Preston looked to the ground, seeing an indentation in the cement floor where Envy had fired straight down as a matter of reflex the moment she'd been hit by Argosi's bullet.

"You've got to be kidding me," Preston said with disbelief, putting the pieces together. He thought back, remembering the footsteps down the stairs that had preceded Envy's ambush.

Argosi had managed to open the door, letting himself in only to save the life of two of his enemies. "If you had told us the truth about Envy," Preston said without missing a beat.

"You would have still come, probably alone and halfc.o.c.ked like you did with Sloth," Argosi chided. "I doubt even I could have saved you in such a scenario."

"They were cops," Jack yelled, still applying pressure to the wound. By then, the blood from the initial bullet hole had soaked through most of his sleeve and was trailing in streaks down his arm. He'd rolled up his sleeve in an attempt to hinder it.

"I think we may be able to help each other," Argosi said, ignoring Jack's comment. "Come now, Detective Burroughs, I think we have to introduce you to Wrath."

Preston looked at his partner, who was still reeling in pain.

"How did you get out of your mansion?" he asked. "We had you under guard. If you killed anymore cops-"

"No," Argosi stated nonchalantly. "Those small number of officers you left to guard me at my residence will wake up tomorrow with a slight headache. But," he continued, "they will wake up."

"Am I supposed to be your prisoner?" Preston asked, still as he looked at the pair. While their guns were still drawn, they hung loosely in their hands by their sides, non-threatening but still cause for concern.

"Oh, heavens no," Greed said, immediately handing the Beretta back to Preston with a genuine smile, as if he were offering him a beer at his home. "Remember our little arrangement. You get Wrath's head, am I right?"

l.u.s.t nodded in agreement behind her lover. The entire time she'd been standing there, her head was constantly glancing toward both the exit and the door to the freezer, on lookout for ambushes from either side.

Argosi began to lead Preston to the freezer door, but the detective stumbled. Greed helped him regain his balance, moving him toward the door.

"I suggest you pull yourself together," he said, still with polite imposition.

At that moment, Jack began to fall backward. l.u.s.t was immediately at his side, catching him before he felt the brunt of the fall.

"I've got you," she said to him, more closely resembling the words of a concerned nurse to her patient than an adversary.

"Remember what we talked about in the car," Jack said.

Preston recalled Jack's concern about walking into an execution.

"I do," Preston said, looking backward. "Are you going to be all right, Jack?"

"Absolutely," his partner replied, somehow without an ounce of pain in his voice. "If this turns out to be the end, I want you to be careful. If anything goes down in there, I'll be by your side in two seconds, patched up or not."

"I'll help him just the same," l.u.s.t offered to the a.s.sembled group as she stood over him. "Let me see what we've got here," she said, removing Jack's stained red hand from the wound.

"I wouldn't expect any less," Preston replied, trying to smile as Argosi continued leading him to the freezer door. Almost immediately, he regained his balance, shrugging off Argosi's help.

"Don't worry; I'm positive he's alone in there. He hates company," Argosi said, noticing the detective's growing discomfort. Carefully, he removed the wires placed in the electronic lock by the SWAT team. Simultaneously, he pushed aside the body of the fallen team member, Billings.

Preston stared silently at the man's face. In death, he was calm with eyes closed, almost as if he were sleeping. The detective took one last look around the room, trying to absorb the full force of the impact. Bodies were everywhere. Those he could see were all lying in pools of blood and bullet casings. Most were right next to each other on the ground. Preston re-lived how close they had been to one another before firing, all while screaming, trying to comprehend what was happening to them. Even Preston was still trying to understand what was really going on.

"Don't worry," Argosi relayed again, this time with little emotion. Noticing the detective's distracted gaze and the pile of bodies around them, he must have a.s.sumed some comforting words were necessary. "I would say that if we pull this off properly, they'll be the last."

Greed input the electronic code, and the reinforced door to the industrial freezer came to life.

Like a bank vault, the sound of large locks coming undone echoed throughout the room. Preston saw Jack staring blankly at the door, then looking directly at him as l.u.s.t tended to his wound. He nodded solemnly. Preston responded in kind.

The sounds of internal mechanisms shifted inside. After a few moments the heavy door came ajar. Argosi pulled it open for the detective.

Moving inside, Preston came face to face with Wrath.

Chapter 18.

"You're Wrath?" Preston asked, his heart beginning to race. "I don't understand."

Just as Argosi had predicted, there was no one else save the three of them in the converted mid-sized room that had formerly been a freezer. Argosi's expression suddenly appeared just as nervous as Preston felt in himself. The CEO's eyes were rapidly shifting between Preston and Wrath, trying to position himself a solid distance from either of them. His emotional state had shifted radically from the calm he presented on the other side of the door in a room full of dead officers. Not unlike the addicts in the alley, he suddenly appeared unstable.

"Please don't be so patronizing," Wrath replied, monotone, sitting in a small chair in the vacant room. To Preston, there seemed to be something wrong with her voice, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

What had once been an industrial freezer was now refurnished with white tile on the floor and an equally monochrome piercing white paint on the walls. The surroundings gave the impression of a bleached shapeless void without boundaries, stretching on forever. The freezer unit was off, and residual heat from the pipes outside was allowing the temperature to climb to uncomfortable levels. Already, the detective was beginning to sweat.

As Preston studied his surroundings, all three heard the large freezer door close behind them. Preston looked to Argosi, feeling a twinge of rage start to build. The CEO's facial expression seemed to present ignorance, as if saying he hadn't been responsible for locking them in. Shrugging, Greed looked back to Wrath, most likely trying to keep the dealer in full view.

"We're not trapped in here, Detective," Wrath offered. "The door is programmed to close automatically after being opened. Normally, it's a defense mechanism, but today I also felt we needed to speak without interruption."

Preston continued to force his heavy breathing into relatively short and unnoticeable quick breaths. The last time a door had closed behind them, things took a decided turn for the worse.

Nearly a minute pa.s.sed in silence as he gauged the situation. Carefully, he walked over to the freezer door, trying to pry it open. It took all of his energy to do so in a way that didn't appear desperate. After tugging on the handle, he noticed a similar code panel was present, just as it had appeared on the other side of the door. When entering, Preston had been too focused on Billings and the other team members to see what Argosi had punched in on the number pad.

After confirming his entrapment, he turned back to the two drug peddlers, seeing that Wrath appeared to be waiting patiently for him to speak. It took another few seconds for Preston to realize why he noticed such a feeling of fear bubbling up inside. He was certain it wasn't the encounter with Envy only moments earlier. Even Jack's injury at the woman's hand hadn't seemed serious enough to warrant much attention. After all, his partner had only been grazed by the bullet. At that moment, he was on the other side of the door in relative safety.

In all practical reasoning, he realized, Wrath was at his mercy. Preston still had his Beretta, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. Argosi wasn't holding him hostage, and the CEO knew the code to get out of the freezer. Wrath appeared to be unarmed and more or less defenseless. The detective realized he could end the plague at any time he wished, but something was still holding him back.

Aside from Jack's warning about an execution, there was something else off about his current predicament. He'd been chasing Wrath for almost five months. The dealer didn't seem like the type to let the police waltz into his home.

Taking a few steps forward, the detective was about to go against his gut and end this ridiculous quest. Then, in gradually rising intensity, he grew disoriented, feeling as if he were about to pa.s.s out, just like he had on the other side of the door before Argosi had helped him remain standing. Whenever he focused on the cartel leader before him, a mild headache ensued, accompanied by the image of Wrath, blurry, like the detective was seeing Wrath through crossed eyes. Preston began to feel weak in the knees, but noticing that he was about to collapse, Argosi once again sidled over and offered him support.

"I know, Detective, it's quite a lot to take in," he said as he grabbed Preston, keeping him from falling. "Think of it like adjusting your eyes to sunlight after being in the dark."

With his senses returning, Preston continued to focus, finally able to make out what he was looking at.

Wrath was a young girl.

Comfortably, she sat in the steel chair, one of only two pieces of furniture in the room. There was a syringe in her arm attached to clear tubing. Black blood flowed out through the tube, being deposited in a medium-sized plastic container. Another container sat beside the current one, already filled to the brim. Although the first was only half full, they appeared to hold about five gallons each.

Her hair was a pale brown, stringy and poorly maintained. However, her skin was smooth and unblemished, except for the arm with the needle. Like a heroin addict, the skin was riddled with holes and red sores from previous syringes.

The rest of her appeared normal. She wore a small pair of khakis and a monochrome black sweater, both appearing brand new. Both of her sleeves were rolled up, showcasing an untouched right arm.

For a few more moments, the detective and the dealer continued to stare at one another in silence, until, inexplicably, the girl's image shattered. Her entire body, once devoid of any sign of Bloodstrife use, erupted in black veins. She screamed, but not entirely as if she were in pain. Like Envy, all visible flesh was consumed, but only for a few seconds. Immediately, all the vessels receded as if they had never been there at all. Preston tried to jump back, but Argosi continued to hold him steadily in place. Preston noted the lack of surprise in Greed's face contrasted against what must look like genuine fear painted across his.

"The ingredient," Preston said, shocked. He realized the five gallon containers held the same substance as the large vat in Gluttony's factory. Even from his position a few yards away, the stale smell of old honey was beginning to overpower him. Still in awe, he hadn't noticed until now that the whole room reeked of the usual Bloodstrife aroma, like they had used it to paint the walls. "And, the catalyst is . . . you?" he finally managed to choke out. Amazing, the Detective said, for the first time virtually speechless.

"Perceptive, smart, excellent," she responded slowly. At that moment the discrepancy in her speech was clear to him. With every word she'd spoken, her voice sounded like several different people, both male and female, speaking at low volume. As she continued, they combined into one discernible and familiar tone.

"Greed told me you gave them all of their abilities," Preston said, trying to regain his composure. "How did you do it?"

"My blood is the answer, I suppose," she said, gesturing toward her arm indifferently. She bobbed her legs restlessly up and down in the chair, mimicking the actions of a disinterested child. Her feet didn't even reach the floor. Placing one of her fingers on the tube, she traced the length of the clear plastic, traveling from her arm toward the nearby vat on the table. "But ultimately, humanity is responsible."

At that moment, her image shifted slightly. Her face itself didn't change. It was as if Preston was slowly able to focus clearly on her features for the first time. Until then, she'd still been slightly blurred. Compared to how much trouble he'd seeing her upon entering the room, he had barely noticed the difference.

"It'll take a few moments to see him clearly," Argosi relayed, loosening his grip. "It's not a pleasant experience the first time. Your body will have to adapt."

"Him?" Preston said, confused. Just as Greed had stated, it took a few moments for her image to clear. Before he saw her fully, the image of Argosi's Noh masks bled across her face as if he were hallucinating. Preston tried to jump back, again held in place by Greed. There was something about how vivid the images appeared. Preston was almost sure they were real. In scattered images, he thought he saw the Sorrow mask, but it faded just as quickly.

When it finally dawned on him, he wondered how he could have missed it. The images of the multiple masks bled together, then congealed, replaced by the complete image of the girl, now fully focused in his eyes. She'd been staring at him the whole time, as old as she would have been had she lived. It was his own daughter, Elisabeth, having aged two years, like in the pictures he continually drew. Although she was corrupted and evil, the face was still the same. Twisted, Preston wished he hadn't seen her at all.

"You're not her," Preston stated in shock.

"No," she replied calmly, "I'm not." Her eyes focused on him fully. While colored a normal brown, the boundary outside the colored portion of her eye was bordered in a thin red. Her eyes were totally vacant as if each of her irises had been drawn on her face. He could see no conscience or morality that stared back at him. The detective witnessed pure unadulterated hatred veiled by indifference.

"Please, no riddles. I've been through enough." Preston finally fell to his knees as Argosi released him. The floodgates were beginning to open. Whatever he'd discussed with Shannon was coming back in full force, at the worst possible time.

"Indeed you have, Detective Burroughs. Most of my sins lay dead. Regrettable, but predictable," she continued. "None of them were originals, you see. That is to say, sins have been killed at the hands of people like you before."

"What are you? Why did you create Bloodstrife?" The first single tear rolled down Preston's face. Keep it together, the Detective scolded. The words echoed inside his head, forcing him to keep the floodgates at bay. The usually annoying or depressing voice now stood like a pillar of support in his mind. Immediately, he felt stronger, like Jack was by his side. "Tell me everything," he ordered with newfound determination.

"A complicated request, I a.s.sure you," Wrath said. "I'll try to remain clear. But you have to realize that you won't understand the answer until you fully understand the question." She gestured toward the tube connected to her arm. The black source blood continued to drip silently, flowing out of her and pooling in the large plastic container on the table. Already, it was filled to the point that a human body couldn't stand to lose, at least two and a half gallons. That was in addition to the second five gallon container that had already been filled before he arrived. "Do you see it?" she said, breaking his concentration. "This is what I am. This is also the active ingredient in the drug."

"That's impossible," Preston stated through freshly dried tears. Seeing Elisabeth's face, even if the person behind it wasn't really her, was too much to bear. Argosi remained silent, standing as if frozen.

Wrath began to flail uncontrollably. Again, the black veins consumed her skin and receded just as quickly. The heart-wrenching pain was harder to stand now that he saw Elisabeth's contorted face in the fold. It was as if the spirit of his daughter was being tortured by invisible demons before his eyes-a hostage in someone else's body.

"Stop doing that!" Preston screamed, beginning to lose his resolve. The voice of Detective mumbled something inside his head, but he couldn't stand to listen. Soon, he began to cry fully. Preston wiped away the tears, managing to once again suppress most of his emotion within moments. Breathe! the Detective commanded, finally breaking through.

"I can't stop it," she replied, appearing almost sullen and humiliated in her admission. As Preston continued with ever increasing difficulty to walk the thin line of his fragile emotional state, shifting uncomfortably between anger and sadness, Wrath appeared to be consumed by total indifference. This in turn was peppered with moments of random emotion between her disturbing outbursts. "It's involuntary."

"None of the other ones did anything like that," Preston said, clenching his fists tightly. He relented quickly, feeling his nails beginning to pierce the flesh of his palms.

"You mean the sins?" Wrath asked disinterestedly. "No, they wouldn't. Even someone as fully consumed as Envy was spared this torment. I can a.s.sure you it's better to be covered in the veins all the time, rather than have to experience these vessel flares. At least she had the chance to get used to it." She paused, again shifting between emotional states. Without transition, the young girl before him appeared almost happy. "Would you allow me to tell you about the air particle you can't explain?"

"No," he shot back. "Tell me what you are first," Preston snapped, banging his fist on the tile floor. Barely feeling the pain, he continued to stare her down, still not accustomed to her face.

"I am telling you," she chided, adding more insult to her snide words with a small, deceitful smile. "The agent in the atmosphere is wrath in its purest form."

"Particle N?" Preston almost yelled, slowly regaining himself. "Then where did it come from? How could you know about it when even the global scientific community had no idea?"

"Particle N?" Wrath appeared almost amused at the name. She looked to Argosi, noting his air of confusion before returning to the detective. "Where else? It came from you-and everyone else like you, of course. I'm a collection of that wrath which has solidified and sprung forth from the ether." There was a small echoing drip as the stream of her blood slowed to a trickle as it collected in the vat. She flinched, readjusting the needle under her skin. This sent a fresh torrent of pure Bloodstrife into the partially full container. "Given time, the atmospheric saturation of the particle always reaches its limit. At that moment, someone like me is created from the combined will of the ma.s.ses, blooming, not unlike a rose, with pa.s.sion and thorns. It's the ultimate biological expression, a being created in unequal parts from every member of the global population."

Wrath gestured toward the containers holding her blood. Despite the slow drip since he had arrived, Wrath's body had given up at least another gallon. The thin line on the side showed it had just pa.s.sed the three and a half gallon mark. Still, she appeared to be unaffected by the ma.s.sive blood loss. "As far as I know, I am the first of my species, created so many decades ago during World War II. Needless to say, at the time, there was enough 'Particle N,' as you call it, to create a human being composed of the hatred and anger of an entire species. Since then, I've fed off your growing population, surviving through the wrath of the ma.s.ses and its ever-growing supply."

Again her veins blackened and returned to normal. Preston had gauged the timing to every two or three minutes, far too often by his count.

"All human beings excrete this particle when they're angry, when we feel wrath?" He paused, mulling it over. "And you feed on it?"

Wrath nodded in silence, answering both of his questions.

"If you're so well fed," Preston said, growing angrier as his voice increased in intensity, "then why make such a drug at all? Greed told me it was costing you millions, not to mention the unforgivable amount of human suffering you've inflicted on this city."

"Because, my dear Preston, wrath sp.a.w.ned from someone who hates themselves, someone who directs their anger inward, is the purest. There simply wasn't enough of it in the air to accomplish my goal. Not like there was during the Second World War, at least."

"What goal?" Preston asked, gradually finding the strength to stand again. Despite his apparent advantage, he'd been a detective long enough to know that if a criminal was actually providing useful information, he would allow them to rant undisturbed.

"For the first time since my creation, the levels of the atmospheric particle are approaching that which they were in World War II. I simply needed to increase those levels beyond the saturation point."

"To create another thing like you?" Preston asked with growing fear as the pieces came together. Sloth's wind pattern maps had only showed the limited quant.i.ties of the far purer Particle N hovering on the map like small swarms of gnats, only a small fraction of the true amount. If what Wrath had been telling him was true, then the entire atmosphere of the planet would be blanketed. It really was everywhere, just as Jason McGovern had hypothesized. Like air pollution, it had been building, acc.u.mulating above their heads for countless years.

"As I said, very perceptive." Wrath almost smiled at the remark. The corners of her mouth edged slightly upward. "When I discovered that the particle not only kept me alive, but also induced rage when injected into a human being, it presented the perfect self-sustaining life force. On a large enough scale, it would shorten the amount of time needed to create another member of my species."

"You're insane," the detective said calmly.

"I'm alone!" she screamed without pause. Her voice echoed ominously, trailing through the white void of the large industrial freezer. The sound was otherworldly, yet masculine, allowing some of her true self to slip through. At that moment, her veins flared up again, amplifying her voice, and with it, the feeling of debilitating pain.

Then, like nothing had happened, the vessels faded away. She continued in her normal, although clearly restrained tone of voice. "Imagine being so alone that you must infuse your blood into the humans around you to reproduce what amounts to, at best, half-breed children. Imagine being unable to exist within the population of this planet because frequent outbursts like those you've seen would warrant my immediate extermination. Or worse, I'd be locked up and experimented on."

"We wouldn't want that," Preston said, trying to turn the tables on her. He focused conspicuously on the needle in her arm and the valley of wounds beneath it. "After all, they may stick you full of holes," he said with a forced, deviant smile.

"I grant the gift of immortality and other various abilities to those who are willing to help me," she responded, trying to hide her rage.

"For a price," Preston said defiantly.

"There's always a price," she replied coldly, "especially in the tragic life I've led and the atrocities I've witnessed. They were forced upon me even mere moments after my birth. Humans are always accountable, no matter what the crime."

"Even so," he relented, beginning to grasp the isolation emanating from Wrath in waves. "You can't continue to infect the people of this city, and eventually the world, with this disease." Preston couldn't find the strength to remain standing. Wrath's outbursts were causing his mind to wander. Gently, he found his way to the floor again after the weakness in his legs took hold. "I know from experience. These chemical plagues are far too traumatic for most people to handle," he said, struggling. Already, he could tell that something was wrong.

"Traumatic?" Wrath said as she finally disconnected herself from the IV. The needle, while small, was coated in the thick black ooze that had manifested as each of the sins' tattoos when mingled with the blood of a human being. The wound seemed to heal as soon as it was removed. She didn't even bother to apply a bandage. Carefully, the isolated monster walked over to Preston, barely bothering to wipe away the excess blood on her arm. Black, pure Bloodstrife trickled down the skin as it erupted in veins, retracing a previous, dried path of blood. Preston flinched when she moved her mouth toward his ear as he continued to kneel on the cold floor. "Traumatic," she repeated. I prefer the word unforgettable."

Argosi continued to stand in the background, motionless. Preston glanced in his direction, seeing an expression that conveyed a mixture of both fear and anger, exactly, he realized, what a slave should be experiencing. Aren't we all? the Detective said. Still trying to understand the horrific story of how Wrath had come into existence, Preston didn't entirely disagree.

"Do you feel anything at all?" Preston asked, genuinely wanting to know. Concurrently, he wondered if he could say something to force Argosi out of his stupor. At the beginning, the detective had underestimated his opponent, believing that he had the upper hand. Now, Preston was feeling dizzy. For the time being, he could still manage to draw his gun the moment Wrath ceased to cooperate, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could make it. Moreover, l.u.s.t and Jack were still in the next room. If Alexandra had any brains at all, she would keep his wounded partner as far away as she could, lest he be taken down in his weakened state.

"I feel, I suppose," she responded with ease. "It strikes me no differently than rain and washes away just as quickly. I'm above the sensation."

"No one is above emotion," Preston stated bluntly. "Just because you're not human doesn't mean you're G.o.d," he stated chillingly.

"G.o.d doesn't exist," she said, as if she knew for certain. "The most powerful beings besides me on this tainted blue orb have always been your kind. It's always the corrupt human heart which is capable of far more rage than that which I control. Every act of wickedness is simply a step forward. Wherever your kind is slated to go, the journey will be achieved through violence and anger. It continues in a perpetual cycle, the inevitable arrival by wrath."