PART THREE: THE LAST STAND

Chapter One: Jesus Christ Pose

I was woken up by a splash of cold water to the face.

It took a while for my puffy, swollen eyes to adjust to my surroundings, but for a horrible moment I thought I was still in the nightmare, and I'd fallen into some cold hell with smiling demons watching over me. I felt sick, used up, weak. My arms felt like they'd been stretched the length of Fifth Avenue. I'd thrown up.

I was topless, my shirt lying in a dirty pile in the corner of the room. They'd tied up my arms in a Jesus Christ pose, suspending me by my wrists with tight aching wire. I was in a cold stone wine cellar, the only light a blinding spotlight on my face. My chest had bruised up and the back of my throat stung.

Shapes moved beyond the spotlight. One was huge, a monster, invisible in the darkness. The nearest man, smaller but still imposing, was a face I'd seen on billboards and newspaper front covers across the city. Senator Nathan West.

In real life he didn't look any different – slicked back white hair, perfect smile, fiery blue eyes. He wore a black suit with a long white overcoat covering him like a robe. There was a crucifix hanging around his neck.

"Time to wake up, Mr Payne," the senator said, all of the politician's fake sincerity and pleasantry lost. His real voice was grim, soul-less, the voice of death itself.

I shook the cold water off my face. Goosebumps were rising on my arm. I shivered.

"You've caused us a hell of a lot of trouble," West continued. "You and that Sax woman. Meddled where you weren't welcome. Seen things that weren't of your concern."

"Sorry, chief," I sneered, my voice weak and strained. "Hope I didn't spoil your re-election chances."

I would have expected a beating, a flash of rage. Instead Senator West's snarl turned into a wild grin, and somehow that was worse. "There won't be any more elections after tonight," he said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "No more politicians, either. None of it. It all ends tonight. All of it."

I thought back to what Grant had said. He's gone mad… stark raving mad. I shuddered. God, Desoto had been right.

He continued unabated. "You're getting front row seats for the Apocalypse, Maxie. The end of everything. We've had famine with the hot summer and the crop failures in the Midwest, we've had war in the Middle-East, we've had the Miasma plague, and tonight the fourth horseman will ride. Death."

"You've lost it," I said blankly. "Lost it completely."

"A sinful degenerate like you wouldn't understand, Payne," West sighed, but that grin hadn't budged. It made me feel sick. "You see, the nuns who raised me told me once that I was special. God had charged me with a great task. It took a long time to work it out, but lately it all made sense.

'I realised one day that we are at the end of days, and New York city is our Babylon. The streets run rampant with sexual deviance, murder, foul crimes. The people have turned away from God to pursue their own hedonistic existence. And I realised that if mankind is to survive, a great flood is needed. An almighty apocalypse. A plague on humanity.

'In a few hours my virus will have infected people in every major city on the planet, and I am in possession of the only vaccine. I have Mr Novak to thank for that, and for bringing you in where Desoto failed. And for giving you this chance to watch as the greatest city in the world falls into chaos, and the rest follows suit. Then the Rapture will begin. The chosen of New York city will join me aboard my private yacht, where we will watch the world end from safety, and prepare for the creation of a new civilisation. To cease mankind's drift from God."

I could barely believe what I was hearing. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it all falls down again, and you realise there's no real line between real life and your nightmares. It takes a hell of a man to keep his sanity when that happens. I was beginning to fear for mine.

"You've got a pretty big ego for a former Inner Circle lackey," I said.

The smile didn't fade. "Nice presumption, Payne, but horribly wrong, I'm afraid. Those stupid old men were the most important part of my little plan. Miasma is their child. One of a whole batch of biological weapon prototypes invented back in the Cold War, black ops they created for the government to avoid irritating international conventions. All were scrapped when the Berlin Wall came down, but they kept all the files in archives for me to uncover when the idiots decided to take their pathetic bickering to the next level and wipe each other out. All it took was for me to take their file and hand it over to AvaMed to put into production."

"And the human test subjects?"

"The homeless, the desolate. Prostitutes. People no-one would miss."

I sighed. "You're sick."

West shrugged. "Was Noah sick? I'm just doing God's bidding, Mr Payne. I had AvaMed distribute the virus in the worst parts of the city, targeting the sinful and the weak. I am doing this city a great service in destroying it."

"You'll never get away with it," I said, hopelessly. "People are closing in on you, getting wise to what's going on. Sax knew about the AvaMed facility. People aren't going to let the deaths of an entire police precinct go by…"

"People will do what I tell them!" West suddenly snapped. "I run this city! Me!"

He turned away, adjusting his overcoat, and turned to the monstrous shadow next to him.

"Scipio," he said calmly. "Make Mr Payne bleed." He turned back to me as he walked through the door. "You are going to die, Mr Payne. And you are going to die slowly, knowing that you failed Sax and the whole city. And I will make sure that you're watching as the world collapses around you. Now if you'll excuse me, I must attend to the party on my yacht. Good night, Mr Payne."

He stepped through the door and left me alone with Scipio.

I'd heard about Scipio. He'd been a decorated war hero in the first Gulf War, the sole survivor of an attack on a checkpoint, where he managed to take down all the attackers single-handed. However, it came at a cost – his right eye, which was covered with a black eye-patch. He returned to America to commendation and medals, but he soon found out that he couldn't shake off the adrenaline rush he'd had in the Middle East. He turned to drink and drugs, losing his home, and was eventually rescued by the wonderful, forgiving Senator West, who instated him as his personal bodyguard. Neat move. A giant pushing seven foot, and just as wide, Scipio was a tank of a man. West had received no trouble.

And now I was alone and helpless in this dark cellar with him, this huge monster of a man, who was grinning with his gold capped teeth and reaching for a large two-by-four.

No, not alone. He had three goons with him, three of West's hired thugs, all armed with baseball bats and planks.

They came at me fast and without mercy. Blow after blow, shattering a rib, bruising my chest and arms. A baseball bat came down hard on my eye and pain exploded in my head, the eye sealing itself shut beneath the swelling, stars flying past in the darkness. Another two-by-four, laced with nails, tore a streak down my chest and blood flowed down over my trousers. The bat shattered a tooth and warm, hot blood flowed down my neck.

By the end I slumped forward, barely conscious, and Scipio's looming, grinning figure stood over me.

"Mr West wants you kept alive," he chuckled, his voice sounding like it was coming through a wind tunnel. "So I'm going to leave you now to recover, and when you're almost up and about, I'll be back for some more."

It took all my strength, but I raised my head and spat a huge goblet of blood in his face. I grinned at him through my broken mouth.

He snarled and wiped the blood off with a handkerchief. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blade like an old barber's – stubby and curved. He raised it to my right cheek. I winced, flinching away, and he brought it down in a sweeping arc.

The pain was incredible. Blood flowed down my face in a river, pooling in my shirt collar. Permanent scar, I thought bitterly.

"Goodnight, Mr Payne," Scipio said, and as I blacked out he left the room.

To be continued…