Episode 134

Previous Episode 

 

Next Episode

 

“When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”

Winston Churchill

 

 

            “I wasn’t with my brother when all of it happened,” Rebecca recalled forlornly.  “I was working in Seattle with a military contractor.  I had ended up there as part of a related plan, one spearheaded by Aaron, the leader of the Investigator’s Clan.”

            “Yeah, we knew him,” Everett said, sitting before Rebecca, Marilyn behind him.

            “I wanted him dead too,” Rebecca remembered with warm hatred.

            “He may well be,” Sydney spoke up, standing a few paces back with the rest of the knights.  “He disappeared after the explosion of the base.  So did his boys, Ian and the rest of them.”

            “They can all rot in hell for as far as I’m concerned,” she said.  “Once Phillip came to power, controlling both the Hand and the Miracle Worker’s Clan, my parents and I came under scrutiny.  There was so much paranoia going around then, about there being darker, deeper dealings behind the events of Jericho’s fall and Phillips ascension.”

            “There were,” Armand said.  Behind him, Donovan looked around, bored.  He took a beer out of the refrigerator and settled in for a long night.

            “My family…suffered, at the hands of our brothers,” she said distantly.  “There were far worse consequences to being related to Phillip than merely distrust.  But we stood by him, all the way up until he was killed by Jericho Kingston.”

            “Just out of curiosity, how’d he die?” Ledger asked.

            “We don’t know,” she said.  “One of the Hand members delivered a package to us, with Jericho’s blessings.  It was all that remained of Phillip’s head.”  She smiled at the looks of shock on the knights.  Jericho wanted us to know how badly Phillip had suffered.  He wanted all to know the price of betrayal and as his family, he wanted us to know most of all.”  She shook her head.  “Those were dark times.”

            “I can’t imagine you took that too lightly,” Everett ventured.

            Rebecca smiled.  “My parents didn’t know what to do; the loss of their son was too much to take.  Eventually, they fixed a glorious after-dinner snack of a bottle of pills and an entire bottle of wine.  They passed in their sleep, which was nice.  It’s good that they weren’t around for what was done to their bodies once Jericho set his Hand men on them.”

            “And you?” Marilyn asked.

            Rebecca smiled again.  “Like the little spider,” she sang, “I weaved my web.  I may not have had much to work with, but I knew that I would have my revenge.  I knew, I KNEW, that Jericho would meet his demise at my hands.  Knight or no, I would make him suffer and I would make him pay.”  She looked up at the knights, her jaw working in anger.  “But you robbed me of that.  You, Morgan, all the knights.  All who were black and red.”

            “Uh, point of note,” Donovan chimed in.  Roland smacked him in the chest, shutting him up.

            “Thank you,” Erik said, focusing on Rebecca.

            It took several moments for Rebecca’s rage to calm enough for her to resume talking.  “After Jericho was dead, I knew the remains of the Brotherhood would be sought out and destroyed by the Illuminati, and I was right.  Every person who remained was slaughtered, sooner or later.”  She sighed.  “And so, a new stage of my life began.  I found myself at Kent State, trying to find a way to calm the burning rage I felt inside of me.  But I couldn’t.  I couldn’t even bring myself to go mad; I was too focused on knights, on destroying black and red.”

            “Again, I just want to point out…” Donovan started again.

            “I will shoot you in the face, haunky,” Ledger snapped.  “Brit or no.”

            “Of course, even there, I found a knight,” she smiled.  “I found a knight, young and idealistic.”  Her smile turned hateful.  “I decided that he’d be my first victim.  He’d be my first on my quest for revenge against all knights.”

            “Let me guess,” Everett said.  “Alan Vick.”

            Rebecca chuckled.  “Correct.  It was Alan Vick.  I was going to kill him, too.  Stab him in the back of the head with a screwdriver.  But when I followed him to the right place, a place secluded and quiet, he met with several other knights.  I was so blind with rage, I didn’t care.  I rushed out to attack them, but as I did, I heard Alan say something.”  Her eyes began to glaze over.  “I can’t remember what, but I must have passed out because when I came to, all the knights were standing over me.  They had no idea who I was or why I was there.  Even my attack had been lost on them, the idiots.  They just said I was lucky to be alive.”  She took a moment, enjoying the memory.  “And it was then that I realized that Alan Vick was doing something, he was into something, that was dangerous.  And if I could be a part of it, then I could direct it to ultimately destroy the knights.”

            “At the time, I was looking into an ancient legend,” she said, the hairs on the back of Everett’s neck standing up.  “The legend was of a sextology of books written by a man named Alan Ivers.  They were said to contain great information.  As I befriended Alan, I confided him about the books, and he confided in me about Knightspeak.”

            “Wow,” Armand marveled.  “What goes around comes around, huh?”

            “Alan was convinced, or I led him convince himself,” she said, “that with the Ivers’ books, he could unravel the mysteries of Knightspeak.  So, after exhaustive work, we managed to track down two of the books in Europe.  Alan went to retrieve them.”

            “And what did he find?” Everett asked.

            Rebecca scoffed.  “Adventure,” she said with disgust.  “He wouldn’t tell anyone, even me, what happened.  But he came back a changed man, and without the books.  He said he had a new passion, a new goal.  And he said that the people he met over there had told him where to ‘find his destiny’.”  She looked at the group.  “And where did it all lead but right back here, to the home of my beloved enemies.”

            “You came here with him?” Everett asked.

            “I came here before him, actually,” she said with pride.  “I’ve been here for over three months, getting established; entrenched; being ready to move.  Because when Alan arrived, we both knew we weren’t going to have a lot of time.”

            “So this entire time, you’ve been helping him,” Everett said.

            “I told him how to find Jericho’s research labs, how to approach you all,” she smiled, looking at Marilyn.  “I was the one who told him that you were the Crimson Rose.”

            “How did you figure it out?” she exclaimed.

            Rebecca blinked.  “Are you kidding?  Some idiot running around town, like a cross between Batman and the Scarlet Pimpernel?  It’s either a knight or you.”

            “She’s got a point,” Ledger said.  Marilyn gave him a harsh look.

            “I also helped him select knights that would be able to match against all of you,” she said.  “Knowing the knights we would face, we selected knights to help us, ones that would be able to defeat you, individually or collectively.”

            “Yeah, we’ll see about that, sister,” Ledger said.

            “We probably will,” she returned.

            Everett studied Rebecca for a moment more, then stood.  “Roland, anything on the police scanner?” he asked.  Roland shook his head.  “Okay, Marilyn, Edgar, I want you guys to take Erik and Donovan back to their hotel.  Erik, you’re no good to us tonight if there’s a fight, and there will most assuredly be a fight.  Move your stuff into a different room and make sure the front desk knows to keep it quiet about the move.  Morgan’s still unaccounted for and I don’t want that to come back and burn us.  After that, the three of you join us at the club.”

            “What’re you going to do?” Marilyn asked as the others gathered themselves.

“We’re going to meet you there,” Everett said, glancing at Edgar, “and run some recon.  By the time you guys arrive, we’ll be ready.”  Edgar breathed in sharply, then nodded.  He led Erik and Donovan out of the house, Marilyn following.

            Once the door shut, Everett turned to Rebecca.  “Rebecca Assanti,” he said, the other knights gathering around her.  “The law I know can afford me no greater insult than this: you are a villain.”  He stepped back, pulling his trench coat behind his waist, making Sunstorm ready.  At the same time, Roland, Armand, and Ledger all drew their weapons and extended the handles to Rebecca.  Sydney slashed Rebecca’s ropes with her short sword, then extended its handle as well.

            Rebecca looked at the weapons as she rubbed her freed hands.  She looked at Everett.  “You wanted revenge,” he said, standing still.  “We will give you one of our own weapons so you can make right what you believe to be wrong.”

            Rebecca looked at the three swords and gun offered her, then grabbed Roland’s katana.  She leapt out of her seat, charging at Everett.  Screaming at the top of her lungs, she unloaded all her rage towards him.

            In a flash of light, Everett was past her.  Rebecca’s body stumbled and fell to its knees.  Her head kept on, rolling across the wet kitchen floor.  Everett whipped Sunstorm’s blade, flinging her blood from it before he sheathed the weapon.  He looked at the others.  “Let’s finish this,” he stated adamantly.

 
Previous Episode  

Next Episode