Damnation Code (William Massa) - William Massa Page 0,28
wore didn’t hint at this tragic past. The billionaire had found a way to hide the scars behind the easygoing facade he presented to the world. “So that explains all this?”
“My sister’s death opened up my eyes to the dangers of the occult.”
Casca stepped up to one of the large windows, moonlight casting him in an eerie light. “I know it’s hard to wrap your head around all this, but if you hope to defeat Michelle’s murderers you’ll have to embrace a different reality. A reality most people would rather ignore. The supernatural and its agents of darkness are real.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hell is exactly what I’m talking about.” Casca’s voice was trembling now, all pretense of cool gone. “You want to know my most horrible memory? Seeing a Satanist drive a knife into my sister’s heart. Witnessing all life leaving her eyes. I could hear gunshots, the S.W.A.T. team fighting their way through the mansion… The Satanist turned toward me, my sister’s blood still dripping from his blade. And that’s when I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Something that shouldn’t exist. It was only for a split second but I knew it was real. Some entity that wasn’t human had stepped into the sacrificial circle. It stood behind my sister’s killer like a shadow — a creature not of this world. By the time help arrived and killed the Satanist, the entity had vanished. But I never forgot what I witnessed that day…”
Casca stared into the fire. “My nightmares won’t let me.”
Talon nodded. He understood a thing or two about nightmares. He’d seen too many good soldiers succumb to them. His friend Erik foremost among them.
Casca had endured a horrific trauma at an impressionable age. Talon didn’t know what exactly the billionaire had experienced, but he was well aware of the mind’s ability to conjure demons. Most people ran away from their nightmares. Talon liked to face them head on.
He’d identified the enemy.
It was time to go to war.
“I’m going to stop Zagan. You can help me, or you can get out of my way. It’s your call.”
Without saying another word, Talon walked out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE GIANT VIEWING screen in the Omicron auditorium went dark. Zagan regarded his congregation of coders from behind the robotic skull-mask that had become as much a symbol of the cult as the binary number tattooed on each member’s forearm.
For a moment, the crowd seemed frozen in tableau. Silently the programmers rose from their seats and left the auditorium. Tonight there wouldn’t be a sacrifice. They instinctively sensed, like worker bees in a hive, that their task was complete.
Ten minutes later, only Zagan and four members of his security team remained in the empty assembly hall. He removed the robot mask and unceremoniously tossed it aside. His hands shook with rage, belying his otherwise calm exterior. Zagan drew comfort from the knowledge that the affront he’d witnessed would soon be repaid tenfold.
He turned to his head of security. Fisher was a former Marine with a face seemingly poured from concrete. “I want you to look into this. Find out who and what we’re up against.”
Fisher nodded before he and his men filed out. The head of security was reliable, a true believer.
Unlike Fisher, who was a staunch Satanist, Zagan didn’t picture his master as a horned, biblical evil. He knew better.
Zagan’s obsession with the occult had begun ten years before. Fresh out of college, he was a coder working for EI-Entertainment in Los Angeles. His initial excitement at landing a job at the company that had produced some of his most beloved videogames was soon crushed by the day-to-day reality of his new profession. Grueling twelve-hour days spent in a dark basement office/dungeon, slaving away at a computer, using his skill and talent to enrich men who didn’t know he even existed.
A young Zagan had soon realized that he was just a blip in the Matrix, another geek with questionable social skills working in an office full of them.
But Zagan had dreams. Dreams of power. Dreams of revenge.
His new boss at EI, a bitter man named Peter Rice, seemed to be in some unspoken competition with every bully who’d ever pushed Zagan around. The man was petty, venal, exacting and loved to torment the programmers unlucky enough to wind up under his thumb. Zagan quickly became his favorite target. Rice would find fault where there was none, using any opportunity to criticize, humiliate and ridicule.
It took one day for Zagan to hate the man and