Page 98 of Resurrection
“The Dominion is no more, my friend,” Sam said as Page stepped into the hall beside him. Everything felt very still and quiet. This hall did look a bit like a prison. “And your old boss works here now.”
“Will I be working with Director Rou again?”
“He’s not Director here. More a minister of investigations. But no, you’ll be working directly for Hart. At least until your powers are better under control. Classes will be required. I think Hart said he called in a couple of your kind for specific training.” Sam led him down the hall to the elevator.
“There are more like me?” Page was shocked.
“Not a lot, but yeah.”
“I’m not evil?”
“Kid, do you kill puppies or babies to gain power? Rape people? Randomly steal from anyone you can because you hoard wealth? Torture vampires until their revenant takes control to use their power to create golems?”
“No, gross. Who would do that? I mean, I didn’t torture those vampires…”
“Parts of your family,” Sam said as he put his hand in the scanner and the elevator opened. “Since you don’t have any shit to move, I’ll take you right to Hart.”
Page didn’t like the sound of that, but followed Sam into the elevator.
They went up, and up, and up. Finally, the elevator opened to a reception area, and it looked like a very posh lawyer’s office. The woman behind the desk smiled at Sam and nodded. No one else was around.
Sam led Page through a side door and down a hall. Page trembled with anxiety. What would a vampire as powerful as Hart want with him?
They entered the last door at the end of the hall and Page stopped, feeling his stomach flip over. The room was dark, lit by candles. A slab sat in the center of the room and the burned body of Steve lay on it. Page gulped, forcing back bile. The smell was a lot to take in with the sight. How he knew it was Steve, he wasn’t certain. Only that he couldsenseit. The golem, Forest, also sat in a chair off to the side, unmoving, and looking mostly human.
“Good, let’s get this over with,” Hart said as he entered the door behind them and closed the door. He was as Page had always seen him on TV, beautiful, polished, and terrifying all at once.
“What?” Page asked.
“You’re going to release the souls in the golem,” Hart said. “And replace them with Steve.” His gaze stared at the body with a cold intensity Page was glad wasn’t directed at him. “We have a lot of questions for Steve. No reason to let the vampires continue to suffer.”
“Except Pierson,” Sam grumbled. “He deserves to suffer.”
Hart’s gaze landed on two other witches in the room, both male, one older and looking a bit like Santa Claus, the other Middle Eastern. “My goal is to unravel them. Contain that one.”
“It is very faded,” the Middle Eastern man said with a heavy accent. “Might not be enough left to matter.”
“Just means they tortured him a long time before that one released him,” Santa Claus said motioning at Page. “Heard tell he was supposed to have been dead over a decade. That’s a long time to torture a vampire.”
“A lot of wasted power,” the other added.
Page had no idea what they were talking about, but it sounded awful.
“Not long enough,” Sam said. He picked up a piece of pottery off a nearby shelf. “You sure this is gonna work? Genie in a bottle style?”
“It will work,” the Middle Eastern man said.
“Not our first rodeo,” the other added as he held out his arms for the piece Sam had. Sam gave it to them, and they set it on the floor near the golem.
“What if the soul is released?” Sam asked. “Does the demon unravel then?”
Demon? Page’s eyes widened. He’d read the report long ago about Seiran’s one encounter with a demon. It had given him nightmares for weeks. Was there a demon in the golem?
No way. He’d have sensed that, right? He was supposed to be able to control demons, but would that be instinct? The releasing of souls had been instinct and look how he’d messed that up.
“If a demon has control of Pierson’s body, it would have already broken free of the bindings the coven set on it. Too many of them are dead to control it.”
“We have a demon out there raging somewhere?” Sam sounded pissed, and more than a little put out. “This piece of shit just keeps on giving, doesn’t it? Can we put it back in a body so I can kill it over and over again?”
Hart gave him a wry smile. “Possibly. Let’s see how the baby summoner does with shifting these around first.” He turned his gaze toward Page, and he felt that heat settle on him. Not unfriendly, but not benign either. Page gulped and sucked in a hard breath as he fought not to get lost in dark smokey eyes and power.