Attrition of the Gods: Book 1 of the Mystery Thriller series Gods Toys. (33 page)

Shane has to laugh at her response. “At least I have the element of surprise now, right? I’m guessing this Reuben won’t know that I know?”

She smiles. “He will know nothing.” She inclines her beautiful red head towards the guard who is watching them. “He is the guard who has been reporting to Reuben. Reuben will not learn of this visit; I will take care of him. You, however, must prepare for battle. With your permission, I will visit you tonight while you sleep and project a blueprint into your mind.” Shane holds his arms wide. “Project away, but a blueprint of what?”

She looks him in the eye. “The sewers. You will need to access them once the fire starts. Escape through these tunnels and I will have someone pick you up at the other end. You will need some sort of lever with you as there is a barred grid blocking your way out, just under the gates.”

Shane is not sure he heard correctly. “So, I not only have to find a way to get into the shitty sewer, but I have to find a crowbar in a prison and take it with me, all the while dragging a sixty-year-old Jew along for the ride and with just twenty-four hours to do it? Sounds like a piece of piss!”

The guard shuffles and grumbles, “Time’s up.”

“Please, sir, could we have five more minutes?” Amitiel says. “I haven’t seen Uncle Shane for months.”

The guard looks unsympathetic. “It’s against the rules.”

Amitiel purses her lips thoughtfully. “What if I’m extra nice to you, say in the storeroom, as a thank you?” The guard coughs and stutters as smutty visions pass through his mind. “What do you mean by nice?”

“Well, let’s just say you will have a happy ending, I pinkie promise.” Her reply is dripping in an overly cute, sweet voice and a very naughty smile. Shane nods, amused, to let him know she will, in fact, give him a good time.

“Okay, five minutes.” The guard returns to his corner.

Amitiel’s persona changes instantly, reverting back to business. Shane is impressed by her split-second transformation but is shocked by her statement.

“You won’t be taking the Jew, just Robert Price.”

Shane glares at her. He is pissed off on three counts: one, she’s already told him Leo is on Reuben’s hit list also, two, he doesn’t want Al Qaeda Bob on his team and three, hang on a minute, does he really look like an uncle?

“No way am I leaving Leo here for that cunt, Reuben, to do heaven knows what to.” He can tell from the look on Amitiel’s face he is not going to like what is coming next.

“Reuben wants Leo alive and for a very important reason. He has obtained a very special book – perhaps Leo spoke of this?”

Shane smiled. He had listened to the tales Leo told him just to be polite but fortunately he had actually absorbed most of them, especially the importance of this book, the ledger that controlled half the world’s wealth. “Yes, some sort of accounts for the kings and queens of old, wasn’t it?”

“Something like that. The text is in a form of Yiddish that only a handful of people on the planet can read and Leo is one of these. While Leo is alive there is the risk Reuben will use him to access the books secret’s.”

Only slowly does Shane realise what she is suggesting. “What? Fuck off!”

Amitiel tries to take his hand but he pulls away. The guard looks over and she quickly speaks. “The old man will agree with me. If Reuben captures him he will take him to his fortress in Switzerland and torture him. At some point he will break and then he will turn to Reuben’s side. Is that what you want?”

“But why can’t Leo come with me instead of the fucking Jihadist? Leo is on our team, he’s the one who has tried to educate me about all this and you suggest I kill him?” Shane sits back and folds his arms. “Like I said, you can fuck off.”

Amitiel looks at the guard who seems to have picked up on the words ‘kill him’. This time she talks to Shane telepathically without speaking.

“You must be calm. You cannot take Leo. He won’t make it crawling through sewage on his stomach for two miles, not to mention the combat you will be involved in to get there. He will slow you down and get you caught. Let me explain what will happen when you are caught: Reuben is a sick bastard, you will be subjected to unbelievable pain that no human, not even you, can handle.”

Shane thinks quickly. “Okay, you want the black guy, you got him, but we’ll be taking Leo with us. I have trained for torture situations and the mind is the most important factor. Trust me, I have the strongest mind you will come across. This is non-negotiable.”

A moment of silence fills the room, Amitiel looks at him sternly and pauses before replying. “I will say this, if caught, Reuben will likely tie you to a chair and cut your eyelids off. He will then parade a group of young children in front of you. Then he’ll choose a game, maybe Reuben will slowly sexually abuse one, maybe mutilate it, maybe he’ll get the children to mutilate each other, commit murder, incest, or even remove and eat each other’s eyeballs. If you think you will hold out, then I will go with your plan.”

Shane stares into his lap. Being strong enough to resist torture yourself is one thing, being forced to watch innocents tortured because of him is beyond his abilities – if this girl can see this then Reuben will figure it out in a heartbeat. This shit is real and he feels a sudden swell in his throat as a surge of sadness threatens to overwhelm him. He swallows hard, looking up back at Amitiel, his face appearing like that of an innocent child.

“I am sorry, Shane. There is no other way. The old guy will hold you up.” She looks genuinely sad. “Now, when I visit you tonight, I hope to have more details of Reuben’s plan and we will then counter with our own plan. Shane, you must do all that I ask and you must trust Robert Price.”

Shane is not listening, his head is full of sorrowful thoughts about killing Leo.

Amitiel frowns at him. “You must prepare. I will leave it up to you to decide if you tell Leo of the plan or not. But you must inform Robert. Right, now I have to deal with this gobshite of a guard.”

Amitiel gives a girly wave to the guard and Shane notices the bulge in his trousers already.

“You’re not really going to touch that slime ball, are you?” Shane asks. She smiles “Are you jealous? I need to be sure he does not report my visit to Reuben. Five minutes in the stockroom will ensure of that.”

She winks at Shane and once more he sees the seductive temptress and a strange feeling he has not felt for a long time stirs in him.

Shane walks back to his cell with visibly less enthusiasm than when he made his way out of it. “How can I leave Leo?” he asks himself. Then, as if recovering from shock, the events that have just unfolded begin to flood back. The things he has seen, the places he has been to. He looks up at the clock and struggles to comprehend that he has only been out of his cell for less than fifteen minutes. In this time he has witnessed the world’s history, discovered he is a target for some three-thousand-year-old psycho, been informed that there’s going to be a major prison break tomorrow, which is only, in fact, a distraction to cover his and Leo’s kidnapping and, worst of all, if he is to succeed in saving mankind, he must first kill his close friend.

“My first visit since I arrived here and what a shit visit it was!” he grumbles to himself.

Shane decides there and then that he will tell Leo everything and between them they will come up with a better plan. He is scheduled to visit him at 14:00 so this time he will do the talking and it will be Leo wondering if Shane has lost his marbles.



Despite this plan Shane fails to bring it up as the two men sit in the recreation corner of the psychiatric wing playing chess. Shane has lost his first game of chess to Leo for almost twelve months.

“Okay, what’s up?” asks Leo.

With a final sigh Shane conveys to Leo what he remembers from his visit with Amitiel, ringing his hands together and shaking his head as he does so, struggling to believe his own words. Occasionally he stands up and walks around mumbling, as if trying to put the pieces together so that they make sense but of course he is preaching to the converted and need not fear any utterance of disbelief from Leo. Still, he was not prepared for the old guy to agree to his own death.

“She is absolutely right,” Leo tells Shane.

“For fuck’s sake, you’re not serious? I am not going to pop you, old man. I’m not going to do it, so get your thinking cap on and help me work out a better plan.”

Leo smiles at him. “Shane, I have been expecting death for a long time now and if it was not for you, I would have been dead a long time ago. Who better to send me to God than you?”

Shane is not convinced. “God? You still believe in God? These Djinn freaks
are
the Gods! I’ve got to tell you the word ‘God’ has lost a lot of value in my book. In fact, my only thoughts regarding ‘Gods’ at the moment is ‘what a bunch of cunts’.”

“You’re wrong,’ says Leo. “These beings we deal with are advanced but they are not God! I admit my faith has wavered since I met Simeon but now I am once more comfortable with my faith. Besides, either way the girl is right. I cannot make it through sewers and it would not be appropriate for a respectable Jew to wade through philistine shit.”

Both men laugh and Leo points out that they can take advantage of Reuben’s need for his knowledge.

“We know he is planning some sort of distraction and this will take the form of a major catastrophe, either a fire or an explosion. If the priority is to take me alive then I need to survive this catastrophe, meaning the safest place to be when the shit hits the fan is in this ward. So somehow we need to ensure that both you and Robert are up here, at least when the attack begins.”

Shane ponders Leo’s tactics. Of course, this could give him an opportunity to get Leo out as well so he agrees. It will not be easy as Shane is only permitted one hour on the psychiatric wing and Robert is not allowed on it at all but Shane agrees that whatever Reuben is planning, he will ensure that there is no danger that he or Leo will be killed. He has the next twenty-odd hours to work the rest out.

Venice

Under the city of Venice runs a labyrinth of canal tunnels. If you know where to look they will take you to an ancient palace, once a meeting place for the Djinn and Arc Hon council, a neutral zone. Today it is both a hideout and a prison. Reuben, dressed in a smart business suit, walks through the pristine white corridors. He enters a room using a swipe key. Inside is a chair surrounded by a cage made up of blue laser beams. Sitting in the chair is Simeon.

“So, my friend, after eighteen months and the best care money can buy, I you finally are looking like you have recovered from that little ordeal?” says Reuben.

The room is occupied solely by the two Djinn.

“Yes, I would thank you for your care had it not been under your instructions that I was riddled with bullets in the first place.”

“I have told you I am sorry about that, it is very hard to get decent hit men nowadays. As I said the Jew and you were to simply be captured. Anyway you survived and that is the important thing. Soon I will unite you with your chosen prodigy.”

Simeon looks alarmed. “You have him?”

Reuben smirks. “Not yet, but soon, very soon. Unfortunately I expect there to be some collateral damage during his extraction. Six hundred prisoners caught in a huge gas explosion. You can imagine the carnage, especially as they are all locked up, trapped like animals.”

Simeon knows he is being goaded. Reuben has questioned him many times about Shane Mills and Leo while he was recovering, unbeknown to him Simeon was able to relay the conversations to Amitiel who in turn would visit Shane.

“Maybe this Leo will be burned to a crisp as well,” Reuben adds, smirking. “Tell me what you think of my proposed alliance with this human champion? After all the incessant lobbying and planning you and Isaac persisted in, it’s a shame he will have such a short game.”

Simeon looks up nonchalantly with a smug smile as he tries to hide his concern. “I don’t think you will outsmart him so easily.”

Stoke Prison

Phil Cumisky brother of Kieran Cumisky notices the Shane Mills guy looking at him as he sits in the TV area contemplating his escape. Although Phil and his brother are two of the most feared men in London, Phil always feels uneasy around Mills. He had watched him make easy work of the two Jamaicans a few years earlier and knew then that this guy was special. He was thinking of asking Shane if he wanted to work with them when he got out but the guy was very unfriendly towards Phil for some reason
. Anyway,
he thought,
why’s he looking at me now? Does he know what’s about to happen? Of course he doesn’t
.
How could he?

Shane would love to smash Phil Cumisky’s head to a pulp. He never liked the prick, walking around the prison like he was “the man” just because his brother was a big gangster on the outside. Now though, he also knows this prick is going to start some sort of chaos in order to escape. When Amitiel came to him in his dream last night, she told him what more she had learned.

She was convinced that the guy Cumisky was the one who would instigate the event and subsequent carnage. Shane had asked why killing that prick wouldn’t be the best idea, hoping he would then get a reprieve from killing Leo.

“No,” she’d said. “If we follow the plan, we will turn this to our advantage. You will be out of here and the authorities will think you perished in the fire. More importantly, Reuben and the other Djinn will assume the same thing.”

Shane had expected to be told no but had still racked his brains for an alternate outcome that didn’t include him murdering his close friend.

“There must be another way. If you can work out how to get me out of here and you have all this inside knowledge about the plan and who is carrying it out, then you must be able to think of a better idea than me saying goodbye to Leo with my hands around his neck?”

Amitiel had appeared in the dream as the sweet girl he met in the visiting room. She’d smiled and then answered, “I know you do not want to do this but it is the only way. I am aware of the plan because I have a direct link with Simeon who is currently Reuben’s prisoner. By goading Reuben and massaging his ego, Simeon has succeeded in encouraging Reuben to brag about his plan.