Spes Magna Games

Four days later, Jones’s murder was still news. The police still issued little more than boilerplate statements. The housekeeper had found the body. The police had found Sharon’s hair and the news article about her disappearance. Scrutiny fell on Sharon’s surviving family members, but nothing came of it. No evidence connected them to the murder; they all had alibis. Even if thoroughly interrogated, none of them could tell the police anything. Jared had had no contact with any of the family. Miriam, Sharon’s sister, would have received the necklace by mail already. The envelope had no return address. The postmark was hours away from Jared’s home.

Jared switched from the radio to CD and walked to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee. Placido Domingo as Leandro defended Morala. Leaning against the counter, cup in one hand, phone in the other. A thumb pushed buttons.

After three rings, a woman’s voice answered. “Prescott Investigation.”

“It’s me,” said Jared. “Anything?”

“I managed to isolate a reflection. It’s partial, but pretty clear. Voice analysis concludes the camera operator was male, definitely foreign, probably Albanian. He was tall, maybe close to your height. All in all, I doubt there’s enough for identification.”

“Call Ira. Your office.” Jared glanced at the clock. “One o’clock.”

The line disconnected. Jared walked back to the living room, sat on the sofa, placed the cup of coffee next to the bottle of Excedrin. Also on the table was Jones’s the toothbrush in a Ziploc baggie. Two pills later, Jared pulled the toothbrush from the baggie. He held it between forefinger and thumb. The familiar scent of flowers announced Jones’s appearance.

“What the hell!”

Jones stood in the middle of the room, nude, bearing the signs of his last minutes alive. He staggered away from Jared. Jones’s bare feet made no sound.

“You! You son of a bitch! What did you do to me?”

Jared leaned forward, looked Jones in the eye. “I killed you. You’re dead. Calm down.”

A calmness spread over Jones, through him. He looked at the hole in his hand, and the discolored wrist. He touched the gash in his chin, looked down at the bullet holes in his chest.

“How is this possible?”

Jared pointed to the chair across the room from the sofa. “Sit down.” Jones sat down. The cushion didn’t move as Jones was now weightless. “I enlisted in the Army when I was eighteen. Infantry. Ranger training. Half way through my second tour, I applied for Delta Force and was accepted. Made it through. My life really changed after that. I hunted high-priority targets, first in Iraq, then later in Yemen.”

“You were an assassin.”

“No,” Jared said. “Then, I was a soldier, and I was a good soldier. I became an assassin later. After several years with Delta, I was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency. Real black ops. More training. I was the killer man’s son and then some. In the tangle of lies and spies, I lost my way. I stopped being a soldier.”

Jared took a deep breath, sipped his coffee. Jones studied his killer. The last time Jones had seen him, Jared had been nearly naked, armed, wired for violence, quick to inflict pain. He was different now, sitting on his sofa in his living room, dressed in sweats and T-shirt, sipping coffee, talking about his past and lost ways.

“What the hell does that have to do with me? Being here? I dead, but I’m here. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be at all.”

Jared chuckled, but only briefly. “Your file said you were an atheist. You were raised Southern Baptist. Your father was a deacon.”

“My father was a violent drunk,” Jones said. “There’s no God. All that church stuff is a load of crap.”

“Right,” Jared said. “When you die, you’re nothing. Just worm food.”

Jones looked away from Jared’s stare, from his knowing grin. “You’re telling me it’s true? Heaven and Hell, Jesus Christ and the devil?”

Jared shook his head. “I don’t know about that. I just know I can call spirits, ghosts, whatever you want to call yourself, from wherever you were before I called you. I know. I know. You don’t remember anything after you died. Every one of you tells me that, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I was working black ops. I’d stopped being a soldier. I’d become an assassin, a murderer. Then, one day years after I’d started that part of my life, I took a bullet.”

Jared pushed his hair back, exposing the scalp at the hair line just to front of his left temple. The flesh was scarred, a rough circular pattern.

“I was dead for nearly five minutes. There’s still a small fragment of skull lodged in my brain. When I came back, I was medevaced to Zinjibar. In the hospital, I could see the recently dead, walking around, confused, sad. Happy some of the time. They never lingered for long. When I was well enough, I was shipped back stateside. I had a souvenir. A kris I’d taken from a terrorist I’d killed. When I touched it, he appeared. Scared me. I dropped the weapon, yelled at him. He vanished. That’s how I found out.”

Another sip of coffee. Jared rubbed the back of his neck, massaging down the rising pain.

“I did some research. Necromancer. Psychopomp. Medium. I don’t know what I am, or how I can do what I can do, but I know what I can do. You’re mine until I choose to let you go.”

Jones’s jaw trembled. “Then what?”

Jared shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you go to Hell. Maybe you just cease to be. Until then, you’re going to help me.”

“How?”

“Sharon, the girl you killed, the girl you raped while she was dying. You didn’t find her on your own. She was brought to you. Right?”

“Yeah,” Jones said, and then looked confused. “Why did I answer you?”

“I told you that you’re mine,” Jared said, “and the dead speak only the truth. You can’t lie to me or to yourself. Not anymore. That’s why you’re going to help me. I’m going to find those responsible for Sharon’s death.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’m going to kill them all.”

Tags: fiction, Lilacs