Breakdown - 2. 01 The End

Aziel was sitting in a small, dark room down the street from a church. The church was old stone, marked with flying buttresses and beautiful stained glass windows. There was a large stairway leading up to the heavy ironwood doors. There were a lot of people on the front stairs, and three limos waiting on the street.

He glanced at his watch. He had approximately five minutes until the sermon was over. A good note to go out on, Aziel thought grimly. He looked down at the sleek, smooth sniper rifle at his side. It was a .223 Remington, fully loaded. Of course he'd done custom work on it. It was one of his older rifles, but he preferred it for jobs like this. There was something satisfying about the smell of gunpowder when he flicked the bolt and released the empty cartridge.

Aziel perched the long rifle on the windowsill in small notches that he had cut out of the old wood. He lay himself down on three crates that he had pulled together, prone for the best, cleanest possible shot. He pressed his lips together as he lay down, looking through his scope. He scanned over the stone stairs, the ironwood doors...

The doors opened. Aziel let his breathing slow, almost stop. He could see the slight jump in his scope from his heartbeat. Calm. Serene. The diazepam was at low levels in his system, just enough to take any tremor in his hands away.

A fat man with his wife on his arm emerged from the door. Aziel waited until he opened the door for her. He always opened the door for her, the fat bastard. The last of the chivalrous. Aziel would have smiled at the humour had he not been so focused. His breath was suspended half-in and half-out. He waited for the beat of his heart, and in the lull, he squeezed the trigger.

The noise was subdued. A low snap like an elastic band. The bullet whizzed the 654 yards and stung with precise venom. There was no shower of blood like you see in the movies; just a red dot in the fat man's temple where the bullet had entered. And then the rolls of flesh, barely constrained by his well-fitted suit, went ass-over-elbows on the cold stone steps.

"Amen," Aziel breathed.

Aziel heard the woman's scream, but he wasn't watching anymore. He was already unscrewing the silencer and pulling apart his rifle. Practiced at the task, he dismantled it and quickly vacated the building. He got in his rented car and was soon out of the danger zone.

He flipped open his cell phone. He dialed 3, and then listened.

"Hello?"

"Done." His voice was cold. He flicked the phone shut and then, only then, allowed himself a small smile.

It was getting dark. Early evening, and the city was alive with lights. The cars slid by with dark windows, each passenger the master of their own little steel universe. People walked the streets, talking and laughing loudly. In some ways, it was a million miles away from real life. In others, it was as close as you could get.

This was the seedy part of the city; the alleys were were crooked and dark and housed the worst that human society had to offer. There were pimps, drug dealers, junkies, and hookers. This was where the sirens were the loudest and the most frequent, and where the 'good upstanding citizens' feared to tread. Public housing and homeless shelters were the most common buildings, mixed in with ramshackle pawn shops where you could find the best that low society had to offer... usually with bloodstains.

Cam stood on the street corner in his low riding, tight jeans. He had a loose green jacket on, bomber style with fur around the hood. It wasn't cold now, but Cam was pretty sure that it would be later. He wore a tight black shirt on underneath his open coat. He had one hand in his pocket and was attempting to look enticing.

"How's tricks?" a male voice from behind him asked.

Cam turned and smiled. He reached out and clasped hands with his friend. Both stood roughly the same height, shy of six feet by about two inches. "Jared," he said in greeting. "What are you doing out here?" Cam tossed his head, his white-blonde hair momentarily out of his jade green eyes.

"Checking up on you," James said, giving him a pat on the back. "You know, making sure you get your daily intake of vitamin C."

Cam laughed, looking out to the street. "It's been slow, but it's been good. Teddy's upset, but that's pretty much par for the course."

Jared smiled a little, sinking his hands in the deep pockets of his large overcoat. His dark hair was a mess on top of his head, flanked by the buzzed sides of his skull. He tongued his lip ring while Cam spoke.

"Take care of yourself," Jared said. "There was some guy that got shot outside of the church down the way today."

"Yeah, I heard," Cam said with a nod. "Did you hear who it was?"

"Some fat lawyer type," Jared said with a shrug. "His wife was all over the news, bauling her eyes out."

Cam kept his eyes on traffic. "Kinda feel sorry for her, don't you?"

"A bit," Jared said. "I mean, she married a fat lawyer. There's only so much pity I can feel for someone who knows what they're getting themselves into."

Cam barked a laugh, but there was no humour in it. "Right. Hey, have you seen Derek?"

Jared shook his head. "No one's seen Derek for like a week or two," he answered. "We're all kinda thinking he skipped town."

"I hope he's okay," Cam whispered. There was a horrible feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm sure he's fine," Jared said, clapping a hand to Cam's back. "You know, probably just found himself a rich woman that's keeping him as a pet. You know, like that movie? I think it had Richard Gere in it."

"Yeah, it did," Cam replied.

"Fuckin' A," Jared replied, grunting a little. "Alright, I'll let you get on. I just wanted to stop and make sure you weren't killing yourself out there."

Cam gave him a sideways look with a bit of a smile. "If I could get some work, I'd be doing better."

Jared laughed and clapped his shoulder again. "Tell you what if you don't get an overnight come to my place. We'll get fucked up on beer and vodka and watch kid's cartoons."

"Deal," Cam said, grinning. That really did sound like more fun than doing an overnight.

Jared waved to him and headed off down the street, his hands deep in his pockets of his overcoat. Cam's smile slid from his face. He was left with the odd feeling of being alone, empty. He scuffed his shoe against the sidewalk and looked back out towards traffic. He thought about work tonight; if he didn't bring in some money, Teddy was going to be more than upset.

He took tally of the evening: one disgusting blow job in the front seat of a battered, rusted out Chevy, and a handjob for a homeless guy that had managed to get his hands on some rich guy's wallet. Cam could still taste the other's rancid body odor; it had coated the insides of his nose. It made his stomach flip just to think about it.

So preoccupied with his thoughts was he that he failed to notice the other until he was almost on top of him. Hard fingers, almost claws, bit into his arm and pulled him around. Cam let out a startled cry and tried to reef himself away from the other. Then he stooped, peering into the haggard, pale face before him.

"Derek!?"

The man before him was a crumpled mess. He was wearing a thick jacket, but by the way it gaped on him it was obvious it was not his own. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hands were violently shaking. His eyes had a peculiar glaze to them that Cam recognized from some of Jared's customers.

"C-Cam..." Derek said, his fingers biting more firmly into his arm. "P-please..."

Cam glanced around and quickly took Derek into his arms. The shaking became more violent, more pronounced. Saliva foamed at the corners of his mouth and his eyes flicked rapidly from side to side. He seemed to be having some kind of seizure.

"Derek!" Cam cried, grasping the man and shaking his shoulders. He didn't know what to do. Thankfully, a passerby stopped his car and called 911.

Derek hauled Cam close with the last of his strength. He smelled of decay and old sweat. Those eyes ceased their rapid shaking and focused on Cam with flaring intensity that made Cam flinch.

"I have seen the Devil," Derek said, his voice strangely firm with those words. "Don't look into... his eyes."

Cam frowned, tears starting to catch in his lower lashes. Derek... Jesus... what had happened to him? His body was frail, destroyed, under the large jacket. Cam could just see large purple bruises on his body, disappearing under the jacket. He felt like a dry leaf.

"Derek, just hold on," Cam said, but he knew it was already too late. He was OD-ing. Cam didn't need to see the slim arms marred with purple track marks to know what it was. "Just hold on, okay? We've got help coming."

He could hear the passerby talking in his cell phone, giving an address. It seemed so dirty, watching Derek shake and shudder, his breath cracked and broken on the dirty pavement. He was dying in layers of spit and mucus, blood and oil.

If Cam had known what to say from the bible, he would have said it. The frothing at the sides of Derek's mouth was more pronounced now, and he jerked and shuddered in the wake of a violent seizure. Cam held his friend, protected his head from the harshness of the cement, and cried into his hair.

He didn't move until the ambulance took Derek away in a black plastic bag.