He was almost ready to move again. The problem of living longer than everyone else in the world, was a need to move every fifteen to twenty-five years. That was usually the time frame in which people started noticing that he didn't seem to age.
He had used his contacts in the several different criminal organizations, and one of his legitimate government contacts, to get his new identity ready. His new ID would stand up to scrutiny from foreign governments, as it was legitimate. It had cost him enough to make it so.
He had already accepted a post in the United States as a language and history teacher, in a private school. He had to laugh at that. Not only did he have flawless credentials proclaiming him qualified to teach languages and history, but he knew more languages than were listed on his so called resume, and had lived the history he was qualified to teach.
The name he would be going by now, was Juris Kristaps. This was Latvian for George Christopher. Having gotten his new ID firmly settled and all the appropriate paperwork in place for his move to the US, there was only one thing left to do.
This was how he had found himself in France, tracking down the cell of a terrorist group that had caused the death of a family that he had grown to love over the past few years. Monika Saule and her two children had been killed by a terrorist bomb going off on a train they had been riding.
He had decided to take vengeance on those who had perpetrated this act of violence, with his own brand of violence. Utilizing a number of his underground contacts, he had gotten the names and locations of those involved.
Finally, sixty-two days after the incident, he was ready to exact his retribution. He was hiding in the shadows, in a quiet residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. He was dressed in dark clothing, but that was not what was keeping him from being noticed.
He had developed some special abilities over the past thousand years. One of these was his ability to fade into backgrounds, and remain unnoticed, much like a chameleon. Since he was wearing clothing, he had decided his ability was not limited to his skin, but had to do with a person's perception, or maybe his ability to wrap light around himself.
Somehow he was able to convince people around him, that he was not there. This ability had saved his life on numerous occasions in the past. He had first noticed he could do this, in the fifteenth century.
He shook his head and concentrated on the house across from him. It was a well-maintained place, set back from the street, so as to have a bit of privacy. He had already done a reconnaissance of the place over the last week and a half.
He knew that there would be four people within the house. Usually only one person left at a time, if anyone was going to leave. They all came out from time to time, but stayed on the property behind the six-foot high privacy walls.
He chose his time and moved quickly towards the wall and jumped. While he could not fly, he did seem to have the ability control how gravity affected his body. He jumped and sailed over the wall landing lightly on the other side. He crouched and waited to see if he had been seen or heard.
Nothing.
It was almost impossible for him to maintain his ability of not being seen, when he was using an alternate ability. He did not know why. Perhaps it was a concentration problem, or that he could not multi-task efficiently enough. In any case, he could not use more than one talent at a time, except when he was in close proximity to a target... very close.
He reached out with his mind, and was satisfied with what he found. Inside the house one person was awake, as usual. The other three were in that state he had learned to recognize as sleep. Now all he had to do was wait for this guard to come outside for one of his cigarette breaks.
He did not have long to wait. The guard came out and lit a cigarette. While the guard was not obviously armed, Juris took no chances. Using his ability to remain unseen, he slowly moved up to the guard, and slugged him with a blackjack.
Juris caught the guard as he was falling, and carried him into the house. He took out the plastic ties he had brought, and quickly secured the guard after relieving him of a knife and a pistol.
One down, and three to go. He was just getting ready to check the first bedroom, where he could 'feel' someone sleeping, when another door down the hall opened. He quickly and quietly moved into the bedroom he had been going towards, and closed the door most of the way, leaving it open a crack.
That was another problem with his 'talents'. If he was concentrating on one person, he lost his connection with the others. Still, his abilities gave him great advantage over other people. He looked out through the crack of the door and saw the leader, the man who had ordered the bombing. He had memorized this man's face from a photo his contact had given him.
He turned and looked at the man on the bed. He 'reached' out with his mind, and touched something in the man's head. The effect was immediate. The man on the bed arched his back, and his mouth drew back in a grimace of pain. Yet he did not scream. Only a small whimper escaped his mouth. The man on the bed lay tense and rigid, unable to do other than to endure incredible agony.
"Think about the innocents you have harmed while you suffer in silence. This is just the beginning of your pain, you scum," Juris told the quietly suffering man in Arabic.
Juris quickly moved through the house and shortly had the other two in the same condition as the man in the first bedroom. He carried everyone to the living room and placed them so they could see each other.
He quickly secured their arms behind their backs with plastic ties then released them from their pain. They immediately relaxed and started gasping for breath, breathing much easier, now.
Juris brought out a photo of his friend Monika, and her two children. He showed it to the mastermind of this cell, and instructed the man to look at it.
"I know you ordered the bombing of a train two months ago. This, this was a woman and her children I cared for. I no longer care for much in this world; but her and her children, I cared for. They were on that train, and were among your victims.
"You have roused something that would have better remained asleep. You have managed to anger me. This is something no one has done in more years than you have all been alive, if you added your ages together.
"Now I am going to extract a revenge from which there is no appeal. It will be most painful. I guarantee you will regret your actions," Juris told them.
Juris left them to think over what he had said, and searched the house. There were bomb-making materials in the basement. Juris noticed that they had assembled three powerful bombs in casings that had hundreds of nails attached to them, which would cause more pain and suffering when they exploded.
Juris returned upstairs from the basement, and started questioning the leader.
"I demand a lawyer. You can't treat me this way. Your actions are illegal, and are those of a madman," the leader said with a glare.
Juris laughed and responded, "You fool! I have been mad and returned to sanity, more times than you could possibly know. I am not the police. I don't have to give you a lawyer. I am going to give you the same justice you have inflicted upon your innocent victims, except it will be the most excruciating pain you will have ever experienced. I promise you," Juris finished coldly, in perfect Arabic.
For the next two hours he concentrated on inflicting indescribable pain on three of the four people laying in the living room. The fourth still had not recovered from being slugged with the blackjack, and so was immune to his manipulations.
Juris had much more planned for this little group, but that was all the time he had. It was then, that the French police moved in and broke into the house. Juris immediately went into his 'hidden' mode. While the police moved through the house, he remained unseen.
Juris had watched the ringleader's eyes widen as Juris had disappeared right in front of him. He smiled to himself. This would cause him even more terror, just thinking about the kind of being that could inflict pain by just saying so, and then disappear into thin air.
Juris watched as the police looked at the four who were bound on the floor. One of the terrorists was babbling in fear, about a demon that had been torturing them. Shortly an officer came back upstairs, and reported that there were bombs downstairs, along with enough material to make several more.
Juris listened as the police asked them who had done this to them. One man babbled about a demon, and the leader told his men to be silent, as Allah would protect them. Juris smiled grimly and carefully wandered over to the leader. He placed his hand almost on the man's head and 'reached' into the man's mind and caused him to arch in agony and remain so, screaming in pain.
Juris quickly moved out of the way, as the police medic responded to the terrorist's cry of pain. Since Juris had been so close to the person he was trying to affect, he did not lose his hiding ability. It was another oddity of his abilities, for which he was thankful. As long as he was close to whom he wanted to affect, he could do so without breaking his hiding ability.
Juris slowly made his way out of the house, after inflicting the same pain on the two other conscious terrorists. He slowly made his way through the police line, and before long, was several blocks away. He made it to the car he had parked, sometime before, and drove off.
He was at the airport and reading a newspaper with interest. The article said that the police had captured four terrorists, but that they seemed to be suffering some sort of medical problem, possibly associated from contamination with a nerve gas or biological agent.
The article went on to describe that it seemed to severely contract the muscles of the men involved and it was causing excruciating pain. As of now, the hospital was keeping them sedated and feeding them through tubes until they could come up with a treatment for them. A fourth terrorist who was taken along with the other three seemed not to be affected by the mysterious aliment. Nor did the police who had made the capture suffer any effects.
Juris smiled to himself as he finished the article. While he knew his 'touch' would fade over time, he knew that the three would suffer for several weeks until what he did wore off. He just regretted that the doctors were keeping them sedated.
"Ladies and gentleman, flight 712 nonstop to New York City is now boarding at gate 4. First class passengers board at this time," Juris heard.
He got up and moved to the door of the gate along with the other first class passengers. His boarding pass was taken and he went through. He found his seat and placed his briefcase in the overhead compartment, then settled himself down for the long flight ahead.
The flight had been long and boring but uneventful. After landing in New York, Juris went through customs and turned in some of his paperwork from the US consulate in Latvia. He also presented his passport, which was scanned by a computer.
"Welcome to America, Mr. Kristaps. Please allow four to six weeks for your Alien residence card to come to you, through the mail. In the meantime, this receipt is good for 90 days. Have a nice stay," the customs officer said.
Juris found himself and his bags moving through a gate, and officially into America.
"That's a funny name," Juris heard behind him.
He turned and saw a little girl who had been behind him. She was about eight years old.
"Nancy! What a thing to say! I am so sorry sir, she meant no offense," a woman, probably her mother, said
"No offense taken. Young lady, my name is Latvian. I am Juris Kristaps, which would translate as George Christopher, in English. Names mean things, you know," Juris explained with a smile.
Edited by TeNderLoin