by S L Shelton
His mind was clear—for the moment.
He ripped a strip from a sheet and wrapped his hand before carefully moving out of the laundry room. As he moved through the house, something felt wrong. He had trouble identifying exactly what had him spooked, but by the time he got to the grand staircase in the center of the house, he realized the mansion felt empty—as if there was no one there.
The last time Scott and Kathrin were in the mansion, he distinctly recalled feeling the presence of numerous people; BeauLac and his family, servants, the horny midnight caller who had shown up drunk looking for a midnight booty call with the cook. Yet as he moved down the hallway, door after door remained open and the rooms were unoccupied.
A flash of panic surged up from his chest as fear of a trap gripped him. But after a moment, it occurred to him that the security men outside, tied up and drugged in the trailer, weren’t situated for a trap. In fact, it looked as if they were bored with their routines, letting protocols slip from repetition.
BeauLac’s room at the end of the long hallway proved to be the only one with a closed door. After listening at the door for a moment, Wolf tested the knob and found it unlocked. Inside, BeauLac slept under a simple blanket. Wolf pulled his silenced Glock from his waistband and crept quietly toward the aging tycoon.
As he neared, a feeling of unease tightened his chest once more. So distracted by the foreign sensation, he didn’t react quickly enough when his foot hit a squeaking floorboard.
BeauLac sat up in bed. “Qui va là?”
As he reached over and switched on his night lamp, Wolf raised the pistol and aimed it at his head.
“Qui es-vous?” BeauLac asked, pushing himself backward as far as the headboard would allow.
Wolf raised his finger to his lips and smiled, eliciting a nervous nod from BeauLac.
After removing the phone from the night table and setting it on the floor, Wolf sat on the edge of BeauLac’s bed, still leveling the silencer at BeauLac.
“C'est parti,” the older man said.
Wolf tipped his head, confused by the sentiment here we go. “What do you mean by that?” He asked.
BeauLac shook his head, a mild sneer tugging at his drooping cheeks. “Don’t toy with me. If you’re to do it, then do it.”
“You don’t seem surprised that I’m here and your bodyguards aren’t.”
“Du tout…not at all. I assume they let you in,” he said, but then confusion shaped his expression. “But if that were the case, you would know they are in fact not my bodyguards, but my jailers.”
Ah! Now that makes more sense!
“I see,” Wolf replied, lowering his weapon a fraction. “If they’re going to steal your money, they need to have you under their control so you don’t raise the alarm.”
BeauLac nodded, something akin to hope sparkled in his now squinting eyes. “Who are you?”
“Scott Wolfe,” Wolf replied, steady, even, no emotion.
BeauLac’s eyes shot wide and recoiled, suddenly afraid again. “So, it’s not Combine but the Wolf who comes to kill me.”
“What makes you think I’m here to kill you?”
“Well you burned William and Edward Spryte to the ground in their home,” he said as if it should have been obvious. “I assumed you’d be working your way through the entire board eventually.”
Wolf nodded, unmoved. “I’ve never been within a dozen miles of the Sprytes…not knowingly anyway.”
“Ha! We watched the security footage on the news like everyone else.”
“Then you obviously weren’t let in on the secret,” Wolf said, then decided to start softening him up for questioning. “Are Philip and George not keeping the rest of the board in the loop?”
Mild surprise flit across BeauLac’s face. “I suppose you didn’t steal our money either.”
“Oh, no. I totally ripped you off. It’s financing the whole operation to bring Combine down,” he said. “Thanks, by the way.”
BeauLac scoffed. “All you have to do is wait. Harp and Collins have betrayed the entire membership. It won’t be long before the eastern pact is feeding off our bones.”
Eastern pact?
“So, you want out of here?”
“Where would I go? They control my assets, they have my family under surveillance…” BeauLac said, shaking his head as self-pity moved into his voice. “There’s nowhere I could go where they wouldn’t find me.”
“I’m still running free,” Wolf said with an encouraging, though ironic grin.
BeauLac huffed through his nose and shook his head.
A knock at the door drew Wolf’s pistol around in that direction.
“Who are you talking to, old man?”
The door opened and Wolf squeezed the trigger. A dark hole materialized in his forehead, and the man fell forward into the room. Wolf rushed over, dragging him inside before closing the door.
“You’ve killed yourself unless you managed to disable the entire security force on your way in.”
Wolf smiled and winked at BeauLac. “That’s exactly what I did.”
“You mean we’re not being watched?”
Wolf shot him a questioning glance, but BeauLac pointed at the dome camera on the ceiling in the corner of the room.
“Shit!”
Wolfe turned the pistol on BeauLac and fired, sending him out of bed to the floor on the other side. He immediately whipped the Glock around to the camera and fired a second time, shattering the dome.
“I’ll do whatever you ask!” BeauLac screamed from the floor.
“Shut up and get dressed. We have to get you out of here.”
The shot had missed BeauLac by less than an inch, penetrating his bed curtain in the corner and embedding itself in the wall behind. On the outside chance that the security feed wasn’t just local, he needed Combine to believe he had just killed BeauLac. The cameras—that’s what Wolf had felt he’d forgotten, all while staring directly at the monitors.
“What are you talking about?”
Wolf opened the bedroom door. “Stay here until I come back. If we’re lucky, they’ll think you’re dead and not hunt for you.”
Wolf ran down the stairs and out the servant’s entrance toward the security trailer. Once there, he killed the power on the generator and then went inside. His captives still lay there, unconscious.
He checked the equipment to ensure it had all powered down with the generator, and once satisfied, returned inside. He stopped in the kitchen briefly before continuing into the house. Carefully checking each room as he moved, he arrived back at BeauLac’s bedroom to find the old man still dressed in his pajamas, though pointing a shotgun at him.
“Nice,” Wolf said. “Where was that?”
“Under the bed.”
Wolf nodded. “Is there anyone else in the house but the two guards?”
“I will ask some questions now.”
Wolf looked at his watch. “Well, you better hurry, because I killed the pilot lights on all your stove burners and lit a candle in the grand dining room.”
BeauLac’s eyes flashed wide. “You fool! This house is four hundred years old!”
Wolf shrugged weakly, relaxed.
Shifting nervously, BeauLac looked out the window. Like a viper uncoiling to strike, Wolf covered the distance between the two of them before BeauLac could return his attention. The shotgun was out of his hands before he realized what happened.
“Six weeks,” BeauLac muttered.
Wolf grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door.
“Six weeks I’ve been sleeping on that damned gun, waiting for an opportunity to use it.”
Wolf yanked him into the hallway. “It would have been bad luck for you if you’d gotten a shot off.”
“Where are we going?”
“Out the back door. Is there anyone else in the house other than the security team?”
BeauLac shook his head. “Harp’s mercenaries did the cooking, and no one cleaned…for more than a mo
nth.”
“That must’ve been horrible for you. How’d you survive?” Wolf muttered as he dragged BeauLac down the stairs.
The smell of gas reached Wolf as they turned down the stairwell. The high ceilings would fill until it had no place to go but down. Any ignition source would set it off—the candle was just a failsafe.
“You have to stop it,” BeauLac begged. “This house…it’s been in my family for generations.”
Wolf tightened his grip on BeauLac’s arm and dragged him down the stairs. “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“You?! It’s not your—”
Wolf spun around and slapped BeauLac with the back of his hand. Fear, indignation, and rage commingled in the flutter of microexpressions on the older man’s face.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Wolf hissed. “If you don’t shut your mouth and come with me silently, you will be for real.”
BeauLac’s anger opened his mouth, but he closed it abruptly as if all the information in that threat finally registered. Wolf continued down the stairs as fast as the reluctant older man’s feet would follow.
At the back door, Wolf stopped in the laundry room and grabbed the collar of the unconscious female guard. After dragging her into the mudroom, ignoring BeauLac’s confused glare, he opened the door and shoved BeauLac into the pouring rain. Wolf followed, dragging the girl behind him.
“What are we doing?!” BeauLac asked, his bed clothes already heavy with water and clinging to his body.
When they were close to the security trailer, Wolf dropped the girl on the side away from the house before returning to BeauLac’s side.
As he grabbed the old man’s arm, a flash of light to the side caught his attention—vehicles, fast-moving up the long winding drive toward the house.
“Shit,” Wolf muttered, pulling BeauLac toward the vineyards.
“They’ll kill us both now,” BeauLac said.
“Shut up and run.”
They splashed through the rows of grapevine, Wolf looking back occasionally to see the progress of the convoy. Seconds before the line of vehicles reached the mansion, the night ruptured in a ball of fire, blowing the windows from the east wing of the immense structure. A few seconds later, the western wing and the upstairs erupted in an explosion of light and fire. Portions of the front walls collapsed on the ornate stone and tile portico.
“No,” BeauLac said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Wolf continued to drag him forward. “If we’re lucky, they’ll think you were in there.”
“And if they don’t?”
Wolf yanked his arm, spurring him to move faster. “Then I’d guess they won’t take a chance on how much you’ve shared with me or investigators.”
No doubt inspired by fear, BeauLac ceased his struggle and followed at a more urgent pace. By the time they reached the overgrown dirt road at the edge of the vineyards, BeauLac’s breath came in labored gasps, and he had slowed to an unsteady trot.
“Just a little further,” Wolf said. “Keep up.”
“I can’t. I need to rest.”
Without missing a step, Wolf lifted the older man across his shoulders and carried him. BeauLac went limp and aside from some mild grunting as they ran, seemed to settle into the idea easily.
Within moments, they arrived at the Outlander and Wolf unceremoniously dropped his old guy scarf into the front seat. “Keep your head down. If anyone realizes you weren’t in the mansion, the sky will open up and rain hit men.”
“Just turn on the heat. I’m freezing.”
“Your comfort was always my first concern,” he said, starting the engine and gunning it forward.
As the SUV splashed along the dirt access trail toward the road, Wolf scanned his surroundings. With no headlights on, they bounced and wove through the storm almost blind.
“Buckle your seat belt,” Wolf said, shoving BeauLac back to his side.
“I’m cold.”
Frustrated, Wolf spun the knob for the heat and flipped on the fan. “Now put on your seat belt. I can’t drive with you falling into my lap.”
“Then turn on the lights.”
“Not until we hit the hardtop.”
Wolf remained calm as the SUV fishtailed on the wet path, accelerating on the straightaway upon seeing the entrance to the road. The wipers slashed heavy rainfall away from the windshield, and his eyes focused hard on the road ahead.
BeauLac’s fingers gripped the handhold above the door, the other braced against the dashboard, and his feet pressed against the floorboard. “The lights! Turn on the lights!”
Wolf pressed down further on the accelerator, popping the whine of the engine to a higher pitch as it slipped into a passing gear. In his peripheral sight, Wolf felt, then saw a growing glow of headlights, originating from the winding driveway leading from the mansion. He pressed further on the pedal, winding the engine hotter and louder.
“Get down,” Wolf hissed as they approached the main gates headed toward Avignon.
BeauLac slouched down slightly, and Wolf reached over, shoving his head lower, below the plane of the window. As they passed the gate, headlights briefly flashed across the vehicle.
Wolf turned on their headlights after passing and pressed down on the gas. The first pursuit vehicle hit the road going too fast and cut too hard on the wet pavement, sending them sliding into the soft clay bank across the road. Two more vehicles slowed to take the turn and then engaged in the pursuit.
“Whatever you do, keep your head down. If they see you’re still alive, it doesn’t matter how fast I drive, we’ll never lose them.”
BeauLac nodded nervously and crouched lower.
The vehicles in pursuit appeared to be sedans. They would be faster than the Outlander, but on the storm drenched roads, the SUV would have better traction. Wolf decided to use that to his advantage and turned hard off the pavement onto a dirt farm road, sending gravel and mud in a wave on the skid.
They bounced over the deeply rutted trail, splashing water as he fishtailed along the edge of a field. Behind him, one of the vehicles stayed on the blacktop, while the remaining, tailing vehicle attempted the turn in the mud. It slammed against the soggy bank but straightened and continued its pursuit.
Wolf looked in the rearview mirror then out the side window at the vehicle speeding north on the road—they were trying to converge on him.
He reached down and turned the drive selector from computer control tracking to four-wheel drive. As soon as he felt the engine shift, he turned right into the field. The sedan behind him tried to follow but spun out in the muck and tall grass.
Wolf was now driving east, away from the remaining sedan. A smattering of small arms fire reached the back of the Outlander, but quickly ceased when he switched off the lights and turned right once more.
“Are you hit?” Wolf asked, without looking.
“No. I don’t think so.”
Wolf turned right again, pointing them in the direction of the road they had come from. The rough, rocky field tossed the SUV as they navigated toward the glow of city lights on the horizon. Able only to see a few feet in front of the vehicle, their speed dropped to only a few miles per hour, but still, the violent passage left them both tossed back and forth, slamming against the doors, dashboard, and ceiling.
“Where will you take me?” BeauLac asked, a nervous edge coloring his tone.
“We have to get out of Avignon first. Then we can worry about where I’m taking you.”
When they turned off the muddy dirt road onto blacktop once more, the drive smoothed out and they picked up speed again. Only the silhouette of ground and the bank were visible against the brightening skyline—the storm was ending.
Wolf kept the headlights off as they wound around the hilly terrain.
“How can you drive with no lights?” BeauLac asked, almost as if in passing.
“The horizon is bright and the lines on the road are clear.”
BeauLac nodded thoughtfully,
then looked at Wolf. “What if something dark is on the road.”
“We’ll hit it.”
He stopped at an intersection and gazed at the signs pointing the direction to the highway. BeauLac peered out the window, squinting into the dark. When Wolf turned right, away from the highway, BeauLac seemed confused.
Wolf switched on the headlights as they reached the next intersection, turning left to cross the hills.
“Are we going to Avignon?” BeauLac asked. “It would be faster on the highway.”
Wolf nodded. “One of the sedans is still out there. I don’t know how many hands they have, but they would assume the fastest way to Avignon is on the highway as well.”
“What will we do if they come this way?”
Wolf shook his head. “I guess we’ll figure that out when we see them.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”
Wolf smiled. “My plan was to torture you for information then kill you. We can go back to that plan if you think it’s better.”
“No. I’m satisfied with the new plan.”
They drove in silence for almost thirty minutes. In the rearview mirror, Wolf kept a watchful eye on a set of headlights moving up the mountain behind them. As the road turned, he would catch a glimpse before he rounded the next curve.
He sped up to see if the distance faded between them, taking a few turns tightly, wheels squealing through the maneuver.
“What’s wrong?” BeauLac asked after the second high-speed cornering.
Wolf looked in the rearview only to see the headlights had grown closer. “Looks like I picked the wrong route.”
“I believe I mentioned that as a possibility.”
Wolf ignored the jab and increased his speed some more. As they crested the ridge and laid eyes on the glowing city lights of Avignon, Wolf switched off the headlights again.
“Are you insane? At this speed?” BeauLac said, stress and incredulity tainting his voice.
“Shut up and let me concentrate.”
The turns approached faster, but rather than brake on approach, he downshifted, causing the engine to scream and whine in protest. If he touched the brake, the brake lights would illuminate. That would have been no better than leaving the headlights on.