Richard Doetsch - Half-Past Dawn

He laid her down on the ground, gently stroking her dark hair from her face.

“Does she wish to live?” his father asked. “Or have you taken away what she lives for?”

His father knew what he had done.

“Bring her back!” Cristos exploded in rage.

“I know what you’ve become,” his father said softly. “My whole life, I fought it. Although I knew it to be your future, I had clung to hope. But fate sometimes is stronger than any force. The shadow hidden within you has emerged and consumed your heart and soul.”

“You don’t understand-”

“I do understand. I should have stopped you before all of this death. I foresaw your future but allowed my heart to fall into denial, questioning the future as some question the past.”

“I love her.” Cristos’s voice cracked. “You have to help me.”

“After what you have done-” his father said with pain filled eyes. “You will be followed; you will bring the outside world to us again. We cannot afford to protect you. We cannot allow our ways to be investigated so they may build a case to convict you.”

Prunaj and Hovath stepped forward, pulling and raising their pistols. They were trained on Cristos, and, anticipating his every move, they stayed just beyond his reach. Cristos’s emotions vanished, his eyes falling on Hovath.

“We must turn you over to the authorities of the outside world,” his father continued as Cristos kept staring at Hovath. “Please do not-”

And without warning, with his eyes locked with Hovath’s, Cristos drove his fist into his father’s gut, the immense blow knocking him sideways toward Hovath.

Cristos spun left, snatching the gun from Prunaj, continuing his motion up and into the priest’s neck, crushing his larynx with the butt of the pistol. Prunaj fell to the ground, unable to breathe.

As he was taught so well, Cristos could feel Hovath’s approach, could sense his finger wrapping the trigger. He feigned left and spun, firing Prunaj’s gun, the bullet hitting Hovath’s wrist, crippling his hand as the gun fell to the ground.

With no regard for his mangled wrist, Hovath dived at Cristos, and although he was his teacher, skilled in hand-to-hand combat, the student had surpassed him long ago. Cristos caught Hovath by the shoulder, rolling toward the ground, taking his teacher with him as his arm wrapped around the man’s neck. And as they hit the jungle floor, Hovath’s neck snapped from their combined weight.

With no regard for the bodies, Cristos stood and stared at his father, who was recovering.

“This is your fault,” Cristos said.

His father looked at the twisted bodies of the two dead priests. He turned and looked upon Nadia, finally stepping toward his son. “Take her away from here. Never return. You are no longer my son.”

Cristos slowed his breathing, focused, reaching out to feel any other attackers, but none came.

He looked back down at Nadia, shards of moonlight refracting off of the bejeweled hilt of the knife that protruded from her lifeless body. He finally realized that she would not have wanted to be saved; he had taken away everything she loved in the world. He accepted that she had used him with no regard for his heart and in so doing permanently destroyed it, killing his emotions, his feelings, his true self.

And in that moment, Cristos knew that his future was sealed.

He crouched down, wrapped his hand around the jewel-encrusted blade, and withdrew it from her chest. No blood poured from her body, its flow having long since ceased. He looked down on the face that had caught his eye one year earlier, its solemn innocence so contrary to the callous, selfish heart within. His father was wrong. Cristos had not succumbed to fate, had not followed some preordained path. His soul had been turned by Nadia, a woman of two faces, whose evil had infected his own heart.

In that moment, he vowed never to love again. Never to become a pawn of his own heart.

And in a lightning move, one too quick for his father to react to, Cristos plunged the blade into his father, lifting him upon the blade into the air, his powerful muscles flexing with effort.

He looked at his father, and his father stared back; there was no pain in his eyes, just pity, resignation at what his son had done to him.

Cristos sat in a cafe on the Champs-Elysees sipping tea, watching the Parisians passing by. He was dressed in a custom-made suit, his green tie set off against his white shirt. He had left Cotis and the Asian continent behind one week earlier and headed to Zurich, Switzerland, where he bought a townhouse and began to formulate a future.

“We would like to avail ourselves of your services again,” Riley said. He and his silent partner sat across from Cristos, each sipping coffee.

Cristos nodded.

“How will we contact you?”

“You won’t. When in need of my services, you will place a memorial posting to Nadia Desai in the obituary section of the Sunday edition of the London Times. I will then contact you.”

“Very well,” Riley said.

“I have a question for you.”

“Yes,” Riley said with a smile.

“Who paid for my treatment at the hospital?”

“I thought we discussed that.”

“Did Nadia visit me while I was in a coma?”

The two men looked at each other. The silent man nodded.

“Yes, she did,” Riley said without any display of contrition or embarrassment. “Every day.”

Cristos picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, and placed it on the table. He finally stood. He looked directly at the tall, silent man. “I will be available, but understand that if you ever lie or betray me again, you will end up like your friend here.”

“I don’t understand.” The man spoke for the first time.

Riley looked at Cristos with a curious smile. “What do you mean?”

And as if drawing a pen from his pocket, Cristos pulled out a gun, quickly placed it against Riley’s right eye, and pulled the trigger.

Larry Knoll looked up at the monitor, the display showing two FBI agents leading a group of three men into the main entrance, and buzzed them in.

In the last ten hours, his post had become the site of mayhem. Between the various FBI, Justice Department, police, and ADA, he wasn’t fully sure what was going on, but the groups seemed to be squared off more against each other than working in concert.

But in the last hour, a semblance of peace had been restored. Most of the various law-enforcement officers had returned home to their families, headed out for drinks on a Friday night, or gone back to their offices to regroup. There was no one else in the cavernous lobby at this hour except for detectives Myers and Reiner, whom he had just let down to evidence to drop off some materials on a new case.

This was Larry’s third double shift in seven days. Not that he was complaining. He needed the money. He had promised Daria that when the baby was born, they would have no debt and a small nest egg to allow them to give their newborn child the advantages that neither of them was afforded. There was a comradery among the double shifters: Charlie downstairs, Nolan Ludeke upstairs in the medical facility. They had come to be known as the musketeers, as the three of them did the work of six and did it better than those working half the time on twice the rest.

As Larry finally turned his attention to the five who walked across the large marble lobby, he did a double take as he saw the face of the man in the middle of the group. He had read the papers, had seen the news, and had actually seen him just two days earlier with his wife. Larry had been devastated at the news of their dying, which confirmed his belief that it was always the good who were struck down before their time. But maybe that wasn’t in effect today.