Breakdown - 38. 36 Epilogue: Where The Demon Sleeps II

Their vacation to Cancun had been wonderful. Aziel had acquired a small beach house on the coast some years ago, and that was where he chose to stay. It would have cost a fortune, if Aziel hadn’t been as shrewd as he was. It had taken an exceptional amount of work on his part, but he had managed to manipulate one of his victim’s estates to ‘drop’ the estate. Accompanied with the burning of several of the deceased’s property (which took care of most of the deeds), Aziel had managed to sneak the property away without anyone noticing. That was what happened when your estate was too big to manage.

Granted, a lot of his manoeuvring had been made possible by the fact that he had killed three of the family members, and so the estate proceedings had been hopelessly complex. He was sure that more than a few things got lost…

Mark had frolicked on the beach, explored the spacious beach house, and excitedly made friends with all of their neighbors. He somehow managed to get them invited to three dinner parties while they were there, and Aziel was courteously introduced as the “boyfriend Aziel, he’s a lawyer.”

All things considered, Aziel didn’t mind Mark dragging him around from shop to shop, looking at jewelry that Aziel knew he would never buy. Aziel did, however, draw the line at bringing back a large ceramic cactus.

Sun-kissed and slightly wearier than when they left, Mark and Aziel arrived to the quiet penthouse back home. As soon as they were in the door, Mark turned to Aziel and wrapped his arms around his waist. Aziel had dropped the bag he was holding and curled one arm around the youth’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” Mark said softly. “You’ve done more for me than anyone in the whole world. I love you, and having you love me back makes everything in this world alright.”

Aziel smiled a little and squeezed Mark’s shoulders. “Good thing you didn’t say that in Mexico,” Aziel said softly.

“Why?” Mark asked, looking up at him.

“If you had, I might have let you bring home that hideous cactus.”

Mark blinked, considering, and then laughed. He hugged Aziel more tightly. “You wouldn’t have, don’t lie.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t have.” He kissed the top of Mark’s head. “I love you too.”

The unpacked their clothes. Mark pulled out the large laundry basket and started to sort them into darks and lights. Aziel watched him perform this menial task, suddenly remembering his solitary life before Mark. He remembered standing in almost that exactly spot, doing exactly the same menial task. What had he been thinking when he was doing that?

He blinked and the thought was gone.

“Aziel,” Mark said quietly, shifting the basket to the floor.

“Hm?”

“I don’t want to do laundry tonight,” he said.

“Then don’t,” Aziel said. “It’s not like we need our shorts and T-shirts tomorrow.”

Mark crawled onto the bed and patted the space beside him. Aziel moved forward and took Mark into his arms, holding him to chest as he lay on his back. Mark nuzzled and dug in, is fingers by his mouth.

“Thank you.”

“Stop that, you’ve been thanking me for an entire week,” Aziel growled.

“Sorry,” Mark said, squeezing his waist. “I just never thought I’d ever get the chance to go to Mexico.”

“We should go somewhere for Christmas,” Aziel mused. “How about Paris?”

Mark sat up. “Are you serious? Paris at Christmas?”

Aziel looked into Mark’s soft brown eyes. He brushed some of his hair off of his forehead and smiled at him affectionately. “Sure, why not? Now that I’ll be traveling less, I’ll have some extra money kicking around.”

Mark beamed, and hugged Aziel tightly. Aziel smiled and hugged him back. Suddenly, Mark pulled away and looked worried. He chewed on his lower lip and his eyes darted to the mess of dirty clothing that was lying on the corner of the bed and most of the floor.

“Aziel,” he asked. “This isn’t a way to just… get out of meeting my parents again, is it?”

Aziel gave him a sour look and yanked him back down to his chest. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Mark laughed and nuzzled again, affectionate and soft as ever. Curled next to the assassin, Mark had never felt more safe and secure. This was his future, his everything. He couldn’t explain the feeling of being so bound to someone. He knew when he looked into Aziel’s eyes, that Aziel felt the same way. Everyone else told him how cold Aziel seemed, how his eyes were so calculating and severe.

But when Mark looked at them, they were warm. They were full of love and attention. Aziel might have been a monster at work, a feared lawyer and fierce opponent, but to Mark, he was a gentle, tender lover.

The feeling of Aziel’s soft hands on his back made him moan. Oh, how he’d loved the feeling of those hands on him in Mexico, lying on a blanket with a small lantern on the beach. There had been the roar of waves and nothing else. Over Aziel’s shoulder, Mark had watched the skies open up into an incredible panoramic of dazzling, gorgeous stars.

He’d lost a piece of himself to Aziel that night and it was a piece that he wanted Aziel to have forever.

He remembered feeling Aziel’s toned body against him, moving softly, smoothly, touching him with utmost tenderness and care. Mark shivered as he felt those soft hands move down his body, touching his need and urging him to climax. The roar of the waves had filled his ears and the night had been alive on his fingertips.

Aziel listened to Mark’s breathing as it evened out. He felt his own eyelids growing heavy. He had a job waiting. He felt that he should start his research, but it seemed so troublesome when he was so comfortable with Mark purring softly on his chest.

Work could wait for tomorrow.

Aziel was standing with his back against a cement pillar near a loaner car. He was holding a small mirror, barely two inches in diameter, out to the side so he could see the car park entrance by tilting his wrist. His target was a slim, mouse-like man with a blonde, wispy comb-over. He was carrying a thick briefcase that seemed to weigh terribly on him. His business suit was rumpled, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in about two years.

The man kept glancing over his shoulder, as if he expected to be followed. Who needs to follow when you can lie in wait?

He had to give this frantic little man some credit. It had taken him over a week to get close enough for a chance to kill him. The man had systematically parked his car in clear view of the security cameras, kept to the well-lit, populated areas at night, and had a very hefty security system at his house. Aziel felt that the easiest place to get to him was in this one place where pedestrian traffic was low.

There were disadvantages of course. Things like echo, wide open spaces late at night, and of course, the security cameras. This particular one had a very good system of cameras; there were very few blind spots. With this level of security, a suspicious camera outage would be promptly investigated and complicate his escape.

The assassin would have opted for a more passive route, but there was no guarantee that the man would ever pick one of the blind spot spaces. The combination of the man’s paranoia and random chance meant that Aziel could have been waiting for him for years. Aziel decided he had to persuade him a little.

The man left his house promptly at 6:30AM every morning. He would arrive in the underground park around 7:45AM, and park as close as he could to the door. He left the car park sometime around 7:30PM, and once he was home, he did not leave.

Aziel had visited the man’s house while he was at work. Carefully, he had marked out where the tire marks on the man’s driveway were, and laid a thin strip of tape down, with a screw embedded in it. It was small enough to not be noticed when he drove up in the failing light, and plausible enough that it would not raise alarm.

When the man arrived home, he drove over the screw and got out. He went into his house.

The next part had been tricky.

Aziel had crept up to the car and removed the tape around the screw. He also made sure that the tire was indeed punctured by taking pressure readings at intervals through the night.

In the morning, the tire was almost completely flat.

The man checked his car every morning for any kind of defect as if he knew that someone was going to be stalking him and plotting his demise. Finding his tire flat in the morning, he did exactly what Aziel thought he would; swear profusely, and then phone the tow truck.

This delayed him by two hours. When he arrived at work with the loaner car, all of the spaces were taken close to the door.

Except for the blind spot, where Aziel had parked his car. When the loaner car (bugged, of course) arrived in the car park, Aziel made a show of getting out the space and the man took the empty slot. By this time, the blind spot was the closest of the available spaces.

It had worked like clockwork.

It was 7:35PM. The man emerged from one side of the cement pillar and immediately went to put his key in the lock. He was in the magic blind spot, and Aziel would have to act quickly to get him before he swung into his car.

The act itself was so fast it almost wasn’t worth the weeks of preparation. Aziel kicked the back of the man’s knee out, and he went down with a startled cry. The muzzle of his weapon pressed into his wispy comb over, just over his ear. There was a soft popping sound with a flash of light, and then the man crumpled, twitching, to the cement.

The briefcase fell over onto its side, and Aziel picked it up. He fished the keys out of the man’s pockets, dragging him further into the blind spot. To buy himself time, he removed the loaner car from the stall and drove out as if he were the gentleman in question.

He ditched the car three miles away, where he stopped at a dingy hotel to change his clothes. There, he packaged up the discs that the man had had in his briefcase into a large envelope and sealed it. He dropped the man’s briefcase, and the rest of the contents, down the trash chute. Then he walked across the street to retrieve his own car.

Already in the bad part of town, he didn’t have far to go for his next errand. It was 10:03PM, and the night was starting to come alive. There were people of every description on the street. Aziel mindlessly drove the dark, crowded streets until something caught his eye.

It was a young boy, perhaps 16, wearing tight, low jeans and a black shirt. There was a ratted cap on his head and dark red hair poking out from under the brim. His posture suggested something of uncertainty and reluctance. Aziel applied the brakes and pulled up to the corner the boy was occupying.

He rolled down the window and the boy approached, again, with reluctance.

“Hey man,” he said. “Looking for some company tonight?” The phrase was uncomfortable on the boy’s tongue. His blue, innocent eyes didn’t belong with his swagger and purpose.

Aziel’s smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

“Get in.”

The End