Abaddonian Dream

by M. K. Woollard

  “But if the police know-”

  “The police are not out here,” Ettore said. “He does not change identity because of them, but because of us. And he knows the information would be unlikely to come to us from the police… He might risk it.”

  Ettore snapped the blade closed and Hammell breathed again.

  “If your information is correct,” Ettore said, “you may be permitted to live. If not, you will die for what you have done.”

  “Yeah, I’m still a little fuzzy on that,” Hammell said, but Ettore was done with him. He turned away as Hammell was jerked to his feet and dragged away at the direction of the friendly female guard. He was taken through the kitchens, down a set of old stone steps, and was practically thrown down the steps into the cellar.

  Another fucking cellar, he complained to himself as the door was locked behind him. Coughing as he breathed in the thick dust stirred up by his shoes, his eyes struggled to focus in the dim light coming from a single tiny window. Lamenting the loss of his iEye and its nightvision, his eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom – and as they did, they lit up. Now this is a cellar! There was no bottle opener he could see, but that wouldn’t stop him. He’d learned a range of tricks over the years, including one particularly handy one requiring only a shoe and a wall, both of which he currently had access to.

  Chapter 33

  He’d been fed four times during the two days he’d been held down here. He wasn’t being starved exactly, but he was hungry most of the time, and he was having cravings for Chinese food so intense they were bordering on withdrawal symptoms. It made him wonder what exactly the Choi Inn were putting in their noodles…

  There was a toilet down here and a large sink with a single cold water tap which had to double up as his shower. A vent provided the only fresh air, but its fan was broken, rendering the cellar dank, hot and airless. He’d considered escaping but he still had the issue of thinking of somewhere to escape to, and in any case he wanted to see how things panned out, now more than ever. Still, it didn’t hurt to have a contingency plan.

  It wouldn’t be easy, he’d discovered quickly. The door was guarded and the window and ventilation shaft were both so narrow that a toddler would struggle to get through. The only viable plan was to scrape away the cement from the bricks in the walls. He’d made a start, using the glass from a broken wine bottle, but he was far from certain he’d be down here long enough to complete the plan, so he had yet to really commit to it.

  In truth, he’d spent more time chasing rats than he had trying to get away, even catching one once, before panicking and shrieking and letting the thing go again. He’d also twice so far drunk himself into a stupor, slept until sober and then begun the process again. He had a good excuse, since no entertainment had been provided and he couldn’t pick up a connection to any network, possibly because of the thick concrete above or possibly because the signal was being blocked. Probably both.

  She came to him on the third day, fortunately in the morning. He hadn’t been awake long enough to get through more than half a bottle of a light breakfast wine - a Beaujolais of some description; he’d never been much of a wine connoisseur. She was allowed into the cellar by the guard at the door. The streaming daylight behind her was blinding as she walked carefully down the concrete steps, her heels clicking in the quiet. Hammell’s eyes slowly readjusted to the darkness as she cleared off an old wooden chair opposite his own.

  “You didn’t run,” Eva said as she perched on the edge of the seat, no doubt wanting to avoid getting dust on her clothes or splinters in her backside.

  “No.”

  She looked around at the cobweb-filled cellar. “And now you’re here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you come out here?” she asked. “What were you hoping to gain? Was your plan to search the entire Reserves on your own? An ex-policeman with no friends and no resources - a man who is himself now being hunted by the police - you really thought you would be the one to catch Roy Brown?”

  Hammell shrugged. He had no better answer.

  “You came out here to die,” Eva said. It was not a question.

  “Why are you here, Eva?” Hammell asked, changing the subject.

  “I hope for your sake the information you gave Ettore is good.” She nodded towards the stairs. “Today is the day we find out.”

  Hammell swallowed nervously. “He’s the boss, eh? Ettore?”

  Eva watched him warily. “You don’t know anything about him.”

  “I know he slit Asha’s throat.”

  Eva raised her arm - the one Asha had cut open. “She would’ve slit mine in a heartbeat.”

  “I know he handed me a death sentence for no reason.”

  “No,” she said. “He didn’t.”

  Hammell sat up, interested. “It was that night in The Happy Trout, wasn’t it? That was my mistake.”

  “Your first one,” Eva confirmed.

  “You set a trap for him, didn’t you?”

  “Ettore did,” she said. “He picked a bar that Roy Brown’s men had opened and got me installed as resident entertainer. Ettore thought word would get around and the Red King would eventually come to see for himself. He has a thing for bars - and singers.”

  Don’t we all? Hammell thought. “And you had him. He walked into the trap.”

  “It took weeks, months,” Eva said. “When he came, his face was different and they never got there to ping him, but I knew it was him. I knew. So I signalled Ettore. If I could have just kept him there a little longer...”

  “But I’d blundered in - an obvious outsider, an I.A.” He held up his hands. “Ok, it’s a cock-up. But a death sentence? That seems a tad harsh.”

  “I said that was your first mistake.”

  “Oh?” Hammell said. “What else did I do?”

  Eva opened her mouth to speak, but the door at the top of the stairs opened and the guard leaned in. “Eva,” he called down quietly. “It’s time.”

  Eva stood up. “Come on. Ettore is waiting.”

  Placing his wine bottle down on the floor, Hammell got to his feet wearily. “Do I have time to take a quick shower first? Whichever way this goes, I’d rather face it clean.”

  Eva looked at him suspiciously, as if she suspected personal hygiene wasn’t one of his higher priorities.

  “Even for me there’s a limit,” he said, understanding the look perfectly. Another couple of days spent drinking in a hot, airless cellar would probably bring me close to it.

  He opened the window in the shower, just to check, waving to the three guards stationed outside. When he emerged fresh and clean, Eva was already gone, but a new set of clothing had been laid out for him. He guessed that Hector himself may have donated the suit, since it was made from an expensive looking cloth with an excellent cut; Hammell hadn’t seen anyone else around here with this much style, except maybe for Eva. It wasn’t tailored for him, obviously, and it was a touch too small, yet it still fit better than any of his own suits. He surveyed himself in a mirror approvingly. It took a bit of time, but I’ve finally achieved an acceptable outfit.

  An android led him to a car parked in the garages, where a group of three people were waiting, ready to drive him into the Reserves. A periscope-like contraption had been installed in the back of the car, which the woman sitting alongside him was using to scan the sky. At one point she called something out in a language he couldn’t identify and the driver suddenly sped up, veering into an open garage where he killed the engine. They waited for ten minutes before the woman got out to survey the skies from the roof with a pair of binoculars. Only when she was satisfied did they cautiously move off again.

  Leaving the car in a disused underground car park, Hammell was led away on foot. They passed within ruined buildings wherever possible, hurrying quickly across the open roads between, until finally they came to a battered old terraced house. Entering through the back door, he was led up a single flight of stairs to an empty room with peeling blue pai
nt on the walls and bare wooden floorboards. Scalpel Hector waited for him, sat on the floor beneath a broken window, looking out over the street. The slender man gestured for Hammell to sit beside him, and he did so, his shoes scraping on the dusty wood.

  “Nice suit,” Ettore murmured.

  “Yeah,” he replied - the only words exchanged as they waited in silence, though Hammell didn’t know what for.

  As they sat, Hammell started to become nervous. He smiled at the friendly female guard; the very one who had been keen on executing him in the library. She stared back at him unwaveringly. If it goes that way, she’ll be the one holding me down while he cuts my throat. He could sense the moment of decision coming and he’d had time to contemplate how he would face his execution. He liked the idea of going out with quiet dignity, a silent display of courage. He’d decided though to kick and scream and attempt a mad dash for freedom. He’d be dying anyway - who cared about dignity?

  Adjusting his legs to keep the blood flowing, Ettore’s hand shot out suddenly to quiet him. Hammell glanced out of the window, but could see nothing and no-one in the street. Ettore’s fingers though were white where they clenched Hammell’s arm - he realised and let go with a murmured apology. Ettore looked casual, but he was feeling the tension too.

  An hour passed and Hammell felt himself beginning to relax. He had to fight to keep himself on a knife-edge, not wanting to be caught unawares if the order came. He knew that, if he wasn’t ready for it, if he allowed his mind to become bored and start to drift into fantasies about Eva or a life on Abaddon that would never be, it would be too big a shock when the blade was raised and he couldn’t be certain of controlling his reaction. Plans for dignified silence or fighting were all well and good, but if death snuck up on him, he could just as easily end up clinging to Ettore’s ankles and sobbing like a baby.

  His ears pricked up as he heard sounds from the street - footsteps and quiet voices. Adrenaline surged through his body. This is it!

  Ettore sprang silently to his feet with all the stealth and nimbleness of a cat. The wiry man edged his head towards the window and peered out. “I thought,” Ettore whispered, “that you should witness the result of your work.”

  Standing up cautiously, taking care that his shoes didn’t make too much noise on the floorboards, Hammell peered out, seeing a group of eight men walking along the street flanked by four grey androids. The men wore black suits, black ties, white shirts and sunglasses and they were all of a size, appearing as uniform as their robotic guards. The man in the middle though was different; short and stocky and familiar.

  “We got him,” Ettore said through clenched teeth. “We finally got him.”

  The entourage moved on down the long street, keeping close to the terraced houses on the far side. Running his eyes along a little way, Hammell spotted an old pub – their apparent destination. Suddenly the entourage stopped all as one, and the four androids advanced to the head of the group, guns in their hands. His heart began to pound as six - no, eight - men and women made their way languidly across the street, machineguns held casually in their hands, blocking the path of Roy Brown and his people.

  Hammell felt a strange mix of emotions – relief that he would live, mixed with nervousness and excitement at what was about to happen. As stupid and unlikely as his plan had been, it had only gone and worked. His mind went back to the images he’d seen on the video from Paris, and to the thought of Rosine Carine’s hand reaching out from the grave towards her murderer. This is from her, he thought. Her and Asha and Yun and Toskan and all the others. He turned to Ettore, but the slender assassin was no longer there; he’d slipped away soundlessly.

  “You lucky bastard,” the friendly woman at the door whispered.

  “Yeah,” Hammell said as he looked back to the street.

  Roy Brown’s men had guns in their hands now too, but they were all small arms, pistols. As Hammell watched, Ettore appeared, strolling out onto the cracked asphalt, still apparently unarmed, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “You!” Roy Brown spat.

  Ettore nodded. “Me.”

  “You’ll die for this,” the Red King said, his eyes dark and voice venomous. “Badly.”

  Hammell was surprised just how small and weaselly the man sounded. For a criminal kingpin, he’d expected a more commanding voice, not the high-pitched whine he could hear now. Even from up here though, Hammell could see the dangerous glint in his dark little eyes. This was the type of man he would avoid eye contact with in a pub; the type that gave off barely perceptible warning signals that something wasn’t quite right with him.

  “You first,” Ettore said as he stepped behind a low garden wall and raised his head to look up.

  Following his gaze, Hammell saw people appear at nearly every first and second floor window and on every rooftop along the street; hundreds of them, men and women, all armed to the teeth with pistols, machineguns and rifles. The street was long, lined on each side by an unbroken row of terraced houses. Roy Brown was trapped and he could see it, yet Hammell saw no evidence of fear on his face. Instead his eyes blazed with fury. Even from up here, Hammell could feel the malice radiating from the man - all of it directed towards Ettore.

  “Whatever else happens,” Roy Brown said quietly to the men in his entourage, who were considerably more jittery; some of them were not ready to die today, “he dies!”

  Ettore smiled. “Arrivederci, Roy.”

  The Red King fired. Ettore though was quick, dropping down behind the garden wall as Roy Brown’s bullet sent up a puff of dust from the brickwork behind him. The entourage opened up on Ettore - and the slender assassin’s people needed no second invitation. They let loose with a massive burst of concentrated fire, all directed down at the small clustered group on the street. Hammell’s eyes locked onto the Red King, seeing the very moment he fell, his body disintegrating beneath him as he screamed in animal rage, and for a moment Hammell was convinced that those furious eyes were staring up at him. He felt the hatred pouring out towards him – but then the Red King was gone, vanishing into the blurry haze of bullets and dust and blood.

  The guns roared for a few more seconds and then stopped, the return to silence almost as sudden and shocking as the eruption of gunfire. Picking himself up, Ettore dusted off his leather coat and walked over to the bloody crater. The slender man pulled a gun from somewhere – a tiny two-shot pistol. He fired it into the pulpy mass once and then twice then raised his head up to his people. “It is over.”

  The victorious gunmen burst into spontaneous applause and cheering. Cries of ‘the King is dead!’ began to ring out as Ettore gestured for Hammell to come down and join him. Nodding to the friendly woman beside the door, he walked on shaky legs down the stairs, emerging onto the street. Approaching the scene of the massacre, he expected to see organs and faces and body parts, but there was nothing left but an unidentifiable bloody mush. It looks like a mini La Tomatina festival that got out of hand.

  Ettore clapped him on the back. “It is over,” he repeated as he ran to the first of his people coming down from the rooftops.

  Scanning the faces of the people pouring out into the street, Hammell supposed they had been the ones living beneath Roy Brown’s shadow, so they could perhaps be forgiven for their increasingly wild celebrations. A few were suitably solemn, with one or two taking a moment to compose themselves on the sidelines, but for the most part the mood was jubilant. Even Hammell had to admit that he felt a certain thrill at having played his part in bringing down the Red King, the great monster of their time. But he’d also never seen such sudden, instant death up close. It left him with an empty, nauseous feeling.

  Chapter 34

  An impromptu party had broken out at the mansion, which seemed in slightly poor taste given that many of the partygoers had been at the execution - had been the very ones doing the executing. Hammell supposed they had to mentally work through it somehow. He himself couldn’t get the image out of his head of a group of
men suddenly being turned into a thick red mist; of Roy Brown’s bloodied teeth and ferocious black eyes shining through the carnage, staring up at him accusingly.

  Ettore was partying as hard as anyone, drunk and dancing. He even tried to drag Hammell up from where he was sitting talking to a girl a fraction of his age; a slightly awkward moment, made bearable by the fact that Hammell too had sunk his fair share of alcohol. He didn’t much feel like celebrating, but whisky was whisky, especially when it was free. Hammell allowed himself to be persuaded, using the opportunity as Ettore spun him round and round to ask the most pertinent of his many questions: “So… am I still your prisoner?”

  The slender assassin merely spun him away again and continued his revelling and Hammell was left standing in the middle of the dancefloor feeling uncomfortable. He made his way back to the sofa to sit down next to the young woman again, smiling at her awkwardly, finding he had even less to say to her now. I haven’t drunk enough for this.

  The sound of gunfire rang out suddenly, followed by the sound of breaking glass. A few people had earlier slipped outside to fire off their weapons into the air in celebration, but this was coming from inside the mansion – someone somewhere was using empty bottles for target practice. It struck Hammell as a recipe for disaster, guns and alcohol, but he couldn’t really complain. It was that very recklessness that had allowed him to swipe the handgun from where it had sat unattended on a coffee table. The pistol was warming his pocket right now as he sat debating what to do. Gunning Ettore down in full view of his people might not be the best thing for Hammell’s wellbeing, but then again he had never really expected to survive this little foray into the Reserves. He had known exactly what he was walking into and could never have imagined getting shot at both Roy Brown and Scalpel Hector. But the Red King was already gone and now Ettore, the man who had effectively sent Asha Ishi to her grave, danced drunk and unsuspecting before him.