that hung around her pale face in long, perfectly-straight chunks. Her black eyes seemed like long tunnels into another, frightful world. She dressed in a sharp burgundy pantsuit that clung to her sinewy, muscular body. Her age was impossible to discern, both because of the heavy makeup caking her face and the singular fact that united her with Kait on this dreary night: Christa Xander was immortal.

  She wasn't the only one. Daniel Levin was also an immortal, as was Silvi Park. Pastor Eve Weisz was among their number, and there were two more than Kait had yet to meet. Grant L'Enfant was the chief of police for the city. Thomas Kemp was the leader of the Obshina organized crime family, who ruled over north St. Louis like a separate fiefdom.

  Kait didn't feel special any more, though that disappointment was vastly outweighed by relief. She wasn't alone in her strange condition. She was also no longer guilty of murder. That was a nice bonus.

  Christa Xander was the CEO of Fractal Capital Management, a private equity firm that incorporated in St. Louis around the same time as the rest of the immortals arrived in the city—ten years ago.

  “It has been over a hundred and fifty years since another one of us has turned up,” Christa said, staring at Kait with cold eyes. “You can see why you have caused such a stir. I'm sure we all have many questions for you.”

  Kait fidgeted nervously with her hands. Even though it was better than being outside, running from the police, she didn't feel comfortable in Christa's office. She wished that it was Silvi giving her this talk. The young woman was much more...approachable than the intimidating CEO of Fractal Capital. “I don't know how much help I can be,” she replied. “But I'd much rather answer a few questions than be drugged in a hospital room.”

  Christa smiled. Her teeth seemed sharp. “Rest assured, Miss Selias,” she said. “That is not how we operate on this side of the divide. We hold freedom and choice in very high regard.”

  “Good to hear.”

  “So, Miss Selias, tell me... What are we? How did this happen to us?”

  Kait reeled from the question. Her mind raced as she tried to understand Christa's question. It felt backwards. Christa shouldn't have been asking Kait what she was. It should have been the other way around.

  After a few seconds of awkward silence, Kait realized the horrible truth: Christa didn't even know what they were. Silvi had promised—or at least suggested—that the Fractal CEO could explain everything. In truth, she was just as clueless as Kait.

  “I'm... I'm sorry,” Kait said. “But I don't even know who I am, let alone what I am.” Christa recoiled, as if stung, and slumped down in her chair. “To be honest, I thought you would be able to tell me what I am.”

  Christa considered this. She folded her hands in front of her and leaned forward. “We are the last relics from the age of fate,” she replied.

  Kait raised an eyebrow. Christa's response was poetic, but it didn't really tell her anything. “Is that all you have?”

  “Read the books of old and they will talk of God as if he were a tangible force—something that could be felt and heard.” Christa stood up. She began to pace around her desk. “Think, Kait, do you feel God in this room? Did you feel him out on the street today? NO! You did not, and that is because he is gone. He has passed from this world, but he has given a select few of us a gift. It is the gift of his memory, and his voice. I remember what it was like to know that God was there—to know that he was real.”

  Kait was unsettled by Christa's sudden fanatical turn. If she wasn't immortal, she might have been frightened of the powerful woman. As it was, her strange condition gave her surprising courage. “There's a problem with your theory,” Kait said. “If we were given immortality to remember God, why have I forgotten everything?”

  Christa smiled a sick, twisted smile. “And there is the problem. When I heard about you, Kait Selias, I thought you might be the one we've been waiting for. The one of us who has been hidden since the beginning who could explain what happened two hundred years ago, and what we are meant to do with it.”

  “Sorry I'm a disappointment,” Kait replied.

  “You're worse than that. Not only do you lack answers, but you have no message. You cast doubt on the one thing that the six of us were absolutely certain of: that we we are the last messengers of God. We are his final Gospels to the world, destined to spread his word until the end of time. But what word can you teach, Kait?”

  Kait's heart began to race. She finally understood what the message in her passport meant. These six immortals—Christa, Silvi, Eve, Grant, Thomas, and Levin—were the Gospels she was supposed to seek out. They believed that they were the messengers of God. That was why they installed themselves in positions of power—CEO, pastor, police chief, mayor—where they could spread their personal ideologies.

  While this was all enlightening, it was also frightening. Christa wasn't much different from Mayor Levin. She just had a different ideology. Just like Levin, she saw herself as one of the last of God's messengers left on Earth.

  “So I don't know anything. What do you want with me now?” Kait asked. “You wanted to talk, but once you found out I didn't have any answers, you just started yelling at me. Where do we go from here?”

  Christa stopped pacing. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. “I am sorry,” she said. “It is just that you revived a long-dead hope in my heart. Much like you, I want to know the truth. I want to know what I am, and why I was chosen for this role. I let myself forget that while I may have this one question, you have two hundred years worth of questions for me.”

  “So, that's how long we've been alive?”

  “That is how long we have been immortal,” Christa corrected her. “It happened in the year 1803, in the Russian city of Kurgan. I assume the same is true for you, though it is remarkable that it has taken us so long to find you.”

  Kait met Christa's stare. “Maybe I didn't want to be found,” she replied.

  “Why are you so hostile?”

  “I don't know what you want with me! I don't have the answers you're looking for! But...” As Kait considered her own questions, she began to understand the heart of the matter. She knew why Mayor Levin was so desperate to keep her unconscious. “I think I'm starting to figure it out.”

  Christa was quick to own up to the truth. “There are three of us who fight for freedom: Silvi, Thomas, and myself. There are three of them: Pastor Eve, Mayor Levin, and Grant L'Enfant. They fight for the oppression of everyone--”

  “They probably see it differently.”

  “Of course they do. They believe they are creating order.”

  “And you resist that order. How long has this been going on?”

  “How long do you think? Since we all met. Since battle lines were drawn. Over a hundred years.”

  “In St. Louis?”

  Christa laughed. “No, of course not,” she said. “Eventually, the people would notice that we don't age. We have fought the same battle over the heart of half a dozen cities. Soon, it will be time to move on. One of us will make the first move and begin a new life in a new city. He or she will gather followers, begin forming a center of power. And the rest of us will follow. The balance will be maintained. It always has been.”

  “Until now.”

  “You can tip the balance of power, Kait Selias.”

  Kait was silent. She didn't want to tip the balance of power. She didn't know enough about the situation hold that responsibility. These six people, the self-styled Gospels, had been fighting this battle for over a hundred years. She couldn't be expected to decide between the two sides after only half a day, no matter how much she currently hated Mayor Levin.

  “I have to think about this,” Kait said. “I can't just...choose. That wouldn't be right.”

  Christa tighte
ned her jaw. Kait could tell that she was trying to hide her frustration. She wasn't doing a very good job of it. “I see,” Christa replied. “Even after everything that happened today, you're not willing to fight against the city government.”

  “I... I don't know,” Kait replied. Her mind was filled with all sorts of confusion. She didn't know how she fit in this strange world. And as much as she hated Mayor Levin, she couldn't shake the feeling that Christa Xander wasn't much better.

  Taking a deep breath Krista walked over to her desk. She opened the top drawer and reached inside. “I wish I could just let you go,” she said. “But you have to understand what I am thinking. If you make the wrong choice, everything I have worked the last two hundred years to accomplish will disappear.”

  Kait stood up. She wanted to leave. She wanted to go back to her hotel room but she suspected it wouldn't be that simple. “So, what are you going to do?”

  Christa looked up at Kait and narrowed her dark eyes. “God has made me his Gospel of Pandemonium, and I will do whatever it takes to spread his word.” She pulled a tablet computer out of her desk. “Join me or face the consequences.”

  Tapping the power button, Christa slid the tablet across the desk. Kait picked it up. It flickered to life. The screen displayed a camera feed from outside One Metropolitan Square. Police cars surrounded the building. Cops were stationed around the vehicles. They crouched behind their vehicles and hid behind open doors, guns drawn.

  One man stood away from cover, near the back of the blockade. He was tall and he wore a long, tan coat. He had a shock of brown hair. Even from the distant camera feed, Kait could see that there was something odd about his face. The upper left side of his face was swollen. His left eye was pale and ghostly.

  “That's Grant L'Enfant, isn't it?” Kait asked, pointing at the eerie figure.

  Christa nodded. “The chief of police himself. The government knows you're here, and they're willing to start a war.”

  “They're just going to attack the building?”

  “It's happened before.”

  “And people die?”

  “It is unavoidable.”

  As if on cue, Kait noticed movement on the corner of the screen, inside the building. There were people mobilizing to fight the police if they decided to storm One Metropolitan Square. Some of them were well dressed, in flashy suits and well groomed. But others wore jeans and t-shirts, sweat pants and St. Louis Cardinals jerseys. They were disorganized, but they all had something in common: these men and women were members of the Obshina. They were organized crime—gangsters led by their boss and Gospel Thomas Kemp.

  Kait stared at the battle lines as they formed up on either side of the building. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. All of these people—Obshina and police alike—were ready to give their lives for their Gospels. “Why do they follow you?” she asked.

  Christa looked at Kait in disbelief. “You do not even understand that? You are more dangerous than I believed.”

  “I guess you have to tell me.”

  Picking up the tablet computer, Christa sat on the desk across from Kait. “The Gospels are not just immortal, we have another...power. We speak with the vox dei, the Voice of God.”

  “...and?”

  “When we speak, mortals listen. They are compelled to follow us. We can manipulate them. Guide them. And if we must, we can use them to whatever end we desire.”

  Kait leaned over. She felt like she was going to be sick. Her stomach lurched and threatened to betray her as she realized what she'd done.

  This was why everyone was so eager to help her. The Gospels were capable of mind control. They could bend the will of regular men and women, forcing them to obey their wishes.

  It was why Paul Gordon pulled her out of anesthesia and risked his job to free her from Mayor Levin. It was why Spencer Smith took her money, but dutifully returned it. It was why he betrayed his wife to succumb to her desire. Ultimately, it was the reason he was dead.

  “But I never spoke,” Kait said. “I don't think I asked anyone for help...” She couldn't remember what she said to Spencer before her fall, but she'd never explicitly ordered him to assist her today.

  “You don't have to,” Christa explained. “They want to follow us. God is dead and they want something to believe in. We give them meaning and they believe in us.”

  “No... No, it can't be...”

  Christa tried to comfort her. She placed her hand on Kait's shoulder. “This is why you have to choose, Miss Selias. You must have an ideology. You must have a gospel to spread. Otherwise... You are dangerous. You will lead the world astray.”

  Kait shook her head. “No!” she shouted. “I don't want to lead anyone. I can't lead anyone. I don't remember anything.”

  “You're too late.”

  Christa forced the tablet computer towards Kait. There was a new figure on the camera feed. It was a young man that Kait instantly recognized: Paul Gordon. He was there, at One Metropolitan Square.”

  “No...”

  “He followed you. He came for you. Whether you like it or not, he believes in you.”

  For now, Paul was standing behind the lines of cops surrounding the building. But, ever so slowly he dared to approach. It wouldn't be long before he worked up the courage to break through and then...

  “Join us, and we will protect him.”

  “What?”

  Christa pulled the tablet away so Kait could no longer watch Paul's approach. “Mayor Levin killed your friend Mr. Smith because Mayor Levin kills anyone who discovers our immortality. He is afraid of the chaos that would follow from our discovery. I am not. While I would never reveal myself... I am very curious what would happen.”

  “You're curious?” Kait asked, incredulous.

  “It would be chaos. We would finally have to stand up for ourselves against them. So yes, I'm curious.” Christa sighed. “But none of that matters right now. Your friend down there won't tell anyone about us. There's no reason for anyone to kill him, but Mayor Levin doesn't care for reason. If you decide to support us, we'll make sure he makes it out of this alive.”

  This didn't comfort Kait. It just made her angrier. “Chaos? Order? I don't even know the choice I'm making!”

  “Yes you do. Freedom or domination. Life or death, for your poor friend.”

  “This... This is extortion,” Kait said. “You're such a hypocrite, giving me this fucked up false choice.”

  “I do what I have to do,” Christa replied.

  Kait glared at her. “So do I.” She pushed past the intimidating woman and towards the door. The elevators down to the lobby weren't far away. She just had to make it...

  “Where the hell are you going?” Christa asked as Kait stormed out of the office.

  “If it makes you feel better, you can tell yourself that I chose freedom. I just did it my own way. I'm going to save Paul on my own.”