Anthem's Fall

Chapter Sixty Two

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kristen

With wobbly steps, Kristen Jordan emerged out of the trembling crowd and stood to face Vengelis Epsilon. The scene in the room was dreamlike despite her willful effort to focus on the things that were concrete. Help was coming. The entire nation was on alert, and it had something to do with this person calling for her. Help had to be on the way.

The baffling Vengelis was standing on the stage, holding the hotel manager in the air by the collar of his shirt. Vengelis's body was not even in a tensed position, and his arm held the husky man clean off the ground with seemingly no effort at all. Kristen could feel the fear coursing from the audience behind her. The beautiful young woman sat on the stairs leading to the stage with her hands wrapped round her knees. She was looking at Kristen emphatically, and Kristen saw she had scrapes on her arms and hands.

"There you are," the man calling himself Vengelis said. "Come here."

Kristen stood her ground and looked up at him carefully. He raised the hotel manager farther into the air. The poor man was being strangled by his own necktie, his face turning purple as his lips gasping for breath.

"What do you want?" Kristen called.

Vengelis turned to the young woman on the stairs.

"Madison. Explain if you will."

The beautiful woman's—Madison's—face flushed upon being addressed. Although her attractiveness matched that of Vengelis, Kristen could tell by her unconcealed fear that Madison was not with him. There was a traumatized and demoralized look to her that said more than her words possibly could. Despite her appearance, her voice was surprisingly steady. "He just wants our cooperation. If you do what he says, I don't think he's gonna hurt you."

"To that I will hold," Vengelis said. "Now come here. I want some clarification on both you and the presentation you were giving."

"Drop him first," Kristen called.

Vengelis gave her an oddly approving expression and released the manager at once, who collapsed with a clatter onto the stage and rolled into a fetal position. Kristen moved to the stairs and torpidly ascended the steps past Madison up to Vengelis. The manager violently hacked and wheezed from the stage floor. Terror was pumping through her, and she looked with disbelief at the body of Professor Vatruvia in the corner. She could feel hundreds of pitying eyes burning into her back as she crossed the stage, but no one from the audience volunteered to speak up against the manifest nightmare standing by the podium.

"Well?" Kristen asked with a soft voice, now much closer to the mysterious man than she wanted to be.

"Who are you?" Vengelis's tone was peculiarly suspicious.

"Kristen Jordan."

Vengelis stared intently at her for a long moment. She watched his eyes move slowly from her jeans to her hair to her glasses. "Were you the one who came here on the Traverser I?"

His bizarre words passed over her head and into the open space of the ballroom.

"What?" Kristen said.

Vengelis looked suddenly dangerous as he took a step closer and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Are you one of Pral Nerol's researchers pretending to be a human?"

"Please—"

"Tell me the truth or I'll kill you where you stand."

"Please." Kristen took a pace back. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."