by Tim Marquitz
When he woke up two days later, Charlie’s life began anew: he was welcomed into one of the most active organized crime families in America.
Ian was never seen, or spoken of again.
Charlie Burke made his first kill four months after that, strangling a rat and leaving him with his own balls in his mouth as a message. The way the whole thing went down was a tale of Boston gangster legend. The rat, a numbers runner who had threatened to talk to Boston’s Finest, stuck Charlie with a steak knife four times before giving up the ghost. That was the same knife Charlie used to cut the guy’s balls off. What garnered him legendary status was that one of those knife wounds punctured Charlie’s left lung. The organization’s doctor was astonished when Charlie walked into his basement office, talking and joking like nothing was wrong.
Over the years, Charlie suffered quite a few injuries that would have killed lesser men; shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, and even run over by a car twice. But he always got the job done. For the organization, he was the perfect killing machine. Charlie just thought he had luck on his side, but the big boss always said it was something more than just luck.
When things started to fall apart in the 90’s, Steve, the ranking hit man for the crew, sat Charlie down over a bottle of whiskey and let him know things were coming to an end. Charlie would have nothing to worry about, Steve said. Then, Steve locked onto him.
“Listen, the boss says you’re to go see Padre O’Shannon. The boss says you need to, ‘cause he’s got something for you.”
“What could that old kid fucker have for me, huh?”
“Listen, Burke is old Irish. Your kin have been called upon for centuries, man. From the streets of Galway, to you right here in the streets of Boston.” Charlie watched him make the sign of the cross and down the last of his whiskey.
“What the fuck you talking about, Steve?” He leaned back, the laugh catching in his throat as Steve stood up.
“The boss says go talk to O’Shannon. That means you go fucking talk to O’Shannon, got it?”
Steve left. He and the boss were never seen again.
Charlie stepped away from The Life a very rich man.
He never went to see the old priest.
Decades passed.
When his doctor called with the diagnosis of lung cancer this morning, Charlie figured it was time. He had no idea if the old padre was still kicking, but with his own days numbered, it was time to make things right.
“Thanks for the drink, Ray.”
“You leaving, Charlie?”
He ignored the barkeep’s tone and walked briskly out of the bar and across the street.
The church smelled thick with centuries of myrrh and furniture wax. He dabbed his forehead with holy water, knelt, made the sign of the cross, and cleared his throat. A young priest came from the wings, and greeted him.
“Hello, how can—” The kid clearly recognized him, and froze.
“O’Shannon, still alive?”
“Father O’Shannon?” The priest took a step back.
Charlie nodded.
“Yes, um, he’s in the rectory.” The priest feigned a smile.
“Go tell him Charlie Burke is here to see him. I’ll wait.”
The priest seemed relieved at the chance to turn and run.
Charlie sat down in a pew, and wished he had taken a traveler of whiskey from the bar.
What the fuck was he doing, anyway?
The priest, old by the same standards that mountains are called old, came through an archway to the right of the altar.
Contempt rose in Charlie’s throat.
“Charlie Burke.” The priest’s voice gave no hint of age or weariness. “By the light of God’s day, I never thought I’d see you in this church again.”
“Well, Jimmy, I ain’t here on church business.”
“I imagine you’re not, Charlie. In fact I know exactly why you’re here. I’ll meet you back in the rectory’s receiving room.” The old man jerked his crooked thumb over his shoulder. “Father Patrick, come take our guest back to the receiving room and then lock up for the day.”
“But Father, we have—” The young priest saw the look on O’Shannon’s face and halted his objection.
Back in the bowels of the church, Charlie paced along a wall covered with pictures of the cardinals who ran Boston’s catholic diocese. They looked like vultures to him, every one.
The thump, shuffle signaled O’Shannon’s approach, so Charlie stood tall. Whatever his old boss had wanted him to get from this priest, he would get, and if this old pederast gave him lip, well… That’d be all the reason he’d need to crack his skull.
The old priest came in with a small wooden box under his arm.
“You were supposed to come get this years ago.” He set the box down on a small round table in the center of the room.
Charlie gave him a pass on the condescending tone. Priests were judgmental, it was their way. Regardless, he felt his neck grow warm. Patience was not his way.
“Listen, like I said, I’m here to get what our old boss wanted me to have. If that’s it…” Charlie reached out for the box and the priest’s right hand flashed out and grabbed his wrist with such strength that Charlie winced. The old man pulled him close and whispered in his ear.
“You’ll get what’s in the box, lad, but first you need to know what to do with it.” The priest pushed Charlie back. “Sit.”
Anger blazed up Charlie’s back, flushed through his face, but the cold look of the priest’s eyes triggered obedient compliance. Charlie knew he’d be killing this fucker soon enough.
The priest settled down into a high backed leather chair and let out a sigh.
“Charlie Burke. Your family is an old line, you know that, don’t you?”
“A history lesson, then?” Charlie leaned back in the chair, pulled his pack of cigarillos from his pocket and tapped one out. He thought about offering one to the priest, chose not to, and lit his own.
“History is all you have these days, and don’t pretend it isn’t.”
Charlie took a deep drag, the cherry glowing as hot as his desire to reach over and strangle the filthy old shit right then and there.
“Your kin go back to King Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair. He was a builder of castles, a wager of war, and one of the mightiest leaders our people ever knew. He was fearless, untouchable, and though fighting under the blessing of God himself, King Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair struck down his enemies without mercy.”
“Patience and mercy are highly overrated, and in short supply, old man. What’s your point?”
“Fair enough. I’m not fond of you either, Charlie. As I see it, this is going to be wasted on you. But, an obligation is an obligation.” The priest turned the box toward himself and opened the lid. “It was that King who began the rite of the Unchristened Hand.” He turned the opened box toward Charlie, who stood to look at what it held.
There, nestled in a pillow of red velvet, sat a withered and grey hand, severed at the wrist. The skin was pulled back from the long fingernails, grey and mottled. It was huge, or probably had been when it was pulsing with blood, and it registered to Charlie that it was a right hand.
“This is that King’s hand, Charlie, and whoever possesses it wields the strength of all those warriors who have possessed it throughout the ages.”
Charlie’s mind clicked all the parts into place. The priest’s strength and speed, his longevity, his power over their old boss. It was this old folk tale, which wasn’t a folk tale at all it seems, that made it all possible.
“So this is what our boss had wanted me to have?”
“Despite my reservations, he wanted you to do more than just possesses it, Charlie.”
“And what the hell does that mean, old man?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore, Charlie Burke, because here we are. I’m to pass this on to you now, as I was directed so many years ago.” Father O’Shannon stood and looked into Charlie’s eyes. “There are some things we ne
ed to take care of, first. Take the box and follow me into the chapel.”
The priest lit four candles behind the altar and placed each at the corner of a sepulture in the floor. He then directed Charlie to place the box in the center of a sepulture. The name was obscured, but Charlie thought it was odd that a body was buried there, under that marble slab, and that all the priests who administered service stood on someone’s grave while addressing the congregation.
“You weren’t baptized here, but you’re going to be born again in this church Charlie Burke. Kneel, there.”
Charlie did as he was told, unsure why going along with this rigmarole seemed perfectly fine. The priest stood close behind him.
“Now, pick it up and hold it in your left hand. Hold your right hand out.”
The hand felt warm as Charlie lifted it from the box. A slight pulse began to grow, and he had to fight the urge to throw it aside. He had gone this far with the craziness, and he wasn’t a quitter.
“Repeat after me.”
Charlie nodded. The pulse grew stronger in the hand.
“In my christened hand, like that of my father and all my kin,” The priest paused. Charlie repeated, verbatim.
“As far back as the name be spoke, I hold the promise of King Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair. His hand is now mine to carry forth into battle.”
The old hand’s fingers began to straighten, and Charlie’s own right hand began to tingle and burn.
“Make the sign of the cross with the King’s hand, then repeat after me.” Charlie felt the priest take a step back.
Making the sign of the cross with the ancient talisman, the cadaverous fingers twitched and flitted on his hairline.
“Patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum. I call upon you, oh Lord, to forsake my right hand as any tool of thee, as you hath forsaken the greatest King of my kin.”
Charlie repeated, and his right hand felt like it was being stung by hornets. Sharp, hot pain engulfed his fingers and shot up his arm. Through clenched teeth he repeated the priest’s words. “Patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum. I call upon you, oh Lord, to forsake my right hand as any tool of thee, as you hath forsaken the greatest King of my kin.”
Father O’Shannon kept going.
“Let my blood be without mercy, without kindness, and without your glory, oh lord. Let my King’s hand act with vengeance!”
As Charlie finished the last word, a whoosh of air slipped past him. Something splashed his face and the pain in his hand stopped.
Charlie looked to where his right hand should be and saw it rolling to a stop on the floor.
The priest was yelling something that didn’t make sense.
“Put the hand to your bloody stump, now!”
Through the haze of shock Charlie felt the dead hand’s fingers grip his wrist and tug on his arm.
The priest repeated the chant in Latin, “Patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum,” his voice filling the small chapel.
Charlie let the hand pull itself toward his wrist, the blood pumping out as fast as his shocked heartbeat. As the dried out flesh of the old hand came into contact with the freshly sliced skin and bone of his right wrist, something happened.
Tendrils sprang out from the King’s hand and drove up into his arm. The flesh, reinvigorated, turned white, then pink, and the fingers began to respond to his own thoughts. The old flesh met his own, stitching together until he could barely see the difference between this stranger’s hand and his own arm. A bolt of energy skittered up to his chest then traveled back down to the hand’s fingertips.
They were his fingertips, now.
Charlie wiggled them.
Holding the hand in front of his face, he made a fist. It was huge, and when he slammed it into his left palm the force, more than his normal strength, made him grimace.
The priest groaned behind him. Charlie had forgotten about him.
Turning, he saw the old man propping himself up with his left hand on the floor. A long butcher’s knife lay next to him.
The sight of his own blood on that blade made Charlie flush with rage.
The hand tingled.
Anger washed over him.
The priest whimpered as Charlie took a step closer.
“You’re done, O’Shannon.”
“No, you mustn’t, you have to—”
“Begging ain’t gonna help you, now.” Charlie reached down with his left hand and dragged the priest up to his feet by his throat. The old man’s protests gurgled in his throat.
“Look at me, you old fuck.” Father O’Shannon’s eyes, wet and wide with fear, met Charlie’s gaze. “Let’s see how this new hand of mine works, whattaya say?”
The priest tried to respond, shaking his head wildly and grunting. Charlie tightened his grasp on the man’s fleshy neck.
Reaching up with his new right hand, Charlie jammed his fingers into the priest’s eyes and through his skull, then rammed his thumb through his mouth, breaking his teeth. With a wet ripping sound, Father O’Shannon’s head came off.
Blood shot from his neck as Charlie let his body drop to the floor. Winding up as he turned around, Charlie let the priest’s head fly down the aisle.
Father Jimmy O’Shannon’s head bounced and rolled down the carpet, then slammed into the church’s front doors.
“Steeee-rike!” Charlie let out with a big smile.
Holding the bloody hand up, he flexed the meaty fingers and felt a rush of youth course though his body.
“Me and you are going to get along smashingly, King.”
Shaking another cigarillo out of the pack, Charlie sat down, lit the smoke, took a deep drag, and contemplated what the first thing he would use this new strength for was going to be.
“I need some whiskey,” he said to the dead priest’s body.
Charlie washed his hands off in the holy water basin on his way out, and then strode back across the street to Sharpie’s. It was loud inside, and when Charlie walked through the doors, he saw why.
“Who the fuck are these fucking retards?”
A group of three kids were at the bar playing grab-ass and talking way louder than anyone needed to in Sharpie’s.
“What the fuck, Ray?”
The bartender shook his head and followed Charlie over to his seat.
“Hipsters.” Ray muttered.
“Huh?”
“Yea, my nephew told me that those faggots are known as hipsters.”
“Can you imagine wearing pants that tight?” Charlie had to adjust his balls at the thought of cramming himself into pants like the ones these kids were wearing.
The three hipsters were looking around, matching scowls on their faces. One had a beard, the other a pair of sharply trimmed sideburns, and the last had an old-timey handlebar mustache. Ray and Charlie chuckled as the trio turned and stared at them in unison.
Ray nodded at Charlie, and walked out from behind the bar, pretending to clean the booth tables. Charlie picked up his drink, tipped it towards the three, and slugged back half of his whiskey.
The one with the mustache spoke up. “Hey, can we get some beers?”
Ray pretended not to hear him.
The hipsters murmured among themselves for a few minutes. Charlie bristled when he thought he heard one of them call Ray an old fuck.
“Hey, buddy, can we get three beers?”
These mother fucking shit bags were the ones ruining this town. Charlie thought to himself.
He felt his hand tense.
“Hey, listen old man, we just want a drink, what the fu—”
Charlie cut the disrespectful little turd off by slamming his rocks glass into the side of his face. Blood and glass exploded, the kid dropped like a rock with a thick shard of glass protruding from his temple.
His two buddies froze in place.
Charlie looked down at the mess of ripped flesh and spurting blood that used to be a smart-mouthed, entitled, disrespectful piece of shit, and smiled.
“Lock the doors, Ray.”<
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“Hey, Charlie, c’mon…”
Looking up at the other two hipsters, he pointed at Ray.
“Okay, whatever you say, Charlie.”
“We don’t want any trouble, mister, really.”
“Well you little fucking dandy boys—what’d you call ‘em Ray? Hipsters?” Charlie stepped over the still body of the one he had laid out, and the other two stumbled back, toppling one of the barstools over. “Trouble is what you got.”
He dropped one with a right hook. The boy’s head literally erupted in blood and bone, grey matter flinging across the bar. He turned to the last hipster.
“C’mon, boy, hit me.”
Charlie saw the boy’s pants darken at the crotch. The kid was pissing himself.
What a pussy.
Charlie lifted the barstool, brought it up, over, and down onto the boy.
His head exploded like an overripe melon.
He set the barstool right again, and took a step back to look at his handy work.
The rush wasn’t the same; taking another man’s life was what Charlie Burke was meant to do, but something felt off. He didn’t feel the same satisfaction he usually enjoyed.
“God damn, Charlie, what are we supposed to do now?”
He looked over at Ray. The old bartender’s face was pale white, his hands shaking. Charlie felt his new hand begin to tremble.
“Don’t worry Ray, we’ll get this cleaned up easy enough. You still got that meat grinder in the basement?”
Ray doubled over and puked.
Charlie’s right hand flew out and clenched his friend’s throat.
“Pull your shit together, Ray. You got that grinder, or what?”
Ray nodded at him, gasped, and even though Charlie wanted to let his friend down, he couldn’t. He had known Ray for going on 30 years now, and had never seen him look this scared.
Charlie concentrated on loosening his grip, but instead the hand tightened. Ray’s eyes bulged, and with a loud crack Charlie crushed his oldest friend’s throat and neck.
Ray’s limp body fell to the ground, and Charlie followed him down.
