‘Ow! You … you b-, broke my j-, j-, jaw! Ow! Ow!’ he whimpered. After these pathetic words had dribbled out of his split-open lips he spat weakly, and a gooey slick of blood with two broken yellow teeth in it stained the floor.
‘I told you this liar would say such things,’ the priest said with grave sincerity to AH-477 and AH-1513. ‘You two may leave the room and begin preparations for your holy crusades. As for this servant of the Evil One, this devil from the underworld who has taken over the body of what was once the Patriarch … we will deal with him.’
‘Yes master,’ both of the assassins said in unison before they hurried out of the room.
The priest stepped calmly up to the door and locked it behind them after they had left.
‘You … you…’ rasped Mr Li impotently, his lips flapping and mouth gasping mechanically like an air-drowning fish. He spat out another mouthful of blood-streaked saliva, and another broken tooth bounced across the stone floor.
‘Your era is over, uncle.’
This simple declaration was as plain as it was violent. It was at this moment that the severity of Mr Li’s current position began to dawn upon him. Gripping the edges of the chair, he hauled himself up onto his knees, sweating, panting and gasping as he drooled out a slick mess of blood and spittle. He stumbled over to his nephew – the priest – and fell at the man’s feet, gripping at his robes and sobbing.
‘Whatever these Russian snakes have p-, p-, promised you, I’ll give you d-, double! No, no, t-, t-, triple! Wait, wait, quadruple! You know I’ve got it, you know, you know, you know, you know I do!’
The priest shook his head and stared down at Mr Li with an expression that was pure contempt. Sigurd, beaming out his vulture’s grin, rumbled out an interjection.
‘Remember the deal. We want the two assassins we’ve already ordered, and four adult models.’
‘And you shall have them,’ the priest said calmly, before turning to speak again to Mr Li. ‘They offered me something that you would never give me, uncle.’
Desperation seized the older man, and like a cerebral parasite it hijacked the electrical signals that controlled his muscles, causing his limbs to jerk, stiffen and flop alternately. Somewhere in this tangle of spasms and weeping yet another signal misfired, and he lost control of his bladder. A patch of warm, humiliating wetness spread across his crotch and his upper right thigh.
‘I told you, I’ll triple, no, quadruple whatever sum they’ve offered, I’ll do it! F-, f-, five times the amount! Will that do?! Six! No, no, s-, s-, seven! Seven!’
Unmoved by his uncle’s pleading – and, indeed, rather disgusted by it – the priest simply shook his head and crossed his arms. Cackling out a dry laugh, he glared down at the sobbing man at his feet.
‘No.’ This single syllable was as a hefty club striking Mr Li’s skull. ‘You see, I don’t need your money, uncle. Hell, I’ll be a billionaire in a few short years anyway. There is something that I want more than money, though. Way more than plain, vulgar cash … and that, uncle, is power. That’s what I want. And that’s what I have now. More power than I ever could have dreamed of. The power of a fucking god. This company is mine now. From this moment on, I’m the majority shareholder.’
‘Impossible! My s-, son, the company will go to him when I die, you know that! It will never go to you! N-, n-, never!’
‘I know that. But there’s a clause in the contract that maybe you’ve forgotten about: should all of the members of your immediate family somehow expire, both the traditions of our culture and the legally binding contract stipulate that the next in line for control is … me. That’s why your son, his wife, your two grandchildren and your wife have all just perished in a freak automobile “accident”. Their SUV “crashed” on the freeway just outside of Shanghai. There was a fire in the vehicle, and for some reason the central locking system “malfunctioned”, and they were all trapped inside the vehicle as it burned. What a tragedy, and what an awful and painful way for an entire family to die … but what fortunate timing for me, don’t you think?’
Every drop of blood drained at once from Mr Li’s face.
‘You’re my nephew! My fucking nephew! How could you?!’ he screeched, blood and spittle flying from his broken mouth. It seemed that he had finally found a sliver of courage within the lump of jellyfish sludge into which he had begun to melt.
This little spark of resistance was quickly extinguished, though, as Hrothgar silenced him with a vicious kick to his ribs, while Sigurd looked on with remorseless eyes, cold as polished zircon.
‘Exactly, uncle. That’s all I ever would have been. Your fucking nephew, having to be content with little table scraps from this enterprise while your family took the lion’s share. Did you really think I’d settle for that?! My family has lived in the shadow of yours for two generations now, even though General Li was as much my mother’s grandfather as he was your grandfather! You see, my ambition was far greater than simply accepting that sort of lot in life – that of a lower relative, bowing and scraping before your fucking family, even though we share the same venerated ancestor! I couldn’t possibly settle for it. No, no. I wanted it all. And now … now, I have it.’
‘You … you...’ Mr Li gasped, choking on his rage and terror and helplessness. A burning, urgent pain shot through his guts; now that he had already suffered the indignity of wetting himself, it seemed that involuntarily voiding his bowels was next.
‘I’ve had enough of your whining, uncle,’ the priest muttered. He turned to Hrothgar
