The Ancient's Vendetta

Chapter 1: Remy

Remy

Remy’s legs dangled over the side of the bed, so that his feet hovered a few inches off the cold hardwood floor. He woke again, without the aid of his alarm. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever need an alarm clock again. His mind seemed to be rebelling against the notion of rest despite his best efforts to get a healthy amount of sleep. Remy knew this was a defect of some kind, one he hated. But, on days like this, it was more of a blessing than a curse.

He stared absent mindedly at a piece of paper on the bedside table. It gently fluttered in response to the breeze of cold air blowing through the floor vent. The moving paper looked odd, like it was floating. The nightstand wasn’t visible, its silhouette of dark wood was lost in the unilluminated room. Remy pretended the paper was imbued with some type of magic that allowed it to levitate.

He inhaled deeply, breathing in the aroma of his childhood home. He loved being back here, his mother recently departed for an extended trip abroad and asked him to watch the place. Remy was lucky, this place was immaculate. He scratched his chin at the thought of his brothers not coming over more often, then shrugged, whatever their reasons, they were fools. Though he’d probably no longer be the first name on his mother’s list of house sitters if she knew he’d turned the living room into an operation center. 

He smiled at the thought, jumped off the bed, and snatched the floating piece of paper. He’d be embarrassed if anyone else saw his notes. He’d written down his thoughts as they came, which is normal enough, but when he went back to read over his scribblings he felt…exposed. If the authorities saw these, they’d be forced to argue about which place best suited him, the asylum or the prison. Remy wanted neither, so these notes were being burned along with every other piece of incriminating evidence.

Four weeks ago, an unexpected thought parachuted its way into Remy’s mind, uninvited. Remy, perturbed by the idea’s tenacity, sought reprieve through long city walks. Unfortunately, these extended strolls only served to breathe life into Remy’s bout of inspiration. His seemingly random visions started to take form. Before he realized it, his imagination hijacked his common sense and he had formulated a reckless, dangerous, and exciting plan. One he thought would absolutely work. 

Remy worked methodically, he even used his mom’s 3D printer to bring some added dimension to his sketches. Things may have gotten a little out of hand; the full size replica of the route to the target building took up the entire grand table in his mother’s living room. Still though, it looked magnificent.

Last week, over coffee, he told his brothers about the plan. Joaquim spit out his $7 latte.

“Do you know who owns that building?” He asked Remy.

“I do, Jo, you’re the one who told me about it. You know a woman, who knows a guy, who talked to your friend, yada, yada, yada…” Remy said with a smirk.

“This is a bad idea, Remy, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

Remy shrugged and looked at Pyotr. “What do you think?”

Pyotr put his coffee cup down and eyed Remy, “How much?”

Remy glanced at Joaquim, “250 thousand, at least.”

Pyotr smiled, “I’m in.”

Remy held up his cup of black coffee in a toast, “It’s settled then, all we’re doing is taking a lot of good money from a lot of bad people.”

After that, things moved pretty quickly. He showed his brothers the model and they sent Joaquim to a club where a lot of the building's employees hangout, he was good at getting information. Somehow Joaquim even sweet talked his way into the building, while he was on tour he wore a tiny comms device and he relayed as much detail as he could to Remy who was doing his best to make a rudimentary blueprint.  They decided that Pyotr would do the job,and Remy would handle strategy. Joaquim was done with the reconnaissance so he was on deck for whatever miscellaneous things needed to be taken care of during the operation. 

They were all up so early because they decided to do the operation during the early morning of a work day. Pyotr was in place, but Joaquim was cutting it a little close. Remy noticed the corner of the building’s blueprint was frayed at the tip and as he reached for it his phone’s screen flashed with a message. It was Joaquim, as usual, pushing the limits of punctuality.

Remy’s mouth dropped when he read Joaquim’s message, ‘where are you?’. Remy’s fingers flew across the phone looking for the words to describe his absolute astonishment at Joaquim’s cluelessness, but he thought better of it, erased his draft message, and just replied with an address. 

Joaquim’s knock echoed through the townhouse, he was on time, barely. Remy snatched the door open and tossed his brother the extra comms piece. He would have been a little more gracious, but he was busy trying to deescalate Pyotr’s fury at having to sit still for five minutes. 

Remy had a bad feeling about the way things were going. He rubbed his clammy palms down the sides of his jeans, he didn’t expect to be dealing with nerves, he was usually calm and collected. He took a deep breath to compose himself and tried to use that composure to calm his brother, Pyotr. They were already facing unforeseen obstacles and Pyotr was fuming at the unexpected adjustments. So much so, that he’d offended Joaquim who immediately entered into a state of abject apathy for all parties involved. 

A tinge of regret grew in Remy’s gut, maybe they weren’t ready… but just as he felt inclined to entertain these fruitless whims, they lost contact with Pyotr. His regret dissolved into a vat of panic. Remy glanced at Joaquim for support, but found only anger. He took off his comms, “Yo Jo,  are you go..” The question died on his lips and everything faded to black. Remy looked around, he could tell he was in a dark hallway but he didn’t know in which building this hallway sat. He stared disoriented, and that’s when he heard the faint sound of a door latch engaging. 

Still confused, Remy glanced toward the quiet noise and there was Pyotr stalking his way closer. Remy tried to wave, but couldn’t, he stared down at his hands, but they weren’t there. Neither were his legs, in fact, he was bodiless. Only his consciousness was here, Remy was a living ghost. 

He watched in horror as the pipe wielding mad man attacked his brother, he stood transfixed at Pyotr’s strength and healing ability, and he panicked as he saw Pyotr approaching the goliaths near the vault door. 

All of a sudden he was back in his mother’s living room. The first thing he did was honor the urge to send Joaquim over to the building as soon as possible. He scribbled the address down so that there was no confusion and then walked over to Joaquim to relay the message. Joaquim seemed to be out of it, not responding the first couple of times Remy called his name, so Joaquim got a stiff slap to the back. 

After Joaquim left, Remy grabbed a piece of paper and closed his eyes. He wanted to capture everything he saw while he was disembodied. He opened his eyes but only had a moment to appreciate his sketch before Joaquim’s voice disrupted his silence, “I really need to know what’s going on.”

Remy was flailing and couldn’t spare the bandwidth to explain to Joaquim that he didn’t know what was going on and he didn’t think taking the time to figure it out was important. What they needed to do was save Pyotr, everything else would wait. 

“Get inside that building now”, he growled.

Remy finally got a good look at his drawing, it was immaculate. He’d never drawn such crisp clean lines, his shading was exquisite. This simple pencil drawing was an exact replica of what Remy saw in his projected state, from the blood splattered floor, to cracked wall, and the shattered overhead bulb. The drawing was so genuine if you stared at it long enough you could hear the sounds of the building in the picture. 

Remy’s eyes rested on a spot on the left side of the drawing. There was something vague on the left side of the building's hallway, on the way to the vault. His drawing depicted a slight change of depth with a rectangular frame, it looked like a poorly done renovation of an abandoned entry point. There once was a door that but it had been sealed off haphazardly. Maybe that meant the wall would be weaker there.

Pyotr’s voice crackled over the comms, “Hey! All of our tech is glitching down here. Just so you know I’ve had some visitors, and not the ones we expected. Uhh, not really sure what to do here guys?…”

“Listen to me, you have to go through the wall!” Remy shouted.

Pyotr didn’t respond, instead Remy heard the sounds of cracking skin and rattling bones. “Pyotr!” He yelled.

 But Pyotr was no longer wearing his comms, they sat useless on the building's floor.

“Joaquim, where the hell are you?” Remy hissed. 

But again, there was no response. He sat down on the living room floor, put his hands on his head, and closed his eyes. He ripped off his comms but could still hear Pyotr, who sounded like he was catching the worst of the melee. Remy couldn’t just sit there and listen to what could be his brother’s last labored breaths. He jumped up, put his comms back in, grabbed his phone and wallet and headed for the door. 

When his hand hit the knob on the front door he heard Joaquim yell, “hey!” Pyotr swung back into the foyer, and sprinted down the hall back to the model.

“Joaquim, what is going on?”

“Uh Pyotr is in some kind of death match….and he isn’t winning.”

“Joaquim, it may not look like it, but there’s a door behind the wall to your left if you're facing the vault.”

“I see Pyotr, I see the vault, but there is no door or any way for me to find this hidden door.”

“Joaquim, please trust me. Help Pyotr then get through that door.”

“So, Remy, I’m about to be really busy. Those sasquatchs are headed my way, they just dropped Pyotr like a bag of rocks.”