The Dark Path (10 page)

Tattooed within Squirrel’s hazy memory burned the day he woke up in his cheap hotel room to find a man sitting at the foot of his bed staring intently at him. Fear shot through Squirrel as he looked into the man’s eyes and saw the darkness residing there. Registering the silencer pointed directly into his face, he felt his bowels loosen, adding another stain to his filthy bedclothes, further fouling the stale air.

The Dark Man seemed unperturbed by the stench, offering no reaction when Squirrel whined liked a cowering puppy and tried to hide his head beneath the bedding.

“Come out from there Squirrel, or I’ll start putting holes in your beautiful linen.”

Squirrel peered over the edge of the sheet to where the Dark Man sat motionless. Little by little he inched his hand towards the blade hidden beneath his pillow in the futile hope he could somehow survive this encounter.

“If your hand moves another inch, Squirrel,” Vain warned quietly, “I’ll be forced to kill you and lose the information I need.”

Squirrel swallowed heavily, wishing for the hundredth time he had started out life teaching instead of banking.

* * * *

Vain peered from the alleyway watching Squirrel make his way down the busy street. To passersby he appeared simply another bum looking for loose change or cigarette butts, but watching closely, Vain recognized the method to Squirrel’s movements. He would pause momentarily near groups of people and listen to what they were saying, all the while searching through the trash or picking something from the ground, avoiding notice.

An interesting tactic. Very interesting since Vain knew that Squirrel had risen above his poverty. Although he had started his second life on the streets, the man once known as Gary had done well for himself since starting in the information distribution business. In the few months since his appearance, Squirrel had gained access to intelligence from almost all corners of the city through his network of informants. Everyone from the lowest hood to the kings of the underworld wanted Squirrel’s information, but they all remained ignorant to the fact that the same information also found its way to their enemies, sometimes at a lower price. None of them realized Squirrel was more than just a street bum. And Squirrel preferred it that way.

But the Dark Man knew otherwise.

Before he had contacted Squirrel for the first time, he did a little information digging of his own and discovered some things about Gary O’Rourke’s past: the banker, his success
and
subsequent fall from grace. The rest Vain had pieced together after following him on nights similar to this one.

Tonight was different, though. Possibly the Dark Man’s most important meeting with Squirrel. He wanted to make sure everything was perfectly safe before proceeding.

Waiting until he felt certain the informant wasn’t being followed, Vain moved up the fire escape of a nearby building. He proceeded across the rooftop until he reached the edge. Pausing for the briefest moment, he took a running leap, landing on the adjacent building’s roof, rolling on his shoulder to absorb the impact.

Squirrel’s home: a rundown dump, housing junkies, crooks and ex-millionaire Wall Street bankers. Vain looked over the side, and down to Squirrel’s room three floors below. Previously, scaling the wall had proven virtually impossible, so this time he’d brought a length of rope which he now proceeded to unravel and secure. Rappelling down, Vain easily accessed the unlocked window, and waited patiently for Squirrel to arrive.

Squirrel entered the room soon after, finding the Dark Man sitting in a chair with a gun pointed at his chest. His heart stopped mid-beat and he wondered what he might have done recently that could warrant this visit. He’d heard of the Dark Man’s slaying of the assassin Dante, but knew nothing about his movements since.

“Close the door and sit down, Squirrel. We need to talk,” Vain said quietly.

Not knowing what else to do, the smaller man closed and locked the door before sitting on the corner of the bed.

“The time has come Squirrel,” began the Dark Man. Squirrel began to sweat.

If only he had become a teacher.

“The time has come,” repeated Vain, “to find out how much knowledge is swimming around in your booze-soaked grey cells.”

“W-w-what?” stammered Squirrel.

“Tell me about the Souls of Sordarrah.”

Squirrel’s mind worked furiously. At first he seemed relieved, but once the content of the Dark Man’s words sank in he felt his gut wrench in panic. The Souls of Sordarrah! He’d hoped never to hear those words again.

Two men had approached Squirrel on the street one night and promised him money in exchange for a service. When he had pressed them about what the service entailed, they had swiftly changed their minds and moved off. Curious as always for a lead on street information, Squirrel had followed the men to Third Avenue where they had stopped to talk to another street sleeper by the name of Jim. After speaking to Jim for a few moments, the three had all moved off towards the harbor district near Pelham Bay.

Still following at a discrete distance, Squirrel had ended up outside an old, abandoned warehouse with a low murmuring noise spilling from inside that sounded like chanting. The two men along with Jim had entered the warehouse, and Squirrel climbed onto the roof of a parked car to peer through a grime-smeared window.

Inside opened a scene from a nightmare. Arranged in a circle around a black five-pointed star–
a pentagram!
–stood eleven robed figures, each hooded and faceless. The two men entered the room carrying an unconscious figure between them.

Frozen to the spot with fascination, Squirrel had looked on as they had laid the figure in the centre of the pentagram before donning their own hooded robes and taking their places around the circumference. The chanting grew more powerful, but somehow quieter at the same time. Squirrel couldn’t understand any of the language, but the words
Sordarrah
and
Souls of Sordarrah
were repeated several times. The volume dropped to almost a whisper and the windows began to shake with a force that appeared to emanate from within the circle.

Squirrel caught a glimpse of the figure from between the chanting robes, writhing in silent agony within the star of power. His body somehow seemed to be caving in on itself, almost like a vacuum was sucking him down through the cement floor of the warehouse–emptying...  
Jim
!

After an eternity, the chanting rose in pitch so suddenly that Squirrel thought he had been spotted. Enduring a moment of panic, he regained his composure and saw that the glass in the windows now actually bulged from the frames, so much so that he wondered how they didn’t shatter with the strain.

Returning his gaze to the inside of the room, the figures had thrown their hoods back, revealing fanatical faces now shrieking their chants into the echoing warehouse. Where Jim had lain, there remained only clothing and a mess of loose skin. It appeared everything within the man had vanished, leaving only a shapeless shell behind.

Dark, greasy smoke began to ooze from the centre of the pentagram, and that had been the last thing Squirrel witnessed before fleeing from the warehouse in terror.

Now the Dark Man sat at the end of his bed, forcing him to recollect the Souls of Sordarrah. The two things he feared most had converged on him, right when his booze cupboard sat empty. Squirrel wondered if his brain would explode straight away or wait a few hours before shutting down from the pressure.

Struggling to focus bloodshot eyes, the Dark Man sitting patiently opposite him, silenced pistol cocked and aimed at his chest, Squirrel sighed and began to tell his story. He left no part out, expecting death at the end for talking such paranoid insanity to the assassin.

At the close of the tale however, he didn’t die. The Dark Man sat in silence in the chair opposite, staring impassively into his eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he appeared to come to a decision and nodded slowly.

“Have you ever heard of a man called Priest?” the Dark Man asked calmly.

Squirrel pondered the name and shook his head. The Dark Man nodded again and began to rise from the chair.

Squirrel sat up suddenly. “Unless you mean the man who runs the homeless shelter in Brooklyn. I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard he’s extremely generous to the needy. Apart from that, there’s not much else I can tell you, he keeps a pretty low profile.”

The Dark Man chuckled softly. “Squirrel, you never cease to amaze me.” He threw a small pile of notes onto the bed.

Squirrel’s eyes bulged at the wad. He was unsure whether the Dark Man had been impressed with his story about the Souls of Sordarrah or amused by his ignorance of the man named Priest. Either way, there must have been at least four hundred dollars spread on his grimy sheet.

“There’s another wad if you take me to this warehouse you saw,” said Vain casually.

Squirrel froze. He should have known there’d be a catch; nobody threw money like this his way unless they were using it for bait. Unfortunately, he found himself in no position to refuse the Dark Man’s request, despite his reluctance to return to the place that left him so shaken.

Without looking up, Squirrel silently nodded.

“I’ll return in an hour,” promised the Dark Man quietly before moving out into the night.

* * * *

Vain followed Squirrel through the harbor district in silence. The informant had attempted to start a conversation, but a glowering look had quickly silenced him. Vain needed to gather his thoughts. The entire situation seemed ridiculous. An assassin trying to save the life of a boy he didn’t know, following a drunken ex-banker to an abandoned warehouse searching for clues of a demon-worshipping cult.

And all of it for free.

Wonderful! Fantastic!
Vain thought to himself.
Maybe I should just kill the kid and end all of this crap
. But while he toyed with the notion, the image of Angelique screaming began to creep into his mind and he cast his thoughts elsewhere.

They arrived at the warehouse shortly before midnight and Vain handed over the balance of the money he’d promised to Squirrel.

“If you tell anybody about this,
Gary
,” the Dark Man breathed venomously while folding the cash into the vagrant’s hand, “your pain will make eternity in Hell seem like a pleasure cruise. Do you understand me?”

Squirrel’s eyes bulged at the mention of his real name and he began to sweat profusely.

“N-no sir... I mean YES!” corrected Squirrel quickly. “Y-yes sir, I understand completely. I-I won’t say anything to anyone! I promise.”

“I know,” whispered Vain confidently before looking away. He moved off silently towards the warehouse without a backward glance, leaving Squirrel alone, and marveling at the power the assassin exuded.

* * * *

Vain entered the warehouse lot, swiftly becoming one with the shadows. Finding every alcove and hiding place, floating smoothly and without haste from one to the next, he finally reached the warehouse and slid along the outside wall to the back of the building. Once there he paused and listened. Satisfied nothing felt amiss, he vanished through an open window and into the darkened building.

Light flickered from a small office towards the front of the warehouse. Vain slowly made his way along the inside wall and paused outside the doorway. Inside he could hear quiet breathing and a low hum. Noiselessly he drew a dark bladed knife and dropped to the ground, inching his way into the doorway.

From his position on the floor, Vain watched a lone man dressed in a suit sitting cross-legged before what appeared to be an altar. However, this altar contained neither crucifixes nor holy water. Splayed across a black marble bench top, Vain noticed the remnants of what might have once been a dog. Not much remained to identify the beast, except for a single bloodied paw hanging by a sinew towards the centre of the mound. Amidst the mangled flesh, a smoldering pile of coals discharged a noxious odor into the air. The man inhaled the smoke from the burning flesh and rocked back and forth, murmuring softly.