The Assassin and the Knight

by Rick Bonogofsky

  “I burned the house down,” Jake stated matter-of-factly. He shrugged again. “Dad died, I came here.”

  “But there is nothing in your file proving any of your story. There hasn’t been any fire in New Rome for several years, and this case file only dates back to a few months ago. Why did you check yourself in if what you say never happened?”

  Jake looked directly at the doctor for the first time since he entered the office. “But it did. Just not within the amount of time you think. See, doctor, here’s the funny thing about case files; they don’t have the full date written on them anymore. You say it’s only been a few months, when in reality, I’ve been here far longer.”

  “How long exactly?”

  “Depends on if you count the times I left this place. Every time I left, they declared me sane and fit to live a normal life, so they got rid of my files. Too strange to keep the files, they’d say. They didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that I was completely sane the whole time. They couldn’t reconcile the discrepancies in the story because their minds were far too small to truly comprehend the scope of my words. But once in a while, the dreams would come back. My memories would haunt me, driving me to insanity once again. The ravings of my mother would echo in my mind, and I would set fire to empty homes all over again. That’s why I’m here again. Back in this place. To get better and figure out just why I keep going crazy. This time, I’ve been here about three months.”

  The doctor shook his head in disbelief. It seems the orderly was right, this man had a knack for telling a rather compelling story. “How many times have you been in this facility? I’m sure I would have heard of you before. And why on Earth would your file be thrown away? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jake smiled. “I have been in this facility around thirty times. I stay for close to a year, then leave feeling better and saner than the last time I left. But, within the span of about five or six years, I begin to go through it all over again. The last time I was here, I imagine you were just a boy, doctor. They get rid of my file because they can never believe the same man can come back so often and over the course of such a long time. I don’t know exactly why I’m so different from everyone, why I live so long, or even why I’m still suffering. All I can say is that I am always thankful for the doctors here. You are all very good at what you do.”

  “Uhm…” the doctor stammered. He was at a loss for words. This patient seemed to fully believe what he was saying, but it made no sense at all. He checked his watch and realized the session had run far longer than it was meant to. “Well, Jake, I’m afraid our time is up. We will resume our talk tomorrow, if you would like.”

  Jake nodded. “I would like that very much, thank you, doctor. I look forward to continuing.” He stood and left the office, allowing himself to be guided by the nearby orderly.

  The doctor sighed and shook his head, trying to make sense of Jake’s words. He longed for the days when his cases were clear and easy to figure out.

  Vincent walked through the crowded streets of a large city. He had no idea where exactly he was, just that he was somewhere in America. The people around him primarily spoke English, with phrases from other languages thrown in. He looked around without much interest and gathered his bearings. None of the street signs looked familiar, nor did any of the buildings. All he knew for certain was that the sidewalks were crowded, the cars were packed on the roads, and the air stank of smog, cigarettes, and unwashed bodies. He wrinkled his nose at the smells and kept walking. He had nowhere in particular to go and had no desire to find a destination. Why should he care? He had killed his brother and was banished by his adopted father. He deserved far worse. The king was being merciful, but Vincent knew he should have been executed. Better yet, he should have been thrown into the Pits of Hell to be brutally tortured for all eternity.

  A woman accidentally bumped the wandering angel. She glanced up at him in surprise, shocked to feel something much more solid under his clothes than simple flesh. He wore a ring enchanted by Hell’s wizards to hide his true appearance from view. The illusion was only a visual one, however, and any touch would belie what was underneath. Vincent kept walking, completely uninterested in the human woman’s reaction. He just did not care.

  As he walked through the streets, the wayward angel glanced around, making sure to keep from walking into poles or other people. A flash of movement caught his attention, his warrior instincts alerting him to potential danger. A young man had absconded with a woman’s purse and was running off down an alley. The woman screamed for help, but the humans paid no attention, either to avoid the possibility of feeling any responsibility to help her, in fear of a hidden weapon on the thief’s person, or simply because they did not care.

  ‘These are the people my brethren died for in the war?’ Vincent thought to himself, a feeling of disgust welling up like bile in his throat. ‘These uncaring fools were worth the deaths of countless angels? No wonder the demons nearly won.’

  “Pathetic, aren’t they?” a voice asked beside him.

  Vincent had known there was somebody keeping pace with him for the last few blocks, but knew whoever it was would be laughably unable to do any real harm to him. He turned to the person and looked at a man nearly his own height, but clearly overweight and visibly unhealthy.

  “They aren’t what they could be,” Vincent replied callously. “So much potential wasted.”

  The fat man nodded and laughed. Once again, Vincent was assailed by the stench of an unwashed human. The man’s breath smelled of alcohol and eggs. His teeth, what was left of them, were stained brown from lack of hygiene and an affinity for chewing tobacco. “You’re absolutely right, my friend,” he replied, reaching up to clap Vincent on the shoulder. The angel deftly moved away from the man, avoiding the dirty hand. “Not like yourself, though,” the man continued, unfazed by the angel’s lack of enthusiasm.

  “What do you mean?” Vincent asked.

  “Well, and angel walking among the humans is an odd thing, especially since the vast majority of your people keep themselves locked away in Heaven. Haven’t seen one of you folks in, oh about a century, I think.”

  Vincent was mildly shocked that the man knew what he was, but kept his surprise hidden. He knew that other beings walked among the humans. This man was likely one of the many creatures humans no longer believed existed. “Why are you bothering me?” Vincent asked.

  The fat man looked up at the angel and smiled, revealing several large gaps in his teeth. “You looked lost. I am a guide, for those that can pay.”

  “I have no money from this world,” Vincent muttered, turning away from the fat man and continuing down the sidewalk.

  “Don’t much care where the money is from,” the little man replied, hurrying to catch up to the angel. “There’s always an exchanger nearby, if you know where to look.”

  “Who says I want to go anywhere?” Vincent sighed, never looking at the man following him.

  “Who says you want to stay here?” the guide countered. “I can get you where you should be, and quickly, too! Just need a bit of pay, is all.”

  Vincent rolled his eyes. He was growing tired of this little man asking for money. “You’re getting nothing from me,” he growled.

  The fat man grinned again, holding his hands out in a placating manner. “I don’t need anything right now. Anyway, I’m not oblivious to your irritation. I’ll leave you alone for now, but remember, whenever you want to go home, simply give me a call.” He said the last part while handing Vincent a business card.

  The angel took the card and slipped it into his pocket without looking at it. “I’ve been banished from my home. There is no going back.”

  “You’ve been banished from Hell, yes,” the fat man quipped, “but not your true home. I can get you there. Give me a call sometime.” With that, he turned and left, walking back down the street and into an alleyway.

  Confused, Vincent brushed the pommel of his sword, still hanging at his hip but in
visible to the naked eye. He would have to question the man at a later date to find out how he knew so much about him. He pushed the annoying thoughts out of his mind and continued walking.

  In the alley, the fat man chuckled to himself. Several other men stood nearby, waiting for the news.

  “We’ll have him soon enough, boys,” the fat man said. “Not too long before he comes to us wanting to go home.”

  Jake sat in his room at the asylum, reading an old book from before the war. His mind wandered away from the story, however, and he found himself thinking of the day he set fire to his home all those years ago. His mother had been adamant about him setting that blaze. He could still remember the look in her eyes, calm, collected, and worst of all, perfectly sane. In his telling of the tale, Jake had left out the part that his mother told him there was a demon in the basement, chained up and unable to escape. The demon had begged to be set free. Jake’s mother refused to let the thing go. Before being committed to the asylum herself, she had interrogated the creature, wanting to know where it had come from and why it was on Earth. According to its tortured screams, it was a part of the initial ground force that invaded the human world to take it over. It was one of the first demons to start the war. The demon had become wounded in a fight with a militia made up of several different types of creatures and was left behind by its comrades. It crawled into the basement to hide and heal, but was quickly captured by Jake’s mother. She tortured it for months before it finally cracked, allowing her to pull the information from its lips.

  She spent her time away from home trying to warn people of the demon threat, but she was always met with dismissal. No one believed her, and why would they? To the general populace, she was a raving lunatic shouting about demons coming from Hell to take over the planet. She managed to dodge the authorities most of the time. Once on a while, some policemen would show up to the house, but she never spent more than a night or two in jail. Her ravings were mostly harmless, if still disturbing to the rest of society.

  Her outings started to affect her family, though. Her husband lost credibility at his law firm and he stopped getting clients due to his connection to her. Their marriage became strained, and at times there was the strong possibility of divorce. Everyone outside the household would certainly have never blamed him for divorcing his wife. He did leave, however, not wanting to be directly involved in case anything happened, leaving her to deal with the authorities and the children. Jake was old enough to help out with everything, and he was a surprisingly mature young man for his age. Jake took great care of his mother and sister while their father was away.

  Eventually, more demons began passing by the house, its remote location being right in the path of the invading army. Jake’s mother feared for the safety of her family and devised a way to get rid of the demon and keep her children safe. Unfortunately, it required her to be sent away to a mental institution, leaving her children to go on without her. Jake was sixteen at the time, making him the guardian of his younger sister. He was the only one that could be trusted. The plan took a full year to implement, leaving Jake in charge while his mother was away. During his visits to the asylum, his mother would unfold more of the plan as it came to her, and Jake was left with the responsibility to cover things up. Fortunately, he also had the support of his father, who knew his own part in the plan. He was to die in the fire, making it look like a tragic accident. The corpse of the demon would be found eventually, and the authorities would think it was the arsonist. If the coroners did their jobs correctly, the autopsy would undoubtedly reveal the creature to be inhuman, thus making the mother’s claims true. She would be released from the asylum and reunited with her children, and they would be able to go back to being a family.

  Jake’s father’s death, while still tragic, was not avoidable. Nor was it at all worrying to Jake or his family. Jake’s father was not human, as revealed by the captive demon. It smelled the ancient essence on the man after his wife brought him to the basement when she found it. The demon was surprised at first, then angry. It was upset and being captured by a human woman, but became furious when confronted by one of the very creatures that had ambushed its party. Jake’s father had stated that he was merely protecting his family from a threat, knowing the demons would most likely bring them harm if they witnessed their movements. The demon eventually calmed down, knowing that it was doomed. Jake’s father had given his mother some tips on how to keep the demon powerless and trapped within the basement while she extracted the information. He even devised a way to keep his involvement hidden from the public, allowing him to confirm the demon’s words. While he was away, he found out the demonic army had already invaded Earth from several locations worldwide, hastening their spread throughout the world.

  When the time came to set fire to the house, the demons were already entrenched in human society, easily hiding in plain sight. It was too late. Hell’s invasion was complete. Jake’s father hid in the basement when the boy set the fire, allowing his body to be consumed by the flames. The demon died slowly, to the father’s delight, and the house crumbled into ash and smoldering ruins. After the investigation was completed and the reports filed, Jake and his family were reunited in secret, far away from their home. Unfortunately, by the time the war was over, Jake was the only survivor. He was left all alone in the world, confused and wandering.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A cold wind blew over the sleeping man’s face, causing him to stir. Frigid water lapped at his feet, numbing him up to his knees. His clothes were soaked from rain and melting snow and his skin was pale and tinged with blue. A lone raven pecked at his chest, tearing away bits of ruined flesh. A deep wound oozed coagulating blood, letting out little puffs of steam with each bit of skin ripped away by the raven. The steam dissipated quickly on the frozen breeze.

  Voices arose in an unfamiliar language, barely audible to the numb man. They sounded vaguely shocked and drew nearer. The man barely felt himself being half lifted, half dragged away from the water. The voices talked amongst each other, occasionally seeming to address the man. His mind was hazy and he was unable to fully wake up, but he was just able to comprehend the gist of what was going on. He was being taken to safety. But the man was unsure of exactly where he was. His eyes fluttered open for a moment and he was greeted with a grey overcast sky. The air smelled of a coming storm over a large body of water. Small waves could be heard lapping at a shore nearby, but the sound was slowly receding. The voices became excited and a wizened visage filled the man’s view.

  The old man said something, but the wounded man could not understand the words. The old man tried again, but only had the same effect. He frowned and continued taking the wounded man someplace safe. The two men were dressed in furs, with their bounty of fish hanging from their shoulders. The wounded man looked down at his own body and saw blood soaked leather armor, ruined by whatever had caused the garish wound in his chest. His groggy mind barely recognized what he was seeing, but he knew that he should not even be alive. His saviors seemed to see this as well, according to their urgent tones.

  The day wore on, with the two hunters carrying the man somewhere. The terrain seemed rough during the trek, and trees would occasionally float by the man’s view. His gaze remained upward, only allowing him to see the cloudy sky. He drifted into and out of consciousness, waking briefly to groan or croak out a raspy word or two. He was still unable to form coherent thoughts. Just before nightfall, the hunters stopped and the man could hear a solid thumping sound. The smell of cooked fish wafted to his nostrils and he weakly craned his neck to see the outline of a cabin against the darkening sky. A woman’s voice said something to the hunters and they carried the man into the building. They gently laid him on a cot in the corner and draped a heavy blanket over him. Warmth seeped back into his limbs and he let himself fall into the comfortable embrace of sleep. Before he was fully unconscious, a barely audible “Thank you” escaped his lips.

  Vincent sat in a café, sipping from
a cup of hot tea. The earthy aroma reminded him of the calm days in Hell when he would sit in his old home during his down time. The memory brought a grimace to his face and he set his tea down on the table next to him. He had finally figured out where on Earth he was, and conjured the appropriate monetary bills. When he was ejected from Hell, he had appeared in a rebuilt New York. The buildings were all new, built within the last decade or so, and the people seemed to be glad to have real brick and mortar surrounding them. Even the technology was making a strong comeback. The humans carried cellular phones and drove cars, large television screens were hanging on the sides of buildings showing news broadcasts and advertisements. Technologically, the humans had roughly returned to the early- to mid-twenty-first century. The hustle and bustle of the city reminded Vincent of the market in Laarsa, Hell’s capital city. But the humans far outnumbered the citizens of Hell.

  The angel numbly toyed with the card given to him by the fat man the other day and pondered his words. Could the man truly get Vincent into Heaven? Did Vincent even want to go to Heaven? It was an intriguing prospect, but the angel just was not sure if he wanted it. He was born and raised in Hell, with only brief ventures to Earth. The only home he had ever known was Hell. He smirked to himself, amused by the irony of it all. Very few angels were recorded living in Hell for any amount of time, yet Vincent had lived his entire life there. No angel spent any more time than was necessary there; it was simply against their nature. Yet Vincent longed to go back. He knew what he had done, but now wanted nothing more than to take it back. He was lost and he needed his big brother to help him. But Adrian was gone. Ripped away from Vincent by the angel’s own hand. A tear slid down his cheek, making him wish even harder that he could go back in time and stop himself from making that terrible mistake. Adrian was dead, there was nothing Vincent could do, and it was all his fault. The assassin was simply doing his job, and his target, though unfortunate, was still guilty of the crime of high treason. She was the reason the vampires gained the demon killing weapons and access to Hell. It was plain to see that she deserved what she got. But not Adrian. Adrian was a good brother, a good son, and a good prince. He never deserved the betrayal of his own brother.