Jaeger

by Evelise Archer

  Wren didn’t have to force himself to appear exhausted. He was. His body was on overdrive, and his muscles continued to seize. His desires at that moment were a hot shower and a comfortable place to lay his head without any complications. Ten o’clock would arrive soon enough, and he’d need to report to the federal courthouse.

  Sophia looked him up and down and finally handed him a five-by-seven index card and a pen. Wren made quick work of filling it out with false information and returned the card with payment. He retrieved his room card and took the stairs two at a time to his third-floor room. He wouldn’t feel secure until he was safely inside. He set the door’s two locks and placed the desk chair under the knob. It seemed that Jaeger’s cautiousness had seeped into him.

  Wren looked around the room, and for a moment, his heart felt heavy. He couldn’t believe he’d left Jaeger in the mountains with a pack of killers to save himself. It mattered little that Jaeger hadn’t shown up and that he knew Jaeger wanted him to leave. He had still left him, injured and alone. Wren was no better than the monster who spawned him.

  He carefully laid his clothes on the laminate desk and took the flash drive and phone out of his jeans pockets. Having no other clothes to wear, Wren would be forced to use them again when he left for the courthouse in a few hours. They were dirty from his trek through the woods, but he had little choice.

  He turned on the shower with the water set as high as the hotel permitted, and steam immediately filled the space. A more upscale establishment would not have been so stingy with the water temperature, but right then safety was more important than comfort.

  The hot water sluiced down his body and eased some of the aches, pains, and tension of the past few hours, but not his heart, which strained with despair. And the tears flowed—for his mother, his uncle, Javi. And for the love he lost, but desired most of all—Marshal Jaeger Tripp.

  “Why?” Wren wailed, overcome with wracking sobs. He slumped to the floor until the water ran cold, and Wren had no choice but to move and hit the sack. Without knowing if he’d actually be testifying, sitting in the courtroom, or meeting with the feds, Wren needed to be on his A game regardless.

  He dried off quickly and slithered between the cool sheets. He closed his eyes and dreamed of Jaeger’s touch, his surly smile, and rough temperament—all things Wren longed to have again.

  Morning arrived, and Wren had no choice but to complete his journey. His fate was sealed the moment he contacted the United States government and decided it was better to live on the edge with the off chance of making the world a better place than to live as a purveyor of evil.

  Dressed in the same dirty clothes of the previous day, Wren secured the flash drive and cell phone in his front pocket, discarded the room key card on the pristinely cleaned dresser and vacated the room.

  A muggy and humid day was already on the horizon in New York City as Wren stepped from the hotel entrance and inhaled the many scents of a city waking up. He had always loved the crazy pace of the city, even if his visits were infrequent.

  Wren decided to walk the few blocks to the courthouse, give his name to security, and hope for the best. The feds would be expecting him… he hoped. Providing the transcript on the cell phone and implicating Denver Chase was the only thing he could do for Jaeger. Wren didn’t know for sure if Jaeger was dead, but his heavy heart told him he might be. He was truly alone in the world, and Wren had no choice but to take the final steps.

  The concrete steps leading to the courthouse entrance appeared farther than they were, already bustling with people coming and going, even at that early hour. Taking a deep breath, Wren calmly and steadily walked each step. His resolve no longer wavered, and a sense of peace surrounded him. The closer he got to the top, the more confident he became. Head held high, looking straight forward, he walked until he reached the revolving door that welcomed him to the next phase of his life.

  Wren entered. The officer looked at him suspiciously because his attire was clearly not appropriate for a federal courthouse in Manhattan.

  “Sir, may I help you?” The polite officer stepped away from his companions and approached Wren cautiously.

  Wren didn’t know any other way than to get straight to the point and hope for the best.

  “Yes, thank you Officer… Johnson.” Wren glanced at the name tag. “My name is Wren O’Riley, and I am a material witness in the Rincón crime family trial. If you please, I need to see someone from the marshals’ office.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DUSK APPROACHED. Wet, cold, and bleeding, Jaeger lay on the soft foliage waiting to die. His day had finally come. Wren was due to testify in court the next morning, and hopefully he’d disobeyed Jaeger and arrived in New York City. Safely. Jaeger’s regret was that he didn’t get to confront SAC Chase and put a bullet between his eyes. He’d fled the cabin, and he could hear Cristobal and the other men as they searched for him. He needed to lead them away and then return to retrieve the vehicle. Instead he found himself alone after he dragged himself through the woods, slowly bleeding the life essence from his body.

  He assumed the men had discovered Javier Chino’s body when he saw flames rise above the tree line. They had torched the cabin, leaving no sign of anyone and covering any evidence. Javier’s death was a balm to Jaeger’s soul. He had done the only thing he could to ensure Wren’s safety—placed a bullet between Chino’s eyes, ending his life. And sealing his own fate.

  He had so many regrets in his life. He had lived a hard and dangerous existence, alone in the world, and his end would be lonely too. He should have never returned to the cabin to take care of the cameras. That one crucial decision set everything in motion. He now lay dying, and God knew what had happened to Wren.

  A chill ran through him, and he huddled for warmth and prayed for death to come fast. He closed his eyes and saw the phases of his life pass before him.

  His adoptive parents tried to love him, but Jaeger didn’t make their life or job easy. He was a troubled child with a penchant for getting into sticky situations and never understanding rules that were meant to guide and not punish. Jaeger realized too late in life that his parents’ strictness was forged out of love. When they passed away in his eighteenth year, Jaeger stuffed his life into a backpack and joined the Army.

  When they discovered he had a talent for accuracy with weapons and had the makings of an expert marksman, Jaeger was placed with a special unit and traveled the world. Always on rooftops, eradicating would-be terrorists, he was a killing machine for the military. After a few stints, Jaeger joined the US Marshal Service where he morphed from killer to marshal. His life’s path was already set.

  Of course he was actually supposed to protect, but Jaeger knew perfectly well where his skill set lay, as did his superiors. He’d protected countless people and killed numerous others in the name of the service. Immoral and depraved men could be transformed into patriots when the US government needed their talents. Job after job Jaeger did his duty. Until he arrived at this point in his life.

  With every inhalation his chest ached and it became increasingly more difficult to breathe. His time on earth was almost done, and soon he’d have to meet his maker. Not sure if he’d done any good in his life, Jaeger reckoned that his only route to heaven would be through a stint in hell. At least he’d know people there.

  Tired. So very tired. He closed his eyes, if only to rest for a minute. He had no idea how long it would be before someone found his body, riddled with bullet holes—a carcass left for the wildlife of the Adirondack Mountains to feast on. The cycle of life. Would anyone miss him? Mourn him? He was about to inhale and exhale for the last time on this earth. And then, in a flash he saw—

  A young man.

  A wizard.

  A pact.

  A man.

  Standing before him as he lay dying in the Adirondack Mountains was a vision.

  “You,” Jaeger mumbled as pain radiated through his frame. “I know you.” Jaeger wasn’t sure if he
was hallucinating, but the vision appeared so real he could reach out and touch him. And the old man looked familiar.

  He stared at his wrinkled flesh and the tattered blue robe the man wore. The intricate pattern on the cloth was not contemporary. And even through much use, the embroidery held a delicate look.

  He’d met the man centuries before, in a German village during the time of the Holy Roman Empire. Jaeger Tripp was but a peasant, a nobody in an impoverished land governed by lords. And the man… what was his name?

  “My boy, once again we meet in a new lifetime. How fortuitous for me. But for you… a shame. Shall I show you, yet again, what has become of you? What you failed to achieve? How you will die alone?”

  “Your name, sir. Please. If I must take a journey, at least share your name,” Jaeger asked, trying to recall it.

  “You know me by Moriel. Your liege and maker. We met many centuries ago in a faraway land—one that no longer exists. Let me demonstrate the truth of my words. Together through lifetimes, we’ve come so far. So many opportunities. So many deaths.”

  Flashes of who Jaeger was in another lifetime immediately raced before his eyes. He stood in tattered clothes on a cobblestone alley with a fire. With a knife he cut his wrist, sealing his fate. He’d made a pact with Moriel, the man who stood before him. Looking at his wrist, Jaeger remembered the moment the birthmark appeared. It was his rite of passage as a member of Moriel’s secret society—men who were destined to become great and live their realities in notoriety—assassins, killers, henchmen. Moriel’s order of black knights.

  A beautiful young man came into view—Lord Wren, looking regal atop a stunning black horse. The young lord traveled the streets with his father, surveying his estates. Jaeger despised everything the young lord represented. Rich, pampered, privileged—to Jaeger, Lord Wren was the antithesis of his mere existence in that hellhole of a village.

  And Jaeger had killed him to prove his allegiance to Moriel, his new lord and deliverer. Lord Wren. The scar on Jaeger’s wrist burned, and the pain radiating from the gnarled flesh overtook the agony of his current mortal injuries and caused him to gasp and swear.

  “What the fuck are you doing to me, Moriel?”

  “I am but showing you your sins before you plunge into a new life and begin again. The journey has been a long one for you, Jaeger—one which you were destined to repeat over and over again. Your lesson was never learned. Some of my followers succeeded, and sadly I freed them from their eternal fates, while others still strive for a peaceful existence and to find their niche in their universe. I must say, you have been one of the more difficult fledglings to leave my flock. Lifetimes we have intersected, and it appears more shall come.”

  Jaeger saw flickers of himself as the centuries fast-forwarded. He was an assassin for the king of Prussia during the Napoleonic War, in which Jaeger assassinated a young general in Napoleon’s commission, facilitating the defeat of Napoleon’s army and sealing the fate of the French. As a member of General Custer’s unit, he killed a young Native American who attempted to warn the soldiers of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse’s numbers. His murder led to the last stand the general and his men took, which killed almost 300, including Custer and Jaeger. During the Great War and World War II, he was a double agent and a killing machine—eradicating enemies of the state and anyone who interfered in Jaeger’s plans. In Colombia he was a sniper who eliminated the son of a drug lord.

  Moriel showed him each killing in graphic detail, and then the final victim always had the same face. It was the face of the man Jaeger was tasked to protect in this lifetime—Wren O’Riley. Maybe a freckle or two out of place, or skin fairer than before, but the eyes were always the same—beautiful, wide, forest-green eyes, surrounded by long dark lashes that lay upon his cheeks when his lids were closed. He looked much as he had the first time Jaeger stole a glance at the young lord in his Germanic village. Those eyes revealed an old soul who desired to see the world even in the twelfth century but was a slave to family obligations. Those eyes looked beyond Jaeger’s faults and shone with appreciation, reverence, and lust in their nights of passion. The same ones that Jaeger had….

  “You placed a curse on me when I signed a blood oath all those years ago. My scar—the broken sword is my marker to indicate I belonged to you. You cursed all of us, sealed our fates, and made us do your bidding. You promised riches, fame….”

  Moriel leaned down and leered in Jaeger’s face. Once he was so close, Jaeger saw his weathered and wrinkled skin sag. His teeth were black and rotten. A smell wafted around the wizard—incense, moldering flesh, smoke, sulfur—the odiferous signature of evil. If Jaeger had more strength, he would have reached for the man and strangled him with his bare hands.

  “I did give you fame and riches, my boy. Your name has gone down in the annals of history as an experienced marksman, a trained killer, a man who changed the course of events in the most trying times of history. Men feared you. Women wanted to bed you. Hell. Men wanted to bed you, simply to say they had been touched by an expert craftsman. The choices you made were yours alone. I was only the catalyst. I ruled the world until the world changed and an old and decrepit wizard was no longer needed. But keeping abreast of the men pledged to me has given me much opportunity to see the world throughout time. All of you have proven the inhumanity of the species and the easy perpetuation of evil. This task alone has kept me connected to the earth.”

  “How do I stop this incessant merry-go-round my life has become? I die only to be born again into another life of hatred and killing. Alone. I’m cursed, damn you. Enough!” Jaeger shouted. Insects scurried and birds squawked at his pleas, but they landed on deaf ears. Jaeger clutched his midsection as he was overcome with a coughing fit. Blood, sputum, and vomit seeped from his mouth and down his chin. Jaeger wiped his face forcefully, smearing the vile blend.

  “You alone had the power to break the curse, but as fate would have it, that deed was never completed. You alone needed to forgive thy enemy, and then you would have been rid of me. Alas, you find yourself in a familiar predicament, and I… I wait to see you come back a new tortured soul and start the cycle once again.”

  What riddles did Moriel speak? Who was Jaeger to forgive? No one in his life meant anything to him, not enough to draw such emotion. Jaeger’s enemies deserved their fate, beginning with the catalyst, Lord Wren. The privileged always paid their dues. And then it dawned on Jaeger, smart man that he was. If Lord Wren of Germania sealed his fate as an assassin and purveyor of death, then Lord Wren alone could break the curse. Fuck. Wren O’Riley.

  Jaeger needed to forgive Wren for the actions of his family and his ex-lover. Forgive him for the atrocities inflicted upon man and woman. For the desire to better himself and become a productive member of society without the albatross of his lineage. To allow Wren to forget the seed that spawned him. He needed to start anew. Could he do it? His very existence depended on it.

  “Moriel, and if I forgive the young man? I break the curse and live my life free and unbound by your straps?”

  “Wren O’Riley is your One, and the only way to be rid of me is to forgive and break the curse.”

  “But how do I know you’ll keep your word, and what assurance do you have that I tell the truth?” Jaeger had lived many lies, so telling one more would not be difficult.

  “The scar. The broken sword that marked you as mine was the binding factor in my plan so long ago. Your blood oath knotted us together for all eternity, unless you forgave your true mate and bound your soul to him. If not, the scar will remain and another lifespan will be cast upon you—the same fate you have endured since the twelfth century. You will live another lonely existence, meeting him and killing again—an endless cycle of injustice and ruthlessness.” Moriel stood and smoothed his gnarled and dirty hands along the front of his robe and then removed a wand from his side strap.

  Jaeger peered up at the wizard, not sure what he planned. Could it be that simple, to use words of forgivene
ss and change the course of his life?

  “Do you love this man, Wren O’Riley of the twenty-first century? An enemy of all that is good in the world? A family that has killed, sold drugs and people—the same perpetrators of evil, just in a different time period? Are you prepared to change your life for this man and seek peace, calm, and goodness in all you do? Tell me Jaeger of Germania, what comes of your existence?”

  Jaeger knew a decision was essential if he hoped to reclaim his life, surge forward, and remain on the earth.

  “But I am dying, wizard. Can you change the fate of another so much that death would not come to this broken body? Is my fate not already sealed?”

  “I am an old man with many talents. What comes of you after your fate has altered is up to you. I am solely the catalyst. So, Jaeger of Germania, current United States Marshal, I ask again. Have you forgiven Wren O’Riley for his transgressions and those of his family?”

  The wizard swung his wand in the air and chanted. A blinding light illuminated the night sky, and Jaeger was no more.

  HE WOKE with a start. His body felt heavy and was attached to tubes. Where was he? The last thing he remembered? Everything was fuzzy. His brain was scrambled.

  “Doctor, el paciente se despierta.” He fluttered his eyelids and attempted to open them to the voice above him. The man towered over his prone form and wore a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck. His face appeared tan, more from weather than genetics, although olive undertones peeked through. The doctor’s smile shone, and his two front teeth were a tad bit crooked. He guessed the man to be in his late forties.

  “Señor, ¿conoce su nombre? Soy doctor Fuentes. Nos preguntábamos cuando se despertaría. Permítame realizar unas pruebas médicas a ver como está progresando. Usted ha estado con nosotros durante mucho tiempo.”