John Radcliffe Hospital
David stirred in bed, opening his eyes to find himself in a sterile white room, surrounded by beeping machines and flashing lights.
Ah, yes. The hospital. I suppose the old man changed his mind about shooting me, after all.
A shaft of pain pierced his heart as he remembered the sight of his loved ones' graves. It had been a very long time since he'd set foot in that churchyard. In fact, he hadn't been there at all since the funeral. Even though several years had passed, it was still too painful for him to bear. The thought of his wife and son in the cold ground, the immobile stones above serving not only as markers of who they were in life, but as a testament to the happiness that David once lived. It was a bright light which was suddenly extinguished by the hand of death, a life of joy that he could neither return to nor recreate, despite his best efforts.
Grace.
Nearly six years before, when he had sought sanctuary in India to heal his wounds and come to terms with his troubled past, she rescued him from the aching loneliness that had consumed him. With one smile, she had knocked down the walls that surrounded his heart and conquered him, body and soul. He had thought of her every day, dreamt of her every night. He had to have her, and he couldn't rest until she was his.
At the time he knew she was waiting for a man who didn't deserve her, but he was determined to woo and win her. When her mystery lover never showed, David took the opportunity to take things beyond friendship. He had devoted himself completely to her happiness, and gave everything he had to drive away the haunted look in her eyes. He had succeeded enough for her to trust him, confide in him. It was enough for her to marry him.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes to block out the mid-afternoon sun that streamed in from the opened window blinds. Besides the fact that he loved her more than his own life, he had originally proposed to Grace because he thought the child she carried was his. She had quickly shattered his illusions. She said that she didn't want to unfairly burden him with another man's child, but at the time he honestly didn't care as long as he had her. He stood by his offer of marriage, embracing the possibility of having a family once again. He had wanted a child that would fill the gaping hole in his heart with unconditional love, and he had also hoped to conceive a child of his own with Grace someday.
Sadly, it was not to be. Soon after Rafe turned three years old, David learned from his doctor that he could never father another child. As a result of his discovery, his tender feelings for his surrogate son began to fade away, replaced by anger and resentment towards the child as well as the stranger who had sired him.
David knew that it was unfair and cruel to feel that way, but he couldn't cope with seeing such a brilliant child day after day and knowing that he was the product of another man, and that he himself would never have a son to replace the one he lost long ago.
Sterile. How ironic. This is my punishment for past sins; I have lost my ability to create life because I've willingly taken the lives of so many.
While David was unconscious, his dreams had been saturated with blood as he remembered and relived the experience of killing off his enemies. He saw each individual face in his mind's eye as he approached them one by one, reveled in the taste of their fear and agony as he ripped them apart. They were the ones who violated and killed his mother, and he had made them pay dearly for what they had done.
Looking back, he felt justified because he had done it for revenge. But it was only years later when he began to do it for enjoyment and personal gain, and that alone caused him to have nightmares every night.
Falling in love with Caitlin had temporarily silenced the rage inside him. When she and the baby died, there was nothing left to prevent him from sliding back into the abyss. After they were gone and buried, he left everything and wandered the globe in a haze of grief. Not even his best friend Liam had been able to reach him, couldn't bring him back to his senses.
With nothing left to lose, David immersed himself in the criminal underworld, dealing with a wide variety of shady businessmen and taking incredible risks to earn large sums of cold, hard cash. He became an assassin with a reputation for being icy and merciless, and his victims were always left in a condition where the cause of death was impossible to be pinpointed. For his unusual expertise, he had been highly sought after by clients in need of a professional to do their dirty work. He never refused a job.
On his travels, he visited so many places that they all began to blur together; Tokyo, Dubai and Paris all looked the same under the harsh neon glare of the casinos, cheap hotels and bars that he had frequented to conduct his business transactions. The pay was wonderful, and he had gladly earned every penny.
In the fourteen years that he had worked as a hired killer, David had always taken great pains not to get emotionally involved. But one night, while on an assignment, he reached his personal boundaries and crossed them.
He had been hired by a branch of the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia, to track down and eliminate a rogue member who had left the group to marry a young woman. Since it was against their code for members to marry or start a family, the others in the group wanted him dead as well as the woman in question to regain their honor.
It took three weeks before David managed to find the young man and his bride, locating them in a quiet suburb near Kyoto. He stalked the couple until the opportunity to strike presented itself. He had waited until they were asleep and silently entered their house, moving like a ghost. For reasons that were unknown to him, he had decided against attacking them in raven form as he did with many of the others, opting instead to use an antique katana sword, its blade honed to a razor's edge.
He stood over their bed, watching them sleep as he raised the sword high in the air. He plunged the blade into the young man's chest, his stomach churning as the youth's screams of pain reached him. The woman awoke and screamed as she saw the pristine white sheets covered in her husband's blood. David twisted the sword until the man finally died, and then he turned to the woman.
She had bolted from the bed in a futile attempt to save herself; it was easy for him to catch up with her. He dragged her back into the bedroom by her hair, hating himself for his weakness and hesitation at harming an unarmed woman. She cursed him and tried to bite him, but he had quickly subdued her struggles. She begged for her life, but David struck her down as if he was swatting a pesky fly. After she had breathed her last, his real work of the night had begun.
I want proof that the job has been carried out properly
, the leader of the Yakuza gang had told him, and David knew that he had to deliver on his promise.
Later that night, David had gone back to the nightclub and met with his employer. The proof that he had asked for was presented to him in a small metal box. The sadistic bastard had laughed upon opening the box, and David wanted to vomit at the sight of his own handiwork.
Inside the box was the young man's heart and the tiny fetus of his wife's unborn child, which was removed from her dead womb with a surgeon's precision.
Returning to the present, David cringed hard at the memory of his crime, his cruelty and his shame. He was so devastated by what he had done to that young couple that he had immediately retired from the role of hit man and swore never to kill another human being. He rose above the dregs of society and put his knowledge of business to work, using the money he had earned as an assassin to create Anami Enterprises and to make it one of the top companies in Japan and then the world.
But he still couldn't sleep at night; no amount of money or success would wash away the river of blood that stained his hands, his mind and his dreams. After he married Grace, he had foolishly believed that it was the end of his service to the Morrigan and that he could live without the need to transform and hunt for souls, consuming them to gain power and longevity.
His recent taste of the old way of life back in London had greatly energized him, but he was deeply afraid of losing control again, of giving in to the dark impulse that always called out to him. Now that his life with Grace was ending, he desperately wanted to hold fast to the decent existence that he had worked so hard to build for himself. Even though Rafe wasn't his biological child, he still wanted to be a good person for his sake and somehow make amends for his behavior towards him.
David opened his eyes and sat up in bed.
There is still hate in my heart, and that is a far cry from who I want to be. I have to let go of the past and move on, but how? At first I thought that I could ignore the call of the birds, and for a long time I managed to do so. But then all this business with Cooper happened and I panicked, hiring a so-called expert to help out. But what do I have to fear? I didn't kill that bastard, and there's no way in hell that law enforcement could tie that to me.
He stared out of the window.
I have proven to myself that I can resist the urge. I haven't killed anyone since that last job all those years ago, and I can easily continue that route. But must I give up my gift, which was so generously bestowed upon me by the Goddess in my time of need? It is so liberating to become one with nature and fly with the ravens. Until last night, I hadn't realized how much I had missed it. I can't give it up, not now. Perhaps not ever. Knight's services are no longer needed.
