The Assassin's Prayer

by Mark Allen

  He stood, still and silent, the rain soaking his skin, the wind curling around him, but felt nothing save the chaos in his own soul. He gripped the .45 more tightly, feeling the dark promise of its weight. Yesterday, killing Silas would have been about revenge and retribution. But what did it mean today?

  Mercy?

  No, Kain thought, it means more than that. Putting a bullet in Silas, granting his wish, would not just be about mercy—it would be about forgiveness. The bullet would absolve Silas of his betrayal, forgive him for the pain he had caused. Kain searched his heart. Was he ready for that?

  Without knowing the answer, he raised the .45 and pointed it at Silas. Rain streamed from the metal like bitter tears. Silas’ one eye stared up at him with frightening force, silently pleading. Kain started to take up the trigger slack, but his finger trembled against the curve of metal. He took several deep breaths but couldn’t stop shaking. Come on, he told himself. Just pull the trigger. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He just stood there, trembling, unsure, watching the blood spill from Silas’ torn body.

  Thunder boomed in the distance, its deep bass rumble echoing off the mountains and rolling across the fields. It might have been an ominous portent, had Kain put faith in such things.

  Silas flinched at the sound and the involuntary motion caused his exposed viscera to shift. Kain heard a sickening squelching sound as something long and wet unspooled to the ground. Silas’ scream shredded the air into aural splinters of agony and noise. It was the single most wrenching scream Kain had ever heard.

  Silas instinctively tried to press his hands over his ripped-open belly, forgetting that his wrists were held tight. He fought the barbed wire for a moment, flopping and thrashing desperately, but only managed to turn his wrists into even more of a mangled mess. He finally stopped, exhausted, and sobbed. “Kain … please … it hurts so bad … I’m begging you…”

  Kain lowered the gun, then lowered his head, unable to meet Silas’ haunted stare. “I can’t,” he said softly. “I just can’t.” The cold, hard lump in his guts had found its way into his throat.

  “Kain…” Silas’ voice was little more than a gasping whisper. “You have to … do this for me … if I was ever … your friend.”

  Kain’s head snapped up. “Don’t you dare lay this on me,” he rasped. “You have no right to ask me for anything.”

  Silas stared at Kain with eyes that were black pools of sorrow and fear. “Please, Kain ... it’s just one more bullet.”

  Kain searched his soul for the rage and hatred that had sustained him for so long, but found only an aching hollow. His trembling fingers gripped the .45 so tightly he thought he would crush it into scrap metal. But he slowly raised the gun again.

  He locked eyes with Silas for one last time. “Rest in peace or rot in Hell. God’s choice.”

  “Please ... forgive me,” Silas said.

  Kain closed his eyes. A single tear scalded his cheek as he pulled the trigger, the sound of the shot lost in a sudden peal of thunder. When he opened his eyes, smoke bled from the barrel and Silas was no longer in pain, the forgiveness he had craved symbolized by the bullet hole in his heart. The blood looked black in the rain.

  Shoulders hunched, Kain turned and walked slowly back to the truck. It was only when he was back behind the wheel that he broke down and wept uncontrollably.

  CHAPTER 18

  Kain drove the rest of the way to Church Hill Cemetery with rain and tears mingling on his face. Though only eight miles from where he and Silas had faced each other for the final time, it was raining a lot harder here, and the thunder rumbled louder with booming cracks that seemed like they would shatter the tombstones.

  He left the truck at the gate and walked up the hill toward Karen’s grave. Hard to believe he had been here only twelve hours ago. He touched the cut on his forehead as if to remind himself that this was all real, not just some nightmare conjured up by his psyche. He felt the stitches. Yeah, this was real all right. Macklin was dead. Silas was dead. Larissa might or might not be dead. Death was all around. For a moment, Kain imagined he could feel the Reaper’s breath on the back of his neck. But no, that was just the wind.

  The downpour prevented the leaves from crunching under his feet as he walked among the ghosts. The wind plastered the duster against him, but Kain just kept walking, fixated on Karen’s grave. She was the reason he had come.

  It was morning, but the storm turned the world into twilight. Lightning danced among the dark, bruised clouds and stabbed the earth with blue-white pitchforks. The rain hammered down fiercely, as if it had a grudge, the drops of water feeling more like pellets of stone as he trudged through the maze of marble markers. Above him, the canopy of bare branches rattled together like ancient bones.

  As he walked, the Colt .45 appeared in his hand. He didn’t remember drawing it, but there it was, cold and heavy, as if placed there against his will by some unseen force. It brushed against the gravestones as he made his way among the dead while the wind and rain hissed and howled.

  When he reached Karen’s grave, he knelt in front of the marker and brushed the raindrops from the inscription. The stone felt cool to the touch, but somehow comforting at the same time. Here, more than anywhere else, he felt close to his wife.

  “God, Karen,” he whispered, “I miss you so much.” Emotion choked his throat and tears christened the ground. But there was hope in his sorrow; he had come here to say goodbye, to free himself from the chains of the past and find a way to love again. For as he had stood in that hospital room and watched Larissa cling to life, he had realized that life without love is not really life at all. At that moment, he had known that he needed to come here.

  He looked at the .45. Rain dripped from the metal frame. Once he had thought the gun was his salvation, but now he knew that it was nothing but a curse, an inanimate yet heartless object binding him to a destiny of violence and loneliness. When Karen died, he had amputated his emotions and replaced them with bullets and blood. He made death his life, his fate, his god and allowed his soul to become nothing more than a savage scar.

  His tears fell on the .45. “Karen,” he whispered through rain-lashed lips, “I can’t do this anymore. I’ll never stop loving you, but I have to let go.” He knelt down and used the dagger to dig a shallow hole in the ground, then ejected the Colt’s magazine and emptied the cartridges into the palm of his hand. “Goodbye,” he said softly, letting the bullets fall from his fingers.

  The cartridges tumbled through the rain and landed in the muddy hole where they lay gleaming like the devil’s eyes. Kain imagined Karen in the grave below, reaching up with gentle fingers to take the bullets, to take away his past so that he would be free to start over again. So real was the vision, so hauntingly lifelike, that it took his breath away and for one suspended moment, he actually believed she had come back from the dead to take away his pain. And in her resurrection, Kain found his.

  He dropped the gun into the hole as well. “Keep this for me,” he said. “I don’t need it anymore.” He then etched something into Karen’s marble marker with the dagger. When he was finished, the knife followed the .45 into the hole. He covered them with the displaced dirt, then stood up and began walking back down the hill.

  After a few steps, he turned back for one final look at Karen’s grave, one last silent goodbye. At that moment, lightning scorched the sky, driving back the shadows from the freshly-scarred tombstone, illuminating the words he had carved there.

  Salvation is not found in guns or blades.

  Salvation is found in love.

  He smiled, then turned away and walked back to the truck with only the chaotic symphony of the storm to keep him company, knowing that every step took him closer to salvation.

  CHAPTER 19

  Kain ditched the Ford Ranger and stole another truck—this time a blue Chevy Silverado—from the long-term lot of a train station. He did not return to the hospital right away. The place would be crawling with police and securit
y personnel, a uniform at every entrance. Besides, it had only been two hours since he left; Larissa probably wasn’t even out of surgery yet. Unless she was bagged and tagged on a slab in the morgue.

  To keep such thoughts at bay, he drove aimlessly, passing time, making random turns over roads he had known since childhood. He passed farms that had been built before he was born and would probably still be standing after he died. He passed rolling pastures full of wet cows huddled together against the rain and corn fields bent nearly flat by the wind. He passed the old red and white trailer that had been home to the first girl he ever kissed. Everywhere he went, he passed another landmark, another memory around every bend. He hadn’t lived around here for over twenty years, but somehow it still felt like home. Maybe it always would.

  Around noon, he pulled into the tiny hamlet of Adamsville, one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spots on the map, and stopped at a little country store. The wind had let up, but the rain continued to come down in buckets and he got soaked to the bone all over again as he ran inside to grab some food and water. He then parked near a pair of gas pumps that looked like they had been modern when horse-and-buggies were still in vogue. He took his time eating.

  When he was done, he dug out his cell phone. As rain drummed loudly on the roof, he looked up a number, then dialed it. A cheerful female voice answered. “Thank you for calling Glens Falls Hospital. How may I help you?”

  “I need to speak to Dr. Morrow.”

  “One moment.”

  Kain stared out the window and waited while Muzak polluted his ear. Off in the distance, over toward the mountains, it looked like the storm was breaking up, the sky growing lighter. After what seemed like a long time but probably wasn’t, he heard a click, followed by, “Dr. Morrow speaking.”

  And just like that the moment was upon him. He was about to find out if Larissa was dead or alive. He steeled himself for heartbreak, not sure what he would do if Morrow informed him Larissa had not made it. Taking a deep breath, he plunged ahead. “Dr. Morrow, you don’t know who I am, but I brought a woman in this morning with a gunshot wound to her temple and I’m trying to find out—”

  “Is this Mr. Kain?”

  The interruption caused Kain to grip the phone a little tighter. “How do you know my name?”

  “You’re pretty much all Larissa has talked about.”

  “She’s alive?” Kain could hear the relief in his own voice.

  “Alive and doing very well. Extremely well, I might say. She’s regained partial vision.”

  Kain nearly dropped the phone. “Did I hear you right?”

  “I’ll spare you the technical jargon and medical mumbo jumbo, but essentially, the bullet glanced off her skull and reversed some of the damage to her optic centers. It’s the closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever witnessed. She’s not twenty-twenty or anything, but she has definitely regained some significant eyesight.”

  Stunned, Kain searched for words. All he came up with was, “Holy shit.”

  Morrow chuckled. “Well, I guess that sums it up as well as anything. By the way, she keeps asking for you.”

  “Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  After hanging up, Kain stared out the window and tried to wrap his mind around this startling new information. Not only was Larissa alive, but she could see. Maybe it was a sign that fate was finally done with its cruel, vicious tricks.

  He fired up the Silverado and headed toward the hospital. He pictured Larissa lying under cool, clean sheets, waiting for him, and wanted to be with her so bad it hurt.

  Every mile seemed like an eternity, an eternity filled with sheets of rain and slick, dangerous roads. When he hit the Flats, he saw the red-blue pulse of police lights up ahead about a half-mile. They had found Silas’ body. Kain imagined him lying there, stretched out on the barbed wire like a scarecrow crucified, harsh emergency lights strobing across his face as cops, coroners, and crime scene technicians scurried about.

  Kain instinctively reached for his .45 and experienced a moment of panic when his hand closed on empty air. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life and the feeling sickened him. It suddenly seemed like there were police cars everywhere, swarms of them, all waiting to surround him, drag him from the truck, slap on the cuffs, and haul him away to some dark, dingy prison cell.

  Kain took his foot off the gas. Indecision wrenched at him. Turn around! some part of him screamed. Go back, get your guns, accept the familiar bleakness of the past rather than risk the uncertain hope of the future. Better the darkness you know than the light you don’t.

  But no. There was no turning back. He didn’t know what lay ahead, but he knew he didn’t want to live without Larissa. Turning back now would be like turning his back on her and that was something he vowed never to do again. So he silenced the negative voice in his head, put his foot back on the gas, and continued down the road. A young cop, soaked right down to the socks and looking pissed to be out in this miserable weather, motioned him around all the emergency vehicles and moments later the police—and his indecision—were behind him.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled into the hospital’s short-term parking lot. He found a spot close to the main entrance and turned off the engine, but remained in the truck. He mentally divided his surroundings into four quadrants and took his time scanning each one, searching for any sign of cops.

  The rain had slackened but was still coming down, though not enough to really ruin visibility. Kain settled back in his seat and surveyed the hospital entrance for several minutes, carefully observing the human traffic, alert for anyone that looked like a badge. But as the minutes dragged on and he saw nothing resembling a cop, he began to relax.

  He leaned forward and looked up at the rows of windows that made up the face of the hospital, wondering which room Larissa was in. He still felt shocked that she could love him after all these years, all the things he had done, all the blood he had spilled. Somehow none of that mattered to her. She had forgiven him for sins he wasn’t sure he would ever fully forgive himself.

  He looked up at the gray sky. The clouds showed signs of breaking up, but the light rain continued to fall. He scanned the area one more time but saw nothing that raised his hackles, so he exited the truck, his boots splashing down in about two inches of water. He hunched his shoulders to keep the rain from slipping under his collar, then stepped out from between the row of parked vehicles.

  He saw the gunman a half-second too late. One moment, nothing. The next, a shadowy blur of movement between two cars. Kain barely registered the threat before the bullet took him in the left shoulder, drilling clean through. The world spun crazily as the sudden impact whipped him around and draped him over the hood of a white sedan. As he slowly pushed himself back up, the pain smacked his system, sharp and stinging one second, hot and throbbing the next. He could see his blood spattered across the car.

  Grimacing, he turned to see the stranger who had shot him aiming a Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun at him. A sound suppressor and laser sighting system adorned the weapon. Kain glanced down and saw a small red dot glowing on the center of his chest. He looked back up, locking his gaze on the gunman. The hole in his shoulder felt like somebody had run him through with a red-hot poker. “Who are you?” he asked.

  The man held the MP-5 with the confident ease of a hunter who knows he has his target dead to rights. “It will all be explained in a minute,” he said. “For now, just stand there and bleed.”

  Kain complied. Wasn’t like he had any other options. He was wounded, pinned down, and weaponless. Those were the logistics of the situation. All he could do was see how things played out. He could feel blood running down his body from the entry and exit holes in his shoulder, streams of heat that were a sharp contrast to the cold rain.

  A long black car, all sleek surfaces, polished gleam, and darkened windows, rounded the corner like a living thing, tires parting the puddles. Kain watched it glide forward like a shark and then come to a stop cl
ose enough for him to see his reflection in the tinted glass. The gunner across the way edged to his right, keeping the red dot firmly planted on Kain’s sternum. Kain glanced at him, but quickly returned his gaze to the car. Right now, for some reason, the car seemed even more menacing than the gunman. He sensed rather than saw movement behind those blackened windows and a chill that had nothing to do with the rain crept through him. Tension punched his guts with a cold, bony fist. He didn’t like this. Not one bit.

  The doors on the far side of the car swung open with a slow deliberateness that seemed straight out of a Hong Kong action movie. Four gunners emerged, all sporting chiseled features and sound-suppressed, laser-equipped MP-5 submachine guns. Three more red dots peppered his chest, crimson orbs promising death and destruction if he so much as twitched. The other gunman came around to the passenger side, opened the door, backed away a yard or so, and then leveled his weapon at Kain as well. Kain didn’t need to look down to know there was now a fifth red dot on his chest.

  A moment later, Rene Perelli stepped out of the car.

  She was a few inches taller than Kain remembered. But that probably had something to do with the stiletto heels she was wearing. They made a sharp clicking sound when they hit the pavement. But her height was not the only thing different about her, Kain noted. When he had seen her earlier this week, right before putting a bullet into Peter Perelli, she had been a sobbing, pleading, weeping wreck. But now, only days after burying her husband, Rene Perelli practically oozed confidence. It oozed from the striking white dress and matching wide-brimmed hat she wore. It oozed from the demeanor of her stance, a queen surveying her subjects. But more than anything else, confidence oozed from her eyes, and those eyes stared at Kain with unbridled hatred.