Here Comes The Son (Ghost Band / Papa Emeritus fic)

Escape?

Sitting in the passenger seat of a dark blue sedan, currently being driven down the long and busy highway, a man, bored with the long drive, plucked a cell phone from his jacket pocket and pressed a speed dial on the keypad. Waiting only about half a minute, he smiled as he thought of their recent well executed plan. It was fair to say that a large part of the reason for the call was merely to gloat about his success.

"Hello?" The voice answered with a hesitant tone, not recognising the caller ID.
"It's me," the leader of Copia's kidnappers stated carefully.
"Wilson?" The voice on the other end of the phone sounded aggravated, "How many times have I told you not to call me here?"
"Well, you answered," the man snorted.
"I wasn't expecting it to be you," he hissed in return before sighing. "Anyway, I'm alone, what do you want?"
"It's more about what you want," the man almost laughed.
"You..." the voice became urgent, almost hungry, before checking himself - anyone could have been listening in to his calls here. Starting again, he sounded professional as if discussing supplies of some sort. "You got what I wanted?"
"Certainly," Wilson smirked with disdain at what he saw as the man's overuse of discretion. Knowing how much he wanted all the cruel and unpleasant information he continued. "Don't you want me to go into detail?" He teased with a chuckle.
"No," the man snapped, angry at Wilson for already potentially giving away too much. "I'll meet you as planned. The time and place we agreed."
"Of course," the man nodded as he spoke. "What do you want me to do with... it, in the meantime?"

The man sighed and he shook his head, growing increasingly furious with Wilson's attitude and lack of both respect and discretion.

"Store it. Don't break it, or you'll pay for it. Do you understand, Wilson. This is... mine."
"Yeah," Wilson's smirk fell away at the threat. "You're the client, of course it's yours, but you better pay for it."
"Oh, Wilson, don't threaten me. Just do your job and you'll be rewarded well enough."
"I'd better," he snarled in return, now angry at his contact.
"Or what?" The man laughed, his anger making him forget discretion. "You'll go to the police?"
"You have no idea what I might do," Wilson offered a new but intentionally vague threat.
"And you, my dear Wilson, have no grasp of the wide ranging punishments I could rain down on you. Do not test me or you will regret it."
"Rain down?" Wilson scoffed. "Who do you think you are? God?"

A sneering laugh snaked down the telephone signal and seemed to pierce Wilson's eardrum with a figurative spike of pure evil, yet somehow causing actual physical pain.

"Hardly," the man laughed, "but you really don't want to find out. Trust me!"
"Trust you?" Wilson scoffed, irritated by the threatening words but his instincts telling him not to press the matter. "Sure."
"Make certain my item is... secured well. You know its value."
"I thought it had no value to you at all," Wilson deadpanned, still scowling.
"In many respects priceless and worthless are the same. This will be one until it's the other, but it is my decision when that happens, so as far as you are concerned, it is priceless. Understood?"
"Yeah, sure," Wilson grew ever more irritated by the lecturing. "I'll see you there then?"
"You will."

The call was cut off abruptly and still seething with unresolved anger at being threatened, Wilson scowled as the car pulled up to the building that would be their home for however long this would take. He closed his eyes and sighed at the dramatic choice of location - an abandoned church. Stepping slowly, almost reverently, from the car he looked up at the crumbling yet still tall and magnificent gothic spire that towered over them. Looking like something from a horror movie, the spire that had at some point in its distant past taken a hit from a lightning strike appeared to survive with a life all of its own with each of the gargoyles peering down in judgement on the four men now standing outside the car. Shadows moved over the misshapen but still ornamental bricks as the trees rustled around them. A chill descended as the cold night air seeped under their clothes like water, causing a shiver that began deep inside each of them before rising like a spirit through their shoulders making each shudder uncomfortably.