Aug. 2nd, 2008 12:58 pm
The Quest for the Holy Grail 8/8
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lovely_ambitionTitle: The Quest for the Holy Grail 8/8
Pairing: Lancelot/Arthur, Galahad/Gawain, others to come
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Summary: Years have passed, but circumstances have changed and it's time to bring everyone back for one more heist.
Notes: This is, indeed, a sequel to Modern Day Legends. Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bwc_baby for the lookover and to melloniel for the constant support. Former parts found here.
28.
She freed herself after hours of struggling and working to loose her knife from her ankle and get the ropes cut. Her wrists were bruised from all the maneuvering that took and the handcuffs wouldn’t come loose on their own. She had been left to wait for backup to flood the museum, but she’d had no way of calling them.
Her own stupid personal vendetta, her sheer blindness in wanting to capture them had done her in, in the end. She hated herself for it, because she was so close. She could have had them.
“Boss,” one of the PC’s greeted, not saying another word as he freed her from the cuffs and she tossed the ropes aside, rubbing delicately at her wrists while storming inside the museum, making her way down the labyrinth-like halls in an effort to find out if the damage had been done.
She had heard the gunshots, too, of course.
They had given her the slightest glimmer of hope that something had gone wrong with their plan and they hadn’t made off with the pricy treasure. They hadn’t come back out the front way, which made her wish she had set up guards on the back doors instead of trying to flank that position by herself, which made her want nothing more than to find her way back in time and do it right. It didn’t take long once she was freed for her to pull herself together and tie her hair back in order to put on a strong and stoic face and discover the lengths of the damage.
She was headed directly for the Grail itself.
Her fellow coworkers, her higher-ups, and her underlings all knew better than to mess with her at that particular moment. There was a very good reason she’d earned the nickname of Dragon Lady from some of the new recruits and that was because she was deadly when the circumstances called for it.
And today was a very, very good circumstance for it.
She was going to tear someone’s head off if she got the chance and there would be blood, specifically the blood of the guilty. She was tired of being the laughingstock of the precinct and there was absolutely no way in the world she was going to let them get ahead of her a second time. Every guard she passed was met with a piercing and icy glare along with her badge and she stormed into the main room, searching for something, for a clue, for…
“You there,” she ordered in a deep voice, pointing to one of the PC’s who was scanning the ground.
He rose to his feet and seemed to tremble as she came in front of him, looking him up and down. “Why is the Grail sitting right there? Where’s the trace of anything? Broken glass, ropes, guns, blood, bullets!” The ceiling even looked as if it had a piece of it carved out and she was sure that there had once been a bullet imbedded there and now it was gone, leaving just a chunk of ceiling missing. Guinevere pressed her tongue to her upper mouth and glared at the young man before her. “What is going on!”
“It’s a f-fake, D-detective,” he stammered, gesturing to the piece. “It had an envelope on it that was addressed to you,” he said, turning to pick up a thin white envelope with a pair of gloves and tweezers, handing it to her precariously. “We can’t seem to find much of anything. It’s like it’s been swept clean by a couple of pros. We’ll keep looking, obviously” he hurriedly added, seeing as Guinevere was skewering him with looks alone, if she had her way.
Guinevere yanked on a pair of plastic gloves and hastily took the envelope from his hands, pacing the impeccably clean floor (the sound of her heels echoing under the dome of the main room) and her eyes continually darted around the room to search for a piece of evidence that somehow, forensics might have missed. It was impossible that there was nothing, they weren’t that good. There had to be a piece of evidence somewhere.
She dragged out the paper and on it were two words in plain black typed font:
YOU LOSE.
The sound of her heels storming out of the room accompanied the barely-audible noise of a single sheet of paper falling to the floor. “Find something,” was all she snapped to the PC’s and then she was gone.
29.
Tristan and Dagonet had made their escape from the museum because Dagonet had drugged the other man unconscious with the very concoctions that he himself had brewed. He had driven him to a lavish home on the outskirts of the city and sat in the front seat, keeping an eye on Tristan’s prone form in the back. Isolde had made sure to go through the clean-up with Arthur and Lancelot and provide extra hands while Galahad and Gawain were given medical attention and Dagonet knew that with her critical eye, not a thing would be missed.
Dagonet had other business to attend to. He had known of the man who had killed Dinidan for weeks now, but hadn’t told Tristan of this information, knowing that he couldn’t bring himself to handle it.
But now, it was time.
Galahad and Gawain would heal as they always did and one day, they would trust Tristan with their lives again, though it would take more than simple hours and days to reach that point. Tristan had made expert cuts in severing the ties of trust, as clean and precise as any kill. Dagonet sometimes wondered why his faith in the cold man never flickered and believed it to be because he knew Tristan best. He knew that no matter what he did, there would be a moment in which it would fade away and become something of the past, never to be thought of again.
It was hours after twilight when Tristan first roused.
Dagonet was watching when he did.
“You drugged me,” Tristan mumbled, the words fuzzy and stuck together. In fact, the accusation sounded almost appreciative. Dagonet lifted the vial of serum that he had used to inject Tristan and that was met with a knowing smile. “You did. Nice choice.”
“I had to use more than an average dose,” Dagonet promised the other man as he adjusted the suit-jacket he wore and exited the car, tucking a silver gun into his back pocket while opening the back door. “We’re here.”
“Where would here be?” Tristan asked, sliding into a vertical position in the seat; an effort to recoup some lost dignity.
“Code name, ‘Merlin’,” Dagonet assessed aloud, memorized information passing his lips with ease. He ducked and pushed into the car in order to steady Tristan when he swayed perilously forward.
It seemed the additional use of drugs was having something of an effect, yet.
“We’ll wait ten minutes, then,” Dagonet said, judging from the pulse he took from Tristan to see how slow his heartrate was still.
“You can tell me how you found him,” Tristan concurred, leaning heavily up against the front seat. His words were still sluggish, as though his mouth and tongue were refusing to work until the other parts of his body had woken up. Dagonet had wrapped an arm around the other man to keep him steady and to make sure that he wouldn’t slip. He knew well of Tristan’s determination and that he would force himself to be capable of doing this within the hour, if not within the ten minutes Dagonet had prescribed.
So to bide the time, Dagonet very patiently explained the paper trail that had been left behind and how he had deciphered encrypted items to find the name ‘Dinidan’ within so many of the old files. It had been a revenge killing because Dinidan had killed one of his men and Merlin hadn’t taken well to that.
“He’s in politics,” Dagonet explained as he smoked – mostly to have something to do with his hands. “He wanted his business swept under the rug and I think Dinidan was trying to exploit him for money.”
“Idiot,” Tristan cursed under his breath with several Russian profanities to accompany the lone word.
With every second that passed, Tristan seemed to regain more of his mobility and the determined iciness to his gaze told Dagonet that the morning’s outcome was settled and wouldn’t sway. Not after so many years lying in wait. Not now. Dagonet had made sure that they would have all the materials necessary for both a clean kill, but also a clean getaway as it was likely that they would need to hide from Arthur for at least a night or two.
“Guards?” Tristan checked.
“Disposed of,” was Dagonet’s brief answer. “Slipped something in their drink.”
“Good.”
Dagonet watched quietly and let the tip of his cigarette burn in the early morning light, the thick fog around them concealing them as if hired to do such a thing. Tristan worked to load his gun with fresh rounds of bullets, locking them in place with ever-growing speed and efficiency as he exited the car, leaning against the frame so it might carry his weight in those last moments while he recuperated. They stood there, just watching the palatial house lie in wait for the storm that was about to hit. Dagonet knew Tristan well enough to know that he would wait until he was in full control of himself before they made a move and so, they waited longer than they might have if this was simply a regular job and not a kill that would forever stay with Tristan.
“How are we doing this?” Tristan asked.
“Make it look like a suicide. Gareth hacked in for us, put a note on the computer.” At Tristan’s searching look, Dagonet met it with one of his own. “I didn’t tell him why.”
“So tomorrow,” Tristan spoke aloud with the hint of something dark and cruel on his face in the form of a smile. “The world will wake up with one less asshole in its ranks. He’ll be dead and everyone will think he did it to himself. Good.” He stole the cigarette directly from Dagonet’s mouth and took a long drag of it, leaning back inside the car to put it out rather than leave any incriminating evidence around.
“And will that be enough?” Dagonet asked, eyes on the house and not on Tristan.
“It has to be.”
Tristan sounded resigned to it, but there was truth to his words. If it wasn’t enough and Tristan felt he had to pursue other avenues to sate his desire to see blood, he would be taken out of the picture at some point. While Tristan was widely regarded as one of the best, he couldn’t be the best all the time and at some point, he would be found and killed. And for a man like Tristan, being killed in such a manner was degrading and demeaned just about everything he had spent his life doing. So he would behave because he had to. When he snuffed out this man’s life, it would be the end of a years-long vendetta and it would have to be enough.
It took another twenty-five minutes before Tristan righted himself and stood as tall as he could, eyes focused on the main bedroom.
“Come on,” Tristan encouraged, shoving two additional pistols into his trenchcoat and storming off into the fog, letting the haze surround and swallow him up.
Dagonet debated the partaking in one more cigarette and eventually abandoned the vice for the prospect of seeing this chapter of Tristan’s life coming to its long-delayed end.
He lingered behind, knowing that he was not the main character of this drama and that he had to give Tristan the lead. He was there to make sure control was kept. He made sure the alarm didn’t sound and that the phones were blocked from making any calls, he made sure the neighbours didn’t hear screaming, and he made sure that Tristan didn’t go off the script. His steps were measured and slow and he watched Tristan ascend the stairs with rope in his hands.
There was barely even the sound of a struggle as Tristan broke into the bedroom, dragged the sleeping man from bed, pistol-whipped him into consciousness, and tied him to the nearest chair.
To the man nicknamed Merlin’s credit, he barely reacted.
Blood trickled down his cheek from a bleeding eye and he kept a knowing gaze on Tristan, barely acknowledging Dagonet’s presence in the room. Dagonet had a habit of blending into the walls, even as big as he was, but in this case it seemed that neither of the other men was even willing to acknowledge him that morning.
“Tristan,” Merlin said evenly, staring up through his bruises and contusions that Tristan had taken time to give him. He even went so far as to smile calmly. “I was waiting for this day. My guards?”
“Not here,” Tristan curtly replied, knotting the last of the ropes as he stood before Merlin and dug out his gun. “This will be short and simple. You’re going to admit to killing him. Then you’re going to kill yourself.”
He was met with silence.
Dagonet could feel something in him turning awry. Merlin wouldn’t give Tristan what he wanted and it seemed as though all the torture in the world wouldn’t bring the words out of him to admit just what Tristan would have wanted him to speak. They didn’t have that large of a window, especially when clean-up was factored in and though he was inwardly panicking, Dagonet never let a thread of it show on the surface. He merely cleared his throat in a very noncommittal way.
Tristan paced back and forth in front of Merlin and glanced up to catch Dagonet’s eye finally, when time pushed forward and every second brought them closer to being caught.
“You’re sure?” Tristan asked, quietly.
“Yes.”
Swiftly, without even waiting for Merlin to say another word or rain down the room with more silence, Tristan cocked the safety back and crossed the room and shoved the gun up against his temple. “I know it was you,” he whispered to him and pulled the trigger without a second of hesitation, blood splattering all over the room and Tristan both. He stepped away and licked a droplet of Merlin’s blood from his upper lip as a serene smile broke through on his face and he turned to Dagonet, gesturing to the dead body. “Well? How’s my aim?”
“Perfect, as ever,” was Dagonet’s calm reply. “Now let’s see how your cleaning is.”
It had to be enough.
Gods, Dagonet hoped this would be enough.
He kept one careful eye on Tristan the whole of the time as they worked, as ropes came loose and the gun was prepared and placed into Merlin’s hand. Dagonet watched for signals and signs that something was still amiss, but that serene smile had yet to leave Tristan’s lips and when the scene was set and the suicide note was brought up on the computer, the smile had widened.
“You’re happy,” Dagonet noted.
“Am I? I think I finally feel peace,” Tristan admitted, turning to glance at Dagonet. “Come, I owe Isolde an explanation for all of this.”
“She’ll be upset she didn’t get to come.”
Dagonet thought, hoped, that maybe, just maybe, it was actually over.
“She’s always upset about something or other. This’ll just add to the pile.”
Dagonet gave a quiet sound of agreement as he trailed behind Tristan once again to survey a cleaned room. It was done and it would have to be enough. Whether it would be would reveal itself with time -- which revealed all things in the end; even this.
30.
Bors came home with a single slip of paper within his hands.
Vanora hadn’t slept a wink in what seemed like a full day. From the moment that the relic was in the possession of the Knights, she had been on edge. Her eyes had fully formed bags beneath them and her hair was more like a bird’s nest than it had ever been before. Her teeth had been gritted and every time one of the children would ask her a question, it took all of her patience not to snap. She had set herself in the chair and hadn’t let herself move until Bors came in the door. She’d closed down the bar and kept a glass of wine to keep her company in the solitude and the worry.
Dagonet had been out to do his own business and they all seemed to be in a great tizzy after they had finished the job, as if there were a million loose ends to tie up and they only had so many hands.
She didn’t mind. She only cared about one loose end.
It took hours and hours, but then he appeared in the door like a dark angel, beaming away as he clasped the piece of paper in his hands, flanked by Gawain and Galahad. Vanora was on her feet immediately, eyes wide as she sprinted across the room and jumped into his arms.
“Oof, Vanora, love,” Bors grunted, handing off the paper to Gawain so he could wrap both arms around her tightly.
Then the kissing started.
Gawain cleared his throat, hobbling his way over to a chair – where two of the youngest peered up at him and he smiled right back. “Hello,” he offered, trying to look anywhere but at Bors and Vanora, who had gone from light and innocent pecks into a rather disturbing show of public affection. He winced mildly and beckoned Galahad over. At the very sight of him, the children shrieked with joy, nearly tackling him to the ground. “No, no, careful,” Gawain warned, the sound of his panic audible in his voice.
Galahad’s gunshot to the shoulder had been a graze, but that still meant that Galahad would feel the pain from it.
Nonetheless, the children had managed to pin Galahad to the floor and the younger man didn’t seem to mind so entirely much as he played with them and entertained their questions while Bors and Vanora finished up. When they were finally through, Gawain lifted his good arm up in the air to hand off the cheque.
“You’ve really done it?” Vanora asked. “You’ve really sold it off?”
“Numbers don’t lie, sweet,” Bors guaranteed in a gruff voice. “There’s more than enough here to put away into savings and pay for enough treatments for any and all the little brats that need it.”
Gawain watched as Vanora took the cheque, keeping it out of harms’ way as she pushed in to start yet another round of kissing that Gawain had to look away from. In the process, he managed to get all the kids’ eyes looking to the wall, trying to find what Gawain was so intent on staring at.
“When you’re done with all that, we’ll be here waiting to celebrate,” Galahad pointed out petulantly, voice hoarse.
The sulking fit was dissipated before it could even start, however, when three of the children decided to pounce on Galahad and tickle him without any sign of mercy in their eyes.
“That’s my litter,” Bors said proudly. He turned to Vanora, lips brushing against her cheek as he turned far more serious. “It’s all for you, love,” he murmured, voice deep and moved to gruff emotion. “Every pound of that cheque, it’s for you and the kids and I’d do it time and time again if it meant keeping you safe.”
“Bors,” Vanora murmured affectionately.
“Marry me.”
Vanora smiled slowly, lips curving up with a satisfied and smug look. “Only if you explain the new arrangement to Dagonet,” she countered.
“That a yes?”
“Maybe.”
“Could’ve just said so!”
“Then where’s the fun? All right, c’mon boys,” Vanora called to Gawain and Galahad. “Tuck the kids into bed and you can have free drinks at the bar tonight, provided you keep your hands where we can all see them!”
“You’re the best, Vanora,” Galahad announced warmly, hopping to his feet and wrapping an arm around her small shoulders. “But really, you should be careful about marrying Bors. Imagine how much more he’ll let himself go.”
“You get a five second head-start, whelp, then I hit you,” Bors warned.
Galahad, being a smarter man than he was years before, took the start.
Vanora and Bors took longer than usual when it came to putting the children to bed, all the while Gawain spent watching from a distance, happy to simply bask in something that had finally gone right.
31.
The drinks were plentiful and given freely in the early grey light of the morning. The ground still sat soaked from the dew of the early hours, but that hadn’t put any of them off. While all the Knights were yet wary around Tristan, that didn’t stop the occasional tug into an embrace and it didn’t stop them from raising their mugs in salute to their fallen brothers, those that surrounded them and had gone long before them.
Gareth sat awkwardly at a distance, as though feeling he didn’t belong.
Gawain and Galahad had pulled up a blanket from one of the cars and had splayed out on it, even going so far as to dragging Tristan down with them, recovering as best as they could after Gawain had bore a bullet in his leg and Galahad had one to his arm, courtesy of Tristan’s gun and a trigger-happy finger. Gareth couldn’t understand it, this forgiveness that came so easily after so terrible a deed.
Bors and Dagonet whispered quiet words lost in the morning light and Lancelot bowed his head reverently with them, never speaking a word louder than it needed to be.
Arthur had yet to stop moving and finally came to a rest by Gareth, crouching down behind him. The ground gave way slightly and Gareth noted that there was mud coating the ends of Arthur’s trousers. “You haven’t run off yet,” Arthur noted.
“Was I expected to?” Gareth asked warily, fingers tapping the face of his watch again and again for something to do. He felt all the world like an outsider looking in on a portrait of a scene that he’d never be in and not for the first time that week did he wonder just how much else of Gawain’s life was shrouded in this thick cloud of mystery.
Running away from all of this seemed like the smart thing to do and for a smart boy like Gareth, he occasionally made some very stupid decisions.
“Your brother told me stories about you from the moment he joined us,” Arthur replied, not answering Gareth’s question. “When you were both younger, there was no end to the stories. He wanted to tell you what it is he was. What he is.”
“Then why didn’t he?” Gareth had to ask. Why keep his life so painfully close?
Arthur turned his gaze not to the men who were deep within their cups, but rather to the moss-covered gravestones that set the backdrop of a content scene in a morbid place. Gareth still felt a chill down his back every time his brain reminded him that they were in a graveyard. Named were etched with great care and the lives were always too short, Gareth had noticed.
“He understood the need to keep you away,” Arthur remarked lowly and gravely. “He wanted to protect you because he loved you so much.”
It wasn’t something that Gareth could easily associate with his older brother, who had been such a distant figure through his life. It was easier to think of him as simply neglectful or too involved in his own life that he never cared for what Gareth ever did or thought.
He had learned better.
Arthur clasped Gareth tightly on the shoulder with a grip that bespoke of the quiet strength that lay in his hands. Lancelot glanced over and loudly beckoned him over to the glare of Dagonet and Bors, but Arthur chuckled as he went, accepting a cup of ale from Galahad on the way.
They were all smiling, all laughing, all happy.
Gareth kept to his place on the outside as he watched the mugs refilled with more ale, until it toppled over the edges and the ground wasn’t just wet with dew, but with the victorious drink that these Knights had brought for themselves.
“Gareth, you prick, get over here,” Galahad shouted loudly and earning a smack from Gawain, Lancelot, and Tristan at the same time. “Ow,” he scowled and complained, rubbing at the back of his head. Gareth couldn’t help the pull of a smile upon his own lips and pushed to his feet to stagger along and take hold of one of the mugs, shaking fingers clasping the side.
There was money in the bank and there were treatments on the way. Gareth hadn’t seen Bors stop smiling and he certainly hadn’t seen that proud look dissipate from his watery eyes.
“Knights,” Arthur announced in his deep tone, the one that commanded the respect of anyone within listening distance. He raised his mug to the sky, to the graves, to those who had gone before. “We are the lucky ones,” he murmured, eyes falling on each man – each, who had stopped smiling in that moment of quiet reflection – and each bowed their head low. “We must never forget that we are the lucky few.”
“Never,” came the unified and solemn chorus.
They sat there and stayed until the sun came up.
Even then, they were hesitant to leave their brothers, the ones who had come before and would always be with them.
THE END
Pairing: Lancelot/Arthur, Galahad/Gawain, others to come
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Summary: Years have passed, but circumstances have changed and it's time to bring everyone back for one more heist.
Notes: This is, indeed, a sequel to Modern Day Legends. Thanks to
bwc_baby for the lookover and to melloniel for the constant support. Former parts found here.28.
She freed herself after hours of struggling and working to loose her knife from her ankle and get the ropes cut. Her wrists were bruised from all the maneuvering that took and the handcuffs wouldn’t come loose on their own. She had been left to wait for backup to flood the museum, but she’d had no way of calling them.
Her own stupid personal vendetta, her sheer blindness in wanting to capture them had done her in, in the end. She hated herself for it, because she was so close. She could have had them.
“Boss,” one of the PC’s greeted, not saying another word as he freed her from the cuffs and she tossed the ropes aside, rubbing delicately at her wrists while storming inside the museum, making her way down the labyrinth-like halls in an effort to find out if the damage had been done.
She had heard the gunshots, too, of course.
They had given her the slightest glimmer of hope that something had gone wrong with their plan and they hadn’t made off with the pricy treasure. They hadn’t come back out the front way, which made her wish she had set up guards on the back doors instead of trying to flank that position by herself, which made her want nothing more than to find her way back in time and do it right. It didn’t take long once she was freed for her to pull herself together and tie her hair back in order to put on a strong and stoic face and discover the lengths of the damage.
She was headed directly for the Grail itself.
Her fellow coworkers, her higher-ups, and her underlings all knew better than to mess with her at that particular moment. There was a very good reason she’d earned the nickname of Dragon Lady from some of the new recruits and that was because she was deadly when the circumstances called for it.
And today was a very, very good circumstance for it.
She was going to tear someone’s head off if she got the chance and there would be blood, specifically the blood of the guilty. She was tired of being the laughingstock of the precinct and there was absolutely no way in the world she was going to let them get ahead of her a second time. Every guard she passed was met with a piercing and icy glare along with her badge and she stormed into the main room, searching for something, for a clue, for…
“You there,” she ordered in a deep voice, pointing to one of the PC’s who was scanning the ground.
He rose to his feet and seemed to tremble as she came in front of him, looking him up and down. “Why is the Grail sitting right there? Where’s the trace of anything? Broken glass, ropes, guns, blood, bullets!” The ceiling even looked as if it had a piece of it carved out and she was sure that there had once been a bullet imbedded there and now it was gone, leaving just a chunk of ceiling missing. Guinevere pressed her tongue to her upper mouth and glared at the young man before her. “What is going on!”
“It’s a f-fake, D-detective,” he stammered, gesturing to the piece. “It had an envelope on it that was addressed to you,” he said, turning to pick up a thin white envelope with a pair of gloves and tweezers, handing it to her precariously. “We can’t seem to find much of anything. It’s like it’s been swept clean by a couple of pros. We’ll keep looking, obviously” he hurriedly added, seeing as Guinevere was skewering him with looks alone, if she had her way.
Guinevere yanked on a pair of plastic gloves and hastily took the envelope from his hands, pacing the impeccably clean floor (the sound of her heels echoing under the dome of the main room) and her eyes continually darted around the room to search for a piece of evidence that somehow, forensics might have missed. It was impossible that there was nothing, they weren’t that good. There had to be a piece of evidence somewhere.
She dragged out the paper and on it were two words in plain black typed font:
YOU LOSE.
The sound of her heels storming out of the room accompanied the barely-audible noise of a single sheet of paper falling to the floor. “Find something,” was all she snapped to the PC’s and then she was gone.
29.
Tristan and Dagonet had made their escape from the museum because Dagonet had drugged the other man unconscious with the very concoctions that he himself had brewed. He had driven him to a lavish home on the outskirts of the city and sat in the front seat, keeping an eye on Tristan’s prone form in the back. Isolde had made sure to go through the clean-up with Arthur and Lancelot and provide extra hands while Galahad and Gawain were given medical attention and Dagonet knew that with her critical eye, not a thing would be missed.
Dagonet had other business to attend to. He had known of the man who had killed Dinidan for weeks now, but hadn’t told Tristan of this information, knowing that he couldn’t bring himself to handle it.
But now, it was time.
Galahad and Gawain would heal as they always did and one day, they would trust Tristan with their lives again, though it would take more than simple hours and days to reach that point. Tristan had made expert cuts in severing the ties of trust, as clean and precise as any kill. Dagonet sometimes wondered why his faith in the cold man never flickered and believed it to be because he knew Tristan best. He knew that no matter what he did, there would be a moment in which it would fade away and become something of the past, never to be thought of again.
It was hours after twilight when Tristan first roused.
Dagonet was watching when he did.
“You drugged me,” Tristan mumbled, the words fuzzy and stuck together. In fact, the accusation sounded almost appreciative. Dagonet lifted the vial of serum that he had used to inject Tristan and that was met with a knowing smile. “You did. Nice choice.”
“I had to use more than an average dose,” Dagonet promised the other man as he adjusted the suit-jacket he wore and exited the car, tucking a silver gun into his back pocket while opening the back door. “We’re here.”
“Where would here be?” Tristan asked, sliding into a vertical position in the seat; an effort to recoup some lost dignity.
“Code name, ‘Merlin’,” Dagonet assessed aloud, memorized information passing his lips with ease. He ducked and pushed into the car in order to steady Tristan when he swayed perilously forward.
It seemed the additional use of drugs was having something of an effect, yet.
“We’ll wait ten minutes, then,” Dagonet said, judging from the pulse he took from Tristan to see how slow his heartrate was still.
“You can tell me how you found him,” Tristan concurred, leaning heavily up against the front seat. His words were still sluggish, as though his mouth and tongue were refusing to work until the other parts of his body had woken up. Dagonet had wrapped an arm around the other man to keep him steady and to make sure that he wouldn’t slip. He knew well of Tristan’s determination and that he would force himself to be capable of doing this within the hour, if not within the ten minutes Dagonet had prescribed.
So to bide the time, Dagonet very patiently explained the paper trail that had been left behind and how he had deciphered encrypted items to find the name ‘Dinidan’ within so many of the old files. It had been a revenge killing because Dinidan had killed one of his men and Merlin hadn’t taken well to that.
“He’s in politics,” Dagonet explained as he smoked – mostly to have something to do with his hands. “He wanted his business swept under the rug and I think Dinidan was trying to exploit him for money.”
“Idiot,” Tristan cursed under his breath with several Russian profanities to accompany the lone word.
With every second that passed, Tristan seemed to regain more of his mobility and the determined iciness to his gaze told Dagonet that the morning’s outcome was settled and wouldn’t sway. Not after so many years lying in wait. Not now. Dagonet had made sure that they would have all the materials necessary for both a clean kill, but also a clean getaway as it was likely that they would need to hide from Arthur for at least a night or two.
“Guards?” Tristan checked.
“Disposed of,” was Dagonet’s brief answer. “Slipped something in their drink.”
“Good.”
Dagonet watched quietly and let the tip of his cigarette burn in the early morning light, the thick fog around them concealing them as if hired to do such a thing. Tristan worked to load his gun with fresh rounds of bullets, locking them in place with ever-growing speed and efficiency as he exited the car, leaning against the frame so it might carry his weight in those last moments while he recuperated. They stood there, just watching the palatial house lie in wait for the storm that was about to hit. Dagonet knew Tristan well enough to know that he would wait until he was in full control of himself before they made a move and so, they waited longer than they might have if this was simply a regular job and not a kill that would forever stay with Tristan.
“How are we doing this?” Tristan asked.
“Make it look like a suicide. Gareth hacked in for us, put a note on the computer.” At Tristan’s searching look, Dagonet met it with one of his own. “I didn’t tell him why.”
“So tomorrow,” Tristan spoke aloud with the hint of something dark and cruel on his face in the form of a smile. “The world will wake up with one less asshole in its ranks. He’ll be dead and everyone will think he did it to himself. Good.” He stole the cigarette directly from Dagonet’s mouth and took a long drag of it, leaning back inside the car to put it out rather than leave any incriminating evidence around.
“And will that be enough?” Dagonet asked, eyes on the house and not on Tristan.
“It has to be.”
Tristan sounded resigned to it, but there was truth to his words. If it wasn’t enough and Tristan felt he had to pursue other avenues to sate his desire to see blood, he would be taken out of the picture at some point. While Tristan was widely regarded as one of the best, he couldn’t be the best all the time and at some point, he would be found and killed. And for a man like Tristan, being killed in such a manner was degrading and demeaned just about everything he had spent his life doing. So he would behave because he had to. When he snuffed out this man’s life, it would be the end of a years-long vendetta and it would have to be enough.
It took another twenty-five minutes before Tristan righted himself and stood as tall as he could, eyes focused on the main bedroom.
“Come on,” Tristan encouraged, shoving two additional pistols into his trenchcoat and storming off into the fog, letting the haze surround and swallow him up.
Dagonet debated the partaking in one more cigarette and eventually abandoned the vice for the prospect of seeing this chapter of Tristan’s life coming to its long-delayed end.
He lingered behind, knowing that he was not the main character of this drama and that he had to give Tristan the lead. He was there to make sure control was kept. He made sure the alarm didn’t sound and that the phones were blocked from making any calls, he made sure the neighbours didn’t hear screaming, and he made sure that Tristan didn’t go off the script. His steps were measured and slow and he watched Tristan ascend the stairs with rope in his hands.
There was barely even the sound of a struggle as Tristan broke into the bedroom, dragged the sleeping man from bed, pistol-whipped him into consciousness, and tied him to the nearest chair.
To the man nicknamed Merlin’s credit, he barely reacted.
Blood trickled down his cheek from a bleeding eye and he kept a knowing gaze on Tristan, barely acknowledging Dagonet’s presence in the room. Dagonet had a habit of blending into the walls, even as big as he was, but in this case it seemed that neither of the other men was even willing to acknowledge him that morning.
“Tristan,” Merlin said evenly, staring up through his bruises and contusions that Tristan had taken time to give him. He even went so far as to smile calmly. “I was waiting for this day. My guards?”
“Not here,” Tristan curtly replied, knotting the last of the ropes as he stood before Merlin and dug out his gun. “This will be short and simple. You’re going to admit to killing him. Then you’re going to kill yourself.”
He was met with silence.
Dagonet could feel something in him turning awry. Merlin wouldn’t give Tristan what he wanted and it seemed as though all the torture in the world wouldn’t bring the words out of him to admit just what Tristan would have wanted him to speak. They didn’t have that large of a window, especially when clean-up was factored in and though he was inwardly panicking, Dagonet never let a thread of it show on the surface. He merely cleared his throat in a very noncommittal way.
Tristan paced back and forth in front of Merlin and glanced up to catch Dagonet’s eye finally, when time pushed forward and every second brought them closer to being caught.
“You’re sure?” Tristan asked, quietly.
“Yes.”
Swiftly, without even waiting for Merlin to say another word or rain down the room with more silence, Tristan cocked the safety back and crossed the room and shoved the gun up against his temple. “I know it was you,” he whispered to him and pulled the trigger without a second of hesitation, blood splattering all over the room and Tristan both. He stepped away and licked a droplet of Merlin’s blood from his upper lip as a serene smile broke through on his face and he turned to Dagonet, gesturing to the dead body. “Well? How’s my aim?”
“Perfect, as ever,” was Dagonet’s calm reply. “Now let’s see how your cleaning is.”
It had to be enough.
Gods, Dagonet hoped this would be enough.
He kept one careful eye on Tristan the whole of the time as they worked, as ropes came loose and the gun was prepared and placed into Merlin’s hand. Dagonet watched for signals and signs that something was still amiss, but that serene smile had yet to leave Tristan’s lips and when the scene was set and the suicide note was brought up on the computer, the smile had widened.
“You’re happy,” Dagonet noted.
“Am I? I think I finally feel peace,” Tristan admitted, turning to glance at Dagonet. “Come, I owe Isolde an explanation for all of this.”
“She’ll be upset she didn’t get to come.”
Dagonet thought, hoped, that maybe, just maybe, it was actually over.
“She’s always upset about something or other. This’ll just add to the pile.”
Dagonet gave a quiet sound of agreement as he trailed behind Tristan once again to survey a cleaned room. It was done and it would have to be enough. Whether it would be would reveal itself with time -- which revealed all things in the end; even this.
30.
Bors came home with a single slip of paper within his hands.
Vanora hadn’t slept a wink in what seemed like a full day. From the moment that the relic was in the possession of the Knights, she had been on edge. Her eyes had fully formed bags beneath them and her hair was more like a bird’s nest than it had ever been before. Her teeth had been gritted and every time one of the children would ask her a question, it took all of her patience not to snap. She had set herself in the chair and hadn’t let herself move until Bors came in the door. She’d closed down the bar and kept a glass of wine to keep her company in the solitude and the worry.
Dagonet had been out to do his own business and they all seemed to be in a great tizzy after they had finished the job, as if there were a million loose ends to tie up and they only had so many hands.
She didn’t mind. She only cared about one loose end.
It took hours and hours, but then he appeared in the door like a dark angel, beaming away as he clasped the piece of paper in his hands, flanked by Gawain and Galahad. Vanora was on her feet immediately, eyes wide as she sprinted across the room and jumped into his arms.
“Oof, Vanora, love,” Bors grunted, handing off the paper to Gawain so he could wrap both arms around her tightly.
Then the kissing started.
Gawain cleared his throat, hobbling his way over to a chair – where two of the youngest peered up at him and he smiled right back. “Hello,” he offered, trying to look anywhere but at Bors and Vanora, who had gone from light and innocent pecks into a rather disturbing show of public affection. He winced mildly and beckoned Galahad over. At the very sight of him, the children shrieked with joy, nearly tackling him to the ground. “No, no, careful,” Gawain warned, the sound of his panic audible in his voice.
Galahad’s gunshot to the shoulder had been a graze, but that still meant that Galahad would feel the pain from it.
Nonetheless, the children had managed to pin Galahad to the floor and the younger man didn’t seem to mind so entirely much as he played with them and entertained their questions while Bors and Vanora finished up. When they were finally through, Gawain lifted his good arm up in the air to hand off the cheque.
“You’ve really done it?” Vanora asked. “You’ve really sold it off?”
“Numbers don’t lie, sweet,” Bors guaranteed in a gruff voice. “There’s more than enough here to put away into savings and pay for enough treatments for any and all the little brats that need it.”
Gawain watched as Vanora took the cheque, keeping it out of harms’ way as she pushed in to start yet another round of kissing that Gawain had to look away from. In the process, he managed to get all the kids’ eyes looking to the wall, trying to find what Gawain was so intent on staring at.
“When you’re done with all that, we’ll be here waiting to celebrate,” Galahad pointed out petulantly, voice hoarse.
The sulking fit was dissipated before it could even start, however, when three of the children decided to pounce on Galahad and tickle him without any sign of mercy in their eyes.
“That’s my litter,” Bors said proudly. He turned to Vanora, lips brushing against her cheek as he turned far more serious. “It’s all for you, love,” he murmured, voice deep and moved to gruff emotion. “Every pound of that cheque, it’s for you and the kids and I’d do it time and time again if it meant keeping you safe.”
“Bors,” Vanora murmured affectionately.
“Marry me.”
Vanora smiled slowly, lips curving up with a satisfied and smug look. “Only if you explain the new arrangement to Dagonet,” she countered.
“That a yes?”
“Maybe.”
“Could’ve just said so!”
“Then where’s the fun? All right, c’mon boys,” Vanora called to Gawain and Galahad. “Tuck the kids into bed and you can have free drinks at the bar tonight, provided you keep your hands where we can all see them!”
“You’re the best, Vanora,” Galahad announced warmly, hopping to his feet and wrapping an arm around her small shoulders. “But really, you should be careful about marrying Bors. Imagine how much more he’ll let himself go.”
“You get a five second head-start, whelp, then I hit you,” Bors warned.
Galahad, being a smarter man than he was years before, took the start.
Vanora and Bors took longer than usual when it came to putting the children to bed, all the while Gawain spent watching from a distance, happy to simply bask in something that had finally gone right.
31.
The drinks were plentiful and given freely in the early grey light of the morning. The ground still sat soaked from the dew of the early hours, but that hadn’t put any of them off. While all the Knights were yet wary around Tristan, that didn’t stop the occasional tug into an embrace and it didn’t stop them from raising their mugs in salute to their fallen brothers, those that surrounded them and had gone long before them.
Gareth sat awkwardly at a distance, as though feeling he didn’t belong.
Gawain and Galahad had pulled up a blanket from one of the cars and had splayed out on it, even going so far as to dragging Tristan down with them, recovering as best as they could after Gawain had bore a bullet in his leg and Galahad had one to his arm, courtesy of Tristan’s gun and a trigger-happy finger. Gareth couldn’t understand it, this forgiveness that came so easily after so terrible a deed.
Bors and Dagonet whispered quiet words lost in the morning light and Lancelot bowed his head reverently with them, never speaking a word louder than it needed to be.
Arthur had yet to stop moving and finally came to a rest by Gareth, crouching down behind him. The ground gave way slightly and Gareth noted that there was mud coating the ends of Arthur’s trousers. “You haven’t run off yet,” Arthur noted.
“Was I expected to?” Gareth asked warily, fingers tapping the face of his watch again and again for something to do. He felt all the world like an outsider looking in on a portrait of a scene that he’d never be in and not for the first time that week did he wonder just how much else of Gawain’s life was shrouded in this thick cloud of mystery.
Running away from all of this seemed like the smart thing to do and for a smart boy like Gareth, he occasionally made some very stupid decisions.
“Your brother told me stories about you from the moment he joined us,” Arthur replied, not answering Gareth’s question. “When you were both younger, there was no end to the stories. He wanted to tell you what it is he was. What he is.”
“Then why didn’t he?” Gareth had to ask. Why keep his life so painfully close?
Arthur turned his gaze not to the men who were deep within their cups, but rather to the moss-covered gravestones that set the backdrop of a content scene in a morbid place. Gareth still felt a chill down his back every time his brain reminded him that they were in a graveyard. Named were etched with great care and the lives were always too short, Gareth had noticed.
“He understood the need to keep you away,” Arthur remarked lowly and gravely. “He wanted to protect you because he loved you so much.”
It wasn’t something that Gareth could easily associate with his older brother, who had been such a distant figure through his life. It was easier to think of him as simply neglectful or too involved in his own life that he never cared for what Gareth ever did or thought.
He had learned better.
Arthur clasped Gareth tightly on the shoulder with a grip that bespoke of the quiet strength that lay in his hands. Lancelot glanced over and loudly beckoned him over to the glare of Dagonet and Bors, but Arthur chuckled as he went, accepting a cup of ale from Galahad on the way.
They were all smiling, all laughing, all happy.
Gareth kept to his place on the outside as he watched the mugs refilled with more ale, until it toppled over the edges and the ground wasn’t just wet with dew, but with the victorious drink that these Knights had brought for themselves.
“Gareth, you prick, get over here,” Galahad shouted loudly and earning a smack from Gawain, Lancelot, and Tristan at the same time. “Ow,” he scowled and complained, rubbing at the back of his head. Gareth couldn’t help the pull of a smile upon his own lips and pushed to his feet to stagger along and take hold of one of the mugs, shaking fingers clasping the side.
There was money in the bank and there were treatments on the way. Gareth hadn’t seen Bors stop smiling and he certainly hadn’t seen that proud look dissipate from his watery eyes.
“Knights,” Arthur announced in his deep tone, the one that commanded the respect of anyone within listening distance. He raised his mug to the sky, to the graves, to those who had gone before. “We are the lucky ones,” he murmured, eyes falling on each man – each, who had stopped smiling in that moment of quiet reflection – and each bowed their head low. “We must never forget that we are the lucky few.”
“Never,” came the unified and solemn chorus.
They sat there and stayed until the sun came up.
Even then, they were hesitant to leave their brothers, the ones who had come before and would always be with them.
THE END
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