"I think I'm sick..."
He nodded, "The cold's not good for you, but you'll do okay for a bit, but not too much, otherwise..." He trailed off. The heat of the flames behind them soon had her sweating anyway.
"'Kay." He said, hours of silence later, a sunrise and a three-story clubhouse burning to the ground behind him, "Cops're almost here. Gotta go."
And through all of that, she never got a good look at his face, fever and sickness had washed its memory away.
The police arrived minutes later, and the only girl there to question had no idea what had happened, and she was rushed to a hospital.
That night, Tset checked his cell phone while sitting at his Dank table. He was unphazed by the fact that the next largest contract he could access had his name next to it. The one beneath was on Dargent, who was being bid on by Japanese.
He'd put them there and no Haliburton assassins had taken either, not even himself.
The only real targets he avoided were those Hal, HQ, said to avoid. He gave them 24 hour leeway to cut unwanted contracts from the rosters.
And he never got tricked into killing a fellow assassin, though his collective enemies had tried. He caught on when their first baited contract was on Q. After that he checked them.
No need to reignite Z Section.
Then he saw a promising contract. Lots of money, trusted sponsor, simple mission. "Wow."
He exhaled cigarette smoke and the dancers beside him pounded on to the beat.
He was surprised, so he e-mailed Hal and turned his phone off.
Time for some shuteye. He ordered a beer, put his chin down and drifted off to sleep. It had been a long day.
His phone vibrated. He checked it - the message was from Hal, the only entity that could reach him on his deactivated phone.
The mission was greenlit.
He smiled, downing his beer.
The glass back down on the tabletop, pinning a €$20, he bundled his coat and drifted away.
Allegiances V: A Culmination of Betrayals
Enter Gregory
Tset used a greasy rag to staunch the bleeding in his abdomen. He'd already stuffed scraps of his scarf into the holes in his thigh and chest but the gut wound wouldn't cut out.
He was trapped, in an alley, wearing his trench coat over his head to protect himself from view.
In between fevered bouts of breathing, Tset licked his lips. He'd lost his pursuers, but the police helicopters and squad cars had spot lights, one drifted over him now, but carried on. Still, he had only seconds to figure out what to do with the alley he'd picked. Mainly the twenty-foot chainlink fence topped with razor wire.
He checked his magazine. Three rounds, and one chambered. He didn't know when he'd lost his other gun - probably running into traffic when that Mazda hit him.
And Papillion had fallen out of her sheath some time ago.
He was only a few blocks from the ambush and he needed sanctuary badly. His bike, he found, had been booted - even Parking Enforcement had been there to get him. He'd left on foot, already winding down from the greeting salvos of mob and police standing outside the empty, baited, concert hall.
It didn't occur to him until just then that the greenlight had come from the last of the Z Section cell within Haliburton.
A spotlight shone against his face and he was limping away before he gave himself time to utter an oath.
His coat cracked as a high-impact round hit it.
He jumped off a crate and onto an AC unit while more bullets sped by - the unit began to crumble but Tset was already enmeshed in the razor wire when it collapsed.
Cleverly he threw himself backwards onto the fire escape, he hit it precisely with his spine and flipped over facedown. The escape provided some lucky cover, but the police knew how to shoot - the bullets sparked dangerously close before spiraling off into the darkness.
He pulled himself to his feet and clambered up onto the guardrail.
He was still about a foot lower than the razor wire when he stood, but he jumped again anyway, almost clearing the wire; a tear let him know his pant cuff was now victim of the little surgical steel blades, and he pitched.
Tset broke a finger righting himself as he tumbled like an erratic and caped spider down the fence but he was moving again, with a fractured ankle. He hobbled.
His legs were working better for him and he did achieve a run just as he crested the curb - a squad car with its lights off nearly smacked him dead with its high grille but Tset's hip took off the hood ornament while his elbow smashed the windshield instead. He'd been expecting one to sneak around and a little hop had dead-ended their crude plan.
With relatively little new damage Tset was off the car like he had slid over the hood on purpose and onto the sidewalk.
The police, luckily, could not shoot and destroy civilian property, so the bumper-bumper cars, parked, were a form of cover.
The mobsters coming off the street corner and into the alley after him, however, opened fire remorselessly with their HKMP5s.
They expected sheer ammo count to do their aiming and Tset was only slightly more creased as he crossed a wide avenue, sliding over a taxi's hood, leaving red streaks.
He spotted a side street and leaned into the run - his ankles feeling and supporting like sponges.
After only a minute of travel across the frosted gravel under his feet, he found the side street to be the yard of a small church, and blind.
Ahead of Tset was a stone wall, to his left, stone wall, on his right was a stone wall topped with an intricate stained-glass religious piece. There were also hugely massive double mahogany doors with an inch-thick brass chain and giant lock over them. 'Probably ornamental even I was on 'roids enough to break in.'
Of course, everything was slicked over with ice and would be impossible to climb whatever his next choice were to be and he was too wounded and tired to jump any significant heights.
Tset turned to face his fate, though he need not have; his fate was also circling him in a helicopter with a .50 caliber machine gun underneath, and high up above on top of the edifice in the form of another machine gun toting mobster who'd been placed to ambush him should he drive for sanctuary into a sanctuary. He dropped to his knees, furrowing the snow.
His coat had come off somewhere and now he kneeled, helicopters, three of them, mobsters and police, all encroaching. And all Tset could find himself thinking about was the girl. The girl shooting him down. Calling him a creep. Why did he even care? He could imagine she'd laugh at this.
Tset was brought back around - the mobsters were first up, one stormed across the open space on little pudgy legs, but slowed. Another, thinner, mobster backed him. Three, all out of reach and cautious and him exposed and defenseless.
Except... his pistol. He had the rounds, he staggered, got his feet under him and bellowed.
But his roar of challenge was killed and shut out by the clang and snap and rumble of huge chains being broken and knocked asunder.
Tset was curious to see what could possibly be happening - and he remained unenlightened, his worn mind not registering properly.
Whatever it was, it was striding purposefully out of the mahogany doors and its head was canine, definitely, beastly and terrifying; wild hunter's eyes flashing above a curled, frothing muzzle. The ears, roughly triangular, tipped off at an altitude of fifteen feet.
It had arms, Tset definitely made out arms - each shoulder the size of a large beach ball but each being a near-sphere of solidly corded muscle.
The arms matched the shoulders and the hands matched the arms, the gigantic clawed fingers scraping the snow as the thing stepped forward on smaller hind legs - these were also canine and ended in relatively small paws.
The whole nightmare was wrapped in finely shimmering, coarse brown fur and purple and grey silk garments that hung loosely, though somehow elegantly, from the demonic frame.
It turned and brought an arm up and across its chest. When the arm straightened, i
t was as though lightning struck - a mobster simply disappeared, decimated by a thunderclap and a palm large enough to curl up on.
The other mobster, further away, was kicked with one of the hind legs and brought back to earth like a reversed rocket with, in Tset's bleary opinion, an entirely unnecessary fisted blow to his crown. The man was a pile of jutting bones and red sludge.
The thing turned and eyed the rooftop mobster with a weird humor. The mobster slipped and nearly fell. He was out of sight after regaining his purchase.
The beast now faced Tset, peering down at him - plumes of steam jetting from its brownish purple nostrils.
Tset looked at his gun, tiny in comparison, and decided honesty was the best policy. 'That's an odd thought to have right now.'
The creature lunged and caught Tset up in its arms. The fur was sickly hot, but welcome. The last thing Tset remembered was a blast of warm, minted air that was not unpleasant.
When Tset awoke he was looking straight up and his glasses were gone. He tried to move but his neck was so sore it almost caused him to shout.
Eventually he did turn his head, slowly, on white-hot muscles. There was a faded blue couch cushion there against his face. It had greenish-yellow flowers on it. He thought it was very tacky.
Tset turned his head in the other direction, slowly, painfully, and spotted, about twenty feet of hardwood floor away, the demon.
The demon sat on a large, winged leather chair, with a newspaper over its lap and a tiny cup of tea hooked on one claw.
It sipped the tea.
Tset closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
When he woke again, the demon was gone from his chair, the newspaper was, too. The tea cup rested in its fine saucer on a small glass table at the foot of a shaded lamp. The lamp provided the only light in the room and Tset could not see the walls in his state - only deep black polished hardwood and the furniture.
He shifted, it hurt to do it, but he needed to leave, and he heard a plasticine crackling beneath him, he checked, and he had been lain out on a tarp on the faded blue couch.
"What the fuck?"
A very eloquent voice spoke from behind the couch, "You don't expect me to let you bleed on my furniture, do you?" The voice was deep and clear.
Tset looked, and there it stood - glossy brown head, now wrapped bodily in a large black cloak.
"My name is Gregory, welcome to my sitting room."
Tset thought through several different conversational options and couldn't decide on any one - the situation was surreal.
"Do I scare you?" The beast laughed. "I'm not going to eat you. I don't eat people."
Tset continued to stare.
"Can you sit up?"
Tset sat up.
"Good." The word was a purr. Then Gregory assumed his previous chair.
"I'll explain myself, take some of the worry off?"
Tset nodded slightly. He was being gripped by an overwhelming sense of fear and could too easily imagine himself screaming high and keen.
"Where should we start?" Gregory looked thoughtful.
"Well here, I'll give you this - you're a born demon hunter, bad demons, mind you, you can neglect hassling me about anything, and I've been watching you on and off since you were a week old."
This sent a thrill through Tset, tinged with cynicism - 'The buried unknowns of my past, laid out by a giant dog thing.' Immediately he had second thoughts, though this didn't stop him from asking, "Where was I born? Who am I? What's my name?"
The chuckle didn't fit the monster, "Oh, no no no, you said it best to the audience of The Pit - your name is Tset."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean your recorded birth name is inconsequential. You've become more, as yourself, without the help of anyone else, than I would have hoped. You're a staunch little animal, you know."
"But-"
"No Tset, you'll learn in time, let me just tell you now, you're a tool."
Tset assumed the contemporary definition, "What?"
Gregory laughed, loud, but pleasant. "No, no. You're hardly phallic. I mean that the only reason you're alive is because you were to be used, there's a bit of back story though, would you like tea?"
"Bourbon on ice would be better."
"Bourbon on ice..."
Gregory returned in a moment with the high-baller, bringing the bottle. "This is imported."
Tset read the label - Maker's Mark. It had been sealed in wax and the label was hand-painted, the drink had a nice warm color to it. Tset sipped despite wanting badly to gulp.
"Go on."
"The old legend goes something to the effect of, there was a knight and an angel. Somehow or another, socially unacceptable, they bore three sons. The sons were their idea of protectors as neither the knight nor the angel could do much for the situation Man was in - as a food animal."
"Food animal?"
"Vampires, Tset, they've been around a long time."
Tset coughed on his whisky, then said, "Ah. Those fuckers."
"Yes, anyway, they bore three sons, and the sons lived, and died."
Tset, warmed and cocky by the bourbon, "Oh, yeah, okay."
"It's not important, they did live their lives as their function and did hunt vampires. I'll show you the prophecies sometime and you can do as you want with it.
"The curious thing, however, is that years and years later, for no particularly apparent reason, three sons were born who looked exactly like the original knights. They turned out to be distant cousins of the original three brothers, and on three separate branches of the family tree. They lived lives almost exactly similar in sequence to their famous ancestors and fought the darkness once again."
"Alright."
"Yes, so on and on the blood's gone, generation and generation. It's thinning, though."
"Is this a problem?"
"I don't see it as such - really you're not all identical anymore and your hair's got some red in it and your nose is hardly the original thing. It's a bit buttony. Beyond that you're naturally skilled in certain areas you should be."
"Woah, hold on."
The demon smiled, kindly, its massive eyes crinkling at the leathery corners, "Yes, Tset, you're a descendent of the three brothers. Like I said, you're a born demon hunter."
"Bullshit. Fuck you." Tset desired to leave, and scooted to the edge of the couch, getting to a half stand with some effort. This demon was insane. The irony brought Tset to a pause and the demon started again, "It may seem so, like a romance novel. There's hardly any romance, though - too much killing, really, to make anything I would read more than once." Gregory pushed Tset gently back to the couch, and Tset, strangely, relented. He was much too tired, he'd found.
"Anyway, the three brothers were all given legendary titles, eventually, that matched their personalities - Thought, Hate and Black, or Animus, Haneus, and Diabolus ."
Tset had his arms crossed, "Which one am I then?"
Gregory winked, "I could tell you what I thought, but that would ruin the surprise."
Tset growled, "Alright, silky pants, where are the other two? No doubt in your gymnasium practicing vampire-fighting tactics."
"Well, that's it, Tset, I have no idea. I only found you on inspiration from a pair of vampiric and conniving sons of bastardas." Gregory's Spanish accent was perfect.
Tset hmphed, "Harsh words for a gentleman."
"They've been ruffling my tail feathers for some years now, but they did bring me to you."
"How?"
"Again, you were to be a tool... I'm fairly sure - it's complicated, and I'll show you sometime, but ignore it for now."
Tset shook his head, clearly annoyed, but went onto a different track, "So, tell me, what's the deal now? Why did you show yourself now?"
"Back story in place, let me start from the beginning - when you were born, and this is another example of thinning blood and possibly your mother's own inherent weaknesses, your heart was ruined and you were blind. You were abandoned at
the hospital and the doctor decided to take care of you.
"This is where the vampires entered - they were told by some Master somewhere, that you were one of the Three, and they connived that they would take you and use you against mankind instead of you destroying them. They went to some geneticists, because they believed in the bit in the prophecies saying the undead would cause their own ruination by directly interfering, idiots, and these two scientists took you away, on friendly terms, when you were about eighteen, and did things to you to keep you alive and make you more powerful."
"Such as?"
"Your regeneration, your strength, your eyes, and your heart."
"Ah." Tset remembered his dream, and the egg. And his eyes.
"Anyway, God bless their little hearts, the doctors let you loose one night and never looked back.
"The vampires killed them both for the betrayal, but I've been watching you since then, very closely, making sure you did alright. Thanks to their surgeries, you're probably one of the strongest brothers in history."
Tset hmphed, "And why did you come to get me just now?"
"Well, I was planning on getting you some time, but you became so infamous in your heroics - good show, by the way - you pushed my time table forward quite a bit and so I came down and rescued you from certain doom. Because you see, those two thorns, the vampires, had been hunting you for a while, trying to find you and sway you. Eventually you'd caused so much damage to their enterprise and the overall criminal community and were obviously fairly dead set on killing anything vampiric you saw, they decided it was time to off you. In fact, that had been going on since your very early days at Haliburton and they used their trickery and influence to get friends like Geoffrey to cooperate. Haley was a bastard, so no guilt there."
Tset thought for a moment, "So now I'm your tool?"
"Oh no, I'm a guide, Tset, I'll guide you. I want to destroy the vampires, or reduce them in power as they live in their own darkened golden age now, but I will do no more than guide you along this path I think you'll walk anyway. You're entirely self-determined, otherwise."
Tset thought again, "And if I become vengeful and just decide to loose a lot of anger and whet sadisms on enemies and various things of this nature?"
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