The Talon Family The Assassination of Two Part 4

The Talon Family

The Assassination of Two

March

By: Chase L. Currie

The taxi driver thought he was taking them to the police station and for the most part, he was, he dropped them off in front of the station. Gabriel paid the man and give him a very generous tip making the old man’s night. She turned around seeing Helbis with her hands the pocket of her coat wishing they were anywhere else but here. She didn’t want to be on another mission. She didn’t want to do anything at all but watch a movie.

                “We’ll make this quick,” Gabriel said pulling on her arm away from the station.

                “It’s never quick,” Helbis protested.

                They walked around the building to a black door in the wall with no locks. Gabriel presses her thumb against the door where the handle should have been, and some second later green lights lit up under her skin. The door unlocked opening for them as they both stepped into the small elevator.

                The room started to drop with Helbis telling her sister, “I hope we don’t have to do any fighting.” She looked Gabriel up and down. She was in clothes for dancing, not for combat.

                “Let’s hope not,” Gabriel said checking her phone.

                The door opens with Helbis not having time to response and staring them right in the face was a man with blonde hair, green eyes, and a body making them look like five-year-old girls. “Ladies,” the deep voice of Lohengrin Sawn said.

                “Sir?” They both said back. It was odd to meet a Knight of Paladin face to face. This must be bad, Helbis told herself as they walked down the long hallway.

                “Sorry, to call both of you in,” Lohengrin said showing them the way. Helbis couldn’t help but study his hands the only part of his arms she could see because she heard Lohengrin arms were cybernetic. She couldn’t tell right off the bat, but after a few moments, she saw the black line running in places where it looked as if his hands were put together. “But we have a problem, I thought you would like to handle for us.”

                “Why would we want to do that?” Helbis asked as they stepped into the front of a window. Lohengrin tapped a code into the keypad before the black glass turned into a one-way mirror. On the other side of the window was Mark Shirley crying into his hands as an agent of Paladin talked with him.

                “Because that man killed his brother tonight,” Lohengrin explained, “and says he was made to do it by someone called The Voice.” He looked at them both, and Helbis was the one who locked her jaw. They had a few runs in with The Voice during their time in New York helping Paladin hunt down weapons entering the city. They knew a shadow mob was behind the weapons being poured into the city, but they didn’t know how to stop them.

                It took the family months to find one name, The Voice, and when they tracked him down. He almost killed Raphael. The monster which was The Voice had a power where if you heard his voice you had to follow his orders. It could be through a phone or a radio or by any others means as long as you could hear him talk, you did what he said. He told Raphael to jump to his death. It almost worked until Michael saved him by knocking him out.

                The Voice got away going underground, and the family had to move on to other more important missions, but Helbis hated this man. She hated how he almost got her brother killed.

                “I finger you both would like another shot at him,” Lohengrin said looking down at the girls.

                “You are right,” Gabriel said. “We would love another shot at him.”

                “Why now?” Helbis asked looking back at the crying man. “Why come out of hiding in such a public way?”

                “We believe Mark’s brother, Walter Shirley, was in deep with these people,” Lohengrin said. “He may have known secrets they didn’t want out in the open. We were in fact about the start questioning him before his death.”

                “Yeah, but The Voice had to know you would send someone after him,” Helbis said.

                “That is the great thing about these people,” Lohengrin told her, “they give you another chance to stop them.”

                Helbis didn’t say a word. She watched the man ball his eyes out trying to wonder what kind of Hell he was living in right now. She knew a little of what he was feeling because she almost got Michael killed when she went running off with some witches. She hated herself for that more than anything else. If Michael had died, she wasn’t sure how she could go on with living but thank God he didn’t meet the end. She felt bad for Mark, and she knew there was nothing she could do for the man. Even bring in the person behind all of this for justice wouldn’t change the way he felt. He would have to spend the rest of his life in a Hell, like no other.

                “Sir,” an aid from down the hall yelled running up to them. She stopped looking at both the girls. She had to be much older than them and was wondering why they were there in the first place. The woman was tall with time being kind to her, and her long brown hair pulled back like Gabriel’s. She keeps looking between them both and wouldn’t say a word.

                “What is it, Ashley?” Lohengrin asked staring back at Mark.

                “Uh, hm, sir?” She questions eyeing the girls.

                “If I didn’t want them to hear what you had to say then I wouldn’t have asked,” he said not looking over at her. “Now, what is it?”

                “Right, sorry, sir,” the aid said looking at her tablet, “There are reports Ironblood is close to finding the Voice’s hideout.”

                “Are we tracking him?”

                “The best we can, sir. Would you like me to send a team over to stop him?”

                Lohengrin looked Gabriel up and down. He smirked and said, “You might want to change.”

                “I think you might be right.”

                “We are sending these two over,” Lohengrin told the aid with Helbis sighing deeply. She glanced over at her sister who mouths the word, ‘Sorry,’ but there was nothing else to do. “You need to change as well,” Lohengrin said to Helbis.