Bad Grace (Watcher Chronicles Book 1) (22 page)

Leland nodded, looked like he didn’t want to say anything, but knew he had no choice. “If I tell you,” he said. “How do I know you won’t just kill me?”

“You don’t,” Frank said.

Leland looked at Bezekiel. “You have to promise to protect me. I’m the head of the Watcher High Council.”

Bezekiel, probably as deadly as it was possible for any angel to be, frowned and stepped towards Leland, towering over him as he looked down. “Your conceitedness disgusts me,” the angel said.

“Maybe, but let’s not forget your own kind were involved here as well,” Leland said. “None of this would have come about if it wasn’t for Aramis. He put things in motion when he contacted Tolloch.”

“Really? I’m told that was you,” Bezekiel said. “That
you
put all this in motion.”

Frank was losing patience. “Stop playing politician, Leland,” he said. “People are dying up there. Tell us what we need to know or I’ll kill you and figure it out myself. It’s what I’m good at, after all.”

Leland gave a heavy sigh and bowed his head in silence for a moment, then he looked up at Frank. “The Holy Lance,” he said resignedly.

“The Spear of Destiny?” Frank said. “What about it?”

“It’s the only thing that can kill the demon, unless you can persuade Tolloch to call his son off, which I doubt he would be agreeable to.”

“No one knows where that spear is,” Bezekiel said.

“Leland does,” Frank said. “It’s in the vaults somewhere, right, Leland?”

“I came across it a decade ago,” Leland said. “Completely by chance. An old mage I knew had it in his possession for a long time. After the mage died, I looked through his things.”

“Pillaged the man’s stuff, you mean?” Frank said. “We all know you’re a relic hunter, Leland. You probably killed the guy yourself just to get his stuff.”

Leland gave Frank a tight smile. “Like I said, I came across it by chance. The spear can kill anything, no matter how powerful.”

“Where in the vault is it?” Frank asked, anxious now to get the spear so he could think about taking down the monster rampaging through the city above him.

“In my own private vault,” Leland said. “It’s protected by a retinal scanner. You’ll need me to open it for you.”

“That’s convenient,” Frank said, walking up to Leland and putting the knife to within an inch of the older man’s right eye, which was bloodshot from the beating he took from Michelle. “How about I just cut your eye out and open the vault myself?”

“Please, Frank,” Leland said. “Just take me down there. I’ll get you what you want.”

You’ll get me some of what I want, Frank thought. The rest of what I want will require putting a bullet in your head, Leland. “Alright, let’s go.”

“I’ll leave you to handle this,” Bezekiel said. “I have to be elsewhere now.”

“Seriously?” Frank said as he pulled Leland roughly up off his knees, a Beretta pointed at his head. “What could possibly be more pressing than this?”

“You would be surprised, Watcher,” the angel said. “We will talk again.”

Then Bezekiel disappeared into thin air, leaving only Frank and Leland in the room. “Looks like it’s just us now, Leland,” Frank said, trying to ignore the remnants of Michelle’s body splatted all over the floor and walls.

“Great,” Leland said.

“You make one move against me, and I’ll put a bullet in your brain. Got it?”

“I got it.”

“Good. Start walking.”

Leland walked slightly ahead of Frank while Frank kept the Beretta aimed at the man’s lower back. As Leland opened the double doors, Frank grabbed Leland’s arm and stuck the gun into the man’s side. He wasn’t all that worried about Leland trying anything. Leland knew when to play it safe, knew Frank wasn’t kidding about shooting him if he tried anything. What Frank was more worried about was the rest of the people in the Facility, most of whom Frank assumed were still loyal to the head of the High Council, as brainwashed as they probably were. He wasn’t sure how things would play out when he inevitably encountered them.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait too long to find out. As soon as Leland pulled open the doors of the suite, Frank saw the dozen or so armed guards standing just in the hallway, automatic weapons raised. “Stop!” one of the guards shouted. “Let him go!”

“Kill this traitor!” Leland shouted back.

Frank slid behind Leland to use the man as a shield, putting the Beretta to Leland’s temple. “Easy there, Leland,” he said, his eyes on the guards a few feet away. “I’ll blow your brains out before any one of them gets near me.”

“Stand down!” the male guard demanded. “Or we will kill you.”

“You don’t understand,” Frank shouted over Leland’s shoulder. “This man is the traitor, not me. He’s responsible for that demon wrecking the city up there.”

“I said stand down now!”

All of the guards moved forward a foot, their weapons fully cocked.

“You better fucking tell them, Leland or we’re both going to die here,” Frank said harshly into Leland’s ear. “That I can fucking guarantee you.” He pressed the nose of the gun hard into Leland’s temple.

“Alright, alright,” Leland said. “Stand down. That’s an order. Let us pass.”

“But sir,” the guard said.

“Do as I say, Watcher!” Leland commanded, effortless authority in his voice. The voice of a man used to people obeying his orders.

Frank prodded Leland with the gun. “Tell them why. Tell them you’re responsible.”

Leland hesitated until Frank pressed the gun into him again. “Everything that’s happening, it was all my doing.”

The guards looked confused now, but they all still held their weapons up. “Sir?” the lead guard said, whom Frank realized was barely twenty years of age. How easy it must have been for Leland to brainwash the trainees when they were all so young.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Leland said, not a trace of shame in his voice. “Just let us pass unhindered.”

“Order them out to the city,” Frank said. “All of them.”

Leland addressed the head guard. “Gather all the teams. Tell them to go topside. That’s an order.”

“Get up there and do your jobs,” Frank shouted. “People up there need your help.”

The guard looked at Leland again, still unsure and Leland balled at him, “You have your orders. Now go!”

Reluctantly, the guard nodded and then lowered his gun. After a moment, the rest of the guards lowered their weapons also. Then they all turned, looks of confusion still on their faces, and ran off down the hallway.

“Nicely done,” Frank said. “Anyone would think you were in charge here. Too bad you’re not anymore.”

“Screw you, Frank.”

“Just get moving.”

CHAPTER 30

Frank stuck to Leland like a sucker fish on a Great White Shark until they made it down to the vault. Along the way, they passed numerous personnel, many of them fully combat ready soldiers rushing to get topside to the city. No one gave them any trouble. Leland’s orders had obviously travelled fast. One thing about Leland, he ran a tight ship, kept a good reign on the Facility and its personnel. When he gave orders, they were carried out immediately without question. Although no one tried to apprehend them, everyone gave them concerned and puzzled looks as they passed down the corridor towards the elevator that would take them down to the vault. No one knew what to make of the situation. Some of the personnel knew of Frank and his reputation, knew he wasn’t doing what he was doing without good reason. They also knew about Leland’s confession, but Frank was sure most of them thought Leland said what he said because he had a gun pointed to his head. It would be inconceivable to most of the people in the Facility that their supreme leader was somehow the instigator of all the terrible atrocities that had been committed against the city and its people of late. Still, orders were orders, and everyone obeyed them by allowing Frank to walk Leland at gunpoint to the elevator. Inside the elevator, Leland used a key card to take them down to the bottom floor, which only selected personnel could access. The elevator doors opened right into the vault.

Frank himself had never been to the vault before, so he was shocked to see that the vault wasn’t the steel cave he expected, but more like a massive warehouse filled with floor to ceiling shelving units, on which were stacked endless amounts of wooden crates, all them marked with some kind of alphanumeric identification code. “Holy shit,” Frank said, walking behind Leland into the vault. “Not what I was expecting.”

“This place represents only a fraction of what the Council possesses in terms of relics and artifacts,” Leland said like he was suddenly a tour guide. “We have many other secret vaults around the world.”

“But let me guess,” Frank said. “All the really good stuff is kept here, right? Under your watchful eye.”

Leland glanced briefly over his shoulder at Frank as they walked down one of the aisles. “Something like that. My personal collection is in the back.”

As Frank walked behind Leland, the gun pointed towards the older man’s back, he asked, “Why’d you do it, Leland? Why reek all this havoc, all this death? Tell me it wasn’t just for power and personal gain.”

Leland stopped and turned slowly around. “You’ll never understand, Frank,” he said. “Men like you don’t know what it means to want greatness. You’re just content being a drone, happy in the shadows, tramping through filth every day of your life. You don’t know what real power is, or what it is to want it. To
need
it.”

“You always were a pretentious prick, Leland,” Frank said. “A greedy son of a bitch out for his own gain. Some of us actually help people from time to time.”

Leland laughed derisively. “Don’t make me laugh, Frank. You’re in it for yourself as much as anyone else. You love the hunt. You love the killing. You’re fooling no one with your self-righteous act. Being a Watcher is about
you
, not the people you think you’re helping by putting down a few demons.”

Well, he’s got you there, Frank. Come to think of it, he’s got us both.

“I don’t hurt innocent people.”

“What about those two kids Rachel left behind? What about your brother, Frank?”

Frank stepped forward and put the gun to Leland’s head. “Fuck you!” he snarled. “I didn’t ask to be brought back!”

A slight smile creased Leland’s lips. Despite the gun to his head, the bastard was enjoying himself still. “Maybe not, but don’t tell me Dean wouldn’t be alive today, being a father to his kids, a husband to his wife, if you had of stayed away from Rachel. She was married, Frank. She told me herself, after you wouldn’t leave her alone, that you would drag her down eventually. And you did, Frank, you dragged her down to Hell—”

“Fuck you!” Frank spat and pressed the gun so hard into Leland’s head that the older man stumbled back into the shelves behind him, banging the back of his head on one of the wooden crates.

“The truth hurts, Frank,” Leland said, his face creased up in discomfort from the gun pressing into his head. “You couldn’t help yourself any more than I could. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We do what we do and that’s that.”

Frank stared at Leland for a long time, sorely tempted to blow the man’s brains out there and then. It was only through remembering why he was down there with Leland in the first place that he relaxed somewhat, let his temper subside for the sake of the mission he was now on. He moved the gun from Leland’s head and took a step back. “Move.”

Looking almost disappointed, Leland gave a slight nod and started walking down the aisle again.

After a few more minutes of silent walking, they came to a large square room that looked to be made entirely out of steel, like a giant safe with an electronic door in the center. Leland walked up to the door and leaned his head in towards the retinal scanner by the side of it. “Leland Cunningham,” he said.

“Voice recognition too,” Frank said. “You were taking no chances.”

“Not with the items inside here, no.”

The door slid open a moment later. “Inside, and don’t go getting any ideas when you’re in there, you hear me?”

“I know,” Leland said. “You’ll shoot me.”

“No,” Frank said. “I’ll kill you.”

When the door slid shut behind him, Frank noticed the temperature inside the vault was different to that of the main vault. Slightly warmer. Obviously the climate inside was carefully controlled to preserve the many fragile and not to say priceless artifacts on display throughout the room. As he followed Leland through the vault, he couldn’t help but look in awe at the items displayed on different sized podiums and inside glass cases. The room was filled with swords, daggers, amulets and even items of armor like helmets and breastplates. Many of the items looked rare and precious, but some others didn’t, seeming almost too innocuous to be of any value, like a piece of broken stick with a few carvings made into it. Frank couldn’t help himself. “What’s the stick for?”

“The stick as you call it, was originally part of Moses’ staff,” Leland said, walking past it like he had seen it a hundred times before.

“And the big rock over there?”

“Honestly, Frank, you’re like a kid in a museum. That’s the rock that David used to kill Goliath.”

Frank shook his head. “I dread to think how much blood you spilled to get this stuff.”

“More than you’ll ever know.”

I’ll bet, Frank thought. His grace was vibrating in him from all the power in the room. It was palpable as he walked through it. No doubt Leland had spent many hours in this place, drinking in all that power, becoming intoxicated by it while he dreamed up his plans for world domination. Frank could almost see how anyone could be driven to think such things in the presence of so much raw magical energy. Almost.

“This is it.” Leland had stopped near the back of the vault, beside a long podium on which lay a nondescript looking spear. The tip of the spear was about a foot long, made of iron that had been dulled to an almost black color over the centuries. The shaft, however, looked relatively new in comparison, just a six foot long length of wood. “Only the head of the spear remained when I found it. I attached the shaft myself. It’s only the head of the spear that matters anyway.”