Chapter Two: Black skies, and White stars.
Straightening, Max dusted his coat with his arms.
"Thank you Vladimir. Why?"
Not pretending anything, Vladimir answered simply.
"I need a man with your ...qualities.
Phah, loyalty too."
Vlad had taken to wearing unrelieved black, except for a gray cap, and a green shirt, since he won the mob war in the streets.
He was the only one who had helped Max, after Woden's betrayal, had even supplied a very good lawyer, who managed to stall things, though he could do nothing to get Max judged innocent, after the Jury had been bought and paid for by the Valkyr remnant.
I would have laughed, had i remembered how; i had very little reason to laugh nowa'days.
I also suspected that Vlad was the only thing keeping the killer suits from koming into his prison and pop a couple in me.
I guessed that a little appreciation was in order.
With glances we had a long conversation on the way to wherever we were going.
"So what now?"
The question hung in the fresh air in the black Mercedes, with it's leather seats, leather cushion, and, I guessed, leather driver seats.
"Now we get you installed."
It was a simple question, with a simple answer.
Standard procedure was to get the person into protection, give him a safehouse, set out a couple of guards, give him a gun, if he was proficcient, and, if neccesary, keep him under surveilance.
"Here, I managed to salvage theese."
In a simple tuffel bag, matted black, with the Stars and Stripes on top, was my Berettas, a Desert Eagle, some Grenades, and enough ammo to see that the South States would have won the war..
Also, a bandana of hard plast, which contained over a twenty knives, arranged so it could be worn at your back, and the knives drawn and thrown in one motion.
Also, in the bottom, my Kung Fu manual, and some leather gloves, the fingers cut out, to punch with, ridged so that the gun would not turn slippery in your hands.
I equipped the Berettas in my hip holsters, doffed my unuasble suit, and doffed a Matrix like coat, which would flare back you in combat so as not to get in your way.
To cap it all of, i adjusted the Desert Eagle in the shoulder holster Vlad gave me and put the grenades at my belt.
I was ready to start a war.
We rode in silence.
The black mercedes stopped, and the door opened.
A large brown buildning, with a dull green door, and few windows, that would be innacsessible except from the front door, and the secret 'leave-way' that only the good guys and the victim knew about.
Of course.
I had seen it so many times, a typical safehouse.
"I must leave you, i have heard some rumors, disturbing if true, an annoyant if false.
I trust you to get inside yourself without getting shot, Max."
Vladimmir flashed me a toothy smile, before driving off into the nighty haze.
I entered the house to find carnage.
The guards posted had been stabbed in the back with ivory hilted knifes, their throats slit in exact angles, and pinned up to the wall at each side of the door to my room, by a spear, covered with ancient writing, pentagrams and curses in Latin.
Inside was worse.
Lighted by candles, the room was gloomy and fashioned in the newest stile.
Another guard lay at the sofa, he would never see the sun rise over the state again, so apparently unharmed he could've been asleep except for a little dried blood at his temples, where a knife had gone in and out.
A empty cradle laid overturned on the floor, next to a bookcase, bleached white.
The next room tore my heart out.
A woman lay on the bed, shot and dead, chosen purely for the resemblance to my wife, and next to her...
Next to her, on the gray wall, written in blood, was the text
"Meet me at Beggars End.
Alone"
In the distance a siren howled, and the cops came closer, ever closing on their prey.
Me.
In the streets, only a neon sign illuminated.
It read.
Inos meno arodos el Moridin,
Enoes karas loges el Moridin,
Ilo Moridin.
From my eyes, Death watches,
In my footsteps, Death walks,
I am Death.
It fitted my mood perfectly.
I walked to Beggars End under the Black skies, and White stars.
n -- -- -- -- -- --
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Capish?