Behind the Hands That Kill

  “Keep your hands off her!” I roared, wrenching Izabel closer. “I know you want me, to take me back to The Order—I know! But leave Izabel out of this! I will let her die before I let you take her!”

  Morrison shook his head, and then set his gun on the floor; he held his palms up, facing me. “Listen to me, Victor,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt her. I just want to get her help.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “There’s no time for this,” the woman said.

  Morrison reached out for Izabel again. “Hate me all you want, Victor,” he said, “but right now we have to get her to a hospital or she’s going to die. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? Think about it—if I wanted her dead I’d let her lay there and bleed out. If I wanted you dead, I’d have shot you already.”

  The woman crouched next to Morrison in front of me, peering intensely at me. I did not understand what that look was in her eyes, but for some reason, I felt like I should trust her; she wanted me to trust her.

  “Victor,” she said, carefully, intent on holding my gaze. “I swear to you that the only thing I want to do is save her. I know I can’t make you believe me, but you have no other options. She goes with me, or she dies.” She leaned in closer—what is that look? Trust me, Victor, it felt like she was conveying. I’m here to help you. Covertly, without moving her head, she averted her eyes in Morrison’s direction, then quickly back at me. He may not be, but I am. Please trust me…

  I looked down at Izabel in my arms, then reluctantly back up at the woman. Desperate, and knowing that she was right at least about having no other options, I gave in. “Take her—but only you. He does not touch her! Hurry,” I said, and let go of Izabel.

  Morrison nodded at the woman, giving her the go-ahead, and then she took Izabel’s limp body into her arms swiftly but carefully, keeping pressure on the wound with one hand, and she dashed away on flat-heeled boots, weaving through a maze of dead bodies. I watched the doors out ahead long after she had disappeared behind them.

  The clicking sound of handcuffs locking into place pulled me back into the imminent threat: Brant Morrison, high-ranking veteran operative for The Order, who I knew was there to apprehend me. Squeezing my fist, I pulled back my hand in anger, the handcuff locked around my wrist jangled and scraped against the bar.

  “Why save her?” I asked Morrison about Izabel. “Is she worth more alive?” I felt the warmth of Izabel’s blood all over me, soaking into my pants, into my bones; I swallowed hard and tried not to think about it, about her, and if that woman could get her to a hospital in time. If she would even try.

  Morrison rose into a stand, towering over me; his bearded face stretched into a smile as I raised my head to look up at him.

  “Most of you are,” he answered. “You. Fleischer. Gustavsson; you’re all worth double alive what you’re worth dead.” His smile grew, and he paused, studying me, and said, “But the girl”—he chuckled under his breath—“the price on her head is likely more than any hit you’ve ever carried out, Faust.”

  Surprised by his statement, I stared up at him, long and hard and with tremendous curiosity. But before I could inquire further, Morrison shifted gears and threw the topic off course.

  “I always knew you couldn’t handle it,” he said, shaking his head. “Attachments. They were your only weakness. They always have been, Faust, from the day you were brought into The Order, to the day you went rogue and left it. Your mother. Your brother. Marina. Artemis. Sarai…” He shook his head once more, a look of shame and disappointment spreading over his rugged features. “I have to give you credit though. You tried more than anyone I know could, to overcome the weakness, or to suppress it at least, but in the end it had more power over you than you would ever have over it. Should’ve been born into The Order; if you had, you’d truly be the unstoppable machine that most believe you are.”

  Refusing to give him the satisfaction of a pathetic response—because he was right, and a pathetic response was all I had—I retained eye contact and said, “So then what are you waiting for? Why cuff me to the bar, rather than take me in?”

  He smiled a slippery smile.

  “I’ll get to that soon,” he said. “But first, I wanted to ask you something.” He shrugged. “You don’t have to answer, of course, but I’m very curious, and it can’t hurt to try. Right?”

  I did not respond.

  Morrison dropped the handcuff key into his pants pocket, slid his gun still laying on the floor, behind him, and then crouched in front of me again, but out of my reach; he sprang up and down momentarily on the front of his feet.

  “Did you ever wonder why no one in The Order knew you and Niklas Fleischer were half-brothers?” He twirled a hand at the wrist. “I mean surely it had to be a question itching in the back of your mind.”

  Still, I did not respond.

  Morrison’s mouth pinched at one corner, and he looked at me sidelong. “Oh come on, Faust, just be honest and say you thought about it but never could quite figure it out—there’s no shame in the truth.” When he still did not get the response from me he sought, he sighed and pushed himself into a stand. “All of us know—you know—that nothing in The Order is ever as it seems. Of course, you, being higher on Vonnegut’s pedestal than any operative in history, you had every reason to believe that everything you thought you knew was exactly how you knew it to be. But you’re not stupid, Victor; you’re probably the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. And you damn-well know, somewhere inside that methodical head of yours”—he pointed at his own head—“that there was no way you and your brother made it through the most sophisticated spy and assassination organization in the world, flying under the noses of those who built it, without them ever knowing the truth about your relation.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, though I already knew he would not tell me.

  Morrison shrugged.

  “It was just a question, like I said.”

  “You said yourself that I am not stupid, Morrison, so do not insult my intelligence with cryptic bush-beating.”

  He smiled; the yellow-white of his teeth barely visible beneath his lips. But as I expected, he had no plans to alleviate the aching curiosity in me.

  “I have a question for you,” I said, turning the tables.

  “Ask away.” He motioned his right hand, twirling it at the wrist.

  “Just how in love with Marina Torre were you before I choked her to death?”

  The smile disappeared from his face, and he stopped blinking.

  Victor

  Morrison rounded his chin; he used a cool smile to conceal the animosity.

  “You heard Marina that night,” I began, “when she told me the story about when and how she met you. But when after a while she did not return the affection, you, like any deranged sociopath with underdeveloped people skills, turned on her, started threatening her, beating her, all to keep her in line and under your thumb.” (The skin around Morrison’s nose crumpled; he clenched his teeth behind closed lips. He wanted to kill me, but he could not. I was worth too much.) “I had no idea about your feelings for Marina then, but I figured it out later, after the night I slit Artemis’ throat.” On my knees now, I pushed myself toward him, as far as I could, so that he could see the look in my eyes; the cuff rattled against the bar; the knife beneath my leg, covered by the fabric of my pants, was as silent as my intention to use it. “You, Brant Morrison, are just like me; you are as guilty as I am; you are as flawed and weak as I have ever been, affected by the same attachments you accuse me of. I suspect that Marina was the first of many women with whom you confused obsession for love, and that Marina was the first of many who denied you.”

  Confetti-like spots sprang before my eyes like bursting fireworks in a black sky; I fell backward against the bars; the left side of my face pulsed and throbbed. In the three seconds it took for the stun to wear off, I was still able to keep the knife hidden beneath my pant leg.

  I opened m
y eyes, shook off the remnants of the blow; Morrison was standing over me. Right where I needed him. Patience, Victor, I told myself. Do not kill him yet, or the answers die with him. I knew it would not be my only chance to get him close if he moved out of my reach—my plan to shake him enough to get him this close worked faster than I thought it would, therefore it would work again.

  “This isn’t about me,” he said, indignantly.

  “No,” I came back, “it is not. However, it is about something. Everything is connected—we are all connected in some way; are we not, Morrison?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” I answered, doing a little bush-beating of my own. “It was just a question.” I smirked.

  He sneered, and then stepped out of my reach again; fortunately, not because he realized that he was standing too close—the clouded expression of anger and perplexity in his face told me his mind was anywhere but where it should have been. I barely had time to wonder how this man could have been the one who trained me; how could I have turned out like I did, when he was failing every test I put to him? Was he simply slipping in his advancing age, forgetting the most basic of skills? Or had the student transcended the master? Oh, that’s right, I thought smugly, I transcended him a long time ago.

  “You wanted to tell me something, Morrison. You would not have brought it up if there was not something you were itching to say. I presume it is something you have wanted to say to me for a very long time.”

  “Is that so?” he said, with sarcasm. “And just what makes you think that?”

  I nodded. “Because jealousy and envy are cheap suits made of flashy colors,” I said. “No one wears them well, and everyone sees you when you are coming.”

  He crouched in his flashy suit to be eye-level with me, still out of my reach.

  “Go on,” he urged, cocking his head to one side. “Tell me what you think you know, Faust.”

  I cocked my head opposite his.

  “You spent a great deal of time and effort talking to me about my and my brother’s hidden relation in The Order—I bet you practiced that in front of a mirror.” (He snarled, but kept his cool.) “You are at war with yourself: you want to tell me something I do not know, that you feel I should have figured out by now, so you can feel like you finally have something over me, that for once in your life, you are better than me at something. But you cannot, because you still work for The Order. You are now—last I heard, anyway—Vonnegut’s new Golden Boy, his top operative. You are now what I used to be. You now have what you feel you were robbed of when you trained me.”

  Morrison’s jaw hardened.

  I shrugged, pursed my lips on one side.

  “You are not the first operative under Vonnegut,” I went on, “who despised me because I was better at my job than you were; because Vonnegut favored me over you.” I straightened my head, looked him dead in the eyes, taunted him, because it was working so well. “My own brother had his issues with me for the very same reasons. But I find it peculiar how much deeper your jealousy runs—at least Niklas got over it.”

  His hand latched around my throat, nearly crushing my windpipe. I felt the veins in my temples bulging; the air cut off from my lungs, sounding the alarms inside my brain. But I maintained my still position on the floor, and I willed my mind to allow me control, even if only for a few seconds before I had to succumb to the sensation of being choked to death.

  “Say what you wanted to say, Morrison.” My voice was rough, strained.

  He squeezed harder—my eyes began to water.

  “Go on,” I continued. “Say it. You want to…you could”—I was losing the control; I began to choke—“…you could get it off your…chest and then kill me…afterwards. Is…getting one over me not worth…the…money you would lose?”

  Beyond the blurring of my vision I saw his lips furrow in anger.

  He was going to do it—he was going to choke me to death just like I choked Marina; I was going to die, right there, covered in Izabel’s blood.

  With my free hand, I secretly reached for the knife hidden underneath my leg.

  I could not see.

  I could not breathe.

  I could not…I needed the information.

  My eyes opened and shut, opened and shut, but all they took in were the darkening colors and lights; the veins in my temples were on the cusp of bursting.

  If I did not kill him soon, he would kill me.

  Izabel. What if she is still alive?

  Fuck the information!

  Grasping the knife in my fist, I started to gut him, but just before I slid my hand from beneath my leg, he let go of me; the back of my head was crushed against the bars, sending a shockwave through my skull and a ringing through my ears; a great surge of air rushed back into my starved lungs. I coughed and gasped, left the knife in its place and instinctively raised my free hand to my throat.

  My eyes opened a sliver at first, and then all the way; although I could see, everything remained blurred. Morrison was out of my reach again; he stood tall, pacing the limited space the floor provided.

  Finally, everything blurred back into focus.

  I saw Morrison’s throat move as he swallowed. He reached up and straightened his tie, then smoothed his hands down the front of his suit jacket. Rounded his chin. Cracked his neck.

  “The money you’re worth alive,” he said, “will benefit me more than the satisfaction.”

  “Maybe so,” I said, still breathless, “but you have to take me in before you see a penny of it.” I grabbed the knife with my dreaded thirty-percent hand, and sent it hurling at him. And in that second it took to hit the target, I held my breath hoping that my aim had improved over the years.

  “And I take it,” Izabel says, “that because we’re still alive, that your aim did improve?”

  I want to smile at her, mostly because I am happy to see her here, but I refrain.

  I nod. “Yes,” I say. “It did not take him long to bleed out from the neck. I waited for him to die. I sat there, drenched in blood and sweat, thinking of you”—I look Izabel right in the eyes, but then just as quickly, I look away—“and once he was dead, I dragged his body by the ankle over to me, and I fished the handcuff key from his pocket. I took his gun, and I left.”

  “But what about Izabel’s bounty?” Niklas says, as if he is stepping in for her.

  Back off, little brother, or you and I will have that much more added to our growing list of problems.

  “That information came later,” I say out loud, “after I went looking for Izabel and the woman who took her. As I ran down the street, barefoot and bloody, I began to doubt that the woman could be trusted, that I, in my most desperate moment, fell for the most basic of tricks, and that there was no way she really took Izabel to a public hospital for treatment.”

  I pause, and turn to the window again.

  “But she did,” I say, staring into the distance, letting the scene materialize in front of me. “And when I arrived, and saw that Izabel, although unconscious and near death, was still alive, and when I saw the woman sitting in the room watching over her, not only was I thankful, but I somehow knew right away, that I was looking directly into a mirror.”

  “A mirror?” Niklas asks.

  “Yes, brother,” I say, still with my back to everyone. “A mirror.”

  Victor

  Venezuela…

  I did not know how long I had been with Morrison before I killed him and set myself free, or how long it took me to find the hospital, but by the time I arrived, Izabel had just come out of surgery.

  “Señor! Señor! You can’t go in there!” a nurse screamed at me in Spanish. And when she ran into the room behind me, saw the extent of the blood on my clothes, she instantly backed away.

  Two more nurses rushed in; they took one look at me, eyes wide and panicked, and either thought I was in need of a doctor myself, or I was the one who cut open Izabel’s throat.

  The wo
man who had brought Izabel to the hospital, shot up from the chair. “It’s OK,” she also spoke in Spanish, motioning her hands, “he’s not the man who did this; he is her husband; he was attacked, too.”

  The nurse’s eyes darted between me, the woman, and Izabel lying on the bed.

  I ignored them all and went quickly over to the bedside.

  The police were there in under five minutes, and as I sat with Izabel, holding her hand, the woman did most of the talking, reiterating what she apparently had told them when she first arrived without me. After they asked me questions, and I told them what happened—a fabrication, of course—they left us alone.

  I stayed with Izabel for a long time before I went outside into the hall, and I sat down next to the young woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, but I got the feeling was a little older. She had soft brown hair that fell to her breasts, bright blue-green eyes, and freckles splashed across the bridge of her nose.

  It was eerily quiet in the hospital; I could vaguely hear the nurse’s rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the floor, and a computer keyboard being tapped, and a life-support machine—Izabel’s life-support machine—beeping steadily from the cracked door of her room.

  I sat hunched over, my forearms on the top of my legs; my feet were still bare, and my injured hand was wrapped in a bloody cloth. The woman beside me sat with the back of her head against the white brick wall. The bench beneath us was made of wood; I could distinctly smell the black paint that it had been coated with last.

  “If she’s as tough as everybody says she is, she’ll—”

  “Who are you?” I cut in; I did not look at her.

  I heard her sigh. She began to adjust her position next to me on the bench; she placed her folded hands on her lap.

  Finally she answered, “My name is Naeva. Though you might remember me as the little blond-haired girl who always tried to play with you and Niklas when we were children. Niklas slapped me in the face with a dead snake once. And you—”