Category: The Monk

The Monk – Part 24

Kent was lying in bed working on his tablet computer when there was a knock on the hatch. Startled Kent slowly placed his tablet down and crept towards the hatch. The knocking came again. He put his ear to the top of the hatch and heard the unmistakable voice of Kelly calling out to him from the other side. Slightly bemused Kent undid the bolts and opened the hatch. Out sprung Kelly with her characteristic smiles and enthusiasm. She was wearing her gym gear which fitted tightly over every part of her fit body. Kent found himself having to make an effort to stop his eyes from wandering away from her face. Kelly noticed Kent’s struggle to remain focused on her face and giggled internally to herself..

“Kelly, what a surprise to see you, can I do anything for you?”

“Not really, I was in the neighbourhood so I thought that I would drop by,” said Kelly in her enthusiastic tone of voice.

Kent frowned, “it’s not a good night for spelunking down there. There is rain forecast tonight. Those tunnels are deadly in the rain.”

“Oh, I won’t be long, unless you think I should play it safe and stay here for the night?” Kelly bit her lip anxiously. Concerned she’d played her cards too soon.

Kent blushed involuntarily, “well actually I am expecting Suvarin to stay the night here. So there wouldn’t be enough room.” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 24”

The Monk – Part 23

Suvarin was just finishing up her shift at the hospital when her phone started beeping. One of the other nurses at the station noted the unusually urgent sounding tone. Suvarin started out dashing for her phone, then checked herself, and made up a lie about it probably being her mother worried about the TV not working. She made herself appear calm as she took her phone and made her way to the toilets. Once securely sealed inside a cubicle she took out of her phone and opened the message. It was however encrypted so she had to copy and paste a selection of garbled text and move it to the decryption app.

“Emergency situation has occurred. A training accident has resulted in a wounded knight. Much blood loss. Insufficient blood supplies for emergency surgery. Need 3 units of O- blood immediately.”

Suvarin gasped, her heart started pounding. This was not the situation she wanted to be dealing with when there were Tyranni about. Getting caught taking hospital supplies would get her accused being the thief and that could cost her more than her job. However, if a member of the Arshir were injured then she had to do her duty. She had sworn an oath as a Salvati and she had no intention of ever breaking her word. She looked at the time, she still had fifteen minutes left on her shift. She quickly left the toilets and finished the paperwork for the rest of her shift, then staying in her scrubs, rather than changing as she usually does, she went down to the emergency department. There was always a supply of O type blood waiting in the emergency department on standby should it be needed. So far tonight had been a quiet night and there was plenty of blood there. Including the O negative she needed. She had just reached into the freezer to grasp the three units of O negative blood when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder. Startled Suvarin spun around, there in front of her was Nix. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 23”

The Monk – Part 22

The hospital was more than just one building, but a complex of buildings, carparks, and gardens. It was located on the edge of the city centre. The whole facility was surrounded by a red brick ring wall with a small cottage for the original groundskeeper when the hospital was first built. The days of indentured caretakers tied to the land were passed of course, but the original building still stood there as a reminder of quainter days. It was a tall white wooden building with high ceilings and a steep wooden roof. Green fungus had taken over patches of the roofing tiles with obvious gaps where old tiles had been replaced with new ones in recent years. The cottage was located at the corner of the hospital estate closest to the city centre and had been taken over by a Christian charity for the homeless organised by a local church.

Paul was busy making sandwiches with the other volunteers who came in from the parish. Every night the volunteers made hundreds of ham and cheese sandwiches for the homeless. Sometimes they had a huge pot full of soup as well to share, and tonight was one such night so Paul had to go in and out of the kitchen to check on the soup. He had just ducked out when a woman dressed in a short skirt, leg warmers, and stylish leather jacket walked into the area where the volunteers were busy preparing the sandwiches. She looked at each volunteer’s face coolly observing them. Some of the volunteers noticed her and bid her a warm welcome which she ignored. When she spotted Paul through the doorway to the kitchen she drew herself up to her full height on each high heel and allowed a hungry smile to emerge from the sea of cosmetics covering her face. The woman walked quietly into the kitchen, all sense of apprehension now missing from her thin body. She was standing right behind Paul as he was carefully stirring the huge pot of soup.

“That’s a big dinner you’ve got there,” said the woman slowly. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 22”

The Monk – Part 21

Kelly walked into her Nutrition and Health Sciences class and quickly moved to claim her favourite workbench to set her books down on. The room was full of ovens, stove tops, and all the equipment needed for a chef to make anything they wanted. No sooner had she sat down than the teacher came up to her with a new student to the class. Kelly glanced at the overweight woman with purple curly hair beside the teacher and confirmed that she had never seen her in the college before.

“Hi Kelly, Jonathan your practical partner has dropped out of the class. Since he won’t be coming back your new partner will be Syndi here.”

Kelly politely exchanged hellos, “I don’t understand, Jonathon said nothing about wanting to quit, he wanted to be a chef as much as I do. What happened to him?”

The teacher looked uneasy and said simply that she wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Kelly continued, “But it’s week five into the course, isn’t that too late for some new to join?”

“Yes, it is rather late, so I am putting Syndi with you so you can help her catch up.”

Kelly shrugged her shoulders and started showing Syndi around the classroom. Kelly spent most of the class frantically trying explain to Syndi what they had to do. Syndi didn’t seem to care as much as Kelly thought she ought to, but she didn’t want to judge. Kelly was happy to be a helper. On the first break, Syndi leaned across and whispered to Kelly.

“I know what happened to Jonathon.”

Kelly immediately demanded to know. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 21”

The Monk – Part 20

Kent shook his head slowly.

“Show me or I will kill you now!” shouted Nix.

“No. You won’t do that. You have been ordered not to kill me.”

“Are you so sure about that?” said Nix, bringing the gun back up to Kent’s face again.

“Yes, I think Peterson would have been very particular about that. Especially to you.”

Nix stared down the sights of his gun, his resolve fading away. Eventually he put the gun down and nodded.

“Yes, Sophim Peterson has specifically told me not to kill you. He wants to kill you himself.”

“Has he told you this? That he wants to kill me himself?”

“No. But I think I know him well enough. I think he enjoys the killing and doesn’t want to share the fun. Which is fair enough, I intend to do the same thing when I am his rank one day.”

“Hmmm, so Peterson doesn’t trust you to know the truth then. Interesting.”
Nix laughed, “You’re trying to spread suspicion into the ranks of the Tyranni? Have you any idea how ridiculous that is?” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 20”

The Monk – Part 19

Kent’s custom was to eat lunch at his home between work shifts on a Friday and as such he was pedalling down Cutters Court when he caught sight of Nix sitting in a car near the entrance. Pretending not to have noticed him Kent pulled over and parked his bike on the opposite side of the street from the factory he lived underneath, and chained it to the fence leading to the park and brick kiln beyond. Knowing he was being observed he made a subtle spectacle of looking out towards the path leading away, and started walking towards it. It wasn’t long before he heard the sound of a car slam to a halt at the end of the street. Jerking his head back there was Nix erupting from the car and preparing to dash after him. Kent quickly sprinted straight for the path that went out towards the lake area beyond the kiln. Behind him Nix was following.

The brick kiln was originally built next to a clay quarry so it could be supplied with the raw materials for making the bricks. With the closure of the brick kiln this area had been turned into an artificial lake. Since it wasn’t a natural lake, minerals had seeped into the water and turned it opal green. There was no top soil around the edges but hundreds of pine trees grew up around the banks, obviously not affected by the minerals in the water as much as the other plants were. A local environmental group had built boardwalks along the edge of the lack and through the forest of trees growing up around it. On the weekend there might have been people around, but on a Friday afternoon it was deserted. This was the place Kent had fled into and the place he was leading his hunter. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 19”

The Monk – Part 18

I am feeling really bad about the lack of updates over the past two weeks. So today I am giving you a special super long update (over 2,500 words). I hope you enjoy it.

Oriana walked into her father’s factory that morning, still wearing the same clothes from the day before. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for her. She would often be out all night and instead of coming home just head back to the factory. She expected that her father would just give her his usual nod and say “hi, honey,” as she walked in but instead he looked at her sternly and used his finger to indicate that she was to follow him to his office immediately. She sat down opposite her father’s desk while he stood for a few moments with his back to her facing the white board behind his desk. Oriana thought she saw his hands tremble slightly as he opened and closed them.

“Ana, I had a conversation with two policemen yesterday evening.”

Oriana gasped, she could hear the fury in her father’s voice.

“What? Peterson and Nix-,” she was cut off.

“They told me that you interfered with their investigation into a religious cult they believe are operating in this area and they are considering pressing charges against you for your own safety.”

“Dad, there’s something you should know, those men aren’t cops. I have a video of what really happened.”

Her father just shook his head slowly in disgust.

“Ana, shut up.”

Oriana’s mouth gaped open, “Excuse me?”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear any of your lies. You are just like your mother. You don’t care at all how your actions could impact other people.” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 18”

The Monk – Part 17

(Because I missed last week, this is a special longer episode of the Monk. Sorry for the disruption)!

Peterson smiled gleefully at the strange audience in attendance to him. He spread out his palms before him in a gesture of welcome.

“May no good deed go unpunished!”

Nix and the two women immediately started chuckling at Peterson’s joke.

“It is good to meet fellow Tyranni, when I put out the call for help I was surprised to find that our order already had two agents living and working in this city. We have a problem. There is a monk living in this city: a young man by the name of Kent. He is studying to become a druid and he has some sort of missionary work here for the Aeshir.”

Nix produced a tablet computer and sent a file labelled “Kent Andrews” to the two women present. Each woman pulled out a similar looking tablet and examined the photos of Kent in the files while Peterson continued talking.

“Kent appears to be working to recruit three young growkons into the Aeshir. We know these growkons are working with him because when we tried to apprehend him yesterday they conspired with Kent to acquire some damaging video footage of Nix and myself carrying out our work for the Tyranni. Kent is now threatening our order with this footage and the growkons he is trying to recruit are continuing to assist him.

“Our primary objective is to first secure the footage at the earliest opportunity. The best approach for doing this would be to corrupt Kent’s growkons and initiate them into the Tyranni. This way if anyone releases the footage we can have someone counter any claims they make about us by saying they are fake. Ideally they would help us delete all copies of this video and murder anyone who is hostile to the Tyranni. If we can get just one of these growkons to convert to the order then we can act to destroy all opposition, but I see no reason why we shouldn’t try to recruit all three if possible.” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 17”

The Monk – Part 16

(this is a direct continuation from the conversation started at the end of part 15)

“The fox in the field will run, the fox in the forest will hide, but the fox in a cage will fight,” said Suvarin repeating the Aeshiric idiom.

Kent was confused, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, for now the Tyranni see an option to beat us that is non-violent, so they will most likely take it – just as a fox will run or hide if it has those options. So long as they think they are getting somewhere in their attempts to turn the three growkons* against us they will not carry out any acts of violence. However, if those three growkons succeed in protecting themselves against the Tyranni’s rhetoric, they will escalate to violence because they can’t risk them becoming spiritual or joining the Aeshir; despite the harm that video recording might do to them.”

“I see what you’re getting at now,” Kent sighed deeply, “Since the Tyranni have been humiliated by me, and are intolerant of being humiliated even though they will happily dish it out to other people, they are unlikely to just let this go, so violence might be needed by us to get them to leave.” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 16”

The Monk – Part 15

After Kent had finished telling the others his parable there were scarce seconds of silence before Kelly, who had been struggling to contain herself, spoke up.

“Kevin, come and change your clothes… you’re very smelly!” shouted out Kelly laughing hysterically.

“Kevin, come and change your clothes again! You’ve been a naughty boy getting dirty underground!” cried out Oriana.

Paul laughed along with the girls, only Suvarin was unaffected by the intense jovial laughter coming from them. Kent, shielded from scrutiny thanks to the blind folds kept silence.

“Thank you, Kent,” said Suvarin warmly, “I like that parable. It is coming along nicely.”

Kent thanked her, and they continued on for a couple more minutes before Kent announced they had arrived. Paul, Kelly, and Oriana were relieved to have their blindfolds removed. They were still underground, but underneath a ladder up to a manhole. Kent went ahead and opened it up for them to climb out, Paul needed help to climb out but was starting to manage better. They were on a quiet backstreet in a suburb over from where Oriana lived. Kelly recognised it immediately and announced she knew a friend nearby who could give them a room to stay for the night. They said goodbye to Kent and Suvarin who departed back down the manhole, closing it behind them. The trio then set off with Kelly in the lead. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 15”