The Ilium Obligation (A Matt Savage Adventure) Chapter 13

[seymoure]

Her

 

“A man gives many question marks,

however, a woman is a whole mystery.”

-Diana Stürm

 

“I guess if somebody wanted me dead, I’d be dead now, right?” I ventured aloud.

Nothing.

The car whizzed silently along the city streets.

They never said a word to each other or me.

“You said ‘she’ wanted just me. Who is she?”

Beat. Beat. Beat.

“Not going to say anything?”

“How about those Chiefs, huh?”

Somebody in the car chuckled under their breath. Maybe I could break through this wall.

“Ooo, I think I’m bleeding on your nice leather seats,” I said, pushing my knee up into the air.

The figure sitting next to me snapped his fingers. The guy in the front seat who wasn’t driving leaned down and picked up a black box and handed it back to the snapper.

He opened the box, took out a square packet and ripped it open. When he slapped my knee with it the knowledge that it was alcohol exploded in my mind. He then haphazardly slapped a bandage on, clamped the box closed and handed it back to the front seat.

“That was so compassionate!” I sarcastically stated, “I am so touched by the humanity.”

The same voice snorted.

The same guy (the snapper) grunted to stop it. After a moment he turned to me.

“If you say anything else you will find out the extent of our ability to bring you in alive. That doesn’t mean you have to have all your fingers.”

He turned back and I was silent.

It was a very long hour in the car. I felt like I was five years old again, waiting to say, “Are we there yet?”

When we finally pulled in to a warehouse by the river I realized that we had been going a circuitous route, perhaps to throw off anyone trying to track us.

This was the River Quay, once a blossoming section of the economic landscape. With the passing years the area had fallen into disrepair and neglect.

There was a decided mob presence that had been born out of the attempts to revitalize this area with an eye toward eventually making it a hotbed of nightclubs and bars, but this wouldn’t really happen for years. Most of this area appeared to be beyond revitalization or even resuscitation. It was dead and was just waiting to be buried. The darkness of the crypt was hanging over all these buildings.

They took me out of the car and walked me to the lobby of a building that had not seen service for at least a couple of decades.

We boarded an ancient elevator and creakily rose three cobweb-encrusted floors. It was something out of a film noir of earlier years, though I didn’t see myself as Bogart for the slightest minute.

When they lifted the wooden gate I was looking at one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in my life.

This was her.

© C. Wayne Owens
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