by AnonYMous
The stench that filled the air was not completely unfamiliar. Father Taos had encountered a similar smell once before – five years earlier, in fact. It brought back sickening memories, because it was the smell of death, destruction and betrayal, cloaked in a mist of gunpowder. The pews were not covered in lilac cushioning any more, they were covered in blood. They were no longer what could be described as neat, they were a mess. And worst of all, his Hubal Brothers who were half filling the pews, didn’t look glum, they looked dead. All of them.
Looking upward, fully, fifty feet above him, Taos could even see blood dripping from the ceiling. The perfectly arched marble vault overhead had been painted hundreds of years earlier with the most beautiful scenes of Holy Angels dancing with happy, smiling children. Now, all of the angels and all of the children were stained with the blood of the Hubal monks beneath them. It seemed as if their expressions had changed, too. They no longer looked happy and carefree. Their blood-spotted faces looked troubled, remorseful and sad. Just like Father Taos.
There were some thirty corpses slumped over the pews. Perhaps another thirty or so were out of sight beneath or in between the rows of seating. Only one man had survived the massacre, and that was Taos himself. He had been shot in the stomach at point-blank range by a man toting a double-barrelled shotgun. It had hurt terribly, and the wound was still bleeding a little, but it would heal. His wounds always healed, although he had come to accept the fact that gunshots did tend to leave a mark. He had received two other bullet wounds in his lifetime, both of them five years ago, both in the same week, just a few days apart.
There were enough Hubal monks still alive on the island to help him clear up the present mess. It would be hard for them, he knew that much. It would be particularly hard for those who had been here five years ago, the last time the smell of gunpowder had filled the Temple with its foul ungodly stench. So it was a comforting sight for Taos when two of his favourite younger monks, Kyle and Peto, entered the temple through the gaping hole that had once been a pair of huge arched oak doors forming the entrance.
Kyle was around thirty years old, Peto closer to twenty. On first sight they were often mistaken for twins. It was not just their appearance that was similar, but also their mannerisms. This was partly because both were dressed the same, and partly because Kyle had been Peto’s mentor for almost ten years, and the younger monk subconsciously mimicked his friend’s edgy, over-cautious nature. Both men had smooth olive skin and shaved heads. They were wearing identical brown robes, like those worn by so many of the dead monks in the Temple.
On their way to the altar to see Father Taos they had to endure the unpleasant and disconcerting task of stepping over a number of the dead bodies of their brothers. Unsettling though it was for Taos to see them in this situation, it provided him a small amount of comfort to see them at all, sufficient enough to quicken his heartbeat. It had been working at about ten beats per minute for the last hour, so it was a relief to him that it was at last starting to pick up speed and beat to a steady rhythm again.
Peto had been thoughtful enough to bring with him a small brown mug of water for Father Taos. He was careful not to spill any of it on the way to the altar, but his hands were visibly shaking as the enormity of what had happened in the Temple became clear to him. He was almost as relieved to hand over the mug as Taos was to receive it. The old monk took it in both hands and used most of his remaining strength to lift it to his mouth. The cool sensation of the water running down his throat made him feel even more alive, and was also a considerable help in speeding up the healing process.
‘Thank you, Peto. And don’t you worry: I’ll be back to my old self by the end of the day,’ he said, bending to place the empty mug on the stone floor.
‘Of course you will, Father.’ There was not a great deal of confidence in the shaky voice, but at least a certain amount of hope.
Taos smiled for the first time that day. Peto was so innocent, and so careful of others, that it was hard not to feel a little better about things now that he was here in the bloody shambles of the Temple. He had been brought to the island at the age of ten after a gang of drug dealers had murdered his parents. Living with the monks had brought him inner peace and helped him to come to terms with his grief and his vulnerability. Taos felt a great sense of achievement that he and his brothers had made Peto into the wonderful, thoughtful, unselfish human being that now stood before him. Unfortunately, he was now going to have to send the young monk back out into the world that had robbed him of his family.
‘Kyle, Peto, you know why you are here, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Father,’ said Kyle, answering for them both.
‘Are you up to the task?’
‘Most definitely, Father. If we were not, you would not have sent for us.’
‘That is true, Kyle. You are a wise man. Sometimes I forget just how wise you have become. Remember that, Peto. You will learn a lot from Kyle.’
‘Yes, Father,’ said Peto, humbly.
‘Now listen carefully, for there is very little time,’ Taos continued. ‘From now on, every second is vital. The continuance – the very existence – of the free world rests upon your shoulders.’
‘We won’t fail you, Father,’ insisted Kyle.
‘I know you won’t fail me, Kyle, but if you do not succeed it will be mankind as a whole that you have failed.’ He paused, before continuing, ‘Find the stone. Return it here. Do not let it be in the hands of evil when the darkness comes.’
‘Why?’ asked Peto. ‘What would happen, Father?’
Taos reached out and placed a hand on Peto’s shoulder, gripping it with surprising firmness for a man in his condition. He was appalled by the massacre, by the threat that faced them all, and, above everything, by the fact that he had no other course than to send these two young monks into danger.
‘Listen, my sons, if that stone is in the wrong hands at the wrong time, then we shall all know of it. The oceans will rise up, and mankind will be washed away like tears in rain.’
‘Tears in rain?’ Peto repeated.
‘Yes, Peto,’ Taos replied gently. ‘Just like tears in rain. Now you must hurry, for there is not time for me to explain everything to you. The search must begin immediately. Every second that passes, every minute that unfolds, we become another step closer to the end of the world we have known and loved.’
Kyle reached out and stroked his elder’s cheek, wiping away a spot of blood.
‘Don’t worry, Father, we won’t waste another moment.’ Even so, he hesitated for a moment, then asked, ‘Where should our search begin?’
‘In the same place as always, my son. In Santa Mondega. That is where the Eye of the Moon is coveted most. That is where they always want it.’
‘But who are “they”? Who has it? Who did all this? Who – or what – are we looking for?’
Taos paused before answering. He surveyed the carnage around him again, and thought back to the moment he had looked his attacker in the eye. The moment right before he was shot down.
‘One man, Kyle. You seek one man. I do not know his name, but when you reach Santa Mondega, just ask around. Ask for the man that cannot be killed. Ask what man is capable of slaying thirty or forty men single-handedly without picking up so much as a scratch himself.’
‘But Father, if there is such a man, won’t people be afraid to tell us who he is?’
Taos felt a moment’s irritation at the younger man’s questioning, but it was a good point Kyle was making. He thought about it for a moment. One of Kyle’s strengths was that if he questioned things, at least he did so intelligently. On this occasion Taos was able to answer his question.
‘Yes, they will, but in Santa Mondega a man will sell his soul to the dark side for a handful of green.’
‘For a what? I don’t understand, Father.’
‘For money, Kyle. Money. The filth and scum of the earth will do anything for it.’
‘But we don’t have any
money, do we? To use it is against the sacred laws of Hubal.’
‘Technically, yes,’ said Taos. ‘But we do have money here. We just don’t spend it. Brother Samuel will meet you at the harbour. He will hand you a suitcase full of money. More money than any man needs. You will use this money sparingly to acquire the information you need.’ A wave of tiredness, tinged with grief and pain, seized him. He rubbed a hand over his face, before continuing, ‘Without money you would not last half a day in Santa Mondega. So whatever you do, do not lose it. Keep your wits about you, too. If word gets around that you have money, people will come looking for you. Bad people.’
‘Yes, Father.’
Kyle felt a slight rush of excitement. This would be his first trip off the island since he had arrived as a small child. All the monks on Hubal arrived as infants, either orphaned or simply unwanted by their parents, and opportunities to leave the island came perhaps once in a lifetime, if at all. Unfortunately, part of being a monk meant that the rush of excitement Kyle felt was swiftly followed by an overwhelming sense of guilt at having felt excited in the first place. This was not the time or the place for such feelings.
‘Is there anything else?’ he asked.
Taos shook his head.
‘No, my son. Now go. You have three days to retrieve the Eye of the Moon and save the world from ruin. And the sand is running through the hourglass.’
Kyle and Peto bowed before Father Taos and then turned and made their way gingerly out of the Temple. They couldn’t wait to be back in the fresh air. The reek of death inside was making them both nauseous.
What they did not realize was that this smell would become only too familiar to them once they left the sanctity of their island. Father Taos knew it. And as he watched them leave, he wished he had only had the courage to tell them the truth about what lay in wait for them in the outside world. He had sent two young monks to Santa Mondega five years before. They had never returned, and only he knew the reason why.
Three
Five years had passed since the night the blond man in the hooded cloak had turned up in the Tapioca Bar. The place still looked pretty much the same. The walls were perhaps a little more smoke-stained than they had been before, and showed a few more pockmarks from stray bullets, but other than that, the place had remained unchanged. Strangers were still not welcome, and the regulars were all still scumbags. (Mind you, they were different regulars.) Those five years had seen Sanchez grow a little heavier around the waist, but otherwise he too had not changed. So when two odd-looking strangers quietly entered the bar, he prepared to serve them drinks from the piss bottle.
These two men might have been twins. Both had heads shaved completely bald, both had olive-coloured skin, and both were dressed in the same outfits: orange sleeveless wraparound karate-style tunics, with baggy black trousers and rather effeminate pointed boots, also black. Now, there was no dress-code policy in the Tapioca, but if there had been, these two would never have been allowed in. When they reached the bar they stood smiling at Sanchez like a couple of simpletons. As was his custom, he ignored them. Unfortunately, as was also usually the case, some of his more unpleasant customers – in other words, very unpleasant customers indeed – had noticed the newcomers, and it was not long before the din in the bar fell to a gentle hush.
The Tapioca was not actually all that busy, for it was still early in the afternoon. There were only two tables in use, one near the bar, with three men seated around it, and another in the far corner harbouring two shady-looking characters leaning over a couple of bottles of beer. The parties at both tables were now taking a long, hard look at the two strangers.
The regulars were not familiar with Hubal monks, as they weren’t often seen round those parts. Nor did the bar’s customers know that these two strangers dressed in odd clothes were the first two monks even to leave the island of Hubal in years. The slightly taller of the two was Kyle. He was also the more senior monk. His companion, Peto, was a mere novice learning his trade. Not that Sanchez would have been able to tell. Nor would he have cared.
The monks had come to the Tapioca Bar for a very particular reason: it was the one place in Santa Mondega they had actually heard of. They had followed Father Taos’s instructions and asked a few locals where they would be most likely to find a man who could not be killed. The emphatic response was ‘Try the Tapioca Bar’. A few people had even been kind enough to suggest a name for the man they were looking for. ‘The Bourbon Kid’ came up on several occasions. The only other name offered was that of a man who had recently arrived in town, and who went by the name of Jefe. A promising start to the quest that the two monks had set out upon. Or so they thought.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Kyle, still smiling politely at Sanchez. ‘May we have two glasses of water, please?’
Sanchez picked up two empty glasses, filled them with piss from the bottle under the bar, and placed them in front of the men.
‘Six dollars.’ If the strangers didn’t detect a challenge in the outrageous price, his surly tone signalled it clearly enough.
Kyle nudged Peto and leaned back to whisper in his ear, all the while beaming his forced smile at Sanchez.
‘Peto, give him some money,’ he hissed.
Peto pulled a face. ‘But Kyle, isn’t six dollars rather expensive for two glasses of water?’ the young monk whispered back.
‘Just give him the money,’ said Kyle urgently. ‘We don’t want to look like idiots.’
Peto glanced over Kyle’s shoulder at Sanchez and smiled at the impatient-looking bartender.
‘I think this guy’s ripping us off.’
‘Just give him the money … quickly.’
‘Okay, okay, but have you seen that water he’s given us? It’s a bit – sort of – yellowy.’ He took a breath and added, ‘Looks like urine.’
‘Peto, just pay the man.’
Peto pulled a handful of notes from a small black bag on his belt, counted out six one-dollar bills and handed them to Kyle. Kyle in turn handed the money to Sanchez, who took it and shook his head disapprovingly. It could only be a matter of time before someone picked on these two oddballs, and it was their own fault for looking and acting the way they did. He turned to place the money in the cash register but, as usual, he hadn’t even finished ringing up the sale before the first question was asked of the two strangers.
‘Hey, whadda you two pricks want?’ called out one of the two shady characters at the table in the corner.
Kyle could see that the man who had called out was looking in his direction, so he leaned back again and whispered in Peto’s ear, ‘I think he’s talking to us.’
‘Really?’ said Peto, sounding surprised. ‘What’s a prick?’
‘I don’t know, but it sounds like it could be an insult.’
Kyle turned around, and saw that the men at the corner table had got up from their seats. The wooden floorboards quivered violently as these two very shady, very nasty-looking thugs made their way over to the two monks. They had a distinctly unwelcoming look about them. A look that suggested trouble. Even a couple of naive out-of-towners like Kyle and Peto could see that.
‘Whatever you do,’ Kyle whispered to Peto, ‘don’t do anything to upset them. They look a bit nasty. Leave all the talking to me.’
The two troublemakers now faced Kyle and Peto at a distance of only a few feet. Both of them looked unwashed, something confirmed by the fact that they smelled like it, too. The larger of the two, a man named Jericho, was chewing tobacco, a small brown streak of which was dribbling out of one side of his mouth. He was unshaven and sported the apparently obligatory insanitary moustache, and from the look of him might have been in the bar for several days without going home. His companion, Rusty, was a good deal shorter, but smelled just as bad. He had rotten black teeth that were out on display as he grinned at Peto, who was one of the few men in town short enough to meet him at his own eye level. Where Peto was the apprentice in his relationship with Kyle, Rusty was
similarly the understudy of Jericho, a more accomplished criminal in local circles. As if to press home the point as to which was the senior party, Jericho made the first aggressive move. He prodded a finger into Kyle’s chest.
‘I asked you a question. What are you doin’ in here?’ Both monks noticed a certain gravelly quality in the voice.
‘Well, I am Kyle and this is my novice, Peto. We are monks from the Pacific island of Hubal, and we are looking for someone. Maybe you could help us find him?’
‘Depends on who you’re lookin’ for.’
‘Er – well, apparently the man we’re looking for goes by the name of the Bourbon Kid.’
Complete silence enveloped the Tapioca. Even the propeller fan fell quiet. Then the sound of breaking glass came from behind the bar as Sanchez dropped an empty glass he had been holding. He had not heard anyone mention that name in his bar for a very long time. A very long time. It brought back horrible memories for him. The mere mention of the name made him shiver.
Jericho and his sidekick knew the name, too. They had not been in the bar on the night the Bourbon Kid had shown his face. They had never seen the Kid. They had only heard about him, and about the night he had drunk bourbon in the Tapioca. Jericho looked at Kyle closely to see if he was serious. It seemed that he was.
‘The Bourbon Kid is dead,’ he growled. ‘What else do you want?’
Knowing Jericho and Rusty as he did, Sanchez figured that Kyle and Peto had about twenty seconds left to live. Yet even that estimate looked a little generous when Peto picked up his glass from the bar and took a large swig from it. As soon as the liquid touched his taste buds he realized he was drinking something unholy, and instinctively he spat it out in disgust. All over Rusty. Sanchez came close to laughing, but he was smart enough to know that to do so wouldn’t be in his best interests.
There was piss in Rusty’s hair, in his face, in his moustache and in his eyebrows. Peto had managed to spray it all over him. Rusty’s eyes bulged with rage as he looked at the golden-coloured liquid dripping down his chest. This was humiliating. Humiliating enough for him to want to kill Peto without another moment’s thought. In one swift movement he reached for the pistol holstered at his hip. His buddy Jericho was right with him, as he too drew his gun from its holster.