CHAPTER 76

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An excerpt from the diary of Damien Slayer

They brought me back to a really grisly feeling place. It was some kind of an abandoned airport, I think. It was about an hour outside the city. God, the place just felt awful. It didn’t look none too pretty, even in the dark, but it was the feel of the place that was really bad.

They had a cozy little hideaway inside one of the buildings. I didn't ask how or where they'd come to gain access to the setup. I had the impression already that there was something shady attached to the Armenian man, Razmik. I didn't exactly object to it. Shady in this context also meant resources, and resources were something I was extremely limited by.

We gathered together, then. Razmik, Ardia, Stryker, Abraham, Father O'Connor and Homer. And me. It felt strange, but it also felt good. It had been a very long time since I had had anyone to share my world with. The last time I had even had a friend had been old Mr. Wendel and he was dead almost ten years now. I had Prowler to thank for that as well.

Stryker was awesome to me. He was a legend in the world I’d passed the previous two decades in. We had crossed paths, briefly, but he didn’t acknowledge that now. He seemed to reflect a little of my respect back at me. I took a little pride in that. I was no living legend, but hey, I’d done things.

The priest immediately began boiling water for tea. I, personally, thought this seemed like a nice idea after the cold and the wet of the night. There was, for some reason, a certain sense of exhaustion about the room when he did this. Especially from the blonde, Ardia.

Razmik took the reins of our little meeting from the first. He said, ‘I understand you might be of some help to us, Damien. I don’t understand a great deal of this in detail, Father Stryker only spared us a few moments when informing us that we needed to hurry to you.’

‘This guy might know more than the whole Order does,’ said Stryker. ‘He’s been orbiting us, and us him, for a long time.’ Stryker smiled then and shook his head, ‘It’s a little bit like a seeing a ghost come to life.’

‘So?’, said Razmik, spreading his arms wide. ‘Are you going to share?’

‘I promised the Order that I would. I promised that I would tell them everything I knew,’ I said, feeling a little dirty. I had no trust for that organization. In the coming days I would be vindicated by that.

‘Well lucky for you, you got a representative sittin’ right here,’ Stryker said. Then he leaned towards Father O’Connor and said, ‘Or is that two representatives? I never did clear up where you were sitting, Con.’

O'Connor kept his back to us as he continued the tea preparations. He said, ‘Let's just say it's complicated.'

Stryker nodded, ‘Say no more. Forgot about the annual membership fee, I guess. Thing's a bitch. They should really send out reminders.'

I got the sense he was trying to be funny, but no one seemed to get it. Maybe O'Connor emitted a low chuckle, but it went over the heads of everyone else.

Homer, he was impatient. He glowered at Stryker and said, ‘Can we begin?’

All eyes returned to me again and I said, ‘Begin where? What the hell do you want to know?’

‘How about you tell us what you promised the Order?’ Stryker said.

Almost at the same time, Homer said, ‘Tell me why you pointed your gun at me. Tell me about the one I reminded you of.’

I raised my eyebrows and said, ‘Hey, that’s two fairly different topics.’

‘But not two completely different topics?’ Ardia said. She was sharp on the uptake.

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I don’t think they are completely different.’

O’Connor brought me a cup of tea and I sipped it immediately. It was good to have the hot mug in my hands. It was also good to have a moment to gather my thoughts. O’Connor looked into my face. He was a hard man, you could tell that straight away. But he was also a kind one. He said, ‘Don’t mind them. You start where you feel like. We’ll be interested in anything you have to say.’

So I started. I knew I wasn’t going to get the whole essay out in one sitting, just like I knew I wasn’t going to get through the whole thing without interruption.

So where did I start? If there was a list of cliches about flashbacks and info dumping then “start at the start” would be number one on the list. But it’s what I did. It was the only way of framing everything, of even beginning to organize my thoughts. And they let me, let me tell my own back story as it related to them.

I told them about Penny. I told them how the Prowler had killed and mutilated her. I told them how he had done it to more than just Penny. I told them that there was a string of women going back to at least the 1970s that had suffered the same fate. I didn’t tell them about the cycle, there wasn’t time to cover everything. I had to get through this and get to Metis. So I skipped the part about the cycle, didn’t tell them that time was growing short again, that Prowler was due to start killing again.

While I spoke about Prowler, about the killings, O'Connor and Homer listened with extra attention. Homer especially. Stryker tapped his leg, bored and impatient. It was him, after all, who had originally provided me with much of the information I was retelling. As I spoke, he moved to a corner of the room, where he extracted a bottle of whiskey from a bag. He wasted no time in tipping no small volume of it down his throat. God, he drank it like I'd drink a coke.

I told them how I’d been blamed for the string of killings in Washington twenty years ago, and again when the killings were repeated there ten years later.

Stryker spoke up, ‘Those attacks, the first ones in Washington, they were a break in the pattern. He turned up in Scotland. We didn't know it at the time, but we're sure now it was him. Two ladies died there. He was interrupted and then he showed up in Washington a few months later. It's the only time the pattern's been changed. That's when he did those things, Lad, to your lady. To you really as well, cause you sure as hell ain't had no life since then.' His eyes were heavy as he said this, and he didn't look at me. He did throw a sidelong glance at O'Connor, but the other priest either didn't see it or chose not to.

‘Since then,’ I said, ‘I’ve been hunting for him. I’ve tracked every lead for twenty years. Every report of something strange, every whisper of a mysterious death.’

‘He’s been all over,’ Stryker agreed.

‘And that’s how I came to Metis.’

They all waited for me to continue. I said, ‘Metis is like you three.' I didn't need to point to Ardia, Homer, and Stryker. They all knew who I was referring to.

‘At the same time, she’s not like you. Metis isn’t strong. She’s actually quite frail. Maybe she’s more like the thing that was torturing me in Berlin.’

‘She uses her mind? Like the lizard thing? Prometheus?’ Ardia asked.

I nodded, slowly. I said, ‘Yes. She uses her mind. I met her in Africa. Went there to kill her, actually. Bad things were happening and I’d met enough strangeness by then to believe there was something really sinister happening. She is and isn’t like Prometheus. Prometheus took me over, yeah. But it took him time. I don’t know if he was working on me for hours or days, but he had to wriggle his way into my brain. Metis is faster. Scarily faster. She is so much stronger than what I felt in Berlin. She just owns you, in an instant.’

‘How could you deal with her then?’ Ardia asked, leaning forward.

‘It’s different with her. She’s got so much… power, ability… she can’t control it. And she doesn’t mean harm by it. Her thoughts leak out of her head and into everyone else’s. And everyone else’s thoughts leak into her head. I don’t know how she got to Africa, having a conversation with Metis is like talking to a TV with bad reception. She’s real scattered. But I figured out that what was happening there, the bad things, she didn’t mean them.’

‘What kind of bad things?’ Homer asked this time. They all wanted to ask, I could feel it.

I hesitated. I said, ‘Pretty bad things. People doing things to each other, to themselves. She didn’t mean any of it. There were too many voices. Too many people around. Her mind, it’s not her own, and the more people around, the less she can control it.’

‘She killed people?' Homer said. There wasn't any judgment there, not yet anyway. He just wanted me to be clear.

I nodded. I said, ‘I got her away from there. I took her someplace safe. Someplace where there are no people at all. And, once we got away from the people, she became half normal. Not all the way, no doubt about it, but close enough that you could kind of talk to her.’

Stryker had just finished pulling on the whiskey bottle again. It was already a third gone. He said, ‘And she gave you info, eh? Stuff the order doesn’t even know?’

‘Yes and no,’ I said. ‘I later corroborated some of it with a source I had within the Order. Not you, someone else. I was shocked by how much of it they already did know.’

‘More sources in the order? You really get it done, don’t you?’ said Stryker. He was impressed.

‘What did she tell you?' Homer and Ardia both spoke at once. Their impatience was palpable.

‘You really need to appreciate how hard it is to talk to her,’ I said. ‘Even when talking to just me, with no other minds around, she doesn’t really focus. Sometimes she seems to be answering a question, other times she seems to be saying something completely unrelated.’

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‘But you have clearly drawn some conclusions,’ said Ardia.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘There were some things she was clearly quite fixed on.’

Ardia didn’t prompt me again, but she wanted to. Homer seemed to base his silence on hers but, man, was his face hungry for knowledge.

‘Okay,' I said. I wasn't sure I told them anything even like a cohesive story, but I was in a hurry. I had to get to Metis after all. And I was thinking that maybe they could help me. ‘I said she was like you guys. But at the same time, she's not. What I mean is that she might have been made the same way…'

‘Made?’ said Ardia.

‘Made,’ I said. ‘By the Crucible.’

Stryker's attention had been regained. Ardia and Homer were as frustrated as they were interested. The other three remained impassive.

‘What's The Crucible?' Ardia asked, slowly.

I smiled, almost laughed, ‘I don’t know. That’s what you get from Metis. She knows all about it, I can tell that. But she doesn’t have the ability to get it all through to you.’

‘The Crucible is something, and that's really the best I can do, that made her. She told me that much. I don't what it is, or how it works. Whatever it is, though, it leaves a trace on things. Things that it's used to make. Kind of like a radioactive haze. And Metis, however she did it, gave me a kind of Geiger counter for that haze.'

‘Where is it?’ Stryker asked.

I tapped my head, ‘She did something to me. I can feel The Crucible. Feel its traces. It's how I've been trying to follow Prowler's trail the last years. The Crucible was used to make him as well…'

I stared hard at Ardia, then Homer. At last, my eyes rested on Stryker. I knew what I was going to say next might affect him most of all.

‘I can feel The Crucible on all three of you. In some way, it was used to make you. Stryker… it's stronger on you than on them. The smell of it. The feel of it…'

Stryker came closer to me. There was wonder and there was fear in his eyes. He said, ‘What else? Why the hesitation?’

I rubbed a hand against my face. It was difficult. Ardia and Homer were both rocked by what I had said. I had just told them that they had been made, and I could see the effect of my words. Stryker, he was rocked by this as well. But for him, there was another revelation, and I could see he felt it coming.

‘I thought there might have been a chance you knew.’

‘How the fuck would I know that I was made by anything? By some mumbo-fucking-jumbo?’

‘Because… Stryker, man… That’s one of the things I had corroborated by my source in the Order.’

He was silent. The whole room was silent. I couldn’t even hear breathing.

‘Are you sayin’ they know where I came from?’ his voice was icily cold. When a being as powerful as he is speaks like that, then you pick words with care.

I just nodded. It’s easier than picking words with care.

‘Werner… knows?’

I swallowed hard. I said, ‘He must know... to some extent.’

There was silence again. Stryker’s eyes darted around, looking at nothing. He took another massive swallow from his whiskey bottle.

Then, looking at the ground, and talking to nobody but himself, he said, ‘Werner… I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him!’

CHAPTER 77

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Two men sat together in an office near The Vatican City. The office was bare and utilitarian. The men sat at either side of a desk. In the center of the desk was a laptop computer. One of the men held a pair of headphones pressed to his head. The other man simply sat and listened to the audio projecting from the speakers.

The man with the headphones was named Ralph. He was of American birth, had served with the Marines. After a dishonorable discharge from the armed services, Ralph had served in many private armies the world over. He was a specialist in surveillance. He had also, for much of his life, been a specialist at doing a lot of very bad things. Like many of the men in this building, Ralph had come to a point in his life when he had realized that he couldn't keep doing the things he was doing. So he had gone looking for something, for redemption. What he had found was The Secret Order of Saint Jean Chastel. It had been close enough.

The man on the other side of the desk was Cardinal Werner.

The speaker on the laptop emitted words that were a little clipped by electronic interference, but fully recognizable just the same.

The voice on the computer said, ‘Werner… I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.’

Werner nodded slowly, thoughtfully. He said, ‘So, he’s coming…’

Ralph glanced at his superior and said, ‘If he starts moving this way then I’m not going to be able to get a lot of audio out of him. The chip in his phone needs to be connected to one cell tower for a few minutes before it can start transmitting correctly and, even if they’re driving, it won’t settle on one tower for very long.’

Werner waved this off with a dismissive gesture. He said, ‘Will you still be able to track his movements?’

Ralph nodded, ‘With reasonable accuracy, Your Eminence.’

‘Good. That’s more important.’

Ralph started to get up from the table but Werner indicated that he should remain sitting. Ralph said, ‘Shouldn’t I get some brothers together to head him off?’

Werner shook his head, ‘Let him come. He’s angry and we clearly need to talk. I don’t think he’s really coming to kill me. Stryker’s first solution to everything is violence. Let him come, he’ll cool off on the way. And yes, if he doesn’t, then we shall have quite a few brothers here to fend him off. It is important to try and control the situation. Trying to cut him off when his temper is up would be very dangerous.’

CHAPTER 78

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Dawn approached the huddle of ruined structures with merciless honesty. As the sky slowly shifted from blue-blackness to a kind of cold and lifeless gray, the tortured trees and despairing buildings began to return fully to the world.

The group stood outside their recent hiding place in clusters. Homer stood with O’Connor, Ardia with Razmik, while Stryker and Abraham huddled with Slayer.

Ardia looked around at the brightening ghost world. She said, ‘You never did explain to me what this place was.’

Razmik shrugged. He was rolling a cigarette (provided, naturally, by Abraham) between his forefinger and thumb, musing on something. Absently, he said, ‘It was an airport, built by the Nazis. I'm not sure it was ever used for anything. Not even sure it was even finished. Abandoned at the end of the war.'

Ardia could not suppress another shiver. She said, ‘It feels like it was used for something. Not something pleasant. How the hell did you come to own a piece of it.’

He smiled sheepishly, ‘Property speculation.’

Ardia cocked her head. She said, ‘Property speculation? You mean, like, real estate investing.’

Razmik made an exceptionally deep shrug, drawing his shoulders up to touch his ears. He said, ‘A stable business is a diverse business.’

Ardia nodded, very slowly. She said, ‘And how has the investment paid off?’

Razmik was even more sheepish now, she could sense his embarrassment. ‘It would seem that I am much better at investing my money illicitly. I am yet to see any noticeable increase in value here.’

‘Hence the safe room?'

‘I must get something out of my investment. It served us well. As long as we're traveling with our new friend, we are going to need privacy.'

‘Less now, though. Right?’

Razmik looked over to where Homer was deep in conversation with Father O’Connor. Razmik said, ‘He is a lot less conspicuous since he got his Ardia’s Salon treatment. If he could just learn to behave and move less self-consciously… Well, I’d venture you could take him just about anywhere. Quite a surprise, how much like a man he looks now.’

‘Yes,' Ardia said, distantly.

Razmik said, ‘I'm going to arrange travel documents for him. Some kind of ID. I don't know if we'll ever get to use them. I'm not sure he'd pass close scrutiny, the likes you'd get at an airport, but it can't hurt.'

‘And how are we traveling to our next world destination?' She asked with a smile.

‘Cargo plane. The area that Slayer described has some activity related to what we do. Abraham has reached out and found a little airport. It’s not mine, but it belongs to a close associate.’

Ardia said, ‘I really wouldn’t mind flying first-class again sometime. Or staying in a hotel.’

Razmik reached into his jacket and produced a lighter. He said, ‘I don't know about flying first-class, but bringing our large friend to a hotel would probably no longer be impossible. That's another thing that needs to be arranged, though. Clothes.'

‘Yeah. Stryker did well, but there is a little sense of hand-made chic about that coat. And those shoes!’

Razmik lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then spoke as he exhaled. The slowly expanding wave of smoke glowed in the spreading light. He said, ‘I'll get my tailor some measurements. I'm not sure he'll be able to resist asking some questions about them. In the meantime, I think it's time we left.'

O’Connor and Homer stood a little way off, standing close together, speaking privately.

‘Not sure how much I like this,' said O'Connor. He too had rolled a cigarette of his own and was half puffing, half meditatively chewing on it.

Homer said, ‘It will be fine.’

‘Eh. It was one thing to leave you when I went to Rome. You were bound to the hideout in Prague then. Now? Jesus, Homer. We’ll be half the world apart.’

‘Father, Africa and Italy are not half the world apart.’

‘Oh, stop it with the geography!’ O’Connor waved a hand in a gesture of frustration. ‘You’re going to be chasing some kind of psychic around the back-roads of Chad while I’m sitting on a train. I’m fairly fucking nervous about it.’

Homer rested a massive hand on the other’s shoulder. He said, ‘I will be fine, Father.’

O'Connor prodded Homer's chest with a hardened finger. He said, ‘You listen to Razmik. And you listen to Ardia. They'll know how to carry on. Leave your bullheadedness here and, for Christ's sake, be careful. We'll try and join you as soon we're finished in Rome.'

Homer leaned forward, bringing his eyes closer to O’Connor’s. He said, ‘You be careful too. I don’t know what a Cardinal is, but I feel like it might be hard to kill.’

O'Connor dismissed this. He said, ‘Oh, we're probably not going to kill him. Werner goes back a long way with both of us. Stryker, and me, neither of us would have entered the priesthood, or the Order, without him. Stryker will cool off. We might shake him up a little, and we'd definitely like to squeeze some more information out of him, but I don't think it's gotten so bad that we're really going to hurt him. Stryker will cool off.' O'Connor looked only partly certain of this.

‘That’s why you’re bringing your rifle with you?’

‘And traveling by train… We'll call all of that an insurance policy.'

There was the bloom of light as Razmik pulled the van around from behind the building. He leaned out of the window and called, ‘Abe, Homer, Damien. If we’re going, then it’s time to go.’

Ardia opened the passenger door of the van, and before entering, she said, ‘Come on, Homer. Let’s go.’

Homer turned to join them but O’Connor caught his arm. He held Homer’s gaze for just one moment longer. ‘Just be careful. And be fucking heedful.’

Stryker and O'Connor stood shoulder to shoulder as they watched the red taillights of the van move away from them. The spindly branches of the trees seemed to close around those lights as they moved away.

Stryker said, ‘You’re aware he’s not a baby.’

O’Connor sighed. ‘He doesn’t know the world. Not a bit.’

‘Ah, he knows it a bit, Con. And how the hell else is he gonna come to know it if you keep him all tied up in your apron strings.’

O'Connor gave him a small dig with his elbow. It was every bit like giving the brick wall behind them a shove with his elbow. He said, ‘I can't fully believe how easily he went off on his own. He was so nervous to leave the jungle, you know. Now he just takes off for Africa like he was going to the shop.'

Stryker looked down to the other man, incredulity painted on his face. ‘He’s not on his own, Con. He’s got Raz and he’s got Ardia. He’s tight with both of them, that’s plain as day.’

O’Connor kept staring into the mesh of branches, the lights of the van now completely lost to the distance that had expanded between them. He said, ‘Especially her. I would never have thought, not in a million years, that he could take to someone other than me.’

‘Don’t take a lot to take to a creature like Ardia though, does it?’ There was an unmistakable look on Stryker’s face as he said this.

O'Connor's head snapped to look at Stryker's. He searched his friend's face for a moment. Then he turned his gaze back to where he felt Homer and the others must be. He said, ‘No. I suppose it doesn't.'