I, Jequon: Part One of the Nephilim Chronicles Page 5

  “It doesn’t matter. Just show me the video.”

  He retrieves a budget-model laptop from a drawer in his desk, positions it on the poker table, and turns the screen so we can both see.

  “Where’s the webcam on this thing? Did he have to use an external one?”

  “This is my machine. I copy videos, only…I try to tell you…Lucian, he not own PC. His girl, she bring laptop each time, and she take machine with her each time, also. Her laptop, I not have, which make hacking more difficult.”

  Again I have to wonder if Yuri was drugging Lucian, slipping something into the Absinthe he supplied. What else could explain a Naphil, even a 3rd Gen, allowing a human to not only film him, but walk out the door with the footage to parts unknown?

  “Jequon, please understand, I am not pervert. Like always, I look out for Lucian. I solve for him problem of donors. Private supply of women I provide for him. But I am not doctor; Lucian, he is drunk. He is careless. I worry. I worry he will lead men who hunt your kind to my business. Men this bold are to be feared, even by Bratva. And Lucian, he give many other reasons to worry besides threat of bad men. You will see.”

  Yuri hovers the mouse pointer over an .avi file dated almost a year ago and then double-clicks the button on the computer’s trackpad. A media playing app loads and the video file begins to play. Only three seconds into the first clip, the cause for Yuri’s concern comes into focus.

  The form of a young woman slowly resolves into the frame. She is leaning back against Lucian’s muscular legs in the center of an unmade bed. As soon as she’s in focus, I have Yuri pause the video so I can commit her features to memory.

  She is nude and exceptionally gorgeous. Every curve taunts gravity and mocks time. Every joint a shadowed hollow begging to be tongued, or a velvet-veiled ridge to read like braille with learned fingertips. She is a sculpture manifest from the geometry of youth, but in color, not limited to the muted palette of bronze or stone. Her long, thick hair is the black-brown of tilled soil in an Argentinean vineyard, damp and glowing with the light of dawn. Her smile shows hard, white teeth regularly attended to by dentists and hygienists. Teasing the camera, her eyes are the dark of an eclipse and flecked with golden penumbra. She is aware of her beauty, aware it is on display, and she delights in showcasing it to the best possible effect, both to her lover, and for an audience she seems to know is watching but pretends isn’t there.

  “She doesn’t look Russian,” I say.

  “No.”

  “Not one of the girls you supplied him from Novaya Kutaya. Not a local, either. She seems of Latino decent, with equal Spanish and Native American ancestry.”

  “You see now why I worry. This girl, she is not from here. She not visit my club. I do not know of her. I ask around and learn she is not from immigrant family. She is not kidnapped tourist or university student made sex slave. This I find out right away, because Prague is not far, and much trade in girls happens there. No, this girl, she fly in always. Two or three times a month. I see clearly why Lucian, he enjoy her company. But why she travel so far to see him? This I wonder about. And I worry when I see she always bring laptop.”

  “What did Lucian say about her? Any reason he wasn’t satisfied with the girls you provided?”

  “He would not talk about her. None of my business, he tell me. I say to him, this girl, she is risky, but he not listen. So Lucian, he leave me no choice. I have men follow this girl when she leave to airport. Always, she fly to Munich. But this flight only first leg. This flight connects also to Chicago. So I have men board flight to Chicago. And in Chicago, always, it is same: she board flight to Los Angeles. So I have men take same flight, and always they tell me she leave airport in her own car and she drive it south to San Diego, also in California.”

  Yuri clicks the play button again. “I meant no disrespect to Lucian, but I had to watch these videos and learn more of this woman. I will now play a portion of their fucking for you. I show you because only it is most unusual.”

  Yuri scrubs forward through a few minutes of innocuous foreplay. As things begin to look more heated, he clicks the triangular icon on the screen and the video returns to regular speed. We watch their lovemaking for a few moments without comment. A few slaps. A punch. Not my style, but nothing too extreme.

  At least until the butterfly knife comes out.

  In the moments before her climax, she uses the sharp blade to make an inch-long incision through the skin of her forearm. Lucian feeds greedily from the gash as her hips clench and her toes curl and her body spasms on top of him. Like Yuri, her knowledge of what Lucian is represents another flagrant transgression of The Codes.

  “This is only beginning.”

  Yuri stops the video and loads another file into the player, this one dated several weeks after the first. “Each time their lovemaking, it becomes more rough. The music she plays, louder and louder.”

  He selects a bookmark from a software menu. The video jumps ahead to the twenty-seven minute mark.

  “This is first time she restrain him. She make like game. Taunts him to break bonds.”

  As a 3rd Gen Naphil, Lucian, of course, has no problem shredding the silk necktie the girl uses to secure his wrists behind him, a pre-coital feat of strength which elicits faux-surprise and exaggerated delight.

  “Three videos from final one, she cuff him to bed with metal bracelets he break only with minor strain. They look same as handcuffs in final video. But in final video, she trick him. Lucian, he not able to break these cuffs. Not even when men in hoods kick in door and remove tools from bag. Not even when these men, they torture him. Many things I have seen…but this…”

  “Play it.”

  Yuri double-clicks the final .avi file in the directory. The progress bar at the bottom of the player shows over three hours of captured footage. A hellish duration. I have him scrub through most it at 16X, pausing only on those few segments that show a good view of his SOJ attackers as I search the frame for anything that could be used to identify them.

  It is a gruesome production of increasingly heinous acts, fatal blows withheld, and pleas for cessation ignored. A sanguinary slaughter. And though Lucian showed weakness in life, he displays none in death, denying the enemy even a single Naphil name or sanctuary, frustrating his tormentors even as they carve out his eyes with the butterfly knife, betraying no one as his captors do things far worse to compel him to speak.

  Eventually the seven men grow too fatigued to prolong his torture. They take turns ending Lucian’s life with a hatchet. Then they deal the second death by way of sham crucifixion, draining what little blood remains in his butchered body with wooden stakes they pound through his chest, wrists, and ankles into the wall behind him.

  To punctuate their ritual they use a blowtorch to superheat the business end of an iron rod until it glows orange, using it to administer the brand I mistakenly attributed to Artemis. The word damned, written in an Angelic dialect once known only in heaven; now, blister-burned into Lucian’s forehead.

  So much evil done by these so-called holy men.

  “Aside from the videos, what else were you able to pilfer from the laptop? Email messages? Browsing history? Banking logins?”

  Yuri shakes his head. “No. This fact also cause me great concern. Except for video, my hackers, they find nothing on machine. She seem only to use for filming.”

  Hackers. Plural. Even more humans with knowledge they shouldn’t have. I can’t dwell on that now.

  “A laptop makes for a pretty expensive video cam. And for the money, very low quality footage. You’d think Lucian would have been spooked by it…” I let the insinuation hang there as I search the Russian’s face for just one hint of betrayal.

  “One would think,” he says.

  “Well, did you get her name at least?”

  “Jequon, your money buy you more than name only. I hire men from Los Angeles, Bratva also, to keep tabs on this girl. I have them find out some things.”

  “A
nd?”

  “They disappoint me. They tell me few small things. After, they not return my calls. This is not issue I can take up with my comrades, so I not complain.”

  “Details, Yuri. Spit it out.”

  “Lucian, he tell me her name is Sarah Cisneros. But the men I hire tell me her real name is Cynthia. Cynthia Hernandez. And they give me address where she live in San Diego. This is why I have you bring money. Very expensive, this information I give you.”

  He hands me a slip of paper with her name and an address written on it.

  “What? You wanna fuckin’ tip?”

  It’s the best lead I’ve had in months, but I’m not going to give Yuri the satisfaction of knowing it. And I need a lot more answers from the Russian before I consider this visit to be anything approaching worthwhile.

  “So tell me, Yuri, why didn’t you stop them? You knew the girl was up to something. You knew Lucian was getting more and more careless, and with your surveillance cameras you can see everyone who comes and goes from the building. Plus, you’ve got enough muscle and enough firepower on the premises to defend against anything short of SEAL Team Six. So, why? Why didn’t you see this coming? Why isn’t Lucian still alive?”

  Yuri fidgets nervously in his chair. “On this night only, I was not at club. I was on errand.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Jequon, please, I swear to you, I speak truth.”

  “And what was this errand? Anyone who can vouch for you?”

  Yuri is looking more and more nervous, his eyes darting side-to-side, from the door leading back out into the club, to the brick basement wall where he never installed an exit. “I think,” he stammers, “I think…”

  “Say think again. Say think again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say think one more goddamn time.”

  He’s undoubtedly seen Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, like every second rate gangster on the planet, so the movie reference has the desired effect.

  “I was setup. I go meet man for business matter, but he not show up at agreed time. I wait for him, but he never show. After hour, I go back to club. It is busy night. I am meeting many people, shaking many hands, the usual duties of club owner. I not even think of Lucian for many hours. His killers were already gone when I go to check on him.”

  “Too bad Lucian’s not alive to corroborate your story.”

  “Jequon, please. I am telling truth.”

  “I’m sure he would, of course. Since you were such good friends.”

  “Yes. Lucian, he would tell you same.”

  But I’ve already tuned out his peeling-lips, busy remembering what I’m about to do to him… And here’s why knowing what’s next is no spoiler. You can telegraph a punch when nobody’s hardcore enough to stop you.

  “He would tell you I treated him well.” Yuri yammering more reassurances, trying to reason with my already made-up mind.

  “He also let you live, even knowing what you know,” I say.

  “Yes, that, too.”

  “Maybe that was a mistake.”

  “May-fuckin’-be.”

  The first sign of disrespect from the inebriated Russian. His last utterance. Kind of hard to talk with a glass tumbler lodged into your neck where a voice-box used to be.

  And that’s the first thing the two SOJ hit men find when they kick in the door.

  “Where is he? He was sitting right across from him!”

  Spewing confusion down the barrels of their assault rifles, tracing the room with red dots from their laser scopes.

  They go from about 6’ 2” to 5’ 11” and dead as I heel-stomp the tops of their heads.

  I drop from the metal truss I’d sprung to just as my would-be assassins forced their way in; hit the ground rolling in case there’s more behind them. I’m still surprised at the lack of a back exit, but I suppose if you’re willing to violate my people’s Codes, then building codes don’t hold much weight, either. I’ll have to go out the way I came in. Back through the crowded dance floor, and who knows how many of Yuri’s heavies.

  I grab the AR15 from No Neck on the left and the AK47 from Accordion Head on the right. I fire off a controlled burst from both weapons into the floor as I emerge from the VIP room. The club grows as silent as the last snowflake of winter. I head for the front door. The Veingels, an immoral majority of the patrons it turns out, grin like Keebler’s elves sprinkling crack on crackers. At least I know who my friends are.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mercy Lake was an exceptional woman.

  Jab-cross-hook-elbow-knee-elbow-chop-crescent-kick.

  Just ask the heavy bag, two Thai-kicks away from the dumpster, the second one she’d retired in as many months. Male hormones, make way for memories of a fucked-up childhood.

  ”Girly, I told you not to keep that dog.”

  She’d watched him beat every last one of those beagle pups to death with a garden hoe, and ol’ Maple, too. She stood there and watched the man she shared DNA with pound those baby dogs’ skulls into the packed dirt floor of the barn because she knew better than to run away. Weakness made him madder than anything. She didn’t run and she didn’t shed a tear, either. Not one. Four-year-old Mercy Lake wouldn’t cry, because that’s what he wanted her to do, and not crying was one of the few delights she could deprive him of. That kind of spunk would earn her more special time later, probably with her mouth, which he knew she hated more than all the rest of it, because he tasted so bad, and it always made her vomit when he was done. Even so, she had her pride. Along with her faith in the Lord Jesus, it was the only thing he couldn’t rape out of her.

  “That which didn’t kill me…” Feint. Duck-the-counter-jab-stomp-the-knee. “…made…” Uppercut-head-butt. “…me…” Pivot-break-the-neck. “…stronger.”

  Mercy toweled the sweat off her face and arms then drank deeply from the chilled water in her metal canteen. She peeled off her sparring mitts and tossed them in her gym bag with the rest of her workout gear. She was spent. Time to call it a day. She gathered up her things and headed for the locker room to shower, flipping off the studio lights as she walked past the switch. No one else around this late at night so she might as well save Bryan a few cents on his utility bill. Bryan, the not-unattractive fitness trainer, who owned this private gym, one of the more exclusive facilities in downtown San Diego. He’d given Mercy a key so she could make use of the facilities after hours. She liked to perform the second workout of her twice-per-day routine at midnight, giving her a full twelve hours to recover from her late morning session. For most people, this much training would be overkill. But for Mercy, an elite athlete who had her nutrition dialed in, it was ideal for maintaining peak levels of strength and power.

  Bryan’s generosity was typical of the special treatment she enjoyed from the opposite sex. She certainly never asked for, or felt entitled to, any favors. But if she had to endure the double-takes, the cat-calls, and the steady stream of bumbling propositions that formed the flip-side of her good looks, then Mercy wasn’t going to begrudge herself the perks of her beauty, either.

  Why should she? She labored hard to enhance what God had blessed her with. Labored. As in literally worked her ass off. Seductive, model-esque allure was a non-negotiable job requirement in her line of work. The martial arts and the strength training comprised only a fraction of the regimen devoted to maximizing her natural sex appeal, though their impact on her physique was as significant as it was necessary. It was challenging enough to guarantee she was the most desirable woman in any room she might be asked to walk into; pulling it off after the age of thirty raised the level of difficulty that much higher. The kettlebells, the full-force heavy bag sparring, the sprint work—major contributors, all, to the Perfect Ten flawlessness her priest masters demanded.

  And more importantly, the standard her future quarry had grown accustomed to.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I hustle up the stairs and quickly disappear into the same alley I used to survey my final approach to
the rendezvous. It’s a cool night and I want to check on the girl who saved my life. If she’s not already searching to replace the blood I drank from her, I’ll need to warn her to steer clear of Yuri’s club.

  Retracing my steps would be foolish, but with a few random lefts and rights I should be able to avoid another ambush. I ditch the firearms. Their bulk is a nuisance to me right now and I can’t fly back to The States with them anyway.

  I take advantage of the short walk to mull over the night’s not uneventful chain of events: Did Yuri have anything to do with the snipers at the train station? Was he in league with the two dead SOJ? Black-velvet-effing Elvis if I know. I just wanted to kill him. To punish him for the role, no matter how small, he played in Lucian’s death.

  Fact is, I wish he was solely responsible. I wish he was the reason the SOJ came so close to bagging number one on their most-wanted list. Instead, because of Artemis showing up, I’m left with a lot more questions I can’t answer.

  Prime among them: Since Artemis didn’t kill Lucian, how did he find out about the hit so soon? Yuri said he called me immediately after finding the body. So when was Artemis notified? And who made the call? I mean, not only did he beat me to the scene, but he had enough time to scout out the club and the upstairs apartment; he knew he’d be able to slip Yuri’s security measures and lie in wait for me under Lucian’s bed.

  Was the Russian hedging his bets by dealing with both of us? Trying to double his money? Possibly. Because if Artemis was already in Europe he could have had his own sit-down with Yuri before I even reached Sarajevo. Then, perhaps seeing an opportunity to frame me for the murder, he could have persuaded the Russian to play stupid while he took me into custody.

  But that theory doesn’t explain Yuri’s genuine surprise when Artemis rolled out from under the bed in Lucian’s room. He wasn’t pretending. Nor does it account for me getting shot at the train station, while my cocky 1st-Gen cousin shows up unscathed; if the SOJ were monitoring Yuri’s outbound calls, then they also would’ve targeted Artemis when he arrived in town, and it’s doubtful he wouldn’t have been as lucky as I was.