The Dark Path (7 page)

Approaching the driver’s door, Martin’s stomach lurched in dread. The men in the car had to see him now unless something was terribly wrong. Looking through the passenger side window his heart stopped.

Both agents were dead. Twin bullet holes in the windscreen mirrored almost identical holes in the men's chests.

Martin raced across the street and flew up the steps of the safehouse. Throwing open the door he called out wildly for Catherine, praying that she and Angelique were still safe. He heard a muffled sob from the lounge, but rushing towards the door a flash of movement surprised him. A swift crack to his head and everything went black.

* * * *

Martin awoke to laughter and pain. The dull ache in his skull told him he’d been too late to warn his family of the danger, while the ropes binding his hands and legs mocked the stupidity of his attempted rescue. All of his police training had been forgotten in his panic and he’d broken the one cardinal rule:
never rush into any situation
.

Gazing around the room, he found he’d been moved to the cellar. His wife and daughter were nowhere to be seen, and briefly Martin thought he’d been left alone and started to struggle at his bonds.

“Don’t do that, little policeman,” growled a heavily accented voice from the shadows. “If you do that I will be extinguishing you too soon, and you miss out on all our fun.” A darkly clad man moved into Martin’s view.

“Not so tough now, eh? You pretty tough when talking to FBI, why not so tough now?”

“Where’s my family?” demanded Martin.

“Don’t worry, little policeman. Pretty girls join us soon.”

The words echoed with a quiet menace. Martin’s stomach tightened in fear. He still pondered their meaning, when the man leaning over him hit him square in the mouth.

“That one is for poor Vladimir. You killed him dead you stupid pig.”

“Enough Viktor,” a second voice called from the doorway. “You don’t want to kill him too quickly.”

A second Russian entered the room dragging a naked woman behind him. It took a moment before Martin recognized the wounded face beneath the mop of blood soaked hair. Catherine. Thrown roughly to the cement floor, her captor began to undo his pants.

“DON’T YOU TOUCH HER!!” screamed Martin. “If you touch her I’ll–”

His words were cut off mid sentence by another blow to the face.

“Look policeman, I do touch her,” the Russian said, roughly grabbing Catherine’s breast and squeezing. She let out a feeble moan and weakly tried to fight off her assailant. He simply grinned maliciously and slapped her hands

away as if she were a misbehaving child. “Now what you going to do about it, eh?”

Martin lunged forward in the chair, but succeeded in nothing more than knocking himself to the ground. The Russian named Viktor laughed loudly, and kicked him in the chest before setting the chair upright again.

“Yes, I thought so. You do nothing to help your wife, just like you do nothing to help your partner. That is why he is dead I think,” grunted the Russian, who had now succeeded in removing his pants and positioning himself between Catherine’s legs.

“Now watch policeman, while I show your wife what a real man, a Russian, is like.” Catherine’s screams echoed through the empty house and into the street. Various windows closed around the neighborhood and television volumes steadily increased until the blaring sound smothered anything that might impinge on their closeted lives.

Viktor gripped Martin’s jaw and forced him to watch. Eventually Martin’s roars of anger turned to sobs for her pain with both Russians laughing malevolently in the background. He begged the men to stop, to kill him and let Catherine go, but that only made them howl more.

Finally the second Russian, the one he now knew as Piotre, finished with his wife. Something inside her seemed to have broken. She lay limp on the cold cement, staring blankly up at the bound figure of her husband while the two Russians swapped positions.

Viktor’s treatment of Catherine was much more violent. Her lack of reaction seemed to spur the Russian to even greater effort. This brought enough response to excite him further and he began to hit her viciously as he continued to violate her. By the time he finished, there remained no doubt that she was dead.

“You... bastards..., I’ll... kill... you... all…,” Martin gasped between his heart-torn sobs.

“Not today, little policeman,” whispered Viktor.

“Just kill me then.”

“Oh no, not yet,” giggled Piotre. “We are only half the way through.”

Fear unlike anything he’d ever felt before gripped Martin. He prayed they were talking about him and not whom he thought.

Viktor answered this unspoken question by leaving the room and returning with a bound and gagged Angelique. Untying the gag, Viktor pointed Angelique towards the dead body of her mother and laughed louder than ever at the child’s screams.

“Now, little policeman’s daughter, Viktor is going to do the same to you as he did to mommy there,” Viktor whispered into her ear.

With superhuman strength, Martin broke free from Piotre’s hold, and fell towards his daughter.

“DADDY!” screamed Angelique. “Daddy, don’t let them hurt me!! Daddy, stop them!”

Piotre grabbed Martin and hauled him upright. Pinning his arm more securely in place around Martin’s neck he murmured, “I will not do her. I do not like children. But Viktor enjoys it very much!”

The Russian’s mirth mingled with Angelique’s screams when Viktor threw her to the ground amidst the hysteria of both father and daughter. What happened next unfolded unlike anything Martin had ever envisioned even in his worst nightmares. Each cry from his daughter tore strips from his sanity until he seemed to hear the sound of breaking glass somewhere off in the distance. A sense of unreality enveloped him and he felt blood and saliva dripping from his torn lips whilst he was forced to watch.

Martin stopped screaming. It did no good. Nothing did any good.

You can be so vain!

Blood flowed everywhere. Someone crying. Such an annoying sound.

Vain.

More blood flowing. A black handled knife. The glint of a wickedly sharp blade.

Vain.

Of course I am vain. Why should I care about anybody else? What have they ever done for me?

Vain!

The cries were mercifully muffled now. Something warm and sticky splashed across his face and into his slack and drooling mouth. Tasted coppery.

VAIN!!!

“Poor little policeman is gone, I think,” said Piotre after slapping the man in the face a few times. “Oh well. Time to clean up.”

He stood and moved to the second room of the cellar, returning with a large container of gasoline. Unscrewing the cap, he proceeded to pour the contents around the timber-paneled walls of the room. He ignored the cement floor, certain the bodies would burn once the rooms above collapsed.

Once finished, he moved to the stairs and called for his brother to go. Viktor walked over to the senseless Martin and punched him one last time, knocking him backwards before following his brother up the stairs.

The match they dropped ignited the gasoline and the flames were already licking the walls as they walked out hooting with amusement.

* * * *

Get up
, barked the voice.

“I can’t. I’m dead,” answered Martin.

Not yet, you’re not. But you will be soon you spineless bastard.

“I don’t care.”

Well I do. If your body dies, so do I
.

“Who are you?” asked Martin.

I’m you, you gutless shit. The better part of you; the part that doesn’t want to die before I get the assholes who did this. But to do that I need you to GET UP NOW!

The roaring voice almost compelled Martin to move, but the pain felt too great and his burden too heavy. He craved death. He had failed them all and wanted an end to it. He welcomed his demise.

“Kill me. Please, if you can, just kill me.”

Silence.  And finally:

As you wish
, said the voice softly, almost sadly.

And just like that, Martin Roberts faded away. His vanity surged into control, erasing memories, fueling a vengeance he could not recall, but one he could easily name.

Romolov
. He had promised they would all die. And in time they would. He did not know why, he only knew that they had to. He must kill them all to ease this nameless pain.

Vain had no qualms tearing loose the knife from the dead girl’s neck, managing to drag his still bound body across the floor to where she lay bloodied and battered. He cut himself loose and stood in the blazing room staring at the unfamiliar bodies and wondering what exactly had happened. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned and moved up the burning stairs, exiting like a wraith from a rear window, and into the dark.

* * * *

Vain became known in the underworld as the
Dark Man
. It took many years to perfect his killing skills, but from the start he displayed a seemingly paranormal ability to appear and disappear from the scenes of his slayings undetected. Not even the high-tech surveillance equipment that Markus Romolov installed throughout his home had caught more than a shadow of the man. Markus was discovered hanging from his balcony railing, strung up by the throat with his own intestines.

Markus’s death, the third in as many months, caused the crime family to get nervous. The Dark Man made no move to contact them with demands, and they had no idea who had employed him, so they couldn’t retaliate or use anyone to find out information. The only thing they knew for certain was that when the Dark Man came, death never lingered far behind.

It took Vain eight years to destroy the Romolov syndicate. In between his personal kills Vain undertook contracts for money. He managed to feed and equip himself with everything he needed, from a place to live, to the tools of his trade. Plenty of money remained, but he simply put it away and gave it no further thought.

He’d left Viktor Romolov until last. He did not know why, it simply felt appropriate to make this man fear his arrival the longest. Viktor tried to run, but the Dark Man tracked him to Chicago in a flea-bitten motel, living on heroin and sandwiches. When he arrived, the Russian had been doped to the gills, on the verge of dying from an overdose. Vain calmly revived him with a shot of adrenaline and stayed in the room with the man tied to the bed for two days before he began his work. He wanted his victim clear of anything that would inhibit pain.

Pain was what he deserved, and pain was what he would receive.

Vain moved more slowly with his torture of Viktor. Perhaps because he didn’t need any information, or simply from boredom–he never really knew. He did know that Viktor suffered in tremendous agony for the entire time and
that
felt
exquisite
.

During those hours–or perhaps days?–Vain tried to think of a suitable way for Viktor Romolov to die. He knew the man couldn’t take much more punishment and he wanted him to die by his hand and not from shock like Piotre had done when he’d gone slightly overboard. A most disappointing outcome, but at least it had provided the information that had brought him here.