Angel of Death: Assassin Games, #3

Chapter 1

SOMETIMES I WOULD LIE awake at night thinking of all the lives I had taken. It was not that I had any qualms about it. I was an assassin, a hitman for hire, call it what you like, killing was the main part of the job description. Hesitating in my particular line of work got you an early retirement and a trip to the morgue. It was just beginning to give me a numb feeling as though I had taken far more lives than I had knowledge of.

I knew a storm was coming. It was as though my senses could feel the electricity in the air making the hairs all over my body stand up with unbearable curiosity.  Since my visit to the bar known as Alcatraz, I had been experiencing life differently as though I was waking from a dream. At times in my life, my mind had sometimes felt like a cloud of fog surrounded it. 

Visiting the bar that lay between worlds had made my mind see things more clearly.

There was another thing. With each passing day; my reflexes had become quicker. When the many assortments of monsters that inhabited New Haven spoke, I understood their words as if they were my own when before I had just looked on blankly feeling uncomfortable in my lack of knowledge and angry that they could not speak the native tongue of the city they dwelt in. It was as though the languages I heard were all second nature to me, as though they had been hidden somewhere deep inside my genetic code. It was impossible to think it, to assume that this was not a gift or unusual power bestowed on me by the strange creature that looked to me like an overweight balding barman.

I referred to him as Alan. As impossible as it was with the cloud lifted from my mind I felt that a deep burning secret was yet to be revealed and the ability to understand all these languages as though they belonged to me was actually something that had been suppressed from a time I had yet to remember, a time preceding my life as a man of religion, and family, before it had all been snatched away leaving my faith thrown to the wind. It was the creeping notion that prior to those times, those memories I had only recently remembered there was yet another closed door to the past because previous to my time as a priest there was nothing. My childhood was nothing more than a notion in my head, something I had to have surely possessed. My teenage years were the same. My past simply did not exist in my memories.

A multitude of doubts swirled through my mind like a distraction that was not big enough to hide me from what was happening in front of my own eyes. I found myself inside the Morningside Church. Lately, I had been waking up in cold sweats after very vivid dreams of the years I had spent preaching in my old church before my life went to hell; before my path of vengeance had led me to New Haven. They were distant memories that had only recently been released inside my mind.

I was waiting nervously by the altar with someone who should have been Father Talbot, a gangly grey-haired scarecrow of a man, but instead, I was facing Buddy Malone, vampire, and owner of Fangs for Coming, dressed as Elvis Presley in a white sequined suit. Buddy was the closest thing I had ever known to a best friend.

Recent events had proved that while my enemies were infinite due to my assassin profession my friends were not so few as I had previously thought.

Buddy clasped a brown leather covered bible with a golden cross on its cover against his chest.

At my side was a very nervous Bradley Parker dressed in a tuxedo that made him look so much wiser than he was for his young age. He was also a vampire.

Parker had died helping me in a fight against an undead cyborg only to be brought back by Felix McAvoy, another vampire who was also my mentor. It was Bradley's wedding day. The one occasion I had dreaded above everything else life could throw at me. 

My daughter was about to marry one of the monsters. It didn't matter whether Bradley was a vampire or not. I still would have disapproved. Natalia had hardly known the boy turned bloodsucker for more than five minutes. She had barely begun to live her own life.  Still, I had to put on my best smile for Natalia. My opinion had no vote in the outcome. It was her big day.

I had a bad taste in my mouth just looking at the happiness all around me from those gathered in the church for the special occasion. My mood was not matched by anyone else in the church. It was packed with smiling faces, fanged or otherwise, with anyone I considered not my enemy or alternatively a friend of my daughter filling the seats.

Felix McAvoy was seated as quiet as I had ever known him on the front row with an anxious look upon his happy face. I guess he was as nervous as me what with Bradley being the closest thing he had ever had to a son of his own, or at least to my knowledge. I actually knew very little about the man who had been just as human as me before I had murdered him only for him to come back as a vampire.

For all, I knew he could potentially have a secret family somewhere in the same way that Natalia had been hidden away for the last five years. With the way he looked at Bradley I doubted that was the case. 

The doors at the back of the church were wide open allowing the light of the full moon to illuminate the entrance in a wonderful glow.  A daytime wedding would have been impossible.

It would have been no good to have half the wedding guests killed by sunlight. The wedding album would have been made up of pictures of ash piles.

I opened my jacket. I was far too hot. Beneath my jacket, I wore a holster. I unclipped the holster’s cover and pulled out the magnum that it held. The cold metal felt good in my hands. I gripped it with both, pointing the barrel towards me as I put the gun in my mouth. There was no way I could carry on living my life with Bradley Fucking Parker as my son-in-law. What if Natalia wanted kids? They would have little half-vampire babies. No. It was best to end it. I pulled back the trigger. The last thing I heard was a bang.

I opened my eyes only to have to immediately shield them with my hands from sunlight that had come from nowhere. I was lying on my back. There was sand in my mouth, not to mention the taste of something else rather unpleasant I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I felt sick. I rolled onto my chest pushing myself up into a crouched position as I realized where I was, where I had been dumped perhaps, still at least the nightmare was over.

There was no wedding, not this day at least. I was somewhere in the Barren Valleys, not the place I would choose as my first vacation hotspot, but none the less it was where I found myself. From what I could make out I was on the opposite side of Mount Hell, so-called because despite it actually being a volcano the mutated people of the valleys used to believe it was a gateway to hell spitting out the fires of the underworld. That had been a long time ago when people believed in gods and demons. Now they did more than belief in such things. Faith is one thing, absolute belief that monsters are real because they live next door to you or your kids go to school with them is an entirely different matter. The mountain was located in the middle of the Barren Valleys separating the cities of New Haven and Farside. I was lucky. Whoever had drugged me had allowed me to keep my clothes and boots. With that in mind, I ruled out this being some vengeful prank from any of my ex or current lovers.     There was quite a long list of scorned women back in New Haven who would love to have dumped me bare ass naked in the middle of nowhere. I had to call for help if it was possible to get a signal all the way out here. That was when I realized how serious my situation was. On speaking the words Call Natalia, nothing happened. No hologram appeared in front of my eyes displaying my daughter’s name while waiting for her to answer. I repeated the command just as I touched the side of my head with my fingertips. The aching was not just from being drugged. My inbuilt phone had been forcibly ripped out from the side of my head. Not that there was a nice way to do it, though my abductor could have asked me politely to book in for communication removal surgery if they had wished me to have the procedure. I am sure my response would have been to greet them with a bullet as it would be when I found out their identity. It wasn’t good. Fresh blood was still pouring from the wound. Parts of the gash in the side of my head had dried over with blood in the baking sunlight, yet the wound still bled suggesting I hadn’t been out here long, even if my kidnapper or kidnappers were long gone.

Unbuttoning my shirt I took it off then used a sharp flat stone I found to aid me in tearing off an arm which I tied around my head as a makeshift bandage. Putting the one-armed shirt back on I let out a heavy sigh. I really could have done with some pain killers, or better yet three fingers worth of a stiff drink.

I figured I had to have been dropped here by helicopter or some other airborne craft. It was the only way to get me out here so quickly. Though really I had no idea what day it was. I had vague recollections of a party coming up soon. I hoped I hadn’t missed it. My head was foggy. I did my best to try and remember how I had gotten here.

I stood up slowly checking the pockets of my jeans for clues. They were empty. It wasn’t a very helpful start.  I kicked the side of my boots against a small boulder a few feet away. Blades shot out of each. The boots had been chosen at random though I was glad I had picked the black ones with hidden blades. No doubt they would come in handy in the barren valleys. I was glad to have some kind of weapon even if it wasn’t anything more than a couple of blades, something was better than nothing.

Kneeling down I retracted the blades before walking slowly towards Mount Hell. There was no point hanging about in the heat to wait for some mutant or other to decide I looked tasty enough for their supper. I had a long journey ahead of me. I would have to either climb it or go around it. I had no idea how I had ended up in the Barren Valleys.

Things were slowly coming back to me. The last thing I remembered was sitting in Fangs for Coming chatting to Buddy Malone, my best friend, about a huge party the vampire was hosting that, celebrated the birthday of the vampire queen herself Angelina Buckingham. The thing was as old as she was and no one seemed to know how old the self-proclaimed queen really was for sure, she wasn’t any more real a queen than I was a king. As one of the oldest recorded vampires known to mankind she was also very powerful so arguing with someone so formidable was never a smart move. Having recently killed two very powerful people, founders of New Haven no less, Buddy felt it imperative that I make some new friends.

At first, I had objected.  Making friends did not seem to be something I was very good at. It really wasn't all that surprising when you considered the fact that killing was my specialty. I originally declined to even attend Buddy's party.  It took almost half a bottle of the vampire's finest scotch before I was even tempted to go. It took the rest of the scotch to make me believe it was my idea to meet with the queen. I had hoped Buddy’s party would allow me to do that if only I could get myself an audience with Angelina Buckingham. To wake up and find myself stuck in the valleys I was very aware of how important it was for me to create new allies at the least, if not friends. If I didn’t get myself back to New Haven I would end up a meal for something out in this baking hot wasteland. The one thing I did know was that when I did find out who was responsible for my current predicament I would be sending them to the grave. I just had one nagging thought. Was this someone from my new life or a dark shadow from my mysterious past?

Chapter 2

IT WAS A GOOD FEW HOURS later, with the sun taking its toll as I made my way towards the volcano that I caught something on the horizon approaching me