The Nomads hesitated, then Azza drew back on the dark energy, and the others followed suit.
Baarabus dropped to the ground. He shook wildly, eyeing them all before turning and walking away.
“I need to be alone for a while,” he said, and Remy watched him pad toward the ruins of the Filthies’ habitat.
Remy wanted to say more but knew that no matter what he said, it would likely never be enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Broker eyed the iPhone 6 resting on the top of the pitted workstation with a kind of revulsion best suited for spiderlike insects and venomous snakes.
He knew that he couldn’t avoid it any longer and reached out with long, spindly fingers to snatch up the Earth technology, prodding it to life. The Broker would have preferred the older methods of communicating with an advanced form of telepathy, but as the years passed, he’d found that unique talent less and less amongst the newest assassins. The old ways were slowly fading away.
There was no choice but to embrace technology and utilize it to the best of their abilities.
He studied the device, recalling what he would need to do in order to transmit a message—text a message—to all his assassins in the field. Carefully he stroked the appropriate buttons on the face of the device, calling up the keyboard, and began the process of writing his message.
It was a simple message, one that told all his killers that a specific assignment had eclipsed all others and that the honor and reputation of the Bone Master guild was being challenged.
The angel, Remy Chandler, was still alive, the job already having claimed the lives of three assassins. That would not do—not in the least.
And that other divine creature, the fallen angel who had requested a meeting. The nerve of that being to think he could buy out an existing contract. The Broker was sure there were other guilds out there that might entertain the idea of backing off for the right price, but never the Bone Masters. Once a contract was initiated, it was fulfilled no matter the price. That was how it had been for millennia and how it would be for countless more.
Which made the fact that the Seraphim was still alive all the more galling.
The Broker finished his message and, satisfied that it was clear, hit SEND, sending it on its way over the ether. Setting the phone down again, he walked across the office to a table where a bottle of wine—a gift from a satisfied customer—awaited his consumption. He studied the unlabeled bottle, attempting to remember the specifics of the assignment. The Broker recalled that it had been an Earth case, something to do with a jealous husband and suspicions of infidelity. Not one of the more exciting jobs, but one that continued to fill the guild’s coffers and provide him with the occasional drink of fine wine.
The Broker popped the cork and brought his nostril slits to the open bottle. It smelled delicious, and as he was certain that the troublesome Seraphim assignment would soon be brought to a close, he decided that he’d imbibe in a precelebratory sampling. But as he lifted the bottle to his mouth, a loud banging at the door startled him. Wine spilled from the lip of the bottle, staining the front of his robes.
The Broker hissed as he set the bottle down, wiping away wine that dribbled down his chin. Then he stalked across the room and down a short staircase to throw open the circular wooden door.
A man lay just beyond the entryway, and the Broker could see that he was injured.
“What is this?” the Broker demanded. “Who are you?”
The man moaned in response, his body trembling as he curled into a tighter ball.
The Broker nudged the body with his foot. “Who are you?” he asked again.
“Please forgive me,” the man pleaded, his voice trembling.
“Forgive you? Forgive you for what?”
The man uncurled and lifted his battered face to the Broker. “I didn’t want to do this . . . but he threatened the eggs.”
It took a moment for the Broker to recognize the man as a Harvester, and from one of the oldest and most prestigious families.
“What are you talking about? Who threatened the eggs?”
The Harvester seemed to grow faint, his head lolling to his chest. With an angry sigh, the Broker reached down and hauled him to his feet. He slung the Harvester’s arm over his own shoulder and dragged him through the door and up the stairs to the office, where he unceremoniously dumped him into a chair.
“Wake up,” the Broker ordered, slapping the Harvester’s bruised and bloody face. “Somebody threatened the eggs—who would dare such a thing?”
The Harvester listed to the side of the chair, still not fully conscious.
The Broker left him, going to the table where he’d left the wine. “Here,” he said, returning to the Harvester and thrusting the bottle at him. “Take a swig of this; it’ll help clear your mind.”
The Harvester took the bottle and brought it to his mouth, taking a long sip.
“Better?” the Broker asked, taking back the bottle.
The Harvester nodded, his eyes growing more clear.
“Explain yourself, then,” the Broker commanded.
“It has been my family’s duty . . . my sacred duty to safeguard the eggs, and I could not bear to see them destroyed.”
“The eggs? Somebody was going to destroy the eggs?”
The Harvester nodded furiously. “Unless I told him . . .” And he stopped.
The Broker felt a cold trickle of fear race down his spine. “Unless you told who . . . what?” he prompted impatiently.
“I’m so sorry,” the Harvester said, burying his face in his hands. “I couldn’t think of any other way.”
The Broker lashed out, swatting the Harvester with the back of his hand, the force of the blow knocking the man from his chair. “Tell me!”
The Harvester stayed on the floor, a trembling hand wiping at the blood that bubbled up from his swollen and split lip. “He wanted to come to the home world,” he cried.
“What?” the Broker shrieked. No one, other than a member of the Bone Master race, was allowed to bear witness to their world, and its location had remained a secret for countless millennia. “You didn’t!”
The Harvester cowered on the floor. “I had no choice. . . . I couldn’t let him destroy the eggs!”
“Who?” The Broker reached down and hauled the Harvester to his feet by the front of his tunic. “Who made you commit this atrocity?”
The Harvester would not meet the Broker’s angry gaze, lowering his eyes in shame and fear. “He did not tell me his name. He appeared human—but I don’t think he was.”
As if on cue, a shrill sound, like the beeping of a horn, sounded from outside.
Immediately, the Harvester began to panic, struggling in the Broker’s grasp. “Oh no, no, no! He’s here!”
Letting go of the Harvester, the Broker stormed to the room’s only window. Outside, in the center of the assassins’ compound, was that fallen angel leaning against the hood of a shiny black automobile.
The Broker was furious. The audacity of this angel. He pushed open the window and was immediately accosted with the smell of automobile fumes and something else that stank of cooking meat.
“You do realize that you’ll never leave this place alive,” the Broker said.
“See, here’s the difference between you and me,” the fallen angel said, crossing his arms as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Bang, you start right off with the threats. How is there anything constructive in that?” He shook his head. “Why don’t you come down here and we can talk about what’s brought me all this way to your doorstep.”
“I believe we’ve already had this discussion,” the Broker said.
The fallen angel smiled, and the Broker suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of dread.
“No,” the angel said. “We haven’t had this conversation.”
And the smile grew wider and far more feral.
• • •
Francis did not make threats lightly. He would never have gone to t
his much trouble if he hadn’t meant business.
He watched the demon in the window as he leaned against Leona’s hood. The car thrummed with life, excited by the prospect of being fed.
“Why don’t you come down here?” Francis called up to the Broker. “And we’ll talk this through like reasonable beings.”
At first the Broker did not move, but then he closed the window and disappeared from view.
Is he actually going to be reasonable? Francis wondered. He’d never known a demonic entity to be even remotely so, but one never could tell.
There was a sudden blast of gunfire, and bullets raked across Leona’s driver’s-side doors.
So much for being reasonable.
The car roared to life, her wheels spinning wildly, kicking up clouds of dust and burning rubber. It was the perfect screen as Francis drew the Pitiless pistol and went to work. Making his way around Leona’s body, he watched for muzzle flashes, took aim, and fired, satisfied with the muffled cries.
Multiple figures emerged from the smoke, clutching machete-like blades, screaming as they ran at him. Francis hesitated momentarily at the sight of his attackers—they were little more than demon children, which explained why they were resorting to guns and bladed weaponry.
Behind him, Leona’s engine revved, her headlights glowing bright.
Why the hell not? he thought.
“Go ahead,” Francis said aloud. “Eat your fill.”
He watched in awe as the car surged forward, attacking the swarming crowd of young demons. It was like a nightmare version of Animal Planet, a living car attacking its flesh-and-blood prey. Francis had never seen anything like it, yet as gruesome as it was, he couldn’t take his eyes away.
Leona was insatiable, wheels spinning for traction as she chased after the youths, who attempted to escape her wrathful hunger. There were explosions in the distance, followed by fire; the screams of the unlucky drifted in the fetid air of this demon world.
Francis suddenly sensed someone behind him. “So, are you ready to talk?” he asked, spinning around, the Pitiless at the ready.
The Broker faced him, aiming his own weapon made from the bones of a special animal.
And they fired as one.
• • •
The Pitiless’ bullet coursed through the air, first striking the venomous tooth as it made its way toward Francis, pulverizing it to so much powder before continuing on to its true destination.
The Broker was just about to fire a second shot when the Pitiless’ bullet then struck the weapon of bone, causing it to explode in his hands. Bone fragments shot into the air, slivers burying themselves in the pallid flesh of the Broker’s face and hands. The Broker cried out in pain, not only from his physical wounds, but from the traumatic severing of the psychic bond he’d shared with his weapon.
Francis watched as the Broker lowered himself down into a crouch, moaning pitifully as he did, only to spring at him in attack. A knife appeared in the Broker’s hand, slicing toward Francis’ throat. The fallen Guardian angel felt the tip of the blade glide across the side of his neck, parting the flesh and causing it to weep.
“And here I was thinking we were going to be gentlemen,” Francis said, pulling back from the blade as the Broker tried to bring it around again for another taste of his neck. Francis brought himself up under the Broker’s arm, taking it beneath the elbow and bending it in the opposing direction until there was a muffled snap of cartilage and ligament. Again the Broker wailed, but did not stop his attack. As the blade dropped from his now-useless hand, he caught it in the other, bringing the knife toward Francis’ ribs in an upward thrust.
“You are a sneaky bastard, aren’t you?” Francis said, managing to prevent the point from finding its target. Pulling the assassin off balance and dragging him closer, Francis brought his forehead down into the Broker’s face, pulverizing one of the demon’s cheekbones.
The Broker went temporarily limp, stumbling back. His broken left arm flopped uselessly by his side, but he still managed to hold on to the knife in his other hand.
“Are we going to talk now?”
But the Broker still wasn’t ready to give up. Blinking away the blood that now dribbled from the gash above his pronounced brow, he lunged at Francis again.
“This is about suicide, isn’t it?” Francis asked as he easily evaded the stabbing gesture, taking hold of that arm as well and breaking it like a twig. The screaming was intense, the Broker’s two arms now flapping pathetically at his sides. “You want me to hurt you . . . to kill you so you won’t have to answer the question.”
The Broker fell to his knees but tried to stand.
“I’m not going to kill you until you answer me,” Francis said. “Will you cancel the contract on Remy Chandler now?”
The Broker fell down, crying out as he tried to catch himself with his broken limbs. He rolled upon the ground onto his back, looking up at the fallen angel.
And he began to laugh.
“I really don’t see much to be laughing about,” Francis told him as he stepped closer, bringing his foot down upon the center of the Broker’s closest arm.
The Broker screeched.
“Will you cancel the contract?” Francis asked again.
The demon looked up at him from the ground with unwavering, defiant eyes.
“You have no understanding of what we are, do you?” he asked.
Francis glared back.
“We are the Bone Masters, one of the most aggressive clans of demon assassins that ever existed. We do not shy away from any assignment—nobody is too big or too small to die at our hands, and we have never not fulfilled a contract.”
“First time for everything,” Francis said in all seriousness, aggravated beyond words but not surprised where this was going.
“No,” the Broker said with a wet-sounding chuckle. “With the Bone Masters, there is not.”
“So what are you saying?”
The Broker looked up at him incredulously. “Are you that dim-witted, angel? Your friend is going to die no matter what you do to me.” He smiled again, his jagged yellow teeth stained with his own blood. “That’s just the way it is.”
“Unless all the Bone Masters sent to do the job are stopped.”
“They would have to be killed.”
“Yeah, figured as much,” Francis said. He turned toward the sound of a rumbling engine as it came closer. Leona pulled up alongside him, the stench of death wafting off her in waves. Her windshield was covered in a thick coating of gore, pieces of mangled bodies dangling from the front of her grill.
“An impossible task, angel,” the Broker said.
“Maybe,” Francis answered, going to the car. “But, like my former Lord and Master, I’m a pretty big fan of miracles.” He went around to the back of the car. “Open the trunk, Leona.”
The trunk lid flipped open and he leaned inside, finding what he was looking for and carefully hauled it out.
Francis brought the ornate metal canister around so that the Broker could see, gently setting it down upon the ground between his feet.
The Broker strained to rise up in a sitting position, wincing in pain as a result of his two broken arms.
“And what is this, angel?” the Broker asked. “Perhaps some form of payment to buy away the contract on your friend’s life?”
“It’s death,” Francis said matter-of-factly.
The Broker looked at him, and Francis was sure that the demon really didn’t quite understand how far this whole business had gone and how far it was still to go.
“Inside this canister is the distillation of God’s wrath.”
“He is not my God,” the demon spat defiantly.
“No matter whose God He is, this canister holds but a sample of the anger that He heaped upon the Pharaoh of Egypt for not releasing the Israelites from slavery.”
Francis lovingly stroked the ornate, copper-colored canister.
“Maybe you saw the movie? One of Chuck Heston’
s finest.” The angel paused, ruminating. “That and The Omega Man—and the one with the monkeys, of course.”
“What are you babbling about?” the demon asked. “You tell me you have a container that contains the power of your God, and I ask you, so what? It changes nothing in the scheme of things.”
“But it does,” Francis said.
“What does it change, angel? The Bone Masters will continue to be the deadliest of assassins, and your friend is going to die.” The demon smiled nastily. “You see? Canister or not, nothing changes.”
Leona’s engine purred strangely, almost sounding like a chuckle—at least, that’s what it sounded like to Francis.
“With this, everything changes,” Francis said, lifting the canister of God’s wrath up from the ground about an inch and then setting it back down.
“This is your end,” Francis said icily, waiting a moment for what he was saying to sink in. “I never wanted it to get this bad, but no matter how I tried to figure it, you were right. No matter how many assassins were taken off the game board, as long as Remy was still alive there would be Bone Masters coming for him.”
“Maybe even the simple-minded eventually come to understand the futility of fighting back against the Bone—”
“So I decided to change everything,” Francis said, interrupting the demon. “To clear the game board completely.”
The Broker still wasn’t quite getting it, but he was onto the fact that something serious was about to go down.
“Sure, I understood that there was probably nothing that I could do about the assassins already on the job, especially if you had zero intention of calling them in—I got that.”
Francis looked away from the demon, at his dwelling, and at the barracks behind it. He then looked in other directions at the dwellings there as well.
“But then I started to think of the Bone Masters and what absolute pains in the ass they’ve been to me since this whole business happened. Nothing but a perpetual thorn in my side, and a continued thorn in the side of my friend Remy if he should survive the current contract.”
“Go on, angel. I’m starting to lose interest.”