September 16th 2012, 8:05 am, Amtrak Business Class Passenger Car, Rural Illinois
The coffee was bad.
Geist considered the incongruity that had marked his life over the past three days and sighed heavily. Seventy-two hours ago, he had awakened in his posh Gotham Hotel Skyline Room - four hundred and twenty-five square feet of luxury, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking New York City. He had been greeted upon his arrival with a complimentary bottle of wine and had enjoyed his gourmet breakfasts, delivered to his room, each of the three mornings he had stayed there.
This morning, however, his day had started out in a stinking Amtrak train car, with no breakfast served, whatsoever. His coffee had to be retrieved from a swaying dining car and, after one sip, he was certain that it could have also doubled as an engine degreaser.
Setting his cup aside as he attempted to recline in the rumbling passenger car's burgundy, vinyl chair, Geist rehearsed the indignities that had brought him to this moment.
His Learjet had exploded on the evening of September ninth. This was a most disagreeable setback that had introduced an unforeseen element into his meticulous plans. Now, he not only had an assassination to perform, but also an assassination attempt to investigate and prevent from recurring. In an effort to disguise his trail from the ones who had planned the botched murder, Geist had bided his time in New York City, laying low for three days in order to hide his trail and research any possible leads into the identity of his new enemies.
He had many contacts in New York City and Gotham Hotel's communications technology was sufficient enough for him to run down many world-wide rabbit trails - each to no avail.
On the morning of September thirteenth, he had boarded an Amtrak train leaving New York's Penn Station, bound for Chicago. Geist reasoned that no one would ever suspect a King to travel in such an uncouth chariot. But, although the accommodations were not to his liking, his proximity to the ground was.
Twenty-eight bleary hours later, he had arrived at Chicago Union station on the morning of the fourteenth. He had hailed a cab and spent the rest of that day and the next in the city, reacquainting himself with civilization at the Chicago Hilton, before boarding the train he was currently on. It was christened the "Illinois Zephyr" and provided daily service between
Chicago Union Station and Quincy, IL by way of Galesburg. More suited to Geist's plans, the route also provided what it called "Thruway Service" north for one hour to the river city of Davenport. It was an inconvenient way to get as close to Dubuque, Iowa as possible, but it would suffice.
He would be practically on the cleric's doorstep, by then.
Geist was thirty minutes into his three hour journey in the sparsely occupied passenger car, when the uninvited stranger sidled his way into the seat opposite his own and faced him, squarely.
"Well met, little brother," intoned the elderly man.
Geist took in the impudent intruder at a glance; his dark, pinstriped suit accented with an elegant, white scarf draped around the neck; his black, fedora hat gracing flowing, silver hair; and his black, silver-tipped cane resting on his knees. For one moment, Geist considered roasting the man on the spot, just for the unwelcome intrusion, before thinking the better of it.
The words crept out of the recesses of Geist's shrewd mind like spiders crawling from a drain.
, he thought as he sat forward and focused his hard, blue eyes on the distinguished looking man before him.
"Stop gawking like a school-boy holding a National Geographic," said the man. "Geist, is it now?"
Geist sat back in his chair, the smile crossing his age-lined face never fully reaching his eyes.
"However, did you find me here?"
"Oh, come now, brother," replied the older man in a deep, sonorous voice. You didn't expect to release that amount of without it being detected now, did you?"
The man removed his hat and added it to the cane on his lap, revealing the two-hundred dollar haircut, underneath.
"You must have known that I always maintain a slight connection, myself ..." He paused for effect, his eyes narrowing, "... for just such an occasion."
Geist felt no fear of the man sitting before him, only intrigue. How long had it been? Over the years, he had believed it to be wishful thinking to consider him dead. He had envisioned meeting the man before him thousands of times, in thousands of ways. But, never like this - on a westbound commuter train, heading toward Iowa.
"So," Geist said in an attempt to dispel the atmosphere of condescension that had characterized the brief conversation, thus far. "I supposed it is you that I have to thank for the little 'incident' on my flight to the States?"
"Incident?" said the man. "Dear heavens, no, brother!" he said, chuckling, lightly. "I know nothing of it. Do you think that I have waited all of these years ..." He trailed off as his eyes lost their focus for a moment before continuing his train of thought, more softly this time, "... all of these years, just to pass off the pleasure to someone else?"
He leaned forward and smiled, menacingly. "I have come to kill you, my brother."
The man leaned back and crossed his legs, returning his demeanor to one of cool nonchalance.
"I would have done so years ago if you hadn't been so blasted hard to find. Never did I expect you to come to me."
Geist smiled back at the blustering man. "Oh Gardener, you always did have a flair for the dramatic. Come to kill me, have you? Well, perhaps you've saved me many fruitless years of searching."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The man's previous tone of mockery hardened into steel as his aged face creased into a thousand lines.
"You are a disgrace to our father's name and everything he stood for! You are a betrayer, a liar, and a thief. I have murdered thousands by letting you live this long and my conscience will be burdened by your existence no longer!"
"Our father's name ..." Geist hissed, "what did that drunkard ever give to me except curses!"
He gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white. "Posterity praises the old fool! Would that I had put my hands around his throat when I had the chance ..."
"Enough!" shouted the other.
Heads turned in the passenger car for the first time as the conversational level finally exceeded the loud rumble of the tracks below.
The man rapped his cane against the tiled floor three times. From five rows back stood a middle-aged, Asian man dressed in a plain black suit and wearing a matching bowler hat. He retrieved a four-foot long fiberglass case from the upper storage bin and walked slowly toward the two men.
"I could roast you where you sit, old man!" spat Geist.
"Unlikely, little brother. As I seem to recall, your gift never seemed to be any more exceptional than mine. And besides," he said, nodding at the case in his companion's hand, "I had always envisioned a more elegant demise for you."
With that, the third man bent on one knee and rested the case upon his other. Unsnapping the hinges, he opened the lid to reveal four, carbon-fiber rods of equal length, resting in molded foam. In each of the four corners of the case, fitted into their foam slots, rested a titanium component. The two at the top resembling round, metallic spheres; the two at the bottom resembling the razor sharp blades of military-grade knives.
The man reached into the case and fitted two of the rods together, much in the same way that one would assemble a pool cue. He completed this procedure for the remaining two rods. Then, reaching back into the case, he removed one of the titanium orbs and expertly snapped it into place at the end of one of the carbon-fiber staffs. After completing the same procedure for its mate, he carefully removed the first of the four-inch long razors and deftly snapped it into place at the opposite end of the first staff. The last razor was fitted into place before the man closed the case, snapped it shut, rose to his feet and extended a Haddar to each of the men sitting before him.
_____________________
Flames engulfed the passenger-car as it thundered at break-neck speed down the railroad tracks. Most of the Amtrak passengers who had shared the quarreling duo's car had escaped through the forward exit at the first explosion of and twirl of the Haddar. Only one sad soul, caught unaware in the embrace of sleep, had failed to move in time.
In the midst of the rail-car, turned blast-furnace, battled the two estranged brothers. Each was bathed in a shield, with Haddars a-blur, as they hacked and slashed at one another with a strange combination of maniacal intensity and deft precision. Neither man felt the searing heat surrounding him. Neither man cared that his battleground was limited to the narrow, three-foot wide aisle of their passenger car. Instead, each man's mind was totally immersed in the duel at hand - one moment hurling bolts of indigo lightning at their opponent, the next stabbing and parrying with their high-tech Haddars. The spell-binding combination of physical and elemental battle gradually morphed into a bizarre ballet, complete with its own unique movements, interludes and harrowing climaxes.
Geist twirled the Haddar around his body, lashing out at his opponent in unpredictable explosions of fury. He dodged and feinted as he simultaneously drew in torrents of from the earth below as it rolled underneath him, sending it hurling at his nemesis in brief, stabbing lances.
The other's ruby-red shield held true against the onslaught of might and energy, returning the aggressive attacks with equal fury and intensity.
"Welcome to Hell, my brother!" shouted Geist over the roar of the fire and rumble of the tracks, as each one broke from their most recent melee.
The elder brother grounded his Haddar and breathed in heavily, several times, before responding.
"You will know Hell!" he shouted back, severely. Spreading out his hands to indicate the fiery cacophony surrounding them, he continued. "This will seem but a dip in a cool spring compared to the fires that eternally await you! There is no circle of Hell deep enough to account for your crimes, brother!"
"Ever the preacher, aren't we!" shouted back Geist with a sneer. "You're beginning to sound just like father!"
Parrying the violent slash that came in response to his words, Geist quickly balled-up his fists, spread out his arms to the side, and released an enormous -induced force-shield at the older man. The crimson, concave wall rushed past the eldest's defenses and knocked him awkwardly to the floor.
Not waiting for his opponent to regain his footing, Geist gathered more of the into him and released one short burst from his hand directly upward into the hatch above. In one mighty leap, he exited the interior of the rail car to stand on its sizzling and warped metal roof, balancing himself against the intense rush of fire-heated wind that buffeted against him. Looking ahead through the flames rising from below and waves of heat wafting off of the car's metal roof, Geist noticed that the Amtrak crew had separated his car from the original fore and aft cars of the train. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the seven cars that had trailed his own, slowly fading off into the distance. Returning his gaze ahead, he saw the engine and bulk of the train's cars steadily pulling away from the one upon which he stood. The train raced off at 60 miles an hour toward an enormous and outdated railway bridge only one mile away, spanning a river that surged beneath the tracks several hundred feet below.
Geist backpedaled toward the rear of the car as his -shield continued to protect him from the intense heat underfoot. The hatch he had exited from now stood, equidistant, between himself and the front of the car.
As if on cue, the once distinguished looking vigilante, having recovered from his fall, rose up through the hatch as he was carried on a shimmering platform of . He stepped off of his elemental elevator onto the searing metal roof, now beginning to glow with a tinge of red as its surface increasingly warped and buckled. Facing Geist from the opposite side of their escape hatch, with his back now turned toward the swiftly approaching bridge, he called out loudly over the roar of the wind.
"You are cursed, brother! You could have repented a thousand times over by now! But what you have become now only validates our father's prophecy!"
"You are a fool!" shouted Geist. "Prophecy? Don't you see that half of the world is already mine and the other half is soon to fall into my grasp?"
Geist looked over his brother's shoulder, seeing the bridge approaching, now only seconds away.
"I curse my father and I curse you!" He screamed over the wind and flames at the top of his lungs. "This day, your birthright passes to me!" With that, Geist cast aside his Haddar and leapt into the air as siphoned into his body from the speeding earth below, crackling brightly as it intersected with his bare feet. With each hand he simultaneously discharged a blinding orb of . The first orb blasted into the passenger car's weakened roof, collapsing the structure in upon itself and sending the now wide-eyed old man tumbling into the burning interior below.
The second orb sailed from Geist's hand, high over the rail car. It swiftly outdistanced the slowing car and, within seconds, collided spectacularly with the imminently approaching bridge. He watched as the juncture between bridge and earth skewed slightly and tore the connecting rails between the bridge and earth away from each other.
Hovering safely above the carnage, Geist floated upon supporting tendrils of the and watched as the front two-thirds of the Amtrak train cleared the far end of the bridge and sped safely away into the distance.
Seconds later, he also watched as his own gutted and doomed passenger car, still bearing its defeated occupant, hit the broken segment of railway, flipped end-to-end violently, and fell over the edge of the chasm, plummeting hundreds of feet into the raging waters below.
The remaining seven cars soon followed after.
