“I think he has some glasses here.” Sicilia said while Alex was curiously observing surroundings since it was some time since he was here.

She grabbed a couple of glasses from a nearby cupboard and put them on the table.

“You don’t expect me to pour the drinks, do you?” She giggled and passed the bottle to Alex.

The latter sighed once again and finally took a better look at what he was lured here with.

“Are you certain Old Tony won’t kill me for this?” A sad smile bloomed on his face, “This thing definitely costs around half a mil.”

“As if you don’t know the answer.” Sicilia laughed back.

Alex opened the bottle, poured in both glasses and then took a sip, then another one and then another.

“Damn, this is good!” He said and walked towards the circular rock carving behind the desk, “When did he ordered to make this?”

“That thing? He didn’t. He made a deal with that Xui Ming fella and got the original.” Sicilia’s voice once again turned a bit frosty when she talked about her father, but Alex almost tripped hearing that.

“Wtf?! How the hell did he get the original Buddhist Wheel of Life?” Alex gasped, “And how in the world Ming agreed to this? It should be a sacred item to any Chinese!”

“I checked online – there are many such wheels in China.” Sicilia shrugged.

“You don’t understand! This is the one from the Baodingshan historic site! While officially it dates back only eight centuries, it actually is over eight thousand years old! While the modern science can accurately tell its age, historians have no clue how and why it could have been made back then! This thing goes against everything we know about the history of the Buddhism. Old Tony asked me if I could get it, but I laughed it off as a joke, because … look at the size of this thing … I never could’ve imagined …” Alex tried to explain, but Sicilia interrupted him.

“Don’t care. Show me what you got him this time!”

“It’s on the table.” Alex pointed at the box in a size of a large encyclopedia in the middle of the table, took another sip from the glass in his hand and turned attention back to the carving, “Just be careful. That thing is several hundred years old and those pages could turn in to dust in your hands.”

But the young madam didn’t pay much attention to him.

“Pour me another one!” She commanded and Alex had to obediently comply.

“Cheers!” For some reason a victorious smile bloomed on her face and she gulped the glass empty in one go. Then stretched it in front asking for another refill.

Alex sighed, drank his empty as well and filled both glasses up once again.

“What exactly is this thing?” Sicilia asked carefully turning the brittle pages in the weirdly shaped book that was almost four times wider than its height.

“Bardo Thodol.” Alex answered, “The oldest one known.”

“Ok, that doesn’t answer my question.” She looked back at him in amusement.

“Well. It’s the Book of the Dead.” Alex shrugged, “The English translation is on the table next to you, if you are interested.”

“Isn’t that the Book of the Dead?” Sicilia pointed at a carefully preserved papyrus in a glass stand further away, “Didn’t you bring it last year?”

“Two years ago, but that’s the Egyptian one. This one is Tibetan.” Alex said and gulped his whiskey in one go. For some reason he was getting really thirsty and the strong alcohol was not the best thing to quench ones thirst.

“What’s the difference? They can’t bring mom back anyway!” The answer started as an angry retort, but ended in a sad tone – almost in a whisper. Sicilia looked at the golden statue in the corned with misty eyes, but then drank her glass empty again and stretched it for another refill.

“Really? So thirsty?” Alex grinned.

But suddenly a realization struck him. The thirst he felt, the increasing temperature of his body, almost to level of a fewer, perspiration, blurriness and … arousal?

‘Damn it! Not again! Just when did she pull it off? I checked – the bottle was properly sealed! And didn’t I watch it the whole time? … right … when I turned to take a closer look at the carvings … and the way she drank the whole glass in one go! I should’ve guessed! … and she brought me here of all the places ...’ A stream of thoughts quickly ran through his mind.

Three years ago Sicilia pulled the same trick when Alex met the father and daughter duo in Vienna. By chance they stayed in the same hotel and after dinner she excused herself just to show up in his room a couple of hours later. They also had some alcohol and she slipped something in his glass while he was not paying attention.

It was not like the young lady was in love. Exactly the opposite. From what Alex guessed, he was not the first and not the last one she did, probably, to spite her father. Of course, he didn’t care much – it was a one time thing and he learned from it … at least he thought so.

From the moment she grabbed his elbow this evening, Alex payed attention to her every movement … just to make a mistake in the end.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

He felt blood pulsing in his head as his vision blurred even more. Suddenly Sicilia’s feverish body glued to his and the forgotten, but still familiar scent assaulted his senses.

“I saw how you watched me the whole time! I know you want me!” She whispered in his ear and then bit it.

Obviously she was getting as high as he was. And Alex couldn’t control himself any more. His hands ran all over Sicilia’s body while they kissed in a brutal fashion, biting each other from time to time, blood dripping down their lips. When he pulled up her dress and his hand found the lack of panties, a thought ‘damn, she was prepared’ flashed through his mind and he threw her on her father’s table, face down – as if intending to punish her. But she only laughed and laughter soon turned in to loud moans.

The two long lost the track of time. Sicilia still lied on the table, almost lifelessly. Only her periodical weak moans and convulsions served as a reminder she was at least semi-conscious. Alex kept thrusting, again and again, mechanically. His mind was empty, or rather, filled only with carnal desires.

The two didn’t even notice how the Old Tony’s workplace turned into a mess – not only their own clothes were torn, the floor was littered with books and glass from the broken whiskey bottle. Pages from the precious Bardo Todol were scattered around, crumpled and torn, some even sticking to their sweaty bodies.

But there were two people who noticed. At some point Old Tony accompanied by Frank came in and froze, staring at the wild scene in shock. Frank was the one who recovered first.

“Sir …” He tried to say something, but nothing came out.

He knew the hell will break loose any second – there was no way the old mobster would shrug off the sight of someone ravaging his beloved daughter in the most sacred place in the world, at least for him.

“Merda!” Old Tony cursed out loud.

His face was beet red and his body was shaking from anger. Clenching fists he managed to squeeze through his teeth, “Kill him!”

Frank didn’t even think and gun appeared in his hand in a reflexive motion.

Only now Alex noticed the two men standing few meters away and sobered in an instant, but there was no way he could do anything. Even if he was in his best form, he could never be quicker than the old bodyguard. Like in a slow motion movie he saw Frank firing off two shots one after another and the impact from the bullets penetrating his chest threw him back on the sacred Buddhist rock carving.

Either Frank was reluctant to kill him, or just missed by a centimeter or two, Alex was still alive when he crushed on the ground, or rather – fell on the Wheel of Life that crushed on the floor, but mostly remained in tact.

‘How paradoxical!’ A hilarious thought ran through his mind, ‘Dying on a Wheel of Life!’

He knew there was no way he would survive this day. In fact, he knew he would die an unnatural death considering his line of work and the social circle of his clients. Alex didn’t fear death, but, well, he wasn’t looking forward to it either.

After learning how the world worked, he lived his life to the fullest. Had an exciting job he loved, traveled the continents and enjoyed companionship of many different beauties. He didn’t have a family, or rather – didn’t establish his own. His parents were still alive and probably lived a relatively good lives, but he hadn’t seen them in many years and didn’t care about them either.

Alex came from a regular ‘middle class’ family, which lived according to ‘normal’ middle class standards. His guess was that he and his younger sister ‘happened’, probably after some Pink Floyd or The Who concert when their parents were too drunk or maybe too high. They were raised by strangers in a daycare and school while their parents only ‘taught’ them how to ‘behave properly’ at the breakfast or dinner table.

He left this boring life in 1990 after the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft. While he was still a greenhorn and Bobby Donati entrusted him only a small task, he was rewarded handsomely. The fifty thousand dollars were basically nothing compared to the total value of the stolen artworks that police estimated to around half a billion, but to him it was a great start-up capital. Of course, he took one of the Dega’s sketches as a ‘souvenir’, but luckily was smart enough to burn it later.

Alex didn’t care about the value of the so called artworks. In fact, he despised the people who spent fortunes on ‘old pretty things’ when one could simply take a colorful photo and put in on the wall. It’s f*cking 21st century! And the girls in Playboy’s calendar are incomparably more attractive than the ugly ones in those old paintings he was tasked to steal during the last decade.

But in the end – it was none of his business. People can spend their money the way they like. Although Alex had to agree with Sicilia – they were a bunch of snobs.

‘Damn, that Sicilia …’ Alex though when he saw Old Tony walking over and standing next to him, his face still red from anger, ‘Right, even though she was the one who poisoned me, I did your daughter … in fact, for the second time! Hahaha!’

Alex almost made a sarcastic remark regarding that, but Frank appeared next to Tony.

‘So that is why!’ Alex realized.

Frank didn’t miss. He incapacitated Alex in case Old Tony wanted to deal with him in a ‘special’ way. The old mobster had means to keep him alive for months or maybe years, while Alex would wish he was dead. There were at least a couple of guys like that on the floor above this one … right … ‘the medical facility’.

He almost forgot. This was not an old man – this was an old monster! It was pivotal to not make any mistakes and he had to say the correct line so they would kill him ‘quickly and cleanly’ on the spot. Otherwise he would find himself in the real hell on Earth.

The stinging pain from gunshots started to assault Alex’s chest and the headache from, possibly, cracking his skull on the rock carving made his eyes tear up, but the gears in his head turned at increased speed despite the still lingering drug effect.

“I love her …” Was the only thing he could think of saying that could ‘properly’ provoke Old Tony to kill him.

If there was a fifth person in the room, they would find the situation tragically hilarious. The bloody guy on the floor with a couple of bullet holes in his chest … the still semi-conscious girl on the table … both with torn clothes and marks of brutal love making all over their bodies … at the most sacred spot in her home … and he claims to ‘love her’.

Her father didn’t find it hilarious at all. Old Tony’s trembling hands fished out a small book from the inner pocket of his suit. He quickly found the page he was looking for and started to read in some foreign language.

‘Oh? The Milarepa’s Book of Curses?’ Alex recognized the item in the old man’s hands. After all it was he who brought it few years ago, ‘Ah, no. That bastard has made a copy, probably for ‘everyday use’. Do you genuinely believe that the Tibetan hokus-pokus sorcery really works? If so, you would’ve resurrected your wife long ago!’

Alex inwardly grinned and continued to observe Old Tony who kept reciting something from the strange book.

‘Ok. From the looks of it he is giving me the last rites, so it should be fine. But why from Milarepa’s book? Wasn’t that guy just a mass murderer who turned into some saint in the end?’ Alex frowned as he felt uneasiness overtaking him for some reason.

But then he relaxed once again. A short ceremonial knife appeared in Tony’s hand signifying the end of this weird ceremony.

‘At least I didn’t get you the weapon you’ll kill me with.’ Was Alex’s last thought.

And the last thing he heard was the Old Tony’s hysterical shout, “Die, insect!”