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Executioner's Lament

Page 31

by Justin Rishel


  Francesca held the vial between her thumb and forefinger. She couldn’t see it, but she knew exactly what it was. “This will …”

  “Yes. Now, hurry.”

  * * *

  Aubrey was thrown down. The cold floor pressed against his cheek. Malina forced to her knees beside him. The crowd of several hundred inmates buzzed around them with excitement. In front of him sat the largest man Aubrey had ever seen. The arms of his prison uniform had been torn away to show off biceps the size of small trees, bristling with popping veins. A flat forehead and slits for eyes made him look reptilian. The way he sat on the edge of the mess hall table, moving his head back and forth, made Aubrey picture one thing—a snake.

  Aubrey’s body hurt all over. He’d been badly beaten after a failed attempt to fight off their kidnappers.

  “Like I said, we just want to be part of your crew. We want to work for you.” The fat headed inmate who’d attacked Aubrey spoke for his gang. “Who knows how long we’ll all be here. I think it’s best we work together, fight together. When the cops or army comes, we’ll …”

  “Da fuck I need you for?” The gang leader spoke in a low gravelly voice. It sounded like his vocal cords had been replaced by rocks and sand. “Look around you, minnow. Plenty of fish her on my side. So, again, da fuck I need you for?”

  “Look, Rasta. I can give you six good fightin’ men. Plus, this bitch.” Malina fell forward from a kick to her back. “She’s yours. Just let us work for you.”

  A deep throated moan resonated from Rasta’s throat. “Her I could use.” He smiled with a mouthful of broken teeth.

  Aubrey thrashed and screamed. “Don’t you fucking dare, you goddamn …” A blow to the back sent him flying forward. His skull collided with the floor producing dancing white lights across his vision.

  Raucous laughter and then silence. Footsteps near Aubrey’s head and then two titanic black boots on either side of his head. “Somebody here’ll use him too,” Rasta said above him.

  “That mean you accept our offer?” Fat head asked.

  “Welcome to the family,” Rasta said.

  The crowd roared and converged on the group in the center of the mess hall.

  Aubrey, still on his stomach, rolled to his side and watched as Rasta lifted Malina off the ground by her shoulders. She stood, shivering in the clutches of the man’s ham hock sized hands. Rasta reached with one meaty paw and caressed her trembling cheek. He whispered something inaudible.

  Aubrey’s stomach lurched. His skin grew hot and some unknown mammalian sound issued from his mouth. Hands still bound, he twisted around and shot his legs out toward Rasta, catching him in the side of the knee.

  Rasta’s elephantile limb didn’t move. He looked down as Aubrey got to his knees and threw himself at the mountain man’s midsection. Rasta stumbled back several paces with Aubrey’s shoulder buried in his gut. Then, Aubrey felt two huge hands take hold of both sides of his ribs. Rasta’s hands squeezed like anacondas. Aubrey felt several pops. The pain sent a shockwave through his body. Knees buckling, he fell to the floor.

  Rasta lifted a gigantic foot and planted it on Aubrey’s back, leaning into it with all of his weight, compressing Aubrey’s chest and ribs. More ribs popped, his breath escaped and wouldn’t return.

  “For that,” Rasta said, “I’m not going to keep her all to myself. I’m going to share her with all my boys.” This brought cheers, lewd gestures, and snarling faces from the crowd around them. The weight lifted from Aubrey’s back, but was quickly followed by a battering ram of a kick to Aubrey’s kidney. He couldn’t breathe, could barely think. His hands were still bound, his body in knots of pain.

  But he had to do something. He wriggled like a worm in the sun, trying desperately to right himself. Rasta had Malina by the hair now, turned to drag her somewhere, then after two steps he stopped. A commotion at the front of the mess hall made Rasta turn.

  The crowd split and Aubrey saw it too. A black cloaked figure holding a spear—Francesca.

  “Ain’t gonna happen, Tapper,” Rasta shouted. He gestured to some of his men nearest the female Member of the Order. “Tear her apart.”

  Five men advanced and Francesca backed away through the doors into the passageway. She, and then the men, disappeared from view. The mess hall went silent. Aubrey used the distraction to slide his tied hands under him and stood on wobbly legs. His hands were still tied but at least they were in front of him.

  Rasta watched the double door entry to the mess hall. Nothing happened for several seconds, then a man in white fell across the threshold. A second later, Francesca, and her spear, reappeared. Someone was with her this time—Rudolfo, but he was pushing some kind of cart.

  “Get that cunt and her fucking friend,” Rasta shouted. A few men stepped tentatively from the crowd but stopped when Francesca lowered her spear toward them. Its bloodied tip glistened in the white lights from overhead.

  While Francesca held off the crowd, Rudolfo lifted two buckets off the cart and set them on the floor. He went back to the cart and lifted two more off, placing them behind the first two buckets. Francesca took a step back behind the first row of buckets. Then, she and Rudolfo kicked over the first two buckets spilling their contents which pooled in an oblong oval stretching into the center of the mess hall.

  The smell was immediately recognizable—bleach. What were these two doing?

  Francesca and Rudolfo kicked over the next two buckets and it became clear when the smell of ammonia wafted toward him. Bleach and ammonia. Together, they make a deadly combination—chlorine gas.

  A white haze rose as twenty gallons of bleach and ammonia mixed in the middle of three hundred crowded inmates. Everyone looked on in apparent confusion for a moment. The coughing started; panic quickly followed. Those closest to the gas fell to their knees gasping, clawing at their chests.

  The crowd fled in every direction—some out the doors past Francesca and Rudolfo, others back further into the kitchens.

  Aubrey didn’t hesitate any longer. He bolted for Rasta, who ran with Malina held in a loose grip. He continued yelling at his men to get the Tappers, cursing and gesticulating while coughing violently.

  Rasta rushed through the doors into the passageway. Francesca attempted a jab with her spear, but Rasta dodged it. The big man was too quick.

  Aubrey followed him, ignoring the pain in his body as best he could. He ran down the passageway, into a corridor, and soon found himself on the catwalk around the Great Atrium. Twenty feet ahead, Rasta had stopped, doubled over coughing. Malina lay on the ground kicking at him, her hands still tied behind her. Behind Rasta was a large, jagged hole in the catwalk. A rope lay near the hole.

  On weak, barely functioning legs, Aubrey rushed Rasta, grabbing the rope in his hands before laying a shoulder into the giant. Rasta fell to his knee, weakened by the gas but still ox strong. He flung one huge arm at Aubrey and knocked him back for a moment. Aubrey threw himself forward onto Rasta’s back, wrapped a loop of the rope around the big man’s neck, and pulled back with all his remaining strength.

  Rasta wheezed and flailed his arms, reaching for some part of Aubrey to squeeze and break. Aubrey twisted the rope tighter around Rasta’s neck and pulled with every bit of himself he could muster. Rasta arched his back, stood, and threw himself and Aubrey into the metal catwalk. Aubrey was half-hanging out of the hole in the fencing, when Rasta reached for his ace in the hole. With what must have been a Herculean effort, Rasta bent down and wrapped a hand around Malina’s leg. In one motion, he snatched her up into the air and gripped her neck with the other hand.

  Rasta was going to kill her.

  Aubrey pulled back on the rope with everything he had. He’d have to kill the man before Rasta could squeeze the life out of Malina. But Rasta wasn’t going down. Malina was already going purple in the face. She’d die before Aubrey could kill Rasta.

  There was nothing Aubrey could do to stop it.

  It was then Aubrey realized where he was.
He was inside the Great Atrium, leaning through the ragged hole into open air. He’d applied so much leverage to pull on the rope around Rasta’s neck that he pushed himself further into the hole in the catwalk’s fencing. All that was left inside the catwalk were his legs below the knees.

  He loosened his grip on the rope slightly and Rasta did exactly what Aubrey wanted, the man instinctively leaned forward.

  Aubrey’s legs were loose.

  Like a SCUBA diver taking an ocean plunge, Aubrey leaned back and let himself go. The freefall lasted a half second. A jerk and the rope went tight, hanging from Rasta’s neck. Aubrey swung in open air; his hands tightly gripping the rope anchored by Rasta’s mass.

  Weak as he was, Aubrey managed a quick glance back up at the gang leader. The unnatural angle of the man’s neck and head told Aubrey what he needed to know. Rasta was dead.

  He held on for another second, unsure how long he could hang there. He’d have to let go soon. He just didn’t have much left in him to keep at it.

  The thought that Malina was safe, for the moment, comforted him. Rudolfo and Francesca could get her out. She’d be all right. That was something.

  A tug on the rope. Fearful Rasta may have miraculously revived himself, Aubrey wearily looked up.

  It wasn’t Rasta.

  The faces of Francesca, Rudolfo, and Malina looked down at him. Each had a hand on the rope and together they pulled Aubrey up.

  29

  Reunion

  “Shit.” Jacira paced the empty quarters of Brother Rudolfo angry at herself for not being more diligent about keeping an eye on their targets. On the way down from Jocelyn’s they hadn’t checked on their location more than a couple of times. This proved to be foolish as Rudolfo and the others had apparently abandoned this room since the last check.

  The three killers had burst into the small dormitory with guns at the ready, expecting to encounter the remaining four of their five targets. Instead, they found an empty room.

  “We all assumed they’d be here,” Balthazar said. “We couldn’t possibly keep an eye on them and the rest of the prison the whole time and expect to get down here in one piece.”

  Jacira continued pacing, scanning every inch of the room, hoping to find some scrap of a clue that would tell her where they might have gone. The bed, bookshelf, bathroom, nightstand, showed her nothing. The computer monitors seemed out of place. Rudolfo wouldn’t have had those in his room under normal circumstances, but …

  “I think it’s obvious where they went.” Balthazar interrupted her train of thought. “They would have gone down, toward the only way out of this prison. The wisest move would have been to stay here and wait for the riot to be put down, but they were too stupid to do that. So, we just need to use the cameras to search the floors between here and the train depot.”

  Jacira thought about it, and yes, it did make sense that they would have gone down to try and escape the riot. But Balthazar’s comment about them being stupid made her think otherwise. She didn’t know about the two women, but Jacira knew Martin Aubrey pretty well since she began surveilling him. And she certainly knew Rudolfo quite well. Neither man was stupid. They were both highly capable and clever. If staying in the Member’s quarters was the smart move, they would have done just that.

  Jacira stood, thinking over all the possibilities. If they didn’t stay in Rudolfo’s room, and they didn’t go down toward a possible exit, then that only left going up. Why? She couldn’t think of a single reason for them to go up instead of down.

  Oona cleared her throat. Any sound from the selectively mute woman got Jacira’s attention. Her eyes moved to Oona who stood in front of the computer monitor that sat on the ground. She’d forgotten it was there for a moment. Oona turned to her and lazily pointed a finger at the screen. Jacira moved closer to it and bent low to view it properly.

  In one corner of the large monitor, a window displayed an exterior view from the roof of the Keep. Jutting out from the left edge of the camera’s viewpoint was the white tail of an aircraft. The aircraft they had ridden in just a few hours ago with James Sarazin in the pilot’s chair.

  “Shit.” Jacira stood and threw off her poncho. “I know where they’re going.”

  Oona followed suit and tossed her own poncho to the floor.

  Balthazar looked confused. “What am I missing?”

  “Whatever Sarazin has on these people, they know about it and they’re going after him.”

  “So, no more trying to hide our goodies?” Balthazar asked as he removed his blanket turned poncho.

  Jacira began removing the suppressors from the muzzles of her pistols and rifle. “No. We move quick and make as much noise as possible. Maybe we can scare the shit out of everyone enough to leave us alone.”

  “Should we call Sarazin? Let him know they’re coming for him.”

  Jacira had considered it. “Yes. We’ll do it on the way. After all, if he dies, we don’t get paid.”

  She strode to the door and flung it open. A tall prisoner with a large nose and broad shoulders stood in the passageway. For a split second, they both just stood there waiting for the other to flinch.

  A shot from over Jacira’s shoulder, she flinched sideways and spun around. Balthazar held his rifle high, a hot brass casing spun on the floor.

  “No time for this,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Leaving Rudolfo’s quarters, she glanced down at the inmate now lying on the floor, his hands clenched over a spot on the left side of his chest. His white uniform soaked up the blood now spewing from the fresh hole in his breast.

  * * *

  Nicholas Fox, the Professor, hadn’t expected it to end with him getting shot. He didn’t believe in fate or destiny, and openly chastised those that did. But he’d truly felt in his heart of hearts that he’d make it out of the Keep alive.

  In a few weeks, he’d predicted, he’d be sipping cold drinks on a hot beach with a beautiful woman.

  Instead, he lay on a cold floor watching his own blood pour from his chest. His feeble attempt to stem the flow by pressing his hands against the wound was hopeless. The deep red pool under his shoulder widened with every second.

  The pain, at least, had passed. Now, he just felt numb.

  Who would have guns like that in a prison? Who would have let them in? Then, he remembered who had started all this—Sarazin. Of course, Sarazin.

  Watching the life leak out of him, he was struck by the irony of it all. He, Nicholas Fox, had made this riot happen. He’d coordinated it all. Gone to great lengths to do so and was ultimately killed by it.

  Life, he thought, was nothing if not comical.

  He laughed quietly as his eyelids grew heavy.

  * * *

  Brother Jacobi, Member Principal of the Order of the Coppice, paced the edge of the glass floor on the forty-eighth floor of the Keep. He alternated the outlet for his nervous energy between rubbing the edge of his pockets and pulling at the fringe of his lapel. The violence he watched unfold below him made his blood run cold.

  He was used to death, of course. His Order dealt in death like others dealt in marketable goods. They provided that service to humanity. The symbolism of the Coppice was to cut down one thing so others could flourish and he took pride in that. His life had been in service of the Order’s purpose, which was, fundamentally, that of killing.

  What he watched taking place on the floors of the prison was beyond just death. It was carnage. It was a bloodletting.

  Members hung from nooses up and down the Great Atrium. Bodies burned on every level. Blood and viscera painted the walls. And that was only what he could see from where he stood. If it was an accurate representation of the true violence in the Keep, it was on a nearly inconceivable level.

  And he couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible.

  Wilcott had done what was necessary and self-selected. That was the right thing to do from Jacobi’s perspective, putting aside the manner in which Wilcott did it. Then Rudolfo and his li
ttle upstart Apprentice had to get involved. They had to get curious. Jocelyn was dead now because of them, of that he was convinced. A five-minute conversation with her and they’d condemned Jocelyn to death.

  Jocelyn had come to speak with Jacobi about something else entirely and mentioned her conversation with Rudolfo in passing. And that was all it took to mark her down for assassination. Sarazin was clear—no one can know anything or he’d expose the Order and all their misdeeds at the orphanages. It would all come back to Jacobi. He’d made that clear too.

  “Enjoying the show?”

  Jacobi jumped with a start, his hand flying to his chest. “Good god, Sarazin. Don’t sneak up on a man like that.”

  “Sorry.” Sarazin squinted at the scene below. “You know, I never actually killed anyone. With my own hands, I mean. And, until this moment, I’ve never seen anyone die with my own eyes. Now that I see it, I’m acutely aware of … how much it doesn’t bother me.”

  “That it doesn’t bother you should bother you, Sarazin.” Jacobi gave him a sideways glance. The look on the CEO’s face was of placid enjoyment.

  “Maybe.”

  “I can’t believe all this. Just to kill five people? Did we need all this?” Jacobi spread his arms at the display of mayhem below them.

  “Jacobi, I didn’t get to where I am in my life by not planning ahead. This riot was always in my back pocket if I needed it. And it wasn’t just to kill five people. It was meant to kill as many as I needed to make sure the job was done.”

  Jacobi’s face grew hot. He stared down through the glass. “You’d planned to murder Members of the Order all along?”

  “I had to get rid of Alkorn and his cronies and the Keep is as good a place as any. Killing them out in the civilian world, all at the same time, would have been too suspicious. But no one questions a Tapper, which was pretty convenient for me.” Sarazin could have been discussing financial reports at Ventana, Inc. “Since they were here, there was no way to know who they might have spoken to. Had they not feared me killing their families, they might have divulged potentially damaging information to our friend Aubrey when he was here just a few weeks ago.”

 

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