Sebastian awoke with the noise of the door and looked alarmed at the sight of Priest. Quickly recovering, he helped Vain carry him to the mattress.
“Who did this to you, Priest?” demanded Vain once they had lain him down. Sebastian moved away and watched Priest with an odd look upon his face, saying nothing.
“Em... peth,” he gasped. “He tricked me. Made me think the Avun-Riah was in danger….”
Vain’s senses began to prickle. “How did you get free?” he asked urgently.
“Don’t... know. Too... much pain.”
Vain’s instincts suddenly screamed at him to flee. “Priest, how did you find me?”
“Read... it. When I... first... met you.” Priest’s voice cracked as he tried to force out the words.
A trap!
“We have to go.” Vain hustled Sebastian, moving to the hidden panel, rapidly loading weapons into a large black bag. The boy nodded and moved to help Priest.
“Leave him!” snapped Vain. “We can’t get away if we have to carry dead meat as well!”
Sebastian moved to argue, but Priest stopped him. “Must go... Avun-Riah. Must... survive. Your task…is more important…than me.”
“I won’t let you die! We can all go together!” cried Sebastian.
“No, the Dark Man is... right,” panted Priest. “I can... delay them... here.”
Sebastian moved to argue further, but Vain grabbed him roughly by the arm and lifted him to his feet. “You heard him, let’s go!”
“Vain...,” breathed Priest. The Dark Man glanced down at the dying man. “Take Avun-Riah to... Rome. Saint Peter’s... Basilica. Father... Armadeuso will help you.”
“Rome eh?” Vain contemplated the dying man before removing a sawn-off, double-barreled shotgun from the bag and passing it to Priest. “Good luck, black man.”
Vain half-dragged the crying boy away from the door, escaping down the staircase just as the ancient elevator doors opened in the hall. A tall man dressed completely in white slid from the elevator and made his way to the Dark Man’s apartment.
Walking through the open doorway, the tall man smiled menacingly at the dying man.
“Well, Priest, it seems you were no use to me after all. I’m afraid I won’t be able to let you die now.”
Priest peered up from the mattress and managed a thin smile of his own, “I wish I could say the same for you, Empeth.”
He fired two blasts from the shotgun hidden beneath the blanket. The first hurtled by Empeth’s face and into the ceiling of the apartment, but the second ripped straight into his stomach, knocking him back against the wall.
Priest’s smile grew a little wider, but dropped altogether when he heard Empeth’s laughter. The man drew himself back up to his full height and laughed even louder, so much so that tears began to roll down his angular face.
“My goodness, Priest,” said Empeth with sickly sweetness, brushing the smoldering threads around the small holes in his white shirt. “I really thought you knew better than that by now.”
Empeth pounced with the speed of a jaguar onto the helpless Priest, and the black man’s screams echoed through the walls of the apartment and out into the night sky.
* * * *
Vain and Sebastian encountered two men moving up the stairs toward them. Without hesitation, Vain drew one of his silenced pistols and dispatched them both, not even breaking stride. He bypassed the street level exit, continuing to the complex’s basement garage. Throwing aside a large tarpaulin, he revealed a jet-black Ferrari; its gleaming paintwork and low, aerodynamic features throwing a stark contrast against the musty garage.
“Get in,” he commanded Sebastian and the boy obliged without comment, too stunned by the car’s appearance to speak.
Vain noticed the expression on the boy’s face. “It belonged to a drug dealer I met once and I took it when I left. He didn’t need it anymore.” A malevolent smirk crossed his lips.
Sebastian couldn’t believe the Dark Man’s calm as they sped down the street. Even fleeing the apartment in fear for their lives, the assassin had barely broken a sweat. He held not the slightest bit of tension in his being. Apart from the fact they were driving nearly ninety miles per hour, they could simply have been cruising for the sheer enjoyment of it.
Sirens suddenly blared behind them. Vain cursed, glancing into the rear-view mirror and seeing the flashing blue and red lights following them at speed.
“You’d better put on your seatbelt, boy.” Vain grinned. “I’d hate to have gone through all of this to have you die in a car crash – airbags or not.”
Glancing ahead, there were now two more police cars pulling into the lanes on either side of them, trying to box them in.
“Pick up the black bag from the floor,” said Vain. Sebastian tried, but found it too heavy. “Open it instead, and pass me the large gun near the top.”
Sebastian unzipped the bag and gasped in shock. The arsenal of weapons would make Dirty Harry drool. Putting aside his surprise, he quickly searched through the cache and soon found the gun Vain had requested. He recognized it easily. How could he not? Clearly the largest weapon in the bag – apart from the rifles – he wondered absently why its barrel yawned so wide. He hoisted the gun with both hands and heaved it into the Dark Man’s lap.
Vain managed the grenade-launcher comfortably with his right hand, waiting for the right moment. One of his Glocks would probably have sufficed, but he wanted to put a scare into the police in the hope they would back off altogether. He’d never had to use the launcher before, preferring the silent approach, but he’d heard what they could do and hoped it would be enough.
Waiting until the car to the left of him pulled slightly in front of him, Vain suddenly swerved the Ferrari to the right, jamming it into the police car positioned there. At the same time he fired the launcher through the Ferrari’s open driver’s-side window, hitting the police car on his left side perfectly.
The resulting explosion proved too effective, blowing Vain’s car sideways and almost off the road. Luckily, he had still been maintaining their speed, otherwise they would have probably both been killed in the resulting blast. Instead, he sped away along the highway, leaving the remaining police cruisers screeching to a standstill and screaming into their radios for further instructions. For the time being, the pursuit ground to a halt.
“Remind me to never use that thing again,” rasped Vain dryly, throwing the still smoking grenade launcher on top of the bag.
Sebastian sat speechless. How could the Dark Man be so cold when he had just done something so horrible? Tears flowed freely down the young boy’s face.
“Pull the car over now, Dark Man,” said Sebastian between sobs.
“I am,” said Vain calmly. He soon slowed and moved off the road into a busy car park before winding down the ramp to the underground level.
“You killed him!” screamed Sebastian when they stopped.
“We don’t have time for this, boy; we have to get another car before they find us.”
“I’m not going any further with you, murderer!” spat the boy. “Leave me here so I don’t have to witness any more of your killing.”
Vain sat silently and contemplated the idea. The boy would probably be safe with the police. But even as he thought it, the image of Priest lying wounded on the mattress came back to him and he felt a strange tug inside him. Turning it over he realized it was guilt. Priest had entrusted him with the boy’s safety and now he pondered casting him to the wolves. The police couldn’t protect him from a fanatical group like the Souls of Sordarrah any more than the lost souls of Chapel.
“Damn you, boy!” roared Vain suddenly. “What are you doing to me? What kind of spell have you and that black bastard cast on me?”
“Spell? I don’t know any spells, Dark Man,” said Sebastian, fighting his shock at the Dark Man’s unexpected burst of venom.
“Bullshit!” Vain bellowed. “Ever since I met the two of you I’ve been... confused. My life nev
er seemed complicated before. I killed people and felt nothing; now I’ve got you whining to me every time I do something to keep you alive and it’s driving me crazy.”
“And now you’re starting to feel bad about it,” whispered Sebastian in amazement.
“No! I’m just sick of being judged by a boy barely old enough to wipe his own snot,” spat Vain.
Sebastian sat reflecting on what had just transpired and decided not to push it any further for the time being. Without saying a word, he opened the door of the car and stepped out. When Vain didn’t respond, he leaned back into the window and said, “I don’t know a good one to take, can you give me a hand?”
Vain looked back at the boy blankly before climbing smoothly out of the car and moving to the passenger side where he collected his bag. Shaking his head in frustration, the assassin followed the young boy through the parking lot to help him pick a car for them to steal.
Chapter Eight
A Roman Holiday
Arriving at the airport, the odd pair found it surprisingly quiet. Apparently there had been a terrorist attack against a police unit on the highway, and several people had decided to cancel their flights.
Vain still had the large bag of weapons to deal with. Finding a contact for weapons in Rome could prove difficult, but he didn’t want to risk being caught with them. Sneaking one or two weapons onto a plane was straightforward enough, but twenty or thirty created a different scenario; especially with the threat of terrorist attacks lingering like a miasmic odor.
Ideally, Vain would have chartered a private flight to Rome, but he wanted to keep a low profile. Finally, he decided to leave all the weapons behind and fly commercially. He could probably have snuck through easily enough with the Glocks, but the security in the airport had been stepped up after his fiasco on the highway and he cursed himself for his stupidity.
Unwilling to risk being searched in customs, Vain left the bag containing his weapons behind a huge terracotta vase before making his way to the counter and buying two first-class tickets on the next available flight to Rome.
At least his blood money was useful for something.
They waited in silence until their flight boarded, each feeling strangely comfortable with the other. It came as an odd sensation for the assassin. Normally loathe to spend even a few moments with another human being, sitting silently beside the boy began to seem natural for Vain and he felt reluctant to break that small comfort with talk of things to come.
Finally, they boarded their plane and took their seats in the first-class cabin at the front of the plane. Rising into the air, the strain from the last few days caught up with Vain and he nodded off to sleep.
It seemed only moments later that he awoke to somebody yelling, and a woman’s scream. Opening his eyes a fraction; he glanced down the aisle, and saw the body of a stewardess lying in a pool of her own blood. Above her stood a man holding some sort of trigger in one hand and a bloodied knife in the other.
“I am here to bring a message to the pigs in America!” yelled the man. “We will no longer stand for their capitalist propaganda in my country. I will kill everybody on board unless my demands are met!”
Vain studied the man through his slitted eyes: no discernable ethnic origin, speaking with an American accent. Dressed in a dark gray suit, his seat had been only two from the front row. The would-be terrorist’s knife had come from the drinks tray, used to cut the lemons. The man couldn’t be a terrorist. Vain’s suspicions were confirmed when the man opened his shirt to reveal rows of what appeared to be explosives strapped to his chest.
“I have two kilograms of C4 explosive here and if we do not turn this plane toward... err, Cuba... I will detonate it and kill us all!”
Vain chuckled loudly, and the terrorist turned toward the sound.
“Please be quiet, Dark Man,” whispered Sebastian, “I really don’t think we should get involved.”
“We already are involved boy,” said Vain quietly, “And if these idiots listen to that dickhead it will disturb my plans. Just sit there and keep still.”
“Please, just do one thing,” pleaded the boy. “Don’t kill him; he’s not really that bad, deep down.”
Vain looked at the boy blankly for a moment before stepping boldly into the aisle of the plane. The terrorist turned toward the large figure in black standing before him and blinked quickly, unable to believe what he was seeing.
“S-sit down asshole!” the man yelled nervously. “Sit down or I’ll blow this plane right out of the damn sky.”
Vain calmly advanced on the terrorist. “How are you going to do that with a garage door remote control and two kilos of play-dough?” the assassin asked coolly.
“B-b-but, no, it’s C4.” Sweat popped out on the man’s brow.
“Please don’t treat me like these other cattle crammed into this tin box,” snarled Vain. He had almost reached the man now and stopped only a few feet short of where the terrorist stood nervously. “Now why don’t you be a good little boy and go sit down and play with your toys instead of scaring the other sheep.”
The man remained frozen. Opposition to his scheme obviously hadn’t been considered in his original planning. In fact, it seemed there had been very little planning involved in anything he’d done up to this point.
With a sudden slash he made a clumsy lunge at the Dark Man with his knife. Vain casually brushed the blade aside and delivered a lightning fast open-handed slap to the man’s cheek. The crack of the man’s jaw breaking echoed through the silent cabin, and the terrorist slumped unconscious to the floor. Vain knelt down and collected the blade from the aisle, pausing above the unconscious figure as though uncertain of what to do next. He reached over to the chair beside him and cut the seatbelt straps to bind the man’s hands and feet.
The entire cabin remained motionless and silent until the assassin stood and returned to his seat. When he sat, the passengers began to clap, slowly at first, but increasing in volume as the enormity of what had just happened began to sink in. Cabin crew members moved to check on the fallen woman and to ensure the man was secure before joining in the applause.
Vain ignored the clapping, awaiting quiet and hoping to reclaim his sleep. Several passengers moved to try to shake his hand, but an ominous look from the assassin quickly returned them to their seats.
“Thank you, Dark Man,” said Sebastian when the commotion had died down.
“What for?” grunted Vain, keeping his eyes shut.
“For not killing him. It was a good deed.”
“I didn’t do it for you, boy,” said Vain. “If I had killed him it would have raised too many questions. We’re going to have a hard enough time when we reach the airport. You ought to get some sleep.”
“I think you did it for another reason.”
“Oh yeah? Well I think you should shut up and stop thinking so much. The surgeon general says it may be hazardous for your health, especially around me.” With that he rolled over and effectively ended the conversation.
Sebastian sat silently, a strange smile warming his face while looking at the assassin’s back. Turning to gaze out the window, he caught the first rays of light emerging on the horizon.
* * * *
Getting off the plane proved to be a task in itself. After the failed hijack attempt, the entire airport in Rome swarmed with both police and reporters, all wanting to see the hero who had saved the airplane.
A hero who never appeared.
Vain and Sebastian had slipped down into the baggage area shortly before the plane had landed, and the assassin had pried apart the access to the plane’s landing gear. Once the plane had stopped at the terminal, the two dropped to the ground and slipped out through the baggage handling area of the airport. In the car park, Vain stole a small hatch-back from one of the lots and the two had slipped away unnoticed.
The city’s narrow streets were crowded, and it took them a couple of hours to get to St. Peter’s Basilica. Once there, Vain asked one of the p
riests where they could find Father Armadeuso. When the man stared at him blankly, the assassin repeated the request in perfect Italian, to which the man readily nodded, directing them to the rear of the compound, toward a small building set aside from the main.
“I didn’t know you could speak Italian,” Sebastian mused as they walked to the building.
“Neither did I,” muttered Vain.
“How did you know it wasn’t a real bomb on the plane?”
“I smelled it,” said the assassin simply. “Now don’t ask me any more stupid questions.”
Sebastian grumbled something under his breath, and Vain stopped and looked at him. “I thought you were supposed to be some great holy guru or something. All I’ve seen so far is a little boy with too many questions and too much attitude. If you’re so special, why do you even need me to look after you? Why not just use your mighty magic bullshit and save yourself?”
“I don’t have any magic, Dark Man. I sometimes see things and know things that other people don’t, but it is nothing magical. As to being a guru, I have never claimed to be anything other than what I am; a boy with too many questions and too much attitude,” Sebastian finished sweetly with a wide smile.
Vain momentarily glowered down at the boy before moving on toward the building in silence. Inside, a single hunched figure knelt in prayer. Sebastian waited at the doorway while the assassin approached him.
“Are you Father Armadeuso?” growled Vain bluntly when the old man did not look up.
“I am,” said the man.
“Priest sent us to you.”
“Which priest my son? There are many.”
“Not a priest, idiot. Priest from New York.”
Father Armadeuso’s eyes widened in shock, both from the insult and the tone with which the assassin relayed it.
“Priest sent you?” he gasped, rising swiftly from the floor. “And who might you be?”
“That’s not important. This is the Avun-Riah and Priest said you could help us. I just hope you don’t start babbling on with more psychic bullshit. I’ve just about had my fill of it.”
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 108
