Attrition of the Gods: Book 1 of the Mystery Thriller series Gods Toys.

by P. G. Burns

  With Shane off the wing, this would be a perfect time to carry out a murder. Leo’s fears are exacerbated when he notices Robert watching Shane leave and then look over at him. Leo decides there’s safety in numbers and heads down to the recreation room, hoping there is someone he knows down there. When he gets there no one is about. Damn, he thinks, not even a witness, I have made it easier for him. In a panic he looks around for a weapon. He almost laughs at himself. Who do you think you are? You would need a shotgun to stop this fella.

  Leo sits in the middle of the room facing the entrance, waiting. Someone is coming. To his great relief it is Graham, the gay hairdresser guy that arrived the same day as the Muslim. Leo feels guilty involving this new guy whom he has only spoken to once before but has no choice. “Graham, come over here,” he calls, hoping a witness will deter his assailant.

  Graham prances over. “Hi,” he says loudly.

  Leo pulls out a chair. “Would you join me?”

  He is not very familiar with homosexuals and hopes Graham does not think he is trying to pick him up.

  “Of course, I would love to. Just got to get some chocolate.” He points to the vending machine behind Leo. “Do you want anything?”

  “No. No, thank you.”

  “Oh, you’re sweet enough, hey?” Graham taps Leo on the shoulder playfully, and then walks to the vending machine.

  Leo’s heart then misses a beat as he spots Robert Price enter the room. This time the man his fellow prisoners call “Bob the Beheader” doesn’t even bother to disguise his stare. He looks Leo in the eye then past him to observe Graham. Leo hopes that seeing a possible witness will at least delay any action until someone comes to help him. Robert pulls a six-inch blade from his waist and Leo’s heart sinks. Once more, he contemplates his imminent death as he sees Robert come hurtling towards him. He hopes Shane will know the truth and at least he’ll have fulfilled his role. Graham’s hand falls on his shoulder and Leo is gripped by guilt, knowing this poor, gentle man will be terrified. In what he thinks is his last act on this earth, Leo does not try to protect himself, but instead turns to comfort Graham. But Graham looks different. His face is contorted. He holds a large blade in his left hand and is pulling it up, ready to plunge it into Leo’s neck. Everything is blurred as the blade hits his collar bone, filling him with a sharp pain as suddenly another force hits him, knocking Leo right out of his chair. In a surreal moment of possible concussion he sees Robert thrusting a blade into Graham’s heart. With Leo slipping into unconsciousness Robert releases Graham and rushes over to him, ripping his shirt off and packing the wound in Leo’s neck with it.

  “Come on, old man, you can’t die on me now!” he shouts as the guards flood in and take over. Robert is led away through the wing. He can guess what they are all thinking.

  

  Shane paces up and down the Governor’s office. He has heard a lot of commotion and knows from the phone call that Leo was involved. Fuck, he thinks to himself. He told me that this type of thing would happen at the first chance they got. Shit! Wait, what am I saying? The old man’s mad. Who knows what’s actually happened.

  Still, something about this Solfrid has unnerved him and it’s not the fact that she is over fifty and still fuckable. He is sure he noticed a smile when she heard the words dead and Verdi in the same sentence.

  Fuck, I’m losing the plot here. Stop jumping to conclusions. Shane, and just find out about Leo.

  Shane remembers Leo warning him that the big black guy with the Bin Laden beard was watching him and he was sure he was up to something. Well, if he has harmed Leo he will soon learn all about decapitation and castration, only there will be no blades involved this time.

  “Okay, Mills, boss says normal service is resumed,” says Goodwin after a quick phone call. “You’re going to need to find a new chess opponent though.” Shane’s stomach turns. So it’s true… “Well, at least for a week or so,” adds Goodwin.

  Relief floods over him. “Leo, is he alive?”

  “Yep, which is more than I can say for the wee Nancy boy who came in recently.”

  Shane is puzzled. “You mean Graham? What happened?”

  Goodwin was not usually one to talk to prisoners but these events were curious enough for even him to elaborate.

  “Well, no one is confirming anything but I would guess Graham tried it on with the big silverback, Price, and didn’t realise shit stabbing is punishable by death in Islam.”

  Shane mulls over Goodwin’s non-PC statement and decides that was not what happened. As he enters the wing the recreation room is closed and most of the cons are milling around Johnny’s cell and gossiping. Shane pushes by.

  “Here he is, misses all the action, this one,” says Johnny.

  “What the fuck happened? I was gone twenty minutes.”

  Johnny shoos the other inmates out. As soon as they all leave he tells Shane what he knows.

  “The big black guy that came in a couple of weeks ago, I think he may have tried to kill Leo, and unbelievably gay Gray seems to have come to his rescue and got a blade in the heart for his troubles.”

  “How’s Leo?”

  “Well, he wasn’t looking too clever but I think he is okay.”

  Shane spots a guard passing the cell. “Mr McEnery! Can we have a word?”

  James McEnery enters the cell. Shane likes this polite and honest screw.

  “I guess you want to know about Leo’s condition?” he says. “He’s fine but we are concerned about his mental state. The doc says he is rambling.”

  Shane assumes this will relate to the Djinn conspiracy theory.

  “What’s he saying?” he asks, fearing the worst.

  “Well, he claims he and Graham had a row and it was Robert who was trying to break it up. Leo is claiming that it was him who killed Graham in the struggle.”

  Shane’s jaw drops “Leo killed him and the black guy broke it up? Bullshit.”

  McEnery shrugs his shoulders. “Problem is the CCTV went down just before the incident so we can’t check.”

  Shane thinks back to the last time Leo was attacked. He was expecting an extra six months for knocking those two cons out but apparently the CCTV had been down then too and no one even asked him what happened.

  “How fucking often do the cameras go down in this place?” he says. “Is that privatisation at work?”

  McEnery frowns. “Don’t start. I’ve been here since before it went private, in fact, it’ll be twenty years next May, and in all that time the cameras have only failed twice that I know of.”

  “Yeah, both times when Leo Verdi happened to be attacked.” Shane sits down, his mind racing. Too many coincidences

  

  Besides an almighty pain in his shoulder, Leo feels surprisingly good. He is amazed that once more he has cheated death and although he was knocked senseless when Robert collided with him to get to Graham, he is well aware that the man he believed was his would-be assassin was in fact his saviour.

  It had been the least he could do to take the blame for Graham’s death and he had also calculated that he would almost definitely be put in solitary for it, which will make it harder for the Djinn to get to him. Unfortunately he doubts he will be able to see Shane any more so he has to hope that he had shared enough knowledge for Shane to be ready when the time comes. The big guy had been released back onto the wing within a couple of hours of the incident; with Leo claiming to be the killer there had been no reason to detain Robert. He has barely spoken one word to anyone since arriving and it is doubtful that will change in regards to him elaborating on what really happened. Shane is pleased to see him back though.

  “I’ll get the cunt to talk,” he tells No-legs and Big Pete.

  The prisoners are wise to the fact that these two formidable inmates are likely to clash in the near future and bets start to be placed. Shane will wait for the right opportunity to arise; he is a patient man. The Governor had warned him when he officially tu
rned down the Swedish woman’s offer that he had best not be planning a revenge attack in his prison.

  Shane knows the screws are on alert. Through the grapevine Shane has heard that Leo is in solitary on D wing and awaiting transfer. Shane has tried in vain to contact him. Leo has also tried to contact Shane but he has only been allowed access to his solicitor, a wet-behind-the-ears just-out-of-university useless intern. Nice kid but one who has no idea about the system. Leo is certain his number will be up as soon as he is moved anywhere else but as long as he is here in solitary he can sleep, knowing he will not be disturbed. Leo finds time to reflect on his meetings with Simeon.

  Rome, before Leo’s incarceration

  “It must be said that charity can in no way, exist along with mortal sin.”

  Thomas Aquinas

  After Simeon’s revelation to him in the Vatican library, Leo worked tirelessly, traipsing the corridors containing the archives that ran throughout the Vatican City. Over fifty miles of shelves held thousands of years of knowledge, much of which was stolen during Crusades. Leo noticed only a small proportion actually had anything to do with God or religion but that just made it all the more a treasure trove. The problem was Leo no longer enjoyed the task he was carrying out. Regina had grown impatient and after many tears and their first fight in thirty years she had packed her bags and left for Rimini.

  “You know where I’ll be when you finish playing your game,” were her parting words.

  If only he could tell her what he was really doing.

  I am working with a mysterious entity who is a member of a race called the Djinn. They come from another world… no frequency, that’s it. They come from the same world but they exist on a separate frequency. Anyway, this Jinni and I, we are trying to prevent other entities from dragging the human race into slavery.

  It was hard enough explaining it to himself. Besides Leo was also sure Regina and the rest of the family were safer away from him, for now at least.

  On the twelfth of August Simeon asked Leo to travel to Venice and meet him there. Leo was relieved to get out of the vaults, which were starting to feel a bit claustrophobic, and to visit the beautiful city of his ancestors. He met Simeon in a café bar in the Piazza San Marco. It was a warm summer’s day, just the type of day to receive bad news.

  “The game is up my friend,” said Simeon. “It seems Reuben has already obtained the book and is instigating a debt request with the intention of causing a world financial crisis.”

  Leo had not even managed a sip of his espresso yet. “How do you know this? Has he contacted you?”

  Simeon roared with laughter, sounding like a madman. “Reuben and I do not have ‘little chats’, my friend. In fact, he would pay dearly to find me and have me killed.” He waved a copy of the Financial Times at Leo. “No, I use this as my almanac and trust me, the clues are easy to spot when you know what to look for.”

  Intrigued, Leo examined the paper but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  “What? I can’t see anything. Some stocks are up, some down.”

  Simeon pointed. “Here, the article about the American mortgage boom.”

  Leo read the headline: “Sky high investments and growth over the last decade”.

  Simeon explained, “If you read the article you will see.” He pushes the paper to Leo’s side pointing to a article.

  WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced today that it priced a secondary offering of all Citigroup trust preferred securities (TruPS®) received pursuant to the Asset Guarantee Program (AGP). The aggregate gross proceeds from the offering, all of which represent a net gain or profit to the taxpayer under the AGP, will be $2.246 billion. The closing of the TruPS® sale is expected to occur on Tuesday, October 5, 2010. The entirety of Treasury's proceeds from this sale represents a profit to taxpayers, because Treasury did not incur any losses on the Citigroup assets it guaranteed in exchange for these TruPS®.

  Leo was none the wiser so Simeon continued. “Financial institutions run by bankers have used a false stability enabling them, in recent years, to loan huge amounts to US financial companies, thinking the money was tied up in a fiscal pool of long date securities. They believed the origin of the collateral was long gone so they used it as their own little piggy bank – just like I said. Then the origin re-emerged, I suspected this was Reuben using the book and the debts were called in, that’s what caused the recent worldwide crash, the article proves that Reuben has moved to the second stage in his plan and he must have the ledger.

  In other words Reuben has used the book to near bankrupt the world. If I’m correct he has gleefully torn down the pillars that held the financial world aloft. The banks, the insurance companies, large corporations all toppled like dominoes. He will use the collapse of these institutions as an opportunity to obtain them at knock-down prices, the market will steady in one or two years before he collapses them once again, only this time all his newly acquired companies will topple too, causing the end of first world prosperity and the beginning of a class system reminiscent of ancient times. Eventually Reuben will appear as a saviour and the world will bend its knee. That is his game plan: the people of the Western world fear nothing more than losing their luxuries, now even the once communist of the east have the same fears.”

  “So, we are too late?” Leo felt guilty at his relief that he could finally go home to his wife and await the consequences of the world falling under the influence of a psychotic evil dictator. “At least we tried”, will be his defence when reckoning is asked.

  “No! Of course not!” exclaimed Simeon. “We must act to reduce the impact, I suspect Reuben is struggling to deceiver the Yiddish dialect or he would have recalled far more resources. Since I noticed the warning signs of this financial crisis I have channelled my own resources. Hopefully, with a monetary and fiscal stimulus I can avert his planned second crash, and halt the world’s economy from spiralling into chaos. I can only soften the blow and slow his rise but this will buy time to prepare the human champion.”

  “Damn, here we go,” thought Leo. Then, out loud, “Who is this human champion? Please tell me it’s not me.”

  “No,” Simeon chuckled, “but you will meet him – you will know him by the beautiful woman on his arm. I will mentor you and then you shall mentor him.”

  Leo drank his espresso. He knew he was not going home to his wife. He doubted he would ever go home again

  From that day on Leo would meet Simeon at four or five times a month as he was told everything he needed to know about the contest and how it was played. They would meet in strange locations, sometimes in steam rooms at the back of a Masonic establishment, sometimes in bars or cafés.

  “Why here? Why Venice?” asked Leo one day, curious that they were in the town where he was born.

  “When the game began we nominated neutral zones, sanctuaries where no wars or epidemics could be purposely inflicted. Venice is one such zone and I hope that Reuben is not too far gone as to break that rule.”

  Once or twice they met in an upmarket brothel. Simeon may not have been of this world but from what Leo had witnessed he certainly enjoyed its pleasures.

  “How are you able to take human form?” Leo asked after listening to Simeon talk of all the exploits he and other Djinn had been party to over the centuries.

  “It is called anatomical assimilation. The arrival of the Djinn that you witnessed, with Solomon and the crater, that took more energy than would run this planet for a millennium, a complex process beyond man’s comprehension but let’s just say quantum physics would be like basic arithmetic in comparison.

  “However, once we had taken human form things became much simpler. First we synthesised an organic chemical called Vril that runs through our bodies. It works as a carrier that transfers our life force into others by a simple process similar to a blood transfusion. The Vril then travels through the person‘s bloodstream into a tiny gland you call the pineal gland and our consciousness takes over the vehicl
e that you know as a body.”

  “What happens to the person? Their personality? Their soul?” Leo said with a hint of accusation.

  “We don’t take the life, they are still alive in there.” Simeon pointed to his head. “But instead of the driver, they are now a back seat passenger, witnessing things they would only dream of in a normal life. But we’re only talking one person here – hundreds, no, thousands of humans die in your world every day. And we have given as well as taken.”

  “Really?” said Leo, unconvinced.

  “Look, Vril transfers our intellect but also extrasensory capabilities: telekinesis, telepathy, astral projection. Each Jinni has the ability to access these plus Vril makes us immune to disease and boosts all our body’s natural healing processes. As we have sired many children, our Vril has made its way into the majority of human descendants and with that came a leap in your intellect and physical health. Perhaps there is the possibility of humans also achieving the other ability’s. As of yet few humans have evolved sufficiently to access them but I believe there are some examples: Houdini, Karl Marx and Darwin would be the most famous recent to show such characteristics traits, however you could go all the way back to Buddha.”

  “You said you only take children… that they have to be offered to you by their parents? I find that hard to believe. It must be done under duress. I mean what sort of parent gives away the life of a son and what gives them the right?”

  Simeon’s voice was calm. “You have too high an opinion of your fellow man. Over the years people have traded the lives of their children for wealth, power, love, even revenge. After all, if you have five children and all are starving would you not give up one to save the rest? Of course once we were established it was even easier. Almost every powerful family or dynasty that has risen over the last three millennia has done so through a deal with one of us and they will also most likely be direct descendants, all can trace their genes back to one of us.

  “You have heard the myths of the genie of the lamp, no doubt, who grants three wishes? Well, all myths have some truth. We cannot explain to these parents the full extent of what we need of their child, only that we will not kill them and that they will be part of something very special. To be honest though, most never ask.” Simeon pauses to gauge Leo’s reaction to this information. “I can see from your expression that you are concerned about this process but let me assure you we are not able to force our Vril onto any human without the birth parent giving up the child. It is one of the rules even Reuben cannot break.”