Adamus had been a little bit surprised when he’d heard from Molly again. He’d assumed that Five would convince her not to talk to him, or that she wasn’t really all that interested in talking to him. He was used to that, used to being the outsider. And really, it was better than being a part of something - if that something was a race of genocidal maniacs.
They’d agreed to meet at a public place - Adamus hadn’t missed that - and had decided on Hinkles. He was the first one there, and took a seat in the back. He was really an unassuming figure. Tall, thin, pale and with a skinny, non-athletic build, one had to look very closely at him to see any trace of “otherness.” It was how the true-born Mogadorians had been able to blend on Earth for so long. They looked, on first glance, like humans. But inside they were very, very different.
He ordered a single Hinkleburger and a drink; he wasn’t very hungry, but felt that he should order something if he was taking up their table. It was only polite. As he waited for her, he pulled a book out of his jacket pocket and began to read, hoping he could concentrate enough on the text to pass the time.
***
Molly took her loyalties seriously. She wouldn’t betray a friend, but she also tried not to turn away people would were in similar situations as herself. At first, she thought Adamus had been just like the rest of the jerks screaming for Cody’s blood, especially after Cody had told her some of Asamus’ history. She’d been proven wrong when she learned more of it. It had been enough to get her curious.
Her episode had delayed things more than she intended, but here it was. She was cleaned up and actual brand new clothing (thank you Hardison) instead of second hand from Goodwills. New jeans, new hiking boots, new thermal shirt with a flannel button down over it. It felt weird working out the stiffness, but she at least looked less like a street rat when she showed up.
She ignored the hostess when she stepped inside, looking around for Adamus. Spotting him she turned a look to the hostess and held a finger to her lips in a shh gesture. “Don’t be overly helpful. It’s not polite.” Molly smirked then left the stunned woman to make her way to the back.
“Hey,” she said when she reached his table. “Am I late?”
~~~
Adamus calmly closed his book, and looked up at her, his very, very dark eyes (so dark that it almost appeared he didn’t have irises at all, unless you looked closely enough) rather sombre. Of course, Adamus was usually sombre; he had always been a serious child, a thoughtful child. Which hadn’t been at all what his father had wanted.
“No,” he said finally, his English perfect despite it not being his first language. He’d come to Earth young enough, though, that it was nearly unaccented.
“I wasn’t sure if you would come,” he said finally. “I know that Five and the others likely advised against it.”
***
“Cody,” Molly said with slight emphasis as she sat down across from Adamus, “originally told me not to talk to you. We discussed it and came to an understanding.” Which was as much as she was willing to say about what she and Cody talked about. “I’d have let you know if I wasn’t going to be here.”
The waitress came up and Molly ordered some fries and a Coke, but that was it. She waited until the woman was well away before speaking again. “Haven’t talked to anyone else about you. I probably wouldn’t trust what they had to say anyway.”
~~~
He raised an eyebrow at her correction of his name, but said nothing. He just took a sip of his drink before continuing. “I promise I’m not dangerous,” he said simply. “At least, not to you. I don’t murder people for no reason - it’s a way that I differ from my people.”
He nodded silently after the waitress left.
“It’s likely true,” he said. “The bad things they say about me. I am a traitor. I watched from the bridge of my father’s ship as my people destroyed Lorien. I was there when One, Two and Three died. The last two I tried to save, but failed.” He shrugged. “I’m not a good person. For many reasons. But I’m going to die fighting for the right thing.” For her.
***
Molly nodded as she listened, but she wasn’t agreeing with him. “I don’t know you very well, but you sound a hell of a lot like Cody, and him I trust. You told me some of your history. Cody told me some too, and I have an opinion forming.” Molly’s blue eyes locked on Adamus’ just briefly, long enough to let him see that she wasn’t judging him before they flickered away to his nose or cheekbone. “If you want to hear it I’ll tell you.”
Not that it might make any difference. She was camping with the enemy according to those he camped with. But Adamus spoke as if nobody should trust him ever. That was bullshit. And if that was what the numbers were shoveling she’d like to shovel it down their throats. Sideways.
~~~
Adamus shrugged, the gesture itself rather nonchalant, although the look in his eyes said otherwise. He couldn’t deny that he was curious about what the average person on the street thought of him - he absolutely was. And he wondered how much of his story those who had told her about him knew. There were things that he hadn’t spoken about to any of them - he’d never mentioned One, for instance, who was such an integral part of who he was.
“You can tell me, if you like,” he said, sitting back in his chair and waiting for her to continue.
***
The waitress chose that moment to bring Molly her drink and fries. It drew out the moment as Molly shook her head when the waitress asked if she wanted anything else, and she waited for the girl to go away, stuffing a frie into her mouth. When she did speak she didn’t look up from her plate. Food was precious!
“I think all of you have been through a world of shit,” she said without much intonation. “And you all need to let it go.” Now she lifted her eyes to Adamus with a dead serious expression. “I’m not saying forgive and forget. I’m saying drop it.”
~~~
“Drop it,” he said, his voice devoid of anything resembling emotion. He cocked an eyebrow. “Drop it. I suppose you’re talking about Five? And his killing of Eight?” He wasn’t accusing her of anything, and the words weren’t tainted with spite or anger; he was truly asking if that was what she meant. “Or are you saying that I should drop my anger and disgust over the fact that my people have massacred races, and plan to destroy Earth?”
Yes, he’d lived through, as she put it ‘a world of shit.’ But he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, and he wasn’t going to just forget it. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it until one side or the other killed him. He had a price on his head among his own people, probably even greater now that he’d killed his own father, the beloved general Andrakkus Sutekh.
“Would you like to hear my story?” He asked, finishing the last bit of his burger. “I haven’t told it to any of them. But perhaps you should hear.”
***
“Yes, drop it.” Molly gnawed on another frie. “All of it. Cody. Your own history. Maybe, I don’t know, start getting to know each other during a peace time which is what this place could and maybe should be.” She shook her head as she dropped the half eaten frie back onto her plate. “No. Never forget that you’re people were assholes, but understand that you aren’t.” He’d told her enough for her to know he’d switched sides. No one turned away from their own people without good reason.
“If you want to tell me, I’d like to hear it.” Molly offered a ghost of a smile. She realized she was being a hypocrite. If just one Red Court vampire showed up here she’d lose her mind. Quite possibly literally.
~~~
Adamus sat back thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded, and leaned forward, his elbows on the table, but his eyes downcast.
“It started when I was thirteen,” he said. It was strange to tell this story, one he’d never told before. “We - the Mogadorians, I mean, had found the location of Number One, in Malaysia. My father thought I was old enough to come along, perhaps make my first kill. I was his son, after all, and he expected me to follow in his footsteps. So I went with him. But I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t kill her. I didn’t have the stomach for killing an innocent girl and an old woman. It didn’t save her life, though. There were plenty there willing to do the job.”
He paused.
“When she was dead, my father and his scientists came up with the idea that maybe she had known the location of the other Eight, or that she knew things that could at least help us find them. But of course, they couldn’t interrogate her, so they came up with a way to download her memories into my mind - since we were roughly the same age. They weren’t sure if it would work, but I was happy to help, to do my part for Mogadorian progress.” The last two words he spoke as if they were in air quotes, scornfully. “It did work. Better than they expected. I was in a coma for three years, but during those years...I was with her. With One. Living her life, seeing her memories, talking to her...her...her spirit, I suppose? And we became friends. And I experienced things I’d never known before. A birthday party. Joy. Love. Happiness. All through her eyes.” He looked away for a long moment, obviously emotionally stricken by this, but hiding it quite well. He wasn’t used to emotion, or how to deal with it.
***
The beginning part didn’t surprise her, but when he got to the part about a mental download her eyes widened in shock. Molly’s best talents lay in her mental magics, a talent that was pretty much useless since dabbling with them was forbidden by the White Council. What Adamus’ people did was...horrifying. It had obviously affected him, changed him forever without being under his control regardless that he agreed to it. There was no way he could have known what would happen.
“...geezus…”
Still, for as horrible as it was Molly saw a benefit and didn’t hesitate to throw it out there. “Sounds like you’re one of a kind even before all of that.” She tilted her head a little with her brows lifted as if in silent question. Did he get it?
~~~
He shrugged. His father would have agreed that he was ‘one of a kind’, but not in any good sort of way. His father had seen him as weak. Useless. Cowardly. Adamus had come to understand that what made him different from his father and the other Mogadorians was the very fact that he had empathy, that he cared about people other than himself. That, and the fact that he was thoughtful, and intelligent. He wasn’t a soldier, to be ordered around, or someone who believed that following orders absolved you from the crimes you committed.
“One changed me. And even after I woke up, she was still with me. For a long time. Years. But then, she began to fade. And when she disappeared completely - “ He stopped, his voice breaking. He shook his head and took a long drink of his soda, his voice steadier when he continued. “She gave me her Legacy, you know. I don’t know how, but I can do what she did.”
But that was simply a matter of curiosity, not the story he was trying to tell. With a deep breath, he went back to his story. “When I woke up, I tried to save the others. I tried to save Two, but I didn’t get there fast enough. I would have saved Three...but my father tried to kill me - pushed me into a deep ravine. I’m still not sure how I survived it. So I ran. And I found them, the others.”
***
A transference of power? Molly had never heard of that! That was...fascinating. The student/apprentice in her immediately began mulling that over. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be possible, but one could, in theory, learn a talent from another’s mind if one knew how to...focus, Molly!
She blinked herself back entirely. “So you went against your father, your traditions, upbringing...everything you ever knew...because you learned compassion.” Yup. She was right. “You do realize that you wouldn’t have gone that way if you hadn’t already been predisposed to be that way, right? Otherwise, all of what One taught you would have driven you crazy.”
~~~
“I fought it at first,” he admitted. “When I first saw the memory of her birthday party, I wondered what could possibly be the use of this. It was a waste of time. We - the Mogadorians - don’t have celebrations like that. We don’t have parties. We don’t have fun. The only thing that matters is...well, furthering our race. It took me a long time before I realized that things like love and friendship were the things that really brought happiness...not constant conquest.”
He sighed, wringing his hands a little. “I miss her. I’ll always miss her. But doing this, helping her people...it’s something I can do for her. And wherever she is, maybe she’ll know that I’m doing it.”
***
Molly’s smile lifted and grew gentle. “I have no doubt that she does.” Molly was raised Catholic. An afterlife was a fact. The thought that loved ones went somewhere nice and could watch over you was comforting.
She sighed as she leaned her elbows on the table, her fingers fiddling with the straw in her drink. “I have a lot of experience in mental stuff...how the mind processes things, handles input. Not that I’m a doctor or anything. I’ve just been...inside minds. I can tell you. Your mind would have broke first if some part of you wasn’t open to the suggestion.”
~~~
He shrugged a little, looking at his hands. “Maybe. Maybe that was why my father always like Ivan better, because he was the good little soldier and I...thought and felt too much. But it doesn’t matter. They’re both dead. I killed them both.” He looked up at Molly to gauge her reaction to that. “My father and my best friend. My father and my foster-brother. Both dead at my hand. But I had to do it. In both cases. And I - I don’t feel any remorse. Maybe that’s the Mogadorian part of me. When you have to kill, you do it, and there’s no need to feel sorry for what you’ve done.”
He looked up at her, his dark, dark eyes actually looking a little bit amused.
“You know, we can do that, too. Mogadorians. We can mess with peoples’ minds enough that they relive their worst memories. They’re caught in them, surrounded in them with no way out. I’ve never done it. But it’s a poignant punishment.”
***
Good lord. Her father would never say as much, but Molly always got the impression that he was a little disappointed that his little girl was willing to get neck deep in alligators while Adamus’ father disapproved of a gentle and sensitive son. “I...helped arrange the suicide of my mentor then wiped his mind clean of the memory so he wouldn’t see it coming.” Even though Harry said it didn’t take it was still something she lived with.
Molly snorted at his following information as she took a sip of her soda. “I do that by accident more often than not. Any time I fall asleep around people.” She put her cup down. “But I’ve used my mental magics to kill and not ever regretted it.” Her jaw set into a stubborn line. The Fomor, their servitors and flunkies all deserved to die. Poorly.
~~~
“You should never kill if you’re going to regret it,” he said simply. “That’s the test for me, I think. If I’m going to regret killing someone, I know it’s wrong. I feel like I should regret killing my father, but I don’t. He was going to kill John. What else could I do? I was the only one who could save him because I was the only one who knew the codes…”
And maybe, for the moment before his death, when his father had turned around and seen him, just maybe he’d been proud of him. He certainly hadn’t been gentle or cowardly then.
“Why did your mentor want to die?”
Suicide was something that Adamus had never been able to understand. Maybe it was part of being Mogadorian, but you simply didn’t let yourself fester in depression that much. You sucked it up and dealt with it.
***
Molly nodded, but her mind went to Cody. He regretted killing Eight. Sometimes awareness came too late. The paradox of it was that Eight was here and alive. In her opinion, that should be enough for Marina to back off her blood lust for Cody. It was another chance, and one that should be appreciated with love, not hate.
At his question she lowered her eyes to her fingers. “He made a deal. A bad deal. But he needed the power he got from it to save a little girl. He didn’t want to live past that in case the power turned him into one of the bad guys.”
~~~
Adamus tried to understand that, really he did. But he just couldn’t get it through his head that the man was willing to die instead of fight. Sounded rather cowardly to him. Sure, maybe they’d try to make him into one of the bad guys. His father had tried to do that to him, and it wasn’t easy to resist. But it was better than killing yourself.
“So he thought he do more good...dead?”
***
Molly’s expression went hard and her eyes damn near flashed in anger. One did not bad mouth Harry Dresden in her presence. “You don’t understand,” she said in a low voice full of warning. “The very last thing the world needs is my mentor switching sides, and the forces that he made the deal with are primal. It isn’t a matter of IF he goes bad. It’s a matter of when and they do not let go of a good tool.”
She closed her eyes as she took in a deep breath through her nose. She would not lose her temper. She would NOT! Her hands had already curled into fists tight enough to turn her knuckles white. He doesn’t know. There’s no way he could. Stop it, Molly.
~~~
Adamus was far from blind to the reaction she had, and forced himself to relax, to appear smaller and less intimidating. It was the way he’d survived as a child; his father hadn’t known the meaning of gentle. When he spoke, his voice was very soft, very even.
“I’m certain I don’t understand,” he agreed. “And I mean no offense. I don’t even know the man. Who did he make the deal with?”
Perhaps that would help him to understand.
***
Molly breathed a little bit more then took a deep drink of her Coke. It helped. “Sorry. Harry saved my life more than once. Taught me the rights and wrongs of slinging magic. I’m a little...defensive.” She took another drink then set the cup aside as she looked back at Adamus.
“Harry Dresden is one of the more powerful wizards there is,” she said, but she began to look more nervous than angry now. “I uh...don’t normally say her name because she’d hear and maybe show up. I don’t know if the dome...well let’s just say we wouldn’t want her trapped here. She’d be...cranky.” She swallowed against a throat gone dry. “She’s one of the Queens of the Winter Court of Faery. And I’m not talking about Tinker Belle. She’s the angry biting cold. The merciless wind that freezes your lips and steals your breath.”
~~~
“Faery?” He raised an eyebrow. He’d heard the word, of course. He might not have been from Earth, but he’d been educated there, and as such he knew a good portion of the mythology. And that’s what he’d believed faery was. Mythology.
“I’ve heard of such things,” he admitted. “In stories I read. A Midsummer Night’s Dream for instance. But you mean to tell me such things are real? That the Fae exist as more than a myth or a legend?”
***
Molly nodded. She was a bit more comfortable when Adamus didn’t outright laugh at her or accuse her of making stuff up. “Just like that, except that play was payment to the Summer Court in exchange for Ol’ Willy gaining a muse.” She once wondered if Shakespeare had been a Summer Knight then decided that would have been the quickest dead knight ever.
“Two courts of faery, Winter and Summer. Three Queens each. Queen That Was, That Is and Will Be. Each Court chooses a Knight to be their champion, follow orders, blah, blah, blah.” Molly grimaced. “Only mortals become Knights and usually they end up dead in very messy ways. Harry took on the mantle of Winter Knight so he could rescue that little girl.” No way she’d say that Maggie was Harry’s daughter. That was his secret. “Faery isn’t nice. Ever. Harry tried to get out of the deal by arranging his assassination.”
~~~
“But...apparently it didn’t work?” He was pretty sure that he’d seen a Harry Dresden posting on the network. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean anything at all, as Eight was here, too. This place could bring you from times before you died. Or...do whatever it had done when One had been here.
“I don’t know enough about his situation to judge one way or another,” he said honestly. “But I can’t say that I’d want to be one of these…Knights. It seems to be a difficult sort of job.”
*** Molly shook her head. “Apparently, not. The Harry that’s here is in my future. When I’m from we all believed he was dead.” And she had been left to be trained by Harry’s not so nice faery godmother.
A wry smile twitched across her face as she snorted. “Very difficult, but he thought it was worth it to save one little girl.” Her smile turned gentle as she stared at nothing in particular on the table. Poor Maggie, but she was safe enough with Molly’s parents.
~~~
“Which is honorable,” he admitted. “Although not entirely logical.” Or at least, his people would have seen it that way. Love and affection counted for a lot more to him than they did to other Mogadorians, though. He had actually felt love once. He wondered if anyone else in his family had.
“If he loved this little girl, I’m sure he would have done anything for her.” Just like he would - was doing for One. “Love is a powerful thing. And it’s the thing that the Loric have over the Mogadorians. Their most powerful weapon.”
***
Molly wasn’t in a position to give many details about Maggie and Harry so she just gave a nebulous smile. “I’ll have to take your word for it.” She didn’t have that closeness with anyone outside of her dad. She loved Harry. Always had. Always would. But it would never be reciprocated. Molly had resigned herself to being alone. It sucked, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Who wanted to love a crazy person anyway?
~~~ He smiled a bit, sadly. “It can be very painful too, when you lose it,” he said simply, but his tone was not self-pitying. It was simply a statement of fact. He’d get by without One, of course he would. But there was always a part of him that would remember the days he’d spent with her - whether he was in a coma, or just hearing her in his mind - as the best days of his life.
He looked at Molly with a soft smile, then shook his head.
“About Five. I’ll leave him alone. I don’t want to cause any trouble here. It’s peaceful. And I like that.”
***
“Yeah.” Molly’s eyes went haunted as she remembered Thomas coming to see her in the hospital to tell her that Harry was most likely dead. Sure, she knew it was coming, but it had still felt like a punch in the gut that left a sucking chest wound.
Moving right along...Molly didn’t like dealing with her loneliness at freaking all.
“Good,” she said as she forced a smile on her face. “Thanks. He’s a good guy. He screwed up and he knows it. Tears himself up about it every chance he gets and I keep having to remind him that I don’t make friends with psychopaths. He wants to be different.”
~~~
“He did make a big mistake. That hurt a good person. Because Marina? She’s a good person. I was there when we took Eight to the sanctuary, and it would have broken your heart to see how much she loved him. We recovered his body from the Mogadorians, and she held him and carried him all the way to safety. To the place where the..” he paused, trying to think how to word it. “To the place where the Spirit of Lorien existed on Earth. And she said goodbye to him, there. They had one last moment…”
And it was almost enough to break his heart.
“Just understand that there are two sides to this, and perhaps there is not one that is more valid than the other.”
***
“I never said there was.” Molly was weary of explaining that over and over so she sighed as she pushed the knotted strands of her hair out of her face. “What they have...Eight and Marina...you...the others. I’ll never have that. All I can do is envy you because I like to think I know how to feels to love someone. But I’ve never known what it’s like to BE loved. I never will.” That made her breath catch in her throat but she forced on. “But I do know how it feels to screw up and want to make things right even if it’s just changing yourself.”
Two very innocent people were in and out of psychotic comas because of her. That was far worse than death in her book. “Someone has to give him a chance and since none of you can, I will.”
~~~
“I doubt that,” he said softly, and sincerely, when she said she’d never be loved. “If someone like me can find love, even for a short time, then I’m sure you can. You’re full of passion and feeling, and while that can be overwhelming to some guys, it won’t be to the ones who are worth it.”
Listen, Adamus Sutekh giving romantic advice. His father was almost certainly rolling over in his grave. That he had put him in.
“I’m willing to give him a chance. But I think all of us are going to be cautious. And you should be careful. He’s incredibly manipulative. They all trusted him, until he turned on them.”
***
Molly snorted derisively. Easy enough to talk about finding someone who could see through the bullshit. Actually finding that someone was hard enough. Now lock her inside someplace she can’t escape from? The odds got even slimmer. Everyone already had someone. And what the hell did she care?! She was alive. Harry was alive. There was no war. That was what was supposed to matter, right? Yeah, sure.
“You aren’t the first person to warn me that he’s manipulative,” she said in something not quite a growl. “If I’m wrong, I’m dead. Then you guys can kill him and I won’t be there to stop you. Meanwhile, I say he’s on the level and I’ll back that up with everything I have.”
~~~
“I’m not saying not to,” he said calmly, watching her body language carefully. He didn’t want to get into a fight with her - he wasn’t much of a fighter, and he didn’t feel like getting his ass kicked.
“I’m just warning you. It’s not meant as any sort of insult.”
He sighed, finishing his drink. “If you need anything,” he said, standing. “You can contact me. I would probably be a better one to contact than the others.”
***
“Yeah, I gathered that.” This hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped. That frustrated Molly. Somewhere along the line she lost her ability to win friends and influence people...without magic.
“Thanks for meeting with me and...yeah.” She shrugged a shoulder but didn’t look up. “Hopefully everything will just settle down. We’ll all keep to our corners of the town.”