The Templar's Code

CHAPTER 23

“… lips sink ships. So, if you want me to batten the hatches, it’s gonna cost you.”

Saviour Panos glared at the overweight idiot in the baseball cap and blue jacket. “Nagamoti mana su stomai su,” he muttered, enraged. And your mother’s mother while you’re at it. He didn’t have to understand the other man’s idioms to know that he was being bilked. To the tune of five hundred dollars. The price the tow-truck driver demanded for hauling the Audi out of the sand trap and not reporting the incident to the local police.

Able to detect the smell of pickled cabbage, Saviour wrinkled his nose. He hated the smell of sauerkraut. For that offense alone he should gut the man like a netted tuna.

The other man shrugged. Oblivious to the fact that he’d just been accused of committing a reprehensible act involving his mother’s mouth. “You’re the one who drove into a sand trap. Now you have to pay the piper if you want to be on your merry way. And don’t blame me… shit happens.”

Although furious, Saviour couldn’t dispute the driver’s prophetic assertion. Shit did happen. And always when you least expected it. The Brit had outwitted him. Yet again. And though he, Saviour, drove the more powerful vehicle, the English bastard bested him. But he knew where to find the pair. Having eavesdropped on their conversation last evening, he knew their entire itinerary. Even the name of the hotel they’d booked for the night. He already had the Hope Valley Inn plotted on his portable GPS device.

Arms crossed over his chest, Saviour impatiently paced the golf green, anxious for the tow-truck driver to haul the Audi out of the pit. Although temporarily delayed, he was still two steps ahead of the pair. Two steps, because he knew where to find them and he possessed the power of life and death. A power bestowed upon him by his beloved Ari that long-ago dawn when he’d returned to the flat…

He’d spent the night cruising the Enola Gay discotheque. It had been a good haul, his pockets flush with euros. He could now buy the blue cashmere sweater for Ari that he’d seen in a boutique window. Easily chilled, Ari was prone to violent fits of shivering. Some days Saviour would cradle him like a baby, using his own body heat to warm his friend. A heart fire. Immune from the contagion, he was the perfect caregiver. As it turned out, his mother had him inoculated for TB when he was a child. According to the physician at the hospital, the BCG vaccine had protected him from contracting the deadly infection. How ironic. Iphigenia had given him life. She resented his life. And then she saved his life.

In high spirits despite the early hour, he’d regaled Ari with the silly chitchat he’d overheard at the disco. Inane babble spouted by preening pretty boys. Clearly disinterested, Ari motioned him to the bed. He obliged, sitting on the edge of the mattress. Wrapping a bony hand around his upper arm, Ari pulled him close so he could whisper something in his ear. Horrified, Saviour pulled away. Ókhi! No! Impossible! Don’t ask again! He lurched from the bed and stomped to the other side of the bed chamber. In desperate need of a cigarette, he flung open the window, reached into his pocket, and removed the pack of Dunhill cigarettes that he’d stolen from one of the preening pretty boys. Ari continued to stare at him beseechingly. Saviour forced himself to return the stare. Determined to win the battle of wills.

This was not the first time that his beloved friend had pleaded with him to use his greater strength. To commit that final irreversible act. Each time, Saviour had adamantly refused. The medicine still might work, yes?

But that particular morning, something happened in the intervening seconds of stalemated silence. For the first time, he forced himself to look at the bloody rags that littered the floor. The disgusting sputum cup. The sloppy array of pill bottles. And then he smelled it — the fetid, foul stench of decaying flesh. In that instant, he knew: Ari was dying from the inside out. Dormant bacteria in the body had begun to necrotize the tubercles in his lungs.

No longer able to turn a blind eye, he relented. Walking toward the bed, he sat beside his beloved. The angel of death in a striped boatneck sweater. He wrapped an arm around Ari’s pathetically thin shoulders. With his free hand, he reached for the blood-splattered pillow. Ari smiled. The first smile in many days. Saviour placed the pillow over his friend’s face.

Had he known that he would also be plunged into a dark void, he would not have done it; the ensuing guilt was unbearable. He’d always had a quick temper, never one to back down from a fight. But after Ari’s death, it took little provocation to incite a murderous rage.

The first time it happened, he’d been with an overly plump German who refused to pay the agreed-upon price. For nearly twenty minutes he’d been on all fours while the stout bastard huffed and puffed, enveloping him in the nauseating scents of sauerkraut and sausage. After the blitzkrieg, the Düsseldorf banker had the gall to say, “I had hoped for something better.” Infuriated, Saviour refused to let the insult go unanswered. Acting on a whim, he smashed the empty Riesling bottle against the hotel dresser and slashed the fat man’s throat. For the next week, he’d lived extravagantly on the wad of euros that he’d stolen from the dead man’s wallet. A new leather jacket. A pair of boots. A cashmere turtleneck sweater.

The German was followed to the grave by an Israeli tourist. Because of Ari’s death, they had to pay.

Just as the Brit would soon pay for having bested him.