The Judas Line

by Mark Everett Stone

  Our room in the motel was a little bigger than the one in Kansas, but the mattresses must have come from the same supplier because they were similarly hard as rocks.

  While Jude took the first turn in the shower, I grabbed the manila envelope and crushed my backside on the bed’s hard surface. Printer paper slid into my palms and I began to read.

  The Happy Voice

  It took weeks for me to adjust to the Words rattling around my cranium, the feeling of power they gave me. Meanwhile, my half-brothers and Burke contented themselves with verbal torment, but the assassination attempts had stopped, at least for a while. For the first time in years I found no taint of poison in my food or drink, no tripwires at the head of stairs and no weakened balcony railings. I had become irrelevant in their eyes, but that didn’t stop me from exercising caution. There was no telling when they would grow tired of my presence and try erase me from the world.

  Professor von Andor trained us in the uses of the Words. I do not know who had taught him because he was Wordless, yet he knew all about their uses-how intonation, inflection, volume and intent shape the power of the Words, shape their efficacy.

  Of course the only Word I admitted to was Healing, the only one I could practice in front of the others lest they realize my deceit. Being the simplest of all Words to master, it required only volume to increase or decrease its potency. Strangely enough, despite the ease of use, it was the most practical Word of all. Nothing like breaking your arm and Healing it to convince oneself of that fact. Despite its usefulness, however, the one thing it could not do was regenerate lost tissue. You lose an arm; you’ve lost an arm, no take-backs.

  I practiced the other Words on my own, within the confines of my room-in the walk-in closet with clothes taped to the walls to muffle any noise. I needn’t have worried; the others were practicing in their own rooms and I doubted they would have heard a stampede of elephants considering the racket they made.

  So, in the darkness of my closet, I rolled those Words around in my mouth like marbles, spitting them out with different inflections at different volumes, noting their effects and committing those effects to memory. Some Words, such as The Walls (which protects the magus’ mind from tampering) could not be practiced alone; I needed others to hone my facility with them. Others like Aspect, Vigor, Strength and Clarity had effects that were readily apparent. Thankfully the others masked the smell of my magic as they exercised their own Words.

  The Professor often chose me as a guinea pig so Burke could practice Forgetting. Depending on the volume and inflection, Forgetting had the potential to erase a full day’s worth of memories. An Adept could fine-tune the Word to make the target Forget as little as the last five seconds.

  “What?” I asked when I noticed everybody staring at me, wrinkling my nose at the smell of black licorice.

  “Very good, Burke, you are down to ten seconds.” The Professor’s normally dry, avuncular voice contained a measure of satisfaction.

  Had our Family been what passes for normal, Henri and the twins would have cheered Burke’s accomplishment, but instead they glowered and looked uncomfortable.

  “It worked then?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” the Professor stated. “He is progressing nicely.”

  A phone rang upstairs and the Professor slowly ascended the stairs to answer, leaving me in the basement with my half-brothers and Burke.

  “Well, Olivier,” Henri began, advancing slowly toward me in a half shamble. “You’re pretty good at Healing, but what is Julian going to with you now that you’ve got just one Word?” Dull malice filled his cow eyes.

  Moving slowly so as not to spook the relatives, I reached into the front pocket of my black Levi’s and pulled out a piece of wax paper folded many times. The twins and Burke moved in close to see what I had.

  “Well, Henri, it’s a good thing I’ve excelled at Botanical Magic,” I said offhandedly as I unfolded the paper. In the center lay a sticky patch of grayish paste. I scooped a bit with a forefinger and applied it behind my ears like perfume. “Because now I can craft a defense against magic.”

  I experienced an immense feeling of satisfaction as realization registered on the faces of Burke and the twins. It took Henri a while longer to get my drift. They could try to use their Words against me, but it would do them little good if I were protected.

  Henri moved closer, his breath foul in my nostrils. “You think you’re so smart, do you little Olivier? Well, let me tell you something … as a near Wordless runt, you are of no interest to Julian. You’re out of the running, little brother. Not even worth killing.” His hands clenched and unclenched. I know he wanted to thrash me then and there, but the rules barred his way.

  I laughed in his face, which mottled with fury. “Maybe so, brother, but he’ll still have a use for me. Most likely to take care of his wet-work.”

  The assassins of the Sicarii (or Dagger Men) were-

  “Hey Jude!” I yelled. “Hey, Jude! Got a question.”

  The door to the bathroom opened and he stood there in a towel. His wet black hair stood out like a ridiculous, puffy ’fro. “What is it?”

  “Didn’t you tell me that we had to avoid water? You just took a shower!”

  He smoothed his hair down with slender hands. “I used the Word of Avoidance, man. Keeps attention off of me.”

  Oh. Good to know. “I’m a little puzzled by a name here. Sicarii. I know it is Latin for Dagger Men, but what is it?

  His normally lively eyes darkened. “The first Sicarii were Jewish rebels in Judea some two thousand years ago,” he informed me tonelessly, face closed. “They were assassins who slaughtered Romans and their sympathizers. Later, the Medellin Cartel had what they called the Sicarios, their version of the Sicarii assassins. The singular is Sicarius, or Dagger Man.”

  “Assassinations would have caused the Romans to retaliate harshly,” I mused, more to myself than him.

  “Yes. They did, all across Judea. The Romans slaughtered thousands to in an effort to find and discourage the Sicarii.”

  “Did your family have a connection to the Cartel?”

  “My Family trained their assassins and took a large portion of the billions they made in the drug trade. Then, when things started heating up as the U.S. Delta Force, the CIA, and the Colombian National Police started hunting Cartel members, we withdrew our support and watched it die. It all ended in 1993.”

  “So, the Sicarii and your family…?”

  His voice became hollow, as though his soul had been plucked out. “My Family are descendants of the Sicarii. In fact, I’m the last direct descendant of their leader. We call him the Founder.”

  “So-?”

  “Yeah, Mike. We’re a Family of assassins. The Sicarii are still around, still trying to destroy the Romans, man.”

  My mind wobbled. “But, Jude, the Romans are all gone. It’s just a city now.”

  “No Mike,” he claimed. “Not true. There’s still the Roman Catholic Church.”

  Holy moley! I opened my mouth, but he had already turned and shut the door behind him. With a sigh, I went back to the manuscript.

  The assassins of the Sicarii (or Dagger Men) were still a large part of our Family’s legacy, although we had lessened the practice over the last century, preferring to let the media to do our dirty work for us in the form of character assassination. News hounds were quick to believe the worst in even the most honorable of people. However, our assassins were still the best-trained, most well funded, killers the world had ever known and even the most insane idiot (like Henri) feared them above all others.

  All Family members were trained in wet-work, hence the title of Sicarius, even for those who did not practice assassination. Only a select few were chosen to join the ranks of the Dagger Men, the Sicarii Killer Elite. Once in, never out.

  “You’d join the-” Julian II began.

  “Dagger Men?” Philip finished.

  Once again I gave them a grin well lubricated with nasty. “Why
not?” It was a calculated risk, going from near Wordless half-brother to potential top assassin in their eyes, but sometimes you have to roll the dice and hope it doesn’t come up snake eyes.

  The Professor’s slow tread preceded him down the steps. “Olivier, you father wishes to speak to you,” he intoned gravely, a customary frown on his worn features. “He has sent an automobile, which will be here shortly.”

  Very much aware of the daggers glared at my back, I mounted the stairs to take a last look at Lac Leman before the car arrived.

  The Grand Chateau du Lac Leman on the shore of Lake Geneva (aka Lac Leman) boasts the most expensive rates and the highest standards of luxury in all of Switzerland. It is also Family owned and operated.

  The Sicarii, besides being a brotherhood of assassins, is also one of the world’s largest multi-national conglomerates, ranking just behind the monster Hyundai for billions earned. Mining, bio-tech, computer chips, arms manufacturing, fossil fuels, construction and on and on and on … all with Sicarii fingers in the pie, all run by one man who lived in the Grand Chateau.

  If you asked anyone who worked there, they would tell you that the finest room available would be the Presidential Suite. The finest available. What was not available in the small, but enormously opulent hotel, was my father’s personal suite.

  Not large by the standards of luxury hotels, only twelve hundred square feet, it had but one use … to cater to the whims of Julian Deschamps. Accessed by a private elevator, any visitor (especially Family) would be screened for weapons not only by the Elevator Operator (a top Dagger Man), but also the most advanced technology available, all hidden in the elevator’s mirrored walls and gold ornamentation.

  Should you pass inspection (if not … well, you can well imagine), the doors would open into the suite where Julian would greet you personally. Some might think that would be an unnecessarily high-risk situation for him, but you must realize he had been through the same training as all Sicarii and was seldom left alone without protection.

  When I arrived and the doors opened, it was to the sight of Boris standing in front of the elevator. Dressed impeccably in a coffee-colored Saville Row suit, Boris was more a force of nature contained in cloth than a human being.

  In 1971 Julian recruited Boris from the Soviet Union, where he was reputed to be the most feared, most vicious Spetsnaz (Special Forces) commando that had ever served that repressive regime. A master with a knife, pistol and rifle, as well as Sambo, their own peculiar brand of martial arts, he had all the qualities you could ask for in the perfect bodyguard.

  Recruitment had been simplicity itself; all Julian did was dangle an obscene amount of money and offer to relocate Boris’ immediate family to Switzerland. With that accomplished, Julian then paid a handsome amount to various officials in the Soviet government and records were conveniently destroyed and/or misplaced, erasing Boris from the annals of Russian history.

  So there he stood, all six-six two-hundred-fifty pounds of chiseled, grizzled nasty, with a long face, shaven head, cauliflower left ear and flinty eyes deep-set beneath jutting brows. With a barely perceptible nod to the Elevator Operator, he moved to the side and ushered me into the suite.

  “You look good, Boris,” I remarked in passing. Actually, with his thick potato nose and scarred cheeks, he looked anything but.

  “Thank you, Master Olivier,” rumbled the behemoth in impeccable German, his voice so deep I could feel it vibrating the bones of my inner ear.

  “Hello, son,” came a cultured voice from across the room.

  There, silhouetted before a large window looking out on the lake, behind a heavy, ornate desk, sat Julian. The light from the window erased the details and outlined his form in stark relief; he was darkness personified.

  “Hello Julian,” I responded, drawing near and standing at attention in front of the desk.

  The shadow’s head cocked slightly to the right. “The Professor has told me you only know one Word. Is this true?”

  “No sir, I know them all.” Lying to Julian was just another way to commit suicide … or worse.

  If that confession caught him by surprise, his body language didn’t show it, but I could hear the pleasure in his voice as he asked, “And why didn’t you tell the Professor?”

  “I didn’t want the others to know.”

  A deep chuckle. “I always knew you were the smart one, Olivier.”

  The silhouette turned and the light from the window dimmed. Julian came into view, a starkly handsome man, skin a little lighter than mine, gray at the temples, taller by four inches and broader across the chest. Where my smile was wide and even, his had a sardonic twist.

  I looked past him. “The window is new.” A window might allow an ambitious son to remove his father from the Sicarii using a sniper rifle.

  This time his smile held no scorn. “Not a window, but the latest in high-definition technology. Miniature cameras on the outside of the building record the actual view,” he said. “Then they send it here, a near-perfect simulation.”

  I nodded. “Very nice.”

  “Not one for chitchat, are you, son?”

  One of my eyebrows crept upward. “I am understandably curious as to the reason for your summons, sir.”

  His laughter held a note of genuine amusement. A surprise, considering that the last time I heard genuine humor from him was when the American shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff in 1981.

  “The twins have no backbone, and Henri has no brains. The only ones with any hope of matching my standards are you and Burke.” Boris appeared with a small snifter of brandy between his massive fingers. Julian nodded to the Russian and waved him off, inhaling deeply from the glass. “Want one, son?”

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “Yes, you are the smart one,” he mused quietly. “Just the perfect degree of paranoia. Like I said, it’s down to you and Burke, and I prefer you because he favors the Harcourt side of the Family. However, when I heard from the Professor that you had only one Word, well …” his voice trailed off and he took a small sip. “I almost despaired.

  “Imagine how I felt when I heard that the most promising fruit of my loins had turned out to be a magical dunce. Then, just this morning in fact, I said to myself, ‘Julian, why is your most gifted son such a beggar with Words when he showed such promising, even amazing, talent at Elemental and Botanical Magics?’ ”

  Julian drained half the snifter and swirled the brandy in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. “The answer, son, is that you are not a beggar with Words, that you were hiding your light under a bushel to keep a low profile from your bloodthirsty relatives, encouraging them to underestimate you.”

  “Got it in one, sir,” I murmured.

  “I twigged onto the truth in less than a week, son; it will take Burke less than two. So, if you think you can take the plunge, he should be your first order of business.”

  “Not too worried about Burke right now, sir.”

  Julian’s pitch-black eyebrows shot up. “Why not?”

  “He’ll save me for last.”

  He pursed his lips. “Yes, I do believe you-as the Americans would say it-have his number, son. Very well.” With that he reached for the phone (at this time, as you know, almost all phones were landline) and hit SPEAKER, then dialed a three-digit number.

  “When I told the Patron about your marvelous duplicity, he asked to speak to you.”

  The Patron? My blood chilled to the point where the cells must have crystallized. No one but Julian talked to our mysterious Patron, the person who had guided the Family to the dizzying heights it had attained. Powerful beyond imagining, a being of myth and legend, the Patron would continue to guide us until the arrival of our Family’s prophesied messiah, the Redeemer. At that time, the prophecies said, the Redeemer would cast down the Liar, the great enemy of the Family, of the Patron, and restore balance to the world.

  “He wishes to speak to me?” I squeaked. I cursed my traitorous voice. A
drop of sweat rolled into my eye.

  The voice that emerged from the speakerphone took me totally by surprise and made me jump. A little bit, anyway. “Yes, I wanted to speak to you, Olivier. It is time I did so.”

  “Sir,” I acknowledged, throat dry.

  “You father speaks highly of your intelligence and cunning.” Like a warm blanket the voice wrapped me and held on tight, a comfortable, protected feeling. Despite its rich, deep notes, it had an edge … an almost metallic undertone that grated against your nerves. It was at that moment I dubbed the speaker The Voice.

  “Thank you, sir,” I responded quietly.

  “He’s polite, Julian. I like them when they’re polite.”

  Compared to the voice flowing from the phone, Julian’s sounded tinny and grating. “Yes sir. I tried to raise them correctly.”

  “Young man,” the voice continued as if Julian had not spoken. “There will come a time, if you survive, that we might work together. The fact that we are speaking tells me that you do know more than one Word, as was reported. I’ve been monitoring your progress closely through the years, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard ‘one Word.’ ”

  “Yes, sir.” I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I felt the sweat drenching my shirt.

  “Julian,” the Voice said, his delivery clipped and formal. “How many Words indeed?”

  The head of the Sicarii’s lips barely twitched in what might have been called a nervous smile. “All twelve, sir.”

  “Ahhh.” A purr, the sound of a contented feline predator. “All twelve … very nice, Olivier. Too bad Professor von Andor did not catch you out in your little lie.”

  “I can hold my own in a lie, sir.”

  A long pause. “No, boy, you can’t. I know liars and you aren’t one, not yet, which makes the Professor’s oversight more egregious.”

  Julian spoke up, “I’ll have a talk with him, sir. It won’t happen again.”

  “No need to speak with him, Julian. I have received news that he suffered a terrible accident while speaking to his granddaughter on the telephone.”

  Julian’s face gave the barest hint of shock before he quickly regained his composure. As for me, I was on edge. From the slight degree of smugness that had crept into the Voice, I knew that he had killed the Professor.