He remembered his mother words, when he was a little boy. The two of them were desperately gathering their things, in order to leave their vineyard, because of the coming German military. She said, “Always keep this with you, my son. You will see your father again. He will keep his word.”
But his father’s death during the war had left him both dismayed and angered.
As his eyes panned across the attache case’s old leather, he shook his head, trying to decide what to do with it.
Opening the leather case, the peered inside. He saw what he had expected: old photos of his family and many papers of his father’s research notes. He remembered one piece of paper in particular. Digging through the contents, he found it and lifted it up to his eyes. Upon it was his father’s sketch of a very small container of dark liquid, hanging from a thin leather strap.
After staring at it for a few more seconds, the young man inserted the piece of paper back into the attache case. Then, looking around, he found one of his emptied boxes that he began to use as a trashcan. Standing, he lifted the old leather case and walked to the box.
Without hesitating, he threw away the worn leather attache case.
The vision ended, and immediately, a second arrived.
In the outskirts of Berlin, Germany, in World War II, a severely damaged car rocked upside-down on the side of the hot, asphalt road. Around it were three black vehicles of an SS Sturmbann - an SS Assault Unit. The soldiers surrounded a terribly wounded jeweler who sat leaning hopelessly against a tree, under the blazing hot sun.
Their Sturmbannfuhrer, Assault Unit Leader - a Major - was patiently waiting in his car. He had already broken the legs of the jeweler, in order to get information to lead him to an assassin. The tortured jeweler had given the name of the assassin’s friend and confidant: Colonel Friedrich von Tiechler.
Sitting comfortably in his seat, the Major closed his eyes, waiting to hear his men carry out his latest command. He leaned his head back, in order to recline and to listen.
The warm breeze began to blow once again.
He breathed in deeply.
A single shot trembled through the warm dry air.
Momentarily, he could hear his men trot back to their vehicles, leaving the jeweler’s body to be consumed by the scorching afternoon sun.
They drove once again, continuing on, further away from Berlin.
Hours later, they reached the plush estate of Colonel Friedrich von Tiechler.
Soon, within the Colonel’s house, a solid right fist connected squarely onto the jaw of von Tiechler. He was tied down to a dark and heavy wooden chair. At the side of his mouth, his lips were torn open and blood flowed down unhindered.
After enjoying seeing his captive feebly raise his head and uncontrollably roll his eyes, the SS Major took a step to the side and retrieved the black handkerchief, from the coat pocket of his black uniform. As he used the kerchief to casually wipe the blood from his glove, he said in German, “Now I liked that one. Only because I know it certainly gave you pain.” Holding the kerchief in one hand, his other removed his hat, revealing his blond, shortly cropped hair. With the ten SS soldiers in his command encircling both him and the Colonel, he handed the hat to one of them.
The chair von Tiechler sat upon had been removed from his dining room, and then dragged to the center of the house’s foyer. An ornate, brightly lit chandelier hung from above. Several steps away, the heavy wooden front double doors of the house were broken and flung open. Outside the estate, the sun was setting.
The Major stood directly in front of von Tiechler, his right hand opening, and then tightly closing, in an eager fist. He said in a dispassionate voice, “As you see Colonel, I quite enjoy this ‘one on one’ contact. Notice that I prefer not to involve my men, and they do not get their hands dirty with your filthy, traitorous blood. You see, I adore wallowing in the dirt of the deep, red, blood of my enemies.”
Immediately, the Major cocked his fist back, and then violently launched it once again onto von Tiechler’s jaw.
The Colonel’s head snapped back, with rapid cracking sounds from the joints of his whipping neck.
As the Colonel groaned in agony, a grin almost appeared on the Major’s otherwise unaffected face.
“Stop!” von Tiechler’s wife screamed, with all her might. She was at one side of the foyer with their little son and little daughter, where they cowered together in fear.
But the Major did not acknowledge her presence and did not yield. Quickly, he cocked back his iron-like fist once again.
Abruptly, the vision ended. But the intensity of it made the goateed man shudder.
“Whoa!” he blurted, as he vigorously shook his head to try to clear his mind of it. “Who the heck is that maniac? I saw him once before in a dream with that same jeweler…”
It took him a moment to regain his composure. Then, thinking about it, he said, “That SS guy’s just heartless and vicious. But that first vision, with the young French dude…he looks familiar. Where have I seen him before? And the drawing of the small vial with the leather strap…what is that?” His voice trailed off.
As much as he tried, he couldn’t place the young Frenchman with anyone in his past. But he knew the man was indeed familiar to him. Deciding to think about it later, he kept the vision in the back of his mind.
With his focus going back to search for the missile launch, he lifted his head and looked once again into the night sky.
Thoughtfully, he whispered, “What a wonderful universe You’ve created. And we’re just in one tiny corner of it. But right now there are some people who just wanna obliterate our little corner.”
As he gazed, a shooting star sparked, just above him, and began to light a trail down, toward the west. His eyes and head followed it, in its path.
It shot down, further and further, almost into the horizon; it was long lived.
When it reached the horizon, it burned out and disappeared.
God had sent it, to show him where to look.
Then, an instant later, a small ball of fire rose from the earth, directly below the point at which the falling star had fizzled out. The ball of fire began to rise into the dark sky.
The silent distant image of the rising, fiery object gave him awe. He realized what it was: The first missile was launched. Death was in motion.
“That’s my cue,” he gasped.
The phone and earbuds disappeared.
He had the beginnings of a plan to chase down the missile, but it wasn’t yet tested. He hadn’t believed he had the time to test it.
He disappeared.
High in the sky, he reappeared far above the missile.
Immediately, he began to plunge down towards the earth.
As the wind hummed past his ears, he said out loud, while clumsily flailing, “Ok! This is the yet-to-be-tested part!”
Since he was unfortunately unable to fly, his plan was to glide down and intercept the missile while in its flight. He wanted to be just close enough to sense it’s inner makeup, in order to change it, and to render it incapable of exploding.
He quickly realized that having himself appear immediately above the projectile was his first bad move. The missile was still in its boost phase, climbing a vertical path in the air, and moving at a tremendous speed. It quickly blasted up to a distance too far from him to effectively concentrate on it.
Feeling both foolish and anxious, he watched, as the brilliant fire from the first-stage boost motor of the missile soon waned, and the motor disengaged. After a short moment, the missile shroud - the top cone cover of the missile - ejected and fell, revealing the warhead. Immediately, the second stage motor ignited, driving the remaining body up to the edge of the atmosphere.
As he plunged down, he struggled to keep his body balanced in a gliding position. The speeding wind caused his arms to flail and his legs to wag uncontrollably. He tumbled in random directions.
With the wind speeding past his ears in a swirling dull roar, he said
out loud, “Oh, God, can’t you see how pathetic I am? A red cape would be nice about now!”
Trying to spot the missile’s position, he twisted and turned, and twisted and turned. But he couldn’t find it.
In an attempt to spin himself around, he made his arms and hands scoop the air in side-to-side motions.
Were it not for the rare clusters of pinpoint lights on the earth below, the ground would have been pitch black; and because of these clusters of lights, he realized that the ground was fast approaching.
With lively hands and feet, he swung himself around again.
Finally, he spotted the missile. Once he did, he gauged its distance.
Just before disappearing to reposition himself closer to the missile, he thought, “I should-a listened to Smiley. I should-a prepared.”
* * * * * * *
As Agent Stevens yelled, his voice echoed throughout the entire darkened fifth floor of the condemned building, causing the stagnant air to tremble and swirl. His anger was unmistakable.
“Who was she?!” Stevens snarled, directing his hostility at the man in the long, dark hooded coat.
At the center of the floor was the pale entity, now taking the form of a white elongated gelatinous mound, with more distinct appendages. It slowly writhed in deep pain. A mournful howling screech came from its poorly formed head, as its partially developed arms and legs waved in slow agony. Next to it were the remnants of the blood offering taken from Ms. Tamara Mitsuko Kaneko’s body.
The hooded man’s answer was calm, measured, and devoid of emotion. “I don’t know who she was. She should have been just like the others.”
“I don’t believe you!” Stevens growled. “Look! Can’t you hear him? He’s in agony!” Stevens’ arm whipped behind him, as he pointed at the center of the floor.
Another sorrowful howl from the pale entity drowned the air of the entire fifth floor.
The hooded man replied, “I have no explanation for it.”
Stevens’ eyes enflamed with anger, and they began to glow furiously in red heat. Stevens lunged at the hooded man, pounding him into the wall of the building, with his forearm firmly against the hooded man’s neck. The red heat from Stevens’ eyes began to bleed into his face. Gradually, the heat spread to his neck, his arms, his torso, and then his legs. Soon, Stevens’ body was engulfed in the red-hot glow. As the intense heat increased and began to glow white light, it started to transform Stevens’ body into something like a molten crystal stone, in humanoid form.
Stevens growled in a voice having a roar like dark ocean waves crashing into jagged rocky shores, “I don’t believe you! You know there is only one blood, from one person, from one lineage that can affect us this way!”
The heat from Stevens’ forearm seared the neck of the hooded man, and the glow from the arm fought to disclose the man’s shadowed face. Suddenly, a burst of light flashed into the hooded man’s eyes, revealing them as a striking, piercing blue.
Quickly, the hooded man averted his eyes from the light. Immediately, he vanished, and then reappeared, at a short distance in front of the howling pale entity.
The heat from Stevens’ body began to dissipate, and as it did, he gradually transformed into someone else: to the form of Crystal.
With the red glow diminishing from her eyes, Crystal warned gravely, “Don’t play these tricks with me.” The sweet southern accent was vacant from her voice. She whipped forward her hand. From the palm, three slender yet powerful tentacles ripped through the skin and flung straight to the hooded man. Instantly, the tentacles bridged the long distance between the two of them and wrapped themselves around the chest of the hooded man.
She lifted her captive, whipped him through the air, and slammed his body against the same wall on which she had previously pinned him.
The man’s body crashed through the drywall and cracked the wooden beams within.
There was pain in the hooded man’s voice, but disdain was its undercurrent, as he said trying to allay her anger, “I’ll find another, a more suitable one.” As he felt the tentacles that wrapped around him slightly loosen, he thought, The unbearable pain the blood gives her and the pale entity is something I can only imagine. Almost self-mockingly, he adds, I suppose I deserved being smashed into the wall. However, this control I give her over me will soon outlive its need.
Crystal stared into his eyes, attempting to read his intentions. Now, she knew he was in search of a certain blood, and he was using her - using her reaction to it - to find it. But she didn’t know why he had to find a person with that blood; and now that the fourth victim, Tamara, was dead, Crystal didn’t know if the hooded man would have any use for the body. She detested what he was doing, but she had no other option: he was the only one who could find the unique blood both she and the pale entity required.
The silence was protracted.
Then, her tentacles dropped the hooded man to the floor, releasing him. From this time forward, she said to herself, I need to plan one step ahead of him. Still watching him, she thought, We are all truly creatures of deception. Appearing to be satisfied with his proposal, she retracted the tentacles back into her hand, stating flatly to him, “So be it.”
As the hooded man propped himself up from the floor, he cautioned, “But there’s no time to prepare for it. I can identify the next one, but you’ll have to track it yourself.”
“It’ll have to do,” she acquiesced, “Otherwise, the blood we had originally planned to have will be insufficient for building up my power and,” she pointed at the pale entity, “for his transformation.”
The hooded man slowly nodded in acknowledgement.
Crystal’s sleek black figure began to move. When she reached the weak and writhing pale entity, she eased herself down and knelt next to it. Gently, she lifted it onto her lap and began to cradle it in her arms.
With Crystal’s presence, the pale entity’s cries waned. But the pain deep within it did not ease.
In the darkness, along the damaged wall, and standing with an unaffected visage, the hooded man, in his thoughts, assessed two of the powerful pieces on the board of his game, With the dark entity, it still believes our long-standing bargain is unshaken. However, I have long known that the dark entity has been taking advantage of me, through this bargain, and has been enticing and baiting me to participate in its own wiles, much like this latest one to assist Crystal. But it does not know I am diverting the deeds I do for her to accomplish my own directives. And this bargain…although this bargain has become a burden far too heavy, and eats away my soul, I must endure it for a time longer. Because through it, the dark entity provides my sustenance - the opportunities to wield power through my manipulation and deception - that my wretched and perverse heart needs and craves.
Just as from his manipulation of Crystal, the hooded man received nourishment from the deceptions he devised, because performing them had become essential food for his existence. Like a drug, the act of deceiving triggered a euphoric stimulation within him, that allowed him to survive until the next deception, until the next hit of his drug. But his dispassionate nature never revealed the true pleasure he received from it.
However, the dark entity knew of his addiction and used it as leverage, enticing and coercing the hooded man to perform acts in its schemes that he would otherwise hesitate to do. Over many years, in this manner, the entity had been able to gradually wither away the hooded man’s conscious, to where he could no longer discern good from evil, truth from contrivance, and a game of deception from a life lived in clear reality.
But something happened long ago to the hooded man to lift him, just high enough, from the bottom of that soulless abyss, to allow him to see outside of the depth from which he was mired. Since then, he diverted the path of his life and sought alternate means to survive. But even so, the haunting cravings remained.
The hooded man thought, Since neither my twisted heart nor the dark entity will release me from this bargain, my deception of the dark ent
ity must cause it to happen. The deception will satisfy both the cravings of my heart and my need to be released. Referring to the longhaired man, he said, He is part of this ruse. That is why I am developing his skills. Unknown to him, he and I will trick the entity.
Shifting his attention to gauge Crystal, the hooded man thought, Now with her, she already knows the thing for which I seek. Though, she will never now why. And it is of no immediate concern to the dark entity. Then, he concluded with muted satisfaction, Even so, it’s too late; she can no longer stop what I have set in motion. And she has no choice - she needs me.
* * * * * * *
In a hallway, outside a room of the Marsters Hotel, Sik’s sturdy, calloused hand quickly smothered Paige’s mouth, and his strong arm wrapped around her waist. Effortlessly picking her up, he hurriedly used Paige’s body to push the room’s door completely open. The wall thudded, as the door bounced back against it.
Paige was shocked, but then acted quickly. With the keycard in her hand, she tried to scratch Sik’s face with it.
However, Sik’s arm around her kept her arm pinned down. In his hand was a small face towel from his hotel room, damp with a clear, liquid chemical. Once the door closed behind them, he adjusted his grip over her mouth to have the towel also enclose her nose.
But Paige’s other hand was free. She stiffened her fingers and stabbed Sik’s face with her nails, opening two wounds, just under his cheekbone. Then, she tried to claw and scratch his face, and gouge at his eyes.
Sik quickly moved his head back, to protect himself. But his movement exposed the ribs.
With all her might, Paige launched her elbow into Sik’s ribs.
The pain stunned him, and he lowered his hand from her mouth and used it to cover his ribs.
Without hesitation, Paige threw her head backward and slammed the back of her head on his forehead.
The jolt of the skull-to-skull contact shocked Sik’s brain, causing his ears to hear a non-existent, sharp ping. The sunglasses fell from his face. He dropped Paige, and staggered back against the door.
RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone Page 47