by Siegel, Alex
He went to the window and peeked through the broken glass. Aaron, he thought. You did this to me. Once again, I'm the sucker.
The legate came running out of the cement factory with her machetes held behind her like airplane wings. She was moving at an incredible speed even for her. She leapt through the air and landed on a boat, almost capsizing it. She started the engine and turned the boat towards Xavier. As she sped across the river, she was looking straight at him as if she could see him.
He heard the squeal of a car making a hard turn at high speed. She wasn't the only one coming after him.
"Shit!" He ran.
* * *
Hanley felt the explosion as much as he heard it. The whole cement factory shuddered and dust drifted down from the ceiling. The windows nearest the blast shattered. He saw a fireball to the west and its orange light brightened the room. Everybody looked in that direction with startled expressions.
A few seconds later, he heard the distinctive boom of a powerful sniper rifle. He knew the sound from his days as a soldier, and it usually meant somebody had just died.
A movement on his left drew Hanley's attention. A sizable group of legionnaires was sprinting towards the river. They wore black and gray body armor that was unlike any kind he had ever seen before. Where the hell did they come from? And where are they going?
The men of the Special Missions Unit were looking to each other for guidance.
Hanley raised his arms and yelled, "Stay where you are! Nobody goes outside! I'll check it out."
He ran to the front of the cement factory because that seemed the safer direction. Whatever those legionnaires were doing back by the river, he wanted no part of it.
He leaned outside and looked around. The explosion had destroyed an enormous piece of machinery near the factory. Only twisted steel plates and broken concrete remained. Some heavy chunks of debris had been thrown well down the street.
He didn't see any threats so he took another step.
He heard a gunshot. Suddenly, he felt severe pain in his side. He looked down and saw blood oozing from a wound just below his ribs. The shooter had managed to hit a small gap in his body armor.
He stumbled back into the safety of the factory. "Stay behind cover!" he yelled. "There's a sniper out there!"
He leaned against a wall for support. He used his hand to put pressure on the wound, but blood forced its way through his fingers. The bullet had gone deep. His men crowded around and offered to help but none of them were medics.
"Call an ambulance," Hanley added.
* * *
Ethel felt the wind whipping against her face, and it filled her ears with white noise. She was moving so fast it seemed like she was flying down the streets of Chicago. Pedestrians barely had time to react before she was gone. She was outrunning the cars.
She felt God's presence very strongly. His rage surged through her veins like streams of lava. It made her feel invincible. The Lord would not be denied His vengeance this time.
She approached the brick apartment building where Xavier was located. She was pleased to see several legionnaires already on the scene. They were guarding the exits until reinforcements arrived. The plan was to sweep the building systematically using Marina's entire search team. Xavier would be cornered and exterminated like a rat.
Ethel had a better idea. She would kill him herself.
She leapt and crashed through the front door feet first. Wood paneling splintered under the impact. She landed without stopping and headed towards a stairwell. Taking the steps three at a time, she bounded upwards. Her body armor was making her hot, but there wasn't time to take it off.
She went to the fifth floor. According to Aaron, her enemy was bleeding, and it didn't take long to find the blood trail. A line of red drops ran along the tiled floor of a hallway. Ethel touched the blood and found it was still fresh and warm.
She proceeded more cautiously now with her machetes held in front of her. Xavier was still armed and very dangerous. She couldn't dodge a bullet, at least not without a little warning.
Ethel glided through the hallway as silently as a ghost. Even though her footsteps were rapid, her soft shoes didn't slap the ground. The trail ended at a doorway, and a puddle of blood showed where Xavier had stopped for a moment. Apparently, he was inside an apartment.
She was certain he had booby trapped the door. There were two ways to get through a dangerous door: very carefully or very loudly. She took a grenade off her belt, pulled the pin, and placed it on the door handle. She ran down the hall.
In her eyes, the world moved in slow motion. She watched the grenade turn into an expanding fireball that filled the hallway. Metal fragments shot in all directions, and some flew the length of the hall. One zipped past her head.
Even before the walls stopped reverberating, Ethel was running. She crashed through the remnants of the door.
Four identical Xaviers stood in the apartment beyond. Their left arms had been blown off leaving gruesome stumps. In their right hands they held guns aimed at Ethel's chest, and their fingers were already pulling the triggers.
She had just a split second to react, but that was plenty of time for her. She jumped straight up. The hammers on four guns fell. Only one gun actually fired, and it told her which Xavier was the real one. A bullet shot between her legs.
She hurled one of her machetes. The blade flew across the room and severed his right hand at the wrist. She landed from her jump. She kicked forward, performed a flip in the air, and slammed her feet into his chest. He fell back. She used her other machete to hack his knee. She didn't cut all the way through the thick joint but still did plenty of damage.
The fight was over. Xavier had no hands and only one good leg left. Ethel allowed herself to look around.
It was a tiny apartment with just three rooms, and one was the bathroom. An elderly Chinese couple was huddling in the corner, their eyes wide with terror.
"Get out," Ethel growled at them.
The couple scrambled to escape as quickly as their wobbly legs would carry them.
Ethel turned her attention back to Xavier. His skin color was already an unhealthy pasty white. She expected he would live long enough to have a conversation though.
She smiled.
"I suppose I should feel honored. The Lord sent his favorite bitch to finish me off. Do it now." He raised his chin and exposed his neck. "Take my head."
"Not yet."
"Are you waiting for me to beg for mercy? You want to see me grovel? Not a chance. Everything I did was for Rhiannon and for justice."
She raised her eyebrows. "How does betraying your own people serve justice?"
"You obey a capricious and sadistic Master. I would do anything to weaken His cruel grip on this world. It wasn't betrayal. It was the only honorable course of action."
"A bold statement." She knelt down and ran the edge of her machete across the stubble on his chin. Hairs popped off one at a time.
"Rhiannon..."
"Rhiannon died!" she yelled in his face. "You're about to die! One day I'll die! Everybody dies! It's the inevitable result of being alive and it means nothing."
He snarled. "God could've saved her."
"So?"
"She was full of love and wisdom. She served the Lord with every fiber of her being. She deserved to live."
Ethel stood up. "Do you sit on God's throne? Do you see what He sees? Do you know the infinitely subtle details of His plan? No. You have a tiny, stupid, human brain. You don't have the faintest idea who deserves to live! Such arrogance."
"Yet you claim to know God's will," Xavier said.
"Because He tells it to me! I don't have to guess at anything. The Lord is inside my head right now. He's witnessing your death through my eyes."
He turned his head away.
"The fault doesn't lie within God," Ethel said. "It lies within you. You forgot your purpose, and you forgot the purpose of the Gray Spear Society. In your grief you lost sight of wh
at's truly important."
"Talk about the pot calling the kettle black." He boldly glared at her. "Your only purpose is killing. You've been so close to death for so long it's all you know. Are you even capable of empathy? Do you remember what happiness feels like? Do you care about the ordinary people that the Society is supposed to protect?"
"I care..."
"About what?"
She walked over to a frost covered window and looked outside. There were no police cars on the street. The twins had disabled all police communications to prevent the authorities from getting mixed up in this fight. Ethel didn't see any legionnaires, either, which meant they had already entered the building.
"I'm waiting." Xavier's voice was getting feeble.
Ethel turned to him. "I care about my division. I care about my friends."
"You don't have friends! Only slaves who are terrified of you."
Aaron and Marina are my friends, she thought. At least they were until I separated them because they loved each other too much. That wasn't very friendly of me.
"You're a dried up witch fueled by the Lord's wrath," Xavier said. "There is nothing left of your humanity but a thin shell. Do the feelings of other people matter to you at all?"
The words cut her deeply. She wanted to brush them off, but God wouldn't let her. This is vital information. Pay attention!
She rubbed her temples. She hated it when God taught her a hard life lesson at a surprising moment.
Xavier snarled. "The only relationship you understand is hatred, but you feel qualified to judge other people's love. It's the most important emotion of all, and you can't even experience it. Such arrogance. Such weakness." His voice was almost inaudible.
Ethel couldn't shake off the insult despite the fact that an insane traitor had uttered it. The words were true. God forced her to contemplate the wisdom in them even though it was painful. Xavier was still a smart man.
She picked up the machete she had thrown earlier. She walked over to him and slashed his throat. He had already lost so much blood it hardly spurted.
She walked into the hallway. The sound of rapid footsteps made her look up, and she saw Hammer running towards her. His soft, thick armor was wrapped tightly around his muscular body. It looked good on him.
"Ma'am!" he yelled. "Are you all right? Where's Xavier?"
"Dead," she said. "It's over."
"Thank God." He slowed down.
"Where's Marina?"
He glanced back. "She's in the building. She's leading the search team while they perform their sweep. I ran ahead to make sure you were safe, ma'am."
"I think I need to talk to her."
* * *
Hanley heard the siren as the ambulance approached the cement factory. The men of the Special Missions Unit made room so the ambulance could park inside the building.
Paramedics hopped out of the back. They quickly checked his medical condition and then loaded him onto a gurney. The bullet wound made him wince with pain whenever he was moved.
Finally, he was secured in the back of the ambulance. This wasn't the first time he had been injured. He was very familiar with the procedure.
The paramedics jumped out and closed the rear doors, leaving Hanley alone. The ambulance drove away.
"Hey!" Hanley yelled. "What's going on?!"
"Hello," a man said.
Hanley craned his neck to see the source of the voice.
Smythe was in the ambulance, wearing a white doctor's coat. "Let me take a look at that." He knelt down and used a pair of scissors to snip away Hanley's clothes around the bullet hole.
"Do you know who shot me?" Hanley said.
"Aaron."
"What? That bastard could've killed me!"
"Not likely." Smythe shook his head. "He placed the bullet perfectly."
Without warning he pushed his hand into Hanley's abdomen. It felt like an animal was crawling around inside his guts. Hanley squirmed reflexively.
"Hold still," Smythe barked.
Hanley tried but it was difficult. His instincts were telling him to run away from the man with the magical hands.
Smythe pulled out a small bullet and gave it to Hanley. "A souvenir."
Hanley studied the bullet. It looked like a .22 caliber, and the soft nose was smashed. The pain in his side was gone, and when he checked the wound, he found it was fully healed. This didn't seem strange for some reason. He was getting used to witnessing the occasional miracle.
"Thank you." He sat up.
Smythe wiped his hands on his coat. "But in a way Aaron did kill you. The official report will state that Race Hanley died of internal hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital. It seems that bullet hit a major artery. You're a very unlucky man."
"Won't you need a body?"
"We know a guy in the medical examiner's office. Making bodies appear or disappear is a problem we can deal with. Take off your armor and weapons. They won't let you walk around the airport dressed like that."
"I'm going to the airport?" Hanley said.
"Marina will meet you there. Both of you will be in San Francisco by nightfall."
"Does that mean it's over? Xavier is dead?"
Smythe nodded. "The legate did the deed personally. I imagine it was very satisfying for her."
Hanley sat back. He had known this moment was coming but he still felt emotional. He would never see Peggy again. He wasn't chief of the Special Missions Unit. He wasn't even an FBI agent anymore. His former life and all its accomplishments had been wiped away.
"What's it like? Being a legionnaire?"
"Well," Smythe said, "it's a job that will eventually kill you. But until it does, it's the greatest thing you can ever do. You're going to love it." He grinned.
* * *
Aaron was walking past the ticket counters in O'Hare Airport. The lines everywhere were ridiculously long, and he was very glad he didn't need to catch a plane. The line for security was like a cruel social experiment testing the limits of human patience.
He spotted Hanley sitting on a bench. He wore a blue shirt with a hole cut out of the side. Blood had spotted his blue sweatpants. He had no luggage and appeared like he had just wandered in off the street.
Smythe sat beside him. He was sporting a white doctor's coat that looked even stranger in this setting.
Aaron walked over. "Hey!"
"Sir!" Hanley looked up. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"I came to say goodbye to my girlfriend. I didn't have a chance to see her in Chinatown. The situation got a little messy at the end. The police showed up despite our best efforts at keeping them away."
"I should be angry at you for shooting me."
Aaron shrugged. "You're not hurt now, right? You were healed?" He glanced at Smythe.
"That's true, sir," Hanley said, "but it was still a mean trick. You could've warned me."
"I wanted a realistic effect. You're lucky I didn't use the gun that I used on Xavier. It would've cut you in half. That was a mean trick."
Hanley remembered hearing the sniper rifle earlier. "Congratulations on a successful mission."
"I am rather proud of the way things turned out." Aaron smiled.
He noticed Marina coming towards him, and seeing her beautiful face made him sigh. The legate was with her, which disappointed Aaron. He had wanted a tender moment with Marina, and that probably wouldn't happen with Ethel around. Both women wore plain gray sweat suits that looked rumpled. It was what they had worn underneath their body armor. Guthrum trailed behind them.
Marina ran over and kissed Aaron firmly on the lips. He held her tight and put his head on her shoulder even though Ethel was standing there. Let her watch.
However, he couldn't ignore the presence of the legate for long. He eventually looked at her and said, "Ma'am, can I help you?"
She nodded. Her wistful expression was very unusual for her. She actually looked sad.
Aaron let go of Marina, and both of them faced the legate.
"It seems I have a weakness I didn't know about," she said. "There is a blind spot where my heart should be. I'm completely unqualified to make decisions regarding love and friendship. I may have made a mistake when I separated you two."
Aaron stared at Ethel. If he had made a list of words he ever expected to hear from her, those wouldn't be on it.
"Actually," he said, "I think that decision was correct. As much as I want to be with Marina all the time, I can't avoid the truth. It's a dangerous arrangement. Neither of us can operate at full effectiveness. Some distance is probably safer for us and certainly better for the Society."
Ethel smiled, and for once the expression was gentle instead of frightening. "I just hope I never hear about you sneaking off to rekindle the romantic flames occasionally."
"You won't, ma'am."
"Let me be very clear." She stared at him with her dark eyes. "I don't want to hear about it. It would be irresponsible for me to allow my commanders to engage in such shameful behavior, if it came to my attention in a prominent way. Or if it interfered with their important duties.
He paused. He could hardly believe his good fortune. "I understand completely, ma'am. I promise you won't find yourself in that awkward situation. And I presume you also don't want to hear about Smythe and Odelia behaving similarly?"
"If that news reached my ears, I would be appalled." She nodded. "I can't imagine you and Yule, two of my wisest commanders, making such arrangements behind my back. I choose to believe it's impossible. I have too much faith in both of you."
"Then it's a very good thing you won't hear about that, either. I wouldn't want to disappoint you, ma'am. But if Yule and I were to do such a shocking thing, we would make sure neither team was compromised. We're both commanders first and foremost. We understand our responsibilities."
She cocked her head. "I'm just curious. When were these non-existent arrangements made?"
"Monday morning." Aaron cleared his throat. "The relationship between Smythe and Odelia must be protected, even if it's very inconvenient. This fact shouldn't surprise you. You're the one who had the divine inspiration to bring them together."
She looked into the distance for a long moment. "God agrees. I'm indebted to you for helping me avoid a terrible mistake. You're still my friend." She rubbed her eyes and seemed lost for a moment. "Marina, take note. True loyalty comes in many forms." She inhaled deeply. "I have to go back to Houston now. My work there isn't nearly done."
