Prey For Us Sinners
Prey For Us Sinners is a story in the The Sanhok Saga from the 'The Sanhok 4' in the lore of BATTLEGROUNDS.
Part 1
Alexander Lindh  |
Madison Malholtra  |
Lunchmeat  |
Julie Skels  |
Duncan Slade  |
"You are going to love this!" Alex Lindh said. His pudgy, boyish face held a breathy smile. He looked almost aroused.
The man with the pawn moved the ivory chess piece between his fingers. His mind wandered back to the one day that mattered. The day of his rebirth. Back to star-shaped patterns of blood on walls. To screams. To the dark…
The last day of his childhood.
It was important to keep these memories. To curate them. These recollections gave meaning. They gave scope to the universe of distance between that moment in the dark and this.
It was a balancing act. And one he had perfected. To be here and yet also there. To be dining out on this extravagant patio under open sky, with silk socks against his toes, and the sweet scent of cooked brandy wafting in… and to still hear the gunfire. To still feel the cold, liquid feces between his toes. That cooked-pork smell of burnt bodies.
As Lindh prattled on, the man with the pawn —known to a few as Sergei Kalimnick, and to far fewer as the Lone Survivor of Erangel — watched as a nameless servant removed the silver dome lid from the plate in front of him.
"I give you... ortolan bunting," said Lindh with an flourish.
Kalimnick looked down at his plate. There wasn’t much there, just a tiny bird, plucked and cooked, beak and legs and all. The thing cost far more than a year’s worth of the food he ate as a boy.
"It is an experience," Lindh continued, "as exquisite as it is rare. This quality of cruelty is normally reserved only for the gods."
He chuckled as he said that, plucking his napkin from the table. "This dish is illegal in most of the world."
Lindh lifted his own bird gently. "When this little ortolan was alive, its eyes were lovingly plucked out with tweezers. The artists were careful not to harm the rest of him. Then this little bird spent the rest of his life in a tiny box that allowed no movement. It was painstakingly fed a special diet of figs, grapes, and millet."
Lindh gave the speech with a practiced precision. Had he given it before? Or had he spent the morning rehearsing this moment in the mirror.
"... this little bird gorged itself in the dark," Lindh said, "swelling to four times its natural size. And when the time came, it was drowned in Armagnac. After it soaked in the brandy, it was roasted. For seven minutes exactly."
With his free hand, Lindh lifted his napkin. "This dish was served at the Three Emperors Dinner of 1867. The food of kings. Traditionally, when eating ortolan, one covers one’s entire face with a napkin, so as to hide one’s gluttony from God."
Lindh made a show of obscuring his face with his napkin. Then, with precision, he placed the bird all the way into his mouth, save for the head, and bit down.
Though his facial expressions were hidden, Kalimnick watched his body shudder in pleasure.
In his rise from the pit to this meal, Kalimnick had seen the odd cuisines the rich used to exult in their divinity. There was casu marzu, the creamy Italian cheese swimming with maggots. There were the coffee beans plucked from the feces of the Asian palm civet.
It seemed the wealthy would eat their own dead if for only a moment, it would prove their power.
Lindh had finished eating the bird. Now he sat still, napkin across his face. A thin line of sauce or juice or spittle – Kalimnick couldn’t tell – ran down his chin. The man was a glutton. Oh, he was so many things; a sadist. A killer. A shrewd politician. But more than anything, he was a glutton. If he wanted to impress Kalimnick, this culinary farse was the wrong idea.
Movement from inside grabbed Kalimnick’s attention. He rose from his chair. "Take the napkin off your face, Lindh," he said. "Our visitors have arrived."
A pair of armed guards escorted their guests inside. Chatmanee came in first. She was stylishly dressed. As always, all in black. A trim motorcycle jacket, an almost comically large pistol holstered on her belt. She looked dangerous – Chat always did – but something had changed since the escape at Sanhok. The venomous aura she carried now seemed put on. Like a suit of armor that didn’t quite fit.
Even the tattoos on her hands – there was nary a bit of flesh to see – seemed an affectation.
This woman was the head of the largest South East Asian criminal empire. But judging from the way she looked, Kalimnick wondered if that would remain the case for long. There were always sharks in the water. And Chatmanee smelled of blood.
Beside her was a man Kalimnick had never met. He was a tall black man in jeans and a baseball hat. He was handsome despite his injuries – and they were many. His face was scarred. And though the events at Paramo had broken his arm, they clearly had not broken his spirit.
"Jonathan," said Lindh, wiping the spittle from his chin. "I wasn’t sure you’d come."
Jonathan Kamau held Kalimnick’s gaze. Whereas Chat had brought a weapon and made damn sure everyone saw it, Kamau seemed unarmed.
"I wasn’t sure I should," Kamau said. "Given recent events."
"But you did come," Kalimnick said. He pressed his thumb into the chess piece. Felt the ivory against his calloused finger.
"I did."
Kalimnick waited for Kamau to say more but the assassin remained quiet.
"Have we missed lunch?" Chat said, noting the silver dishes and the odd little bird still sitting on Kalimnick’s plate.
"Calling this lunch would be an absolute crime," Lindh said. "Have you heard of orlotan bunting?" He stepped forward and tried to take her hands in his own. She withdrew but didn’t back away from him.
"My darling, this is an experience as rare as it is expensive. First, they pluck the little-"
"Enough about the bird," Kalimnick said, silencing him. "I didn’t invite you here to talk about lunch."
They sat under open sky and drank burgundy and listened to Kamau tell his story. His attempt to track and kill Madison Malholtra, one of the Sanhok Four. He told it all in vivid detail – how he picked up the scent in Chennai. How he broke Malholtra’s contact, the hacker known as GremlinXL. Kamau was honest; he didn’t brag or boast. He didn’t embellish. His story was a list of facts. And where others would recount the events at Paramo with a defensive tone, Kamau was humble.
"I made a mistake. She took advantage. She outplayed me. I should have been more careful. The truth was, I was too eager. We all were. We had her cornered and we gave her way out."
"Jonathan, your humility is unbecoming," Lindh interjected. "This man is the greatest assassin I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. The fact that he is not a Knight yet is frankly, offensive to me. The only reason he failed is because of that... because of the research anomaly. Had it not been for our colleague’s experiments, I’ve no doubt that he would have completed the contract."
Kamau turned his gaze to Lindh but said nothing.
Kalimnick sat up and slid his chair closer to Kamau. Chatmanee shared a curious look with Lindh; Kalimnick didn’t care. He had been waiting weeks to ask this question and didn’t want to miss even the subtlest of responses.
"You were there, Jonathan" Kalimnick said. "You came within a hair’s breadth of her. You tracked her down and cornered her like an animal and fought with her. Tell me, what was it like? To play this most dangerous game with Madison Malholtra?"
If Kamau was uncomfortable – by Kalimnick leaning over him and studying his face, by the way his breathing had changed whilst talking about Malholtra – he didn’t show it.
"You know I’ve killed for you and your organization before. I’m not perfect – anyone who claims perfection is either lying or an idiot. And I don’t believe I’m either. But I’ve never failed like this before," Kamau continued. "So close. Against an adversary who by any metric should have died. See, I have no question in my mind, she should be dead. All of them should be dead."
"And yet she is not," Kalimnick said. He tried to keep his voice steady and found it difficult. There was a quiver. He squeezed the chess piece tight to prevent his hand from shaking.
"Alex told me what happened in Haven," Kamau said. "About their run-in with the Boogeyman. It’s probably hard for you sitting here to believe that these Battleground-refugees with limited combat training and no equipment, that they were able to best a platoon of heavily armed mercenaries. That they could go up against your prized soldier of fortune and walk away with his legs. Have you had this same conversation with Bogdan?"
"Of course I have," Kalimnick said.
"Then you know the answer already," Kamau said. "Malholtra didn’t die at Paramo because she wouldn’t allow it. She refused to die. It’s that simple."
"You speak of these four like they’ve made some pact with the Devil," Chat interrupted. She clearly wasn’t impressed with the assassin. "And maybe they have. But it wasn’t the Devil that glitched the bluezone on Sanhok."
Kamau nodded. If Chat was trying to get a rise from him, it wasn’t working.
"Before he died, the hacker confirmed that they had help from inside our organization. They received a call. That’s how they found out about the lab in Paramo. Only members of the Crown would have that information."
Kalimnick nodded. It was as he suspected.
"We don’t know that for certain," Lindh said. "They’ve been working at Paramo for decades. People know. And as for the Bluezone, do we still not know why it happened?"
"The technicians said there was interference," said Kalimnick. "They’ve been unable to determine the source."
"It seems obvious that whoever was behind the bluezone failing has been helping them," Lindh continued. "But frankly, the idea that anyone in the crown would be involved is ridiculous."
Kalimnick nodded, though he wasn’t certain. There was still much he didn’t know about his benefactors. Identities. Motivation. Was this part of a larger game. And if so, who was the player?
"Which of you think these four survivors of Sanhok won their Battleground?" Kalimnick asked after a long pause.
"Won?" barked Chatmanee. "They abandoned the Battleground.
They did not win."
"I’m loathe to agree with my impulsive friend with the hand tattoos, but she is correct," said Lindh. "They must be silenced."
"I didn’t ask if they are to be silenced or not. I asked if they won," Kalimnick said. "Have they demonstrated Vir Solidarius."
Kalimnick looked to Kamau. A long moment passed before the assassin spoke.
"Yes. They won."
Chat scoffed. Lindh was better able to hide his emotions, but it was clear he also agreed with her.
"You created the game," Kamau said. "You set your trap and they escaped it. You asked them to survive. Look what they’ve done – they’ve more than won."
Kalimnick shifted the pawn in his hands. He again pressed his thumb into the ivory. Hard. Harder. He closed his eyes and was there again. In the dark. Hiding in shit while death took his island.
The assassin was right. The people Kalimnick worked for were not happy – but why? Were they so worried for the fate of their organization that they couldn’t see the gift they’ve been given? That what had started in the safe confines of a Battleground had blossomed into something so much more. They asked for Vir Solidarius – had they not received it? By bullet, blade, and calamity, had they not excavated something true?
"The Sanhok Four are survivors," Kalimnick finally said. "And they are worthy of our admiration. And yet still, they must all die."
He picked up the tiny bird from his dinner plate and placed it in his mouth. Biting down, he tasted the hot explosions of organs and brandy. He did not cover his face with a napkin. No one corrected him. He chewed and managed a smile. He smiled up at the sky the way a mushroom cloud smiles at the sun.
Perhaps the Sanhok Four had made a deal with the devil. But Sergei Kalimnick, the man with the pawn, the lone survivor of Erangel, did not fear the devil. There was only one group of people he feared.
And they would expect results.