Strapping up, Niklaus headed for the door. He had been in the room for all of twenty minutes before he was back out again. But he would have to get used to it again as he doubted he would be keeping regular hours over the next couple of weeks.
Celt had a series of safe houses all over the world. He could be the poster child for backup plans and making sure that if anything went wrong, he could hide out somewhere and not be found. In the state of New York alone, he had seven, but out of those seven, there was only one that he used as his private residence, and only seven members of the Den actually knew of its existence. Niklaus was one of those seven.
It was once a cotton candy factory, and despite the time that had passed since it closed down, it still smelled faintly of sugar. Celt had converted the place into a loft-style apartment, making improvements as he went along.
Pulling up outside the building, Niklaus killed the engine and climbed out, jogging over to the lift, pushing the gate open and stepping in before pressing the button for him to go up. The lift rocked and rattled, a testament to how long the building had been standing, before it stopped entirely.
Stepping into the loft, Niklaus barely spared the place a glance—having been there a number of times over the years—and headed for the kitchen pantry where there was a hidden keypad behind the spice rack. One code and palm print later, Niklaus was stepping onto another elevator, this one having been specially installed by contractors that were close to the Den. The brushed nickel interior looked innocent at first glance, but there was a tiny camera in the ceiling, and if there ever happened to be someone riding down to the hidden level that Celt didn’t sanction, he only had to press a button on his phone to release a gas that would incapacitate his victim in moments.
On the ride down, Celt held life and death in his hands.
When the doors finally opened, letting in the stark whiteness of the War Room, Niklaus had to blink a few times to clear his vision. Guns lined the backlit walls, black racks hanging on all sides except for one. There were a number of monitors that made up that last wall. Three were for each level of the building where Celt had set up cameras, and the fourth was for the outside perimeter. Then, there was the wall of money that Celt had. While Niklaus was usually one to receive his payments in wired transactions to offshore bank accounts—before he ultimately moved the money when the need arose—Celt preferred to get paid in cash, storing the excessive amounts in his home. This wall of currency was only a small fraction of how much money was truly in this place.
Sitting at the conference table that was nearly as wide as it was long and split the room in half was Celt. His booted feet were kicked up, a keyboard resting on his thighs as he lazily surfed the web, barely sparing Niklaus a glance as he entered, but when he did, his answering smile illuminated his bearded face.
Niklaus could still remember the day he and Celt crossed paths.
It was after he had agreed to go with Z. After a plane and car ride that he only vaguely remembered. Perhaps a day’s time after Z had left him in that windowless room, his ominous words lingering in the silence of the room.
The longer he had remained in that room, the more time his mind had to focus, not on the mysterious place had then resided at—though he’d had plenty of time to think on that considering how long he had been left alone. No, after his thoughts had drifted from the present, they went back to the one place he wished they hadn’t.
Sarah…
But the thought of her hadn’t overwhelmed him as he had thought it would. Instead, he had grown used to the silence, or he had falsely believed he hadn’t gone mad yet, at least until a piercing noise began emitting from the walls, forcing him to cringe away from the noise though there was nowhere to go.
Soon, he had thought he heard tiny voices talking to him, making him laugh at his own insanity.
He had been so sure he was losing it.
Finally, after he’d been sure he couldn’t take anymore, everything shutoff once more as darkness reigned once more. A long time—or it had felt like that at the time—the door to his room had opened, making Niklaus jolt, his eyes swinging to the man that had been entering.
He hadn’t been much older than Niklaus had at the time, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five—he still wasn’t sure of Celt’s age to this day—but he had the eyes of a man that had seen many things.
Unlike when Niklaus had first been brought in, Celt hadn’t been wearing a mask, and the only reason Niklaus recognized him was because of the two black bands that were tattooed on his left forearm.
He’d brought in a glass of water, a lifeline if Niklaus had ever seen one.
Right as he was about to leave, Celt had said something that had stuck with him since the last word was uttered.
“Do not fear death. Embrace it. Pain is inevitable, learn to love it.”
Niklaus didn’t want to think where he would be without Celt.