Caomhnóir - 18

“Would you say ‘no’ if I offered to buy you a drink?”

Thom turned slowly on the bar stool, gazing through slightly blurry eyes at Darius. “Go away,” he spat out.

“Don’t be mad at me because I told you something you didn’t want to hear.” Darius smiled, taking the seat next to Thom, flagging down the bartender to order another drink for Thom and one for himself.

“Why are you here anyway?” Thom asked. “Don’t you have better things to do, like saving the world?”

Darius chuckled. “Did that this morning and now I’m home again, which, I gather from the fact that you’re here on your own, your devoted Keegan isn’t.”

“Well he had to—” Thom shook his head, turning his back on Darius.

“I heard he was going after a Scriostóir,” Darius said very quietly. “Unfortunate. That means I’ll have to give up my campaign to win him over as he’ll be dead soon enough for real.”

“You lie!”

“No, Thom, on this I do not lie. Keegan has been set up. If he isn’t dead already it’s only because he is moving slowly and carefully on his assignment.”

“I don’t believe you,” Thom whispered, spinning around to stare at Darius in horror.

Darius shrugged, lifting his glass, saying with apparent sincerity, “A toast to the late, great Keegan. May he finally rest in peace.” He put on hand on Thom’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Thom buried his face in his hands, fighting back tears. He would not give Darius the pleasure of seeing him cry. Finally he lifted his head to look at the Caomhnóir. “Who?”

“Who betrayed him? Why his ceannasaí of course. Who else could do that and get away with it.”

With a slow nod, Thom turned to pick up his glass. For a long moment he started into it before asking. “Why would he do that?”

“Because of you.” Darius stood, gripping Thom’s shoulder again for a long moment. Then he turned on his heel and strode out of the bar.

(17) Caomhnóir - 17

Two people were in what Keegan presumed was the master bedroom. He could hear one pacing, his thoughts moving rapidly from one thing to another as he mentally planned how to attack his next target. The other person in the room was having totally different thoughts as she watched the terrorist. Keegan knew it was a woman from the tenor of her imaginings. For a second he got distracted, wondering if the position she envisioned herself and the terrorist attempting was even possible.

The angry voice of the terrorist brought Keegan back to what he was doing. Moments later the door flew open and the woman came into view. “He’s probably in the kitchen, fixing yet another snack,” she said dismissively as she headed towards the stairs.

When she reached the bottom and crossed the downstairs’ hallway, Keegan was a few yards behind her. By the time she was opening the door to the kitchen he was a foot behind her, moving so silently she was totally unaware of his presence until his arm snaked around her throat and the kahnjarli pierced her heart. He choked off her cry of surprise, still holding her against his body until the last of her life fled. Then, after glancing around and spotting a large walk-in freezer along one wall, he thrust her still form inside.

“Two down, one to go,” he whispered so softly that if anyone had been listening they would not have heard him.

Silently he returned one more time to the second floor. The door to the room was still open and he could hear the Scriostóir pacing back and forth. Keegan sensed his angry thoughts as he waited for his two bodyguards to return.

“They’re dead, I’m afraid,” Keegan said with a sardonic grin as he stepped into the room.

The Scriostóir swung around to face him, a cavalry sword hanging loosely in one hand, a double-barreled ‘howdah’ pistol pointed at Keegan’s chest. “I wondered when one of you would be sent after me,” he said, an evil smile curling up his lips.

“Not soon enough,” Keegan replied as he stepped to one side, his flail reappearing in his right hand, a great sword in his left, which he held as if it weighed no more than a fencing foil.

“Just a bit behind the times aren’t you?” the Scriostóir commented as he pulled the trigger of the pistol.

“Sometimes the older the weapon, the better,” was Keegan’s reply as he adroitly leapt out of the way of the two bullets speeding towards him. “And now you’re down to one weapon until you get a chance to reload.”

“One is all I require.” The Scriostóir danced easily out of reach of the great sword’s blade, coming in under the swing, thrusting the saber up, intent on skewering Keegan through the gut. He was partially successful, the tip of the blade tearing an inch deep gash along Keegan’s ribs.

In turn, Keegan brought the head of the flail swinging down on his foe’s arm with bone-crushing ferocity.

The battle continued, each combatant bringing forth a new weapon to counteract that of his enemy’s. Blood spattered the floor and walls; furniture was used to good affect either to give one or the other of them the advantage of height, or for momentary protection.

In the end, it was a mighty blow from a battle axe that defeated the Scriostóir. Blood flowed from his severed arm as he sank to the floor, staring up at Keegan in shock.

“You were a worthy opponent, evil though you are,” Keegan said with respect in his voice. Then he took a small, ceremonial dagger from its sheath at his waist. Kneeling before his enemy, he said, “Mar a fuair bás duit aon uair amháin, mar sin beidh tú bás arís. Síochána a bheith agat le an am seo,” plunging the dagger into the heart of the Scriostóir.

*****

((Mar a fuair bás duit aon uair amháin, mar sin beidh tú bás arís. Síochána a bheith agat le an am seo  -  As you died once, so you will die again. Peace be with you this time.))

Caomhnóir - 16

Keegan carefully studied the residence of his target from his perch on a rooftop a few hundred yards away. It looked like all the others houses in the area, two-storied with pinkish stucco walls and a brick-colored tiled roof. One car sat in the carport, another in the drive leading up to it. Keegan was quite certain that none of the neighbors had any concept about the depths of depravity and evil in the beast that lived there. To them he was just a middle-aged family man with a wife and daughter who, at the moment, were living in their primary home in another city.

Tapping a thumb against his lips, Keegan searched for a way to enter the house safely. The last thing he wanted was any outside interference. He already knew there were two humans inside, bodyguards for the terrorist. Not that they were needed, but no one knew that other than Keegan and those of his order.

In the darkness of the moonless night Keegan moved from one rooftop to another, landing so softly the homeowners would be completely unaware that he was above them. Finally he finished circling the terrorist’s house and had the answer he’d been seeking.

Dropping to the ground, he moved silently to the rear of the house. There he paused to give the window that had interested him one more careful look. Instantly he was on the balcony, hunkered down so that the light from another window wouldn’t reveal his presence. He inched his way to the one he wanted, pausing, opening his mind to make certain the room it led to was empty.

Moments later he slipped his fingers into the narrow crack between the window and the sill. Someone had been careless not to have closed it all the way and that was what had drawn him to it. With it not fully shut any alarms on it would be rendered null and void. He eased it open just enough to slip inside, finding himself in a bedroom that obviously belonged to the terrorist’s daughter from the way it was furnished. Crossing to the door, Keegan pressed one ear to the paneling, listening for any sounds even as he sought for thoughts that would indicate someone was in the hallway.

Deciding it was safe, Keegan inched the door open just enough to make a visual check. The hallway was dimly lit, unsurprising considering the late hour. A thin sliver of light escaped from under a door at the far end of the hall. Inching step by careful step down to it, Keegan paused, again attempting to pick up any stray thoughts, both from the person or persons inside the room, and anyone else in the house.

A tight smile crossed his lips when he found one of the bodyguards was still on the lower floor. It took two minutes to make his way down the stairs, and another one to locate the bodyguard’s exact position relative to where he was standing. Keegan was in the office, his flail connecting with the man’s skull, before his victim was even aware that he was not alone. The crack of spiked metal on bone was sharp and quick. Keegan caught the body before it could hit the floor, and with one quick slash of his kahnjarli across the man’s throat he finished the job the flail had begun. After depositing the body behind a sofa at the far end of the room, Keegan went back upstairs.

Caomhnóir - 15

Thom paced the backyard patio, two thoughts fighting for supremacy in his mind. The first was the one which always overrode any other when Keegan was gone. Would he come back whole and uninjured? And, this time, would he come back at all, considering who his foe was? No matter how often Keegan assured him that what he did was much safer than even Thom’s job when it came down to it, Thom would never stop being afraid for him.

And now there was another worry piled on top of that.

Even though Thom was certain that Darius had been lying, there was still the niggling thought that there could be some truth in his words. What if Keegan did indeed have someone he cared for or loved in each century in which he spent his years away from here? Until last night that idea had never even occurred to Thom. He took Keegan’s love, which he thought was deep and abiding, and gave it back in kind.

Thom had been faithful to Keegan from the moment they had admitted their love for each other. Despite Keegan’s half teasing words that Thom was free to sleep with any women he wished to, to relieve his physical needs, Thom had never even considered doing that. For him it was Keegan or no one.

“But what about you,” Thom muttered, staring up at their bedroom window. “Do you have many lovers, one in each century, all of them as important to you as I seem to be?” He turned away, staring up at the dark, cloud-filled sky above him. “Nine centuries,” he murmured, still talking to himself. “In all that time, there have to have been other men who loved you and received your love in return.”

A stiff wind sprang up, filled with winter’s chill, and he wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. “Damn you, Darius,” he cried out angrily. “Damn you for making me doubt him.”

Caomhnóir - 14

“Come on, sweet thing,” Keegan said in perfectly accented Hindi. “You know I don’t want to harm you. I just need to know where to find him.”

“I swear, I don’t know,” she replied in a trembling voice as she struggled against the bonds that restrained her.

Keegan smiled tightly. Asking a question like that was tantamount to telling someone not to think of the word elephant. Once that was said it was impossible for the person not to think of elephants. So it was with the woman, although a bit more pressure had been required to bring the exact location he was seeking to the forefront of her thoughts.

Of course he wouldn’t tell her that. He tapped her temple with one finger. “Consider the options if you don’t come up with the answer. I’ll return in an hour.”

With that he strolled out of the room. He had no intention of returning as he had the information he needed. If she was lucky someone would find her sooner or later. For his sake he hoped it was later as that would give him more time to prepare for the battle to come.

His next stop was at a small shop on a teeming street in the center of the city. Using the information he had extracted from the woman, he gained entrance to a back room there. A man, the nephew of the Scriostóir that Keegan was seeking, swung around from what he’d been doing.

“Who are you?” the nephew asked angrily as he placed one hand on the gun riding on his hip.

“A compatriot of Rashid’s.” Keegan then spoke three words in the local dialect and the nephew relaxed. That was his first and last mistake. “One word, one sound from you and you will be dead, with no redemption,” Keegan told him with quiet ferocity as he pressed the double-curved blade of the kahnjarli against the man’s throat while holding him tightly against his chest.

Then Keegan began questioning the nephew, each question eliciting a shake of the head from the man, and once a muttered, “You will never learn that from me.” After punishing him for speaking with a deep jab into his jaw with the point of the kahnjarli, Keegan continued his questions, drawing the answers from the nephew’s thoughts. Finally, satisfied that he had learned all that he needed, Keegan dispatched the drug-dealing terrorist by severing his throat. Dropping the body on the floor behind some packing crates, Keegan slipped from the room, jammed the lock, and proceeded quickly back to the street.

His next stop would be his final one, one way or the other.