Behind the Hands That Kill

  I go back over and sit sideways on his lap; he hooks his hands around my waist.

  “So tell me about the job,” I say. “And why only fifty-five thousand?”

  He kisses the side of my neck.

  “It came at the perfect time,” he begins. “We needed to get away from Boston—I could kill two birds with one stone, so I took the job.”

  “So then I’m a bird that needs to be killed?”

  Victor frowns.

  I smile.

  “I’m just messing with you,” I tell him, and kiss his lips.

  Victor smiles lightly, and then helps me off his lap.

  “I apologize,” he says. “I know I could have—should have—just set everything else aside and taken you where you wanted to go; made the vacation about you. About us.”

  “It’s OK,” I say. “This is who we are, Victor. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Besides, you’re the Great Victor Faust, and you have a reputation to maintain. Bein’ all God-like and stuff.” I scrunch my nose up at him, and smile. I’m just trying to lighten the mood again.

  “Izabel,” he says, walking away, mood not lightened, “you give me far more credit than I deserve.” He pulls his gun from the back of his pants and sets it on the table beside the ice bucket. And then he strips off his shirt. “You’ve only ever seen two sides of me. I’m not perfect. I’m skilled, yes. But immortal? No.”

  I want to laugh—how could he assume I believe something so ridiculous? But I don’t laugh. I don’t because I realize that all this time I’ve never really believed that anything could ever happen to Victor; I can’t think of a single instant when I was truly afraid for him—he’s right: without realizing it, all this time I’ve considered him immortal. And maybe even perfect, too.

  I walk over to him, touch his bare arm lightly, brush my fingertips over the curvature of his bicep muscle. “Well, maybe you’re right”—I press my lips to his shoulder; his skin is warm against my mouth—“maybe when I look at you I see something more…complex, more advanced.” Walking around him slowly, my lips leave a trail of kisses across his back, his sides, and then his chest when I make a full circle.

  I stop and look at him gazing down into my eyes. What is that in his gaze? Lust? Indecision? Struggle? For the first time in a long time I can’t tell the difference.

  “There’s something I need to tell you, Izabel.”

  The words, although vague, are cryptic enough to stop my heart. No one ever starts a sentence like that unless the rest of it is going to suck.

  I take a step back and away from him immediately.

  “What is it, Victor?” I’m afraid of the answer.

  He sighs and his gaze drops to the floor; a hand comes up and his fingers cut a nervous path through his short hair.

  He looks right at me.

  My heart stops again.

  “There was more to the mission in Italy than what you were lead to believe.”

  I blink twice, and then just stare at him for a drawn-out moment.

  “OK,” I finally say. “Then what? Tell me.”

  Victor pulls out a chair from underneath the table and he takes a seat. I remain standing. I feel like I should probably sit down for this too. But screw that.

  “I want you to sit down,” he says kindly.

  “No, I’m fine right here,” I respond with a little less kindness—I cross my arms.

  He sighs, and then slouches in the chair somewhat, letting his long legs fall apart before him; his left arm rests on the tabletop.

  There’s a long pause, and although only a few seconds, I feel like I’m going to die with impatience.

  “Victor—”

  “There are things about me,” he begins, “that you will never understand, or be able to accept, things that I cannot change.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Both.”

  That stings. But I say nothing.

  And where the hell is this stuff coming from? I’m getting whiplash trying to figure out how we went from almost-sex to you’re-gonna-need-to-sit-down-for-this.

  “When I met you,” he goes on, not looking at me, “or I should say after I fell in love with you, I thought maybe I could change.” Now he looks right at me, hooking my gaze and holding it. “That part of me that loves you wanted to…adjust”—he motions a hand casually—“certain things about my personality, to better suit you as your…lover.”

  “My lover? You’re not a robot, Victor,” I snap, “so please speak normal, everyday English.”

  “I love you,” he says, “but I can never change who I am for you.” (That didn’t sting—it gutted me.) “And I was a fool to ever consider it. Changing is impossible. I knew that all along. I tried to find ways around it, but in doing so I got myself in tight situations.”

  My mouth pinches bitterly on one side; my arms stay crossed. I want to argue, but he doesn’t give me a chance.

  “If I was myself, Kessler never would have made it out of that auditorium alive the night we apprehended her. But because of my feelings for you, I played her game to save the life of your mother. I changed who I am, how I work—for you. And as long as you’re alive, as long as I’m in love with you—as long as you are mine—I’ll struggle with who I’ve become, and who I am. And the consequences will be that I get myself, and you, and everyone else, into tight situations. Because I am not used to caring for someone, Izabel. I am not used to…caring at all.”

  “So what are you saying?” I ask, bitterly. “Is this your way of leaving me? Is that why you brought me here: show me a good time, give me the last part of who you tried to be, and then send me on my way?”

  Wait. Or could it be…? No…that can’t be what’s happening—did he bring me here to kill me?

  I take two more steps backward, my legs becoming unsteady underneath my trembling weight.

  Victor stands, and my eyes dart to see his gun still laying on the table beside him. In his reach. My heart is pounding against my ribcage. I’m losing my breath.

  “No,” he says calmly, regretfully, and walks away from the gun, moving toward me. “I brought you here to tell you the truth. About Italy. About Nora. About everything.”

  About Nora? Why does it feel like my stomach is in my throat all of a sudden? What the hell does Nora have to do with this?

  “Then tell me, Victor. Tell me and get it over with.”

  He stops abruptly, just feet from me, and cocks his head curiously to one side. He looks stunned, maybe even a little wounded, and I can’t quite place why. I think he’s going to say something—maybe he’s hurt by how afraid I am of him suddenly. No, it’s something else…something entirely—

  “Victor?”

  His eyes appear heavier, unfocused; his legs seem to struggle holding up his weight; he’s like a tree moved by a steady wind.

  “Victor, you’re scaring me.” I move toward him. “Victor?” He collapses, and instinctively my arms shoot out to catch him, but the heavy weight of his body falls against mine; we crash onto the carpeted floor together.

  “Victor! Victor wake up!” I crawl from underneath his hip and sit on my knees beside his seemingly lifeless body. “Victor!” I shriek. My hands probe his face; his eyes are wide open, but empty—thank God I feel breath emitting from his mouth and nostrils.

  What the hell is going on? What just happened?

  My fingers graze something foreign when I grab him by the neck. I turn his head to one side to see a tiny golden piece of metal jutting from his skin. Yanking it out quickly, a trickle of blood follows, trailing down his throat. I drop the strange-looking dart on the floor.

  The balcony. Victor’s back was facing the open balcony doors. Panicked, I struggle to get to my feet, intent on making it first to Victor’s gun on the table and then to the balcony doors to close them. But I don’t even make it to the gun when I feel a sudden hot prickle in the side of my neck. And just like Victor, I stop, stunned, instantly feeling the drug moving through my bloodstream, and into
my brain. The room begins to spin; my legs feel boneless; I can’t feel my hands or my chest or my face.

  Two dark figures, blurry and colorless, appear at the balcony doors. All I can make out is the movement, and their feet. Am I on the floor again? How did I get here?

  “She’ll fit in the suitcase,” I hear a man’s voice say.

  Suitcase? What the fuck do you mean suitcase? I feel like I’m screaming at these people, but for some reason I don’t think they hear me. I could swear that I’m thrashing, trying to fight them off, but I don’t think they notice.

  Moments later I feel my body being lifted into the air. No, I don’t feel it, I see it—I don’t feel anything—and although everything is out of focus, I can still vaguely make out the furniture in the room. I can see one body standing over Victor. I can see things moving as I’m carried away. Then I hear, muffled in my ears, the ominous sound of a zipper.

  No! Don’t put me in there! Please! NO!

  I realize now that I can’t move and I can’t speak. But my eyes are open and I can see. And I can hear. And I can smell. Perfume. Peppermint. Dial soap. Nail polish. Leather. My sense of smell is intensified, but my sight and hearing have diminished severely.

  The zipper sounds in my ears again.

  “Hurry,” a woman’s voice urges. “They’re coming.”

  What little light I could see, and everything within it, goes black as the zipper closes around me, sealing me inside a leather tomb.

  Victor

  Present day – I think…

  My fingers are finally starting to move again; the blur is beginning to clear away from my eyes, but little good it does when the people who kidnapped us are wearing black masks over their faces. And despite the minimal movement in my hands, I am in a small cell with iron bars, and without a key or a lock pick, I can do nothing to free myself.

  The stone floor is warm and moist against my bare back; I am wearing no shoes. The air is humid and reeks of mildew. Wet straw. Remnants of animal feces and urine. It smells like a farm or a zoo or a circus, which leads me to wonder what kind of animal was in this cage before me, if it died in here, and if I will be treated with the same cruelty.

  Izabel. Where is she?

  I struggle to move my eyes in search of her; I still cannot lift my head. I feel myself straining—every part of me—but the effort produces no results. The drug is taking too long to wear off; I feel trapped in my own skin, and I would rather be dead than to feel like this.

  I close my eyes and sleep—sleep always speeds up time.

  I wake to a scraping sound, and the distant clatter of voices. Arguing. Cursing. But the people are not in the same room; I think they are behind a door, somewhere to my left. I can feel my toes now. I can move my legs, my hands, my head—but I refrain; as much as I want to get up from this filthy stone floor, or at least raise my head to look for Izabel, I remain still. Because although I cannot see him, although I have only ever heard two distinct voices since the hotel room in Caracas, I know there is a third person. A man. I saw the masked figures look at him on two separate occasions, giving away his authoritative presence. I can sense him watching me now, I can feel his eyes on me; I can smell his cologne, his sweat—he is close, right behind me, sitting in the dark on a metal chair on the other side of the bars. I had heard the chair legs scraping lightly against the floor moments ago. It was the sound that initially woke me.

  “Fifteen years,” the man says, breaking the silence, “seems like a long time, doesn’t it, Victor?”

  I hear him get up from the chair, I can hear his footsteps moving slowly over the stones, but he stays behind me in the shadows. I hear the snap of a lighter, and seconds later the potent smell of cigar smoke reaches my nostrils. I am thankful for it; it suffocates the stench of animal.

  There is no reason to pretend any longer—he knows that I am awake.

  “Kidnapping does not suit you, Apollo,” I say; my bones feel like they have not been used in days as I struggle into a sitting position.

  Apollo’s laughter is as deep and suave as his voice; he puffs on the cigar, taking his time.

  “And stupidity doesn’t suit you, Victor—you know why you’re here.”

  Yes, I do—revenge for what I did fifteen years ago. Not to mention the substantial bounty on my head.

  I push myself into a stand with difficulty, my legs still do not feel like a part of me; my breath is heavy and uneven; my head spins. I reach out and grab the vertical iron bars to steady myself, shaking off the remnants of the drug, but it clings to the back of my eyes and the crevices of my brain like spider webs.

  “So how much did they tell you my head is worth?” I’m looking down at my bare feet; yellow straw helps to cushion them against the floor.

  “Oh, now let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Apollo scolds, playfully. “I’d like to get the questions about that girl of yours out of the way first.”

  “What questions?” I ask, pretending.

  Apollo laughs; the darkness illuminates briefly with a soft orange glow as he takes another puff of his cigar.

  “You always were the unpredictable type,” he says, takes another puff. His voice draws closer as he steps out of the shadows and into the light of the moon beaming in through three high windows. “OK, so if you’re gonna pretend you don’t give a shit about her, then I’ll just get to the point.” He steps up to the bars—I could reach him if I wanted, but if I do anything stupid, Izabel will pay the price.

  Apollo smiles craftily amid his dark skin; smoke floats in a cloud around his head. Dark eyes stare back at me with a sort of sick delight—it looks very much like revenge, despite his claims. Short black hair. Sharp cheekbones. Perfect skin. He looks so much like her—Artemis, his twin sister. It bothers me a half a second longer than I like.

  “By all means,” I tell him, urging him to ‘get to the point’. But then I try to do it for him. “Let me guess,” I begin. “You want something from me first. Information. Money. Something you cannot get from Vonnegut. And if I do not give it to you, Izabel will die.” I look him straight in the eyes. “Is that about right?”

  He smiles.

  “Not necessarily,” he answers, and I detect the satisfaction in his voice—it is not often that I am wrong about these things, and he is enjoying the rare moment.

  Apollo drops the cigar on the floor and crushes it with an expensive black dress shoe.

  “You really are slipping, Faust,” he says, shaking his head. “It amazes me—never thought I’d see the day; the legendary Victor Faust, Golden Boy of The Order, one of the most dangerous men alive”—he chuckles, shaking his head again—“and now look at you”—he points at me in a disgusted fashion—“in a cage, like an animal, and it all started with that girl back in Mexico.” He turns his back to me and walks away from the cage. “Now I don’t know too many details about when you went rogue from The Order; I don’t even know if the shit that I heard is true: about how you helped that girl and risked your life for her—hell, I even heard you almost killed your brother to protect her.” He turns to face me, something dark and serious in his eyes. “That’s fucked up, bro. You know that saying about blood being thicker than water? It’s true. Family comes first.” He should know—Apollo was betrayed by his own flesh-and-blood brother, Osiris. He is still bitter about it, I see.

  “Falling in love with someone makes them family too,” I say. “Then it’s just a matter of which family member deserves your defense—my brother deserved a bullet at that time, not unlike your brother fifteen years ago, if I remember correctly.”

  Not liking my answer, but unable to argue with it, Apollo tracks back to what he was saying before. “Anyway—I don’t know too much about when you went rogue, but it’s pretty fucking plain to me that you’re here, in this situation, because of that girl. And now you just admitted to being in love with her. Thought I was gonna have to break that out of you.”

  I thought he was too—I did not even realize until now that I had said
it out loud. So much for pretending Izabel means nothing to me in hopes they will not harm her. Apollo is right—I am slipping. But I knew that already. I have known that for a long time. Only now do I realize just how severely.

  Other things are becoming clear to me as well: the real reason I was commissioned for the hit in Caracas.

  “I take it you had a big hand in the job here?”

  Apollo smiles.

  “So then,” I go on, “I was brought to Venezuela under false pretenses just to get me where you wanted me.” I should have sensed something misleading about this job. I hope Apollo does not see that realization on my face, but I get the feeling that he does.

  Apollo nods, and a smirk pulls one corner of his mouth. “You’re slipping, just like I told you,” he says, proving my assumption.

  “Yes. I admit it. Vonnegut should have taken a page from the handbook of the SC-4—they are true soldiers. Emotionless. Loveless. Merciless. In a way I envy them.” I look away, lost in my thoughts, feeling regret for thinking them at all. If Izabel knew how often I thought of Nora…I have wanted to tell her, but for a long time I feared she would not understand. I had planned to tell her in the hotel, but the moment was…interrupted. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe none of that matters anymore now.

  I look up at Apollo again, shaking the thoughts from my mind.

  “So how many of your family are left?” I ask.

  Apollo drags the chair he had been sitting on before, out of the shadows, and places it near my cell. He sits down, props his right ankle on his left knee, and folds his hands loosely within his lap.

  “Me. Osiris,” he says, and casually gestures one hand. I get the feeling there are others.

  “What about your sister, Gaia?” I say. “You were close with her.”

  “Killed last August,” he says. “Pissed off boyfriend, or some such shit.”

  I nod.

  There is a pause, and then Apollo says, “Do you ever think about her?” shifting the subject to the one I was brought here for.

  “Artemis?” I ask.