by K'wan
Bastille pulled Kahllah in closer, so close that she could taste his foul breath in her mouth when he spoke. “It has been a long time, Lotus. Had these circumstances been different I would have come to welcome you to the District and offered that we share a drink,” with his free hand he reached into the scabbard slung across his back and removed a large flat blade, which resembled an oversized meat cleaver, “but instead I must offer you death.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll pass,” Kahllah told him before drawing the blade she had lifted from the young man earlier and stabbed Bastille in the forearm. The big man’s grip slacked enough for Kahllah to rip her head free, and put some distance between herself and the executioner.
Bastille plucked the knife from his skin as if it was little more than a thorn and tossed it away. When he looked at Kahllah, his eyes were almost remorseful. “I should’ve known you would make this harder than it needed to be,” he tossed the big blade from one hand to the other playfully.
Kahllah took a defensive stance and the two combatants began circling each other. Kahllah was good, but Bastille’s combat skills were the stuff of legends. He had killed at least fifty men, and those were only the kills that she knew of. “Have you strayed so far from the path of honor that you would slaughter an unarmed woman?”
Bastille gave a throaty laugh. “You ceased to be looked upon as man or woman when you took the oath. Like the rest of us, you are merely a weapon of the Brotherhood. Though you have disgraced yourself and the Brotherhood, out of respect for who you once were, I will allow you to die with a weapon in your hand.” He pulled a dagger from his belt and tossed it on the floor between them.
Kahllah looked down at the blade suspiciously. “Go ahead, pick it up,” he taunted her.
Kahllah dove for the blade, and just as she knew he would, Bastille attacked. His blade sparked off the ground a split second after Kahllah had rolled to her right. She came up just in time to use the dagger to block his next strike. The force of the blow sent a shockwave down her arm and almost caused her to lose the grip on the dagger. Bastille blindsided her when he caught Kahllah in the jaw with an elbow and put her on her back.
Bastille loomed over Kahllah, shaking his head sadly. “You have spent so much time away from the order that it has dulled your skills, Lotus.”
“And you have spent so much time giving Kahn hand-jobs that it’s made you cocky!” she drove the dagger into his foot, pinning it to the ground. Kahllah used the small window the dagger had provided her to launch everything she had at him. She delivered a combination of punches and kicks to his legs and chest, but they had little effect. Bastille’s skin was like armor, and his bones like oak. In desperation, she fired her fingers at his eyes in an attempt to blind him, but it turned out to be a mistake.
Bastille grabbed her two fingers in his thick hand and squeezed. “I had intended to make your death swift, but now I think I’ll make you suffer before I allow you to die,” he flicked his wrist and dislocated her fingers, before slinging her head first into a parked car.
Kahllah lay on the floor trying to make the world stop spinning. She tried to will herself to get up, but couldn’t seem to get her body to cooperate with her brain. She was running on fumes and with hardly any sleep. She watched helplessly as he pulled the knife from his foot and limped over to her. He grabbed her by the front of her shirt and propped her into a sitting position against the car. He took his time angling his blade for the perfect strike. Bastille was toying with her. He wanted Kahllah to beg for her life, but she would not. No matter what false claims Kahn had laid against her, in her heart she was still a member of the Brotherhood and would die with the honor that came with her position.
“I’m surprised at you Bastille. I’ve always known you to be one of the few who held the good of the Brotherhood above the ambitions of a single man. Yet here you are to do Kahn’s dirty work,” Kahllah said.
“And I am surprised that someone as feared as the Black Lotus would be taken down so easily. Make no mistake that no matter who gives the orders, my blade only swings when it’s for the good of the Brotherhood, and your death is what’s good for the Brotherhood and the future of our most sacred of orders. You have allowed yourself to be corrupted and the corrupt are weak. The weak will never have a place amongst the strong,” he raised his blade high above his head.
As she looked up into the cold eyes of the executioner, she couldn’t help but to think that Bastille was right. She was off her game and because of it she was about to pay the ultimate price. Kahllah would not close her eyes or turn away. If death was coming for her, she would meet it head-on.
Something sailed through the air and burst when it hit Bastille’s shoulder. It looked like a water balloon but when the smell hit her Kahllah realized that it wasn’t water that now soaked Bastille’s arm. She rolled under the car just as someone tossed an emergency flare at Bastille and set him ablaze. Kahllah had known Bastille for many years and had never once seen him show pain or cry out; but that night as the fire licked up his arm, his shrieks could be heard for blocks.
Someone grabbed Kahllah’s legs and dragged her from her hiding place beneath the car. She kicked and clawed as multiple pairs of hands worked to hold her down. There were two of them, both wearing hoods and blue bandanas covering the lower halves of their faces. There was something familiar about the eyes of the one who was struggling to still her flailing hands.
“We don’t have time for this,” he shook her to her senses. “You can come with us and live to fight another day or stay here and see if the rumors about the executioner being invincible are true or not.”
Kahllah was suspicious, but the men in the masks seemed to be the lesser of the two evils so she went along. The one who had spoken to her led them down the street, where there was a third man standing outside an SUV. In his hands arms he cradled an AR15, with his fingers drumming on the barrel nervously. When they reached the SUV, he tossed his machine gun into the back seat and jumped behind the wheel. The two masked men hopped in the car, but Kahllah stopped short.
“We have to go,” the masked man urged. .
“I appreciate your help back there, but I’m not jumping into a car blindly. Who are you?” Kahllah asked.
The masked man removed the bandana and revealed a face that Kahllah thought she would never see again. “A young student still holding onto the crush he had on the teacher. Now I’m going to need you to get your ass in the car before we get locked up or killed.”
Without further question, Kahllah jumped into the back of the SUV. As they peeled off, she looked out the back window and saw Bastille literally rising from the ashes. Even at that distance, she could feel his murderous glare latch onto her. From that point no matter how things went with Kahn or the men under the mountain, there would have to be a reckoning between them. Bastille’s pride wouldn’t allow anything less, and neither would hers.
CHAPTER 11
Tasha Grady cruised down the FDR fighting to keep her heavy eyelids from shutting. She had just worked a double shift and found herself running into a third because she had taken some of her work home with her. She spared a glance over at the passenger seat, where her purse rested, and took a mental count of the folders stuffed inside. There were five of them in total; five murders, five motives, and five mothers who would be burying their children.
The files were open cases that the department had been hitting a wall trying to solve so Grady decided to take a crack at them. She was better than most at solving riddles, that’s part of why she was able to climb from beat-walker to sergeant so quickly, though some in the department speculated her speedy rise had been due to more than just good police work. Over the last couple of years, her name had been attached to some suspect cases and even more suspect individuals. Before joining the NYPD, she was a girl from the projects with known criminal ties, which some on the force felt like she had never truly let go. Being a woman in a male dominated field made things difficult enough,
but being a Black woman with a shaky background, ensured that Tasha had to work five times as hard as anyone else in the department to prove herself. This is why instead of getting some much-needed sleep when she got home, she’d be working on the five unsolved cases.
By the time Tasha pulled into the underground parking garage of her building, she felt like she was out on her feet. Listlessly, she collected her files and her service weapon from the glove box. The Glock felt like a lead weight when she dropped it into her purse. Her heels clacked loudly on the floor of the empty garage as she walked towards the elevator. At that hour, most of the other tenants in the luxury high rise were fast asleep. They were mostly older people and business types who kept decent hours. It was a far cry from the heavy traffic and constant noise of the apartment buildings she had lived in while growing up. That was one of the reasons she’d purchased an apartment in that building. She needed a change.
She stepped from the elevator and walked to her apartment, which was at the far end of the hall. As she fished around in her purse for her keys, she felt the hairs on the backs of her arms stand up. Instinctively, her hand slipped around the Glock at the bottom of the bag. A split second later, one of the apartment doors down the hall opened. An elderly white woman, named Mrs. Kravitz, was taking out her trash. Tasha offered a warm smile in greeting, and was met with a distasteful stare. Mrs. Kravitz had never been a big fan of the young black who lived at the end of the hall and as far as Tasha was concerned, the feeling was mutual. Ignoring the bitter old woman, Tasha stepped inside her apartment and slammed the door loud enough to irritate her neighbors.
Spending so much of her time between the precinct and the streets, Tasha was rarely home and sometimes forgot how nice her apartment was. It was a plush two bedroom, with one and a half baths, a modernized kitchen, and a large balcony that gave her a view of the city that made the hefty price she’d paid for the apartment well worth it. Those rare occasions that she was home, Tasha would sit out on her balcony, drinking coffee and watching the sunrise.
After putting her bag down on the coffee table and shrugging out of her jacket, Tasha did something she had wanted to do for two days, reached under her shirt, and snatched her bra off. After being incarcerated in a prison of cotton and underwire for so long, her breasts were beyond grateful for the pardon. She scratched under them and it was such a good feeling that she wanted to bust out into song. Times like those she envied men because they’d never know the irritation that came with carrying around a set of D-cups in a bra that was made more for fashion than comfort.
She went into the kitchen and snatched the refrigerator open. The inside of her fridge was almost as tragic a sight as the overflow of cases on her desk at work. There was a carton of curdled milk, a half-eaten sandwich that was starting to grow hair, and a bottle of merlot. She grabbed the wine and placed it on the counter while she went about the task of finding a clean glass. Tash was just about to pour some wine into the Mason jar she had found in the back of the cabinet when a tickle of cold air crossed the back of her neck. It was coming from the open window. She wouldn’t have paid it any attention except Tash never left the kitchen window open. She’d stopped leaving it open after a pigeon had flown in through it and she damn near had to shoot it to get rid of it. Someone had been in her apartment.
Carrying on as if nothing was wrong, Tasha continued pouring her wine. She sipped from the jar, glancing around from the corners of her eyes to see if she could spot anything Else out of place. She didn’t see anything or anyone, but had the feeling that she wasn’t alone. Her gaze drifted over to her couch where she had tossed her purse and thought of the gun inside. It was a long shot, but still her best and only chance. Casually, she sat the jar down on the counter then lunged for the purse.
Tasha had almost made it across the living room and to the purse when a hand grabbed her by the arm. Instead of pulling away, she went with the momentum and came around with a left hook to the jaw of whoever had grabbed her. When she felt the grip slacken, she jerked free and made a second attempt for bag. This time she was successful. As quickly as she could, she dumped the contents of the bag onto the couch. The hands had grabbed her again, pulling her away from the couch. When Tasha turned to face her attacker, she was now armed with her Glock 17. Her finger had just caressed the trigger, ready to fire, when suddenly she paused.
“What the fuck?” Tasha was stunned.
“Damn, baby. You plan on shooting the best piece of dick you ever had?” Animal smirked at her playfully, as if she hadn’t almost blown his head off.
Of all the people she had expected to run into that night, Animal would’ve fallen to last on that list. Their improper relationship went back to when Tasha was still walking a beat and Animal was a teenager running with Tech. Back then, he had been her boy-toy, that piece of young dick she could call when she didn’t feel like making love and wanted to be fucked. It had been a while since she’d last seen him and having him in her living room stirred old feelings that she’d thought were long gone.
“Animal what are you doing here? And how the hell did you get into my house?” Tasha asked angrily. She was still holding the gun but no longer pointing it at him.
“I’m here because I needed to see you, and I got in through the window.” He nodded towards the open kitchen window.
“Bullshit, I live on the fourteenth floor. What did you do, scale the building like Spiderman?”
“No, I just crossed the ledge from your neighbor’s house.” “What did you do to the Gordon’s?” Tasha asked, fearing the worst.
“Relax, Tash. I didn’t hurt them; just tied them up nice and tight. I told that sweet old couple that I was from maintenance and had come to check on a complaint about a leak from the apartment below them and they let me right in. This is a nice building you live in, but the residents are far too trusting. I suspect that come tomorrow morning the entire security staff will be unemployed,” Animal said in a disappointed tone.
“You know there are easier ways to set up meetings with me than tying up old people and breaking into homes, like a telephone. You weren’t in prison long enough to forget how to use them,” Tash scolded him.
“You’ll have to excuse my dramatic entrance, Tash, but I’m in some serious shit here and I really need your help,” Animal told her.
Tasha frowned. “I should have known. It’s like the only time you come around is when you need something. The last time I did you a favor I almost lost my job and went to prison.”
She was referring to the elaborate hoax she had helped Animal pull off that spared him a life sentence.
“But instead you got a promotion and from the looks of this apartment a nice raise,” Animal shot back.
“Look, don’t come up in my place trying to be no score keeper, because I think the scales would tip in my favor,” she waggled her finger in his face. “After I put my ass on the line to save yours, you get out of prison and blow town without even so much as a goodbye. But I’m not mad at you for that, I’m mad at myself for expecting different.”
“Tasha…”
“No, don’t try and cut me off so you can spin some more of that smooth poetic bullshit like you always do, because I ain’t trying to hear it!” she jabbed her finger in his face. “You know when we went our separate ways and decided to just be friends, it was hard for me, but I accept it. You’d made your choice and I am by no means a hater, but you have no idea how complicated you make things every time you come back into my life. When you got out of prison and wrote me off it was actually a good thing because then I was able to officially write you off too and I was just starting to heal, and now here you come again!”
“Tasha…”
“Guys like you are a trip, Animal.” She ignored him. “You’ve got everything you said you wanted out of life, even if you didn’t get them with me, yet you still want more. So what is it now? You got bored with the life of being a husband and father in your big house on the beach and now you’re back h
ere slumming for some excitement? Your precious Gucci not holding your attention anymore?” she asked sarcastically.
“No, she’s dead.” Animal was finally able to get a word in. Tasha’s face went slack.
“My wife has been murdered and my children kidnapped.” Animal went on to tell Tasha the tragic story of what had happened to him over the last few days. By the time he was done with his tale, she was in tears.
“I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely, feeling horrible about the way she’d treated him.
“Not your fault, you didn’t kill her, I did. Maybe not literally, but I might as well have been behind the trigger, because I brought this down on our family.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Animal.”
“Sure I can. Had I stayed my ass at home where I belonged then none of this would’ve happened. Can’t turn back the clock and change anything at this point, but I can make it right. Tasha, I know you’ve done a lot for me already, and if I had any other choice I wouldn’t be here asking you for more, but I’ve got nowhere else to turn.”
“Say no more. Whatever you need, I got you,” Tasha vowed.
“I need to know where I can find this boat,” Animal handed her the manifest.
Tasha looked it over. She recognized the name of the boat from an investigation that had come across her desk a few months prior. By the time they got around to following up on it the case had been squashed and filed under never happened. “Do I wanna know why you’re looking for this boat?”
Animal thought on the question. “Probably not. To be honest with you, I’m still not sure why I’m looking for it. I just know a man was willing to die rather than reveal its location.”
“Well I’m not sure how hard you looked before you came to me, but the time of arrival and destination are right here,” she pointed at a series of numbers printed across the top of the manifest.