The Judas Line (30 page)

There was silence for a few seconds and when his voice came back, it was low and dangerous. “You did surprise me by killing Burke, son. He showed so much promise, but there are more. There are
always
more.” I heard a long breath slide over the connection. “Today is Tuesday. Thursday evening I will give the priest to Boris and he will die horribly. You have until then to come to New Hampshire to turn yourself in.”

It was time to hang up, so I did. “Bastard,” I growled.

Cain plucked the cell out of my hand. Without taking his eyes from the road, he touched an icon and said, “Dial Otto.” After a few rings he said, “Otto, this is Evan. Get the plane ready.” With that he disconnected.

At my look, he grinned. “Let us depart to plan mischief upon the enemy.”

Sounded damn good to me.

We drove to a private landing strip housing one plane, a Beechcraft Baron. There an old man took the keys to the Wrangler, and soon I found myself airborne, with Cain at the stick.

“I can only imagine having the wings of angels,” he said as we headed east. “The freedom of flight has been my utmost joy since the invention of the hot air balloon.”

“What’s the plan, Cain?”

“The plan is, my young friend, to assail the mighty fortress, rescue the advocate of our Lord, and wreak such havoc upon your estranged family that they will hesitate, nay,
quake
at the thought of ever assaulting their most wayward member again.”

I gave that some thought. “I can live with that. Only problem is, how are the two of us going to pull it off?”

“Simplicity itself!” he said after a spot of turbulence shook the plane like a maraca. My stomach thankfully kept the pancake and sausage breakfast secure. “We will build an army. The only question that remains to trouble us is: where on earth have they secreted the priest?”

It was my turn to flash him a grin. “That’s easy!” I said over the roar of the engine. “In the New York Grand Hotel.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mike

“It seems that my son does not value your life,” mused Julian as he paced around the room, glass of red balanced in one elegant, manicured hand. “For your sake, let’s hope I’m wrong.”

Boris hadn’t bothered to tie me to the ugly steel chair this time; instead he handed me a glass of whatever Julian was having. I took a sip—Petite Sirah and a very good one, too—and waited for Julian to clarify.

I didn’t have to wait long. “I’ve offered Olivier your freedom if he hands himself over to us.” Eyes dark and deep with hatred stared into mine. “He refused.”

“There’s no way he’ll consider it, Julian; he knows you’ll kill me anyway.”

Julian whirled, striding forward and stepping close, his face a bare inch from mine. I could smell the wine on his breath, sour and acidic. “What makes you think I’d go back on my word, priest?” Malice and loathing suffused his voice, the first deep emotions I’d detected in him. “Why do you think you know me so well??

Something snapped inside me, most likely my patience. That can happen when you’ve been brutally beaten and healed too many times to keep track of. My snarl matched his ounce for ounce. “By now everyone knows I destroyed the Silver, so you can’t afford to let me go,” I whispered, my tone scalding. “You
have
to kill me or lose the respect, the fear, of your troops.”

A twitch told me I’d hit home. “Also, you have in your possession a man of God who banished two demons, proving that the Lord God is mightier than your so-called Patron.”

I’ll give Julian one thing; most people would’ve slugged me by then, but he just smiled slightly and said, “Can’t you call him by his name, priest? Or is fear of his wrath stilling your tongue?”

“Satan, Lucifer, Abaddon, The Adversary, Little Horn, The Dragon, The Beast, The Serpent … It doesn’t matter.
He
is the Liar, not my God.” What was that? The muscles around Julian’s eyes tightened slightly and suddenly I
knew
! “But you know that, don’t you? Not like the rank and file, who believe all that Lying God foolishness, you
know
!

“What? Was it something you learned when you became head of the family, the dirty little secret of the Sicarii? That’s it, isn’t it? Did that make you feel foolish, weak? Did all your vaunted dreams come crashing down around your ears when your father told you the truth? Ha! The truth, that’s rich! You found out about the Patron and you peed your pants, didn’t you?”

For a man in his sixties, he could still hit like heavyweight. His fist took me square in the breadbasket and I doubled over. At least I splashed my wine on his $3,000 suit.

“You pissant!” he screamed, olive complexion mottled with fury. “You are
nothing!
Your precious god weakened himself so much by creating reality that he is but a shadow of what he once was! On the other hand, my lord Lucifer has grown
strong,
mighty beyond comprehension and is ready to assail Heaven to throw down the weak Throne!” It cost him, but he finally, with visible effort, brought himself back under a semblance of control. “He keeps his promises, our Patron does, and the promise of sitting at his right hand when the battle is won will be kept. That is the Covenant of the Sicarii, foolish priest of a weak god, that is what sustains us, gives us the will to go on and achieve victory.”

Gagging and retching, I sat in that damn ugly, cold chair, curled around my bruised muscles. Dimly I heard Julian say, “Boris, continue your instruction. He needs to learn a lesson about who is mighty.”

With a grunt, Boris went to work.

It’s never the beatings that make me feel puny, afraid. It’s
after
the beatings when the bones creak and the muscles pop, sending glassy shards of pain up and down my spine. My teeth wiggle loose and the hot, coppery blood slides down my throat to nestle warmly in my stomach. The feeling of flesh so badly mortified, the assault so blatantly horrid that I lie on my mattress, curled up in a ball, trying to deny those sensations—the hurt, the gut-wrenching humiliation of it all.

When Boris dumped me back on the air mattress, I lay there softly weeping while the blood bubbled from my nose. Eventually the tears dried as reason slowly stole upon me.

For a split second, one infinitesimal moment, I had hoped Julian would have me killed, just so I could go to my God, to Heaven, and know a perfect peace, but a stubborn part of my soul refused death. I had too many things yet to do, people to guide to God’s love and glory. I had never been one to shirk responsibility before and I wasn’t about to start.

I took a sip of tepid water from a plastic bottle left for me and tried to relax, but the pain was too much. Every which way I tried to turn brought more shards of glass scraping across my nerves—a symphony of agony and Boris was the conductor.

Heck with it
, I thought, reaching under the mattress for the papers hidden there. It took a few tries—my eyes refused to focus—but soon I was able to pick up where I left off.

My Life No Longer

Sobbing in relief, I swung around and put two rounds into Boris’ ankles, spraying bone fragments and blood across the floor. He had stopped screaming, instead curling himself into a ball, body hitching and spasming as he wept.

Cinnamon wafted to me as I heard Julian grate out, between clenched teeth, one Healing after another. My own Healing took the bite out of the burns covering my chest and arms.

My eyes swung back to the leader of the Sicarii in time to see bloody bullets spit from his body. The barrel of the 9 swung up. “Don’t,” I mumbled unsteadily, the constant use of Words hitting me with a rush of fatigue. “I’ll just shoot you again.”

Eyes so much like mine regarded me from the floor as he snatched back a hand that had been reaching for the scattered Silver. “You may not believe me,” he replied evenly. “But I am actually proud of you, son.” A tongue flicked out to lick blood from his lips.

“Be a good boy, Julian, and scoot over to the wall, under the Chagal. There you go, good.” Muttering The Walls (and inhaling the smell of pine) I knelt and began scooping Silver with one hand. Words, foul and slimy, tried to force themselves into my mind, but with the added strength of The Walls, I kept the loathsome things at bay. Eventually I had all thirty and placed them in the pouch Julian had dropped on his desk.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Do you have a Zippo, you know … for your cigars.”

“You do not light a cigar with a lighter. You use wooden matches to preserve the flavor; I have told you that before. Why?”

Matches. Right on the desk in a crystal cup. Feeling the looming presence of time at my back, I vaulted Boris’ writhing body and grabbed my leather jacket from where I’d placed it next to the door, whipping around, pistol raised, before Julian had a chance to commit mischief. The angry glint in his eye told me he had been planning just that.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I admonished as he glared cold death. “Stay seated and I will not shoot you through the head.”

“You kill me, boy, and another will take my place.” Julian’s chest heaved with fury. “There is
always
another.”

“Yes, I know,” I muttered, surprisingly sad as I placed the small crystal cup of matches in my pocket. It was time to … tie up loose ends.

Not more than ten minutes later I walked toward the large detached garage that housed everything the Family needed to motor about in New Hampshire. I wore a new shirt, black silk this time, under my jacket.

I had left Williams, Julian’s chauffer, trussed like a Christmas goose with the chef to keep him company. The cleaning staff also had been detained, albeit in Burke’s bedroom. Hoped they liked the bed; it sure looked comfy.

As for Julian and Boris, they were in a bedroom closet, bound and gagged and none too happy with yours truly. Instead of wasting a Word on the Russian, I smeared his ankles with a salve designed to promote swift recovery. It took longer than Healing, but I had begun to feel the first nibble of Backlash at the edges of my mind and did not want to push my luck.

The garage lights flickered on the second I entered, revealing a variety of automobiles, motorcycles (my favorite being the 1922 Indian Chief in satin black), and a few snowmobiles.

I examined the keys hanging on a pegboard mounted to the far wall and smiled when I found what I needed: a brand new Land Rover, perfect for the snowy weather, smooth, comfortable and, better yet, it was Burke’s.

Once I had the garage door open and moved the Rover, I poured a small puddle of gasoline in the middle of the garage floor and struck one of the matches I had pocketed. The puddle flamed up instantly.

The Language of fire crackled from my throat and was answered almost immediately.
“What do you need, watery one?”
As usual, the fire elemental sounded ravenous.

“Do you know where you are?” I asked.

“Fire knows well the machine it drives,” it answered. “Is not Fire what man needs to make these Earthen contraptions move?”

“Well, what do you see here? Sixteen, no … seventeen cars, plus some bikes and such. You look hungry, so take them all and feed well.”

“What do you wish in return, generous one?”
I could almost feel the elemental’s eagerness.

“Nothing yet. Just keep your feeding confined to this building. Nothing else but this garage and its contents.”

“Done!”
it chattered gleefully, growing to the size of a bonfire.

I put the burning garage in my rearview mirror, speeding down the road away from a life no longer my own.

In Portsmouth I found a pet store that sold just the plastic container I required. Next I stopped at a Catholic church and helped myself to just enough holy water to fill the container and drown the cry of the Silver. That would confuse any who would use it to track me to ground. Avoidance was used to thwart scryers.

Penn Station, the next day … the Rover safely ditched and money wired to an account at Chase Manhattan Bank under an alias I’d established long ago, Jude Oliver. Enough to start me out in luxury. A hard bench beneath my butt offered no ease as I stared at the train schedule in my hands, not really seeing the words printed there. My mind was brimming with chaotic thoughts.

My only problem was deciding where to go. LA? Chicago? Miami? All good places, plenty of people to hide among, but not quite right for the purpose I had in mind. All the major U.S. cities were rife with Sicarii agents. I had to go where no would think to look.

“You look lost.”

I started. A pretty brunette, brown curls covering her shoulders, stood just behind and to the right. Sensible flats, dark no-nonsense skirt and white blouse. A fair face framed with dark horn-rimmed glasses. She had nice dimples, too. “What?”

“I said you look lost. You’ve been sitting there for a half hour staring at nothing.”