+ + = + +

Other than hidden avenues for escape, a fortress will hold secret caches of wealth: such as treasures of nestled wines and cigars in their humidors, or perhaps gems and precious metals, and ones for armament and cash.

There are others for meetings; be they séances, for horror writing, or clandestine meetings and strategy.

The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret   by QOTSA  

Chairman Hegan sat down at the trilegged table and pointed to the two chairs across from him, on either side.  He sat at the far end to keep his eyes on the door, for that is what one does when they are in control.

You place the weaker ones with their backs to the door in order to look over them.

The bodyguard slid the bolts across the chamber door, pressing his back upon it.  He would feel any vibration at all in the hallway outside through such close connection to it.

This tiny meeting chamber was hidden behind a large mirror on the outside.

He turned his head and placed his ear against the door.

The Chairman nodded at the other two young men as they sat and looked back at him.

He said, “I have some information for you both, and it will not be easy to hear.  Will you listen to me?”

Both nodded back, averting their eyes from each other.

Hegan said, “This attack is from the old country.  It’s the only thing that fills the equation that has presented itself.”

He peered deep into the eyes of the man who sat across from him to the right, and said, “It appears to be your wife who has orchestrated this attack upon us.”

He watched and measured the response of Wahunt.

The older brother did not answer right away.  Of course he wouldn’t.  A man of great wealth must always consider each new item fully; not let emotion guide his course. 

That is simple math. 

One must always be on guard. 

Hegan spoke again.  He said, “I apologize for this knowledge and how you must feel.  But you need to know that we are in great danger.  Most certain is that your wife will not be harmed in any way, simply held.  We must do this at once.”

The Walk-in who was now called Wahunt was a man who’d existed in the borderlands for quite a time.

He could navigate quite well in uncharted waters.  He had been Christopher the Chauffeur for the wealthy family of them Purple Robes in this great country, and he recognized that he was being inspected for his response to this question.

He was the Chauffeur no longer, and had Walked-in to this new body, that of the older brother, a Prince of them Armedmenians.

One thing could help him now, while he was viewed for his response.  

He immediately thought back to his woman down across the border, in the South of America.  He would never see her again.

What did this mean to her?

She waited for his phone calls to her each night, to reassure her that he was growing the money they needed to pay them coyotes to bring her across the border, to him.

Yet now,

she wouldn’t recognize his voice,

ever again.

Fuck the man who had done this to him, sitting there across the table.

He had lost her.

Forever.

He began to weep.

Chairman Hegan saw this immediate response and made his mind up.  This one who wept became inconsolable.  It was the one who’d withdrawn his hand from the other in horror when they greeted.

Hegan’s eyes slid to view the other’s response and he saw something quite horrible.

The other one glinted his teeth in a horrible sneer that enjoyed the taste of intense pain.

The smile disappeared so fast that the Chairman questioned if he had seen it at all.

One thing remained, however, and it was this.   His skin crawled.

Hegan looked back at the crying man before the other brother knew that he had been watching him. 

He needed to hide his horror from what he had just witnessed.

He placed his hand on the older brother’s arm and said, “We will protect her at all costs, but we will also need to isolate her from what she may be doing.  Do I have your permission to hold her safe?”

Wahunt/Christopher could not respond.  He was lost in his new realization.  But he nodded.  He wished that they would save her, his One. 

He knew that no one ever would.

Gone.

The younger man did not reach across the table to console his brother.  It was a very tense moment, like a crystal goblets and bone china plates tied taut inside a thief’s sack.

All could break apart into an infinity of splinters at the touch of the Walk-In Cannibal who had started it all to the man who lost everything that ever mattered anything at all.

Evil and Good,

when added together,

equals

nothing

+   +   =   +  +

The fortress of them Purple Robes did indeed hold many secret escape routes.  Many had been tunneled out of that iron hard-pan in the river silt from millions of years before in the desert valley, at great cost.

Unknown to her, the young Prince Richard had used one in particular to meet with the maid he had been taking to his cottage quite often.

While it would have been horrible for her to visit that cottage with the view of what had happened to the actual flesh of Christopher the Chauffeur, she chose another one.

This one led to an underground tunnel that led to the automobile garage.

She knew the pass key code for the garage to turn off the burglar alarm, and for the walled-in safe that held all the keys to them lovely rides.

Emeralda was going to drive the fuck out of there.

Exactly how to do this was the most important thing in her life of luxury that she would ever have to do.

She couldn’t just drive away across the white quartz lanes, past the Purple Mansion, through the single entrance to the place.

She would be caught. 

Of course she would.

But could she?

Did she have time before the infiltrators could see this?

Now, this was when the teachings of her old country, from her tribe in Armedmenia,

well, it helped her.

It was in her DNA.

She would drive the automobile away from the Mansion, into the orchards, to the furthest wall.

She would need a very large, heavy vehicle to do such a thing.

Emeralda was going to bust through the wall that had protected her in this new land.

One thing made any sense to her.

She knew that her man was not there anymore.

Someone else was.

She was alone to protect all that mattered to her now.

God Help Her.

God Help Us All.

---willies out

.