The Judas Line (8 page)

So, perhaps a few months back. That would explain how I was found. Wherever I had touched water, be it a puddle or a swimming pool, Water would know and inform Julian.

Water talks.

Chapter Seven

Mike

While watching a crooked pillar thrust itself out of the sand and growl at Jude, who growled in return, I kept worrying that my heart would stop. It’s not every day that you hang around and chin-wag with the local geology. The strange thing about the whole incident was how
used
to it I was becoming.

Heck, the nighttime world had been rendered in glorious shades of green, red and gold, thanks to the Vision Word thingy, spell … whatever. Imagine looking at green sky with pinpoints of gold! A little garish for my taste, but nonetheless breathtaking. Who knew that three colors could combine to create such an amazing amount of variation?

My eyes still wandered over the landscape while Jude chatted up the talking rock, and I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of it splitting open and spitting out what looked like a black shoebox. For a while Jude talked to it in that strange tongue (it sounded like he was gargling with gravel); then it sank back into the ground.

Swinging the heavy box in one hand, Jude hustled us both back to the car. “I’ll drive us to El Paso, man. We’ll get a hotel room there.”

In Kansas, Jude had said that El Paso ‘was like Milwaukee, but without the charm.’ I’ve been to Milwaukee … I was less than thrilled. Lucky for me we arrived in the middle of the night, so the electric lights made the town glow with faerie fire and hid its less admirable face.

“El Paso might be a black hole,” Jude said as we pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 9, “but it’s a heck of a lot better than Juarez.”

Our room in the motel was a little bigger than the one in Kansas, but the mattresses must have come from the same supplier because they were similarly hard as rocks.

While Jude took the first turn in the shower, I grabbed the manila envelope and crushed my backside on the bed’s hard surface. Printer paper slid into my palms and I began to read.

The Happy Voice

It took weeks for me to adjust to the Words rattling around my cranium, the feeling of power they gave me. Meanwhile, my half-brothers and Burke contented themselves with verbal torment, but the assassination attempts had stopped, at least for a while. For the first time in years I found no taint of poison in my food or drink, no tripwires at the head of stairs and no weakened balcony railings. I had become irrelevant in their eyes, but that didn’t stop me from exercising caution. There was no telling when they would grow tired of my presence and try erase me from the world.

Professor von Andor trained us in the uses of the Words. I do not know who had taught him because he was Wordless, yet he knew all about their uses—how intonation, inflection, volume and intent shape the power of the Words, shape their efficacy.

Of course the only Word I admitted to was Healing, the only one I could practice in front of the others lest they realize my deceit. Being the simplest of all Words to master, it required only volume to increase or decrease its potency. Strangely enough, despite the ease of use, it was the most practical Word of all. Nothing like breaking your arm and Healing it to convince oneself of that fact. Despite its usefulness, however, the one thing it could not do was regenerate lost tissue. You lose an arm; you’ve lost an arm, no take-backs.

I practiced the other Words on my own, within the confines of my room—in the walk-in closet with clothes taped to the walls to muffle any noise. I needn’t have worried; the others were practicing in their own rooms and I doubted they would have heard a stampede of elephants considering the racket they made.

So, in the darkness of my closet, I rolled those Words around in my mouth like marbles, spitting them out with different inflections at different volumes, noting their effects and committing those effects to memory. Some Words, such as The Walls (which protects the magus’ mind from tampering) could not be practiced alone; I needed others to hone my facility with them. Others like Aspect, Vigor, Strength and Clarity had effects that were readily apparent. Thankfully the others masked the smell of my magic as they exercised their own Words.

The Professor often chose me as a guinea pig so Burke could practice Forgetting. Depending on the volume and inflection, Forgetting had the potential to erase a full day’s worth of memories. An Adept could fine-tune the Word to make the target Forget as little as the last five seconds.

“What?” I asked when I noticed everybody staring at me, wrinkling my nose at the smell of black licorice.

“Very good, Burke, you are down to ten seconds.” The Professor’s normally dry, avuncular voice contained a measure of satisfaction.

Had our Family been what passes for normal, Henri and the twins would have cheered Burke’s accomplishment, but instead they glowered and looked uncomfortable.

“It worked then?” I asked.

“Indeed,” the Professor stated. “He is progressing nicely.”

A phone rang upstairs and the Professor slowly ascended the stairs to answer, leaving me in the basement with my half-brothers and Burke.

“Well, Olivier,” Henri began, advancing slowly toward me in a half shamble. “You’re pretty good at Healing, but what is Julian going to with you now that you’ve got just one Word?” Dull malice filled his cow eyes.

Moving slowly so as not to spook the relatives, I reached into the front pocket of my black Levi’s and pulled out a piece of wax paper folded many times. The twins and Burke moved in close to see what I had.

“Well, Henri, it’s a good thing I’ve excelled at Botanical Magic,” I said offhandedly as I unfolded the paper. In the center lay a sticky patch of grayish paste. I scooped a bit with a forefinger and applied it behind my ears like perfume. “Because now I can craft a defense against magic.”

I experienced an immense feeling of satisfaction as realization registered on the faces of Burke and the twins. It took Henri a while longer to get my drift. They could try to use their Words against me, but it would do them little good if I were protected.

Henri moved closer, his breath foul in my nostrils. “You think you’re so smart, do you little Olivier? Well, let me tell you something … as a near Wordless runt, you are of no interest to Julian. You’re out of the running, little brother. Not even worth killing.” His hands clenched and unclenched. I know he wanted to thrash me then and there, but the rules barred his way.

I laughed in his face, which mottled with fury. “Maybe so,
brother
, but he’ll still have a use for me. Most likely to take care of his wet-work.”

The assassins of the Sicarii (or Dagger Men) were—

“Hey Jude!” I yelled. “Hey, Jude! Got a question.”

The door to the bathroom opened and he stood there in a towel. His wet black hair stood out like a ridiculous, puffy ’fro. “What is it?”

“Didn’t you tell me that we had to avoid water? You just took a
shower!
”

He smoothed his hair down with slender hands. “I used the Word of Avoidance, man. Keeps attention off of me.”

Oh. Good to know. “I’m a little puzzled by a name here. Sicarii. I know it is Latin for Dagger Men, but what is it?

His normally lively eyes darkened. “The first Sicarii were Jewish rebels in Judea some two thousand years ago,” he informed me tonelessly, face closed. “They were assassins who slaughtered Romans and their sympathizers. Later, the Medellin Cartel had what they called the Sicarios, their version of the Sicarii assassins. The singular is Sicarius, or Dagger Man.”

“Assassinations would have caused the Romans to retaliate harshly,” I mused, more to myself than him.

“Yes. They did, all across Judea. The Romans slaughtered thousands to in an effort to find and discourage the Sicarii.”

“Did your family have a connection to the Cartel?”

“My Family trained their assassins and took a large portion of the billions they made in the drug trade. Then, when things started heating up as the U.S. Delta Force, the CIA, and the Colombian National Police started hunting Cartel members, we withdrew our support and watched it die. It all ended in 1993.”

“So, the Sicarii and your family…?”

His voice became hollow, as though his soul had been plucked out. “My Family are descendants of the Sicarii. In fact, I’m the last direct descendant of their leader. We call him the Founder.”

“So—?”

“Yeah, Mike. We’re a Family of assassins. The Sicarii are still around, still trying to destroy the Romans, man.”

My mind wobbled. “But, Jude, the Romans are all gone. It’s just a city now.”

“No Mike,” he claimed. “Not true. There’s still the Roman Catholic Church.”

Holy moley! I opened my mouth, but he had already turned and shut the door behind him. With a sigh, I went back to the manuscript.

The assassins of the Sicarii (or Dagger Men) were still a large part of our Family’s legacy, although we had lessened the practice over the last century, preferring to let the media to do our dirty work for us in the form of character assassination. News hounds were quick to believe the worst in even the most honorable of people. However, our assassins were still the best-trained, most well funded, killers the world had ever known and even the most insane idiot (like Henri) feared them above all others.

All Family members were trained in wet-work, hence the title of Sicarius, even for those who did not practice assassination. Only a select few were chosen to join the ranks of the Dagger Men, the Sicarii Killer Elite. Once in, never out.

“You’d join the—” Julian II began.

“Dagger Men?” Philip finished.

Once again I gave them a grin well lubricated with nasty. “Why not?” It was a calculated risk, going from near Wordless half-brother to potential top assassin in their eyes, but sometimes you have to roll the dice and hope it doesn’t come up snake eyes.

The Professor’s slow tread preceded him down the steps. “Olivier, you father wishes to speak to you,” he intoned gravely, a customary frown on his worn features. “He has sent an automobile, which will be here shortly.”

Very much aware of the daggers glared at my back, I mounted the stairs to take a last look at Lac Léman before the car arrived.

The Grand Château du Lac Léman on the shore of Lake Geneva (aka Lac Léman) boasts the most expensive rates and the highest standards of luxury in all of Switzerland. It is also Family owned and operated.

The Sicarii, besides being a brotherhood of assassins, is also one of the world’s largest multi-national conglomerates, ranking just behind the monster Hyundai for billions earned. Mining, bio-tech, computer chips, arms manufacturing, fossil fuels, construction and on and on and on … all with Sicarii fingers in the pie, all run by one man who lived in the Grand Château.

If you asked anyone who worked there, they would tell you that the finest room available would be the Presidential Suite. The finest
available.
What was not available in the small, but enormously opulent hotel, was my father’s personal suite.

Not large by the standards of luxury hotels, only twelve hundred square feet, it had but one use … to cater to the whims of Julian Deschamps. Accessed by a private elevator, any visitor (especially Family) would be screened for weapons not only by the Elevator Operator (a top Dagger Man), but also the most advanced technology available, all hidden in the elevator’s mirrored walls and gold ornamentation.

Should you pass inspection (if not … well, you can well imagine), the doors would open into the suite where Julian would greet you personally. Some might think that would be an unnecessarily high-risk situation for him, but you must realize he had been through the same training as all Sicarii and was seldom left alone without protection.

When I arrived and the doors opened, it was to the sight of Boris standing in front of the elevator. Dressed impeccably in a coffee-colored Saville Row suit, Boris was more a force of nature contained in cloth than a human being.

In 1971 Julian recruited Boris from the Soviet Union, where he was reputed to be the most feared, most vicious Spetsnaz (Special Forces) commando that had ever served that repressive regime. A master with a knife, pistol and rifle, as well as Sambo, their own peculiar brand of martial arts, he had all the qualities you could ask for in the perfect bodyguard.

Recruitment had been simplicity itself; all Julian did was dangle an obscene amount of money and offer to relocate Boris’ immediate family to Switzerland. With that accomplished, Julian then paid a handsome amount to various officials in the Soviet government and records were conveniently destroyed and/or misplaced, erasing Boris from the annals of Russian history.

So there he stood, all six-six two-hundred-fifty pounds of chiseled, grizzled nasty, with a long face, shaven head, cauliflower left ear and flinty eyes deep-set beneath jutting brows. With a barely perceptible nod to the Elevator Operator, he moved to the side and ushered me into the suite.

“You look good, Boris,” I remarked in passing. Actually, with his thick potato nose and scarred cheeks, he looked anything but.