Everyone Dies in the End #59

Folks. One of the problems with writing a novel via posts is the time lag. When the book is published, and you sit in your easy chair, snow gently falling in the early evening, glass of red wine at your side, all of these episodes will (hopefully) pull together to form a cohesive tale. Here in the cold glare of the blog, they don't pull so well. So, just to refresh your memory, when we last left Katarina, she was Vader's prisoner in Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in the City of Brotherly love. We'll get back to Todd, Arty's, and Susan's strange sub-adventure in the blog after next.

Katarina

1

Vader liked his creature comforts, she would give him that. Judging by the way his eyes roamed over her body, he would like her to give him much more.

“Have a seat.”

She did. There were two, overstuffed, leather chairs facing the desk. Worn leather chairs, the softest and bestest kind. The worn leather faced a large, as in massive, oak desk. She sat in the chair on the left, ignoring Vader for a moment, studying the books filling the wall-wide, inset bookcase behind him. Her thoughts flicked to other bookcases, stuffed with silly comics, crazy novels, and toy figures. The possession of another man, a man she left fighting for his life on another continent, in a less personal war than this. That man, Mike Hudson, was a voracious reader, she doubted this man was, or even if she was wrong, she doubted he read the books lining these shelves. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Jesus in the Modern Church, Of Good and Evil. The titles made her skin crawl. These were the books of the men who had stalked, persecuted, and murdered her kind since the beginning; the men who would like nothing more than to hunt them to extinction. Many of Master Vlad’s clan felt the Lycans were their sworn enemy, the eminent threat to their existence. They were not. It was this church; this Catholicism. She smiled, pulling herself from the thought. But this man wasn’t of this church, was he? She chuckled.

Vader spoke. “Someone tell a joke?”

Katarina didn’t respond. She did, however, change her study of the books to a study of the man. The Vader mask rested on the oak desk. It was more than a mask, a full helmet, gleaming black in the low light of the room. Vader sat behind the desk. He was, less than she had expected. The man ruled Philadelphia, hell, he ruled most of eastern Pennsylvania. He had enslaved a coven of her people, but he was just a man. He wasn’t small and beady-eyed, or large and intimidating, but rather something between. He had been standing when she was ushered in, mask removed. She guessed he stood a bit less than two meters, thick, dark hair, worn over the ears, parted off-center. Athletic body, nothing special, but that was the paradox, because he was something special, a fact made obvious by the steel in his eyes, the confident, wry grin. Special or not, she could have gutted him in less time than it would take to tell. The woman that stood behind him, however, might be another matter.

It was the black. The witch, Katarina was sure, that had overcome her on the stage of the church. She stood silent, a smile on her lips, swirling fire in her eyes.

A trigger cocked behind her ear. It could only be the man, the fat, phlegmy guard from her cell, and it could only be his riot gun. The touch of its barrel at the back of her neck confirmed the thought.

“Right now the only thing that is keeping me from allowing Dan to blow your head off, is the thought of the mess,” monotoned Vader.

“Whatever,” Katarina shrugged, and the gun barrel dug deeper.

“Let me give you some unsolicited advice.”

“Please do,” Katarina interrupted, “I’m on the edge of my seat.”

 Vader laughed, but his eyes remained rock hard, cold. “When I speak, for example, when I say ‘Someone tell a joke?’ you answer.”

“Fuck you,” Katarina hissed. “I’ve had 400 good years; we might as well end it now.”

            “Your call,” Vader replied, and the gun boomed.