Agents of the Glass Read Online Free Page A

recruiter, but there’s more to it than that. Sorry, I don’t have a business card to give you, but they’re against our rules. My branch is called Special Services, but it’s not like that’s written down anywhere. My job is to find people like you—
quality
people who can help us—and bring them aboard. Train them, get them comfortable, work alongside them occasionally. With some people, I’m involved for a few months; with others, for years.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “For now call me…Silas.”
    “But it’s not your real name, is it?”
    “No, but that’s not important right now. I know this is what everyone says in moments like this, but it’s for your safety as much as mine. It would be impossible for me to explain
everything
in an hour, or even a whole day, so I’m going to give you an abridged version, and then, if you join us, we can fill in the blanks as we go along. Sound fair?”
    Another nod.
    Silas looked long and hard into his young recruit’s eyes. “Do you believe in evil, Andy?”
    The question caught him off guard, and his eyebrows rose noticeably. “Um, I…guess so. At least, I think some
people
are evil.”
    “Sorry. I know it’s a strange question. And it’s a hard one to answer. Let me tell you a story: The organization that I work for—let’s call it the Agency for now—has been fighting evil for over eight hundred years. The fact is, Andy, that evil—that is, the tendency to want to do evil, the
need
to do it, in some cases—is in certain people’s DNA. They’re born with it, the same way you were born with brown hair and hazel eyes. Eight hundred years ago, a young monk named Brother Lucian made a startling discovery in the ruins of a church near Newcastle, in the north of England. The east wing of the church had been built a century earlier along the edge of a rocky precipice two hundred feet above the North Sea. Unfortunately, only twenty years after it was built, an earthquake—very rare in northern England—caused part of the church to collapse, sending the entire east wing crashing into the sea.
    “Fifty years later, Brother Lucian was walking along that shore when something caught his eye—a circle of blue glass, about two inches across and worn smooth from decades in the sand and rocks. Realizing that it had come from the stained-glass windows of the ruined church, he searched the area for several more hours, wading out into the icy water, and found more than a dozen pieces in several different colors—reds, greens, yellows, and violets—but no more of the original blue. Tired, hungry, and numb from the cold, he climbed the path back to the church, where he would make the discovery of a lifetime—a finding that would change history.
    “Inside the church that day was a group of stonemasons, working on the new east wing. Lucian stopped to watch them work, momentarily forgetting how hungry and cold he was. When the late-afternoon sun began to stream through the west windows, he held the disk of blue glass up to the light, marveling at its beauty. He had never seen that particular shade of blue before—the color of cornflowers, he said. While he was admiring the glass, one of the workers, a heartless, despicable man named Leveraux, stepped in front of him. Now, you’ve seen sea glass before, haven’t you?”
    Andy nodded. “Uh-huh. I have a few pieces from the beach in North Carolina.”
    “Can you see through it?”
    “Not really. I mean, except for a little bit of light, maybe.”
    “Exactly. Light and shadow, and that’s about it. So, imagine Brother Lucian’s surprise when he found himself staring at a crystal-clear image of Mr. Leveraux in the glass.
    “In his journal that night, Lucian wrote that he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Leveraux’s face, he said, could be seen more clearly through the glass. As if the glass was a filter allowing him to see the ‘real’ Leveraux. And that terrified him.”
    Andy leaned in closer