Chapter 4 - Book 1 of Death of Magic Series
"The Kildare is the only hope of humanity when magic returns" - Book of Kador
Roy sat in the backseat of the black car, looking out the dark window at the streetlights. He had not expected this day to end the way it had – it was almost midnight and he was on his way to work.
The evening had started quite well. There he was, sitting with a lovely young lady for dinner, with the extra bonus that that lady was not his wife.
And then the phone rang.
The phone was on Silent, but it rang all the same. He took his phone from his pocket, ignoring the frown of his companion and discourteous looks from neighboring tables.
The voice on the phone said, “It has started, sir. Please exit the building – the limo will be waiting at the front,” and disconnected.
The black car had pulled up outside the restaurant a moment later. Roy stood up, walked outside, and got in. He did not say goodbye, he did not pay the bill – fuck it, he thought, I never thought this day would come.
A brief was on the seat in the car, titled “Suspected Witness #K25.” It contained numerous photos of a young woman in her 20s, some taken from afar and others by cameras hidden within her apartment. He paused on the more revealing ones, to pass the time until the car stopped in front of a tall building and the door opened.
He was escorted inside and guided to the elevator by two men in dark suits with earpieces. They did not say anything; they didn’t even greet him. “Fuckin’ zombies,” he thought to himself. The security at Kildare was always super strict, and it was well known that the guards had less patience than the airport security at JFK.
The elevator doors closed softly behind them, and it started going down.
After 45 seconds, the door opened into a big hall with an equally big boardroom table in the center. Around the table sat twenty-five people in assorted clothes, from dinner dresses to gym clothes and even what looked like pajamas. All seemed to have been rushed in the same way as him. As he entered the hall the murmured conversations fell silent, and twenty-five pairs of eyes turned to look at him.
“What I want to know,” roared Roy, “is who the idiot is who ordered another drill!?” He looked around. “We had a drill three weeks ago, we do this shit once a year, what the fuck?”
The room fell silent, and his chief security officer, Mary G, gave him a flat stare. “This is not a drill, Roy. Our sources tell us that the Brotherhood just made contact with Suspected Witness #K25. They plan to ship her to London.”
Roy’s knees felt weak, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. “What...? Any sign of Reappearance?” he asked, with a hoarse voice.
“We’re not sure, our source is a low-level member in the Brotherhood – the first we’ve managed to get into that bloody organization for ages,” said Mary. “But we’ve lost sight of all the Brotherhood’s known members. They just vanished.”
Roy sat down heavily in his big chair at the head of the table. He looked around at the men and women seated with him. “Do I trust them?” he asked himself. “Hell no, these idiots couldn’t handle this without me, even if they had a bloody manual,” he thought wryly.
“Okay, I trust you all know what to do!” he said with more confidence than he felt. “We all know what’s at stake here – we’ve been sitting on our asses for generations now, god damn it. I guess this is money time.” It was a grand opening, he thought to himself.
They looked at him warily. “Do you really know what you want us to do?” asked Mary in her calm, flat voice.
They exchanged looks. “If it wasn’t for the Christmas party two years ago, I would have thought she had no pulse,” thought Roy. He closed his eyes briefly, remembering that night, then opened them wide.
“I want the Witness fucking dead!” he shouted, banging on the table for emphasis. “Dead, dead, dead, dead!”
“The witness is key for the completion of the Reappearance,” he added quietly. Roy looked around the room. “Gather all your people, cancel your plans, call your wives and husbands and tell them you won’t be seeing them for a while. The shit has hit the fan.”