Judgement (The Twelve) (25 page)

Anvil
offered
Chris
sad broken smile
as he
walked off to stare out through one narrow wi
ndow at the river side lighting along the Thames.

Chris
found Patch’s hand in his
,
“Lets leave him in peace.”

Chris
asked
, “McDonalds?”

Patch returned the grin, “Even better. Hard Rock Café, you’ll love it.”

“Street clothes
,
or leather?”

“Oh diffidently leather!”

As they walked away,
Anvil
called after him, “Son?”

Chris s
topped.
That single word stopped him in his tracks,
he waited.
Anvil
appeared to be struggling with his words.

“I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled out.

Chris, who was once his son
and still was
, sighed and offered a slight sad smile,” You weren’t to know
father
. Besides
thanks
to
Judgements, I know
a much higher authority
planned all this
. So
what chance did you or I have in having a say in any of it.”

With that
Patch and
Chris
left the vast warehouse living area, leaving
Anvil
all alone with his thoughts
and the word’
father
’ that lingered on in his mind.
. Well nearly alone. A huge belch
reminded
him Priest was eating over at the kitchen counter
F
aint giggling, told him
Huntress and Bulls Eye were
making love
in one or the others bedroom
s
at the other end of the floor.

“What would have you decided?”
Priest asked.

Anvil
was pulled from his thoughts by Priests question, “Decided. Oh yes. No I’d decided to tell Edge the answer was no.
I wasn’t going to kill Chris
and that was before I
even
knew he was my son.
So it will be war.
”

Priest thought for a second, “
The trouble is we’ve been around so long we’ve come to like it
, living I mean. But
really when it comes down to the crunch, living or dying isn’t our choice. We’ve been put here to do a job and if that means dying again, then so be it.”

Anvil
knew what he meant. One thing was for sure, lives would be sacrificed in the days to come. No longer would th
is particular
fight be stretched out over thousands of years,
it would be over one way or another in a few days or weeks.

He turned to Priest,
“Got any chicken left
old friend
?”

“Aye and a drink?”
Priest asked offering his hand.

Anvil moved over to
clasp his friends hand in his,
“Why the hell not”

And for once Priest didn’
t tell him off for blaspheming
.

Chapter Seven

T
he next morning or nearer lunchtime, a bleary eyed
Anvil
knocked on
his son’s
door. After a few moments a tired voice gave permission to enter.
He
opened the door and stepped inside. The dividing room partitions didn’t quite reach the warehouse ceiling. (Naturally as it was over thirty feet above
every
ones head) daylight spilled in over the top of each wall, illuminating the room with a descending, sliding scale of soft yellow sunlight. In the darkest, furthest corner, lay a single bed.

A figure reached out to turn on the bedside lamp situated on an old tea chest on the left hand side away from the wall. It was Patch and if
Anvil
was surprised, he didn’t show it. The top half of her face peeped out at him from over the top of the heavy quilt. A lump next to her, stared and a hand pulled back the quilt to reveal a
tired
looking
Chris
.

“Mornin.”
Chris mumbled.

B
efore
Anvil
could reply, Chris threw back the covers. Both he and Patch were dressed in Tee shirts and boxer shorts. Patch swung her legs over and off the bed, stretching she managed a massive yawn before moving over to collapse in the rooms single armchair.

Chris sat upright, leaning back against the wall,” You look
tired
.”

Anvil
for some reason felt it would have been nice had Chris called him
father again
, but he guessed that would be too much to ask. “
No sleep.
I need to show you something when you’re ready.”

With that he nodded once to Patch turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Patch smiled at the closed door, then hurried back to jump onto Chris. They exchanged a brief and passion
ate
kiss before parting.

Patch started to pull on her leather trousers
, “Good job we got dressed before he walked in.”

Chris smiled but said nothing. He too started to dress. Once decent, they both walked out into the living area. Nearly every one was eating breakfast or lunch, depending upon the time they had risen.

Speed and Heartless were missing, presumed still out on the town. Rage was nursing a shoulder wound with a field dressing strapped over it.  Slash had a black eye and
Hot Cross was grinning between mouthfuls of toast dripping with strawberry jam.

He looked over as Chris walked up, “Missed a good fight last night Judgement, got our selves twenty to thirty grey slime balls.”

Slash touched his black eye, “Twenty eight, best be accurate.”

Patch pointed to his eye, “You let one get that close?”

Slash glared over at Rage, “Wasn’t a Shade who did this.”

Rage looked embarrassingly down at the floor, “Not my fault you got in way of body parts.”

Chris couldn’t help himself, “Body parts!”

Hot Cross burst into laughter, “Rage ripped a Shades arm off at the shoulder, and used it as a weapon. Pretty good lateral thinking from Rage I thought. Anyhow Rage was battering Shades left and right when up runs Slash, knife in hand. He’s spotted one about to jump off a wall onto Rages shoulders from behind. Threw his knife just as the arm slipped from Rages hand.”

Slash didn’t think it very funny, “Arm hit me right in the eye.”

Chris pointed to Rages wound, “You injured too?”

Slash looked even more angry, “Never once missed with a knife until now. The clumsy fool got in the way.”

Patch was horrified, “You knifed Rage!”

“It was meant for the Shade jumping o
f
f the bloody wall.” He exclaimed.

Hot Cross grinned, “I flashed the one in mid air coming at Rage, burnt its head clean off. Rage didn’t even know he’d been hit until I plucked the knife out for him.”

Patch ran over to Rage and hugged him gently around the knees, her head resting on his hip, “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

“Hey!” Slash exclaimed, “What about my black eye. It hurts like hell you know.”

Rage patted Patch gently on the head, “Rage okay,
Slash’s
wound
and mine
w
ould have healed quicker had not been caused by each other “

That reminded Chris when he’d tried to hurt Rage. They can’t hurt or attack one another, not allowed.

Chris looked around for
his father.
Priest pointed a finger upwards, “Next floor.”

Chris took the lift up one
floor
, he hadn’t been up past the living area before, thought it was disused.

A huge roll of thick polyurethane frosted plastic covered the entire area just outside the lifts entrance. Chris realised it hung down in wide strips and pushed his way through to the other side.
The floor space was the same size as the one below but covered in dust and debris.  Only eight out of forty overhead lights where working, which gave the area illuminated pockets of light within pitch darkness due to the fact that all of the windows were bricked up. 
Anvil
stood in one such area of light over to the left.

He stood with arms folded, waiting for Chris to join him. He was surrounded by old fashioned steamer trunks of different sizes. Chris walked over to join him, staring at the luggage.

“They look old.”

Anvil
replied, “They are.”

He pointed to the nearest eight or so trunks,
telling Chris that they contained all there spare clothing as well as spare weapons for each of the Twelve who used them. T
hey all ha
d
combination locks. The number
was
the same for them all,
seven
, zero, zero, two.

Anvil
smiled ironically, “
Priests idea of a joke.”

Chris looked up at him questioningly. Anvil shrugged, “It’s m
y age.”

He pointed to three much sturdier chests that seemed to be re-enforced with iron bands, “Those are our portable war chests.”

He allowed himself another smile, “Actually they’re not that portable. Rage usually carries them for us. They contain euros, English Pound notes and US dollars to the value of
three hundred and
eight
y
million pounds.”

Anvil
indicated yet another
two
smaller chest
s
, no more than two feet square, “
The one on the right’s filled with gold ingots. Gold’s a universal currency; never know when it’s needed. 
They used to have the
Nazi eagle stamped on them. Don’t worry I wasn’t on the wrong side during that war. In fact I found them in a convoy of trucks bound for Austria. Priest and I was out looking for a nest when we came across them by chance. The lead truck ran straight into Priest. No contest really
,
l
ooked like it had run into the side of a mountain. We took care of the Nazi scum riding with the cargo. The officer and I had a long talk about what he could expect to find in Hell before I tapped him with this.”

He indicated his hammer.
“And
smashed
him off the side of the mountain.

“
We hide the trucks in a lake until after the war. Rage brought up the one hundred crates of gold
from the lake bed
after the state of Israel was declared.
We managed to avoid the
British
embargo and the newly formed Israeli Government
thanked us
for returning what was theirs. They re-melted the gold down again to remove those Nazi emblems
and allowed
us
to keep t
wenty
bars
for our war chest
. You see
Priest had a long talk with there
Chief
Rabbi. That man was one of the first to find out about our existence. He
blessed
the gold first
. Damn things were tainted with
the blood of innocents
, then my weapon. He said it was the hammer of God.
”

Anvil stopped as he thought back to those earlier days before remembering where he was, “I digress. T
h
e other smaller chest con
tains copies of the deeds to over three hundred
dwelling type properties
and legal ownership to over four hundred and eighty different companies
worldwide
.
I
own them all outright
but let others run the businesses
. The master copies are in a safe deposit box in the Bank of England.”

He pulled a key with a thin gold chain attached
,
from his trouser pocket, “Priest and Huntress ha
ve
identical key
s
. Wear it around your neck out of sight. That will get you into the
Banks
safe deposit box. Use the same code as the padlock number for the password ‘
7
002
’
. You will find everyone including you, has
a dozen
spare passports in different names plus identification papers, driving licences etc. The box also contains online access code
s
,
password
s
and the names of
bank
s
in Zurich
, Vienna
,
Austria
and the United States
. There
are
several hundred millions in each of those accounts.”