Ardia looked up from the diary and said, 'I don't believe it.'
O'Connor looked as if he was somewhere else. Maybe he was away in Georgia in the 1960s. He smiled.
'Is that how she got in contact with you again? Your address on the bible that she stole?'
O'Connor nodded and said, 'but that wasn't until a long time later. Several years passed before I spoke to her again.'
Avril was going to ask more questions when the van lurched to a stop and one of the Kokourek Brother's roared through the grill, 'we're here!'
Chapter 35
An excerpt from the journal of Damien Slayer
Dear diary and all that shit. I know it has been a long long time since I made an entry in this journal. Just flicking back through the pages I can see what my last entries were about. They were about the second string of attacks in Washington. The ones that ended with Avril Corcoran.
It's not much of a wonder that I haven't recorded anything since then. Since the attacks, since I had to run again, I haven't had the opportunity. I know years have passed since then. But if this journal is ever going to be able to help me to prove my innocence then I must return to making regular entries and logging everything that I do.
Maybe that's part of the problem though. When I started this journal it was just meant to be an outlet. A way to express all of the feelings that had wrapped me up since what happened to Penny. Then, over time, the journal evolved into a kind of a log of my activities. I have some kind of poorly defined sense that I might be able to use this journal some day to prove my innocence. Not as the whole proof, but as a part of it. To prove I am not a serial killing rapist. The problem is that I care less and less about proving my innocence and more and more about finding the thing.
One way or the other though I have decided to return to writing in this journal. Even if it is only to help keep me sane. Even if it never helps me. Even if I am still one of the most wanted men in America when this thing is all over.
My next few entries are going to be fairly eclectic affairs. I am going to gather the details of my last few years of activity together over the next few entries, to try and bring the journal up to date.
The most important thing is how much I have learned in the time since the events in Washington. I visited some sites in Europe, as I mentioned planning in previous entries. They were cold as cold could be, but I was able to use snippets of information to narrow down the possible location of a fourth site. A site that is much more recent. A site that might have been active as late as the 60s. There's a lot of speculation in that. A lot of it is actually based on old shipping records from a laboratory supply company that was based in West Berlin at the time that the other sites may have been active. It's not much but it's a lead.
I have also been in contact with the infamous Father Stryker. Now there is an enigma. The man is as sane as he is not. I know he is connected with the Order. In think he has to be a member really. Except for his behaviour. When I met Father Stryker for the first time he was receiving the ministrations of not one, not two, not even three, but four prostitutes. At the same time he appeared to be after drinking the bones of two bottles of old Scotch. And by old I mean the $300 a bottle sort.
It's very hard to tell when he doesn't have an answer or when he is being tight lipped for security reasons. Half the time he carries on as if he gives so little a shit about the rules of the Order that he is telling me whatever he knows about whatever I ask. Then there are other times when I feel like he has to be holding things back. One thing he has not been shy about is that the Order has information it is not sharing. Information it hasn't shared with any of its agents.
I can't let the events of Washington repeat themselves. And they are overdue to repeat themselves if the cycle I have observed is still continuing. Any day now I am going to pick up a newspaper and find out that it has happened again. I can't let what happened to Avril happen again. Or Penny. That can never be allowed to repeat itself. But unless I move quickly then there will be nothing I can do.
So that leads me to my decision. I am going to contact the Order. I know I will be exposing myself to them and I understand the risk. I am going all in on this one and I haven't even looked at my cards. I don't have a choice though. Time is counting down now.
I am going to Rome.
Chapter 36
Abraham was still sitting in the dark. Time was meaningless when you were tied to an uncomfortable chair, your wrists and hands numb from the bindings, your sides aching from what you were pretty certain were broken ribs, when your world was pitch blackness except for when your captors came to beat you.
Abraham had lost all sense of time. He tried to focus on things. The distant dripping of water he could hear somewhere in the impenetrable darkness. He tried to count the drops to give his mind something to focus on. The Mossad had trained him to resist interrogation and torture. He thought his training was working pretty well. He couldn't be absolutely certain of it because huge swathes of his time here were simply gone from his memory and that probably meant he had been drugged. He knew they had water-boarded him several times. He couldn't remember much beyond the initiation of each sequence though. The intervals between the beginnings and endings of these events were just like his surroundings; blank. For all he knew he had told them everything they wanted. That might explain why they hadn't been back in such a long time.
He wasn't even completely certain about what they wanted to know. A little part of him suspected they were just interrogating him because he was Jewish.
They wanted to know about a creature. A monster. The thing they called it. They described it to him and it sounded ridiculous. Then his thoughts drifted back to the interrogation that Razmik had been performing on the pilot. He thought about the intruder that had come kill the pilot. He thought about the grainy photograph of the attacker on the roof of Patil's house.
He had told them something about that. He couldn't remember what. It was one or the other. He had either told them about the assassin that came for the pilot or he had told them about the photograph. He knew it wasn't both because telling them about one hadn't helped his situation. The hateful punishment of his body had continued unabated after he gave them the first piece of information so he didn't see the point of telling them about the second.
Then the lights came on. Abraham squeezed his eyes tight against the brightness. There was no spot directed at him. The lights were just the long tubes in the ceiling, humming and flickering and clicking to life. But God they were bright when the world had been dark for so long. He could hear the men moving around behind him now. He could hear them talking in hushed tones. How had he not heard them coming in? It was not like he had a whole lot of other things to distract him.
He heard a door shut behind him. He fixed his eyes on a spot on the concrete floor. It was that or the concrete wall. He started to take his mind to another place. To a place where the pain would feel more like a fuzzy message his body was sending to him rather than the cringing agony that it was when he stayed fully in the moment.
Footsteps approached. Just one man. He had the distinct impression there was no one else in the room except for him and this one other man. He didn't harbour thoughts of escape for a moment. There would be no action movie head-butting of his captor this day. No brilliant explosion of action followed by a feverish sawing of his bindings on a broken piece of glass or rough metal. Abraham knew that if he was cut free that moment and told that he could leave he would be able to do little more than fall to the ground and think about crawling away.
The footsteps drew close and then shoes appeared in the corner of his vision. Nice shoes. Expensive wing-tips. He lifted his gaze a little higher and saw a granite grey suit pants. He could tell that it was expensive as well. He continued to rake his vision higher up the figure in front of him. A matching grey jacket. A white shirt and a pink tie? An honest to God pink tie here, in this gangland hell-hole. Then the face.
Abraham couldn't bel
ieve it.
It was like the stories said. The face was made up of strange material. Like crushed coal. It was anthracite black and looked hard. Hell, it looked armoured. The eyes were just beady little caverns in the shadows thrown by the heavy, sharp edged brow.
'What...' he choked on the scratches in his throat and coughed. He tried again, 'what are you?'
The expression of the thing in front of him did not change. It said, in an accent that was about ninety percent Russian and ten percent something else, 'I think you know what I am.'
Abraham didn't say anything. What had he come here to find if he didn't believe at least a little bit of what the rumours said? No, he had put enough faith in those rumours to come all the way here. That said, now that he was seeing it, he couldn't really believe his eyes.
'Go on now,' said the creature. 'Tell me what I am. I didn't come here to hurt you any further than you have been already but I can change my mind if you are rude. I can understand your desire to keep your employer's secrets secret but I cannot abide by rudeness.'
Abraham squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again just to make sure the creature he was looking at was really real. Then he said, 'you're the Golem.'
The creature smiled. It's skin turned upwards in the smile, folding like reptilian skin. This is exactly what an alligator would look like if it smiled. As he looked at the formidable form in front of him, Abraham believed he would prefer to be tied up in a chair with an alligator than his thing.
'Very good,' said the Golem.
Abraham said nothing.
The Golem said, 'I would like to explain a little bit of your situation to you. First of all, it is entirely possible you get to leave here tonight. I have no particular desire to kill you. I have another objective. The second thing you need to understand though is that you only get to leave here if it's of value to me.'
'What do you want?' Abraham croaked out.
The Golem seemed taken aback by this. He seemed puzzled by the question as though it didn't make sense. He said, 'as much as I can get. I thought I had made that clear.'
'What?'
The Golem leaned closer to Abraham's face. He said, 'I want you to help me understand your worth. I want you to tell me what I can get from this Razmik in exchange for your life.'
Abraham didn't understand. Hanging languidly from his bindings he shook his head and said, 'then why...'
'Why what? Why the torture? Don't you remember? You wouldn't answer our questions. It doesn't matter now, I believe that the answers to these questions can be easily acquired as part exchange for your life. You did tell us some interesting things.'
'Wh-what did I say?'
That alligator smile again, 'you told us something about a creature on a rooftop. You said there was a photograph. You also told us about the witch...'
Oh shit. What did I say? The witch? That can only mean Ardia. What did I say? No, it doesn't matter. I could have muttered a few meaningless words. It doesn't matter what he tells me that I said. All that matters is not saying more.
The Golem watched these machinations with interest and said, 'oh, don't worry. I can see you have been trained to resist interrogation and all of its tricks. I can see your little Jew mind gears turning. Now tell me, what can I get for you?'
Chapter 37
The Kokoureks pulled off the highway in front of a roadside bar. The structure was not impressive. If the few vehicles outside the building were any indication then the patrons consisted of a handful of bikers and truckers. They were not to discover the details of the patrons though, as the Kokoureks drove the van around behind the bar. It was dark back there with only a dim light shining over a back door.
They dismounted and moved swiftly to the door, not wanting to expose Homer's unusual form to any eyes that might be about. The Kokoureks kept a wary distance from Homer. He was so broad that he had to turn sideways to pass through the full sized door to a back room of the bar.
'Welcome to the Batcave!' said David, holding his hands theatrically above his head while Marek flicked a light switch. Ardia took in the room with an awe that quickly transformed into concern before she turned to Razmik.
Razmik's face was a picture of despair. The walls of the room were adorned with every kind of hand-held weapon that he could imagine. There were dozens, literally dozens, of handguns. There were twenty or more assault rifles, as many submachineguns. Scattered among all of these were heavy machine guns, sniper-rifles, grenade launchers and missile launchers.
Razmik returned Ardia's gaze. There was no need to speak the words. This was a disaster. Razmik rarely exposed himself to dealing personally with unknown quantities like the Kokoureks. The urgency of the situation had forced him to forego this precaution. He was instantly beginning to regret it. If the Kokoureks were inclined to keep this gaudy arsenal where it could easily be discovered by the authorities then they were even more wild and unpredictable than he had first believed.
'What is all this?' Razmik asked coldly.
'Is our Bat-cave,' said Marek smiling proudly, 'is our, uh, our Fortress of Solitude.'
David turned around, his arms still held wide, 'is impressive, no?'
'Is stupid,' said Razmik, stepping further into the room. 'This is stupid. What good are all of these guns supposed to be? Do they make your dicks bigger? Think of what you're exposing yourselves to with this ridiculous stash.'
Ardia watched Homer move past the talking men, totally unconcerned with their squabble. He walked over to the rack of machine guns and gently, tentatively, poked one with his massive finger. The gun rocked on its rack but did not quite fall over. O'Connor hurried over to put his hand on Homer's massive arm to stop him from causing destruction. It reminded Ardia of a child being cautioned by a parent in a shop full of expensive but delicate things.
Ardia returned her attention to Razmik and the Kokoureks. They were bickering but to a large extent the two new men looked crestfallen and scolded. They were clearly unhappy to have disappointed their hero but Ardia wasn't sure if they really understood why he was so irate. The bigger issue was operating with these idiots. If they thought a room filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of firearms was a good idea then she really didn't think she wanted to come across one of their bad ideas. She especially didn't want to be a part of one of their bad ideas.
O'Connor had stepped beyond Homer now and had delicately removed one of the rifles from the wall. Ardia watched how he handled the gun. She watched how he admired it and ran his hand along it. He shouldered it and aimed through the scope in a very discerning way. He then returned the gun to the wall with a nod.
My God, Ardia thought, he's a soldier. The priest is a soldier.
O'Connor turned around to face the quarrelling men and said, 'Razmik. I am very sorry to interrupt your lecture.'
Razmik stopped talking and turned to the priest. His nostrils were flared from his tirade but he was otherwise still. He raised his eyebrows to O'Connor.
O'Connor said, 'I understand your concerns here. If I am honest then they're my concerns as well. But time is not our friend, if I am to understand you. And besides', he said, raising his arms to encompass the vast armoury, 'when God gives you lemons...'
Razmik was silent while he studied the priest's words. After a pause he smiled then raised and lowered his shoulders in a shrug that portrayed a mild kind of frustrated amusement.
Chapter 38
Razmik looked at the cell phone in his hand and took a deep breath. He and Ardia stood outside the bar. She put a hand on his shoulder, not saying a word. The night was deep and chilled around them, the sky an empty black cloak that hung above them.
Razmik looked at Ardia with a rare and sincere concern on his face. The course of this conversation could decide the fate of a man who was dear to both of them.
'What if he wants something I can't give?' Razmik asked.
Ardia looked less concerned, 'then we will take Abraham back our own way. We've been through this Razmik
. This hesitation isn't like you.'
Razmik shrugged his shoulders deeply, expressively, emanating a despair that was buried in a shallow grave, 'Abraham is different. I think you feel it too. It's not just business with him any more. I don't have many friends Ardia. I barely have any friends. It's not until now that I realize that I count Abe among them.'
'Well then let's get him back. Make the call Raz, we're not helping anything by just looking at a phone.'
Razmik's head sagged and he pressed the call button. The ring-tone hadn't purred twice before Razmik transformed again. Back to business, back to the task at hand, Razmik grew back into himself. He became the composed and fearless Razmik again. The other man, the man who was weighed down with fear over a friend he hadn't known he had, was gone.
The phone picked up. The voice on the other end was deep and heavy as stone. It said, 'I was beginning to wonder if you had given up on your Jew.'
'I have more things to worry about than just one Jew,' Razmik said. 'I would like to conduct our business as briskly as possible and be away from here. What do you want for him?'
The voice chuckled, 'how much can I get?'
Razmik wasted no time, 'how much do you want? I will pay a fair price. He is a man of rare talents, I won't deny it, I will pay a fair price.'
The voice on the phone sounded a little disdainful, 'come now, let's not undersell him. I don't think a man of your standing travelled all the way here, and from South America no less, to retrieve a skilled servant. I think he's worth quite a lot to you.'
Razmik sighed impatiently, 'what do you want?'
The voice paused, then said, 'it's funny. Your Jew drew attention to himself asking around about the Golem. I am sure you have heard of the Golem. I am sure, in fact, that you sent the Jew here looking for the Golem.'
'I don't-', Razmik started to speak but the voice interrupted him.
Episode 4: The Golem (The New Breed Chronicles) Page 3