by Mason Dakota
Failed once again.
“I will tell you something to please your final thoughts, before you die. Two days from now, at precisely sundown, Chicago will crumble upon itself in fire and hate, caused by the very citizens it holds. Blood and chaos will cover the streets from the fear and evil of these citizens. Then, in an instant, everything will go dark and as silent as the first night of creation. The cards are lying on the table now, and all that remains is for the winner to collect his earnings. You now hold responsibility for Chicago’s future.”
“I hold what?” I asked confused.
He smiled and opened his mouth and whatever he was about to say was drowned out with the familiar reverberation of catastrophic detonation. A large metal crate to my left blew up with a concussive might of steel and fire that bashed into a few of Ziavir’s men like a high-speed vehicle. Bits of flying steel cut through the air with crippling lethality.
Rupert turned his gaze toward the explosion, as did everyone else. I took my chance, as it was likely my last. I kicked my feet out from under me and propelled myself in a reckless dive for my revolver lying close by. My body felt pitiful, clumsy and weak, as if I were made of wood and swimming through molasses. I grabbed the gun and rolled over onto my back to face the charging Rupert.
This moment changed my life.
I squeezed the trigger as fast as I could for as long as I could. I lost all sense of reality or my surroundings as my only focus in life was that trigger, and I was convinced that there was no begging or end in life, no love or hate, nothing really in life except for that trigger. I’m not sure how long the gun was empty before I finally realized no more bullets came out. I didn’t even hear the deafening roar as the gun fired. I only watched in horror as my mind slowed everything down for the second time that night. Every horrifying detail bored forever into my mind.
Rupert’s chest was turned into Swiss cheese as the bullets ripped through him. His body convulsed with the impacts. His face went from anger to shock to pain in two precious heartbeats.
He dropped the machete. He stumbled once, then again, before he fell forward onto the ground beside me, with his head turned in my direction. I stared in horror as I watched the final lights of life in his eyes fade forever.
I had never killed anyone before that night.
I think it was just a second or two before my mind fully recovered. Real physical and spatial reality returned to me with near brutality. It took my breath away to take in every taste and smell and sound and sight around me in a single uncompromising second. It was all I could do to crawl away from Rupert’s body and prevent the urge to hyperventilate with panic. I rolled over and vomited to the side at the sight of his soulless eyes. It was an image I will never be able to get out of my mind.
I heard explosions and gunfire from multiple directions. But I did not move. I sat there with my arms wrapped around my knees, unable to pull my gaze away from Rupert’s cold eyes. I finally looked up when Agent Murray stepped between me and Rupert’s body and pointed his sub-machine gun down at me. Ziavir promised a merciful death, but Agent Murray’s sub-machine only promised a brutal one.
Part of me wanted him to kill me, to take me away from my nightmare.
I’ve broken my vows! Just kill me now!
He pulled back the bolt and said, “I’m going to enjoy this.”
That makes two of us.
I saw his trigger finger move and heard the ear shattering gunshot…but felt no pain. Instead Agent Murray lurched suddenly to the side and screamed out in pain and grabbed his leg. I saw the blood and the gunshot wound. I frantically looked back and forth to find the shooter.
Then I saw Chamberlain aiming down the sights of a pistol.
Murray cursed something and turned his aim to Chamberlain, firing as he spun around. I don’t know if Chamberlain fell or dove to the side. I only know that I couldn’t see Chamberlain anymore and Murray kept firing. My fear evolved from worry into rage and fueled me to propel myself toward Murray.
Nobody shoots at my friends!
He screamed out in pain as we crashed to the ground. His gun flew away from him, but I really didn’t care. The only thing I cared for was strangling Murray’s last breath with my iron grip. And that’s exactly what I did. He coughed and screamed and gurgled as I tightened the pressure.
He clawed at my face, but I ignored him as I squeezed harder. His face went red and then purple as he died. It was all I could think of. I could easily immobilize him and spare him. It would only take a single blow to knock him out, to show him mercy instead of judgment. But I acted purely on rage, finally letting the monster out, and the monster in me wanted Murray dead.
He tried to kill Chamberlain! He deserves to die!
I didn’t care if he was an agent of the NPFC, or if he was the Emperor himself, or if it was wrong to take his life when I could so easily incapacitate him.
Chamberlain would have spared his life—but I wasn’t Chamberlain.
I wanted Murray dead.
His struggles slowly ceased, and just like Rupert, the light in his eyes vanished. His head slumped to the side. Lifeless. I released my grip. My fingers cracked with the relaxing motion, and I felt blood pulsing through them. I had killed again.
But…a part of me enjoyed it…and that haunted me more.
How am I any different than Ziavir now!
A strong hand fell on my shoulder and pulled me off Agent Murray’s body. I spun around ready to fight, ready…to kill again.
Oh God, what am I becoming?
But it was Chamberlain, unharmed. He looked from me to my second victim and then back to me. He just stared at me silently, and I knew everything he would have said to me if he’d the time to speak. I couldn’t handle a lecture and he knew it.
“The Lady’s mob is here! We’ve got to get out of here while we still can!” shouted Chamberlain.
I couldn’t speak. I just shook violently as my mind played over and over what I’d just done. I scooped up my mask and hat and with shaking hands put them on. I quickly noticed that Ziavir was nowhere to be seen. He must have disappeared the moment of the explosion.
I barely remember Chamberlain dragging me by the arm as he led me away from the fighting and into a get-away van. I may not remember much, but I’ll never forget every single horrifying detail of death by my hands. Today I became the monster that for many years I’d feared was growing inside me.
I’m forever my own worst enemy.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I woke myself up screaming in a cold sweat. I don’t remember falling asleep or getting back to the hideout. I lay on the old mattress, its sheets ice cold on my bare skin. I wore a pair of athletic shorts and nothing else but the blood-stained bandages wrapped around my thin frame. Someone had cleaned me up and changed me, likely Alison. If only she could work her magic on my drowning soul.
When I screamed, Gabriel appeared out of the darkness to my rescue. He placed his hand gently on my shoulder and said softly, “Easy, easy. You’re safe now, Son. Just relax. You need to rest. Lie back down.”
“Ga—Gabriel, I—I killed them!” I stuttered.
“I know, son. You had no choice. It was either you or them. You had no choice. It’s okay now,” he whispered trying to comfort me.
But I didn’t believe him. Maybe I could have used the gun to slip away from Rupert. Maybe I could have just disarmed Murray and then fled. I knew exactly how. If I had then he wouldn’t be dead and his blood would not be on my hands.
Did they really both have to die? Could I not have stopped myself if I had wanted to?
“Then tell me why I enjoyed taking Murray’s life so much!” I shouted in rage. I grabbed the first thing my hands could find and chucked it across the room as hard as I could. I think it was a book from the night stand. It smashed against the wall and landed somewhere on the dark floor. Gabriel just watched me, letting me get my anger and frustration out.
“I made a vow that when I accepted your mask, I would
rise above the evil in this city! I thought I could be different—be better! I thought I could help people! But I’m just as much a monster as Ziavir!”
I threw another book from the nightstand. I hit some invisible object and heard it shatter and fall to the ground. I squeezed the covers tightly in my hands as my body shook with rage.
“Sometimes, in our weakness, we become that which we hate. You knew that from the beginning, and you knew that, because of that weak human trait, taking the high road would not be easy,” said Gabriel.
For a moment I was furious at the man, angry enough to hate him. He should have prepared me better; should have warned me about how alluring the darkness really was.
Would it have really mattered if he did?
It seemed so easy, so simple, and yet so productive to give into it. Why didn’t he better prepare me before giving me such purpose and responsibility—before challenging me to step in as a lamb amongst wolves?
Yet, as his words sank in and began to take shape in my mind, that anger began to fade. I knew the consequences of my decisions long before I ever made my choice. There really were no more lessons Gabriel could give to prepare me for this. Blaming him was wrong. I had done it. I had chosen to take a dark path because it felt good, because I was selfish, and because I just did not care about the consequences.
“Have…you ever killed anyone before?” I whispered.
I don’t know why I asked it. It just slipped out before I could fully process the question. I just wanted to know that he knew how I felt in that moment. Gabriel, however, said nothing. He just walked away.
He returned a second later with a chair and two glasses of cold water, one of which he gave me. His eyes never left mine as he lifted his glass, tipped it in a toast, and sipped. But in his eyes, I saw the truth. Gabriel was not a man of many words, nor of showing his true emotions. But he knew how I felt.
“Drink. You need the fluids,” he said in response to how I ignored the glass. I didn’t rush the glass to my lips but was grateful once I did. I felt the water travel down my throat and into my gut like a cold river slicing down a mountainside. My body felt so hot that I wondered if the water turned to steam.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said before taking another sip. He cocked his head to the side, pretending like he couldn’t read my mind.
“You’re thinking that if I’d just listened to you and left this whole Ziavir mess alone to begin with, none of this would’ve happened. I would not have killed Agent Murray and that thug, Rupert. I would not be hurt and bandaged up. And Ziavir would not know that I’m Shaman.”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs as he took a sip of water. He brought the glass back down and smacked his lips. I watched as he stared into the glass as if all the world’s answers were at its bottom.
Finally he said, “I don’t think listening to me would have changed anything. Ziavir wanted you to begin with, not because you’re Shaman but because of who you are to him. He said so himself. That made everything else inevitable to a degree. The choice was a difficult one to make for sure. But I believe you made the right decision tonight. If not, you…and Chamberlain…would be dead right now. That’s too high of a price. Everything would have been lost and for nothing if the two of you died. The world needs you both…in ways you don’t yet understand. Sometimes a few must perish for the greater good. It’s a sick principle, I know, but every war in history teaches that same lesson.”
“Then why do I feel so sick inside?” I asked.
“The toughest choices are never easy. Sometimes they bring the the nastiest consequences. Our world is sick and broken, and the only way we know to fix it is to do that which contributes to its very state of decay. We live in castles of mud, and when the rain comes all we know to do is apply more mud. But until we find another way, we have to use whatever methods we’ve got. That’s the price of staying alive. It’s why I gave you my mantle, because the world needs Shaman…I just knew I was no longer the right man for the job. I started to think that only darkness can truly defeat darkness, and when the day comes and you think the same then it is time for you to find a replacement. Truthfully…I eventually despised the light…like a cockroach. I hoped you would find the way that I could not. I hoped you could be the light I never was.”
“Chamberlain would have been the better choice.”
“You’re right. That’s why I offered it first to him.”
If I had anything in my mouth I would have spat it out everywhere. “What? I never knew that!”
Gabriel nodded and said, “He turned it down and told me to pass it on to you.”
“Why? Why would he do that?”
“Because men like Chamberlain always end up upon crosses.”
We sat in silence and sipped from our glasses. The the cold water soothed my hurting body. It was a drink of peaceful paradise in the mad world of that evening. Even the pain from my wounds settled.
Funny how something so small can cause such shocking mental and physical effects.
“Ziavir said that he had met Shaman before—that he had met you before. Is that true?” I asked.
Gabriel smiled and whispered, “That was a very long time ago. He was…my best friend and greatest adversary.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
Once again he smiled and said, “Our history is a bit complicated.”
“Did he know that you were Shaman?”
“Also complicated. In a manner of speaking yes, and then at the same time no.”
“Is there anything that you can tell me that is not complicated?” I asked.
Gabriel just smiled and drank from his glass.
“Fine,” I said getting a little frustrated. “What happened between the two of you? I mean, does he know you’re here in Chicago or if you’re even still alive?”
Gabriel shook his head and said, “No. but he might suspect it now. And if I were dead, Ziavir would be one of the first to know and gain from it.”
Because he would be the one to kill you?
Another brief period of silence passed before I asked, “You know what I still can’t figure out?”
Gabriel cocked a questioning eyebrow at me. I wagged a finger at him and smirked. “Who hired Ziavir?”
“What makes you think he was hired?” asked Gabriel. From the way he spoke, I couldn’t tell if he was asking because he thought I was wrong, or if he was testing me. Maybe both.
“Ziavir is a mercenary. Secret organization or not, Ziavir’s ideals are for sale. Nobody suddenly decides to threaten one of the Empire’s economic hubs without a cause and a nice pay check. Someone must be picking up the bill on his operation for him to be doing whatever it is he is doing. If Ziavir is here in Chicago, someone hired him. And if we find them, we can cut off his payroll and maybe stop him before innocent lives are lost.”
Gabriel sipped from his glass. He gave a soft, satisfying sigh and licked the corner of his lips. “People are not always who they appear to be. It’s a good theory, but without enough manpower it’s a risk chasing down that lead. Ziavir works fast, completing his operations as quickly as possible and getting out before getting caught. We’ve got to choose our targets of interest carefully and quickly to catch him.”
He sipped his drink again and said, “I’ll look into your theory and see if I can find out who’s behind Ziavir. You focus on catching him.”
“How do we find him?”
Gabriel shrugged and said, “No idea. The man’s a ghost—always has been and always will be.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
Gabriel smiled and said, “Ziavir knows who you really are and where to find you. He’ll come for you again before he finishes his job here. I’m sure of that. Go about your day tomorrow normally at your new job and the acorn will eventually fall from the tree.”
“So, your plan is to do nothing?” I asked in shock.
“If Ziavir doesn’t want to be found, then he won’t be—e
specially by someone as small as you and the others. He’s lived like that successfully for decades. But you’ve survived too many encounters with him for him to just forget about you. His vanity and pride draws him to you, just as you are drawn to him. He counts on you having a plan to find him and will use it against you—it’s what he does best. So, I say don’t have one to begin with. Wait for the opportunity, and just roll with the punches in the meantime.”
I couldn’t believe what he said. Waiting seemed preposterous…and dangerous. Why Gabriel thought that was wise made no sense. But, Gabriel deserved my listening ear. He knew Ziavir. And I got in this mess by not listening to him. It was about time I finally started listening to him.
“That sounds stupid to me,” I said, then sighed, “but you are the Mentor and always know best. I’ll stop this chase and wait for Ziavir to come to me.”
That way he can kill me without a fight.
“And when you do meet again, what will you do?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to speak but had to stop myself. I think a part of me was about to say, “Kill him.” The thought shamefully created a bit of joy in the pit of my soul. The monster killed my family. He deserved death.
But was revenge really the best option?
Gabriel watched my hesitation for a moment and then said, “I know how you must be feeling. You fear your own corruption. I’ve seen it dozen of times when others go through what you did last night. You are not alone in this fight, Griffon— or in carrying its burdens. That can make all the difference. Trust in your friends, Griffon. They are all you’ve got, and by the end you’ll need them. You’re a good man Griffon, don’t forget that.”
“But what if I’m not the good guy and I’ve got it all wrong? I mean, what really makes me different than Ziavir? He sees himself as a good guy here just as much as I do. Last night, I started a war between the mob and the authorities—something Ziavir would’ve done. People, both guilty and innocent, are hurt or even dead because of my actions in the past two days. How does that make me any better than Ziavir? I’ve caused more harm to Chicago than he has.”