The Dark Path Page 7

  Squirrel sat up suddenly. “Unless you mean the man who runs the homeless shelter in Brooklyn. I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard he’s extremely generous to the needy. Apart from that, there’s not much else I can tell you, he keeps a pretty low profile.”

  The Dark Man chuckled softly. “Squirrel, you never cease to amaze me.” He threw a small pile of notes onto the bed.

  Squirrel’s eyes bulged at the wad. He was unsure whether the Dark Man had been impressed with his story about the Souls of Sordarrah or amused by his ignorance of the man named Priest. Either way, there must have been at least four hundred dollars spread on his grimy sheet.

  “There’s another wad if you take me to this warehouse you saw,” said Vain casually.

  Squirrel froze. He should have known there’d be a catch; nobody threw money like this his way unless they were using it for bait. Unfortunately, he found himself in no position to refuse the Dark Man’s request, despite his reluctance to return to the place that left him so shaken.

  Without looking up, Squirrel silently nodded.

  “I’ll return in an hour,” promised the Dark Man quietly before moving out into the night.

  * * * *

  Vain followed Squirrel through the harbor district in silence. The informant had attempted to start a conversation, but a glowering look had quickly silenced him. Vain needed to gather his thoughts. The entire situation seemed ridiculous. An assassin trying to save the life of a boy he didn’t know, following a drunken ex-banker to an abandoned warehouse searching for clues of a demon-worshipping cult.

  And all of it for free.

  Wonderful! Fantastic! Vain thought to himself. Maybe I should just kill the kid and end all of this crap. But while he toyed with the notion, the image of Angelique screaming began to creep into his mind and he cast his thoughts elsewhere.

  They arrived at the warehouse shortly before midnight and Vain handed over the balance of the money he’d promised to Squirrel.

  “If you tell anybody about this, Gary,” the Dark Man breathed venomously while folding the cash into the vagrant’s hand, “your pain will make eternity in Hell seem like a pleasure cruise. Do you understand me?”

  Squirrel’s eyes bulged at the mention of his real name and he began to sweat profusely.

  “N-no sir... I mean YES!” corrected Squirrel quickly. “Y-yes sir, I understand completely. I-I won’t say anything to anyone! I promise.”

  “I know,” whispered Vain confidently before looking away. He moved off silently towards the warehouse without a backward glance, leaving Squirrel alone, and marveling at the power the assassin exuded.

  * * * *

  Vain entered the warehouse lot, swiftly becoming one with the shadows. Finding every alcove and hiding place, floating smoothly and without haste from one to the next, he finally reached the warehouse and slid along the outside wall to the back of the building. Once there he paused and listened. Satisfied nothing felt amiss, he vanished through an open window and into the darkened building.

  Light flickered from a small office towards the front of the warehouse. Vain slowly made his way along the inside wall and paused outside the doorway. Inside he could hear quiet breathing and a low hum. Noiselessly he drew a dark bladed knife and dropped to the ground, inching his way into the doorway.

  From his position on the floor, Vain watched a lone man dressed in a suit sitting cross-legged before what appeared to be an altar. However, this altar contained neither crucifixes nor holy water. Splayed across a black marble bench top, Vain noticed the remnants of what might have once been a dog. Not much remained to identify the beast, except for a single bloodied paw hanging by a sinew towards the centre of the mound. Amidst the mangled flesh, a smoldering pile of coals discharged a noxious odor into the air. The man inhaled the smoke from the burning flesh and rocked back and forth, murmuring softly.

  Vain sank into a crouch, and crept up behind the man. Nearing the altar, the assassin’s mind began to swim from the fumes, and he realized the smoke must have been a narcotic. He glanced at the walls of the office, suddenly dripping with blood and gore, small mouths opening and closing in silent screams of anguish.

  Looking down at his own hands, Vain envisioned them covered in boils that bled and oozed pus, ending in wickedly curved claws. Strangely, the knife and his clothes remained unchanged. Ignoring the illusions, Vain continued forward like a ghost, until he reached directly behind the seated man. Striking faster than a snake, he grabbed the man by the hair, wrenched back his head and pressed the knife blade against his exposed throat.

  “One noise worm,” he hissed, “and you’ll be lying on that table with Fido there.”

  The man shouted out, not with fear or anger as Vain had expected, but joy.

  “Oh Master!” he cried, and Vain momentarily resisted the urge to kill him. “You have come to me! You have heard my prayers and tasted my sacrifices and come to bless me!”

  With no concern for his safety, the man wrestled free from Vain’s grasp, and threw himself face down on the floor in contrition. Vain stepped back nonplussed.

  “Who do you think I am?” he rasped

  Without raising his head from the floor, the man replied, “You are the lord of all things evil. The Master of Destruction. The mighty Sordarrah!”

  Vain squinted at his diseased hands and wondered if it really was an illusion. Shaking his head clear, he moved to the altar and swept the sacrifice onto the floor. The man risked a glance up, but hurriedly returned his gaze to the ground.

  “You think I’m Sordarrah?” inquired Vain mildly.

  “Who else could you be master?” the man peered up in wonder. “There is no other who could wear the guise of death so comfortably. Your true appearance is shown to me through the power of gorbach leaves.”

  Vain had heard of gorbach before. A simple plant, when dried and burnt with rotting meat, it brought powerful mind-altering effects to the user. It also caused permanent brain damage when used too often, thus all but the most devoted addicts generally avoided it. Vain cursed himself for not realizing it had been gorbach burning when he saw the meat, but he had been too busy to think of it at the time. He wondered abstractly at the rest of his appearance.

  Quickly Vain decided to use this man’s ignorance to his advantage.

  “I am your master,” he crooned. The man resumed his groveling on the floor. “I have come for the boy, tell me where he is.”

  For a moment the man remained silent on the floor, searching for an answer.

  “Boy? I know of no boy, master,” he finally said. Vain spat a curse that made the man cringe into the floor even more.

  “The boy Sebastian!” hissed Vain. “Where is the boy Sebastian, worm? Tell me now or I’ll carve you to pieces on your pretty black table!”

  Again the man seemed ignorant, but finally his face beamed in understanding and he sat up in excitement.

  “Oh! You mean the Avun-Riah!” he cried excitedly. Vain nodded. “He is no boy master; he is simply meat for your life. We have him in the eastern temple!”

  “Where is that, pray tell?” asked Vain quietly.

  “Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn my lord. Number 142 near the old mental hospital.”

  Vain chuckled at the irony of it all. They held the boy only a couple of blocks from Priest in his Chapel. The man had searched his whole life for his precious Avun-Riah when all he’d had to do was stay at home, and wait for the boy to come to him.

  Sobering himself, Vain returned his gaze to the man on the floor and pondered what to do with him. Finally he decided to find out how loyal the Souls of Sordarrah would be to their demon-god.

  “Worm, you have done well,” praised Vain. “There is only one task left for you. You must prove to your god that you worship him above all others. I command you to climb up there”–he pointed at a ladder near the end of the warehouse that stretched high, attaching to a steel balcony—“and leap down. Your faith will ensure you do not die.”

&n
bsp; Without hesitating, the man leapt up and raced to ascend to the balcony Vain had indicated. Reaching the railing–some forty feet above where Vain stood–the follower immediately climbed over and dove outwards, his hands spread in ecstasy.

  The thud of the man hitting the ground sent reverberations through the soles of Vain’s shoes. In turn, little remained to identify the man once the corpse stopped twitching.

  “So much for faith,” mused Vain darkly.

  The man’s demonstration made the assassin grit his teeth in frustration. If the Souls of Sordarrah were this fanatical about appeasing their demon-god, it would be no easy task to save the boy, especially now that they already had him in their custody.

  Vain searched the room, but found no further information to help him in his quest. His head beginning to clear from the effects of the gorbach, the assassin strode from the warehouse, darkness enshrouding him in its grasp.

  Chapter Seven: The Avun-Riah

  Sebastian Dunn had always been described as special. Special because he knew things before people said them. Special because of the nightmares he suffered when both awake and asleep. They classified him so special that for a time, his foster parents had even sent him to a special school where only special children went. You know the one. The school with fourteen year-olds in nappies and drooling. The one where they made you take all sorts of fantastic pills to stop your brain from hurting.

  The one Sebastian had despised.

  He’d been prodded and probed, examined inside and out, until finally on his eighth birthday the doctors had given up and admitted that Sebastian was simply special.

  Several years had gone by since and Sebastian’s talents had grown. He found he could manipulate small objects at will and give simple-minded people mental suggestions which they followed to the letter. He had also learnt to hide his gifts from others to avoid the questions that always arose.

  When people found out he was special, they usually treated him like an imbecile; talking in single syllables at an extremely slow speed. It became particularly frustrating because most of the time Sebastian knew what they were going to say before they even opened their mouths. These were usually the same people who Sebastian gave suggestions to, normally to shut up, although he always regretted doing it afterwards.

  Animals, however, were a completely different story. Animals seemed to love Sebastian. One time his foster parents had taken him to the Bronx zoo. It turned out to be one of the most wonderful days of his life. Everywhere he had ventured, the animals had flocked to him. Even the ferocious ones like tigers and lions had tried to get close to the young boy. Sebastian found he could reach into their minds also. All the emotions he had absorbed from the animals had been of love towards him, and for the first time in his short life he felt he truly belonged somewhere.

  Sebastian had never really known his natural parents. His mother had died in childbirth, and his father had never been identified. Even his birth certificate held only a blank space where the father’s name should be. His foster parents were nice in their own way, but Sebastian always felt he was an embarrassment for them and avoided getting in their way too often. This unspoken arrangement seemed to suit both them and Sebastian.

  Today, however, Sebastian wished for nothing more than to be back in his cozy home in Middle Village. He would even have been happy to see his snot-nosed step-brother Christian. Unfortunately, he knew he would never see any of them again.

  Three days earlier, a group of men dressed completely in black had broken into his family’s home. They’d virtually torn the place to shreds looking for him until finally discovering his hiding place in the family dog’s house. The men had shot the poor beast when he had tried to defend the boy, dragging the screaming Sebastian to their van where they bound and gagged him. Three clear gunshots rang from inside his home before the vehicle shifted into gear, and drove him away.

  Sebastian had tried to use his gifts against the men abducting him, but to no avail. They were mentally shielded somehow and he caught not even a whisper of a thought from any of them. One of the men had turned towards Sebastian when he tried to probe him and removed his mask. The face that looked down on him appeared at once familiar and yet unknown.

  “Well, Avun-Riah, it seems we have found you just in time.” Sebastian cringed at the man’s tone. “Your foster parents led us on a merry chase around the countryside; luckily they won’t be interfering ever again. By the way, it is useless trying to read the thoughts of my followers or myself. I’ve protected their minds against your pitiful attempts. I had imagined you would be more powerful by now. I’m actually disappointed.”

  Sebastian had started to cry, and the man’s laughter had echoed through the van.

  Since that time he’d been locked in this room. The space itself was not uncomfortable; a single mattress lay on the floor for him to sleep on, heating flowed through the vent in the corner and there was an adjacent bathroom. Nor were the men dealing with him particularly nasty, they simply ignored him. But the emanations howling from the walls almost drove Sebastian insane. How could so much pain be trapped within such a small space? Try as he might he couldn’t shut out the screams sounding constantly in his mind.

  The man who’d talked to him in the van had visited him several times since they’d arrived. He always spoke cordially to Sebastian, but the boy knew underneath it all the man hated him. He didn’t need his gifts to see that.

  Tonight the man seemed unusually happy.

  “Good news Avun-Riah. We’ll be able to move you soon; I just have to go away for tonight, and then we can take you to a more secure place.”

  “Where?” the boy asked simply.

  “It doesn’t matter to you,” said the man. “All you need to know is that you’re one step closer to your journey being complete. Very soon we will not require you anymore Avun-Riah.”

  “Why do you call me that?” Sebastian inquired. The man appeared briefly confused before laughing out loud.

  “Did they tell you nothing?”

  “Tell me about what?” asked Sebastian.

  “Oh glorious, glorious!” The man clapped his hands together in glee. “And here I was thinking this task would be difficult. You must be the easiest one I’ve ever had to find. The others at least knew to run. It seems you were only hard to locate because your foster parents couldn’t make up their minds where to live.”

  “Who are you?” asked Sebastian. The man’s maniacal chortling echoed from the walls.

  “Why, I am your friendly host Empeth of course.” The man gave a mock bow. “If there’s anything you require merely ask the concierge.” He turned and, still laughing, left the room.

  * * * *

  Sebastian awoke to the sound of something falling softly to the floor outside the room. He sat up on the mattress and instinctively focused his thoughts on the walkway beyond the single door. A rage so deep it almost burned him radiated from the being beyond the door. Not an all-consuming anger, but a controlled fury, seething deep within.

  A light scratching at the lock made Sebastian cringe in fear against the wall behind his mattress. The door swung noiselessly open a moment later, revealing a figure clad entirely in black, silhouetted in the frame. The man silently approached and lifted his finger to his lips. Sebastian tried to calm himself, slowing his rapidly gasping breath and thundering heartbeat.

  “Sebastian?” whispered the figure.

  “You are the Dark Man here to save me,” Sebastian responded.

  Vain grimaced. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He lifted the boy easily to his feet. “Follow me silently. If I hold up my hand, hide somewhere and wait for my return. Do you understand?”

  Sebastian nodded, and the two moved stealthily into the corridor. The boy choked back a scream noticing the man slumped dead beside the doorway, a small dagger protruding from his neck. The assassin casually reached down and wrenched the knife clear, cleaning it on the guard’s shirt and sheathing the weapon once more within his boot. T
hough shocked by the assassin’s lack of emotion, Sebastian continued after him towards the end of the hallway. The Dark Man held up a single hand, and the boy slunk back into the shadows. After what seemed like an eternity, the assassin returned and signaled for him to follow.

  They passed two more dead bodies in the next room, and Sebastian feared he might pass out with the horror of it all, but somehow he continued on. Three times more he had to hide before they made it through the house; the Dark Man left a total of eight bodies in their wake. This didn’t count any of the guards killed before he found Sebastian of course, and the boy wondered if he might not be going from a bad situation into an altogether terrible one by following the assassin. Still, he continued on after the shadowy figure, finally breeching the house’s front doors. The two strolled casually down the street, Vain grasping the hand of the boy as though they were simply father and son, perhaps strolling home from a trip to the shops.

  * * * *

  Accessing the house had proven harder than Vain had at first anticipated. Both the front and rear entrances were watched by men armed with automatic rifles, and all the windows were securely barred. The place was like a fortress! He’d endured four hours in the bushes beside the underground driveway before a car had driven out. Vain had rolled under the security grill moments before it locked back into place. He’d killed four men searching for the door with a guard posted outside it. The small throwing dagger from his boot had flown smoothly through the air, slicing home into the guard’s neck. He had picked the lock to the room, discovering a young boy with surprisingly ancient eyes.

  Getting out had been even harder, but the boy seemed to have a natural instinct for survival; his hiding places left even the Dark Man looking twice. He had to admit he was impressed by the boy’s resourcefulness.

  The pair strolled the two blocks to Chapel, avoiding any unwanted attention. Vain rang the bell outside the front entrance, and they waited in silence. Not a word had passed between the two since leaving the house, but Vain hadn’t felt this comfortable with another person in a long time–if ever. It didn’t feel like a thirteen year old boy’s hand he held, more like the hand of an equal. He shook the strange thoughts away.