by K. C. Finn
“I’m not most men,” Rex replies.
He doesn’t know how right he is. There’s something about Caecilius Rex that stops Angelica from taking one of the many concealed weapons in her minimalist apartment and just destroying him on the spot. A young man with his depth, his sense of justice, his pursuit of the truth deserves more courtesy than that from his opponent. He deserves to understand his necessary death before Angelica puts his lights out for good.
She’s no more attached to him than a cat is to a mouse under its paw before he mauls it, but Angelica can’t help but be tempted to know how the other half live. The box of drugs he has brought needs testing out and Angelica is more than willing to help. So long as the right one of them takes the sample from the TRUTH bottle. Once she’s tricked the powder onto Rex’s lips, Angelica has the chance to find out what she can about his mother, the altercation that eventually led to her precious father’s death.
The sense of desertion in his voice, the sheer alone-ness of his existence since his father vanished and his mother met her fate; it almost makes Angelica forget that he is the last link in a line that needs to be destroyed. He suffers from his parents’ loss and that Angelica can understand better than anyone right now, but his mother might never have had to die if she hadn’t injected Lucien with the incurable poison, the secret he had kept from his daughter for six years as he tried to develop an antidote. The information he had only revealed the day before he closed his eyes to this world for good.
It’s a while before Angelica gets the details from Rex, his resilience to the TRUTH drug is quite something to behold, but once she sees the devastation in his face a warmth of satisfaction builds within her that she manages to hide. It’s right to end this man’s pain. When the moment comes and he knows the full extent of how his family suffered at her father’s hands, he might even beg her to be the one to end his life.
A phonecall interrupts Angelica’s convincing display of compassion and attention, but as she slinks away to answer it, she already knows the news that’s coming at the other end of the line. A few days ago Flash Morgan got himself deliberately caught at the House of Cards casino, put back into Dartley Prison on the same block as three men who could ruin her scheme if they opened their big mouths to Caecilius Rex. As she picks up the receiver, Angelica forces her face to look confused and intrigued at the seemingly shocking news of their sudden murders.
She recounts the news of the dead men to Rex and watches as he puts the pieces of her finely laid puzzle together.
“You were right Angelica,” he says, a fear in his eyes that sets her nerves alight, “The Face is silencing people left, right and centre. He knows everything I’m doing.”
When he grabs her shoulders suddenly and looks into her eyes, his bright blue spheres are full of fury, glowing like lightning striking the ocean. For a brief moment she thinks she has gone too far, for one long and agonising second, she wonders if he’s figured her out. But then his eyes are travelling beyond the sight of her face, lost to his thoughts once again.
“He’s playing this like a game,” he says, missing her exhale of relief, “Before he just wanted me dead, but now that I’ve crossed him-‘
She could almost finish the sentence for him, but she doesn’t dare to speak, relishing the sight of her game coming to life in his terrified expression.
“Now he wants me to suffer.”
17.
Six Years Ago.
“You missed the main show, honey, but come look at this.”
Lucien holds out a hand to his seventeen year old daughter and she doesn’t miss the sight of a huge puncture wound in the space where his thumb meets his wrist. She wants to ask what’s happened to him, but she knows better than to speak out of turn to Daddy. His foot is resting on the chest of a young man lying in a pool of bright green liquid. As Angelica takes a step towards him, Lucien whispers.
“Don’t get near the acid, sweet.”
Angelica, masked up totally against the smoggy quarry, tips her head into the youngster’s view. He can only be a few years older than her at most, his face is contorting and twisting as he writhes in the acid under Daddy’s boot. He must have done something bad to deserve this. She gazes at him, eyes wide, until the boy suddenly convulses and passes out from the pain all over his skin.
Lucien takes his foot off the kid and two heavy duty men arrive to lift the figure out of the acid, head to toe in protective gear. They throw him onto his front on a nearby rock and Angelica winces at the sight of his back. His clothes have burned away totally there, where the impact was strongest, leaving only a blistering redness like a slab of meat that’s just had a searing on the grill, ready to be moved to the oven.
“Will he die Daddy?” she asks, watching his limp form with a vague interest.
Lucien wags a finger at her, catching her eye. His smiling eyes are kind amid the carnage, putting her at ease as they always have. Reflective eyes, just like hers, taking on the bright green hue of the acid pool beside him.
“The great generals before the war,” he says with a chuckle, “always left a single survivor in their wake.”
Angelica screws up her nose under her mask.
“Why?”
“Who would be left to tell the tale of their greatness otherwise?” her father answers.
The sound of police sirens catches his ears and Lucien looks up and all around in the smog. A nod to the heavies and Angelica is suddenly being moved back in the direction of their concealed car. She struggles to spin in their grip, stumbling backwards at first and still watching the burned boy, his ruined body, the one that will stay with him the rest of his life.
“Ouch!”
Her foot connects hard with a rock sticking up in the path and the heavies lose control of her as she slips below their outstretched arms. In her attempt to turn Angelica has no sight of where she’s landing, her father’s cry ringing in her ears as she crashes to the ground.
At first it seems like no big deal, she’s smacked her head on a rock, her gasmask torn open at the forehead, but then a moment later a shocking pain rips through her middle like a white hot poker’s been traced across her stomach.
“You idiots!” Lucien yells.
His hands come to Angelica’s arms to yank her up as quickly as possible and she glances down, horrified to see the band of bright green bubbles and raw, red flesh where the centre of her white t-shirt once was. Tears stream inside her mask, flushing her face with salt water and condensation, oxygen becoming scarce as she breathes too fast for the filters.
Later, safe in the hub of her father’s submarine, Angelica looks down at the stripe of salve across her bare stomach. With every move her pain intensifies, so all she can do is lie and think about what she has seen. Her mind keeps racing back to the burned boy, the thing that Daddy had most wanted her to see. A survivor left to tell the tale, to continue The Face’s legacy of brutality and inspire the fear that’s kept she and her father rich and powerful all her life.
She can’t help but think of how much worse that boy’s pain must be than that of her accidental slip, how much more of his body he’s going to have to hide when the burns eventually heal. Daddy says it’ll take a week for the line across her belly to heal. When he says that heads will roll for what’s happened to his Angel, she knows too that he means it. But that doesn’t warrant thinking about right now, she’s supposed to be reading a magazine, focusing on feeling better.
As the Forsyths speed hundreds of miles away from Dartley under the sea, another skin, also bathed in salve, is being tended to in a hospital bed. It’s hard to tell which way to lay the boy’s acid-burned body; his whole torso has been destroyed, deep layers of tissue washed away. It’s a miracle for him to still be breathing, like the mysterious attacker who bathed him in the superacid knew exactly how long he could sustain the pain before death would come.
The nurses keep him comatose, terrified of the day when he will awaken and realise what has happened to his young
, strong body. Worse still they fear the fact that the teenager has had no visitors at all in his time at the hospital; no parents or other relatives have come to cry at his bedside or pray at his feet for recovery. No-one, it seems, is thinking of this boy at all.
No-one but a thoughtful girl in a submarine.
18.
Two Weeks Ago.
Angelica is proud of her little stunt at the quarry, the details of Jennavive Rex’s death still fresh in her memory after six busy years. The bruising on her face is a nice touch from the goons that she’s inherited from her father, but it’s easy to cover with make-up now that she has checked herself out of Dartley General Hospital. She savours the taste of the last strawberry cream in her mouth.
The idiot brought her chocolates. He actually feels responsible for her ordeal, like she’s been dragged into the world of The Face and his mother’s death by little more than bad timing and ill luck. Angelica laughs to herself as a car delivers her to Redd’s mansion, where she finds the conman pacing his study. She must look haggard judging by the worry in his gaze when he sees her.
“Everything all right?” he asks, his usually cool tone set aquiver by the sight of her.
“It went well,” she says with a nod, settling herself in his best chair, “I have a phonecall to make.”
He hands her the receiver like a programmed servant, eyes downcast but oddly thoughtful. Angelica sets her phone up for voice distortion and flashes Redd a grin before she starts to dial.
Rex’s voice is shaken on the line, but he’s still wide awake despite the late hour.
“Listen,” Angelica begins, “there’s going to be a town-wide power outage tonight at two a.m. Be in your office at the station when the lights go out. I think I can tell you what you need to know.”
She kills the connection before Rex can even speak, knowing that the detective’s desperation for knowledge will ensure his presence at the next scene of her little play. Redd perches opposite her with a thoughtful look.
“Is this it?” he asks, “Is this the moment where you want me to tell him that I’m The Face?”
“Oh no darling,” Angelica replies, “This is the moment where I tell him that I’m The Face.”
Redd catches his breath in his throat audibly.
“Has the plan changed?”
Angelica shakes her head, delving in her belongings to find a little plastic bottle filled with the usual white powder. This one’s label simply reads REX. She holds it between finger and thumb for Redd’s appraisal.
“This is a very special blend. Two parts SLEEP. One part PARANOIA. And three parts FORGET.” She chuckles out the rest of her words. “I’m going to tell him exactly what’s going on and watch whilst he forgets it all again.”
Redd doesn’t seem convinced by her plan, which is getting a little more irritating for Angelica every day. His reluctance isn’t becoming of him.
“What if it wears off?” he suggests.
“I’m assured that it won’t, but if it does then you and I will be out of here long before,” she promises.
“You’re still not going to tell me where we’re going?” Redd asks.
Angelica stands and the conman takes a step back instinctively.
“Do you know how fast you could die, Richmond?” she snaps, “How many of my father’s forces are trained on this house right now? How many do you think?”
The wildness in her rises like flames from her heart, licking out and lighting up her speech and expression. She can feel pain in her bruises from the contortion of anger in her look. Redd holds his hands up, olive eyes widening, less handsome in his pitiful display of fear.
“I just want to do my best for you,” he stammers.
It’s a lie and Angelica knows it, but his kowtowing placates her all the same. She crosses to a grand mirror on the other side of the opulent room, adjusting her hair and her austere suit as though she hasn’t just lashed at him with her venom and rage. Redd doesn’t matter to her for that much longer anyway, so if he does turn tail after this part of his duty is played out, Angelica can surely find a way to have him out of her hair.
She watches his uncertain look in the mirror, then turns and gives him her best smile.
“Here’s something useful you can do,” she soothes, “Get onto your friends and arrange the power-cut for me.”
“Two a.m. did you say?” he checks with a subservient nod.
“That’s right,” Angelica croons, returning to put her hand on his lapel.
Redd swallows a few times as she studies his obvious fear. She gives him a sudden push and he stumbles back a few paces, his whole body visibly tense.
“Now get out,” Angelica orders, a girlish giggle creeping into her tone, “I’ve got a date with a detective to get ready for.”
19.
Caecilius Rex waits in his office, the digital clock reading 1:59 a.m. as he taps his gloved fingers on the desk before him. Seconds to go before he meets the voice on the phone, the distorted tone that promised to tell him what he needs to know. It has to be someone connected to The Face, perhaps a witness unwilling to come forward in the light of day.
The clock turns to read 2:00 a.m. for mere seconds before its lights go out. Everything in the station is plunged into total darkness and silence, but a moment later a backup generator whirrs into existence. No light returns to the scene, the generator is only wired to maintain the air filtration system for a few hours so that the toxic smoke from outside can’t creep in. Cae sits and continues to wait, a faint grey glow of moonlight giving him some ability to assess things in the dark.
Perhaps he ought to have told Kendra that he was coming here, but he fears that her strong and demanding presence would put off the reluctant witness that is about to come forward. Footsteps down the corridor shake him from his concerns; he shuffles to the edge of his seat to watch for the figure approaching him. But when his office door opens his sits back again and sighs.
“Angelica, it’s only you,” he breathes, “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m waiting for someone.”
She is dressed differently, a simple t-shirt and slack trousers that don’t suit her. Her hair is tied back, the bruises from her ordeal clear on one side of her pretty little face. The bruises remind Cae that she shouldn’t be here, that something has to be wrong, but he can’t question her before she replies to him.
“I know. It’s me you’re waiting for.”
“You made the call?” Cae asks sharply. She nods. “Why?”
Angelica sidles along his desk and comes to his side of it, placing herself on the edge right in front of where he sits. Her face is tight, smiling a little but certainly not relaxed.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Caecilius.”
Without another word, Angelica slowly takes hold of the hem of her shirt and peels it off over her head. In the semi-darkness Cae tries to look away, but before he can turn the sight of her pale skin catches his attention. A dark line across her stomach captivates him, a raw line of skin that he knows the sight of all too well. An acid burn.
“You weren’t the only one who got hurt that day,” she whispers.
Cae lets one gloved hand wander to her skin, his fingers hovering an inch above the tender chunk of flesh slashed across her middle. He shakes his head, unable to meet her gaze, transfixed on the sight of the only other person he’s ever seen with an injury like his.
“You can’t have been there,” he insists, “You were just a kid.”
“So were you.”
His eyes flicker to the ground.
“You remember me?” he asks.
“I remember a boy with some terrible injuries,” Angelica says. She takes hold of Cae’s face with one hand, tugging at his sweater with the other. “Are you that boy, Caecilius?”
She kisses him just once, a deep kiss with firm lips that throws all sensible thought out of his head. Afterwards Angelica pulls back and stands, watching him. Cae slowly rises and pulls off the layer
s of his torso, showing her what she’s asked for. In the darkness it doesn’t feel so bad to let his skin breathe, the red rawness of it is muted by the shadows all around him. Angelica approaches him slowly, fingertips outstretched.
“Oh I remember you,” she breathes, “I remember things about you that you don’t even know yourself.”
For one foolish moment Cae thinks she might kiss him again, but before he can react Angelica slams her palm into the painful centre of his chest and sends him reeling back into his chair. From the loose leg of her trousers she reveals a gun, clicking its safety off with evidence of a well-practised hand. He stares up at her, amazed by the sudden change in her features.
“The Face has family, Rex,” she says, spitting out his name in a way he’s never heard. “My father should have let you die back then. It would have been merciful compared to my plans for you now.”
Nothing makes sense in Cae’s state of shock. Angelica’s eyes are wild and dark as she keeps her trigger finger poised on him, a vicious snarl on her lips that taints her beauty. She’s been helping him all this time. Why? Just to shoot him now?
“Revenge doesn’t suit you Angelica,” the detective growls.
“No more than playing the hero suits you, Rex,” she replies, breaking into a grimace, “but I’m going to allow you your role as I act out mine. I’m going to give you a fighting chance to take me down.”
Cae considers the possibilities of wrestling the gun from her hands, his eyes darting to his phone and the exit of the office.
“Not here stupid,” Angelica adds with a giggle, “Later. Out there in the big wide world.”
“What makes you think I’ll let you get that far away?” he asks.
“This.”
Angelica takes a drug bottle from her pocket and tosses it at him. He fumbles with it in his lap, the semi-darkness allowing him to see his own name in place of a label.
“You know too much right now,” Angelica insists, “This little bottle resets the balance. Take it.”
She raises the gun, centering it on his forehead.