Echo of Redemption

by Roxy Harte

  “What in the hell?” Seeing the scene, George is obviously alarmed.

  I’ve been here an hour and I’m still alarmed. Seriously. What the hell?

  “George, my brother, Nikos,” Thomas introduces.

  “Fuck you!” Nikos raises off the table as far as the straps will allow, trying to sit up.

  Thomas smacks the back of his head.

  Garrett pulls a bullet from the man’s thigh and it makes a disgusting, wet popping sound as the suction around the bullet breaks. He drops the bullet into a metal bowl, and it clangs louder than it seems it should. I hold my breath, hoping that was the last bullet. I’ve lost count of how many have been pulled from him.

  “Should we be doing this here? It isn’t exactly sterile,” George comments.

  “There isn’t anywhere else to do this, George,” Garrett tells him. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

  “Thomas said it was a matter of life and death, but I see no one in danger of expiring imminently.”

  “That’s the point, I think. I can patch up his body, but his mind is all yours.”

  “I’d be more concerned about infection setting in. If he’s dead, his mind won’t matter.”

  A string of what I believe is obscenities in at least a dozen languages issues forth from Nikos’s mouth. If I had to guess I’d say he is trying to convince Master he is sane and rational, but as his glassy eyes dart all over the place, not focusing, he loses that battle.

  “I see.” George looks over his wire rims at his patient and it is obvious something has switched. The psychiatrist is in the house. “What drug’s influence is he under?”

  Thomas kneels beside his brother and whispers into his ear. It isn’t quite clear whether he is trying to calm him or question him until Nikos starts listing his drugs of choice. “Opium. Heroine. Meth.”

  “Jesus Christ,” George curses, but it soon becomes obvious that Nikos is not done.

  He keeps speaking. “Hashish. Cocaine.”

  George ignores the man. “I’m going to need a complete toxicology report. It’s obvious he didn’t understand the question.”

  Thomas assures him, “I asked him what drugs he has used in the last thirty days. Would you prefer to know the last twenty-four hours?”

  George shakes his head. “I’ll trust the lab results when I have them. If what he states is true, Garrett’s wasted his time getting all that metal out of his body because the detox will likely kill him unless he’s in an appropriate medical facility.”

  Garret drops another bullet into the metal bowl and it tings loudly. He looks up to catch George’s gaze. “That’s exactly why Thomas called you. I’d like you to take him home with you, see to his needs. Of course, discretion…and Thomas will cover any expense.”

  George waves his hand dismissively at the offer of cash. The look on his face tells the tale. He’s already accepted the assignment.

  Thomas interjects, “We’ll need George’s absence explained, an extended vacation, several weeks.”

  George snorts. “A month at least.”

  “Yes, yes,” Garrett responds distractedly as he stitches closed a wound. He speaks softly to Thomas’s brother. “You’re a very lucky man. No vital organs were hit. Unbelievably lucky.”

  An hour later Thomas and George are gone, thankfully, carrying Nikos out between them with the tall, silent, black man leading. With Enrique scrubbing away all evidence they were ever here, it seems my intention for no evil being able to linger in my home has been met, no brandy or salt scattering required. From across the room, I watch as Master pours a full tumbler of Scotch.

  I haven’t moved from my spot on the couch. I guess I’m still waiting to wake up. This was all just a bad dream, wasn’t it? I wish it were. Making myself stand, I walk to his side and reach for the chilled glass, my fingers bumping his. “I could use a sip or two.”

  He catches my gaze and looks at me hard before his eyes drop to my belly, his message obvious even before he says, “I don’t think so.”

  I cross my arms over my expanding womb.

  “Hiding it doesn’t make it not so.”

  I look away, unable to face him. It was easy to forget during the night’s interruption that in the moment before Nikos’s untimely arrival, we had been discussing my pregnancy and why I’d thought it was a good idea to keep it a secret as long as I did. We hadn’t really gotten around to the part where I explained I’d only confirmed the fact myself.

  It’s ridiculous to say so now. I wouldn’t believe me either.

  You meant to completely shut me out of any decision making from the moment you realized you were pregnant and didn’t share the news with me.

  The words still hang between us though they were said hours ago.

  He takes a long sip of the Scotch, half the tumbler’s contents disappearing. He looks exhausted. No. He looked exhausted when I arrived with Thomas. Since then he has spent several hours bent over Nikos, trying to make certain he would survive. What comes after exhausted? I wish I knew.

  “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The BoscombeValley Mystery

  Chapter 4

  Thomas

  In the privacy of the deserted parking garage, I face Sean Paul, a man who has been loyal to my brother and I since we all met at Oxford almost two decades ago. The last time I saw him was in France. He has been my informant, my brother’s lover for almost as long. Our gazes collide. “Thank you for getting him to me.”

  He nods, grimly. “We part ways here. I’ll be in touch.”

  After brushing his lips against my brother’s feverish face, he disappears into the dark shadows. It is best for me to not know if he will remain here or go back across the ocean. He will lurk, eyes and ears collecting information, and will only appear again when he knows it is safe for all of us.

  My brother is weak and delirious. I should be thankful he is alive. Pushing him into the backseat of George’s Saab, I slap his face. “How dare you come here!”

  “I’m sorry.” His head falls backward onto the headrest.

  “This is the home of the only two people on the planet I truly care about other than my children.”

  I climb into the backseat with him and buckle us both up. He rolls his eyes to look at me. “That isn’t true. You love me. I’m your brother. I’m your blood.”

  His accent is as thick as I’ve ever heard it. His voice is full and deep. I am reminded of the man who raised us. Grandfather. He taught us everything that is important about life and family and duty.

  You will keep each other safe and that is why you will need a word between you…a word that is not used in everyday speech, so the meaning will not be misconstrued and never used as a joke. In an emergency, you will use the word and it will mean you need the other’s help.

  We were young boys when we’d agreed Alexiares and Aniketos would be our secret word. The twin sons of Herakles and Hebe. It seemed appropriate at the time, their names meaning respectively, “he who wards off war” and “the unconquerable,” lending much debate in future years as to which of us was the peacemaker and which of us invincible.

  He’d used the words tonight, announcing even before he’d entered my threshold that he was in danger. I chose to drag him inside. I offered my protection without asking for any explanation.

  His eyes close.

  “Let him rest while he can. He’s going to need it.” George catches my gaze in his rearview mirror. “Detox may kill him.”

  “He’s strong,” I insist, looking away, not willing to consider losing him. This is all my fault. A decade ago I was supposed to go on an undercover assignment. He showed up ahead of me, convincing the leader of a terrorist cell that he was me. We’d been identical then. There’s no chance of anyone ever believing that now.

  I think he purposely changed his appearance to keep me from trying to switch us back. Now, his head is shaved and the goatee he wore is now trimmed down to a soul pa
tch. He’s pierced his cheek dimples, filling the natural indentations with pointed silver studs. His ears too are pierced, four hoops of various caliber and design through each lobe.

  From our past encounter, I know he wears a wide metal spider stud through his tongue and bars through his nipples. Until tonight I wasn’t certain if he was pierced anywhere else on his body. Post surgery I know he has a four bar frenum ladder, a ring at the base of his shaft, and two rings decorating his glans.

  Then there is his tattoo, a horimono design. My brother’s body has become a canvas of color, wrist to ankle and all the parts between. There is a pale strip of flesh down the front of his chest so that when the top two buttons of a dress shirt are parted, the ink doesn’t show. Likewise his face and neck are free of ink, but the rest swims with color. A panorama of samurai, geisha, demons, koi and dragons, rolling into and out of each other, both connected and separated by smoky gray clouds or crashing waves. The art covering my brother is both masterpiece and tragedy. That he would go to such lengths to ensure we are never confused one for the other...

  I watch the passing scenery through the window. Night has come and gone, dawn too passed. Somehow we managed to miss rush hour and the drive to George’s house has been easy. Still, I take a close look at every car we pass, every pedestrian, looking for trouble I hope doesn’t come. A ridiculous dream on my part. If my brother’s enemies discover he isn’t dead, things could turn ugly quickly.

  In his sleep, he moans. My gaze again meets George’s in the mirror. Both friends and adversaries over the years, we’re close enough that I don’t care that he sees my eyes fill with tears. “I can’t lose him.”

  “I know.”

  George turns into his gated community. Top of the line security. I feel no safer than I did at Garrett’s. The security systems that protect the wealthy and famous in this suburb would be nothing to bypass for the kind of men who would come looking for Nikos. I won’t take any chances and immediately start making a mental list of what I will need to fortify his manse as he drives the car into his driveway. He presses his automatic door opener and parks the car inside the garage.

  I feel they will be safe enough here today, but I’ll feel better once I go pick up a few things. The last thing I want to do is put George in danger.

  Hell, I don’t know how Nikos found me. Unless…

  Henri.

  I mull that thought over while George and I carry Nikos into his house through the garage’s interior entrance. George starts to turn on the lights, but I stop him. “I assume you know your way to the basement of your house well enough that you don’t need light.”

  He keeps walking without flipping the switch. I do my best to not bang my almost dead brother’s head on anything. Some light is filtering through the shaded windows, but everything appears gray. Reaching the staircase to the basement, George pauses. “Can we risk light in the lower level?”

  “Once we’re at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “Fuck.”

  I take Nikos’s full weight, allowing George to descend the staircase unimpeded. Still, he hits a switch as soon as he is at the foot of the stairs. “No windows. It won’t be obvious from the outside that anyone is down here.”

  He leads me forward. As many years as I’ve known George I’ve never been in his home. Finding myself in his basement, I am left envious at very first glance. “You have a rubber room?”

  He splits a grin, seeing the direction of my look.

  “Authentic. From Agnews.”

  Leave it to the good doctor to import an entire padded cell from an abandoned asylum. I keep walking, traversing the length of a medieval dungeon complete with iron cages. I don’t doubt that the implements of torture on display are the originals. It is a museum quality collection.

  I am led to a state-of-the-art medical facility. He answers the question in my eyes. “Never know when you might be in need of an intensive care unit.”

  “Garrett knew about this? Because if so, it leads me to question why he operated on my brother on his dining room table.” We lay Nikos down in the center of the bed. He doesn’t respond.

  “Garrett has seen my collection, but we were both under the general impression that if he didn’t act immediately to stabilize your brother there would be no need for any service I could provide.”

  “His color isn’t so good.” Ash. No other way to describe it.

  George is a step ahead of me, setting up a saline line. A second bag is added to the tree. Antibiotics. And a third.

  “What’s that one?”

  “Anesthesia. I want him to sleep through the initial withdrawal.” He acts quickly, attaching lines, monitors, and restraints. When he looks up at me, I know he has done all he can, at least for now. “He’s going to need some blood. I’ll start a line on you, if that’s okay?”

  I nod, feeling like he might have done this a time or two. It seems the doctor has his share of secrets too. A second later he has swabbed my arm, jabbed me with a needle and my blood is filling a bag. I breathe a sigh of relief, thankful for the friends I have. I stockpile artillery, they store medical supplies. It seems we’re a better match than I’d have ever believed.

  “Be thankful Garrett was home tonight. From what I saw, a hospital somewhere is missing out on some amazing talent. And, I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t have called nine-one-one.”

  I don’t comment as George leaves me alone with Nikos, but I am very grateful. If not for Garrett, my brother would have been better off dying on the dining room table than being turned over to the authorities. Bending, I kiss his forehead. “You’re going to live to see another day, Nikos. Believe that.”

  “Oh, haggard mind, groping darkly through the past; incapable of detaching itself from the miserable present; dragging its heavy chain of care through imaginary feasts and revels, and scenes of awful pomp; seeking but a moment’s rest among the long-forgotten haunts of childhood, and the resorts of yesterday; and dimly finding fear and horror everywhere!”

  Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit

  Chapter 5

  Nikos

  Flames lick my flesh while eight shades of agony wrap spiny tendrils of ice through my head, my veins…my tissue. Screams rent the air but I’m afraid to look for the source, fearful of finding someone in a worse condition than mine. Evil lurks in the shadows. I feel it coming for me. Laughing taunts whisper. Too late for redemption. Too late. Too late. Darkness has swallowed me whole. Red, beady eyes stare at me. Whispers haunt me, “We call you to be judged, son of Aristotle Socrates Velouchiotis.”

  “Leave me be!”

  I fear hell has finally claimed my soul.

  “Satan! Be gone from here.”

  I am not alive, I am not dead. Since I’m familiar enough with the differences of each, I realize I’m neither even though I seem to have forgotten my name, my purpose, my plan.

  A robed, dark figure hovers over a book, reading my sins. One by one he names the people I’ve killed. I want to scream at him, “Get on with it! Announce your verdict already!” but I am too afraid of what comes after death to not gratefully accept this limited reprieve.

  “Vladislav Lokshina.”

  I recognize the name as a young reporter who had uncovered military corruption which he’d connected to the WODC, which actually involved their agent Liam Dubh working as King Cobra. Vladislav was my first assassination working as Cobra’s Executioner. Plenty of time…

  Hundreds of names later the shadows come for me. “No! No!”

  I have to escape. I struggle against tight bonds without any real form as I am forced down a long, dark tunnel. Fire licks at my heels. I have been condemned.

  “God! Please! Hear me!” I drop to my knees, refusing to go farther but am dragged to my final destination. Scratching and clawing, I know I only have one shot at escape. “Ari! Help me, brother! Ari!”

  Cool hands on my flame heated shoulders are my answer.

  “He’s pulled the IV loose. Hold him while I redo
the line and increase the dosage. Talk to him.”

  “Nikos. Relax. Let us help you.”

  “Ari? You came for me. You rescued me. Thank God. Thank God. I can’t go back there. Please don’t let them take me.”

  Cool hands cup my cheeks, and I know it is my brother even though I can’t see his face. “I can’t see you, Ari! I can’t see.”

  “It’s the anesthesia, Nikos. Stop fighting it and rest. Give your body time to heal.”

  “Don’t leave me, Ari.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  My brother’s voice is a comfort even though a weight holds me down. I can’t move it’s so heavy, but the flames are gone. For now at least, I’m no longer in Hell.

  “There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”

  Anthony Trollope, BarchesterTowers

  Chapter 6

  Kitten

  It’s been a long night and a longer day. Except for Thomas’s absence there is nothing to prove the events of yesterday even happened. I don’t know where Thomas went…but then I never know where he goes when he disappears…I only suspect danger is involved. This time there is no suspicion, this time my fears are made fact, proven by his brother’s blood soaked clothes. I’m so worried my guts ache. I’ve never felt so utterly helpless.

  Garrett is just as worried. I can tell by the grimness of his expression. That and the fact we aren’t going to the club tonight. I don’t know how we could even if we had to. If Garrett is as exhausted as he looks, he should have stayed in bed, not that it would have mattered. Neither of us could sleep once we crawled under the covers. Too many unanswered questions, too many worries and fears, none of which have we discussed.

  Scotch has been his answer.

  Crossing the room, I take the full tumbler from his hand and put it on the bar top. I step into his arms, hugging him, glad when he pulls me into him. We are in the living room, not the bedroom. Except for yesterday’s exemption, the house rules are very clear. I am not allowed to talk here…only in our bedroom…but I just can’t stand the silence another minute. I try to pull Master toward the bedroom, but he doesn’t budge.