by Matt Hilton
We greeted each other the way old soldiers do. A masculine hug of the left arm, our right hands hooked together at our thumbs, a bump of chests.
'Looking good, Harve.'
His jeans and shirt weren't that different from mine, only he looked like he'd just stepped out of a Hollywood gossip magazine, while I looked like something that people gossiped about — for all the wrong reasons.
He touched the wound in my scalp. Shaking his head in amusement. 'I see that Rink's been practising his field dressings on you. Never could see straight, that one.'
I'd forgotten about the slash on my head. But now that Harvey mentioned it the damn thing reminded me it was still there with an itch that demanded scratching.
'Brought some supplies with me,' Harvey said, nodding over his shoulder towards his room. 'Better get that cleaned and apply some antiseptic cream. Don't want it getting infected.'
'What're they going to do if it does? Cut my head off?'
'Sure would be an improvement,' Harvey grinned.
Marianne was standing in our shadow, looking up at Harvey as if he was a demi-god who'd come down from Mount Olympus on a cloud. There was trepidation in her gaze, but not a little awe.
'You must be Marianne.' Harvey held out his hand.
'Mari,' she answered shyly.
'Mari,' he repeated, and he took her hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. Her smile made her look like the girl I'd seen in those first couple of photographs.
She said, 'You're not what I?…'
'Not what you expected. Yeah, I know. You thought I was gonna be as ugly as these two brutes you've been stuck with?' He shot me a wink and I grinned behind Marianne's back.
'Joe isn't ugly,' she said, and that made me grin even more. I should have maybe defended Rink, but to some he did seem like he'd be more at home dressed in skins and wielding a club. Then there were others who found his rugged face and scarred chin attractive; the epitome of the bad boy look.
Harvey asked me, 'How is Rink?'
'Holding it together.'
'He shouldn't be here.'
'Tell me about it.'
Harvey turned back to Marianne. He touched the shoulder of the Kevlar vest. 'Come on, girl. Let's get you inside and out of that fashion disaster, huh?'
The motel was the type that has a stand-alone reception with rooms located in adjacent wings. It was constructed like a loose crescent, the parking lot nearest the road, then the grassed area with the faux-totem pole, and the rooms curving round on either side. Harvey had rented the room furthest away on the right-hand horn.
It was a standard room in a standard motel. Twin beds. Couple of chairs. A desk. A credenza with a pay-per-view TV sitting on top of it. Instructions for dialling up porn on a card on the wall. Harvey's laptop computer was plugged into a socket on the wall and was resting half-open on top of the nearest bed. A partly open door on the left showed a glimpse of a standard bathroom. Marianne's eyes widened, but then a shadow crossed over them.
'I've checked it out,' Harvey told Marianne. 'No creepy-crawlies. Shower's hot and the towels are clean. Why don't you go ahead? Make you feel better.'
Marianne agreed with a slight nod of her head, then walked towards the bathroom, tugging at the straps of the vest. She dumped the heavy vest by the open door, then slipped inside. I heard the locks engaging. Not that she'd need them with us there, but it made sense. She was shutting out the horror of the last couple of days. I suppose that we were as much a reminder of that horror as anything else that had happened.
The shower went on.
Harvey closed the door to the outside.
'Got anything for us, Harvey?'
He picked up a bag, delved inside it and tossed me a tube of antiseptic cream. 'That for starters,' he said. Then going over to the laptop he pushed open the screen and tapped a few buttons. 'Plus this.'
There was a profile photograph of a fat man on the screen. Then a portrait. Then a profile from the opposite side. Police mugshots, all of the same man. He had dark hair in sweaty fringe on his forehead. His jowls were blotchy with broken veins, and his eyes were the type you normally see on bloodhounds. He was smiling, but it was just bravado for the camera. His eyes weren't smiling. They were fearful.
'Dead for a start,' said Harvey. 'He's one of the guys shot dead inside Petre Jorgenson's house.'
'Got a name for him?'
'Gabriel Wellborn. Goes by Gabe. Not the kind of character you'd normally expect to move in the same circles as the Jorgensons.' He held his hand at shoulder height. 'On the social ladder, the Jorgensons rate a nine.' He dropped his hand way down. 'Gabe Wellborn scores a minus two if he's lucky.'
'So what's his deal?'
'Officially? He has a web design business. Small potatoes, not so many clients. Just a front, if you ask me.'
I nodded. 'Unofficially?'
'Go getter.'
I didn't catch his meaning. Not at first. Then I said, 'Go get me this, go get me that?'
'Yeah,' Harvey said. 'You want something, Gabe's your man. Particularly if the thing you want is illegal. Guns, drugs, underage sex… you know his type.'
'Maybe there is an argument for justifiable homicide. Pleased to hear he's dead,' I said. Then, 'These things he gets for people, does that include killers for hire?'
'Unconfirmed rumour. But, yeah. He's been on and off the FBI radar for years, but they haven't been able to make anything stick. He recruits through these soldier of fortune sites that have sprung up all over the web. Takes on mercenaries who are after a quick buck. Very discreet operation. All coded to protect their anonymity. Works for anyone who can pay, not just a select clientele.'
'How is his operation run?'
'I spoke to an FBI contact. It's only a theory of theirs, and up until now they've been unable to prove it. It's so simple it goes way beyond sophisticated.'
'Usually the way. Hide in plain sight and people don't see what's right under their own noses. So, how is he doing it?'
'All via the web. Untraceable URLs are used. Hosting by ex-Eastern Bloc companies. Firewalls that would rival Homeland Security. Until now, the FBI have been unable to crack it. His employees use disposable cell phones with internet connections to keep in touch. Gabe gives them their instructions under the guise of a fantasy role playing game based upon the war between heaven and hell.'
My snort of derision was like the air brakes on a taut-liner. 'And he's the Archangel Gabriel, no doubt?'
Harvey smiled. 'Got it in one. But what about the others?'
'Named after the fallen angels?'
Harvey patted me on the shoulder. 'See, I knew there was a reason Rink took you on as his business partner.'
'Got a name for the shooter yet?'
'Nope. But I got this.' He started pressing keys on the laptop. The screen changed to a list of names. They were all picked out in magenta, underlined. Shortcuts to web pages, I guessed. Alphabetical, beginning with Amdusias and ending with Zagan. Weird names from a forgotten language or a cheap sci-fi movie. There were eighteen names in all.
'Names of all the fallen angels?'
'Not all,' Harvey said. 'There are many more than this. I lifted this list from the FBI. These are all names assumed by the players in Gabe Wellborn's game.'
'So we could be up against this many shooters?' I asked.
Harvey shook his head. 'No. You don't have to worry. Only one of these assholes has been active in the recent months.'
With a manicured fingernail he tapped the screen.
'Dantalion?' The name tasted like bile in the back of my throat. 'What do we know about him?'
Harvey double tapped the blue line under the name and the computer flickered between screens. First came words written in flame. They said:
The seventy-first spirit is Dantalion. He is a great and mighty duke, who governs thirty-six legions of spirits. He appears in the form of a man with many countenances, all men's and all women's faces. Dantalion knows the thoughts of all men and women,
and can change them at will.
Next, I saw a stylised painting of a man in a long white coat. His skin was white and he had flowing white hair. He held an open book in one palm and a sword in the other. I stared at the face. Androgynous, it could have been male or female. Beautiful but cruel. The eyes were like slivers of arctic ice.
I'd seen that creature before. Not so beautiful, but even more evil. Right now it was lying at the bottom of the sea with a Lincoln sedan as its tomb.
Or that was my hope.
29
First came weightlessness as the Lincoln fell through space.
Then a crushing force as it slammed into the water.
Next came pain.
Hopelessness.
Bubbles frothing, red flashes across his vision.
Weightlessness again as he sank.
And blackness.
The blackness was complete.
Then there were bubbles again and the taste of salt on his tongue. Not salt from the sea but salt from his blood. Sanguinary and bitter, like sucking on a copper spoon.
He tried to move. But the weight of the world was on his shoulders, like Atlas of the fables. No, not the world, just the roof of the Lincoln. But it felt as heavy as the planet.
He blinked, trying to make sense of his thoughts. Now there was salt water and it made his weak eyes smart. He rubbed at them, realised that he was fully submerged, and gave up. Instead he groped for something tangible to hold on to. He found a circular bar, his confused mind eventually recognising it as the steering wheel of the car he was trapped within. The steering wheel was below him, almost at his knees. It took him a moment to realise that the car was standing up on end, nose down. Bubbles raced by through the gloom, and the surroundings were getting darker by the second. The car had not yet come to rest, it was still sinking. The smashed windscreen, the open windows, had allowed the sea to rush in.
Good and bad.
Good because it meant that he wouldn't have to fight the pressure of the sea to open the door. When a car is submerged, fighting at the doors is a losing battle. Only when the pressure inside equals the pressure outside can the doors be opened. Advice under those circumstances is to sit tight. Allow the water to flood in while breathing deeply from the air trapped inside the body of the car. Lungs full and the pressure equalised, it is a simple task to open the door and strike out for the surface.
Bad because the water had rushed in on impact. The car was on a steep angle as it dove deeper and the bubbles were the oxygen escaping through the smashed windows and bullet holes. There was no air pocket.
Add to that the fact he was doubled over, ass lifted by the buoyancy of air trapped inside his clothing, head down staring through the smashed windscreen so that the rushing water battered his features, and he could be forgiven for panicking.
But Dantalion didn't panic. He was a professional. He was calm and practised.
That was the theory, at least.
Like many caught in a life and death predicament, he opened his mouth to shout. And all that did was empty his lungs of what precious oxygen was left to him. Then he was thrashing and pulling, and he was half out of the open driver's window. The car continued to drag him down, his legs caught behind the knees by the window frame.
He kicked and kicked and then he was free. But his lungs were screaming and there was a foggy blackness at the edges of his vision, even deeper than the darkness around him. He was tumbling in space, arms and legs pulling and pushing, but not moving him towards the surface. He didn't even know which way the surface was.
He had a moment of epiphany.
The single remaining headlight of the Lincoln pointed into the depths below him. The last few bubbles escaping his lips streaked upwards over his head. Follow the bubbles, he told himself.
He set off after the bubbles. It was a race he couldn't win, but he wasn't going to give in. He struck out after them, clawing handfuls of water.
He had no recollection after that.
His next conscious thought occurred when he was lifted from the water by strong hands and laid out on a pitching deck that even in his confused state he recognised as the bowed bottom of a small boat.
His vision swam.
The star-filled heavens were above him. And a pale grey blob that swam in and out of focus. Something like leather smacked against his face.
'You still with me, buddy?' a voice asked. 'Hey! Hey! Are you with me?'
Dantalion lifted a hand and grabbed the wrist of the man slapping his face.
'Hey, you're alive! You're all right?'
'I will be when you stop slapping my damn face!'
'Oh, sorry, buddy. I thought I was too late getting to you. I thought you were dead.'
Dantalion let go of the wrist. He dropped his hand to his waist, patting for the bulge. Found his book. He finally exhaled. Then he started coughing, and in reflex he rolled on to his side, vomiting sea water over the planks.
A hand patted him between the shoulder blades, then moved to his shoulders, supporting him through his final spluttering coughs.
'Easy now, buddy, easy,' said the Good Samaritan. 'You'll be fine in a minute or two.'
Through spittle Dantalion said, 'I'm fine now. You can lay off with the helping hand, goddamnit.'
But the man wouldn't listen; he helped Dantalion to his feet, letting him rock backwards on to a bench seat.
'I can't believe you survived that.' The man was standing with his legs braced, hands on hips as he peered upwards. Above him — way, way above him — was the dark underbelly of the bridge. Mangled wreckage marked where Dantalion's Lincoln had been rammed through the barrier. A drop of more than a hundred feet. Bubbles still fizzed and popped ten yards out where his submerged vehicle continued to give up its final hold on the oxygen caught in its sub-frame.
Dantalion didn't have the strength to look any longer. He dropped his head between his knees, spitting out a long string of salty saliva.
'I saw it all, buddy. I'm your witness. I saw that lunatic hit your car and push you over the edge. He didn't even stop. Just took off like nothing was the matter.' The man turned to look down at his patient. 'What kind of madman does that?'
'Beats me,' Dantalion muttered. He regarded his benefactor.
The guy was about seventy but in good shape for his years, short and stocky, face bronzed by the sun but a deep blue in the dark. His hair was as white as Dantalion's but it was thick and wavy. He was of sturdy build, with thick forearms and bowed legs, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Leather gloves. There was a fishing pole on the bow of the boat, forgotten now.
'What are you doing out here in the dark?' Dantalion asked.
'Night fishing,' the man answered, indicating the pole. 'Best time, if you ask me.'
Dantalion raised his brows. He wasn't the only one who preferred hunting in the dark. 'No argument from me.'
'Good job I was here,' the man added. 'Otherwise no one would have seen you hit the water. They wouldn't have pulled you out in time.'
Dantalion noted that the man's clothes were as wet as his own.
'You jumped in and pulled me out?' Dantalion stood up and extended his hand. 'You saved my life?'
'It was nothing,' said the man, accepting the hand.
'I thank you for that,' Dantalion said. 'I really do. And it pains me to have to kill you now.'
Mid-handshake the man jerked.
'Uh?'
Dantalion snatched the hand towards him, dropping his forehead so that it struck the man flush in the face. The sound was like a hammer smacking a watermelon. The man dropped on to his backside, hands going to his smashed nose. Dantalion's head swam. Not from the force of the blow but from the lack of oxygen. He had to suck in a couple of lungfuls of air before he felt strong enough to reach down and grab the man's arms.
'Now, in gratitude for your selfless help, I'm going to give you a choice.'
The man was heavy, his sturdy body a dead weight, not helped by the fact he was swimming in and
out of consciousness.
'I'm going to give you a choice on how you die,' Dantalion explained. 'Fast or slow?'
'Go to hell,' the man slurred. He tried to pull away from Dantalion. His hands were slick with blood and his knees weak. Dantalion let go of him. He fell to his knees, bumping along the bottom of the boat. Dantalion grabbed at the nape of the man's neck.
'So it's slow, then?' Dantalion asked. 'OK… buddy.'
He swung the man round on his knees, pushing his head over the side of the boat. The man tried to resist and Dantalion punched his free hand into the man's kidneys. He bent him over again, pushing now with both hands at the back of the man's head. Forcing his face under water. The man yelled in terror. Bubbles frothed. But not for long.
When he was still, Dantalion pushed him overboard. Held him submerged beneath the water with both hands. Counted to one hundred. Numbers, always numbers.
Then he gently prodded the man away from him, watched as he slowly sank head first, aimed at the place the car went down. Maybe the police would think that he was the driver of the crashed Lincoln and their search wouldn't be so exhaustive, giving Dantalion the opportunity to sort himself out. With that breathing space, he would soon be ready to complete his mission.
But already, above him on the bridge, other motorists had stopped. They were peering over the balustrade, looking down at him. He didn't think they could have seen what had just occurred between him and his would-be saviour, but it wasn't a chance he was about to take.