The Seventh Son - Descent, page 1
This is a work of fi ction. All of the characters, organizations, and events por-
trayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fi ctitiously.
7TH SON: DESCENT. Copyright © 2009 by J. C. Hutchins. All rights reserved. Printed
in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175
Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www .stmartins .com
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Hutchins, J. C., 1975–
7th son : descent / J.C. Hutchins.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978- 0- 312- 38437- 1
1. Human cloning—Fiction. 2. Assassins—Fiction. I. Title.
II. Title: Seventh son.
PS3608.U859A615 2009
813'.6—dc22
2009017010
First Edition: November 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
!"#$%&'#&()*!!(#+,-.//000-7
12'!2!3000#4&54!!0+6
P R O L O G U E
he president of the United States is dead. He was mur-
T dered in the morning sunlight by a four- year- old boy.
It was a simple stumping rally in Kentucky, no more
than a pit stop on Tobacco Road. The Bluegrass State would vote
Republican in next year’s election, just as it had in the past two. At
least that’s what President Hank “Gator” Griffin said on this crisp
October morning at Bowling Green College.
His speech was a barn-raiser, a helluva thing, roiling with Bi-
ble Belt– friendly sound bites. Keep the country strong. Reelect
morality. Reelect character and faith. Next November, reelect Grif-
fin and Hale.
God bless America. Waving now, working the crowd. Pump-
pump handshake. Wink. Thank you. Kiss the lady. Hold the baby.
Listen to the cheers.
Listen, as they turn to screams.
It happened so quickly: a smile and nod from the four- year-
old’s parents, a kiss on little Jesse Fowler’s cheek for the photogra-
phers, a glint of silver in the boy’s hand, the president’s carotid
artery open at the jaw, the scarlet wound arcing across his throat
like a comet. The child’s face spattered in red mist, the president’s
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7 T H S O N : D E S C E N T
mouth forming a question, the boy’s tiny teeth glittering white in
the camera flashbulbs, a cry from a Secret Ser vice agent.
The president did not stagger, did not sway; he crumpled at the
knees, face white as bone. His forehead split open as it struck the
sidewalk. There were many screams, many arms around him. A
Secret Ser vice agent grabbed the murderous boy as he dashed be-
tween a photographer’s legs. The agent lifted Jesse Fowler high, by
the ankle. The boy was furious, screaming obscenities no four-
year- old should know. He swung his switchblade at the agent,
knocking off the man’s sunglasses. He swung again. And again.
More hands around the president. More screams from the
crowd. Fowler’s parents rushing the agent in shock, trying to pro-
tect their son. Secret Ser vice agents covering Griffin’s body with
their own, his blood seeping into their suits. A scream rising from
the child as he swung upside down by his ankle.
A chopper soon descended onto the campus’s common field,
its downdraft ripping the GRIFFIN/HALE signs from shocked specta-
tors’ hands. The president and an army of Secret Ser vice and
medical agents arrived at the Bowling Green hospital three min-
utes later. But Hank “Gator” Griffin was already dead by then.
During the chaos at the college, little Jesse Fowler had been
disarmed and tossed into the backseat of a police cruiser. His par-
ents were also apprehended.
Just before the vehicle carry ing the world’s youn gest po liti cal
assassin peeled away from the scene, a photojournalist snapped a
picture of the child. It would have been worthy of the Pulitzer
Prize, had it been published. In the photo, Jesse Fowler’s tiny blood-
stained hands were pressed against the car’s rear window. He
gazed at a spattered GRIFFIN/HALE sign, which was reflected in the
cruiser’s window in one of those remarkable moments of photo-
journalism.
The child’s bloodshot eyes were wide. He was laughing.
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2
J . C . H U T C H I N S
By noon that day, Vice President Vincent Hale had been sworn
in as the leader of the world’s last superpower. Secretary of State
Charles Caine was appointed VP.
The child’s parents, Jennifer and Jackson Fowler, were arraigned
on charges of conspiring to murder the president of the United
States. The small Bowling Green restaurant they owned would
never open again.
Their son was placed under maximum security in an undis-
closed government facility for evaluation and interrogation. A
week later, a nurse and an armed guard discovered Jesse Fowler’s
body. The four- year- old was lying in bed, his mouth and eyes
open, dead. There were no signs of self- asphyxiation. There was
no overdose, no theatrical cyanide capsule, no reasonable cause
of death. Just the dried remains of a nosebleed, and eyes so blood-
shot the whites had gone completely red.
Jesse Fowler had said only one thing during that week of con-
finement and examination. A balding, bearded doctor had asked
the boy if he knew what he’d done to the president.
Jesse Fowler had looked at the doctor and giggled.
“Go fuck your mother,” he’d said.
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O N E
aturday sex with Sarah was the best, John Smith decided.
S The very best. It was long, sweaty, dirty; nipple nibbles,
fingernails raking the back and chest, obscene whispers, in-
complete sentences. Headboard practically banging into the neigh-
boring apartment’s living room. Open windows to let the November
Miami breeze cool them— and to let the rest of the world shift un-
comfortably with envy. That sort of sex.
John marveled at this as he pulled himself off her body, pant-
ing, staring up at the ceiling with an expression that was half
self- satisfaction, half awe. Sarah grabbed a sheet from the floor,
laughed long and loud, and rolled sideways to face him. The sheet
stuck to her sweaty breasts and hips. She brushed a red curl from
her face.
“Unbelievable,” she said.
John gazed at the ceiling and shook his head. “I know.”
“It’s getting better.”
He shook his head again and blinked. “I know. ”
Sarah smiled. “You should write a song about it.”
“Uh, how about ‘Christ Almighty, Do Me All Nighty.’ ”
“You could’ve done better than that,” she snorted, and climbed
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4
J . C . H U T C H I N S
out of bed. John watched Sarah’s hips as she gracefully stepped
through his cramped bedroom, traversing the thirtysomething’s
version of hopscotch: a pile of books on the floor, last night’s
clothes, several ratty folders filled with sheet music, an empty box
of Trojans, his Gibson guitar. She was nimble and beautiful, and
John wondered, not for the first time, what she saw in him.
She opened the bedroom door. John’s fat, fuzzy cat scrambled
past her legs and leaped onto the bed. He stomped onto John’s
chest and meowed, malcontent.
“Buzz off, Cat,” John said.
“You need to buy him food,” Sarah said, stepping into the living
room on her way to the bathroom. “You said it yourself last night.
And, Jesus . . . you should really clean up this place.”
“Right,” he called. “Wanna help?”
Sarah laughed. “Your house. Your mess. You clean it up.”
“Mañana.”
John reached over and plucked a lighter and crumpled pack of
cigarettes from the far end of the bedside table. He shook the
pack, and two bent— but, thank God, not broken— Camel Lights
rattled out and into his palm. He lit one, inhaled, and gazed at the
ceiling.
Cat meowed again, sounding more surly this time. John ab-
sently scratched the critter’s head, regarding him with a mixture
palm trees sway outside the window, stroked Cat, and finished his
smoke.
He’d already put on a T-shirt and pulled his hair into a pony-
tail when Sarah came back into the room.
“Where ya going, stud?”
“Nowhere. Just to the Castle,” he replied, slipping on a pair of
jeans. “Gotta get the cat his food, and get me some more smokes.”
Sarah looked at the unlit Camel by the ashtray. “I’m out, too.”
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7 T H S O N : D E S C E N T
“Have that one,” John said, and kissed her. “Try to live through
the nasty nonmenthol flavor. I’ll take the bike. Won’t be long.”
Outside, as he pedaled his ten- speed into the apartment com-
plex parking lot, Sarah called down to him from the balcony. She
told him to hurry. She made a joke about how red- haired maidens
reward bicycle- riding knights with breakfast and “muchly” hot
sex . . . particularly if they come bearing cancer sticks.
John laughed, imagining her in bed, his head between her
thighs, and said he’d pedal as fast as he could.
Alleys—honest- to- goodness damp, dark, well- worn shortcut
alleys— were one of the things John missed most while living in
Miami. Cycling always reminded him of his childhood in the
Midwest, and of bike races with neighborhood kids, up and down
the alleys. Miami was a driver’s city, a twentieth- century city, a
pink place that had no love for kick- the- can or cobblestones. This
was the land of the planned community, where “historic home”
meant that the paint on a house’s shutters had just dried.
As he pedaled to the Castle con ve nience store— Zero Hassle at
the Castle! — John pined for alleys and shortcuts, redbrick roads
that led to scrappy basketball rims and tree houses. But there was
no sense begrudging it. Miami was different. Neither better nor
worse, just different. And since Miami had been around a lot lon-
ger than John had, he thought it best to adapt.
Besides, Miami had palm trees. And November weather like
this.
He was making a quick turn onto Flamingo, a scenic residen-
tial road that would add a few minutes to his ride— but what the
hey, it was Saturday— when he spotted the white van barreling
toward him.
I don’t think it sees me, he thought. If it did, it wouldn’t be going
so fa—
John yanked the bike to the left, gripped both brakes, and
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6
J . C . H U T C H I N S
nearly flew over the handlebars. The van’s tires screeched. John’s
bike swerved between two parked cars, a Lexus and a very old,
very cherry Beetle, and isn’t it the damnedest things you notice at mo-
ments like this? The bike’s front wheel struck the curb. John spilled
onto the sidewalk, felt the flesh tear on his palm and chin.
He heard the van’s front doors open, the rear slide- door whoosh
along its rail, and the click- click of expensive dress shoes. John
tried to slip out from under the ten- speed, but his foot was stuck
on the chain. He looked up. Three men sporting sharp suits and
crew cuts surrounded him.
“You know, a little help here would—”
“Grab him,” the biggest suit said, and the other two pounced.
Their gloved hands locked on to John’s upper arms like talons,
yanking him from under the bike in one fluid motion, as if he
were in some street- fighter ballet.
One of the men twisted John’s left arm behind his back— say
uncle, isn’t it the damnedest things you notice? — and John howled.
The other suit held John’s right arm out straight, like a wing. John
couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. They were going to break his
arm; John could feel the muscles pulling apart.
The third man, the big suit, stepped before him. The stranger
had gray eyes, a flat nose, a cleft in his chin, cheekbones carved
from marble. No emotion was on that face. The men stood there
on the sidewalk for what felt like an excruciating eternity.
Finally, the man raised his eyebrows. “You want it to stop?”
John nodded his head furiously.
The big man inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Good. Now. You’re
going to take a little ride with us.”
The pain in John’s left arm eased a little, and he used the mo-
ment to heave his body from side to side. His outstretched arm
tore away from its captor and swung outward. He screamed for
help. The talon on the throbbing wrist behind his back slipped
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7 T H S O N : D E S C E N T
slightly. He was going to do it, going to do it, going to run, going
to break—
No air. No air.
The leader, the one with the Superman chin, punched John in
the stomach a second time. Then a third. John fell to the sidewalk,
clutching his midsection, cradling it like a squirming baby. Through
the haze, he saw one of the men toss the ten- speed into the back
of the van. He spotted the other with a syringe, felt the bee sting of
the needle, then things became pleasant, sweet, dark, darker.
He heard one last thing before he lost consciousness, the lead-
er’s voice.
“Should’ve come quietly, Johnny- boy.”
When Michael was a child, his mother and father took him for a
drive through Indiana’s corn country, the place where that state’s
true heart would always beat. American flags, high school basket-
ball, Old- Time Religion. Those things were in the soil of the
state— no, deeper than that even, a layer of bedrock geologists
could never fathom. The drive into the heartland took two hours
from where they lived in Indianapolis.
Michael had been only nine at the time, but he had noticed
the transformation of the horizon during that drive: the mortar
and steel of city giving way to the bland homes of the suburbs.
Then, with the abruptness of a beachhead, the land of station wag-
ons and culs- de- sac relinquished control to the flat expanse of
Indiana’s heart. The corn. It was a sea, Michael thought back then.
Bright green combines occasionally slipped through its waves like
barges. And like the sea, the corn could barely be contained; it
ebbed just feet from the road.
There, at a family picnic by the roadside, Michael’s mother
had told him that places were like people; they had personalities.
More important, she said, they had emotions. Souls. Sometimes
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8
J . C . H U T C H I N S
you could feel the soul of a place. Michael had munched on a pea-
nut butter sandwich and asked her what she meant.
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Listen. Just breathe and listen.
Listen with your ears. What do you hear?”
Quiet, he’d said. Grasshoppers. Corn leaves slapping against
each other. A bird. The wind.
“Now what do you feel?” she asked.
Nice. Peaceful. Love, maybe.
“Maybe that’s what this place is like,” his mother said. “Maybe
this place is peaceful, loving. Gentle. Maybe that is this place’s soul.
It’s important to listen to a place sometimes, to hear what it thinks.
Understand?”
Michael said he did, a little. Maybe. His mother laughed and
kissed him on the cheek and said that maybe he would under-
stand when he was older. He’d finished his sandwich, took a sip of
cherry Hi- C from his thermos, and went to play Frisbee with his
father.
Michael had never forgotten that conversation. And while he
