by Rees, Kevin
Truly, the man under him had been a disappointment. Despatched with a broken broom-handle. That’s how he would taunt the Third Bloods — one of their finest killed with a stick. The wood stuck out of Tork’s chest, testimony to Father’s truth. He laughed again, picturing Karl Felton on his knees, weeping over his fallen friend. Perhaps he should take the head, just to add a little more grief.
That decision was taken away from Father as one of Tork’s men came in to look for him. He saw his comrade lying on the ground with Father squatting over him. Father looked back at the man with hate etched on to his snarling face for interrupting his gloating. The soldier snapped up his weapon and fired. The bullets tore into the plaster and ricocheted in all directions. One spun through the side of Tork’s head and exited out of his left eye. The soldier paused, looking for his target. Father was in one of the cubicles, hissing in fury. The soldier fired through the curtains, but Father moved with incredible speed, slashing through the flimsy material separating the bays before hurling himself through a window. The soldiers’ boots crunched over the glass as he ran to the hole and prepared to fire again.
But it was too late. The Bloodeater was gone.
25
Eddie woke with a jackhammer headache, and fizzing shooting stars firing across his closed lids. He lifted a hand slowly and probed the side of his head where Karl had hit him and groaned. It felt numb and tender all at the same time. He opened his eyes slowly, trying to filter the amount of light hitting his retinas. He lay on his back looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Eddie didn’t recognise the central plaster rose as being in his home, or anyone else’s he was acquainted with. As he tried to take to make sense of his surroundings, his other senses slowly began to catch up. He detected the smell of strong coffee coming from somewhere to his left. Eddie turned his head cautiously and saw Maya. She was out of her unflattering black combats, and was sat quietly watching him. He squinted and blinked to make sure it was the same woman. She was dressed casually in a low top and dark trousers. It looked to Eddie, as if she’d gone to some effort, even putting on a little make-up. As groggy as he was, he could see she didn’t have much experience in its application. But it didn’t matter, she looked like no other woman he’d woken up with before.
He tried to sit up, but found the banging in his head intensifying. In his youth, Eddie remembered having his head jammed into a bass bin at a Motorhead gig. The pain he was experiencing now was much worse. He persevered and pushed himself up.
‘Where’s Kat!’ Eddie rasped.
Maya leant forward placing a hand on his shoulder. She was unsure whether it was there to offer comfort, or to push him back onto the pillows. She settled for comfort and tried not to make her gesture awkward by forcing him back. Maya was still trying to restrain the jealousy she was feeling. She was inexperienced in love, but not a virgin. She had slept with two men, but it never felt she had been made love to. It was sex. She picked men who didn’t know she was Karl Felton’s daughter. Had they, she may still be a virgin. Her one regret was Lars. He was always kind and gentle around her. It wasn’t his fault how much of a selfish bitch she turned out to be. She knew how deeply that would have affected him. Perhaps in the end he decided death was less painful than living.
‘Let go of me. I need to see Kat. Where is she?’
‘She’s with our medics. They have her sedated.’ Maya moved from the chair and sat on the edge of his bed. A tingling started in the pit of her stomach the moment he woke up, and it was now moving down. Eddie’s musky smell was tripping all her senses. She had to resist the overwhelming urge to rip her clothes off and demand he fuck her right now. Maya fought to fix an expression of calm on her face.
‘I want to see her.’ Eddie struggled against the pain in his head, and immediately knew until it went away his legs wouldn’t carry him anywhere. It wasn’t just the pain. His desire to see Kat was starting to fade as he lost himself in Maya’s sensual eyes, which were so incredibly dilated he could see his reflection in the wide, black pupils. Eddie couldn’t stop himself taking a journey around her body. He saw her nipples, erect and pressing against the thin material of her shirt, and her inviting mouth, moist and slightly open. He desperately wanted to taste her. Eddie was aware of the erection building underneath the sheet, and even though his head pounded, he wanted to drag her onto him and make love to her.
A knock on the door killed the sexual tension as quickly as it had risen. Maya got off the bed and opened it.
Cole stood in the doorway. His arm was in a sling, and he looked exhausted and drawn. ‘Hi, Eddie. I just wanted to stop and say how much I appreciate you saving me.’ He grinned at the man on the bed. ‘Our surgeon said it was close.’
‘He’s just woken up,’ Maya snapped.
Cole peered at his sister. He saw the make-up and the thin sheen of sweat on her face. Likewise, Eddie looked flustered, and had his head turned away from the door. A flush of jealousy rose up inside him. ‘Did I interrupt something? Only your girlfriend is sleeping a couple of doors down the corridor, and I thought you’d want to know our guys are looking after her.’ He kept his eyes on Eddie.
Eddie turned his head and muttered, ‘Thanks.’
‘Guess you heard it was Sixsmith,’ Cole said, seeing confusion cross the other man’s face. ‘Guy who shot me. The one with an umbrella stuck up his arse.’
‘It was Sixsmith!’
‘Yeah, Sixsmith.’
‘Wasn’t he supposed to be working with you guys?’ Eddie said, sitting up and ignoring the jarring pain. ‘Wasn’t he some high-up, government spook?’
‘By spook you mean some kinda spy? Naw, he was just some over-promoted desk jockey. Supposed to be liaison between us and the Government.’
Maya cut in. ‘Enough, Cole. He needs to rest,’
Cole looked at her coolly. ‘You want me to go, sis, so you can mop his brow again?’ His smile held little humour.
‘Cole!’
‘Okay, I’ll go. Perhaps I’ll check on your girlfriend, Eddie. See how she’s doing until you can do that yourself.’ The boy held their gaze before leaving them alone again.
Maya closed the door and paused before turning. She still wanted to get under the sheets and feel his body next to hers. But Cole was right. His girlfriend was lying on a bed in their medical unit.
‘Maya. Just now I want you to...’
‘It’s okay, Eddie.’
He lay back down onto the pillows and winced as the pain shifted slowly to the back of his head like it had evolved into a lava lamp. The light was starting to dim in the room, which helped. And it was cool, maybe a little too cool. Then Eddie realised he was naked under the sheets. He wondered who had stripped him, Maya perhaps. The thought of her hands running over his body began the stirrings of another erection.
He looked across the room. The woman, who a few hours ago seemed to want to tear his balls off, was now acting like some unsure teenager wondering if anyone will find her attractive enough to take to the ball. He could tell she was more comfortable in war than love. He’d witnessed her ability to kill without hesitation. But in situations like relationships, she was incredibly insecure.
‘How’s the team?’ Eddie said, feigning interest.
‘Tork was killed by Father,’ Maya said, quietly.
Eddie detected a slight quiver in her voice. Tork must have been something more than just one of the soldier’s to her. ‘How’d it happen?’
‘Somehow, Father took him by surprise. I can’t believe it. He was one of our finest fighters. He was the best mentor — taught me everything. Kept me alive when I should have been killed.’ Maya felt it was safe to sit back down on the bed as the arousal had passed for her. ‘Tork was making sure we had everything belonging to us stowed. He was always the last to leave. Seems Father made sure we had another loss to mourn.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Another knock interrupted them. Karl Felton opened the door and walked in. His face was set in a mask of hatred,
but he tried to illicit something that moulded itself into a forced smile.
‘Eddie. I wanted to see how you are.’
‘Okay, I think,’ he said, unconsciously massaging his neck.
‘I’m sorry I had to hit you, but that was all you left me with.’ He didn’t deliver the statement as an apology, or seek forgiveness.
Both men stood looking at each other, neither knowing what else to say.
‘I told Eddie about Tork,’ Maya said.
‘Tork, Lars, Stephen and Roman; They’re all dead because of my obsession.’ Karl’s fury simmered. ‘It was Sixsmith’s betrayal that cannot be excused. I should have seen the deceit; the way he guided my hand and used his position to influence key decisions. His attempt to take the life of my son has set about a personal quest, ending when his head is separated from his black body.’
‘Father!’
As Karl spoke, his warrior blood rose to the surface. He turned at the sound of her voice. He saw Eddie staring at him wide-eyed, and felt a little guilt towards the man who’d saved his son. The warrior state was for later, not now. Karl left the room without another word.
‘You’d better get up and go see your girlfriend. She’ll need to know you’re here,’ Maya said. She left the room to look for her father.
His headache was gradually receding. Desire may have clouded out the pain for the moment, but he was sure it would be back. Something else was causing him to focus on the last few minutes. He struggled to identify it, but self-reproach was close. His concern since all this had begun was Kat. He’d fought and killed to get her back. But, in the process, another woman kept pushing her out of the way and was refusing to move. He was conflicted, and couldn’t understand why he felt like he did. He thought he loved Kat, but Maya was putting that to the test. Hell, he’d almost had sex with her. Another few minutes, and Kat would have been one of his fading memories. All he was sure of right now was that both women were dominating his thoughts. When he tried thinking about Kat, only the image of Maya’s face came into sharp focus.
‘Shit,’ he said, leaning heavily back onto the pillows. ‘What the fuck have you got yourself into Keagan?’
26
Cotrane skewed her vehicle across white gates that rose like silent sentries guarding a long, winding drive that led to Thoragan’s house. She wanted to arrive on foot giving her the advantage of catching him off guard. Cotrane was certain Thoragan wouldn’t run; she just wanted all her options covered. And, if she was right, he would be expecting a car to pull up with Janathen playing delivery boy.
Cotrane had gone over her evidence in the car and knew it was tightrope-thin, but she couldn’t ignore the connection that pointed to Thoragan, who must have persuaded Janathen to recover Cruz-Smith’s brain. There was no other explanation for the coincidence. Thoragan knew he had to act quickly and couldn’t allow his former spy’s brain tissue to be scanned. It was much more than chance, especially as she had primed the bait in Thoragan’s library to see if he would bite. But (and it was a doozy of a but), Thoragan could argue the flipside of coincidence was just that — coincidence. And he’d be right. There was no physical evidence to prove any of the theories except her gut telling her he instigated a robbery that got his brother killed.
Jarvis emerged from the car and stood beside her. Quietly, Cotrane opened the gates and walked up the winding path. Jarvis stayed behind the woman, keeping a few steps distance between them. He was thankful to be out of the vehicle. The drive over had been icy, not reflecting the casual relationship their professional partnership had grown into over the last few months. Her monosyllabic responses were tiring and he’d run out of open-ended questions that didn’t sound as if he were squirming, which, Jarvis convinced himself, he wasn’t. Strangely, he found the unexpected distance between them made him feel he had lost something of importance — a rare emotion to surface between professional colleagues.
Cotrane’s long coat brushed against the neatly trimmed hedges as she advanced up the drive, aware Jarvis was moving with cat-like stealth behind her. As she neared the house, uncertainty was starting to entwine her about the wisdom of confronting a man without any evidence he’d done anything wrong. The confidence she generated in the car was fading. During the journey, Cotrane had crystallised a plan that was nearly railroaded by Jarvis’s constant chatter. She rehearsed what she was going to say, and Thoragan’s possible responses up until the inevitable question — who killed his brother.
Cotrane wasn’t sure if Thoragan remembered her. It was over twenty-five years ago when she was briefly part of Janathen’s life. She had been one of his many conquests that year when he was promoted to Battalion Major and shamelessly sauntered around in his black and red uniform, dazzling everyone with his heroic stories. On one of the more memorable days, they attended a garden party held to celebrate Lee Thoragan’s rise to power. Cotrane accompanied Janathen as his date and was briefly introduced to the man who had that morning been appointed officially to the Senate. She recalled the party was subdued. Guests stood quietly beneath shady trees, mixing as well as oil and water. There were some high ranking officials, a few of Thoragan’s supporters, and a smattering of the military — mostly from Janathen’s unit — who, she recalled, behaved disgracefully. Cotrane remembered the few brief conversations the two brothers had. Even elevated into a powerful position in the Senate, she thought how subdued and dim Thoragan looked in Janathen’s light.
After a month it felt like their relationship was going nowhere and the gaps between dates grew until they both stopped calling. It would have happened one way or another, even if she had felt anything for him. Janathen could only accept her total devotion — something he believed his fame and position offered without question.
‘There’s a light on in the study. Seems someone’s up late,’ Jarvis whispered.
Cotrane stopped.
The golden glow spilled out of the window, illuminating the open area between the drive and house. What the light didn’t reveal was a team of guards patrolling the extensive grounds as standard operating procedure when Aquino was staying away from his official residence.
‘Movement,’ Jarvis hissed, dragging Cotrane behind a low hedge. She struggled furiously in his grip until he let go and dropped to one knee. Jarvis expected even his superior to react according to what the situation warranted, and the situation required Cotrane to get on the ground before being seen.
‘What are you doing?’ she hissed, angrily.
Jarvis looked up at her, more surprised by her tone than the question. He whispered back. ‘Thoragan was in the window looking out, Ma’am. I didn’t think you wanted him to see us until we got to the door to gauge his reaction.’
Cotrane delivered a mental rebuke. Jarvis was right. The element of surprise was the reason for the covert approach to the door. She couldn’t be sure a brain scan would yield anything useful that would incriminate Thoragan. She had to witness his reaction to the news Janathen was dead.
‘Let’s get to the door.’ She ducked and ran, using the tall hedge for cover.
Jarvis followed, alert to any movement.
The door was ten metres away across gravel. Cotrane and Jarvis walked slowly, making no noise until they stepped up to the door. The bell shone with a white glow, inviting a finger to press it. Cotrane obliged.
The two guards heard the chimes echoing loudly in the spacious hallway and waited. As the first ring started to die, Cotrane and Jarvis heard running feet crossing the hallway with an urgency that was obvious. A key was scraped repeatedly along a brass plate before being ground into the keyhole with some force until the clack of a heavy lock disengaging stopped any further abuse to the mechanism. Thoragan tore open the door, sprinted out. He pulled up sharply when he saw two figures standing in the shadows. They stood facing each other in silence as each party waited for someone to speak first. Cotrane decided it was her moment.
‘Praetor Thoragan. My deepest apologies for calling on you at this hour,’ she sai
d. ‘May we come in?’
‘Why?’ Thoragan demanded in a voice strained by the shock of seeing the two guards. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Perhaps it would be better if we spoke inside,’ Cotrane pressed, taking a step forward. She could almost see his brain processing information — weighing up whether he had been caught.
He used his frame to block the doorway, expecting the woman wasn’t going to be easily deterred. Thoragan felt a sea of compromising emotions lap hotly around his neck, which, if he didn’t curb the rise in the next few minutes, could see him drown — or worse — if Janathen should arrive with Cruz-Smith’s brain under his arm. ‘Are you checking to see if the President is still safe under my roof?’ He forced a weak chuckle.
‘May we come in, Praetor?’ Cotrane repeated, adding more insistence to her request.
He considered her before stepping to one side and gestured to the library. Thoragan walked in behind the two guards and invited them to sit. Jarvis chose the chair nearest the door that Thoragan had sat on earlier. Cotrane remained standing next to the mantelpiece.
‘May I ask what this is about? And does it warrant waking the President, and myself?’ Thoragan tried to inject authority into his voice.
‘Perhaps it’s best if you sit down, sir.’
‘Madam, you seem to have my welfare on your mind, but if you would please tell me what is this about?’
‘We’re here about your brother, Praetor,’ Jarvis said.
‘Who?’ Thoragan’s stomach tightened. He knew the single word was delivered quickly, and with too much emphasis.
‘Janathen. He is your only brother, isn’t he?’ Cotrane questioned, keeping her tone neutral. Without waiting for confirmation, she went on. ‘Only I’m afraid I must inform you he’s dead.’
Thoragan sat heavily on the small settee, as incongruous emotions vied inside him. Janathen dead. He rolled the idea around as if savouring a fine wine. Janathen was dead and gone.
