David Morrell - Fraternity of the Stone

by Fraternity of the Stone(lit)

  Breath held, he came to the end of the shelves, felt around them toward the wall, but touched another wall instead. It extended to his left. He tested that corner.

  With alarming abruptness, something hit the shelves to his right. The object clattered down, thumping onto the floor.

  Drew flinched. He couldn't help it. His heart expanding as if it would burst, he fought not to gasp. In fact, he made no sound at all. Instead, as his training spurred him, he crouched reflexively - so low that his hips touched the back of his legs. With his back wedged into the corner, he raised his hands, his Mauser aimed.

  The reaction was so instantaneous that even before the object had finished thumping onto the floor he was ready.

  Mike might be attacking. That had been one of Hank Dalton's tactics. Startle your opponent. Throw something. The moment it clatters, take the advantage. Go for him.

  But as silence again filled the room, as the stillness once more gelled, Drew felt no impact, no body charging into him. He waited, his stomach contracting, his nerves stretched taut.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried to calculate the direction from which the object had been thrown. Couldn't. But at least he knew that Mike was in here, that his lookalike had not ducked out an unseen exit before Drew entered this room.

  Most surely now, this was to the death.

  But something else bothered him. Why hadn't Mike attacked? Drew debated, tense, deciding.

  Because Mike hasn't figured out where I am. In the dark, if he rushes me but misjudges my location, he knows I can kill him. He threw something toward where he thought I might be and hoped that I'd lose control, that I'd make a sound. But because he missed, he'll throw something else. If he hits me, as soon as he hears the impact against my body, he'll assume I'm distracted, and he'll attack.

  Another Hank Dalton strategy.

  As Drew crouched with his back to the corner, facing the dark of the room, a second object struck the shelves on his right. The clatter was nearer, sending a vibration against Drew's shoulder.

  But this time Drew had expected the noise. He took advantage of the object's fall to shift toward the left along this new wall.

  Sure, Mike decided I moved in this direction. He's trying to box me in. The moment he hits me, he'll rush.

  A third object whacked against the corner where Drew had been crouching. Again he took advantage of the sound to shift a little farther along this new wall.

  And now he had more information. The deflecting angle of the various objects, the direction of their sound when they hit the earthen floor, told him that Mike was on the far side of the room, probably in the corner opposite to the one in which he himself had just been crouching.

  Or at least Mike had probably been there a moment ago. For all Drew could tell, his double had taken advantage of the clatter to shift position as Drew had.

  In which direction would Mike have shifted, though? Toward the wall Drew was following - to meet Drew head on? Or toward the wall Drew first had crept along - to come at him from behind?

  Drew wondered if he should reverse his direction. A flip of a coin. A fifty-fifty chance. They could go on like this, double- and triple-guessing, all night. He imagined them circling the room forever.

  A fourth object clattered. But this time, it rebounded off the wall Drew first had crept along, thumping onto the floor.

  Does Mike think I've doubled back? Or is he trying to trick me into thinking that's what he thinks?

  As Hank Dalton had repeatedly stressed, that was the point of the exercise. To confuse your opponent until his mind was tired, off-balance.

  And then to kill him.

  "The rules. Trust them. Depend on them," Hank had demanded. "It took me almost twenty-five years to discover them. And they're one reason I'm still alive."

  But as Hank had pointed out, few other warriors knew those rules. In actual combat, one of Hank's students shouldn't need to exhaust himself, stalking an opponent. Because Hank's system of fighting in the dark wasn't standard training anywhere else. "Remember," he'd said, "you've got the advantage. Don't be overconfident. But don't feel overwhelmed. Because, if you follow the rules, you've got a better-than-even chance of winning."

  Sure, Drew thought. Just follow the rules. But listen, Hank, tell me this. What do you do when your opponent also knows the rules? Back in Colorado, I had an awful lot of stalemates with him. He not only looks like me. He's been trained like me. What's to prevent another stalemate? Except that this time the stalemate must be broken. And exhaustion will probably do it. Since the monastery, I've been running too long. If stamina's the deciding factor, I'll probably lose.

  He didn't panic. Instead, as his spine tingled, he had a sudden inspiration. What do you do when you're up against someone who also knows the rules?

  Do the completely unexpected. Break the rules. Go back to the way you behaved when you first entered that black room in the hangar in Colorado. Circle the room, follow its wall, the way Hank insisted? No. Go straight across. Crouch in the middle and wait for Mike to throw again.

  And then, when you sense exactly where he is, go after him.

  His shoes seemed not to touch the earthen floor as he crept silently toward the middle of the room. He maintained his slow careful pace, shifting his left hand before him while he aimed the Mauser with his right, testing the dark.

  And when he judged that he'd reached the middle of the room, he hunkered down, resting as comfortably as possible on his haunches while he waited for Mike's next move.

  He felt the shift of air from the object as it hurtled past him, only inches above his head, cracking against the wall he'd been following. There. In the opposite corner. Drew inched closer.

  Another object whipped air past his head, whacking the wall behind him.

  Drew inched even closer.

  It happened with startling suddenness. Drew sensed an obstacle abruptly in front of him. He didn't touch it. No, as Hank Dalton had insisted, he didn't need to touch it. If he was alert enough, he'd actually be able to feel the vibrations coming off it.

  The obstacle was a man.

  Mike, who looked like Drew, who'd been trained the same as Drew, also thought like Drew. Mike, as well, had debated how to stalk an opponent who had the same advantage of Hank Dalton's training, who could anticipate.

  Because of the rules. So break the rules.

  And with unexpected abruptness, Drew found himself grappling chest-to-chest, face-to-face, with his double.

  The shock was sickening. As they stumbled one way, then the other, Drew no longer feared making noise. Instead, he breathed stridently, desperately needing oxygen, pushing, straining against the man he held and who held him.

  He groaned from a knee that struck his thigh, barely missing his testicles.

  He winced as he lurched back against the sharp edge of the workbench, hitting his kidneys.

  "Mike... "

  He rammed the heel of his left palm into his attacker's solar plexus.

  Mike groaned.

  "For God's sake, listen... "

  Drew gasped from a crushing blow to the side of his neck.

  "We have to talk!"

  But when the blunt edge of a screwdriver tore -shockingly, oh, blessed Jesus - into Drew's left shoulder, his coat buffering the damage, he understood that Mike was determined to win.

  What choice did Drew have?

  He shoved Mike away and squeezed his finger on the Mauser's trigger.

  Shot.

  And shot.

  He emptied the magazine, his ears stunned by the repeated blasts, his eyes offended by the muzzle flashes.

  Yet despite the various injuries to his body, he spread his bullets skillfully. And when he heard a bullet hit home, he narrowed his aim, his nostrils flaring from the acrid stench of cordite and flashburns, scorched fabric and flesh.

  He blew his lookalike to Hell.

  As blood pelted onto the earthen floor, as it splattered warm and salty across his lips, he felt
Mike lunge against him once more, still determined to keep up the battle. But Mike shuddered in death. The two men embraced each other, almost as lovers.

  Mike sank toward the floor, his flaccid jaw sagging past Drew's chest, stomach, groin, and knees.

  "Why didn't you listen?" Drew whispered, though he wanted to shriek. Damnable discipline kept him in control. "You should have listened. All you had to do was tell me who you were working for. You stupid... You'd still be alive. Maybe finally, we could have been friends instead of... "

  Rivals? Doubles?

  Janus. He'd killed Janus, but the man behind Janus was still alive!

  Enraged at the pointlessness of the death, Drew wanted to kick Mike's corpse, to smash its teeth, to crush its nose.

  You stupid...

  Instead he sank to his knees in the dark.

  With tears streaking down his cheeks, he prayed for Mike's soul.

  And his own.

  15

  Time had been so distorted in the black room that, when Drew left the building, he blinked in surprise. The night had passed. A cold October sun was rising. Now, all the gaslamps were extinguished, the apartments silent, though chickens clucked eerily from somewhere. Obviously the people who lived here had not heard the shots or else had deliberately ignored them, not wanting to get involved. He followed the zigzagging hallways, passages, and tunnels back to the narrow alley with a cinderblock wall on the right, where an eternity ago he'd stepped from the stack of sheltering boards and confronted his double.

  He'd used a handkerchief to wipe Mike's blood from his face and hands. He'd used the same handkerchief to staunch the flow of blood from his shoulder where Mike had struck it with a screwdriver. Then he'd taken off his coat and carried it folded across his shoulder to hide both the wound and the bloodstains on the coat. The precaution was needless. This early, he encountered no one.

  Cold, his shoulder throbbing, sick at heart, he used a key that he'd taken from Mike as he searched the body, and unlocked the door to Mike's room. He had no fear of boobytraps or anti-intruder alarms. Earlier, Mike had taken no precautions as he pulled out this same key and aimed it toward the lock. So Drew's assumption was that the apartment was unprotected. And if it wasn't?

  Drained, he didn't care. He had killed again, and nothing else mattered.

  Nothing. Except the continuation of his quest. The need to avenge the monks in the monastery. To discover who Mike had been working for.

  He turned the knob and opened the door, frowning when he saw no light in the room. His instincts quickened in alarm. Last night, there'd been a glow beyond the closed drapes and the opaque window. Who'd been in here to turn off the light? As his chest tightened, he scanned the room. Even with the light off, it wasn't pitch-dark. The rising sun illuminated the open doorway, dispersing the shadows.

  Despite his uneasiness, he made two assumptions. The first was that the room was deserted. After all, anyone hiding here had already been given ample opportunity to attack him.

  The second was the consequence of the first. The lights were off because, as Arlene had suspected last night, they were on a timer.

  Stepping farther in, he saw brick-and-board bookshelves, a desk with a typewriter, a sofa-bed, a dinette table, a television and stereo.

  Nothing fancy. The furnishings a graduate student would have. The same sort of furnishings Drew had once had, though he - like Mike - could have afforded much better.

  The apartment was all in one room; a stove and fridge were set off by a counter.

  Something moved near the sofa. Drew bent his knees, raising his hands, preparing to defend himself. Then his scowl changed into a grin, which broadened as he remembered Stuart Little. For now he was crouched defensively against a cat.

  It meowed, approaching. Not a kitten, but not full-grown either. Orange with white spots. Another cat appeared from beneath the desk, and another from behind the counter, one totally black, the other a Siamese, its blue eyes distinctive even in the shadows.

  He almost laughed but stopped himself, his injured shoulder throbbing, again reminded of the parallel between Mike and himself.

  In the old days, before the monastery, Drew had enjoyed keeping cats. They'd been his luxury; his social life. And later, when not a cat but a mouse had entered his cell in the monastery, he'd once again felt alive. Because, despite the Carthusian insistence on effacing oneself from the world, the one thing he'd missed was the chance to share his existence with another creature.

  "Cats, I bet you wonder why no one came home last night," he said, with a sudden vision of Mike dead in that black room. Shuddering, he tried to stifle his terrible emotion. His voice sounded hoarse. "I bet you're awful hungry."

  He closed the door behind him, locked it, noticed a murky light switch on the wall, and flicked it up.

  Two lamps came on, one beside the sofa, the other on the desk. He flinched, stumbling back. A door came open to his left. And across from him, a figure rose from behind the counter. He braced himself.

  Father Stanislaw appeared from the door. Beyond it, Drew saw a closet. He swung toward the counter where Arlene stood all the way up.

  She came to him. He wanted desperately to hold her.

  "Thank God, you're alive." She hugged him longingly. "When you didn't come back to the car... "

  He felt her arms around him, her breasts pressed against his chest. Reflexively, he leaned to kiss her.

  Father Stanislaw cleared his throat. "If I can interrupt."

  Drew glanced at him in confusion.

  "We waited till just before dawn," Father Stanislaw said.

  Arlene stepped back slightly, still keeping her arms around him. But Drew's chest retained the sensation of her breasts. He remembered the way he'd held her,

  lovingly, so often in the old days. To camp and go climbing. And hold her, as she held him, in the sleeping bag they shared.

  "By then, we didn't know what else to do," she added. "We had to come in and find you."

  "From the outside, the apartment was quiet." Father Stanislaw stepped closer. "Everything seemed peaceful. But we reasoned that, if there'd been trouble, your counterpart would have fled instead of staying here. The risk seemed acceptable. But we even knocked on the door before... "

  "You picked the lock?"

  Arlene still had her arms around him as he glanced toward the priest. Seeing a nod, Drew shook his head. "You keep surprising me."

  "Well" - Father Stanislaw shrugged - "the Lord is with me."

  "And with your lockpicks."

  The priest grinned.

  "When you stepped through that door," Arlene said, "I almost thought you were... "

  "My double?"

  "You were carrying your coat instead of wearing it. For a moment, I thought he'd taken it off you."

  "No." Drew swallowed. "He's dead." He slid his coat off his shoulder, revealing his bloody shirt and the bulge beneath it where he'd stuffed the handkerchief.

  "Drew!"

  "He stabbed me with a screwdriver. My coat helped to ease the blow."

  Before he could argue with her, Arlene had unbuttoned his shirt. The intimacy made him feel weak. Gently, she took out the bloody handkerchief, peering beneath the torn cloth.

  "It could have been worse," Drew said. "At least, the bleeding stopped. I don't think it needs stitches."

  "But it sure needs disinfecting. Take off your shirt. I'll get a washcloth and soapy water."

  "It can wait."

  "No, it can't." Again he didn't have the chance to argue. "Hold still."

  It made him feel oddly good to accept her orders. While she cleaned the wound, using a first-aid kit from the bathroom to dress it, he told them what had happened.

  Father Stanislaw raised his right hand and gave Drew absolution. "I'm sure you're forgiven. You had to defend yourself."

  "But his death was so pointless." Drew's throat constricted, only partly because of the swelling from the fist Mike had struck against it. "What did it accomplish?"


  "Your life," Arlene insisted.

  "Insignificant. The answers. They were what mattered."

  "We've been looking for them," she said.

  He listened intently.

  "We went through his papers. Receipts. Canceled checks. Bills."

  "What did you find?"

  "Exactly what you'd expect," Father Stanislaw said. "The man was a professional. Nothing."