Tag: cult

The Monk – Part 34

Laneg was sitting in a small rectangular and heavily insulated room with a large pair of television screens dominating one of the long walls. There was a semicircular table arranged in front of the screens with space for four people to sit at. On one of the screens was the logo of the Salvati order and on the other was the face of a wise eyed woman in her mid fifties massaging her temples thoughtfully. There was a knock at the door and in hobbled Suvarin on her crutches and Kent trying in earnest to be so helpful to her that he was almost a hindrance. The woman on the screen opened her eyes and two brilliant sapphire blue eyes seemed to glitter at them.

Kent placed one hand just below his left shoulder and bowed respectfully towards the woman on the screen, Suvarin did the same but she made the gesture towards Laneg

“Honoured by your presence Priestess,” said Kent, “Allow me the honour of introducing you to my friend Suvarin. Suvarin allow me to introduce priestess Catherine Harking of the second order.

“Honoured to meet you priestess,” responded Suvarin

Catherine Harking surveyed the three people sitting in the conference room gravely and waited until all attention was focused on her image on the video screen before talking.
Continue reading “The Monk – Part 34”

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 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 7

“They’re in there, no doubt looking for Kent. What should we do?”

Paul frowned, “I actually think I should just walk up to them and ask them what they’re doing here. Pretend I don’t know anything and see what they say to that.”

Oriana gasped, “Oh Paul, that’s so obvious. They don’t know you and as far as they know you’re working for the owner of this site. Asking them how they are might get us some real answers. To think here I was thinking we should just watch them. Well, I’ll use my phone to record what happens just in case.”

Paul nodded his agreement, straightened up to his full height and walked confidently into the main doors. Peterson and Nix noticed him almost immediately. Rather than wait for them to start the conversation Paul decided the most convincing course of action was to take the initiative. In his most authoritative voice he boomed to the men in the large old building, “Excuse me gentlemen, what are you doing here? This building is off limits to the public!”

Oriana slipped along the outside of the building and found a hole in the wall to listen into. The hole was quite close to the ground so after fiddling with her phone camera she figured it would be safe to record the action inside. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 7”

The Monk – Part 5

Oriana was caught unprepared by detective Peterson’s question. Although he had not said Kent’s name yet, she assumed they had to have been referring to him. Who else fitted the description of being a suspicious person? The two men were waiting for her answer, but she maintained the appearance of being surprised into silence longer than she needed to be so as to give herself enough time wonder: had Kent actually done something so wrong that it warranted a police investigation? True, he was an eccentric man, but he seemed gentle and harmless enough, in fact he had said he helped to catch some criminals. If he had helped the police to catch a gang of thieves courageously in the past, surely he can’t truly be a bad person?

Peterson grew impatient with Oriana’s deliberate silence which she had played out a little too long. He repeated the question, “Have you been in contact with anyone suspicious?”

Oriana slowly nodded, “Yes, I think I might have.”

“Might have?”

“Well, I met a strange man, called Kent, yesterday, but…” she trailed off. Continue reading “The Monk – Part 5”