Tarnished Image (35 page)

“I’m not much for philosophy, and I’m certainly no theologian, but maybe there is no answer to that question. At least not one we can understand. Maybe it’s human chauvinism to think that we can have answers to all the questions we pose.”

David thought about her words. “I have always been taught that all questions have answers.”

Kristen shrugged. “Maybe they do, but that doesn’t mean that we will know them. It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? We’re stuck in this problem no matter what. We didn’t ask for it. It came our way. Unfairly perhaps, but fairness has nothing to do with reality.”

Again David absorbed her words. She was right. He had ignored the power of his faith and allowed external circumstances to dictate his internal response. Evil was evil no matter how it manifested itself. Fairness was immaterial. What did matter, what could make a difference, was faith and love. Even though wickedness may have power over the body, it has
no power over the soul. Perhaps that was one reason God had made man a spiritual being.

David took Kristen in his arms and held her tight. “Thank you,” he said in whispered tones. “You’re right. Maybe it’s time I took the next step. Maybe it’s time to pray.”

The only thing good about the sudden change of events was that Aldo got to kill one more person than planned. It had been quick and lacked the flair he preferred, but a murder was a murder, and at times one couldn’t be choosy.

The college kid had offered no resistance. He was young and naive. Aldo simply walked into the classroom—actually a video lab where students practiced what their professors had taught them—and asked for directions to the library. He didn’t even need a disguise. The boy rose to his feet, said, “Sure, but it’s closed,” and walked to Aldo, who stood just inside the door. Ten seconds later, the college kid was dead. Aldo had struck him in the throat and crushed his windpipe. The young man was so stunned that he offered no resistance as Aldo stepped behind him, grabbed the kid’s chin with one hand and the back of his head with the other, and wrung his neck, breaking it in one smooth motion. Aldo then walked away.

The bad part, the really frustrating part, was that Aldo had to accelerate his schedule. Now he had to do tonight what he had planned to do tomorrow. He hated changing plans. Changes meant possible mistakes, and he loathed mistakes. Still, it wasn’t his fault, and it did mean that he would get to kill again. That was the upside.

Without wasted motion, Aldo closed the curtains of his hotel room and gathered all his materials. He had done his homework and had formulated five different plans. Now he
had made his choice. It was plan three that he would use, and it was good—unique, different from anything he had done before. It required at least an hour’s preparation, maybe a little more. He had no time to lose.

It would all start with a shower and a shave.

“What did he say?” Kristen asked.

David hung up the phone. “He would have to make some calls, but new security officers should arrive within a couple of hours.”

“Will that be soon enough?”

“He knows his men.” David walked over and joined Kristen on the couch. “He doubts that we even need additional people, but since Calvin and I insisted, he has agreed to it.”

“Calvin called the security firm too?”

David smiled weakly. “Apparently he didn’t think I would or that I might be too distracted by Greg’s murder.”

“Calvin is looking out for us. He’s a good man.”

“He’s certainly a cautious one.”

“Is he still at the police station?” Kristen’s face was drawn. The night was wearing long, and frustration was becoming heavier with each moment.

“He was when he called a few moments ago. The police are still questioning him. He thinks he’ll be able to leave soon. Still, it doesn’t look like he’ll get much sleep tonight.”

“After what you said about how Greg died, I don’t know when I’ll be able to sleep again.”

“I shouldn’t have told you.” Kristen had seen David’s reaction when he had been on the phone with Calvin. She had pressed him for everything Calvin had said. When he said that Greg’s neck had been broken, Kristen had gasped and
covered her mouth. David knew the revelation had made the danger all the more real. They were no longer dealing with threats but with a real assassin.

“Don’t be silly. I insisted. I’m all right. Just having a shaky moment or two.”

“Here,” David said, patting his leg. “Lay your head down. Maybe you can sleep a little.”

Kristen complied, stretching out on the couch and laying her head on his leg. He began to stroke her soft hair. “I’m tired, but I don’t think I can fall asleep.”

“Think about something else,” David advised.

“I wish I could, but I just keep seeing Greg’s face.”

David made no reply, he just continued to stroke her hair, allowing his fingers to caress her scalp and face. Slowly, lovingly, he continued the process. The suite was quiet. The moon shone in through the windows, bathing everything with a soft ivory light. A few moments later David listened to Kristen’s rhythmic breathing, evidence that slumber had overtaken her. David offered a word of praise to God for the small miracle, then laid his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.

An evil possessed Aldo, an evil that arrived before every job with freight-train punctuality, a black amoral mucus that oozed through his mind suppressing useless emotions like fear, regret, sorrow, and sympathy. The evil whispered in his ears, painted pictures on his mind, altered his memories.

On many occasions he had thought he had seen it out of the corner of his eye, just beyond reach. It was thick and black-green, formless and void, yet alive. It hovered. It reeked of all the death that Aldo had caused.

In weak moments, in those seconds between sleep and wakefulness, Aldo would be consumed by fear of the thing that consumed him. During those timeless, eternal seconds, he could see the faces of each person he had killed, each one he had tortured and maimed, their voices rising in a chorus that at first sounded pitiful, then mournful, then angry, then demonic. The cacophony of cries and threats from beyond the grave was the only thing that had ever frightened him.

But he wasn’t frightened now. The Possession made it possible for him to do his job. The Possession was his empowerment, his motivation, his North Star. Without it, he would be just like the rest of the world: powerless, insipid, uninspired creatures who had little more value than cattle in a slaughterhouse. But the Possession made him different, invulnerable. Nothing could hurt him. No one could outthink him. No eyes could see his plans. No mind could match his. He was a god.

And he would prove it again tonight. What did it matter if plans had been accelerated by a day? This time tomorrow he would be elsewhere—Mexico perhaps, maybe Australia. Someplace with sun and water. That would be good. Sun and water.

But first things first. Taking a white washcloth he dragged it across the mirror, wiping away the condensation left by his hot shower. He started at the top and methodically worked his way down, not missing any part of the mirror. Then he wiped it down again. Then one more time.

His motions were slow and dreamlike, as if he were moving through a viscous fluid.

The Possession filled him all the more.

Looking in the mirror he saw his reflection looking back.
But it was different from the reflection of yesterday or even of this morning. The face was the same. The bare body no different. The eyes—something behind the eyes. Something dark, something of wicked intelligence. It was the real him, the one who had been born that day as a teenager when he killed his mother’s attacker. The him that had supplanted the teenage boy.

He taped a picture to the mirror. It was an enlargement of a photo taken by one of the hired operatives. He studied the image, absorbing every detail.

With a twist of the knob, hot water began to run in the sink. Small billows of steam rose threatening to once again fog the mirror. He plunged cupped hands into the hot flow and brought the water to his face. It burned. It hurt. It made him feel alive. Water trickled down his stubbled chin and dripped to the bare skin of his chest, thighs, and feet.

Mindlessly he reached for the can of shaving cream that rested near the bowl of the sink. He pressed its button and watched as white foam erupted from its spout and into his hand. It felt smooth, silky, weightless. Raising the mound of lather to his nose, he inhaled deeply. Aloe.

Starting at his left ear, he spread the foam across his face, under his nose, over his chin, along his neck. Unlike the usual male routine that was done quickly and without thought, Aldo moved deliberately, like a dancer, like an actor, like a surgeon.

Preparation is everything.

He took the razor into his hand, twisted its base so the razor opened like a budding flower to reveal the new, unused double-edged blade inside. Aldo studied it for a moment before twisting the handle again, closing the tiny silver doors that held the blade in place.

Holding the razor in his right hand, he placed its sharp edge to his face, near the middle of his left ear. The razor felt cool to his hot skin. With slow, easy motions he dragged the blade down. He could hear it as it cut the hair on his face. Moving the razor he shaved some more. Then some more, leaving nothing but smooth skin behind.

The preparation had begun.

The twilight of sleep had come to David as he sat on the sofa, Kristen’s head in his lap, his head resting on the sofa’s back. He was not asleep. He was not awake. He was somewhere in between, in the mystical place where reality and dreams become one, where the rational held no more sway than the irrational.

David had struggled with sleep. He knew he was safe. The doors were locked, and a guard was nearby. The only people left in the upper ten floors were the employees in communications and a few die-hard workers. Still he was uneasy, and as he approached sleep, that uneasiness grew.

He worried. He worried about Timmy and about Kristen and about Barringston Relief. He worried about those who needed his help right now. But he didn’t worry about himself.