Episode 6 #5
“I see. Thank you for the information.”
“The individuals responsible have been chastised. All contractors have been stood down. But they are asking for your presence in South Korea. The wife of the murdered client wishes to speak to you herself.”
“Is she the one who put out the hit?”
Bai said nothing.
Sevastyan sighed softly. “Is this an order, Director?”
“Not an order. Yet. Something that is being negotiated.”
“I see. Thank you for the information.”
Bai hung up. Sevastyan stood in the kitchen and stared at the wall. Sometimes, just sometimes, he wished that he had more power. Obviously the trail of bodies he’d left in South Korea the first time had missed a few imbeciles. And potentially grief-stricken wives with the power to drive others mad.
Sevastyan
Sevastyan shook hands with the potential client and mentally counted in his head for the appropriate amount of time before letting go.
The man had been a pontificating bore, knew nothing of art, and had obviously only come to the meeting at this upscale bar to acquire a veneer of culture over his uncultured ass.
Raska had more appreciation for the arts, and she looked at price tags more than any artistic aspect of a piece.
There were only so many half-believable compliments Sevastyan could conjure in one evening for someone who inspired none.
There was no chance he was going to sell some artist’s heartfelt creation to the oaf.
Fortunately, there was plenty of soulless art to sell to the tasteless and self-obsessed.
They preferred that kind of art anyway; it left room for their egos.
Snow swirled outside. Sevastyan buttoned his coat up, wrapped his scarf around the bottom of his face, and pulled on his gloves as he stepped through the outer doors to the street.
Two blocks down was an entrance to the Pedway.
That would take him close to his temporary home with Rei and Lisa.
It would be another long evening working on the plan beside Rei with Lisa relegated to the bedroom and waiting for Ellisandre to call.
Linda Reevesworth had been in the news lately, and with the threat to Jun, he could reason out why his goddex hadn’t chosen to bring him to his knees in the last few days.
But this evening was quieter. Perhaps it would be tonight.
Part of him wanted to run, and the rest of him longed for the cage that would take all choice from him.
The wind bit into his eyes as he made for the door of the building with an entrance to the Pedway.
He pushed it open, embracing the relative warmth inside.
Elevator music played somewhere above. He moved through the atrium of the massive building and towards the stairs that would lead to the network of walkways beneath the city streets.
There was almost no one around; most of the people were ahead of him by forty feet, moving in a pack.
He checked his phone as he left the staircase.
Nothing. The sun was down, but it was not yet six o’clock.
Something as tall as his body struck him from behind, catching his head, shoulder, hip, and heel.
He stumbled towards the wall, his vision blurred into white static.
Someone had opened a door onto him. Hands grabbed him.
He struck out, falling forward into a space with a different temperature.
Something sharp struck his shoulder, a deep pinprick.
He swirled, his fist catching a jaw. Someone shouted. A door slammed. All light disappeared.
“Just give it a moment, he’ll be down soon.” Whoever had attacked him was speaking English with a Spanish accent.
Sevastyan swayed, blinking. He still had his phone in his hand, but the case was cracked under his fingers.
Glass shards pierced his glove. No one was moving but he could hear them breathing.
At least three of them. If they had drugged him, he needed to move now. Waiting only played into their hands.
He pulled his gun and fired towards the last speaker.
A man screamed, lights turned on, and there was a blur of moving bodies towards him.
He slammed his elbow into the man closest and shot straight at his attacker coming forward.
Something hot burned across his ribs. Arms wrapped around him from behind.
A knee slammed into his kidney. He dropped to one knee, reached behind grabbing the man choking him, and ducked down, throwing the man over his shoulder.
The arms around his neck flew apart as the man hit the floor.
Sevastyan slammed his knee into the man’s face.
A gun fired near his head. He rolled across the man he’d just stunned and kicked out, hitting the gunman. Wherever they were, there were pipes and tracks in the floor. It was dirty, damp, and full of valves and gauges. Sevastyan tripped over a panel of them.
The man he’d just kicked screamed and tried to bring the gun to bear.
Sevastyan threw himself on him, wrestling for the weapon.
He slammed his forehead into the man’s nose.
It broke with a crunch and a spray of blood.
Sevastyan got his hand on the gun. The trigger guard was too small for a gloved finger to fit through.
He bludgeoned the man with the weapon instead.
And then snapped his neck.
The drug was starting to work its way through his system, a sickeningly familiar sensation. There were seconds, maybe minutes of consciousness left to him. He crawled over to the man he’d flung over his head. The goon was still alive. Sevastyan cracked his neck as well.
The third man was sitting against the wall. He’d taken a bullet to the chest, his dark coat even darker across his front. The eyes were vacant and frozen, staring at the afterlife.
A syringe lay on the floor. Sevastyan picked it up, swaying with the effort of being on his feet. He laughed when he read the name.
Fuck them. Fuck them all. He was familiar with this one.
He checked his phone. It was dead. He felt for his backup phone. His fingers weren’t working properly anymore. He needed to leave, to be somewhere else before the police arrived. He found his second phone.
No service. Tunnels did that. But at least the camera worked. He checked his face. Drugged, that’s what he looked like. But at least he could wipe away most of the blood with the black sleeve of his coat and wrap his visage with his scarf. It was enough.
On the other side of the door through which he’d been abducted people continued moving up and down the Pedway. He kept his head down, rejoining them. His feet were heavy. He needed somewhere to hide. And he needed to lose the clothes he was wearing.
Before he passed out. Seconds. There were only had seconds left.
Up ahead was a clothing shop. The service employee was at the register, helping a customer.
Just hold your head steady, square you shoulders.
The words looped in his head. No one stopped him between the front of the store and the back but his vision was starting to dim.
Any minute now and he was going to be down for the count.
There was a door labeled ‘employees only’.
He swiped a display of bags, making a few of them fall as he pushed the door open, hiding the noise, and stumbled through.
The other side was a mess of boxes, old packing materials, and what smelled like a slightly burned meal.
There were only seconds left now, maybe less.
Sevastyan pushed into the mess, folding himself down behind a pile of cardboard.
It enveloped him. From above, a pile of crumpled up brown packing paper destabilized and dropped, covering his face.
Time was out. His body was heavy as lead and his extremities were tingling in a god-awful familiar way.
Fuck you, Raska. Nightmare-haunted oblivion engulfed him. At least because of her, he knew he was going to wake up. Eventually.
Rei
Rei sat curled up in the corner of the couch, the video feeds playing on the large TVs.
Some time ago, Ellisandre Sollunae, Collin’s sister Alice, and Dana the little girl had gone into Richard’ Reevesworth’s condo just a few floors above carrying bags of fabric.
That had been the most exciting thing on the camera for hours.
Whether Jun was in the condo or not, Rei didn’t know.
His focus had been mostly on his research, not replaying the tapes from the evening before and early that morning.
With Lisa up and doing chores, Rei was free to focus on mapping out answers for one of the branch of questions he and Sevastyan had slated to investigate further.
It felt important. Meaningful. The best work he’d had to dig his hands and mind into since he’d moved the database away from Anton and nursed Lisa back to health.
He’d gone through the morning without pause until Lisa had brought him lunch and convinced him to get up for a few minutes and drink water.
Looking around had been a shock. Left to his own devices, Lisa was a house-tending demi-god.
The bathroom was spotless and the towels were folded in artistic designs over the racks.
The bed was made with fresh sheets, and the carpets were all vacuumed in straight lines that made Rei want to not walk on them.
Lisa had served a warm lunch of toasted sandwiches and fresh salad, even though Sevastyan had been out.
“You didn’t have to,” Rei had said.
“Bored.” Lisa shrugged, but when Rei chanced a look up from his food, Lisa was half smiling to himself.