+1+
The night before we leave for the Bless assassination Helios let’s all his men go into town to celebrate. Well, the podunk rural outcropping of buildings 30 miles outside of the compound that passes as a town. Most of the townsfolk assume we are with the cartel and don’t ask too many questions.
Helios joins us and pays for every round. He mostly keeps to the shadows in a baseball cap and sunglasses. Sera lingers next to him, he’d taken off her cuffs but both Troy and Eos are armed and ready to maim if she tries anything. I’d redone the bandages on her face before we went out, it was becoming obvious she’d be unrecognizable once the burns healed. Fuck. That smile scar he’d given her was trippy.
“Hey big guy, you new around here?”
I turn to see a woman with her arms around my bicep.
“Kinda”, I say
“You like your friends? Wanna have a private party?”
This woman is a little older with make-up and decent clothes. I look around and notice the other women making similar advances around the bar. My pants feel tight and I’d been running on so much adrenaline these past few weeks I hadn’t even thought about sex. Back in the day I wouldn’t have even thought before grabbing my wallet.
“You wanna be here doing this?” I ask.
“What else is there to do?” she wanders away realizing she isn’t go in to be making her quota for the night with me.
I survey the bar again and notice Sera and Helios are gone. I give Troy and Eos a look. Troy just points out back. I curse under my breath and head out back to the alley. Once outside all I have to is following the sound of Sera…laughing. Sera and Helios are sitting on the ground a few feet away with a chipped ceramic bowl between them.
“What’s so funny?” Helios asks her.
“I…I…don’t know”, Sera says then laughs again.
“I missed you laugh... It’s devious”, Helios says.
Sera peers into Helios’ weathered eyes. For the first time Helios has to really examine the way he’d brutalized her face.
“I’m sorry for this.” He says letting the tips of his fingers run across the bandages, “I know its grotesque but you can’t truly join a revolution until you lose something.”
“You did this for me?” She asks and I hear the skepticism in her voice.
“I did it for me”, he says touching his thumb to the ragged swollen scar on her lips, “I couldn’t risk falling for you again. Nothing felt like a victory without you by my side. You could have been my beautiful fierce lieutenant. Power. Respect. It should have been yours. It will be this time around.”
“But you still won’t want me?” she says touching her face and I realize she isn’t handcuffed…yet isn’t choking Helios out.
“I…I can’t say.”
“I was so in love with you, Helios”, Sera says laughing again. And I notice they are both leaning into each other, “All those years ago. You were everything I was waiting for. You always saw me for what I was.”
“Bloodthirsty”, he offers, “Lonely, dangerous, angry, vile, evil.”
“Hungry”, she says.
“For power?”
“Love”
Is that why you cheated on me with that little prince?”
“That affair was a lifetime ago”, she says laughing again and to my surprise Helios joins in. It reminded me of those rare times I’d seen them happy together years ago.
“Was that bastard Prince worth it?” Helios asks
“I thought so back then.” She says more to herself.
“What is it about him?” Helios asks sitting up.
Seraphina thinks on it.
“You two aren’t so different. Ambitious leaders and all… except he’s earnest and can find my g-spot with his tongue.”
Helio’s laugh is loud and unexpected. This seems to amuse Sera and they collapse a little more into each other. I don’t like how long their eyes linger and how their breathes slowly becomes in sync. A strip of bandage slips off Sera’s face and Helios turns away.
“You finish this job, Seraphina.” Helios says, “You’re my second in command. How does that sound. ”
“What about Eos?” she says fixing the bandage as if that would please Helios.
“Fuck Eos. I want you.”
So much for that job going to me. This shit ends now. I clear my throat and make myself seen. I walk over and study the ceramic bowl at their feet and the thick floral smell hits me.
“Is that fucking Ayahuasca?” I catch another whiff and confirm the smell.
Helios doesn’t even bother to respond. I grab Seraphina by her arm and yank her to her feet.
“Stop”, she protests, “I’m good. We’re having a little truce. We’re okay, Leon. “
“That’s because you’re tripping balls on shit Helios probably stole from some tribe.”
Helios takes off his baseball hat but makes no moves to stop us. Sera rolls her eyes and shrugs me off.
“I didn’t mean for it to end this way…Sera”, Helios says looking at Seraphina but I know he isn’t really talking to her, “When I started New Aeterna I knew I’d have to make some hard. Time would have softened history…it always does with humans. In time New Aeterna could have been our paradise. I just needed more time. You would have seen.”
My chest feels heavy because I’d known Helios long enough to know the regret in his eyes was real, I just didn’t know what was in his heart.
“I’m sorry Seraphina”, Helios says and it felt profane. It wasn’t her he needed to apologize to.
“Then stop this”, she says, “Let us go”
“I can’t”, Helios says, “I can’t stop because I know what’s best for our people and it’s not Paris Prince or Edwin Bless.”
I lead Seraphina away, she stumbles a little but I’m there to keep her steady.
+2+
The next morning Seraphina is up before I am. She’s dressed in gray camouflage pants and an inconspicuous green cutoff shirt, her chest bound underneath. The white gold bullets I’d stolen from the armory are tucked discreetly into the bandages. I notice Sera’s eyes lingering on me in the mirror as I pull on my shirt and pants—but she doesn’t say anything.
We were either going to escape today or die trying.
I make quick
work of changing the bandages covering her face wounds. I discreetly slip in the key
Paris had stolen, securing it next to her cheek. Finally, I slip the knife I’d
stolen from the armory into my pocket out of view of the security camera. The
door burst open and I think maybe we’ve been caught but Eos and Troy say
nothing when they enter. Helios follows behind them looking distracted. I notice Eos looks
hungover. That could work in our favor today.
“Ready?” Helios asks rhetorically.
Sera puts on a baseball cap and moves past Helios without giving him a second look. We head out to the courtyard and through the front gate where the eighteen wheeler truck is being packed with fake cargo. A few men mill around to see us off. Most are just jealous they aren’t on the mission.
Jorgen is
left in command while Helios is out on the mission. It’s a surprising choice considering
he just works in the armory. I can tell the human soldiers aren’t happy about the choice by how they cluster together and whisper.
“When we return”, Helios shouts from where he’d climbed on top of the big rig. Everyone stops to look up at him, “The real revolution starts.”
At that everyone in the compound breaks out in applause and shouts. Helios stands tall above us looking like a glorious rugged leader. I expect to see Sera rolling her eyes but she’s can’t take her eyes from Helios as he climbs down with athletic prowess.
“Follow ten miles behind the rig”, Helios instructs Eos and Troy who will be following us across country in a Jeep, “We only stop when scheduled. If that fucking truck goes even a little off course. Shoot him.”
“Yes, sir” Eos says.
“After you”, Helios says to Seraphina motioning to the back of the truck. Two men open the artificial floor of the truck revealing a 9 by 3 foot space that will smuggle the dismantled sniper rifle, Sera and Helios. It will be close quarters. She lays flat on her back in the crawl space while the lead on her handcuffs is secured to a hook above her head.
Helios settles in next to her. There is about three feet of space between them and the bottom vents will provide airflow but will also kick up dirt and sand.
“You sure about this?” Eos asks as he helps Helios into the cramped space.
“I think Sera and I have had worse accommodations”, Helios says probably referring to their imprisonments.
I help the men replace the false bottom and put the fake cargo on top. I climb into the truck’s cab like an old pro. Eos shoves a leather folio to my chest. I open it to see my old alias, Craig Mets. I have a CDL, credit card and American passport.
“Hey”, Eos calls, “You try anything you know what happens.”
“I fucking
got it.” I growl back.
I start the truck and as I throw the big rig into reverse it all comes back to me. The peace of the open road and the radio. I drive for five hours until we reach the border. I pass into Texas with no trouble and I figure Helios had paid one of the border patrol guards. The Jeep Eos and Troy are in is always in my rear view window, so I don’t deter.
After an hour in the states I make our first scheduled stop. It’s a secluded side road off the highway. One of several hidden spots around the country truckers unofficially traded with each other. I wait in the cab while Eos and Troy get Helios out the back. Once they are sure he’s good Troy signals for me to get out the cab.
This was it. Now or never.
“Can’t believe we’re doing this”, Troy says when I jump out the cab, “This is a big mission for me.”
“Yeah”, I say watching Helios take a call on his satellite phone. A water canteen in his other hand.
While Eos and Troy head into the woods to piss I grab a water bottle from the cab and jump in the back of the truck to check on Seraphina. They’d left her still secured in the hidden compartment.
“You okay.” I say giving her a little water.
“Now”, is all she says, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I nod. This is the moment my glorious plan to assassinate Bless goes out the window. I had a new directive now.
Escape.
I make sure no one is watching and I reach inside the wet sticky bandages covering her face and pull out the key Paris had stolen. I shove it into the handcuffs and the key hits gears.
“Shit.”
“What?” Sera says.
“It won’t work. Fuck. These are different handcuffs.” I say remembering that she’d broken her previous ones.
“Helios has a key”, she says pulling on the restraints, “Get it. Hurry”
“Shit. Sera this wasn’t the plan.”
“To late for that. Get the key while he's alone.”
Eos and Troy are in the woods and out of sight, so I try to casually approach Helios.
“How hard can it fucking be to find them”, Helios says into the phone. He notices me but acts like I’m not there. Like I’m nothing, “I—“
I grab Helios and put him in a choke hold so he can’t shout. I throw him to the ground and snatch the key off of his belt. Helios gets back up and I ram my weight in his solar plexus to knock the wind out of him. I run back to the truck and remove Sera’s handcuffs as fast as I can.
“Hurry he’s getting up”, she says pulling herself up. I hand her the knife I’d stolen from the armory and awkwardly pull out the bullets bandaged near her breast. Once I have them she snatches the knife from me and goes for Helios. I hear Helios grunt and I look over my shoulder to see she’d pinned his hand to the ground with the knife. Helios tries to call out to Eos and Troy but Sera’s knee is jammed into his neck.
Now that Helios was secured I need to get a gun.
With the white gold bullets cradled in my hands like dice I approach the woods and pretend like I’m looking for a place to take a leak. I spot Eos and more importantly the semi-automatic on his hip. Eos is big and my size, I couldn’t take him even if he wasn’t hungover. Instead of a fight I rush him. I run full speed into him and body slam into the ground. We wrestle for a bit and I grab the gun from his waist and throw it out of his reach. He stands to fight, I let him land one punch then I turn and run like a coward. Stopping to pick up the gun.
“STOP”, Eos yells, “TROY! TROY.”
I shove the white gold bullets into the gun’s chamber while I’m running with Eos right on my heels. When I reach the clearing I toss the gun to Seraphina who had managed to handcuff Helios with her knee still on his neck.
Troy and Eos
both burst out of the forest moments after I do. Troy still has his gun but Eos snatches
it away from him and shoots at Sera. She is quick and dodges the bullets as Eos goes
recklessly through the clip. Frustrated Eos turns the gun on me. He pulls the
trigger but drops dead before he can release it, a clean bullet hole right to
his head.
Sera turns the gun on Troy but hesitates. There is only one white gold bullet left in the chamber and it’s not for Troy. She just shakes her head at Troy and turns the gun toward Helios.
“What did you say about Bless?” she asks standing a few feet away from the former dictator, “You wanted him to see your revolution coming? Do you see this?”
Helios
doesn’t flinch when she pulls the trigger.
"NO"
In the blink of an eye Troy dives in front of Helios and catches the fucking bullet in his chest. Either the shock of what he’s done or the way he hits the ground kills him instantly.
“Shit”, Seraphina throws the now empty gun into the woods. She carelessly drags Troy’s dead body away from Helios and picks up the discarded knife. Sera kicks Helios onto his back leaving his chest open and vulnerable to her—his wrist still bound in those medieval looking cuffs he’d had on her.
“Paris”, Helios says.
“Shut the fuck up.”, Sera cuts open his gray t-shirt.
“Listen to me”, Helios says and there a slight quiver to his voice. Sera and I exchange a glance, she inclines her head to listen to him, “I know where Paris is. No one on the compound knows where he is except me.”
“Tell me.” Sera orders.
“Take me
back to the compound”, Helios counter offers, “Alive and I'll tell you."
She pushes the tip of the knife into his soft neck.
“Tell me where my husband is so I can kill you”, she demands.
Helios bites back either a laugh or insult
“You need my fingerprint to get to him.”
Sera considers the sharp knife at his neck, “We can arrange that.”
“…and voice recognition”, he finishes
“You’re lying”, Sera stands clearly believing some part of his statement.
“Your risk.” Helios says nonplussed.
Sera and I look at each other again and we both know we are going back to the compound…and we’re taking Helios with us. I drive the Jeep deep into the woods where it probably won’t be found for weeks. I stack Eos and Troy’s bodies in the back of the Jeep. Sera waits in the cab while I secure Helios back in the secret compartment in the truck. He doesn’t struggle or say a single word to me, just like he hasn’t this entire time.
Once Helios is secured I jump into the cab where Sera is impatiently waiting.
“We’ll need to come back for their bodies” I say throwing the eighteen wheeler into gear.
“No we don’t. Let them rot.”
+3+
Eight hours later the adrenaline feels palpable as I speed through the dessert back toward the Oxatal Valley compound. I fight the instinct to turn the big rig around and get back to New Aeterna to check on my girls and Aria. Sera keeps her eyes out the window, she hasn’t said a word the entire time.
“Sera, you okay?”
“Just keep moving”, she says.
We reach the compound just before morning. I park the rig a half mile away and the three of us walk to the compound for the element of surprise. Helios is a surprisingly quiet captive. We are back on his turf and that worries me. There should be watchmen on the compound’s roof, but with Helios away it looked like nobody wanted to pull the shift
When we make it to the front gates of the compound I pick the lock. It’s quiet, most men won’t be up for at least another hour or so. I move towards the armory and Sera follows with a cuffed Helios. There were over fifty enemy soldiers in the compound we had to worry about. We need to arm ourselves before going any further.
Inside the armory Jorgen is hunched over his desk cleaning an automatic trigger. I'm just as surprised to see him as he is to see us. His mind struggles to understand why Helios is bound and standing between two prisoners. “What the--”
Sera picks up one of the heavy circular saws on the table and rams the blunt end into the back of Jorgen’s head, bashing his skull in before he can process what’s happening. Helios doesn’t flinch as a thin spray of blood hits the side of his face.
“Open the safe”, Sera says to me. She opens one of Helios handcuffs and before he can lunge at her she secures the cuff to one of the metal pipes in the shed.
“Stay”, she says to him.
I try to remember the numbers I’d seen Jorgen type in when I'd gotten him to bring me to the armory. I’d caught all but two. It takes me 15 minutes to brute force the missing numbers until the safe lock opens with a satisfying click. I rip off the lock and open the safe revealing several handmade ARs and more white gold bullets than I’d ever seen in once place. I arm myself simply with a small handgun and knife.
“Okay”, I say keeping to our escape plan, “Let’s grab Paris and get the fuck out of here. When we get to civilization I’ll call in the military to come for Helios.”
“We’re not doing that”, Sera says taking a pistol and two assault rifles out of the safe and loading the clips with white gold bullets. Sera loads a third rifle and tosses it to me.
“But that’s the plan, Sera. Get Paris and get out. The hard part is over.”
“That’s your plan.” She says
“Sera”, I turn her to face me, “We need to rescue Paris and get out of here alive. This is a rescue mission now.”
“No.”, she says vacantly, “It’s the end.”
She walks out of the armory and to the main stretch of the courtyard. It was still about 15 minutes before the day really started. There are only a handful of early risers out. The men stop when they see us approaching.
Seraphina steps in the middle of the courtyard and shoots three warning shots into the air with the pistol. The men in the courtyard take defensive stances and the noise brings out more of the soldiers. There is immediate confusion as more men filter out and see us.
“What the fuck—“, before the man can finish a bullet tears through his neck. The spray of bullets from the rifle hit the men next to him and the fall like dominoes. Unfortunatley they are still alive so she shoots them again.There isn’t any confusion anymore as more men begin to fall. I hear commands being called out as the men realize they are under attack, some of them run toward the armory but to get to the armory… they have to go through us.
They rush all at once, but we’re armed and they aren’t. Sera’s rifle pulls round after round targeting clusters of men. I can’t bring myself to shoot the men I used to call brothers, but I helplessly watch them fall. I can’t bring myself to do anything except shoot at the ground…and count.
Twenty five men are lying dead in the ground before the rest get the idea to retreat. Except there is no retreat and there will be no survivors. Anyone in her eyesight falls before they have a change to defend themselves or ask for mercy. She drops the rifles once they are empty and continues into the compound with just the pistol and knife I’d given her at the rest stop. Inside the house there is a group of surviving humans yelling at each other in the far corner trying to make a plan. When they see us they curse and scatter. Two human catch bullets in the neck but one human runs out back by going through the kitchen.
“Fuck”, Sera
says running after him.
The human runs through the kitchen and trips over the cook, an old man who is chained to his cot in the corner of the kitchen. Sera stops briefly to pick up a butcher’s knife before going after the escaping human. She steps over the old man in the process without even seeing him. I start to follow Sera but stop when I reach the old man. He is shaking and pulling at his chains.
“Shit”, I whisper realizing he was a witness and I doubted Seraphina had any compassion for him.
I look around the dirty cluttered kitchen for tools but all I see are empty plastic tubs with remains of molded food. I grab the slack of the old man’s chain and wedge it in the oven door. I push and put enough leverage against it until the chain snaps. The old man scrambles up the minute he is released.
“Don’t hurt me”, he says in a dialect I don’t entirely understand.
“Go”, I toss him the keys to the big rig out front, “There is an eighteen wheeler north of here. Go. Run. Tell no one what you saw here.”
He grabs a rucksack and barrels for the door, then he stop and turns back around
“Thank you, sir. You are to kind a man to keep company with evil”, he says before heading out to safety.
Sera returns just as the old man runs out the door. She slides the bloody kitchen knife back into the block. Her hands and face are covered in human and Angel blood.
“I think those were the last ones.” She says calmly, “Let’s get Paris and get the fuck out of here.”
I let out a breath glad she hadn’t remembered the old man. We do a walk through of the compound first, making sure we didn’t miss any witnesses. The door to Helios’ private rooms is noticeably locked.
“We need to get in here before we leave”, I tell her, “Grab all the intelligence Helios has”
She nods
We walk through the courtyard stepping over the maze of bodies to get back to the armory. I feel sick but I push it down. Helios is still chained in the armory trying to remain as respectable a POW as he can. Sera reloads her gun with the handful of white gold bullets left. Helios doesn’t let the shock on his face show when we lead him out the armory.
“What did you do?” Helios says navigating the field of dead.
Sera doesn’t answer. Something tells me she never will. Helios leads us around the back of the compound to what looks like a tornado shelter--which seemed out of place in the desert. He kneels down and clears away sand to reveal a high-tech looking lock. He places his finger on it and the devices hums to life.
“Sal used to hide his inventory here”, Helios explains. In response Sera just places the barrel of her gun closer to the back of his head. “Sigma Gamma Ipsilon.”
He says the words into the speaker on the lock and it clicks open. I pull back the doors and we head down a set of stairs that leads into a brightly lit underground room. Sera heads down firsts, I follow with a tight hold on a restrained Helios. The smell of antiseptic and sick is palpable. The floor is hard tile and a sloppy concrete wall separates the room in two.
There is a human standing guard at the wall who is slumped over dead as soon as Sera sets her eyes on him. We walk to the other side of the wall where there is a medical lab surrounded by glass. Two humming florescent lights shine down on a small makeshift operating table.
My first instinct is to look away from the figure laid out on the table but at second glance I’m mesmerized. The glass doors swooshes open as Sera approaches Paris’ body is laid out on the cold metal operating table. His chest had been neatly opened and pulled back leaving his cavernous blue black insides exposed, his pounding heart is a pulsing pearly grayish blue. He’ been perfectly vivisected—all matter of plie and close pins keeping his body on display.
We were too late?
An impulse I don’t understand has Sera reaching for his exposed heart. The organ begins to pulse the closer her hand gets. Sera backs away as Paris’ glassy red eyes snap open. He was awake. Maybe paralyzed…but he was awake.
“I can dream of unspeakable horrors.” Helios says smiling at his own work, “Look at his black heart Sera, the working of his darkened blood. This thing is nothing like us. You can’t vivisect a human or Angel like this…I’ve tried. There is something different about Demons.”
A man who looks nothing like a solider peeks out from behind a cabinet with his hands raised. I grab Sera’s wrist before she can shoot the man who must be a doctor judging by his well work button up.
“Put him back together”, Sera demands.
“This is a sterile environment”, the doctor says looking at Helios for help, “Helios--"
“I give the orders now”, Sera says.
The doctor looks back at Helios and I’m so transfixed by Paris splayed organs that I don’t even register Helios elbow slamming into my neck. Helios chains hit the floor and he rams his knees into my ribs shoving me into a shelf with medical tools. Sera shoots in the melee, a chunk of the ceiling falls down and smashes some lab equipment. When I get my bearing I see Helios has already bolted up the stairs and out of sight.
“Shit”, I groan he must have tinkered with his restraints when we left him alone in the fucking armory.
Sera looks between Paris’ body and Helios’ chains on the ground.
“Put him back together”, Sera says focusing on the doctor who is clearly chagrined Helios escaped without him.
“Fine. Whatever”, the doctor says, “You need to step out and I need my assistant.”
Sera and I exchange a look because his assistant was probably the guy she shot at the front desk
“I’ll do it”. Sera says
“But I--”
“I’ll do it”, Sera says turning to the large sink and washing up, “Leon, find Helios. Bring him back to me."
+++