by Poppet
I shake my head, smiling at Polina. We might die together, tonight. “No Jude, no. They won’t send MI6, they’ll send MI5. Jude, I need you to assemble every soldier we have on the estate. Be ready to move out in ten!”
I hang up. It’s now or never.
~ Chapter 27 ~
This is why I came
so that I might go through this hour of suffering
– John 12:27
Victor:
DECISION MADE, I snap into action. If I’m going down tonight I am taking them all with me. Doing a speedy recon I confirm the bike is just a mass of twisted metal. It’s useless for anything but scrap.
Returning to my lady I just bury my worry and make haste. Risking her life I lift Polina as carefully as I can, carrying her back to the road, seeking out the deathtrap that came to end me.
Walking past my brother I give him a hard kick to the head with my steel-toed boot, and keep on walking. The Diablo is a mere ten feet away. Grief this mist hides everything. Surely someone could manufacture mist to use as camouflage? It’s the bloody shizzle.
Gingerly I balance her, opening the passenger door, and place her on the seat. She’s unconscious, and nothing appears to be broken. I’m hoping the meds she’s on kept her pliable enough to be elastic on impact. It minimises damage. Screw my god forsaken life.
Securing the seatbelt I then go back to my brother. Fuck, how do I crush a man my size into the diminutive rear seat of the Diablo? I’m 6 ft 6 and 264 pounds. He’s my mirror, he looks just like me.
Grateful for never missing a day pumping iron and calisthenics I hoist him up, carrying him in a fireman’s lift to the car. Dropping him, I shunt the driver’s seat forward, angling it all the way to the steering wheel, then struggle to lift him to fit him inside the opening.
I’m sweating like an ogre with effort, but finally have him squashed into the compartment. A car with a boot would’ve come in mighty handy about now, but I guess dad doesn’t send goons to kill the angel of Vengeance in a Phantom. It would tarnish the family crest for the golden child to be seen in such a pauper’s mode of transport.
The sarcasm would probably be lost on Alpha.
Leaving my mangled bike behind in a field I gun the Lamborghini to my safe house in Kimbolton. I’m driving to the lake and get on the phone again.
“Vic?” comes Jude’s alarmed voice.
“How many black ops do we have with us? Thirteen?”
“Affirmative,” he says, breathless like he’s running someplace.
“I’m coming to the lake, meet me there.”
I hang up to focus on driving. The fog is denser and I’m speeding like a lunatic to beat the countdown. I’ve had deadlines before but this one is up to the Fates. The chances of me executing my objective successfully are slim to none, but I have to try.
Shaking my head again I find it hard to fathom how close we are to Alpha’s home in Bedfordshire. It’s a relief to break free of the low cloud cover and I accelerate the Lamborghini as fast as it can go to my estate. It has state of the art security and I’ve lost my keys somehow, so I’m inordinately grateful when the gates slide open the moment my high beams illuminate the cast iron barrier.
Driving the Diablo to the stables to stash it out of sight, I manage to descend into a pregnant silence when I kill the engine in the protection of the old barn. Mortality is weighing on me.
Dread is in me, knowing tonight is my last one, my final hour has no last supper, it’s a nightmare shrouded in the annihilation of all that I am, all that I thought I knew, all that I thought would come to be.
In the place of wistful contemplation my body and mind are dulled with an ominously vacuous cavern. Alpha gets his wish. I’ll die for him. But I need to get to him before the law, because like his blueprint says in the original texts I will kiss him when he’s dying, sucking the spirit out of him. No afterlife for him, no reincarnating. I was born the Destroyer and it’s my sworn creed to destroy him.
Getting out, feeling taller than usual, like my spirit has expanded far beyond my body, readying to take flight and leave my mortal form behind, I take a quick jog to the doors, surveying the surrounds for ambush and enemy activity. I’m a wanted man in every country this world has named, hell probably even Antarctica too.
Jude and Bradley are already out of the house and advancing on me with weapons drawn. I make the hand signal so they know it’s me. I don’t have time, I have to check Polina for injuries and keep this doppelgänger alive long enough to interrogate him.
This guy has to get talking, and soon!
Scooping Polina up I stride out of the barn, passing Jude. “Bring him in, we need to get some pertinent intel from him.” I don’t have time for pleasantries, I just keep hurrying my arse to the homestead.
Entering into the house via the kitchen I place Polina on the counter. A cursory examination gives me heartfelt relief, but I look at the men assembled around me and bark, “Get Doc to check her over. We don’t have a spare second. Comprende? We should already be on the move.”
Terry goes to the intercom, paging Doc to the kitchen.
Polina’s in good hands.
I’ve never needed my surgeon’s skills more than I do right now. I have to save that cunt’s life, and no time to do it in.
•
Jude:
Bradley gets the goon out of the car with my help, and I leave him to carry him over his shoulder, inside to Victor. I don’t know what Vic is thinking but I know he’s the only man I’d follow into hell, in an emergency, when all hope is lost.
If you’re going to take a sojourn into hell then best you have the Angel of Vengeance at your side. Demons cower before him and devils flee. Satan himself bows his head when Victor walks his way. I would follow Victor to my death. Fucking idiot that I am.
Looking up through the condensation on the inside of the windshield it occurs to me that I love Vic. He is more than my brother in arms, he’s more than brethren. He’s my best friend, a twin spirit.
Fuck this, there’s no time to get sentimental because the end is near. Trust your leader. Have faith!
Wiping my clammy hairline with the back of my arm I continue rifling through the documents in the glove compartment. I’m not British so calling it a cubby hole just sounds like something sweet to sink my dick into. My dick has a new name, henceforth he shall be named the document in the brief-case. Sure I’ll put my document in your cubby hole.
Fuck I get dilly when I’m stressing.
I’d like to have met a babe and shagged her into a pulp before I met my maker, but hey, if you live for the cause then you die for the cause.
I find what I’m looking for under his seat. Taking the license I head into the house.
My phone’s alarm beeps, signalling forty minutes left before we’re out of time. Tension tightens. I need to kill something.
Vic’s in the kitchen doing rudimentary and unsanitary surgery. He’s digging a slug out of his clone’s groin. Bloody hell.
“Why’d you cap him there?” I ask, moving to his side, examining the enemy up close and personal. I note the bloodied kitchen towel, another slug already lying in a dish.
“If you have to ask that then I’m stripping you of your surgeon’s license,” snaps Victor, his focus divided.
I examine Vic, bent over and concentrating, staunching blood, cauterising where he has to. He’s doing this fast as possible like a medic on a battlefield, stabilising the wounded for safe transport out of the kill zone. Oh, right. Two main veins feed the penis, nerves cluster there, and he could well bleed to death if a projectile severs one of those veins. But I can tell Vic didn’t want to kill him, he just aimed to stop him, to disable his attack.
Remind me never to piss off Victor.
The kitchen is crowded with our core group, the closest and oldest black ops officers, ex-disciples, ex angels, and all of them are looking away, finding excuses to count and fill magazines, to check slides for lubrication, anything but to look at woun
ded junk. I’m feeling it too, my gonads are shrivelling up with a sympathetic reaction to his cock mangled because of the projectile. The bullet penetrated the shaft and went straight into his groin through the vein on the left.
“Jesus.” I look away, cracking one to lighten the severe atmosphere of doom. “Do you also hang to the left? You’re left handed, is he? Is this a thing?”
Vic glances at me. “Fuck off, Jude.”
“Thanks for taking his jeans down, it makes getting into his pockets less homo.” I’m digging in all his pockets, lining up on the counter next to us keys, wallet, ring.
Ring?
Vic looks at it. His swallow is audible in the dense silence.
No one moves. No one breathes.
Hell in high heels.
If ever he was going to lose it that time is now.
It’s a moment where we all stare, unable to look away, the significance of the ring on the table obvious to us all. Vic just shot the newly ordained Alpha.
Betrayal – traitor – thy name is brother in blood.
“Fuck.” Vic drops the scalpel, standing erect, rage distorting the veins in his temples and forehead. “Fuck this. FUCK THIS!”
“Vic, give me ten minutes. Just ten. Five even!” I beseech, running to the lounge to get my laptop.
Careering back I slap Clone’s hand on the screen, scanning his fingerprints and palm, he whose name shall never be mentioned again, and I wait for my program to spit out intel.
Victor’s punching the kitchen cupboard like it called his granny a Madam, so while the hard drive whirrs I move to the kettle, grabbing the whisky. We should drink, fuck yes we should drink. We’re all about to go up in a blaze of unholy glory, we need to toast.
“Get chalices gents, we’ll have no final meal but we’re finishing this sweet ambrosia before we fuck off to be buried in metal and shame.”
Mugs, glasses and thimbles are presented, and I pour generously for us all, spilling it into two more tumblers before me.
I move to Vic, grabbing his nape, forcing him back to face his men. We need a leader, and this fucker doesn’t get to forsake us now.
Shoving the tumbler into his hand, I raise mine. “To victory!”
“Victory!” choruses, and the golden bliss is consumed in one fluid synchronised movement.
I refill them. “To Victor! VICTOR!”
They understand. He is the victor, he fucking has to be.
“Victor!” ricochets off the tiles and counters.
Vic looks emotional, like he’s gonna start hugging us, giving us his Oscar speech. I shake my head at him, “Save it ’til after, you girl’s blouse. Don’t you get your clit vibrating now, we ain’t got no time for that.”
Vic says gruffly, “Dress this asswipe, he’s coming with us. I’ll trade my dad, him for my brother. Alpha ends tonight. He’ll bribe his way out of prison, he’ll mysteriously vanish and escape prosecution. No way. This fucker is the passage behind the golden gates of Asgard.”
We drink, we drink until it’s gone, we even open another bottle while I tell them what my computer is spewing between my gulps of Scotland’s finest.
Date of birth.
Parents.
Grandparents.
Godparents.
Guardian.
Then his education streams across the screen, the most informative intel comes from his University’s honours list, they keep tabs on their finest, especially events attended by one of England’s most eligible bachelors … fuck.
I’m reading it all out loud to the appalled silence in the kitchen. We’re engrossed, unaware that Polina’s been taken for an MRI, my voice droning on and on ... this guy lives the life of the playboy superrich. He’s so elite he’s invited to the royal Christmas up in Scotland every year. And yet, he’s never been photographed, the paparazzi have not one image of him. He’s under the radar and one of the richest men in the world.
My phone alarm resounds and I shut the computer, finally seeing the look on Victor’s face. If I could take it all back I would. When will I learn the subtle art of tact? Looking away I redress the hostage. The tension is oppressive.
•
Victor:
The final nail from my father has wounded me beyond repair. It’s one thing having an inkling of what I missed, but to hear it listed like that … Jesus.
Alpha has no clue what this means to me. He robbed me of a childhood ally, a playmate, a friend by my side while we toiled in hell together. For forty-three years Alpha hid this from me. He deprived me of someone to stargaze with, to do studies with, to be indoctrinated with, to share secrets and hoard treats in the back of my old shoes that I’d outgrown. I wouldn’t have been so lonely growing up, so isolated, if he’d let me keep the one thing that truly was my birthright. My twin brother.
Tears glaze my eyes. It’s too late, far too late. We were raised to be enemies when we should have been best friends.
My father has no shame. This arsehole has no shame. He had everything and he tried to rob me of my right to life. He took everything from me, everything, him and our dad, and that wasn’t enough for either of them. They weren’t satisfied with my infernal misery and persecution, no, they wanted to steal my right to live from me!
I’m staring at him, watching him come back to consciousness, and move in fast, securing him. He’s going to be in agony but he’ll live. My father will die so he can live.
There will be a sacrifice tonight.
There will be a blood oath.
Staring at Niel Adam Ward I finally know exactly how to ruin my father.
HOW TO BREAK HIM!
“Fuck this guys, no waiting, no planning, we move out now. Fuck stealth and covert fuck all.”
I am out of fucks to give.
Hoisting Niel over my shoulder I start marching.
“Jude mobilise your legion, we’re closing in on Dad right now!”
~ Chapter 28 ~
YOU ARE GODS, I said;
All of you are sons of the Most High,
but you will die like men.
~ Psalms 82:6
Jude:
REZ AND ANDREW have the vehicles brought around already and we pile into the two of them with enough ammunition to take out Texas. We’re gearing up with ballistics protection while the van speeds its way to Alpha’s final bastion. I took the massive artillery truck with Vic and Niel, because when Vic loses his shit I need to be able to take over the issuing of orders, guiding us to an unsure coup.
I never have nerves before an operation and yet right now I’m sweating like I’m on the spit. I’m confused as hell while watching Vic. Victor is systematically stripping out of every shred of his clothing while Andrew roughshods us over curbs and round corners. I don’t know how fast this behemoth goes but I’m hoping it gets there before the effing enforcers do.
“Vic?” I ask, my first doubts at his competence entering my mind. Stoically ignoring me he strips Niel, pulling on his brother’s clothes, smearing Niel’s blood on the attire, and then redresses Niel in the gear he was just wearing. His mind is racing a million miles an hour, he’s the master of cunning. I’m seeing what he’s thinking and already smell the champagne. We’re going to win this one!
“Ballistic windbreaker?” asks Vic, looking into the dark corners under the long bench seats lining the truck. “I’m not going in there without bulletproofing. My dad could shoot me in the head but I’m counting on his love for this prick to save my arse.”
Jack hands him a black windbreaker. Thank fuck we’re all of similar build or that would look mighty stupid on Victor. He’s a big man, but Alpha only chose the superior gene pool to serve him.
“Target acquired,” says Andy from the driver’s seat.
“Park in the neighbour’s woods, you will see it coming up here on the right.” Victor points, moving to the front to behind the driver’s seat to direct Andrew, jostled over the curb when we take the heavy vehicle deep into a dappled glade. It’s shielded from overhead, and
no one will be looking at the posh neighbours, they’ll have all eyes on Ridley Manor.
•
Victor:
Positioning my men at intervals around dad’s swanky estate, I have a private word with Jude, then head to the main gate of the palace.
Security cameras swivel and lights blind down on me.
No one knows what I’m planning. I’m committing suicide walking to this gate.
Stumbling, almost falling, I lean heavily on the wall ensconcing the intercom, deliberately displaying the ring my father bestowed on his ordained, and press the buzzer.
“Lord?” answers the ring.
“I’ve been shot! It’s Niel, open the gate! That maniac has my car!”
The gates open, floodlights burst to life, illuminating the property with kilowatts of power.
Alpha betrays himself, running out the main door to his son, me, yelling instructions over his shoulder. “Get the wheelchair! Grab my medical bag!”
He’s rushing to get to Niel, running to me with concern and love the way I always hoped he would, the favourite, the one who lived a life of privilege, the one worthy of care and nurturing.
Biding my time I collapse on the gravel shards of the driveway, doubled over, moaning in fake agony. I don’t know what the cunt called dad, so I’m playing this economically by ear.
Alpha runs, uncaring that he’s exposed, the gates wide open, the estate a hive of unexpected activity behind him.
I’ve drawn out the guards, they’re rushing to secure the entrance. This is why instinct is the teacher. It’s intuition. Trust it and know you will revenge the righteous for the acts of the wicked. None of us knew the hour of this reckoning, and yet look at us now.
Alpha’s run is easy, his health restored, and I am brutally dismayed to see him sporting two hands. Bowing my head, groaning torment, bent over double on gravel, Alpha bends over me to assist his cherished spawn, protecting me from the world with his body as a shield. It feels like a knife is lodged in my chest, so intense is the grief of witnessing his attitude toward Niel.