Free To Kill a Priest - The Priors, Episode 1 by Weston Kincade

Prologue
    Questionable Sanity

     
    For the first few seconds of consciousness,
Daniel Robertson sat on the edge of his bed, staring at a ghastly
image in the full-length mirror. A child stared back through
eyeless sockets, its skin seared to a charred remnant of its former
self. Even in his waking moments, he saw the same nightmarish
memory. It was as though sleep hadn’t found him.
    His digital clock glowed red, 5:04 a.m. The
nightmares never let him sleep through the night. He groped for the
most recent bottle he’d haphazardly tossed aside the night before,
but gave up when he spotted it on the floor.
    His eyes returned to the wooden stand, but
the phantom child was nowhere to be seen. Instead, his own
depressed reflection peered back through eyes that spoke of more
pain than his age should have allowed. Years spent serving in the
Middle East had dried him out, so deep his bones even felt parched.
A large X marred his cheek, long-ago healed, but it was a reminder
of his inescapable past. Sweat swelled from nowhere and grudgingly
streamed down his forty-three-year-old, leathered face. At each
wrinkle there was a split-second hesitation.
    Fragments of his past flickered through his
mind in a jumbled mess. Piecing them together while semi-conscious
was like constructing a jigsaw puzzle, but suddenly the sequence of
horrific events snapped into place like snapshots from someone
else’s travels. Glimpses of unwanted memories returned that even
alcohol couldn’t drive away.
    “ As though I could ever
forget,” he muttered, thinking back to the horrifying
visage.
    The dim glow of a streetlamp streamed
through the window and cast tall shadows across the room. His
yellow complexion melded with the aged bedsheets like a sickly
chameleon. Even in El Paso, a heat wave like this was unusual.
    A slight breeze startled the curtains to
life, and newspaper clippings fluttered on the wall before
resigning to the push pins’ insistence. The sound drew his
attention, and he flicked on the nearest table lamp. It did little
to illuminate the room, but was enough to see by. The victims
stared out at him, their lives amounting to a small blurb. Above
their heads, the articles announced, ‘Man Found Dead in Car
Explosion,’ and ‘Woman Killed in Foiled Carjacking,’ among
others.
    He knew them by heart. Each represented a
failed attempt to save his ex-employer’s targets. They were all
that remained of his recent pursuit for salvation. He sniffed at
the stale tobacco odor that permeated the apartment. It was as
though the small space could never get clean—a feeling he was quite
familiar with.
    Lifting himself from the bed, Daniel
straightened and listened to the crack of his joints. He stretched
his arms and crept over to the open window, his skin masking the
muscular build beneath. With each footstep, the floor announced to
his neighbors that he was awake. It was a reminder of the innocent
lives he put in jeopardy by staying here for two months. Black
Force was after him, and they were just as well trained as he. His
old mercenary friends wouldn’t take hostages, and they had no
qualms with eliminating witnesses.
    He needed to move on before he was found,
but it was difficult to give up such an ideal location. One reason
he chose this dilapidated part of the city was the unfriendliness
of the people. His weathered complexion helped him to blend in, and
the fact that he spoke not a word of Spanish afforded him his
solitude.
    Daniel smiled as another faint breeze
drifted through the window. Seeing an oncoming car, he stepped out
of the moonlight and alongside the curtains. There was no need to
broadcast his presence. Watching the sidewalk below, his attention
was drawn to an interesting individual.
    The man was different from other street
inhabitants headed to work. He casually strode under the
streetlamps holding an AK-47, but no one took notice. It was like
the armed man was invisible. He passed the taco vendor Daniel
frequented,