Something Asked

            Ian stepped into Danny’s office and found her asleep on her sofa. He walked over to her and knelt in front of her, looking at her soft sweet smile as she slept. He reached over to brush a lock of hair from her face and stoked he cheek, at which she slowly opened her eyes.

  “Hey beautiful,” he said

  “What time is it?” she asked as she sat up slowly.

  “Time to go home,”

  “What? now, it’s only half past nine,”

  “And your chief of staff has placed a the great task of taking you home early in my hands,”

  “But, my patients,”

  “There are other doctors here that haven been awake since yesterday morning. Now, your chief of staff said you might be reluctant so she gave me this,” Ian said holding up a syringe, “now, I’d rather have you at your full awareness when I have my way with you, so I’d rather not use it,”

  “Have your way with me?” she asked playfully and allowed Ian to pick her up. “Mayhap it will be me that has my way with you,”

  “Oh, I’m counting on that,” he said as he carried her out the hospital and to his car where he put her in the back seat and drove home.

            JR entered the sparing room to find the Sapling sparing with some young kid he didn’t know. Although he instantly knew he hated him. The kid moved with such grace and attacked with such speed that the girl retreated more than she pushed back.

            Finally, the young man had knocked the Sapling to the ground and smirked. He sheathed both his axes and helped the girl to her feet with his left arm as JR noticed his right was bandaged around the shoulder.

  “You’re not half bad, for your age,” said the Sapling.

  “Thank you,”

  “Would you hold your ground just as well against a real opponent?” asked JR challengingly.

  “I would show you that I can, but I don’t see any real opponents around. Unless you meant to challenge me, old man,” said the boy with a devilish smile, extremely akin to how Ian sometimes smiled.

            JR grumbled something under his breath and made his way over to the weapons rack where he retrieved a two handed sword.

  “JR, don’t,” said the Sapling, but there was no stopping him.

            JR and Jacks stood opposite each other, bowed and charged. Within three swings, JR found himself sprawled on the floor. He got up quickly and charged at Jacks again. This time it was two blows before he hit the ground.

            Ed had come to see what the commotion was about and stood next to the Sapling, watching JR flail himself and the heavy greatsword at Jacks, who was now just toying with JR.

            Each swing JR aimed at the young man, he dodged with ease and repaid with a light tap on JR’s thighs. After ten minutes of this, however, Jacks got bored and sent JR crashing to the floor once more.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” said Ed.

  “What of you, old man, you want to try?” asked Jacks.

  “I have no wish to hit the ground today, though I’m sure Ian will be by later,”

  “I have no wish to taste my own blood today,” said Jacks with a weary smile.

  “Who the hell is this cocky bastard?” asked JR as he limped over to where Ed and the Sapling stood.

  “That is Jacks Le Roux, and he is an actual bastard. His father worked for the Agency but his wife wasn’t Jacks’ mother. Either way, they both ended up dead before the kid was eight, so Ian took him in just before the Fall and found him a good family afterwards,”

  “When will Ian be coming by?” asked Jacks as he joined them.

  “He said some time this afternoon, he had to go pick up Danny from the hospital and had another stop to make thereafter,” said Ed.

            Ian slowly entered the New Apostolic church building and made his way to the front benches. It was a plain building inside, though large. At the far end in front was the altar with seats to its side and an organ in the corner.

            He sat down and looked at the emblem behind the altar; a cross over the ocean with the sun rising behind. It wasn’t long before an Indian man of about Ian’s age came out of the vestry off to the right with a cloth in his hand.

  “Aren’t you afraid you might burst into flames?” asked the man.

  “I deserve that,” said Ian as he rose and walked to the man to greet him, “Heard they made you Apostle,” he said as he shook the man’s hand. “Apostle Starris has a good ring to it,”

  “Could have been Apostle Erasmus,”

  “No, I was never meant to tread that path,” he said.

  “I thought I heard your voice,” said a pretty Caucasian brunet woman who had just exited the vestry.

  “Pam,” said Ian and embraced her. “Congratulations on the third child,”

  “Thank you, but that was over a year ago,” she said.

  “Why did you come here, Ian, you know we don’t do the whole confessionals thing,” said the Apostle.

  “I know, but I also know we do the listen and ask thing. I am here to ask if you would listen,”

  “When did you get engaged?” asked Pam noticing Ian’s ring.

  “A month ago, give or take a few odd days,”

  “Damnit, Ian” said the Apostle. “Why must you do these things?”

  “Your one to talk, Sheldon, you and Pam got married within a week,”

  “But we had known each other for years,”

  “Fair enough. Look, I didn’t come here to argue, I came for two reasons. One, I need you to preside over a funeral,”

  “Well that’s a bit grim,” noted Pam.

  “The other, I know times have changed, and I will need someone to marry me and my fiancé soon-ish, so would you do that as well?”

            There was silence for a while, then.

  “Yes, fine, I’ll do it. But you’d better bring your children up in the church when they are born,” said the Apostle.

  “Really? What do you take me for, an atheist? I’ve never stopped believing,”

  “No, you just stopped coming to church, and orchestra,”

  “Maybe that will change soon, and then I can tell you of the adventures I’ve had,”

  “Something tells me I wouldn’t want to know,” he said.

            After that, Ian greeted the two of them and left making his way to Stronghold Prime.

  “You were quite hard on him,” Pam said taking Sheldon by the arms.

  “He changed,”

  “We’ve all changed, life changes us,” she said and ran her hands across his chest. “When last did we christen this building?”

  “If the seniors should catch us,”

  “What will they say? That two God-fearing married people made love in the house of the lord? I cannot really see a problem in that,”

            Devon was reading through the dossier on their target once more. He had read it a million times by now and it was another three days before their target got to Dubai.

            He mindlessly paged through the file, looking but not seeing until something caught his eye. It was a sentence, or a sliver of one. ‘Part of unknown organisation’. And then it hit Devon.

  “He’s part of the Council,”

  “Say what?” asked Evelyn.

  “The bastard, the fucking target, he’s part of the Council, they’re responsible for Melisa’s death,”

  “Whoa, hold on there cowboy,” said Stone “We need the target alive,”

  “He killed Melisa,”

  “He might have given the order-” started Evelyn.

  “That’s as good as pulling the trigger,”

  “Killing him won’t bring her back, and it won’t make you feel better,” said Stone.

  “I won’t know until I try,” said Devon and he stormed out of the room.