Chapter 19: Chapter 19
Walter is arrogant enough to think that he knows everything about the world, something that he will never tell his son. Despite this (or perhaps because of this) he studies his son’s face at the end of the long spiel he has just been through.
“You’re not joking?” He asks, although the tone of his voice indicates that it is less of a question and more of a statement.
Gary does not seem to catch his tone, though, and lets out a sigh. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
Walter relaxes slightly. The whole conversation up until this point has made him more than a little tense. “Well you have to admit that it is a little too much to take in but it would explain a lot!”
“So the concept that, assuming your son hasn’t gone mad, that we’re living in a world that is inhabited by supernatural beings – demons and monsters – doesn’t freak you out that much?”
Walter has to smile at this as he shakes his head. “Not as much as you would think, son!”
But there is no way that he is ready yet to go too much into that with his son. He knows that the time will come when he will have to explain himself but not now.
“So now Isabelle has been possessed by this group of demons called the Brethren. David wants me to keep out of it!”
“Well, to be honest, I think that it would be for the best. It might be the most sensible thing I have heard all day.”
“It’s really difficult, knowing that she’s out there right now and in a lot of trouble.”
Gary can actually see his father become instantly serious. He knows this is never a good sign. “I really think that you should leave that company. This seems to be becoming a very dangerous situation.”
Despite this, Gary has to laugh. “You don’t understand, dad. It’s always been dangerous. It’s just never affected my personal life before. This is the first time Isabelle has ever been a part of this…”
“And do you have faith that this guy David can save her?”
Gary nods before he even has the chance to think about this and knows his automatic respect for his boss has kicked in, as it always does when he is asked a question about him. “It’s really hard not to believe in him.”
“I just want you to be very carefully. From what I’ve just heard, I’m not so sure that I would be able to trust him.”
“You really should meet him before you make a decision like that!”
Gary notices that his dad has stopped to consider this for a moment. He has not really expected him to continue down that line, has hoped that he wouldn’t. He instantly curses himself for saying it. He doesn’t want to be in a position where he stands between his father’s wishes and David’s.
“Yes, you’re right. I probably should meet him first!”
Fuck.
2.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
09:38
The door opens, and Kevin comes back into the room where Alice is being kept. The first thing he notices is that Alice appears to have become used to her surroundings. He has a glass of water and he sits down in the chair that has been placed in front of her. He has the smile on his face that Alice has come to associate with his entrances in the short time that they have known one another.
“Hello Alice.”
He moves forward and places the glass to her lips. She clamps her mouth shut as tightly as she can and refuses to drink from it.
“I’m not trying to poison you, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re no use to me dead.”
Alice wants to tell him that her motto is to never trust someone who would kidnap her and tie her to a chair but to do so she would have to open her mouth and it would never come out as well saying it, as it would do when she thought it so she manages to resist the temptation.
Instead she tries to resist the temptation that the water presents, but feels the cold liquid spill against her clamped shut lips. She has not realised how thirsty she was and it does not take long for her to give into his demands. She starts to sip from it and feels the chill of the water as it runs down her throat and to her stomach.
When he is sure that she has drunk enough, Kevin takes the glass away from her lips and beams yet another smile. “I was just wondering what else David has neglected to tell you about himself.”
“Well I can’t really answer that if he hasn’t told me!” Alice replies. Try to keep your sense of humour, she tells herself. If you lose it then he’ll start to think he’s going to win.
Kevin is amused by her answer, though. “Did he tell you, just for example, how old he is?”
Alice can’t hide the look of bewilderment on her face. That is a really strange question to be asking. “We haven’t really talked about it. He knows my age. I can guess that he’s maybe ten years older than me, at most.”
“So you think that David is thirty one?” Kevin has to enquire.
Alice laughs. “You are the most charming kidnapper that I’ve ever met!” But you’re still a fucking kidnapper, she adds inwardly. “But I just bet that you know I’m twenty five.”
The smile on Kevin’s lips is almost overwhelming. “Oh yes, how silly of me.”
There are a few moments of silence, which Alice comes to think of as a lot longer when she thinks of this scene later on. This is probably because the moment marks a drastic change in her life. It is almost impossible to think of something like this happening so quickly.
“But you are wrong about his age.”
She shrugs as well as she could in the circumstances. “Oh well, you can’t win them all.”
For once, Kevin’s face remains completely straight when he tells her, “David’s actually the same age as I am. We’re both…” He seems to be making a mental calculation. “Seventy three years old… if you count it in your terms.”
Her jaw drops slightly. She isn’t sure if this is because he has surprised her with this statement, or if she finds herself believing what he has told her.
Kevin is very good at this sort of thing, and waits a few moments for it to sink in. Alice looks at him and it seems like she has stopped blinking. He is secretly happy with the reaction. He decides not to say another word until she does. There is more silence, a lot longer than the last interval, before she finally speaks to him.
She sounds a lot less confident in her humour than she did before. “Just what do you mean, count it in our terms? You trying to tell me that David’s an alien as well as being past retirement age?”
He shakes his head at this point, but the smile is back, as disarming as ever. “He’s not an alien… Well maybe in a way he is… we are. But not the way that you’re thinking! I meant in our terms, as in, the last time that he came down was seventy three years ago.”
“You’re a crazy bastard, do you know that? Is there something wrong with you?” She feels the need to ask. “You’re not making any sense.”
Kevin’s laugh is nowhere near as dazzling as his smile. Maybe that is why he hasn’t really made this horrible sound in her presence until now. “None of this makes any kind of sense to you?”
“You’re fucking right about that!”
Kevin seems to wince in the same way as David does when he hears her swearing. She realises at that point just how alike the two men are. Except David would never kidnap her, she has to tell herself.
Kevin moves his chair a little bit closer to her and his face is close enough to her that she wonders for a second if he is going to kiss her. She is wondering if she could bite his nose off or something, but something stops her.
“Alice, have you ever read the bible?”
Her head shakes a little. “No more than I ever had to. My parents used to make me go to Church.”
She wonders if her real parents would have made her go. She never knew them so this isn’t something she even has the slightest clue about.
“They used to make you go to Church? How terrible?”
She has no idea if he is patronizing her or not.
She nods, in spite of her doubts. “They said that it was important that I knew about God. Once day it would become important. They never made much sense in that respect, although they’re so cool in different ways. Mum once told me that there was a decision to be made at some point in my life. It was a choice that we all had to make at one point or another, although to some it was more important than others. She said that I had to choose whether or not to be on the side of the angels.”
Kevin puts his hands together in a very slow clap that makes Alice want to break free and launch herself at him – if only she could.
“Bravo to mommy!”
“I figured it was a really shitty way to make kids go to Church. When I was younger, they scared me into it.”
The smile clouds over a little and Alice has to admit that she feels a little victory over him at this point.
“So they made you resent it?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s exactly what they did. I just don’t believe in God and it pissed me off having it rammed down my throat in Church every week.”
An unpleasant smirk crosses Kevin’s face. “You don’t believe in God?”
Alice doesn’t say anything to this. She just shakes her head. For some reason, she has started to feel pretty foolish.
“So you’re telling me that, despite the fact that since you’ve started to work with David, you’ve seen Demons rising from the pits of hell and you don’t believe in God? You don’t believe that there is a balance?”
She shrugs again. “I’m like most people. I’ve only ever really seen evil on this world. David is maybe the only person in the whole world who would be able to make me believe in God.”
She stops for a moment.
“And let me tell you that there is not a fucking chance in hell that he’s seventy three years old.”
Kevin seems to find her whole spiel hilarious. The laugh comes back and she wants to smash his face in just to shut him up. It takes him a couple of moments to get his act together and stop himself from laughing. “David is the only person in the whole world who would be able to make you believe in God? Gee whiz, that’s ironic in more ways than I’d be able to mention.”
Alice is pretty sure that she knows the way that Kevin Reilly works now. She beams a smile that has broken men’s hearts in the past. “So what are you trying to tell me, Kevin? Is David Oswald God?”
She is shocked by the sudden change in Kevin’s features – how the anger seems to burst onto his cheeks, reddening them so quickly. She thinks for a second that the crazy bastard is going to hit her. But he doesn’t.
Instead he screams, “Don’t you dare blaspheme in my presence!”
Alice has no idea how to take this. But she doesn’t have to worry because, almost as suddenly as it has begun, the anger disperses, and he is back to the way he had been moments before.
“I have to admit that David is arrogant enough to think that he’s God sometimes!” He concedes.
Alice isn’t sure whether she should agree or not considering what has happened when she had brought the subject up.
“But he isn’t.” Kevin continues.
She is glad that his mood has returned to the way it was. It does her well to remember that this man has kidnapped her and it is possible that she could be hurt really badly or even be killed before David appears to rescue her.
“He’s just a lowly angel like the other members of the Society and Nemesis!”
She hopes that he will come soon and rescue…
“What?” She suddenly feels the need to ask.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
09:42
She is aware of a slight crackling noise while she is riding shotgun but she dismisses it. She has to admit that it feels a but strange sitting in the front passenger seat of the car beside David – a seat that she knows Alice normally occupies, if only because she always managed to call it first. Robert does not seem to be paying much attention to anything, instead opting to look out of the window at the trees in the woods that they have just entered.
“So why would these guys want to kidnap Alice?” Belinda asks.
“Because they want me to join them,” David replies, although from the tone of his voice, his mind seems to be elsewhere.
“I thought that you said that these guys were friends of yours? Why didn’t they just ask you?”
“They have asked me before… as recently as last night in fact. I keep telling them that the answer is no!”
This confuses Belinda. “Why did you say no if they’re friends of yours?”
David sounds a little bit huffy that he has to justify himself to her. “I said no to them because I also have friends in the Society who would think that I am choosing sides.”
Robert, who has obviously been paying attention after all, asks, “What is the Society?”
“They’re the people that I used to work with. The people from Nemesis also used to work with them. There were some… company policies that we didn’t quite agree on so I chose to leave them. Other Society Members did the same and formed Nemesis because of that.”
“Oh right!” Robert replies, although he does not feel any the wiser.
Belinda is not so easily satisfied. “I can’t help but think that there are things that you’re not telling us.”
“If I am keeping things from you then it is only for your own safety,” David tells her.
And after that, he says nothing more on the matter.
Robert cannot believe that the house they finally stop at is anything more than the abode of a kindly old woman who has decided that she has finally had enough of the city and wants to move slightly more outfield to a place where she will have a wonderfully large back garden and no real trouble or neighbours for miles in every direction.
“Well,” David says upon hearing Robert’s opinion, “looks can be deceiving.”
They park the car quite a distance away from the house, which is barely in sight. “There’s a good chance that they know we’re here but we may still have the element of surprise if we move fast!”
“So what do we do?” Robert asks.
David smiles. “We do exactly what Belinda said in the office. We walk up to the door and ask for Alice back. Or at least that’s what I’m going to do.”
“And what is it that you want us to do?” Belinda asks, getting a bad feeling.
“Well, just in case your excellently well formulated rescue plan doesn’t work out, I want you both to go round the back and see if there’s another way in!”
And before either of them has a chance to complain about that idea, David is gone and heading for the house.
Belinda and Robert know that they don’t have much time and start to circle through the trees round to the back of the house, keeping David in sight for as long as they can. This is not anywhere near as long as they would like but soon they are at the rear of the house.
Belinda is very paranoid and looks around as they approach. There does not seem to be any kind of surveillance equipment on show – but that doesn’t mean that their approach isn’t being monitored.
Robert is paranoid for a completely different set of reasons. “Are we sure that we’ve got the right house?” He asks, his voice lowered to a whisper. “I don’t want to be arrested for breaking and entering.”
“Have you ever known David to be wrong about things like this? About anything, for that matter?”
He doesn’t need to reply and they continue to the back entrance, Belinda jumping slightly (although she would never admit it to anyone) when the door is wrenched open suddenly.
A man in a grey suit, a few subtle shades lighter than David’s charcoal one, stands at the door, looking a little curious. He has one arm raised to the top left hand corner of the entrance, trying to make it look as though he is relaxed, but it crosses Belinda and Robert’s minds at the same time that it is quite obvious that the other arm, hidden behind the door, is being kept out of view because it holds a gun.
2.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
09:54
On your mark
Get set
Go
David opens the front door of the house and is not surprised to find that there is nobody behind it. He pushes the door open quickly, sure that there will be a squeak or something to mark the opening if he were to push it slowly. He knows the way that the people in this house operate and the little traps like this are easy enough to spot when you have this mindset.
Ahead of him he sees a long corridor that leads straight through to the back of the house. He enters when he is finally sure that he will be out of the line of sight of anyone who is looking around the house, making sure when he steps inside that his feet go onto the long strip of carpet that runs down the centre line of the hall, and not on the creaking wood floor.
With the help of the long strip of carpet, which, for some reason, looks completely out of place in this grand house – way too tacky, he is able to quietly walk towards the door that he assumes to be the Kitchen (he has never set foot in this house before but already his mind is working through the layout) after closing the front door fast enough to avoid the squeaking but not so fast that it slams.
The Kitchen door is completely closed too and he knows that there will be someone on the other side of this one, so it is going to be a little trickier than his front door entrance. He fixes his hand onto the doorknob and makes a swift clockwise turn, the latch making an almost inaudible click (although one louder than he would have liked – he now has fractions of a second to react). He pushes the Kitchen door open quickly and noiselessly and moves forward before it has opened completely, towards the man in the grey suit, who has not even had time to turn round yet and has not moved the gun that he has hidden behind the door.
“What exactly do you want?” The man asks the people on the other side of the door. David cannot see them but knows that it is Belinda and Robert that he is talking to. He is a little amazed as he realises that the man has been too caught up in asking the two of them questions that he has not heard David, entering the room, despite him making what he has considered to be a lot of noise.
As he moves slowly forward, David hears Belinda’s voice. “Our car had broken down and we were wondering if you could give us directions to the nearest town.”
The man cocks his gun while he is talking to her, obviously not believing their story one little bit. “I have a phone if you would like to use it…”
Before he can say any more, David moves forward and knocks the man who is about to kill his friends unconscious with a vicious punch to the back of the neck. He tumbles to the ground, out for the count before he is even aware what has happened to him. David catches him before he manages to hit the ground and lowers him slowly, more out of fear that he makes noise than out of compassion. The gun has fallen from his hand and makes a small thudding noise on the carpet, but nothing that David is greatly worried about. He picks the gun up and ushers Belinda and Robert into the Kitchen.
“How the hell did you get in?” Belinda has to ask.
“I know Kevin and he’s not one to waste resources. There’s one man on guard to alert the others if there is any trouble.”
David points to the door to the Kitchen. “Back through there, there would be a row of television screens connected to hidden cameras outside. I knew that he would have spotted you both before me because… I have more of a talent for sneaking about. Then, when I was sure that he would be going to the back to check up on you, I took my cue and walked out of hiding and to the house.”
Belinda looks confused. “And why didn’t he alert the others if he spotted us?”
“He would have definitely raised the alarm had he seen me – that is who they’re expecting to come today. But all he saw was two curious people hanging about the house and he arrogantly assumed that he could handle it without any help!”
“God, you’re amazing!” Belinda feels she has to say.
3.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
09:56
Kevin is thinking of locks and closes the door to Alice’s room quietly behind him before looking up to see the man in the black suit standing there.
“I thought you were on some kind of schedule.”
The man in the black suit shrugs. “I get some free time now and again.”
“I wouldn’t know it from what I see on the news.”
“Why did you have to tell her about David?”
Kevin smiles. “I can’t believe he hasn’t told his friends what he really is.”
But the man in the black suit can’t be appeased by the friendly tone. “You’ve crossed a line. You’re actions will cost everybody dearly.”
The smile disappears and a frown crosses Kevin’s forehead. “What do you mean?”
“You’re kidnapping of her was bad enough. But your comments a few moments ago just gave the situation another couple of problems. One of them was inevitable anyway but it has been moved forward. It’s typical of you Kevin, other people always pay for your actions.”
Kevin, clearly sick of this conversation, says, “You just love talking in riddles, don’t you?”
“I have to go Kevin”, the man in the black suit says. “But I promise I’ll see you soon.”
The smile disappears from Kevin’s face.
4.
Tuesday 27th April 2010
09:57
Gary sometimes forgets why he loves his father so much - why he is the most charismatic man in his family in everyone’s opinion. He hates the thought that he is standing between a rock and a hard place with the two most important men in his life. Things are going to get worse; he can sense it.
When Gary brings him into the main office of Progression Software and sees that the only person around is Edward sitting in front of his computer screen, he knows immediately that something is wrong and it might be the wrong time to bring his father here.
Edward gets up from his desk quickly and walks over, offering his unwounded hand to Walter. “You must be Gary’s dad. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Walter shakes the hand in front of him and smiles, deciding not to ask too much about how Edward has come to be wearing the sling. He has no doubt that it has to do with the excitement of last night.
“We were just in the neighbourhood and Gary decided to show me where he worked. I’ve never been here before so I thought it was as good a time as any to check it out.”
“Where is David?” Gary asks.
“He had to go out with Belinda and Robert. Something has come up.”
“About Isabelle?” Gary asks. Walter’s eyes turn on Edward again, and at this moment the programmer knows that Gary has told his dad everything.
He looks down at his feet. “No, Gary. Sorry.”
“If David’s out with Belinda and Robert then where’s Alice?”
Edward is quiet for a moment, not sure what he should say. Walter looks at him with a gaze that he has previously thought only David Oswald is capable of.
“That’s why they’re out…”
“What’s happened?” Gary asks.
Edward doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know what he can say.
“Answer him!” Walter snaps.
“Alice got kidnapped this morning!”
Walter turns to his son, the fury in his eyes. “Another one? First it’s Isabelle and now it’s someone you work with? And you think that it’s safe to work here?”
Gary reels at this attack from his father. He knows that if he is told to resign this instant he will obey. He feels like a school kid again and, frankly, he does not like it much. But he is much too intimidated to say.
Edward, helpfully, explains that, “it wasn’t the same people who kidnapped Isabelle.”
Walter turns casually back to Edward. “Oh it wasn’t? Well that’s okay then. And just how did your arm get into that sling?”
“Ah well…”
“Well?”
“Gary’s possessed girlfriend stabbed me.”
Walter smacks himself on the forehead and turns round to his son again. “Gary, I won’t be happy until you quit your job.”
“Dad…” He starts, although he already knows that is what he has to do.
Walter doesn’t wait for an agreement though and pushes past him, heading out of the office. He is gone. Gary turns to follow him but Edward grabs his shoulder with his good arm, although he must hurt himself because Gary hears a wince escape from his lips.
“Gary, he needs time to calm down.”
Gary nods in agreement and puts his business head on. “Who’s got Alice?”
“Belinda said it was something called Nemesis.”
“What the hell is Nemesis?”
“She’s the Greek Goddess of vengeance and retribution…”
“I knew that…” Gary stops himself. “Actually I didn’t know that… but what is Nemesis in this context?”
Edward shrugs and the look of pain reappears on his face, although it is never truly gone at the moment. “I don’t have a clue. But knowing David, would you be that surprised if there was a Goddess kicking around the city kidnapping people?”
“Good point!”
5.