Into the Shadows Page 20

  That night, after shooting at unsuspecting drug dealers, I dreamt of ordering deaths by firing squad. Viggo's face was only a vague flicker in the background. When I woke, my first thought was of what Fletcher wanted me to do next. I wanted to think that he was after something basically righteous - you know, removing criminals - but his method seemed heavy-handed at best. Worst of all was that he used that Jedi mind control Gift, like Ragna had, and made me carry out his version of justice whether I wanted to or not. My opinion of hemos wasn't getting any better.

  I decided not to call Viggo about it. He expected information, and I didn't have much to give him yet. I spent the day doing common chores and errands, snuck in a nap, and then prepared to go meet with Fletcher again. With all my guns, combat knives and extra ammo in a duffel bag, I watched the time fly by until after nightfall. I grudgingly headed out, hoping against odds for a calm evening. Yeah, right.

  Fletcher was waiting for me at the same park shelter. I set my duffel bag on a picnic table for his inspection. He either wasn't a gun expert or just wanted to see what I had available; either way, he quickly and casually looked at my selection of firearms and seemed content. He then handed me a map and got right down to business.

  "Tonight," Fletcher began, "and for every night agreed upon until I say otherwise, you will be on patrol." While he spoke, I pulled out a pen light and looked at the map. "There are three parks I've marked, as you can see." Fletcher paused, and then continued. "Mr. Beck . . ." When he said nothing more, I looked over at him. I shouldn't have done that. Those damn burning eyes were waiting for me again.

  "You will search those parks - my parks - for any criminal activity or unwanted elements and remove them with prejudice," Fletcher demanded, drilling the order into my brain. "For every shift, meet me here soon after sunset to receive my orders. You will begin your tours at 10 p.m. and return to your home at 4 a.m., spending time patrolling one park each night. Take only necessary risks, but do what you must. For now, I don't care if you kill them, hurt them, or simply scare them off, but I want a lasting impression to be made. I want the poison of crime and fear purified. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes, elder, I understand." Fletcher was forcing me to be an enforcer, a vigilante. I had to imagine it was a military operation so that I could do whatever was needed and still be able to live with myself.

  I started right there in Green Valley Park. First, I drove the lanes to acquaint myself with them. At the same time, I kept in mind certain places where people could park or gather without being seen too easily. Other than a young couple getting busy in the back of a car, the big park was quiet that night. It gave me time to assess the other two parks by their locations. One was a couple miles south of my house, so I was aware of the area . . . and it wasn't good. The other was further north, sitting next to the rail yards. That was near where I grew up, so I knew it wasn't exactly a slice of heaven, either.

  I stayed diligent and mobile - whether by car or on foot - for the rest of the night. Nearing four in the morning, the effects of Fletcher's mind whammy started to wear off. Pressure slowly released from my brain, like a fist unclenching and loosening its control of me. It may sound weird, but I never noticed that pressure the whole time I was under his control. The one side-effect, aside from the dishonor of being used, was that I was fucking exhausted from staying on high alert for hours.

  I met with Fletcher again the next night, and he forced me to meet his glowing gaze again. From there, I drove to the south-central park - Spire Park - and circled it a couple times in my car. On one end of the forty-acre park was an old ball diamond with a sagging backstop, plus a tennis court with graffiti all over the asphalt. The middle of the park was sparsely treed with a few gang-marked benches here and there. At the other end of Spire Park was a rusty and littered playground that no children should've played in unless they were brave and recently had tetanus shots.

  Once on foot, every weapon I owned except my rifle was on me, all fairly well concealed under my long jacket. In most cases, I figured it would be best to act like I owned the fucking place and intimidate any scumbags out of the park before I actually shot at them. A gun's report scares people, but it would also get the cops on my ass. I had to walk a thin line but do what was needed to make an impression. For the smaller park, I had little chance to put my stealth training to work. Bold aggression was the best tactic.

  And I used it that very first night in Spire Park. From the cover of a big, dead tree, I saw three figures hanging out over by the jungle gym. It looked like young teens passing around a joint and a bottle. After taking a deep breath, I walked quickly across the slight downhill grade toward them with both 9mm's in my hands. By the time those idiots noticed me I was only fifty feet away, guns up and going right at them. "You're not welcome here," I said just loud enough for them to hear.

  Their surprise turned to alarm pretty quick. "Motherfucker," one of them yelled, "what -"

  I started shooting close to their feet; the bullets made soft noises hitting the dirt. Even without the flash and bang that the silencers suppressed, the young punks knew what was going on. I was raising my barrels as I came closer. One bullet hit an outer edge of one kid's baggy pants, and another made a hole in the billowy shirt of the kid next to him. They jumped back and started running.

  One kid tripped over part of the jungle gym in his haste to get away and landed hard. Before he could scramble back to his feet, I stood over him with both guns pointing at his face. "If you ever come back here," I growled, "it will be the last time you and your friends go anywhere. I'll spread chunks of you all over this park. Do you understand me?" It took a second, but the kid fearfully nodded. I took a step back. "Now get the hell out of here."

  As I expected, they started yelling their threats once they were all far enough away. I didn't know if they were part of a crew or not, but sooner or later I'd point my gun at someone that was. I figured Spire Park was claimed by a gang - hopefully a small group of losers, but I doubted it. I was gonna have to get a ski mask or something, get my rifle threaded for a silencer, and be extra damn careful.

  The realization that I was basically starting turf wars without any backup of my own made me queasy.

  USED

  "Elder, it's going to get worse before it gets better," I said three nights later to Fletcher under the roof of the park shelter as rain poured down. "And when it gets worse, I won't be able to handle all that shit on my own. Here," I gestured out toward Green Valley Park, "it's big enough that I can move around and have fallback positions, so that's okay. But at Spire and Colby Parks, there're only a couple decent sniper locations and nowhere to go if I'm flushed out."

  I was under his mind-control command Gift at the time, and he'd asked what the general situation was. There'd been a couple other encounters after those first ones. In both Green Valley and Spire, I noticed cars slowly driving around, more than likely looking for me. I planned on letting them do their lazy recon and let them think the attack was random. Then I'd come at them hard.

  In Colby, a heavily wooded park that offered more privacy, I pulled a would-be rapist off of a girl in his backseat and took my anger out on him. I tied him up and made an anonymous 911 call, although it was tough to do while she was screaming at him. She didn't even notice that he was unconscious. The short incident made the news. The girl was quoted in the paper: "A white man with big blue eyes in a ski mask pulled that b****** off me and then f***** his s*** up". The 'bastard' I pulled off her turned out to be a Barrio Mob member, so I figured they claimed Colby Park as part of their territory.

  Gwen told me that as gangs went, the Barrio Mob was one of the bigger ones in town. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. I never asked about her source - a police contact was a fair guess. In any event, I was just glad that I had Gwen as my info guru. She also gave me the name of a gun shop that could thread my Remington and had the correct suppressor in stock. I offered to repay her with a nice lunch, knowing she'd press me for details about my n
ew employer then. I planned on keeping my lies simple.

  "I understand, Mr. Beck," Fletcher said. He said it with a tone that implied he might've understood but simply didn't care. "Now is the time to truly enforce my issue." He grabbed my shoulder and leaned close. "Strike hard, take the fight to them. Make them remember." Damn that Gift of Control. I wanted to scream out that innocent people might get hurt, but I couldn't. My worry of civilians in the crossfire was mixed with strategies to do exactly as he said no matter who got hurt. "With more of an impact you make, the sooner I can move you on to other targets."

  "What other targets, elder?"

  "Did you think that the criminals in my parks were the beginning and end of this city's contamination? No, Mr. Beck, they are a result of a greater filth that fostered their growth. Industries and corporations not only belch pollution into the earth and sky, they also spread their corruption into the society of man. Discontent, poverty, greed, fear - that is what leaders of commerce create and rely on to build their false empires! Their injustices must end!"

  Fletcher was about to lose his cool, and I didn't want to be around when he did. Especially when I noticed that his fingernails had grown into thick three-inch claws. "I understand, elder," I said, backing away. "I'll continue with my current mission until you say to move forward with your goals."

  He dismissed me with a throaty grunt. I felt safer once I was in my car, but still broke a few traffic laws getting the hell out of there. Okay, so I was going to be working my way up; dealers and thugs were just the beginning. I hoped Fletcher wasn't expecting me to start knifing CEOs in their offices, but I didn't put it past him.

  Back at Spire Park once again, I soon saw the same big SUV circling the area. I crouched in a good spot of bush and tree cover and waited for a clear shooting zone where there weren't any parked cars. The first .308 bullet hit high in the front windshield. I was able to get another shot off before the driver hit the gas and wild sprays of gunfire came from the lowered back windows. Even with using a bolt-action and having to reload once, I still put at least seven big holes in that SUV before it drove out of sight.

  Back at home about an hour before dawn, I called Viggo to give a report. He told me not to give it over the phone, and that he'd 'arrive' soon. Half an hour later, he void-walked into my dark bathroom; for some reason, that unnerved me more than normal.

  When I told Viggo about Fletcher's goal for me to be a serial killer of corporate types, he wondered aloud, "I'm not sure how much assistance I can offer to thwart your efforts, and I'm not sure that I should. If you continually failed, you'd lose both credibility and your current position with Mr. Fletcher. Is it feasible to simply wound your targets from a safe distance?"

  I thought about the damage that even a small caliber bullet fired from a sniper rifle could do to an arm or leg. "Uh, I suppose that's possible, sir," I answered, "but only if my target is standing in front of a hospital with a trauma team waiting. The poor bastard wouldn't make it very far otherwise."

  "It's that effective, eh?" Viggo asked, looking away with a thoughtful expression.

  His question didn't need an answer, so I used the lull of conversation to express my main concern. "Sir, I'm not sure why I'm being allowed to be put in this position, and it's not my place to ask. It's just that Fletcher . . . he's using me, forcing my mind. It's like mental rape. Maybe I have too much pride, but it's humiliating. I come home at night literally sick to my stomach. I feel fucking degraded. Not to mention that I'm pissing off dangerous people. Is there some other way I can carry out your orders?"

  Viggo leaned forward in the chair and solemnly replied, "It must be this way for now, Leo."

  I don't mind saying that I was depressed as hell right then. My commander was making me serve one demented hemo after another. I hardly had to deal with Ragna's abuse anymore, but then I got rented to some Outsider bad-ass who mind-fucks me into being a tool for his sociopathic vision. And Viggo was letting it happen. Worst of all, I wasn't given a reason why I was being made to endure all that shit. There was no anger at Viggo for it, just a deep sadness that he didn't trust me enough to tell me.

  BLOODLUST

  Two nights later, I was walking through a lightly wooded section of Colby Park. At that moment I was wondering what white collar targets Fletcher had in mind, when I heard the inarticulate shout of a male voice somewhere ahead of me. I couldn't tell whether the yell was one of alarm or pain when it rang out and then cut short. I kept low and sped up my pace.

  In front of me was a thicker stand of trees plus some underbrush, with a small clearing just beyond. Scraping through bushes might have ruined any chance for surprise, so I hurried around to a clearer path. I zigzagged through trees and came to a stop just before the clearing. I wasn't expecting what I saw, and it made me hesitate for a second.

  There were two men on the ground ten feet away from me - one prone, and the other kneeling next to him. For a split second, I thought they were in some sort of gay lover's embrace. That is, until I saw all of the blood. The guy lying on the ground was pulled up against the other dude, who had his mouth clamped on the guy's neck.

  The guy on the ground looked middle-aged, dressed conservatively, and was pretty much dead. One of his legs twitched, but his arms were limp at his sides and his eyes stared up at the night sky. The dude kneeling next to him - obviously a goddamn hemo - looked like a young hitchhiker that you knew better than to offer a ride to.

  The bastard didn't seem content to just bite and suck. Like an animal, he tore at the poor guy's neck with snarls, primal grunts and crude slurps. He was out of control, consumed with draining the guy dry. Blood covered the lower half of his face and the upper torso of his dinner. He was a messy eater.

  Right as I was reaching for my guns, the greasy-haired hemo looked over at me with wild eyes while still sucking at the gaping wound he'd made. He suddenly pulled his face away from the gory gash, and let loose some sort of fierce noise at me. It was a mix of a howl and a hiss, made by a red-smeared mouth that opened impossibly wide. I swear his jaws had to have unhinged. The combination of his elongated, bloodstained teeth, demonic eyes, aggressive crouch and feral snarl . . . it hit some panic button that I didn't know I had. It scared the living shit out of me. I ran away, and fast - a lot faster than I thought I could. It seemed like only seconds later I was near my car. That's when I came to my senses.

  That murdering motherfucker must have used some hemo Gift to scare me off. I never would have run away like a coward otherwise. I swore under my breath, unlocked my car and grabbed my duffel bag. Pissed at myself more than anything, I went back down into the long, shallow valley of woods and open pockets to search for him.

  It was only a few minutes later that my scope found the hemo prick. It looked like the psycho had chased down a raccoon at the far end of an open picnic space, and had just started tearing the animal apart. I found cover, got a good rest for my rifle, and adjusted the sights. With as clear of a firing lane as I could find, probably two hundred yards out and at higher elevation, I waited until I had the shot I wanted. Finished with his vermin snack, the hemo rose up from his squatting position. Bingo.

  The high-powered round caught him just under his right collarbone, where the chest and shoulder meet. The hemo spun from the hit and dropped. The shot made noise even with the suppressor, but not enough to travel far. I grabbed my rifle and jogged over. The hemo was mostly on his stomach, grunting while he feebly tried to get up. The exit wound was pretty gruesome; the back of his dirty windbreaker was ripped open, and his shoulder blade was bone chunks and bloody hamburger.

  After I quickly pulled out a couple items from my bag, I turned the hemo over with my boot. As I expected, he was snarling at me, but I didn't think he had the energy to use that same Gift on me again. "How ya feelin', sport?" I asked as I pulled out my silenced 9mm's. He started to roll to his left to push himself up. Well, I couldn't have that. I shot him in the knees, two rounds each. He collapsed again, moaning through grit
ted teeth. "Oh shut up. I bet that didn't hurt nearly as bad as how you killed guy back there. You know, the one with his throat ripped to shreds, you son of a bitch."

  Tired of playing with the blood-drenched hemo, I shot him between his eyes. I knew it didn't kill him; I just wanted him down for the count. I debated ending him, but a fire would draw attention, and I didn't have the cold nerve to cut someone's head off. I decided to stick to my original plan, which didn't involve Fletcher; he never said he wanted anything from my patrols, so I never offered.

  About an hour before dawn, I sat back in my recliner with a drink and waited for Viggo. I'd given him a call and said I had a gift for him. I left the kitchen light off, hoping he'd use that space to arrive instead of my bathroom again. When he showed up, I brought him out to my detached garage. The bloody hemo was still on the oil-stained floor where I'd dropped him, tightly hogtied and with three sharpened tree branches jammed through his dirty t-shirt and deep into his chest. Hey, I wasn't sure if I hit his heart with the first or second tries, okay? Better safe than sorry.

  "Do you know who he is, sir?" I asked, hoping it wasn't a Deviant.

  "I cannot say that I do," Viggo replied, crouching next to the body and shining a flashlight on the face. "If he belongs to the city's community, then he is not well-established. Otherwise, I would know of him." He stood to his full height, still looking down at my catch. "It could be that he is new to the area, or he is possibly a young Outsider that hasn't been introduced to the Doyenne yet. From his shabby attire, I doubt that he belongs to the Adept faction." Viggo turned to me. "And you say he was in the throes of bloodlust?"

  "If that's what you call it, sir," I replied with a shrug. "I never knew raccoons could scream."