Sean luxuriated over George’s cooking – he’d have never guessed that two of his fighting buddies from the Warehouse were this domestic. “So tell me again how you make this demi-glace?”
They sat in the small eat-in kitchen of Jeff and George’s one-bedroom apartment. The faded wallpaper looked even older against the grooved, white-painted kitchen cabinets. It reminded Sean of a farmhouse kitchen from an old picture book, except smaller. It was warm, though, and the food smells were divine.
“You take a herd of cows and cook it down to about a quart.” George snorted. “I can give you the recipe. It’s not hard, it just takes a weekend at home while you babysit the pots, doing little things in-between.”
Sean speared the last bit of steak and dipped it in what was left of the Cumberland sauce, thick and glossy and entirely delicious. The food and the camaraderie were the very sustenance he needed. Shopping had left him irritated and footsore, and he was glad to be seated and away from the crowds and the after-Christmas sales.
Moreover, he was glad Jeff was away from his native element. Sean liked Jeff well enough under most circumstances, but he didn’t think they would go shopping again. A pickier man was yet to be found. Nothing was good enough, the colors had to be just so, and he just had to have bubble tea at the end to fortify himself. Slurping black tapioca slugs through a fat straw from a sugary tea was not how Sean would have spent three bucks under ordinary circumstances.
“So did Asbjorn reply yet?” Jeff queried, always eager to be the instigator of these things.
“No.” Sean scowled. He shouldn’t have given in to the ebullient man’s pressure to text Asbjorn to begin with. “I hope I didn’t scare him off.” He chased a piece of broccoli on his plate. “When do you think he and Ken will be back?”
“Tomorrow. They’re probably out in the Berkshires. They may not even have much of a signal out there. Could be he didn’t get your message yet.”
“He got the first one and replied. I sent the second one right after.”
“Oh.” Jeff raised his groomed eyebrows and pursed his mouth.
“Leave it alone,” George grumbled. “Don’t listen to him, Sean. He likes to meddle. He thinks he should have his own reality show.”
Jeff threw George a look that would have killed a lesser man. “Like you know anything about being romantic,” he snapped at George. Then he turned to Sean. “How about a drink, then?” He topped off Sean’s glass with more of that awesome, full-bodied red wine. Whatever its name was. “The circumstances require that you fortify yourself.”
Sean laughed, and George gave in and cackled sort of like Ken sometimes did, and it occurred to Sean that he had not thought of Frank Pettel almost all dinner long. He had been on the lookout at the mall and while they were on the road. He scanned the crowds carefully and made sure his back was to the wall in public areas. Nobody would catch him off guard ever again. Not if he had anything to say about it.
And now he was sprawled over a decimated dinner at the apartment of two friends he knew only casually, but whose connection was through people they all knew well and trusted. The warmth of the mellow wine spread through his veins, making him slump at the table. His back melted into his chair.
Sean threw his head back and giggled. “I don’t think I should be drinking anymore,” he said.
“You need to keep up with us,” George rumbled in his deep voice. “Jeff, top him off.”
“No, guys, seriously. The perp is still out there. It’s not like I should be this relaxed.” Sean waved his hand in the air, and it came out as a foppish gesture of dissolution. They all laughed.
“Sounds like that’s exactly what you need, actually,” Jeff said. “You can’t be hypervigilant like that all the time. That really adds up. You need to find a safe place to cut loose, and this time around, this is it. The guy can’t possibly know where you are. You’re safe here. Just drink and enjoy.”
George split what was left in the bottle among their three glasses. “Cheers,” he said as he lifted his and took a sip. “Yeah. This is your vacation from being stalked by a serial predator, so enjoy it.”
Jeff hissed at him. “Don’t call it that.”
“Do call it that,” Sean said, careful not to slur. “Things should be called what they are. There’s no sense lying to ourselves about shit like that, y’know? And actually... I bitched about Asbjorn going hunting an’ all, but he needs that break from the chase too. He can’t be watching my back 24/7 like that and rest up and take care of himself.”
Sean hiccupped and gave his two hosts a horrified look. Jeff’s giggle didn’t help any.
“Yeah, it’s good Asbjorn went hunting with Ken,” George said as he swirled his wine in his glass. “I sure hope they get some.” His tone was more serious than it should have been.
Sean passed the anomaly over. It was probably nothing.
KEN TOOK LESS THAN half an hour to show up in his pickup truck. Asbjorn had removed all evidence of his presence from the stolen car and wiped down all surfaces with his leather-gloved hand. Leaving fingerprints was a bad idea. He opened the passenger-side door and looked up at Ken.
“Everything okay?” Ken Swift asked.
“Yeah.” Asbjorn stowed his sword case in the back of the cab. Then he took his long, second-hand store coat off and rolled it up so the lining was on the outside and stuffed it inside a garbage bag.
The black Pleather didn’t show much, but he knew there’d be droplets of blood he didn’t want to smear on the inside of Ken’s car. He hoisted himself up next to his sword teacher. The brown sedan could sit here for a day or two, until the police found it and returned it to the used car dealership up the road.
“I got us a motel,” Ken said once they got rolling. “I got you clean clothing too.”
“Okay.”
“Looks like you didn’t make too much of a mess,” Ken noted. “What did you end up doing?”
Asbjorn told him.
“Good.”
Their silence was broken only by the engine noise and the crunch of winter tires on the snow that covered the narrow road. Killing a man was a solemn occasion, undeserving of idle chatter. More so than killing the deer, whose skinned and gutted carcass rested in the back of the truck. The cape of the doe’s skin was still attached to her neck to protect the meat from debris, and Asbjorn’s doe tag hung off her ear.
They pulled up by a small motel advertising free Wi-Fi and an outdoor pool. The pool was now covered with a snow-laden tarp. They planned to use neither. Asbjorn followed Ken up the stairs and into a small room with two beds. The place smelled like cheap citrus air freshener and heated dust off the top of the ancient radiator, but it was warm and dry and it had a bathroom. Asbjorn wasted no time getting out of his blood-spattered clothing. He stuffed every stitch he wore in the garbage bag that already held his coat.
He never knew a hot shower could feel like such a blessing. He lathered his hair and his body over and over, scrubbing with a rough motel washcloth. Yet he still didn’t feel clean enough – nothing seemed to get the metallic tang of Frank Pettel’s blood out of his mouth, out of his hair.
He stepped out of the bathroom with a miniscule towel covering his hips, his skin red and wrinkled.
Ken gave him an assessing look. “Here ya go.” He tossed a flat silver flask his way.
Asbjorn opened it and took a swig. Single-malt whiskey. It deserved better than just being chugged by the likes of him, and he capped the bottle and tossed it back. “Thanks.”
“You ever kill a man before, Asbjorn?” Ken’s voice drawled, slow and deliberate.
“Yeah. Yes, I did. But never up close, like this. Up close is... different.”
“No shit. Vietnam was like that, kid. You wanna eat dinner tonight?”
Asbjorn’s stomach roiled. “No. You go ahead if you want.”
Ken stretched his long frame on the bed and closed his eyes. “I’m okay.”
THEY WOKE EARLY. ASBJORN took another interminable sh
ower and disposed of the garbage bag containing his second-hand, bloodied clothing. His dark thoughts, thick and roiling like the black exhaust of a poorly tuned ship engine, drowned out hunger and fatigue. As he shaved, he noticed the still cast to his face. Still and lifeless, his face might as well have been carved out of marble. Only a twitch of his tight jaw gave away that someone was still alive inside. He knew that look on himself from before. He wore it long ago, and now he could only hope it would soon go away.
It had been premeditated.
He’d known what he was doing.
It might have been defense of a loved one, or even self-defense in the long run, but the reality of the situation pointed to murder.
The word weighted on his mind.
Ken drove them to a nearby diner and Asbjorn ordered his coffee, Western omelet, and a short stack of pancakes. He ate his food without tasting it. There was no conversation, and he felt no particular compulsion to meet Ken’s eyes. The other man was a force unto himself, still and self-contained as he made quick business of his day’s fuel. Not meeting his eyes didn’t prevent Asbjorn from sliding his gaze over him in a curious, assessing glance.
Vietnam was a long time ago. The guy must have been a kid – and that would make him how old? Sixty? Almost seventy? Ken didn’t look retirement age. His black hair, worn in a ponytail, had a few streaks of silver in it, but he was as fit and as dangerous as any of the Warehouse fight club crowd. Hell, more so. Asbjorn wondered what the older man knew about killing people. And how he dealt with it afterward.
An hour later, they walked through the woods again, their camouflage clothing disguising those warm and practical layers. The deer spoor was like writing in the snow, an open book for all to read, and the scent of fresh droppings lingered in the air.
They set up a blind, being careful and silent, and settled inside it on small folding stools. This was one of those deer highways that crisscrossed the vast forest. Where there had been one herd, there were going to be more. Their bows were at the ready. Ken knew his hunting spots well. Their location was good and their time of day was lucky. Two does and a young buck with his antler nubs barely showing ghosted through the trees before them, as silent as the wind-driven snow.
“Bjorn, your turn.” Ken nudged his shoulder, encouraging.
Asbjorn had an arrow already nocked in Tiger’s old compound bow.
Inhaling, he pulled the string, anchored his hand on his cheek, and took his aim. From the ground, the point of his arrow was aligned slightly above the animal to account for the twenty-foot flight path. The doe was oblivious. It was a clear shot.
Ken sensed his hesitation. “Meat in the freezer,” he whispered.
Tiger’s bow, Tiger’s arrow.
Tiger’s sword.
How would Tiger feel about all this? How’d he feel about me using his shinken to kill a man?
The point of his arrow wavered.
“Asbjorn.” Ken’s hushed voice was a command, and Asbjorn exhaled half his breath and loosed the arrow. The doe leaped. The fletching of the arrow showed bright against the snow behind her, and a trickle of blood started down her throat. Asbjorn’s arrow stuck in her jugular.
“Good shot. She won’t get far.” He felt Ken clap his shoulder through the numb blanket covering him. All sound felt muffled, feelings suppressed. He followed Ken out of the blind. The other two deer had scattered at the twang of Asbjorn's bowstring, but his doe was moving slowly. He tracked the heavy blood trail through the snow, with Ken right behind him.
They found her soon. Ken pulled out his .22 Smith & Wesson pistol, placed the muzzle under the doe’s chin, and squeezed the trigger. “Quicker that way.”
“You don’t deserve a quick death.”
Asbjorn’s own words, uttered just a day ago, came to haunt him.
“Go ahead, kid. You field dress this one.”
He’d done so many times before. Tiger had taught him how, back when Asbjorn had been an eager youth of sixteen and shaving was still a new adventure. His mind flashed to a day when he and Tiger were kneeling on a forest floor.
A thick duff of oak leaves had rustled with their every movement. Tiger had shown him what to do, and Asbjorn followed. Just like in karate, and just like in life.
And just like always, Asbjorn had been entranced by Tiger’s grace, the deliberate attention he paid to every movement. He’d been fascinated by Tiger, and back then, he didn’t even know why. He knew now – and he was glad he never confessed his complicated feelings to a man who was, in many respects, a worthy substitute for a father Asbjorn had lost in his earlier teens.
He banished old thoughts and donned a pair of rubber gloves. Then, just like Tiger had taught him to do all those years ago, he slit the skin from the doe’s anus all the way up, carefully tilting the carcass. A smell of clean flesh and blood flooded the crisp winter air as he allowed her entrails to spill. He broke the sternum with the heavy part of his hunting knife and cut around the diaphragm, reaching in for the lungs. Everything had to go, everything except the heart and liver, which he set aside in a plastic bag.
“Nice job,” Ken said.
Asbjorn glanced up at him and was surprised to find the other man leaning against a tree, observing him.
“I was taught by the best,” he said. His voice came out as a pained rasp. He stood and stepped back to survey his work. Deep crimson blood stained the snow, melting it with the heat of a life now gone, surrounding the still doe like a battlefield. Frank Pettel had gone down much like this. His blood painted the snow much the same way, but nobody had made that much fuss over his heart, over his liver.
His stomach rebelled.
Asbjorn took a few steps to the side and bent over. His coffee, Western omelet, and untasted short stack of pancakes exited his body with as little ceremony as they had entered it.
Ken watched him dry heave for a while. When Asbjorn seemed done, he came over with a bottle of water. “It was either you or him, kid. Or worse, you and Sean instead of him. Had Tiger been here, he’d have said the same thing.”
THE DRIVE BACK WAS as quiet as the drive out, but the tension of dawn before battle was replaced by a sense of brooding guilt. Both men knew what had been done, and both of them knew words would do little to soften the harsh reality of their special brand of justice.
Asbjorn was relieved to enter the familiar Brookline neighborhood. Pulling up to Adrian and Don’s house was like bringing the ship to port. Sean met them at the curb, and Asbjorn didn’t know how to feel about that, because he didn’t know if he could look in Sean’s eyes and lie.
Sean’s face was anxious. “Hey.”
“Hey, sunshine,” Asbjorn said and nodded before turning to unpack the gear with Ken. They would butcher the deer at Ken’s place later, behind the salle where he had more space. Asbjorn worked hard at not looking relieved at the prospect of the two dead deer far away from his quarters.
“So did you get my text?” Sean asked. He was by Asbjorn’s side and sounded suddenly shy.
“What text?”
“I texted you and you replied. I asked you a question but you didn’t respond.”
Asbjorn pondered. He turned to Ken.
“Hey, remember that text from Sean? I need my phone.”
Ken froze at the mention of Asbjorn’s phone, then gave Asbjorn a wry smile and fished the phone from one of his many pockets. “Here. Check the history. You may have some messages, I heard some beeping.”
“Thanks.” He nodded. Meeting Sean’s confused eyes, he said, “Ken ended up with my phone for awhile and then I forgot about it. Sorry.”
He opened his apps and read all the texts going in and out.
I love you Bjorn.
I love you too.
Will you marry me?
Asbjorn froze. The sidewalk under him undulated like the deck of a boat in a gale, and as he caught his step to keep from falling, his phone slipped out of his hand. He just stood there, dumb and senseless, watching the device rotate in slo
w motion during its descent. The crash of plastic against the frozen concrete split the air and made him jump. Asbjorn felt his jaw tighten as he forced himself to pick up the trash and stick it in his pocket.
“I didn’t get the last text.”
“Apparently not,” Sean said, smiling.
Their eyes met. Asbjorn felt things tilt off their comfortable axis.
Sean’s playful smirk was wiped off his face at the sight of Asbjorn’s deadpan look.
He was hurting Sean, he was doing it right now, and he wasn’t sure how to stop. One thing was for certain – Sean was hurt because the man he loved was, apparently, not excited by his proposal.
Asbjorn looked down at Sean and the wounded look in his eyes. There stood a man he no longer deserved. “Sean.” His voice was pained as he pulled on Sean’s shoulders. “Sunshine.” He embraced him. “I want you to think about this, Sean. You’re talking about a serious commitment here. I love you to death, but I’m not the nice guy you think I am. I only pretend on the outside... I’m not sure you’ll want to be stuck with me till death us part.”
Sean pulled away. “Whatever.” There was stubborn strength in Sean’s voice, the kind people summoned when they tried very hard not to care.
Asbjorn saw Sean take a few steps back and then disappear into the house where they now lived.
Something just happened, something terrible, and Asbjorn didn’t have the strength to analyze it. He turned his dead eyes toward Ken. “Thanks. See you later.” Then he lumbered up the stairs after his sunshine, feeling undeserving of his warmth.
He felt the sluggish fatigue in his shoulders, in his bones. It wasn’t the kind of joyful, breathless feeling of being spent after a good run, or the bone-weary and virtuous tiredness after a day in the woods. This fatigue sapped him, and Asbjorn felt how lifeless his look must have been when he turned his eyes toward Don.
“Ken and I’ll have to return for your car. I got sick and he didn’t think I should be driving.” Sick. That was one way of looking at it.
To his surprise, Don nodded as though he already knew. He walked behind Asbjorn’s chair and Asbjorn let him, knowing that having his back to this man presented no danger. Warm hands landed on his shoulders. Don’s palms dug into the tight spots and his fingers kneaded the trapezius with an expert touch. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get it with him. Was it a good hunt?”
Swordfall: Fall Trilogy Two Page 10