The Fatima Curse

Chapter One: Black Ink

It was a bitterly cold night in the town of King's Rock, New York. The sounds of screams and sirens could be heard down below, but up above where the fog was thick and heavy, nothing could be heard but the slow whistle of breath through his nose. He hunkered down behind a pillar, light blue eyes peering around the cylinder of stone and into the murky parking garage. The smell of oil and burnt rubber tickled his nose, but his senses were growing into more liability than asset. All he had now was his instincts, the heaviness of his gut as the well groomed and pressed businessman moved to his Mercedes, sleek and gray. He was rifling through his briefcase, balancing the fine Italian leather attache against a hand-rail as he searched for something.

Uriel made his move. He was silent; stealthy as the night as he tip-toed around the pillar and made his way towards his unsuspecting victim. Much as this man had done countless times before, when he had brutally raped and mutilated twelve different girls, ranging in ages of five to fourteen. Uriel felt no pity for the man, could not summon it within his heart. Truth be told, he had long since lost the emotion. Were he to give in to the weak and flighty sense of mercy, he surely would not be in the profession he was engaged within. Certainly not without nightmares and severe psychological damage. Uriel stood at an impressive six feet five inches, a boulder of a man that moved with the light sure-footedness of a traipsing feather. His flesh was dark brown and smooth, his eyes an odd and sometimes frightening shade of light, ice blue. The man he snuck up on would never see these.

Uriel pulled a blade from the strap on his forearm, silently slashing the weapon through the air to test his own agility and aim. He could catch a man between the shoulder-blades from three hundred yards, he could run five miles through the cold before his fingers even tingled, he could hear the heartbeat of all of his prey. But what he couldn't do baffled even him. He could not kill them - any of them - without telling his name. When the man realized he was no longer alone, it was too late. The briefcase he held spilled over the railing, papers fluttering down to the dingy, stained ground as the heavier case teetered for a moment, and then clapped to the pavement. The man was startled with the noise, and Uri took his opportunity, grabbing the man around his waist and placing the blade against his throat.

He almost screamed, but Uri was quick at his work. He cut the man's throat, watching a hot jet of blood spray from the ragged wound and splash across the concrete. The man shuddered with blood-loss and shock, and Uri longed to see the life fading from the sick bastards eyes. Wanted to see the pleading, helpless look there as he bled to death. The man took in a long, rasping gasp of air, but it was all in vain.

"My name is Uriel Fatima," Uri whispered, and his voice was as steady as a pool of water, as tireless as the night itself. "I am your executioner."

****

"What the hell took you so long?" The voice was thick and heavy, laced with a coyness that grated even on Uri's steel nerves. He slipped into the idling car, the blood on his white sleeve vibrant and dark. He was silent, his face granite and hard, his blue eyes peering out through the windshield and out into to the brick wall beyond. The man beside him sighed and took a deep drag on his cigarette, perching this between the webbing of his first two fingers as he blew out the smoke through his nostrils. "You had to kill some old geezer with a fetish for virgins and white cotton panties. Aren't you even a little concerned about what Master thinks about your supposed dope skills?" There was a laugh from the short haired brunette in the driver's seat.

"Drive." Uri's voice was flat and monotonous. When the man did not respond immediately, this voice hardened. "Endo Shuuichi."

"Jeeeeeesus," Shuuichi groaned, "You're gonna make me think you're pissed off or somethin'. Only my mom uses my name like that." But he got moving all the same.

They were calm and collected, neither of them affected at all by the fact that one man in the car had just murdered another. In fact, they engaged in light, pleasant conversation as they circled through the garage and down to level one. Mostly it was Shuuichi speaking, and Uri grunting his replies.

"You're a bucketload of shits and giggles. The hell crawled up your ass and died, Uri?" The dark man that sat buckled in beside him watched the disgusting scenery drift by a slow, snail-like pace. "Have you ever thought about death?," Uri asked softly. His voice was low and resigned, peaceful in a way.

Shuuichi cocked his head to the side, his slanted eyes narrowing even more as he pondered and mulled the question. "Not really. I still got a lot of living to do." He had completely misunderstood the question, and that was alright. Uri expected nothing from children. "When a person dies, whether its from blunt force trauma to the skull, a slice of a knife to his throat, or even something as simple as a heart attack, the body undergoes stages."

"Stages?"

"Of release. Letting go of life. There's an aftershock of wild, erratic trembling. And then acceptance. I think deep down, people accept things easily when they know they can't change them."

"Oh, dear God, I'm riding with a fuckin' philosopher. Okay, Socrates, what else ya got?"

Uri fell into silence. He was silent most of the way back to their headquarters. A mile from their destination, he spoke up once more. His voice was still as soft and gentle, his hands folded neatly on his lap. "I think death is a beautiful thing... I believe we're all united by it... we're all destined for it, tied together."

"You're givin' me the willies."

"What makes a man plead with God when his cancer spreads? What makes a woman lift a car to save her children? What inspires every last person to excel and engage?"

Shuuichi waited patiently. "I believe death - the fear of it - is what makes us all try."

Shuuichi was uncommonly silent.

****

"Turn this off, Shu."

Shuuichi glanced furtively up at the tall Arab, grimacing in distaste with his order as he played on. There was no other time where he could relax and forget all about the blood on his hands. If there was something the man needed to say, he could do so while Shuuichi exterminated a few Chinese soldiers. But the screen went black, suddenly, and he stared at it blankly for a long moment before tossing his controller at Uri's legs, watching the nimble assassin dodge this with expert ease, almost as an afterthought. "Why would a man thirst for carnage after he's bathed in the blood of so many? I spend all of my time trying to understand the beings men are, and you are still an enigma to me."

"Motherfucker, I hadn't saved it in like, three missions!" Shuuichi sighed and laid back across his carpet, naked chest rising with the sharply inhaled breath. Curved eyes closed as he held on to his anger and tongue, wanting to unleash both across the man who patiently stood in his room. But he knew that Uri was existing on an entirely different plain, and if he so much as raised one finger against the man, all that would happen was Uri's mute, unapologetic stare. "You know, it sucks being your partner, but what sucks more is being your friend. You're such a fuckin' icebox, Uriel. Look at Allister and Marco; they go out for beers and pussy every night."

"Marco is a perverted man, and Allister is his begrudging, dissatisfied lover. If you wish to be my slave in bed, I could make it so." Shuuichi blushed a bright crimson, rolling onto his side to show the curves of his body. He felt Uri hunker behind him, could feel the heat of his body, and his blush burned deeper, all of his blood pooling in his face. Not all. Fuck me 'til I cry, I'm gettin' a goddamn boner... Warm fingertips found the ridge of Shu's spine, tracing along the cord of bone until Uri rubbed at the small of his back. Shu moaned, softly but not shamedly, and ran a tongue across his lips. "When did you get this tattoo, Shu?," Uri asked, ignoring his heated breath of pleasure, and pissing the Asian off. "I don't remember this."

"For fuckin St. Patty's Day on the Moon. What the hell are you asking for?" Uri slipped closer, breathing against the cup of Shu's ear, caramel colored locks spilling across a brown forehead before brushing at Shu's enflamed cheek. The smaller man shuddered on the carpet, pulling his knees up to his naked belly as Uri's hand slipped to his skinny, jean wrapped hip. "You might want to watch the way you speak to me, Endo Shuuichi. I'm patient and forgiving, but the last thing you would desire is for me to lose my temper."

"Shit, you wouldn't hurt me." Shu said this steadily, but there was doubt in his heart. Uri, however, agreed. "You're right. Years ago when Master found you, I saw you as a burden. A petulant child that could focus on nothing but the grief of his own heart. But you've grown much with me. I'm not so deluded that I believe you have grown because of me." Shu turned, eyes opening to reveal dark, glittering orbs. Uri was so close, he could feel the heat of his breath on his own moistened lips, could distinctly smell the aroma of burned herbs on his breath, from his pipe. It all made him shiver.

"Uri..."

"What can I do for you, Shuuichi?"

Shu thought, lips trembling and parting, before he answered. "Get me some fuckin' pussy." Shu smiled, a trifle smugly into the dark face of his friend. Uri did not return this, but the look in his ice-blue eyes was enough to wash fire through Shu's belly. One hand - unbidden by him - rested against Uri's cheek, Shu looking at the contrast of their skin. Mocha to lily-white. He trembled out a breath, caught somewhere between a moan and a whine. Uri seemed so calm and collected, and he had always been that way. Never rattled, never shaken. Whereas Shuuichi wore everything on his sleeve, his heart, his cowardice, his pain. All there for whoever wanted to see it. "Uriel..." Shu came up closer, nose rubbing on Uri's own long bridge, mouth gaping to wash the man's own dark lips in warm breath.

"Get some sleep, Shu."

"You turned off my fucking game for nothing, then? Jesus, man. Just... get out." Shu pulled back and rolled back over, exposing his tattoo once more. A brand of dark ink that depicted a knife through a heart, the heart in question dripping with the same midnight blood. It was an omen of a disastrous past, perhaps a burden this man carried. And for a moment, Uri was overcome with a wave of that pity he detested so much. "You got this tattoo for your mother, Shuuichi. To remember her, or perhaps more likely, to remember your own pain of losing her."

"Get the fuck out," Shu jaggedly whispered. "Leave me alone."

"Very well. We have a job to do tomorrow. Or should I tell Master you're unable to perform due to your own self pity?" Why would you say that to him...? Why are you trying to hurt him, Uriel? Uri didn't know. For once since he had been small, he had no reasoning behind his actions. No motive to speak of. Shu said nothing, but Uri knew he was crying.

He could smell his tears.
****
Their master was a slim man of an age indiscernible. At times, he was as spry as a teenager, and his face would reveal a bounty of youth that made Uriel look and feel ancient. And at other times, his stone countenance would remind his servant of a well worn rock outcropping, where weather and time have rubbed the beauty free, and crevices groove into the surface like valleys. As Uri stepped into the man's office, he found the latter before him. An ancient, yet ageless man, resting his head in the palm of one hand, as he drummed free fingers across the meticulously spotless top of his desk.

His eyes were sharp, electric green. His hair a once luxurious chestnut that was now turning salt and pepper around his temples. There was light stubble on his cheeks and chin, mostly white, and he looked as though he had not moved in centuries past; like a statue of a man that had died on his throne of complete and total boredom. The only time Uri ever felt his heart existed, was when he was in this man's presence. When it began to pound with a child's horrible fright.

"Master Abel."

Emerald eyes opened, and Uri's heart froze, locked in his throat, which cramped with fear. He battled this off with annoyance, not allowing himself the opportunity to give in to such pathetic emotions. He steeled his jaw, blinking beneath his caramel colored bangs until he pursed his upper lip and blew a breath to ruffle the tresses back from his dark forehead. "Master Abel. I've come to report the death of Joseph Kiernan."

"Ah, good work. That man has been a thorn in my side for nearly fifteen years. Proper procedure?"

"Arterial spray was calculated at only sixty PSI. I stood at the angel of forty five degrees to his left, eliminating splatter from my clothes and flesh. He bled out in less than two minutes."

There was a dry chuckle from the throat of the seated man. "And did you tell him your name as you did all the others, Uri? I hope you're letting that particular bad habit go."

Uri's cheeks heated. "My apologies, Master. I will try from henceforth."

Abel took a stand, brushing hands down his pressed front, which was dressed in a stylish three piece suit, immaculate and spotless as the rest of his office. There was a smile on his face, but it wasn't one that boasted pleasure or smugness. It was a dead curl of his lips that made Uri drop his ice-blue eyes to the floor. His hands tightened into fists, so forcefully that his bronze knuckles turned white. "You don't have to look away," Abel goaded, in a deceptively sweet voice, his hand touching Uri's cheek and pulling his face up. "Such beautiful eyes, Uriel. Like looking into a clear summer sky." His smile became more sincere. "I should reward you for your good work."

Uri fell to his knees without being bidden, staring up his Master’s body with his eyes as dull and listless as ever. Abel cleared back the strands from his forehead, scratching at Uri’s scalp as he pulled him closer, strategically unbuttoning his slacks with his other hand as he rocked his solid lap on Uri’s gaping mouth. “Good boy. Tell me, Uriel, why do you tell them your name?”

“The dead have no memory.”

“Why waste your breath?”

Uri hesitated. “The dead… have no stones to cast in judgment. I envy them for that. Perhaps it’s a pittance for what I’ve stolen from them.”

“Joseph Kiernan was a despicable man. You know what he did to those girls. Raped, mutilated, dismembered. A close source said that twenty years ago he was found in a Chicago Smokehouse roasting the body parts of a small girl that had gone missing.”

Uri shuddered and rested his forehead to his Master’s thigh. “I am not God,” he said softly, below his breath. “I should not control their fates.” Abel considered this, hand slipping to the back of Uri’s neck to rub and massage. “Mm, I see your point. So does the great and powerful Uriel Fatima feel a smidge of remorse? I never thought I’d see the day.”

“So much death is around us. So much blood stains our hands.” Uri sighed and shook his head in a sensual track across Abel’s thigh. “My apologies, Master. I have forgotten my place.”

“Nonsense. You have no place that I have made for you. I could never cage you in like I do the others Uri. You’re not like Shuuichi. If I let that kid run around King’s Rock, he’d almost certainly be dead within a week. He doesn’t have your will, Uri.”

“He has gotten a strange marking, Master,” Uri said, tipping his face up and feeling oddly ashamed with the grade-school style tattle on his lips. Abel rubbed a finger over these, licking his own as his elegantly long nail dragged a white line across the mocha skin. Abel unzipped himself and puddled his dress pants around his ankles, his body denying his age as firm muscles flexed with his movements. His skin was pale and fair, creamy and silken. Uri rested a hand to the inside of one thigh and sighed with the feel, breathing against the bulge in his Master’s embracing boxers. “It was unsettling, Master Abel.”

“I don’t care about Shuuichi right now, Uriel. Still your tongue.”

But that was the problem that Uriel was currently dodging. His Master rarely cared about Shu, was content to stick him in the shadows until his special talents were needed. But - though he could not admit it to himself - Uri did care about Shu. He worried about him when he heard him screaming in the night from terrible dreams. Worried when Shu’s eyes would go glassy and distant, catatonic and faraway. Worried when he would relapse into the speech of a child, intermingled with sobbing and sudden bursts of violent aggression.

Shuuichi… He closed his eyes and thought of the man, touching Uri’s cheek and coming closer. What had he meant to do precisely? Kiss him? Uri didn’t know. The prospect made his heart flutter in an odd moment of infatuation. He found his palms sweaty and his mouth dry.

When he allowed his Master to invade his body, he found it was Shu’s name that lingered on his lips, longing to be screamed to the four corners with an unbridled passion.
****
Shuuichi was tossing and turning when Uri snuck into his room. His ass was sore and tender, and when he took a seat beside Shu’s bed, he had to fight off a small, pitiful yelp of pain. Uri was naked except for his underwear, his hair trailing down his back in a loose braid, his flesh pebbled with droplets of water from his shower. He had not been able to wash the feel of Abel from his skin. And he had not been able to sleep in his cold bed. For the first time in nearly ten years, he was plagued with insomnia.

Shu was muttering incoherent babble from his dreams, slurs of pleading that melted away into nothing but light sobbing. He turned to face Uri, beautiful face cramped in an anguish and torment so deep that Uri forgot how to breath for a long moment. A dark hand reached out and touched Shu’s cheek, and it was amazing, frightening, and wonderful, how Shu relaxed on contact, face calming and tears forced to dry as he moaned lightly from his sleep and brushed his porcelain flesh against Uri’s rough, sand-paper palm.

Uri moved closer in the silence between them, closing his light blue eyes as he blindly found Shu’s lips. He felt the man breath into his mouth, and then was surprised as a tongue roamed inside. Uri had never felt such heat attack his body in his entire life. When beneath Abel, he felt nothing but duty. He was brought to orgasm more as a way to end the entire tawdry affair than from any pleasure. But Shu’s lips were so soft and warm, so wet and yielding. Just the slight brush of them made Uri’s toes curl.

He jerked back with a sharp gasp, flailing to his feet as he stared down at the sleeping man. How pitiful. He had been brought here by the weak concern of his softening heart. And he had allowed himself to be so overcome by this, that he had stolen a kiss. Uri was trembling and burning, sweat mingling with the water across him as his cock twitched and then hardened against his silk boxers. Uri took a step back, shaking his head to negate his own pleading heart.

“Uriel…,” Shu whispered, “I got…tattoo….for you…”

“Me.” Uri whispered this, and then bit his lips to keep himself quiet. What sense did that make? Why would he have gotten the tattoo for him of all people? Uriel Fatima was no simpering fool, that needed any such display of affection. Perhaps he got it, Uriel thought, To show what you do to his heart.

“Shuuichi.” Uri said his name sternly, but in a bare whisper. The Asian’s eyes began to flutter then, and Uri slipped away before he could find him. He stood there on the other side of Shu’s door, fighting back tears that burned behind his eyes. He wouldn’t cry, and he wouldn’t feel guilt. He would wake up tomorrow and perform his mission to the best of his ability. And if Shuuichi wanted to whine about it, that would be fine.

That would be… normal.