He jerked and shuddered horribly as he tried to get back onto his feet.
Swan crawled across the bottom of the knoll and gripped the cleaver that had fallen there. He dug the cleaver tip first into the ground and he pulled himself up it, finding purchase by digging the bloody stump of his leg into the ground again, trying at the same time to position his useless other leg to attain some semblance of balance. On the fourth attempt he managed it, rising drunkenly to stand. His face was very pale and had taken on a gray pallor. His eyes heavy and coming in and out of focus struggling to remain conscious. A river of blood flooded down the enormous open gash in his thigh.
From where he was he would just about be able to make out the spastic contortions of his opponent.
Claw gave up and lay flat on his front, dark blood oozing from his cheek onto the grass, mingling with Swan’s.
The crowd’s shouts died away to silence. The masked paramedics kept looking at Mr. Mirrors, waiting for his signal.
The seconds ticked away. The viewscreen faded from Claw to Swan and back again, cycling every five seconds.
Mr. Mirrors checked his watch, shook his head, sighed and then stood. He gestured to the paramedics. Teams of two rushed forward with their cases and placed them by the two bloodied combatants.
Claw was turned onto his back, his stomach muscles bunched up obscenely under his sternum, still alive, but crippled for life.
Across from him Swan was laid gently on the grass. One of the paramedics made a cutting motion across his neck at Mr. Mirrors.
He watched as Mr. Mirrors dropped his head gravely and he walked slowly up the knoll to stand next to Claw.
He lifted both hands above his head and then brought one down to point at Claw. The crowd sputtered into pockets of applause. Mr. Mirrors frowned at the two men, one dead and the other crippled. He walked down the knoll, past the piles of Claw’s winnings and back through the door at the far end.
The viewscreen stayed on Claw.
The crowd murmured as it began to disperse. Shaking their heads mostly, some mimicking the movements of the two combatants as if to show how it should have been done. He got the impression that this was not one of the better contests.
Blake watched on the screen as the paramedic teams pulled off Swan’s mask revealing his face. He saw himself placed on a stretcher and strapped, still conscious, eyes whirling in his head like loose marbles.
CHAPTER 25
wunderland...ryakorum’s gambit...an angel dies...
The internet cafe was empty save for one other. Blake slipped the memory card from his phone, slid it into a USB adaptor and inserted it into a computer. He opened it up and fired up a nonstandard internet browser. He typed in ‘Wonderland’ into a search. A window opened and images of the men from his list started to highlight. The name ‘Wunderland’ kept coming up. Blake changed the search word from ‘Wonderland’ to ‘Wunderland’. Blake typed in more code. A map application opened. Markers started to appear all over the West coast. The markers began to concentrate on specific locations. One location started to become heavier and heavier with markers.
The night air lay like a chill blanket over the rolling farmland. Above, wisps of vermillion cloud streaked the sky as if raked by a giant claw. The silhouettes of the three squat buildings gathered darkly, silent and huddled as if for warmth.
Blake sat in his car. The buildings were visible through a gap in the treeline. Blake looked at the map application on his phone. The blinking marker was the same as the one from the internet cafe. Wunderland. Blake checked his silenced Sigs and exited the car. Keeping low he made his way to the edge of the treeline where he could observe without being seen.
Three sets of twin lights bobbed and weaved along the road towards the farm. A dark Range Rover slowed to a halt followed by an articulated lorry. A Land Rover pulled up the rear.
The Range Rover passenger doors opened and a man and two women stepped out.
The women were twins and both stunningly beautiful. Short cream coats revealed legs built to make men want. Long, lustrous hair in ringlets tumbled over padded shoulders. Fuchsia lips shimmered in the headlights; flawless skin gleamed bright in the gloom.
Blake felt a chill at the sight of the man. He recognised him. The man whose file he read whilst waiting for Stephanie to join him in the conference room a million years ago. The man from his dream.
Erovan Ryakorum was a man built with the appearance of indestructibility that would make most men, when faced with him, turn and run for their lives. He was tall at around six-six and heavily muscled, however it was not muscle acquired by hours spent hammering weights in the gym, but genetics. He looked like a man made entirely of dense sculpted bone.
God’s Banker. That’s what they called him. The man that controlled the Catholic Church’s finances, second only to the Pope in power and influence within that tiny principality of the Vatican. His long dark contoured overcoat, buttoned all the way from his midsection up to a high collar gave him a clergy-like appearance. A sliver of white at the neck was all that was missing.
Erovan took a deep breath and rolled his mighty shoulders, exhaling a dragon’s plume of breath into the night air.
More men exited the Range Rover and the Lorry. All were armed. None of them looked directly at Erovan. Blake got the impression of a shark amongst prawns.
Erovan gently prodded the two women towards the open door. They obliged, tottering over the uneven ground. The guard stood aside and they entered. The remaining guard approached Erovan and bowed. Erovan nodded.
The guard rose and spun his finger in the air. The lorry started up and pulled round and then reversed towards a gap between the two buildings, someone activated high set lamps on the lorry rear and Blake saw a large goods access hatch set in a wall between the buildings.
Momentarily illuminated, Blake quickly scanned the exterior. Apart from the access gate the only other entrance was the one the two women had just entered. All of the windows were opaque facades.
The lorry backed up until it was almost flush with the gate. Metal clanking followed and then the sound of a gate being lifted.
Someone shouted ‘out!’ from inside the lorry and suddenly the air was filled with the shouts of young children before another shout silenced them. Blake thought he could make out small thudding noises as the children made their way out of the lorry. A few whimpers escaped from the lorry before being silenced.
The spotlights winked out, an internal gate clattered shut, the lorry revved up and moved forward and stopped, idling.
Another light winked into existence. The interior light of the Land Rover came on as Caldwell opened the door, leant in and pulled a briefcase from the front seat.
He placed the case on the hood of the car and stood in the ambient light from the open door and the twin headlights of the Range Rover. Blake felt his hairs prick up on the nape of his neck at the sight of the man.
The change in Erovan was remarkable. Suddenly he was no longer the master of this particular universe. His head lowered and deferential he walked over to Caldwell and moved to take the case.
Caldwell held up a finger staying Ryakorum. He then looked up at the night sky as if waiting for something to happen.
Ryakorum followed his gaze.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Waiting.’
‘For what?’
Caldwell scanned the heavens.
‘For God to stop me.’
Ryakorum looked from Caldwell to the masked faces of his men. Caldwell eyed the Demon floating twenty meters above.
Ryakorum froze as did everyone and everything else. Caldwell became dark for a moment as the demon within him separated and rose to the other above.
Both floated silently above the frozen tapestry below.
After a while the demon floated back down to Caldwell, momentarily skewing the outlines of Caldwell’s actual form. It slowly faded and disappeared. Beneath the demon the tapestry unfroze.
T
he demon above them turned to Blake. It considered the man’s essence. He was strong. Strong enough to take its form. The demon had already begun the process in his dreams. Acceptance in dreams was the first step. But not yet. The man still had work to do.
To Ryakorum, Caldwell’s outline flickered as he brought his gaze back to him. Caldwell sighed and shrugged.
‘I guess he must be busy.’
Caldwell took his hand off the briefcase. Ryakorum picked it up and walked back as the lights from the lorry flickered on.
Caldwell got back into the Land Rover, the lorry revved up and the convoy retreated along the track. Ryakorum watched the convoy leave and strode into the building.
Blake scanned all around the tops of the buildings.
Two guards had remained outside.
He steadied the silenced Sig-Sauer against a tree, flicked off the safety and fired. One shattered the jaw of the first guard, the second ripped into his throat. Blake sprinted across open ground, skidded to a stop and pressed himself flat against the building wall.
He slipped the gun into a shoulder holster, bent down and grabbed the first of the dead men under the shoulders and dragged him to the edge of the road where it banked down into the undergrowth and rolled the body down. He did the same with the next but not before he had removed his jacket and slipped it over his. He bent and pulled the guard’s balaclava off.
The exterior door was unlocked. Inside, a weakly lit corridor, soiled walls, littered floor, extended twenty yards. Another guard stood at the end. He raised his arm in a half greeting. Blake responded likewise. Halfway down, the guard jerked into action as Blake pulled his Sig-Sauer out. The guard was still bringing his gun to bear when he received a double tap to the head almost taking it off his shoulders.
Blake stepped over his twitching corpse and pushed the door open and moved into a pristine lobby area. Everything was white, from the immaculate tiled floor, the ceiling and the walls. Large frosted glass doors suggested a bigger brighter space beyond.
Blake waited and watched. Nothing moved. The place was silent save for the humming of the lights above him and beyond.
The glass doors led onto a huge circular room all decked in white, a serving bar at its centre, plush seating all around, bottles of all shapes and sizes lined its mirrored shelves. Beyond a long wide corridor curved off, doors spaced at even intervals on either side. Some were open to reveal beautifully appointed bedrooms, all were empty.
Further along he found what seemed like a large children’s playroom. Child sized costumes of superheroes hung in the closets. A disguised camera assembly dominated one end. Blake winced at the sharp stab in his hand. He looked down to see that he had dug his nails into his palms drawing blood. He unclenched his fist.
Further along was another darker room. This held banks of flatscreens, some were still on with views into the rooms and the playroom he had just been in. Mobile digital video mixing decks, streaming hardware, empty racks littered the area.
One of the screens showed movement.
Blake found the controls for the screen and shifted the remote camera joystick.
The dark image showed Erovan Ryakorum lying on the bed naked. The two young ladies he had brought with him either side, their heads by his groin, working their mouths and tongues around his engorged penis. The room name was displayed in the bottom left corner of the screen. He panned around the rest of the room. Empty.
Blake flicked through the rest of the feeds. There were several night vision surveillance feeds. One showed a view outside from somewhere high up above where he had been hiding. To anyone monitoring that station he would have shown as clear as day when he had rushed the guards. Another showed the now still form of the third guard, a pool of dark stretching from his smashed skull.
Where was everyone?
He knew who to ask.
He doubled back. He pressed his ear against the bedroom door, listened for a moment then gently pushed the door open.
Erovan was roped naked to the bed as if crucified, arms outstretched either side, legs tied together at the ankles.
The giant’s eyes were closed, his mouth a grimace as the two women’s heads bobbed, sucking and slurping. The air was humid and thick with a warped perfume. Their clothes were scattered on the bed and across the floor.
The women’s bronzed physiques were amazing. Toned, amazonian limbs, round peach shaped asses. They were mesmerising to watch. Blake struggled to tear his eyes away from their writhing forms. When he finally did, Erovan was looking directly at him, an amused look on his face.
‘Seems we have a guest,’ he announced like he had just discovered rat droppings under his pillow. His voice was pure clotted cream, deep and rich.
Both women looked up but instead of shrieking and scrambling to the other side of the bed as he had expected them to, they eyed him up and down as if a man with a gun appearing in the room was the most natural thing in the world. Blake shifted under their stares. There was something terribly unclean in the way they were looking at him.
Erovan nodded at his bonds. One of the women moved to untie his hands. Blake raised the Sig-Sauer and put a bullet into the mattress by his thigh, sending up a fountain of down and stopping her dead.
‘Hey, take it easy. Jesus!’
‘Where are they?’
‘Where are who?’ said Erovan, his face flat with composure.
Darkness balked within Blake, spiking him, filling him with inky thorns.
He sighed. A lifetime of superiority was almost impossible to put aside in a few moments. Chicken Jack, Fallon, J-Mac, Horowitz, Laroche had all struggled with it. But the judicious application of violence seemed to do funny things to a man’s self assurance and conviction of their place in the hierarchy. Pain, he had found, was the great leveler.
Blake took two steps to stand over Erovan and placed the muzzle of the Sig in the middle of his restrained palm and pulled the trigger.
He screamed. His massive pectorals and biceps bunched hauling at the bonds at his wrists. Hidden couplings resisted for a moment before being wrenched free.
He bolted upright at the waist, cupping his holed hand in his good, blood flowing freely down his wrist, chest, thighs, soaking into the silken sheets.
Erovan fixed Blake with a look of pure hatred.
The two women pulled back out of the way of the blood, their eyes momentarily lighting up at the sight of the gore and Erovan in pain.
Blake saw he was strong. Saw that as he brought the shock under control. As he clamped down on the wound, stemming the blood loss.
‘Give me that,’ he barked at one of the women, gesturing to a slip at the end of the bed. She reached across languidly, arching her back, her eyes on Blake and grabbed it. Erovan took it and wound it around the hole in his hand.
The darkness whispered in his ear.
‘You two, off the bed and get down on the floor.’ The women did as they were told and eased onto the floor at the foot of the bed.
Erovan knotted the slip and pulled it tight with his teeth, grimacing.
‘I’ll ask you again, where are the children?’
‘They’re gone.’
‘You fuckin’ idiot,’ Blake shook his head and raised the Sig. Erovan held up his uninjured hand.
‘I’m not lying to you, they’re gone.’
‘I saw the truck deliver them.’
‘The truck was here to take them away.’
‘Take them away?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where? What the fuck is going on here. You better start giving me more than single sentence answers.’
‘They’ve been sold on. I don’t know where they’ve gone.’
‘The guy that took them. Who was he?’
‘His name is Caldwell.’
‘Where is he taking them?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘You don’t. He finds you. That’s all I know.’
Erovan could se
e that he wasn’t convincing Blake.
‘You can torture me all night, it won’t get you any closer to what you want.’
‘And what do I want?’
Erovan sighed.
‘We knew you’d be coming,’ he looked down at his naked body and across to the two naked women. ‘We just didn’t think it would be quite so soon. Blake.’
‘You know me?’
‘You’ve made quite an impression.’
‘You don’t know me.’
Blake gestured with the Sig.
‘Get up.’
Erovan shifted off the bed and bent to pick up his clothes.
‘Leave the clothes.’
Across the room, the two women also got up, like cats uncurling.
‘Stay down.’
‘No,’ said the first, shaking her head and looking at him through the tops of her eyes, gently biting her lower lip.
‘Gabriella!’ said Erovan, a warning in his voice.
‘Oh shush Erovan,’ said Gabriella, her accent a heavy Eastern European, and brought a finger up to her luscious lips. ‘He’s not going to hurt me.’
Blake raised the Sig.
‘No women, no kids? That’s the golden rule for all honorable assassins, is it not, Bethesda?’
The woman behind her stepped forward.
‘It is. No man of honor could ever kill a woman,’ she said as she drew level with her sister and placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘So many pleasures denied, my dark honorable assassin?’ purred Gabriella, sliding her finger down her chin and between her breasts.
‘Do you know what goes on here?’ asked Blake.
‘But of course,’ said Bethesda, nodding her head gently.
‘What?’ asked Blake
‘Pleasure,’ replied Gabriella.
Blake raised the Sig to Gabriella’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet drilled a two centimetre hole in the middle of her forehead. At that short range, the round went straight through, punching a cricket ball sized hole out of the back of her skull, plastering her sister with rays of bloody ejecta and embedding pieces of her skull in the far wall. Bethesda managed to release a scream before Blake shot her as well. Both bodies toppled and fell on the floor.
The Winter Man Page 26