Squirrel’s home: a rundown dump, housing junkies, crooks and ex-millionaire Wall Street bankers. Vain looked over the side, and down to Squirrel’s room three floors below. Previously, scaling the wall had proven virtually impossible, so this time he’d brought a length of rope which he now proceeded to unravel and secure. Rappelling down, Vain easily accessed the unlocked window, and waited patiently for Squirrel to arrive.
Squirrel entered the room soon after, finding the Dark Man sitting in a chair with a gun pointed at his chest. His heart stopped mid-beat and he wondered what he might have done recently that could warrant this visit. He’d heard of the Dark Man’s slaying of the assassin Dante, but knew nothing about his movements since.
“Close the door and sit down, Squirrel. We need to talk,” Vain said quietly.
Not knowing what else to do, the smaller man closed and locked the door before sitting on the corner of the bed.
“The time has come, Squirrel,” began the Dark Man. Squirrel began to sweat.
If only he had become a teacher.
“The time has come,” repeated Vain, “to find out how much knowledge is swimming around in your booze-soaked gray cells.”
“W-w-what?” stammered Squirrel.
“Tell me about the Souls of Sordarrah.”
Squirrel’s mind worked furiously. At first he seemed relieved, but once the content of the Dark Man’s words sank in he felt his gut wrench in panic. The Souls of Sordarrah! He’d hoped never to hear those words again.
Two men had approached Squirrel on the street one night and promised him money in exchange for a service. When he had pressed them about what the service entailed, they had swiftly changed their minds and moved off. Curious as always for a lead on street information, Squirrel had followed the men to Third Avenue where they had stopped to talk to another street sleeper by the name of Jim. After speaking to Jim for a few moments, the three had all moved off toward the harbor district near Pelham Bay.
Still following at a discrete distance, Squirrel had ended up outside an old, abandoned warehouse with a low murmuring noise spilling from inside that sounded like chanting. The two men along with Jim had entered the warehouse, and Squirrel climbed onto the roof of a parked car to peer through a grime-smeared window.
Inside opened a scene from a nightmare. Arranged in a circle around a black five-pointed star – a pentagram! – stood eleven robed figures, each hooded and faceless. The two men entered the room carrying an unconscious figure between them.
Frozen to the spot with fascination, Squirrel had looked on as they had laid the figure in the center of the pentagram before donning their own hooded robes and taking their places around the circumference. The chanting grew more powerful, but somehow quieter at the same time. Squirrel couldn’t understand any of the language, but the words Sordarrah and Souls of Sordarrah were repeated several times. The volume dropped to almost a whisper and the windows began to shake with a force that appeared to emanate from within the circle.
Squirrel caught a glimpse of the figure from between the chanting robes, writhing in silent agony within the star of power. His body somehow seemed to be caving in on itself, almost like a vacuum was sucking him down through the cement floor of the warehouse – emptying... Jim!
After an eternity, the chanting rose in pitch so suddenly that Squirrel thought he had been spotted. Enduring a moment of panic, he regained his composure and saw that the glass in the windows now actually bulged from the frames, so much so that he wondered how they didn’t shatter with the strain.
Returning his gaze to the inside of the room, the figures had thrown their hoods back, revealing fanatical faces now shrieking their chants into the echoing warehouse. Where Jim had lain, there remained only clothing and a mess of loose skin. It appeared everything within the man had vanished, leaving only a shapeless shell behind.
Dark, greasy smoke began to ooze from the center of the pentagram, and that had been the last thing Squirrel witnessed before fleeing from the warehouse in terror.
Now the Dark Man sat at the end of his bed, forcing him to recollect the Souls of Sordarrah. The two things he feared most had converged on him, right when his booze cupboard sat empty. Squirrel wondered if his brain would explode straight away or wait a few hours before shutting down from the pressure.
Struggling to focus bloodshot eyes, the Dark Man sitting patiently opposite him, silenced pistol cocked and aimed at his chest, Squirrel sighed and began to tell his story. He left no part out, expecting death at the end for talking such paranoid insanity to the assassin.
At the close of the tale however, he didn’t die. The Dark Man sat in silence in the chair opposite, staring impassively into his eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he appeared to come to a decision and nodded slowly.
“Have you ever heard of a man called Priest?” the Dark Man asked calmly.
Squirrel pondered the name and shook his head. The Dark Man nodded again and began to rise from the chair.
Squirrel sat up suddenly. “Unless you mean the man who runs the homeless shelter in Brooklyn. I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard he’s extremely generous to the needy. Apart from that, there’s not much else I can tell you, he keeps a pretty low profile.”
The Dark Man chuckled softly. “Squirrel, you never cease to amaze me.” He threw a small pile of notes onto the bed.
Squirrel’s eyes bulged at the wad. He was unsure whether the Dark Man had been impressed with his story about the Souls of Sordarrah or amused by his ignorance of the man named Priest. Either way, there must have been at least four hundred dollars spread on his grimy sheet.
“There’s another wad if you take me to this warehouse you saw,” said Vain casually.
Squirrel froze. He should have known there’d be a catch; nobody threw money like this his way unless they were using it for bait. Unfortunately, he found himself in no position to refuse the Dark Man’s request, despite his reluctance to return to the place that left him so shaken.
Without looking up, Squirrel silently nodded.
“I’ll return in an hour,” promised the Dark Man quietly before moving out into the night.
* * * *
Vain followed Squirrel through the harbor district in silence. The informant had attempted to start a conversation, but a glowering look had quickly silenced him. Vain needed to gather his thoughts. The entire situation seemed ridiculous. An assassin trying to save the life of a boy he didn’t know, following a drunken ex-banker to an abandoned warehouse searching for clues of a demon-worshipping cult.
And all of it for free.
Wonderful! Fantastic! Vain thought to himself. Maybe I should just kill the kid and end all of this crap. But while he toyed with the notion, the image of Angelique screaming began to creep into his mind and he cast his thoughts elsewhere.
They arrived at the warehouse shortly before midnight and Vain handed over the balance of the money he’d promised to Squirrel.
“If you tell anybody about this, Gary,” the Dark Man breathed venomously while folding the cash into the vagrant’s hand, “your pain will make eternity in Hell seem like a pleasure cruise. Do you understand me?”
Squirrel’s eyes bulged at the mention of his real name and he began to sweat profusely.
“N-no, sir... I mean YES!” corrected Squirrel quickly. “Y-yes, sir, I understand completely. I-I won’t say anything to anyone! I promise.”
“I know,” whispered Vain confidently before looking away. He moved off silently toward the warehouse without a backward glance, leaving Squirrel alone, and marveling at the power the assassin exuded.
* * * *
Vain entered the warehouse lot, swiftly becoming one with the shadows. Finding every alcove and hiding place, floating smoothly and without haste from one to the next, he finally reached the warehouse and slid along the outside wall to the back of the building. Once there he paused and listened. Satisfied nothing felt amiss, he vanished through an open window and into the
darkened building.
Light flickered from a small office toward the front of the warehouse. Vain slowly made his way along the inside wall and paused outside the doorway. Inside he could hear quiet breathing and a low hum. Noiselessly drawing a dark bladed knife, he dropped to the ground, inching his way into the doorway.
From his position on the floor, Vain watched a lone man dressed in a suit sitting cross-legged before what appeared to be an altar. However, this altar contained neither crucifixes nor holy water. Splayed across a black marble bench top, Vain noticed the remnants of what might have once been a dog. Not much remained to identify the beast, except for a single bloodied paw hanging by a sinew toward the center of the mound. Amid the mangled flesh, a smoldering pile of coals discharged a noxious odor into the air. The man inhaled the smoke from the burning flesh and rocked back and forth, murmuring softly.
Vain sank into a crouch, and crept up behind the man. Nearing the altar, the assassin’s mind began to swim from the fumes, and he realized the smoke must have been a narcotic. He glanced at the walls of the office, suddenly dripping with blood and gore, small mouths opening and closing in silent screams of anguish.
Looking down at his own hands, Vain envisioned them covered in boils that bled and oozed pus, ending in wickedly curved claws. Strangely, the knife and his clothes remained unchanged. Ignoring the illusions, Vain continued forward like a ghost, until he reached directly behind the seated man. Striking faster than a snake, he grabbed the man by the hair, wrenched back his head and pressed the knife blade against his exposed throat.
“One noise, worm,” he hissed, “and you’ll be lying on that table with Fido there.”
The man shouted out, not with fear or anger as Vain had expected, but joy.
“Oh, Master!” he cried, and Vain momentarily resisted the urge to kill him. “You have come to me! You have heard my prayers and tasted my sacrifices and come to bless me!”
With no concern for his safety, the man wrestled free from Vain’s grasp, and threw himself face down on the floor in contrition. Vain stepped back nonplussed.
“Who do you think I am?” he rasped
Without raising his head from the floor, the man replied, “You are the lord of all things evil. The Master of Destruction. The mighty Sordarrah!”
Vain squinted at his diseased hands and wondered if it really was an illusion. Shaking his head clear, he moved to the altar and swept the sacrifice onto the floor. The man risked a glance up, but hurriedly returned his gaze to the ground.
“You think I’m Sordarrah?” inquired Vain mildly.
“Who else could you be, master?” the man peered up in wonder. “There is no other who could wear the guise of death so comfortably. Your true appearance is shown to me through the power of gorbach leaves.”
Vain had heard of gorbach before. A simple plant, when dried and burned with rotting meat, it brought powerful mind-altering effects to the user. It also caused permanent brain damage when used too often, thus all but the most devoted addicts generally avoided it. Vain cursed himself for not realizing it had been gorbach burning when he’d seen the meat, but he had been too busy to think of it at the time. He wondered abstractly at the rest of his appearance.
Quickly Vain decided to use this man’s ignorance to his advantage.
“I am your master,” he crooned. The man resumed his groveling on the floor. “I have come for the boy, tell me where he is.”
For a moment the man remained silent on the floor, searching for an answer.
“Boy? I know of no boy, master,” he finally said. Vain spat a curse that made the man cringe into the floor even more.
“The boy Sebastian!” hissed Vain. “Where is Sebastian, worm? Tell me now or I’ll carve you to pieces on your pretty black table!”
Again the man seemed ignorant, but finally his face beamed in understanding and he sat up in excitement.
“Oh! You mean the Avun-Riah!” he cried excitedly. Vain nodded. “He is no boy, master; he is simply meat for your life. We have him in the eastern temple!”
“Where is that, pray tell?” asked Vain quietly.
“Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn my lord. Number 142 near the old mental hospital.”
Vain chuckled at the irony of it all. They held the boy only a couple of blocks from Priest in his Chapel. The man had searched his whole life for his precious Avun-Riah when all he’d had to do was stay at home, and wait for the boy to come to him.
Sobering himself, Vain returned his gaze to the man on the floor and pondered what to do with him. Finally he decided to find out how loyal the Souls of Sordarrah would be to their demon-god.
“Worm, you have done well,” praised Vain. “There is only one task left for you. You must prove to your god that you worship him above all others. I command you to climb up there” – he pointed at a ladder near the end of the warehouse that stretched high, attaching to a steel balcony—“and leap down. Your faith will ensure you do not die.”
Without hesitating, the man leaped up and raced to ascend to the balcony Vain had indicated. Reaching the railing – some forty feet above where Vain stood – the follower immediately climbed over and dove outward, his hands spread wide in ecstasy.
The thud of the man hitting the ground sent reverberations through the soles of Vain’s shoes. In turn, little remained to identify the man once the corpse stopped twitching.
“So much for faith,” mused Vain darkly.
The man’s demonstration made the assassin grit his teeth in frustration. If the Souls of Sordarrah were this fanatical about appeasing their demon-god, it would be no easy task to save the boy, especially now that they already had him in their custody.
Vain searched the room, but found no further information to help him in his quest. His head beginning to clear from the effects of the gorbach, the assassin strode from the warehouse, darkness enshrouding him in its grasp.
Chapter Seven
The Avun-Riah
Sebastian Dunn had always been described as special. Special because he knew things before people said them. Special because of the nightmares he suffered when both awake and asleep. They classified him so special that for a time, his foster parents had even sent him to a special school where only special children went. You know the one. The school with fourteen year-olds in nappies and drooling. The one where they made you take all sorts of fantastic pills to stop your brain from hurting.
The one Sebastian had despised.
He’d been prodded and probed, examined inside and out, until finally on his eighth birthday the doctors had given up and admitted that Sebastian was simply special.
Several years had gone by since and Sebastian’s talents had grown. He found he could manipulate small objects at will and give simple-minded people mental suggestions which they followed to the letter. He had also learned to hide his gifts from others to avoid the questions that always arose.
When people found out he was special, they usually treated him like an imbecile; talking in single syllables at an extremely slow speed. It became particularly frustrating because most of the time Sebastian knew what they were going to say before they even opened their mouths. These were usually the same people who Sebastian gave suggestions to, normally to shut up, although he always regretted doing it afterwards.
Animals, however, were a completely different story. Animals seemed to love Sebastian. One time his foster parents had taken him to the Bronx zoo. It turned out to be one of the most wonderful days of his life. Everywhere he had ventured, the animals had flocked to him. Even the ferocious ones like tigers and lions had tried to get close to the young boy. Sebastian found he could reach into their minds also. All the emotions he had absorbed from the animals had been of love toward him, and for the first time in his short life he felt he truly belonged somewhere.
Sebastian had never really known his natural parents. His mother had died in childbirth, and his father had never been identified. Even his birth certificate held only a blank space
where the father’s name should be. His foster parents were nice in their own way, but Sebastian always felt he was an embarrassment for them and avoided getting in their way too often. This unspoken arrangement seemed to suit both them and Sebastian.
Today, however, Sebastian wished for nothing more than to be back in his cozy home in Middle Village. He would even have been happy to see his snot-nosed step-brother Christian. Unfortunately, he knew he would never see any of them again.
Three days earlier, a group of men dressed completely in black had broken into his family’s home. They’d virtually torn the place to shreds looking for him until finally discovering his hiding place in the family dog’s house. The men had shot the poor beast when he had tried to defend the boy, dragging the screaming Sebastian to their van where they bound and gagged him. Three clear gunshots rang from inside his home before the vehicle shifted into gear, and drove him away.
Sebastian had tried to use his gifts against the men abducting him, but to no avail. They were mentally shielded somehow and he caught not even a whisper of a thought from any of them. One of the men had turned toward Sebastian when he tried to probe him and removed his mask. The face that looked down on him appeared at once familiar and yet unknown.
“Well, Avun-Riah, it seems we have found you just in time.” Sebastian cringed at the man’s tone. “Your foster parents led us on a merry chase around the countryside; luckily they won’t be interfering ever again. By the way, it is useless trying to read the thoughts of my followers or myself. I’ve protected their minds against your pitiful attempts. I had imagined you would be more powerful by now. I’m actually disappointed.”
Sebastian had started to cry, and the man’s laughter had echoed through the van.
Since that time he’d been locked in this room. The space itself was not uncomfortable; a single mattress lay on the floor for him to sleep on, heating flowed through the vent in the corner and there was an adjacent bathroom. Nor were the men dealing with him particularly nasty, they simply ignored him. But the emanations howling from the walls almost drove Sebastian insane. How could so much pain be trapped within such a small space? Try as he might he couldn’t shut out the screams sounding constantly in his mind.
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