“Would they, though?” asked Vain, a plan forming in his mind.
“What do you mean?”
“Would they destroy the planet? Are they evil creatures by nature or are they made to do evil deeds by their captors? Tell me something, are they smart? Can they communicate with us?”
“Not smart, no. But they can communicate – barely.” Trepidation crept into Gabriel’s voice. “You cannot be thinking to make a deal with them; they will destroy you before you utter a single word!”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Vain murmured, gesturing toward the thirteen enormous beasts flying toward where they stood.
* * * *
The Velearstk let out a deafening shriek and swooped down toward their prey. Suddenly the air around them shifted, seeming to lose substance. Their great wings beat against nothing as they plummeted through a vacuum, culminating in a massive crash. The enormous explosion shifted the very ground.
Before they could rise and attack their target, the Earth’s gravity seemed to multiply a hundredfold, and they found themselves pinned to the earth. The man walked slowly over to where they thrashed in the dust, a look of intense concentration upon his face, and a tremendous force flowing from his form.
“Do you like being prisoners of Sordarrah?” asked the man calmly, although now he was sweating with the effort of holding them down. “Wouldn’t you like to be free?”
This puzzled the Velearstk and they relaxed their frenzied thrashing slightly as the man stepped even closer.
“I will release you if you listen to what I have to say,” said the man.
“We kill you,” said the Velearstk as one.
“Perhaps, but what do you have to lose by listening to me? And what do you have to gain?”
What the small creature said rang true, and at least it would save them some power they could use to fight the return summons for a short time longer. “We listen to words. Then you die.”
* * * *
Vain released his control over the gravity around the Velearstk and involuntarily sighed. The power he had needed to hold the beasts for those few short moments had almost exhausted him and he now realized Gabriel had spoken the truth. He had no chance of destroying these beasts. Not even if he held the power of a hundred Glimloches. He only hoped his gamble would pay off.
“You are Sordarrah’s slaves, correct?” queried Vain, the beasts rising terrifyingly above and around him. “He commands you to do something and once it is done you return to your prison?”
“Yes,” answered the Velearstk simply.
“So this time you have been commanded to kill me after which you’ll get pulled back to wherever the hell you come from.”
“Yes,” said the Velearstk, seemingly confused. “We kill you now?”
“My point is this, you brainless lizard: What happens if you don’t kill me?”
“Ga....” began the Velearstk before they paused and puzzled over the question. “Don’t know,” they answered finally.
“I suspect, since you have not completed your mission, the spell or whatever it is that binds you would not close, and therefore you wouldn’t get sucked back and could remain free. Or would Sordarrah simply catch you again?”
“Huh? What you say?” The Velearstk cocked their heads as one in incomprehension.
“If an electric train is travelling north at forty miles an hour, and the wind is heading east at ten miles per hour, then which way does the smoke blow?” asked Vain rapidly.
“Train?”
“It’s an electric train. There is no smoke. Try this one: If a rooster is sitting on the crest of a roof, and the wind is blowing steadily south-west, but the roof is pointing north to south, which way does the egg fall?” Vain paused for effect. “Makes you think doesn’t it.”
“Wha...?”
“Alright, I think we’ve established that you guys have a combined IQ of a slowly-roasted peanut, so I’ll go over this simply,” Vain continued. “If you don’t kill me, you don’t go back to bad place. You stupid worms understand me?”
The Velearstk pondered this for what seemed like an eternity. Comprehension eventually dawned on their features and they nodded in unison.
“Good. You smart human. You help us, so we not kill you today.”
“Okay. I live and you stay free, sounds like a win-win situation, don’t you think?”
“So we kill you tomorrow.”
“No!” gasped Vain in exasperation. “If you kill me at all you go back to the bad place. If you never kill me, you never have to go back.”
Nodding slowly, the Velearstk grinned and loomed in closer. “You live, but we kill your planet.”
“I don’t think so,” said Vain confidently. “If you do anything on Earth, or anywhere near Earth, I’ll come looking for you.” The beasts laughed. “I’ll come looking for you, and you’ll probably destroy me. And then you’ll be back in Sordarrah’s pocket again.”
“Pocket?” they asked, again not understanding.
“Bad place.”
They all nodded. “You make smartness we think. We do like you say.”
“Good,” said Vain. “Now go and hide in Jurassic Park or something.” With that he turned and walked back to where Gabriel still stood, muttering in disbelief.
The Velearstk took off into the early morning sky, and after slowly rising for several minutes, they blurred and then vanished.
Vain finally let his relief show, and dropped down beside Gabriel, the angel gracefully sinking to sit cross-legged beside him. “Thank Christ that worked. It took almost all the power I could control just holding those damn things on the ground for a few minutes!”
Gabriel nodded and smiled. “I am amazed that you managed to do it Dark Man. I did not think they would listen even after they said they would. You did well. You did what no being has ever been able to do: reason with a beast from Hell and win. I am impressed. I am also glad that you’re not dead.”
“Yeah, well, thanks... I guess.”
“Thanks are not necessary. If you had died, what would have happened to the Avun-Riah?”
Vain chuckled. “Well, you would have swooped in and killed the bad guys and saved the boy by yourself.”
Gabriel’s face showed concern and he looked away. “I could not,” he said softly.
“Sure you could. I mean, they’re evil demons right? It doesn’t matter if you kill them.”
“It’s not that I would not do it if I could, Dark Man. It is that I cannot. If I were to use my powers in the fight against Sordarrah’s forces, the result would be... let’s say... unpleasant.”
Vain groaned. “What do you mean?”
“My powers are based upon the lighter elements of the universe. The enemies’ are based upon the darker. If these powers were to collide, everything would be cast into oblivion. Everything.”
“So what happens when we go to save the boy? You just stand there while I do all the fighting? That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I will not be there when that happens,” said Gabriel quietly.
“So,” spat Vain, “you’re a fucking coward and a sissy. I should have known. Run away now little boy, leave the hard work for the grown ups.”
“There are two things left that I must do. I must first guide you to your final destination.”
“And the other?”
“We shall see when we get there.”
Vain cursed, standing and walking away.
Gabriel sighed. How could he tell the assassin what approached? Where lay his courage now that the end drew near? For millennia he had done his Lord’s work without question, but now, with the final choice so close that he could almost see it on the horizon…
…now his faith began to fail.
Resignedly, the angel trudged after the assassin, down the road toward their destiny.
* * * *
“Who is the Dark Man?” raged Empeth. “What power does he possess that I do not know of? Tell me now or I will flay your soul!�
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“No you won’t,” countered Sebastian calmly. “You need me to release your master.”
“I am getting to the point now where I may not care. Tell me what I want to know!”
Sebastian sat quietly on the floor of his prison. The news that Empeth had unwittingly imparted to him spawned a momentary feeling of triumph. Vain remained alive, and he had done something to make Empeth very angry. And, he sensed, very possibly scared as well.
“You would probably know more about him than I,” said the boy finally in a soft voice. “I don’t know anything about him having any powers.”
“Then how is it that the Velearstk are gone. They are either destroyed or have been sent somewhere that my powers cannot find. How has he done this?”
“I do not know,” Sebastian responded quietly.
“It doesn’t matter now anyway,” sneered Empeth venomously. “The time is soon coming and you will die. Your blood will flow and our Lord will be released. Nothing can stop that now.”
“Just like nothing could stop the Velearstk,” mused Sebastian, more to himself than Empeth. He suddenly felt his entire essence shredded at the atomic level and flung to all four corners of the cell before being quickly re-assembled back to where he had originally sat. The entire incident took seconds, but had seemed like infinity. Sebastian gasped, tears welling in his eyes. The pain had been worse than anything that had come before, and even now that he was whole again he endured a deep sense of violation, not against his body, but against his soul. He felt somehow dirtier.
“That is just a taste of what’s in store for you for the rest of eternity boy. Once the ceremony is complete I will ask that you become my charge for your eternal damnation. And I promise today will feel like a walk through a meadow of daisies in comparison. You will beg me to end your torment, but it will never end. And you will call me master.”
“I won’t,” wept Sebastian piteously.
“It wasn’t a question, boy,” chuckled Empeth, before disappearing from the cell.
Sebastian swallowed his fears along with his pain, and tried again to summon the feeling of triumph knowing that his enemy seemed afraid. It did not help much, but it lifted his spirits enough for him to again return his focus to escaping.
Everything he had tried so far had failed. But he would not stop, could never stop.
Chapter Fourteen
Heaven and Hell
“Hello, Squirrel,” said a cold voice. Squirrel spun around to find the Dark Man stretched out upon his bed, his heavy booted feet crossed, and his arms folded behind his head. Standing beside him was a young blond man with the most beautiful face Squirrel had ever seen.
“How did you get in here?” asked Squirrel, surprise momentarily overriding his caution.
Vain merely shrugged and draped his cold gaze over the quivering drunk. Squirrel nodded, the silent point made: Don’t ask.
“We need information, Squirrel,” said the Dark Man evenly. “There is a house, I’ll write the address down for you before we leave. I need to know everything about it.”
“What do you mean, ‘everything’?” asked the little man tremulously.
“I mean everything. Schematics. History. Hidden areas. Guards. Camera systems. Entrances and exits. Everything.”
“W-well that will take some time sir,” stammered Squirrel.
“How long?” asked the Dark Man.
“A week at least.”
Vain looked over at his companion who shook his head softly and lifted three fingers. “You have three days,” said Vain, rising smoothly from the bed and writing the address on a piece of paper before passing it to Squirrel. Reaching into his pocket he produced a thick wad of cash and threw it to the stunned informant. “For expenses,” he said.
Quickly flicking through the stack and finding more than five thousand dollars there, the little man looked back to thank the Dark Man only to find the two men had vanished. Shivers ran down the drunk’s spine and he quickly crossed himself. Nobody, not even the Dark Man, could disappear like that, and it confirmed what he had always feared –
The Dark Man was not human.
The blond man with him could not have been more different. Whereas Vain always instilled an uncontrollable fear in whomever he met, gazing into his companion’s eyes Squirrel had felt a warmth and comfort he hadn’t known in years. The two were like yin and yang – light and dark. And yet they had displayed the same level of power and strength of purpose. To the uninformed, they might well have been brothers.
Squirrel looked at the address and swallowed heavily. The house the Dark Man wanted him to check out had fed many of the rumors Squirrel had been hearing around the city the last couple of weeks. Stories of women – mainly prostitutes – entering the house never to be seen again. Things had gotten so bad that one of the toughest pimps in the city had gathered a small army of thugs and snuck into the place, intent on teaching a lesson to whoever lived there.
Only the pimp had made it out, from the twenty-three who had gone in, and he escaped little better than a vegetable, chattering and screaming incoherence or dribbling inanely, while clawing his face.
Just one sentence he said had made any sense, and it had sent a silent fear flowing through the underworld of New York. “Hell hath cometh to the city of evil.”
And now the two most powerful individuals the most informed street weasel had ever met were entering that Hell.
Squirrel felt sorry for Hell.
* * * *
Vain shook away the numbness that still clung to him after the teleportation. He doubted he would ever get used to such a thing and he cursed the need for it. Unfortunately, it had become a necessary precaution. If the Souls of Sordarrah were to discover the assassin had returned to the city, they might move the boy to another location, and Vain would never find him before it was too late.
They were back in the Dark Man’s apartment, Gabriel sitting quietly in a chair regarding him silently. The blond angel had not wanted to return to Vain’s abode, but the assassin had been insistent. Where better to hide than in the most obvious place? They would never think him stupid enough to return to his apartment after what had happened the last time. At least Vain hoped so.
Three days. The time frame he had given Squirrel; three days until he and Gabriel entered the fortress house on the hill in Brooklyn Heights. Vain had the feeling these would be the longest three days of his life.
Gabriel had wanted to go to the house immediately, but long experience taught Vain to be cautious. Squirrel would find out everything available about the house, and Vain knew this could prove invaluable for when they laid siege to it. All they could do now was wait until the time came to collect that information.
Something still bothered him, however. The memory of what Gabriel had said kept recurring in his mind.
“I will not be there when that happens.”
The more the assassin pondered it, the more it seemed Gabriel had been sad, not afraid, when he had spoken of their impending struggle. Vain wondered what it could be that would make them separate. Gabriel had been so certain, and at first Vain had thought he would simply leave Sebastian’s rescue to the assassin, but now it appeared their parting might be something much more forceful, and the Dark Man found himself saddened by the thought.
A strange feeling for the assassin – one he was unaccustomed to.
Over their time together, Vain had grown used to the peaceful presence of the man – the archangel. It bolstered his confidence having Gabriel near him. This was an odd concept for the assassin, always preferring solitude, but the thought of once more returning to the loneliness he had previously preferred now left him with a feeling of loss.
Shaking aside the morbid thoughts, Vain turned to his silent companion, determined to get some answers. “What is waiting for us at that house?” he asked.
“Victory or death,” answered Gabriel introspectively.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
�
�Exactly what it sounds like. We will either save the Avun-Riah or we will perish.”
Vain sighed with frustration. This was like trying to get answers from a tire iron. He decided to change the course of his questioning. “You mean I’ll perish, you’ll just go back to being a wispy fairy thing floating around the universe again.”
“No, Dark Man, I won’t,” said Gabriel sadly.
“But you can’t die; you’re an angel!” stormed the assassin.
“I can die; almost everything in this universe can die. Once the will to live is gone, there is nothing left.”
“Are you sick of being immortal? Does possessing unlimited power have its drawbacks?”
“Sometimes... but not in the ways you imagine.” Gabriel sighed. “Do you want to know what the meaning of life is?” he asked suddenly.
Vain looked at him cautiously, unsure of how to proceed. “Sure... I guess,” he managed finally.
“When you look around, what do you see?”
“I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. What is it that you see as you walk through your life?” queried Gabriel.
“Buildings, people... just everyday life, I guess.”
“Precisely!” exclaimed Gabriel. “You see life. Everything is going on around you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Vain slowly.
“The meaning of life is to live. To suck the very marrow out of every moment that you exist in this dimension or any other. To give everything you have to live the best life that you can. Not through selfishness, but rather through thoughtfulness and generosity. Do you understand?”
“So you’re saying that the meaning of life is to help each other?” asked Vain skeptically.
“In part,” said Gabriel. “But the main thing is to help yourself first, and to understand what it is that you have. When you look around you should not see what is wrong with your life, but what is right about it. Whether you believe in God or not is immaterial. All that is important is that you look upon every breath you take, every vision that greets your eyes, with joy, and when you deal with others you should try to impart some small piece of this joy into their lives. Whether it derives from something simple like a smile, or more importantly: life instead of death.”
9 More Killer Thrillers Page 117
