Pawn (15 page)

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Chapter Fifteen.

“Are you alright?” The man’s voice came from just behind him, but Rufus didn’t turn around. Whoever he was it couldn’t be as important as what was in front of him. Or rather what wasn’t. Di’s home.

He wanted to see her. He needed to see her. After the passion of the previous night he desperately needed to see her. But she hadn’t been there when he’d awoken. Just a flower on the pillow where she’d been. And he didn’t know what that meant. That she was happy with what had been? That she was upset? That he’d see her again? That she’d gone for good? And he still didn’t understand any of it himself. So he’d dressed hurriedly and rushed over to her home. But it wasn’t there.

How could that be?

“It was right here.” And it had been. The house, Di’s house. A pretty as a picture cottage surrounded by manicured lawns and beds of roses. It had been right there on the section next to Kirby’s but all of a sudden it simply wasn’t. The section was vacant, covered in tussock grass and weeds where only the day before there had been a lovely beach house with the most well tended gardens and a pleasant view. How could that be? How could a house vanish? Or was it just another example of his madness? First getting shot and then miraculously cured. Then a night of exquisite passion to wake up to an empty bed. And now an empty section.

“What was?”

“The house, the house.” He threw up his hands in horror trying to explain the inexplicable as he stared at the scrub covered land.

“I don’t think there’s been a house there in a very long time.” The man was right of course. It took years for grasses and weeds like that to grow. Just simply removing the house, picking it up and putting it on a truck, wouldn’t have explained what he was staring at. But nothing else would either. Except maybe madness.

“I know, but there was.”

“Maybe another house in another road?” It was the only reasonable explanation, except that it also wasn’t possible. She was his next-door neighbour for goodness sake. How many roads could you cross or corners could you turn just walking next door?

“No.” It was a logical answer but it was wrong. The house had been there. It just wasn’t any more.

“Yes.” The man seemed strangely insistent, something that got through to Rufus even in his confusion. He turned around to ask why, when he abruptly recognised the big dark skinned man who had saved his hide in the restaurant.

“Polemos? What are you doing here?” That could not be a coincidence. Di vanished along with her house, and one of her friends or family or whatever they were, suddenly turned up. There could be no coincidence in that at all.

“Moirae asked me to see you.” As explanations went it probably made perfect sense, except that he had no idea who Moirae was or why she would want Polemos to see him. But maybe she knew something about Di.

“Moirae?”

“She said you needed training.” Typically Polemos ignored his question and went straight to what he thought mattered. It was beginning to look like a habit of Di and her friends and family. A somewhat annoying one. Even her house mate, Eumonia, a pleasant well meaning woman with a fondness for a tidy house, practiced the unusual art of inscrutability. Still if the big man knew something of where Di was, he had to play along.

“Training?”

“Combat. Hand to hand mostly. Wrestling of course, some boxing, a little judo and mostly physical fitness.”

“Ah huh.” For the longest time Rufus just stood there staring at the big man, wondering if he was hearing things. It wouldn’t be unexpected since it appeared he’d been seeing things for some time, like next-door neighbour’s houses that apparently didn’t exist. It took him a while to think of something to say, anything really, and when he did, it sounded bad, even to him.

“I’m not a fighter.”

“No.” Polemos smiled at him like a cat about to pounce. “You’re not a trained fighter. But you have the spirit in you. You showed that when you tackled Plutos the other night. You have two of the most important traits of a fighter. You fight with your heart, and you have a head. Goading him like that was a joy to see. But you need two more things to become the fighter you were born to be. You need training to know how to use your weapons, and fitness for speed and strength so that you can deliver your blows.”

“Uh huh.” Rufus had no idea what to say. It was madness. Craziness on what was already turning out to be a truly insane day. So he stuck to his simple questions.

“Why?”

“Because you love Di.” The big man smiled at him some more, but this time it was just an easy going, good-natured grin that somehow managed to break through even Rufus’ confusion. He did know something.

“And?”

“You love her and you want to be with her. This you must do for that to be.” His tone was flat his words final, a statement of fact that would not be questioned. But Rufus had questions anyway.

“But -.”

“Come. We need to get started.” Without another word he spun on his heels and walked over to his car. A battered old, open topped four wheel drive of some sort that had clearly seen better days, and despite it being the last thing he wanted to do, Rufus followed. He knew it wasn’t a choice. Not if he wanted to see Di. That wasn’t a choice either.

The four wheel drive roared into life when Polemos turned the key, surprising him a little as he’d expected it to take a while given its age and rough life, and they sprinted off in a screech of tires and diesel. Rufus hadn’t even put on his seatbelt, and as the road disappeared behind them far too quickly, he reached for it, only to find that he shouldn’t have bothered. There were none.

No air bags, no seatbelts, and a driver who insisted on ignoring all the speeding laws in a vehicle that couldn’t possibly be street legal. That didn’t strike him as a wise course of action, but at least he couldn’t be flung through the windscreen. It didn’t have one. He knew though, that Polemos wouldn’t have welcomed him asking him to slow down, even if he could had made himself heard over the thunder of the engine and the rush of the wind. So instead Rufus settled for hanging on tightly to the door handle, which was thankfully quite solid and looking out what should have been a windscreen, trying to anticipate any sudden stops coming up.

Luckily it was a short drive. A few miles, a few corners and they were there. The only problem was that Rufus had no idea where they were or how they’d got there. They’d been heading towards town he thought, and then they’d turned and started heading for the country. After that the hills.

The only problem was that he didn’t recognise the countryside or in fact any of the hills, and there weren’t any that close to his house. Not like these ones anyway. Not with jagged peaks and rocky cliff faces in the distance. Nearer to them were fields full of ploughed dirt and what looked like olive trees, and he didn’t recognise them either. It wasn’t the right climate for growing olives. The sun though disagreed with him as it beat down on his head. And that was another problem since it had been overcast when he’d got in the truck only a couple of minutes before.

And then there was the hall. Out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by grasslands and olive groves, it stood like a monolith, all alone and far too large. Larger even than that. He’d expected a gym, or a town hall or a church hall maybe, instead what he was looking at was something ten times the size. Something so large that it needed solid stone columns, fluted columns mind, to support its roof. And then there were the war engines. Giant arrow flinging devices positioned perfectly at the corners of the walls. Was he expecting a war? Ancient Roman soldiers marching over the hills? And how could all this be barely a couple of minutes drive from town and he knew nothing about it?

They came to a screeching halt in front of it, the four wheel drive’s tires sending gravel flying in all directions, and Rufus had to grab hold of the dash desperately to stop himself from being flung out over the bonnet. Before he could say a word about the rough ride though, the engine was off and Polemos was out of the vehicle and walking towards the huge oak doors leading in to the hall. They were already open, waiting for them.

Rufus had to scramble out of the truck and then hurry to catch up.

“Good God!” Entering the hall Rufus found himself shocked all over again. It was as nothing he had ever seen.

The hall was a hall of course, the same as many others though so very much larger. And even the stone columns supporting the massive timber trusses that in turn held up the roof, he could understand. Sort of. But the walls. Dark timber walls with open slatted shutters and no glass high above their heads. Who had a building with no proper windows? Would the council even give permission to build such a structure? Still strange as that was, there was stranger.

The walls were covered in primitive weapons. Swords and shields, spears and bows, armour and whips, and a lot more that he didn’t recognise. That seemed too much. There were simply too many of them. They covered every inch of the walls from floor to the towering ceiling at least thirty feet above his head and completely surrounded them. Many of them looked disturbingly serviceable.

Then there were the torches. What was wrong with a light bulb? Or a few hundred fluorescent tubes? But there were none, and instead the entire place was filled with flaming torches standing on their own wooden plinths. Why? Who lit them? In a hall made largely of wood, open flames had to be a disaster in the making. But the firelight they gave off leant a strange, primitive atmosphere to the place. And strangely it reminded him of the restaurant Di had brought him to.

Who were these people? Fans of primitive cultures trying desperately to bring them back to life? Or -? There was no or.

The thing that most caught his eye however, was the arena in the middle of the hall. A huge circle of sand somehow cut into the wooden floor. He knew it was an arena. What else could it be? And Polemos had said he was to be taught to fight. But what sort of hall or gym has a huge sand filled arena in its middle?

He turned to Polemos, finally determined to ask him a question or two, only to see him smile like a banshee and throw his arms out wide in welcome, looking for all the world like an opera star in full cry.

“Welcome to the Palaestra.”

“Oh crap!” It was then that Rufus knew that not only was he not going to have his questions answered, he probably wasn’t even going to be able to ask them in the first place. Not when the man was already throwing him a towel.

Life had just become strange again.

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Chapter Sixteen.

It was just a normal, quiet supermarket in a nowhere suburb, which was why the family went shopping there that day. They needed supplies, even if they were being hunted. People had to eat. And how would anyone know that they were there? The warehouse might not be well equipped for living in, especially not for four or now three people staying there permanently for weeks on end, but no one knew about it. It was a bolthole as well as a place where they could store their goods for sale. But they’d never expected to have to hide up there for so long. They’d never had to hide before at all.

And it was all Rufus’s fault. The little bastard had shown up in the middle of the road that day, and a perfect score had become an ongoing disaster from that moment on. Why couldn’t he just die! But no, he refused to die, and now he’d even managed to destroy his older brother. Breaking his hands and his mind. Aidan hated him for that. He had been a bad child, always crying and complaining, running away, never grateful for what he was given. And now he was back, worse than ever, stuffing everything up. Daryl was right to kill him. He had been right the first time. But then even that had somehow gone wrong. Badly wrong.

Though none of them could visit him, with liberal handouts of money they could get access to the doctor’s notes, and more importantly the recordings of the interviews. Bribery was a valuable tool to a thief. What they saw in them though, was a nightmare. Daryl was broken, his mind fractured. Destroyed in a way that couldn’t be fixed.

His eldest, his strongest. The one he was proud of. A babbling, broken wretch with eyes that told of immense suffering and fear.

Rufus, if he still lived, was going to pay for that. He would suffer as no one had ever suffered before, before he died. But first they had to survive what was turning into a war. Then they could hunt him down and kill him.

Maybe they should kill Venner as well. This whole mess had started with him asking them to steal his painting. A simple job, straight forwards and with no chance of getting caught. But no one had mentioned the chance of being hunted by crazed assassins or pitched gun battles. Venner had been useful to them over the years. He’d brought them plenty of work and lots of cash. But still, everything had to end sooner or later.

As soon as they got out of this mess. And they would get out of it. That was part of being who they were. They were survivors. And when need be they were good at staying out of sight.

The family had gone to great lengths to stay hidden, and to make sure that even if someone had found their hideout, that they couldn’t follow them. Years of practice working for her old employers had made Serina especially good at spotting tails. There weren’t any. Not from when they left the hideout to when they arrived in the market. Which was why it came as a huge shock when the massive man with the hand cannon abruptly stepped around the corner of an aisle, directly in front of them.

Shock wasn’t enough to hold them back though, and Serina quickly had a knife in the man’s throat before he could raise the gun to shoot. She was good with her knives, favouring them for the lethal but silent little weapons they were. The gun went off though as he clutched at his throat, and the bullet, ricocheted off the floor and into Aidan’s leg, causing him to yell out in pain and collapse.

After that things became a little crazy. Even as he was falling Aidan heard the sound of more gunfire coming from behind them, and when he hit the floor and managed to turn around a little, it was to see another mountain of a man standing at the far end of the aisle, screaming his head off and shooting at them. He wasn’t a very good shot though. His bullets had torn through several other shoppers between him and them, and bodies were down on the floor, bloody and broken, women and children were screaming and running blindly, and groceries from the shelves were strewn everywhere. But that worked to his own advantage, and still on the floor Aidan drew his gun from behind the shelter of an overturned shopping trolley, and started firing back.

He hit a few women, how could he not when they were trapped between them, running blindly in all directions like headless chickens, screaming, and walking straight into his line of fire, but he also managed to put a few good big holes in the centre of the large man’s chest. That was good. The bad was that even though he knocked him down, the man quickly started getting back up. He was probably wearing a vest. The worst though was that another man had come out of nowhere with a pair of long stiletto like blades in his hands, and was busy trying to carve Serina up into little pieces. She was holding her own of course, with just the normal flick knife she usually carried, but both of them were getting sliced and blood was pouring everywhere from the cuts.

Tracey meanwhile was down like him, clutching at her leg, and trying to draw her own gun. But it was trapped in the holster and she couldn’t seem to free it.

Aidan aimed the gun at the new guy and managed to squeeze off a shot. But the bullet missed him. The two of them were dancing around so quickly it was hard to get a fix on him. Still he took a few more shots at him, emptying the magazine in his general direction, and some of them he thought at least grazed him. And when he tired, and everyone did sooner or later, he would slow and that would be his undoing. It was only a matter of time.

While he was loading the next clip though, things took a turn for the worse as the entire aisle exploded all around him sending flames and debris everywhere, and even though he was still lying on the ground, picking him up and knocking him backwards through the shelves and blinding him.

Aidan landed in a heap of twisted metal and scattered debris that had once been groceries, hurting from more than just his leg. Something had happened to his shoulder as well. But none of that mattered. It took him a second or two as he lay among the groceries to realise that it was a bomb. Someone had actually tossed a bomb of some sort at them. A concussion grenade maybe, though if it was it was also an incendiary as the flames were leaping for the ceiling and smoke was filling the air. But none of that mattered when he realised that he couldn’t see his family. He couldn’t see much at all.

Adrenaline pumping through his blood like water, he managed to get to his feet, sending loads of shelves and tinned goods flying in all directions. As if by magic the gun was still in his hand, half loaded, and with a click he snapped the clip all the way home, and started advancing on where he had been. But he could see almost nothing. The smoke was thick and black and stung his eyes, and with the ringing in his ears he couldn’t hear anything either.

Here and there shapes appeared in the gloom, shadowy figures, and any that didn’t look like his family, he shot. They fell down quickly enough, and he could only hope that some of them were the people who’d attacked them. The rest didn’t matter. He just kept shooting. He hadn’t found the bomber though.

Aidan knew that the moment the next bomb went off, sending him flying through the air and then crashing down hard into something. And even through his vest he felt something snap in his side. But he still had the gun in his hand, and as someone approached him through the smoke, a shadow, he shot him. He shot everyone he could see until the clip finally ran out. And then he reached for another and started again.

In the end it didn’t matter who these people were. One and all they were going to die. No one came after him and his.

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