Chapter 31 - Azrael
Azrael
I called Havoc on my way out of the city towards the woods.
“Ghost,”
“Havoc,” I said in return.
“What do you need?”
It’s what I appreciated the most about him, about all the Blackheart brothers. They didn’t ask unnecessary questions or linger on business. They didn’t care. All they wanted was to do whatever job I might have for them and get back to their own work, whatever that may be these days.
“I need you to pick up my bike from the church and take it to your shop. Give it the Special. Secondly, I need all three of you for a little project I have in mind.”
“Wracking it up, are we?” he hummed.
I smiled. “You have my personal phone number.” The only three people in the world that did.
I had a family phone, a personal phone, and then the phones I recycled through every few days.
Sometimes, I called members of my sacred family from different phones just to keep them on their toes, other times I shut the family phone off just to get some peace and quiet.
Both of those phones were highly modified.
Unable to be traced, able to access any server in the world, any camera, and there were absolutely no restrictions on it.
The people of this world had no idea what they didn’t know.
Not even a little bit. What their government keeps from them, what the leaders of this world tell certain people just to cause painful rhetoric to divide them in the cruelest of ways.
I could see through it all. The power I had?
It could probably end all wars. End every argument of good and evil.
The people didn’t even realize that all of these politics they were a part of, titling themselves this or that, it was all a way of controlling them.
Controlling the narrative while the people who created the sides were off having grand dinners, laughing and mocking the people while they ate rhinos for dinner and drank million-dollar wine together.
I suppose I did have to hand it to them, I could only dream of having that much control one day.
Perhaps Alaric and I could run this country.
I did love controlling narratives, and he was absolutely terrifying in his silence, but the politics?
I couldn’t say that I disliked them, in fact, I was very interested in politics.
The politics of organized religion, government, society.
I simply didn’t like how it was handled.
‘Politics’ was the pen in the hand of whomever had their own sentience, and suddenly, everyone was a writer.
People pretended that politics were about ideals, but it’s actually much simpler than that.
It’s about who owes whom, who keeps secrets and who uses them.
It’s about whispering the right name in the right ear at the right time, or in this case the right name to the right media outlet, and the entire world shifts.
It’s about money, favors, loyalty, and fear, all of which I have.
Those are the currencies to play the game.
The people who are learning about which alliances are skin-deep and which are made of bones.
Being ruthless with illusions is also part of it.
Charm and strategy gets you in the door, but the ability to make magic is what keeps a person there.
Our father dearest tried to play the role of powerful politician, but he had failed in so many ways.
While building relationships, he forgot the most important part; sometimes being silent was all the power you needed.
Let the people spread their rhetoric like crazy while you sit back and watch them implode over a little whisper you ‘leaked’ on the internet.
Eventually, you’d step back in, be the hero who saves the day, earning votes, earning favor, and so on.
The problem was, he didn’t like any version of him that was weak, so his Initiates, the people who he ‘ruled over’ could never see him as wrong.
In that, he didn’t realize that it wasn’t always about being right, but more about being effective.
Sometimes making calculated mistakes was exactly what you needed in order to propel yourself forward.
What he didn’t realize in his hunt for power was that power didn’t always look the way most thought it did.
But control did, which was why this was a game I loved to play. As was everything else, politics was my strong-suit, which would aid in our next steps forward as a family.
If we remained a family long enough to succeed.
“I do. What’s the favor?”
I flexed my hands, pulling myself out of my own thoughts. I did like to live there but I couldn’t let the tangents keep me from completing my mission. “I need a house. Created by the hands of you and your brothers.”
He was quiet a moment. “Location?”
“I’ll send you the coordinates.”
“We’ll have to bring people in.”
“I trust you will do what’s right.” They would either bring in very trusted individuals or they would bring in who they could and kill them upon completion. It’s the only way this would work. I couldn’t have anyone questionable knowing where this was located.
“Any specifications?”
I pulled into the lot in front of the building. “Hell.”
“Got it.”
I hung up as I parked in the cub’s designated parking spot. I headed inside, not many things going through my mind.
If father dearest knew about my assignment, then I would react accordingly. If this was just a meeting due to his incessant need to have meetings, then good. There was no point in reacting just yet.
I walked right through the front doors and down a corridor, the sounds of bustling people slowly drifting down the halls.
Luckily for me, I always wore my mask, but why were there people here in March?
I knew where they should have been at in their training.
None of them should have been making a sound for fear of being maimed or killed.
I stepped into the make-shift cafeteria, finding a group of around 80. Men and women alike, some younger, some maybe as old as 40. I wondered if they had kids that would miss them once they oh so tragically passed away from the program.
“There he is,” I heard someone whisper. “The one who never takes off his mask. The Ghost they call him.”
Yes, it is I.
“I’ve heard he’s killed over 1,000 Initiates.”
Some Initiates, some grunts. What were they doing here? Had father dearest truly changed the program that much?
“I’ve heard it’s way more than that.”
“No way.”
“Yes. I’ve heard that he’s the one who came up from Hell itself. The actual Devil.”
“The Devil’s ghost,” another said.
“I’ve heard he uses that cane to slam the hearts out the spines of those who cross him.”
It was strong enough to do so, but it would greatly impact the integrity of the wood. This cane was meant to last as long as I was. Having it crack was a fate worse than death.
I pushed through the door at the other end and headed down the hall to the open door. “You called?”
The crime lord was sitting at his desk, going over paperwork diligently. “Yes, come in.”
I took a seat, leaning back in the chair, watching as he shuffled around important paperwork aimlessly.
I wasn’t sure what the others saw when he did this, but what I saw was someone who was trying to look busier than he was. “Is business slow, dearest father?”
I couldn’t help but wonder why.
“Do you remember when we sent Clarke to become the assistant of the Superior Court Judge?”
How many years ago was that now? Why was it still an issue? Why not just kill him and replace him with an Initiate?
Oh, that’s right, because the mountain boy had yet to open his little school.
Even if he opened it this coming year, we would still be dealing with these mishaps for the next few years.
It wasn’t optimal, the fact that the next half a decade would be spent trying to readjust and plant our little seeds—which was part of the reason I was planting seeds of my own—it was better than never having the idea to begin with.
“I recall it,” I answered evenly.
“Well, Clarke has relayed to us that the Judge is working with an important client. A man by the name of Thomas Masters.”
I felt a smile cut across my face. “Is that so?” I asked, angling my chin. “And who, might I ask, is that?”
Malachi picked up a file and held it out to me. “Son of a well-loved Pastor in the Seatle area. Garrett Masters, he runs a church, the, uh…” He glanced at the tab on the file just as I reached for it. “Church of Daylight.”
I took the file from him and flicked it open, finding not much information on the two. “Why?” Dear little Thomas, why are you seeking a Judge? One who works on cases far above yours. Why have you not gone to an attorney first? So many steps you skipped.
He must have been using the church’s money, which was against the rules. Would he get punished? I had my doubts. His father might take pity on him due to my recent actions, but who’s to say?
“He’s petitioning the court to open up a non-profit in one of the poorer neighborhoods in Seattle. Something to help the community.”
Why does he need a Superior Court Judge for that?
I lifted the top paper, reading over the documents, my eyes narrowing.
“They’re family friends,” I said to myself.
How was that possible? I did my research, I fell down every rabbit hole there was to fall down when it came to this church, to every single person there.
I had cabinets filled with paperwork on each and every member, new and old.
There was no record of Judge Manuel Ruiz having ever attended this church.
But I shouldn’t have been surprised. When rain comes, which it often does in this over-populated city, it poured, bringing with it, from time to time, hail.
I shut the file. “And you wish for me to handle this assignment?” I asked carefully. I would have stolen it from the others anyway. So, it didn’t truly matter what he had to say about it.
“Yes. Can you find time in your busy schedule to deal with it?”
I nodded, ignoring his bite of irritation, and stood. “Of course, dearest father. That’s what we were created for, is it not? To handle the things you don’t wish to dirty your hands with.”
His eyes hardened. “I’m busy with things you have no business knowing about.”
My smile sharpened. “Of course.” Soon we would. We would know every piece of ‘business’ he decided to hide from us for no other reason than control, and I so hated when others had more control than I. “Would you like a percentage of success for those grunts you have sitting in our cafeteria?”
“No.”
“Less than 10,” I said anyway and turned to find Beckett standing in the doorway.
He looked less than pleased to be here. “Uncle,” I greeted.
“You parked in Greyson’s spot.”
“Oops,” I hummed on my way into the hall. “It’s not like they’re labeled. Must have just slipped my mind.”
He shook his head. “Goodbye, Azrael.”
“Toodaloo,” I sang and headed back down the hall. I pulled out my personal phone and brought up the cameras in Scarlett’s home. I was curious to know how she would react knowing that she would have no visitors tonight.
She was in that dress and her boots, her hair falling around her shoulders, still damp from the shower she had just taken.
She was spinning around the room, dancing, some might have thought.
Her hair and that dress were spinning around with her, her hair whipping her in her face every time she stopped suddenly.
She spun around, hopping across her small living room and then stopped, the hair slapping her in the face. She was breathless, and went to pull the hair from her face, pushing it back, and that’s when I saw it.
Her smile.
My heart suddenly had a palpitation, my lips parting, eyes trained on that smile. Wide and unencumbered. There was no audio, but I knew she was laughing, her eyes filled with light, shifting her entire face into something I hardly recognized.
Heaven.
It was real.