Agents of the Glass (18 page)

“You what? Where?”

“Well…I, uh…It's on the floor. Down there. I was holding it out the opening, and it just slipped. Don't worry, it landed on the carpeting. It didn't make a sound.”

Silas banged his head on the coffee-shop table and gritted his teeth.
Stay calm,
he reminded himself.
He's just a kid.
“Yes, but now I can't see. That was kind of important, Andy.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…”

“It's done. Nothing we can do about it now. This kind of stuff happens all the time. You're
sure
nobody heard it drop?”

“Uh-huh. Nobody even turned around. Oh, the projector's on now; something's coming up on the screen. That's weird. It's a bunch of pictures of Karina Jellyby.”

“The singer? That's interesting. She's a Wellbourne grad, you know.”

“Yeah, Winter told me.”

“Can you hear
anything
? Because I can't, unless you put your chest up to that opening. And that might be a bit hard to explain if somebody catches you.”

Andy was silent for a long time, focused on completing his mission and trying not to mess anything else up. “Wow, they
really
don't like her. Talking about her influence on young people. Especially Operation THAW and how kids are starting to do nice stuff for people. You'd think she was a serial killer. Are they going to kill her?”

“That's not their style. That would only turn her into a martyr, and there's nothing they hate more than that. No, it will be something much more subtle.”

“Uh-oh.”

Silas choked on the last of his tea. “Now what?”

“They just put up a picture of you. It's the exact same one that was on Jensen's site, with my dad and the guy with the ponytail, except you're still in this one. That Fallon lady is pointing at it, saying something about the concert and…my dad. Yep, there's another picture of him at the radio station.”

“Did Fallon say anything about me?” Silas asked, his body tensing.

“No. The way she was standing in front of the screen mostly blocked you out of the picture. Your face was only up for a couple of seconds.”

“Really?” Silas was genuinely surprised. Fallon certainly must have recognized him; why didn't she speak up? A known Level 2 Agent sitting on a bench just yards away from an NTRP agent? It could hardly be dismissed as a coincidence.

“Okay, now everyone is leaving; everyone but Winter. She's alone, except for the bow tie guy….No, wait. There's the guy with the ponytail. He came in from a…I'm not sure
where
he came from, actually. There must be a secret door. He just…appeared.”

Silas sat up in his seat. “You're sure it's the same guy?”

“Positive. Long gray ponytail. Gray suit. Well, more like silver. It's him.”

“Winter. It has been too long,” said the man, his voice soothing, musical.

“He has a funny accent,” whispered Andy. “Sort of British, but different.”

“I've been following your directions, Mr. de Spere,” said Winter. “Everything is going exactly the way you said it would. Do you remember my fifth birthday party? You told me that you had a raven as a pet. His name was Edgar. You said he could talk. I don't think I believed you. I should have known better. You've never lied to me.”

“She called him Mr. Despair,” said Andy.

Silas nodded to himself. St. John de Spere. The mystery man at the top of the NTRP pyramid, the man rarely seen in public. And now Andy Llewellyn, Level 1 Agent for all of a few weeks, was practically in the same room with him.

“That's right. You have an excellent memory,” said de Spere.

“Do you still have him?”

“Sadly, no. Edgar passed a few years back, but I have another. Lenore. Much more talkative than he was. In fact, I have to be careful that she doesn't listen in on some of my conversations. She remembers everything, and she's not very discreet. A dangerous combination. Ah, but let's talk about you. I understand that Mr. Ickes and Ms. Mishra briefed you about the timing of the event,” he said, nodding at the man in the bow tie.

“Mr. Ick-eez?”
Andy whispered.

“That must be the guy in the bow tie.”

“Yes. The Karina Jellyby concert. October thirtieth.”

“Correct. Remember that date, Winter—it will go down in history. When you wake up the morning after that concert, you will have two hundred and fifty disciples, every one of them willing—no,
desperate
—to do whatever you ask. With your gift and my guidance…nothing can stand in our way. This is just the beginning.” He moved toward the bar, pouring himself a seltzer water.

Winter lifted her chin and stared off into the distance, smiling. A
dangerous
smile, thought Andy, and
not
the smile he'd seen on that first morning at Wellbourne, a smile that had seemed so friendly and welcoming at the time.

“What's happening?” asked Silas.

“Winter's talking to the guy with the ponytail. It's kind of hard to hear.”

With Winter and de Spere facing each other, white screen in the background, Andy got the idea to try out his Lucian Glass on them. He took the blue disk from beneath his shirt, brought it up to his right eye, and focused on her.

Seeing her
lumen
for the first time, he gasped before he could cover his mouth with his free hand. Through the sky-colored glass of the medallion, she appeared to be engulfed in flames. In places, the
lumen
extended several feet outward from her body, like tongues of fire flaring wildly, reaching and groping toward him, reminding him of pictures he'd seen of sunspots and storms on the surface of the sun. Terrified and fascinated at the same time, he turned his gaze to St. John de Spere, whose
lumen,
every bit as bright as Winter's, pulsed like a slow, steady heartbeat.

“I see that the Huntley girl is here with you today,” said de Spere. “We put a tracker on her when she went through security, just to make sure she stayed out of trouble. Have you had any problems with her?”

“Nothing I can't handle,” said Winter coolly. “She's arrogant and sloppy. Nobody listens to her, and nobody reads her secret blog, which isn't secret at all. Everybody knows about it. It's a joke, like her. And on top of that, she dresses like a bag lady. I think there must be something wrong with her neck, because I've never seen her without that horrible scarf wrapped around it.”

Andy's mind flashed back to the incident in the cafeteria—Winter threatening poor Craig Lessing—and he shivered. This was a side of Winter that he could no longer deny existed, and more than anything else, he felt disappointment. Despite everything that he had witnessed, and even after seeing her astonishing
lumen
for himself, part of him had stubbornly refused to believe that Winter was as bad as Silas and the other Agents insisted she was.

His view of her only went downhill from there.

“And the boy?”

“Andy Llewellyn. He's new at Wellbourne. A nobody. No, I shouldn't say that—I just found out he's Howard Twopenny's son. So maybe he won't turn out to be completely useless after all. At least he's cute. He'll be perfect as my personal assistant.”

Andy felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. A nobody? Useless? Up to that moment, he had simply been doing his job, doing as Silas directed. But now it was personal.

“Come with me for a moment,” de Spere said. “A more secure place to talk.” He drew up his lanky frame from his seat and led Winter out of the screening room. The door slammed shut, and Andy took a much-needed deep breath.

“They're gone,” he whispered to Silas a moment later. He was alone, left to chew on Winter's mocking words.

“Morality is
dead,
Winter,” said de Spere, staring out at the city street below. “And good riddance to it. If history proves anything, it is that mankind is most productive and creative and inventive when they are in a state of conflict. They were better off as a species before a few mediocre, would-be leaders decided that there was a difference between right and wrong. There is no difference; there is no
wrong.
There is only what is right for
me,
right
now.
Morality was invented for one simple reason: to keep people in line. If they do
right,
they are promised a
reward
at the end of life. If they do wrong, they will be punished for eternity. We are standing at the threshold of an electrifying, exhilarating new world, you and I and those who make the journey with us. An age of reason and rational thinking. Morality and the so-called virtues, like courage and integrity and dignity, are all obsolete. Selfishness is the only virtue that matters. Which is why we must make an example of these well-meaning but dangerously misguided musicians and their equally naïve fans. They worship at the altar of altruism, and they—and others like them—must be stopped. Encouraging people to help other people for no financial or any other type of gain is folly. Humans are naturally selfish, and the only way humans can survive the next hundred years is if they return to their true natures and rid themselves of foolish, outdated ideas like compassion and charity. Once we have eliminated them and
purified
the minds of the weak…then
real
human progress can begin again.”

Winter was spellbound. She absorbed every word, every idea, every nugget of the man's philosophy, nodding in agreement as he spouted them. “I see what you mean. Now all the shows on NTRP make even more sense.”

“Ah, the shows. That's just simple entertainment, like the Roman emperors'. As long as the people have bread and circuses—food and cheap entertainment—they're happy. And if we can start to gnaw away at a few tired, old ideas, all the better.”

“But what about people who
don't
watch NTRP? How do you change the way they
think
?”