by Jack Porter
As soon as I was outside, I stripped off the waiter’s shirt. Wrapping around the bloodied knife in my hand, I looked for my next step.
There was a row of taxis waiting outside the restaurant. Without any hesitation, I climbed into the back of the first one in the row and shut the door behind me.
The cabbie, a thin man wearing a hat, glanced at me in the mirror. “Where to, buddy?” he asked.
With my heart still pounding in my chest and a huge grin on my face, I gave him an address a block and a half away from my apartment.
Chapter 20
“Well done!” Asrael’s voice thundered in my brain. He seemed both pleased and surprised at my success.
I had done it. Not only that, it seemed I had got away clean. I couldn’t help but grin in giddy joy at the thought. I was now a hitman working for the Syndicate. I could almost feel my status improving already.
I didn’t care that it was just my illegal status. All that mattered was that I would no longer be so close to absolute zero.
I was still grinning with maniacal glee when the taxi dropped me off. Still grinning as I walked the block and a half to my apartment. I was grinning so hard my cheeks were starting to hurt in the elevator, and it was almost a relief to get inside so I could laugh out loud. I had done it!
Me!
A couple of days ago, I had few real prospects, an asshole roommate, and little to differentiate myself from thousands of others all over the country.
Now, I had a resident demon in my head, a woman who was bound to me in a very interesting way, and I’d just taken a major step to an immediate, significant status boost.
I wanted to shout from the rooftops. I wanted to bathe in the glory of what I had done. I was brimming with energy that I didn’t know what to do with, so I fixed myself a large rum and coke from Chad’s supply, then turned on the TV in the living room and scanned for the news.
This was the other side of the equation. The part I couldn’t control. The contract had specified, ‘Make a statement,’ and I figured I’d done that. I’d killed the man in a crowded restaurant, and probably blinded one of his guards as well.
I expected the guard I stabbed in the belly might live, but he’d been losing a lot of blood. It depended entirely on how quickly he managed to get to a hospital.
But the real question was whether someone had managed to get it all on camera.
The Marionetti Bistro was a front for the Marionetti criminal operation. Thugs and low-level operatives had been wandering in and out throughout the day. I’d looked around and seen no cameras in evidence, which was easy to understand given the nature of the place.
But these days, the whole world carried cameras around with them in their pockets. If someone in the restaurant had been fast enough, if they had been at the point of taking a photo of their food, then perhaps I was shortly to be made famous.
It had been a risk attacking Marionetti in such a place. It had worked, but only time would tell if I’d really gotten away with it as clean as it seemed.
In a city like El Diablo, murders were common enough that they rarely made the news so quickly. Yet my efforts were just the type of thing the networks looked for. Brazen, messy, with just enough hint of something scandalous.
My target was part of the Marionetti crime family. He was an up and comer in the organization. Surely his brutal and unexpected death was worthy of a twenty second segment to someone?
I flicked back and forth between news stations with a drink in my hand, unsure how I would feel if I saw my own face on the screen.
Despite my fixation, I still almost missed it. One of the stations ran a brief local news segment in between the big political scandals and international corporate evil stories that seemed to dominate the airways from dawn until dusk. Suddenly, the screen showed a close-up of Marcel Marionetti’s dead face as he stared sightlessly at the ceiling, his whole right side from his neck down covered in blood.
I lurched forward in my seat and almost spilled the remains of my drink, and my breath caught in my throat. The reporter, a spectacular blonde woman who could deliver the grimmest of news with a serious expression only to finish with a beaming smile, launched into the story with no hesitation, as if it was no more significant than discussing a picnic at a beach.
“Some viewers might find the images in our next story disturbing,” she said. “Reports have come in that just after noon today, Marcel Marionetti was murdered in broad daylight while eating his lunch. Witnesses say one of the waiters went on a frenzied attack, wounding two others before fatally stabbing Marionetti in the neck. The murder was described as sudden and horrific, and Marionetti was pronounced dead at the scene.”
The reporter barely paused to draw a breath before she continued.
“The killer is still at large, and as yet, the motive for this brutal act is unknown. If anyone has information about a nondescript man, shorter than average, wearing a white and gold waiter’s uniform, then please use the number on your screen to contact the police.”
And that was it. The next news story was about a gas explosion somewhere that killed three people, but by then I’d stopped listening. The only thing in my mind was that they didn’t know who I was. There was no picture, and that description–a nondescript man in a white and gold waiter’s uniform–was laughable in its potential effectiveness.
I don’t look like a killer, Azrael had said. Nor, as it turned out, was I particularly memorable either.
With my grin firmly back in place, I relaxed in my chair and started to laugh once again.
I’d done it! I’d taken out a target who should have been way out of my league.
Then again, that seemed to be a common theme now.
With that thought in mind, I reach for my phone and called Rachel to tell her my good news.
Chapter 21
I was already well on my way to a pleasant buzz by the time Rachel showed up after her work. She seemed genuinely pleased to see me, in an understated, Gothic way. I found myself seeing her both as she was and in her succubus form at the same time, and invited her into an apartment filled with music and rotating lights that made it look a little like a club.
“Well,” Rachel said. “Quite the party you have going on in here. Who else is coming?”
“Just you and me,” I replied. “And Azrael, of course. Didn’t think it was appropriate to invite anyone else given that we’re celebrating a murder.”
Rachel nodded as if she heard sentences like that every day, dropped her handbag to the floor, and started dancing to the music. I watched for some moments before Azrael gave me the necessary prod.
“Dance with her,” he said.
If I had been strictly sober, I wouldn’t have even tried. But with a new rum and coke in my hand, I couldn’t see any reason not to, and did my absolute best not to look awkward as I moved with her.
While we danced, I couldn’t help but think that this was much more than the sympathy shag it had started as. Last night, it had been Rachel who guided me in my new direction, and even then she had seemed content to stay at my side.
It was a totally new experience to me. The few other girls I’d slept with had all quietly disappeared after, never to be seen again. But for some reason, Rachel seemed immune to my repellent nature. She even smiled at me as she danced, gyrating to a beat in time with the music, yet somehow much slower and more sensual as well.
“It is the nature of binding,” Azrael supplied in my mind. For the moment at least, he seemed to have lost his disappointment at being linked to someone like me. Perhaps the alcohol in my blood mellowed him as much as it did me. Or perhaps he was basking in the afterglow of my success with my first contract, the same way I was.
“Think of it like this. To her, it doesn’t matter what your real-world status might be. Because of the binding, because I have drawn out the demon within her, you and I will always be status one hundred.”
I knew Rachel could hear Azrael just as clearly as I could, but s
he didn’t seem to mind that he spoke to me and not her. In fact, she swayed closer to me and draped her arms around my neck, and I wrapped my free hand around her, resting it on the curve between the back and her butt.
“He’s right, you know,” Rachel said, as cool as a breeze. “Yesterday, you were just a guy who was down on his luck. I figured a quick shag wouldn’t cost me the lot, and it might make your whole year. But now…” she frowned a little. “Now it’s different. Like, my future is wrapped up in yours. You know?” She shrugged as if that wasn’t the most meaningful thing I’d ever heard any woman say to me. “And besides, I kinda like this new me as well. It feels… naughty.” She smiled a little, raising her eyebrows in a quick expression of enjoyment. “And delicious. It’s like I am now free to be who I always was but didn’t really know it.”
Before I could ask what she meant, she leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. I noticed she had a warm, delicate scent that reminded me of one of my candles, and I realized we had both stopped swaying to the music.
Rachel closed her eyes and breathed me in, in the same way I was doing with her. Then she let all it all back out in a rush and held me away from her a little.
“Oh, the things I’m going to do to you,” she said, and flashed me a grin. “But first, you need to fix me a drink. And tell me how it all went. Oh, and we should probably check your status as well. It’s probably updated by now. What do you think?”
I thought it was a damn good idea. I turned the music down so we could talk, and fixed her a rum and coke like mine because it was one of the few drinks I knew how to make. At the same time, I told her, in detail, how my day had gone. She listened with surprising interest, but only asked a single question.
“How did it feel?”
I looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
“When you killed him. When you sliced open his artery with your knife.”
I thought about it for a moment. I knew she wasn’t talking about the slight resistance I’d felt through the blade, or the feeling of tension I’d felt due to not being sure if I could get away. She was asking a very specific question.
“You’re asking how it felt to kill him?” I asked, and she nodded. “It felt… satisfying. Like it was something I’d been wanting to do for a while. Not killing him, not exactly, but killing someone. Like I’d achieved some sort of personal goal.” I thought about it some more. “And it felt liberating. Chad–well, he was just practice. But this one was real. It was a buzz like I never imagined.”
Rachel gave me a slow, lingering smile, as if gaining the same sort of sensation just listening to my words. She nodded.
“Excellent,” she said. “Now, let’s check out that status, shall we?”
Suddenly, I was nervous. I’d long ago stopped checking my status on a regular basis because it rarely seemed to change, and it wasn’t great to look at. All I’d done was watch people I knew rise in leaps and bounds, leaving me a long way behind.
But now, I had a reason to check again.
We went to my bedroom, and I brought up the app. With shaking fingers, I entered my username and password, and my status showed in bold letters on the screen.
Legal status–that hadn’t changed. A wildly underwhelming nine. But my illegal status was stronger than it had ever been. A solid eighteen.
Still not impressive as far as that sort of thing went, but I was no longer a complete loser. A lot of guys my age had a status like that, or even a little below.
Finally, I felt like I was on my way.
I stared at the screen for long moments, then found Rachel watching me closely. “How does that feel?” she asked.
It was my turn to take a deep breath. “It feels… good. Really good.”
Rachel smiled again. “Good,” she said. “Now, how do you feel about doing it again?”
“Hell, yes!” I said. Then I thought about it. “Although, next time I think I would like to be a bit better prepared. And maybe choose a simpler target.”
Both Rachel and Azrael agreed. They both seemed to understand as well as I did that I’d made it through my first contract not because of any particular skill, but because I’d been able to get close before anyone recognized the danger. And relying on that long-term would be suicide. Sooner or later, an overly wary bodyguard or target would see through my apparent harmlessness, and that would be it.
I understood very clearly that Marionetti’s bodyguards were the reason I was able to fill my contract today. They’d had a blind spot, and I’d exploited it. But if they had been more attentive, I would never have been able to get close.
“Great,” Rachel said. “Why not see if there’s a suitable target already?”
I was in the driver’s seat, so I brought up the app. But there was nothing new on the list. I was about to close the app again when Rachel pointed at the screen.
“Look,” she said. “You’ve got a message.”
Curious and somewhat surprised, I clicked on the icon next to my profile, and saw she was right.
It was a message from Megadeath#4.
“Congratulations on your first kill. I look forward to watching you work in the future. It will be interesting to learn your habits and preferences. One can never tell when such knowledge can be the difference between life and death.”
I read it through twice in rapid succession. “What the fuck does he mean by that?”
“I’m not sure,” Rachel responded. “But I was looking at this app today. This isn’t the first Megadeath. He’s the fourth by that name, and he gained it by killing the third.”
It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and I decided I didn’t like that I’d attracted the attention of the Syndicate’s number one killer. Yet, Megadeath#4 was a problem for later. Sure, he was the most prolific killer on the app, but he wasn’t the only one. There were others who took contracts as well, besides me, and he hadn’t killed them. Right?
So, his almost-threatening message was probably just his way of intimidating the competition.
Well, I decided. That wasn’t going to work with me. I had discovered a taste for this type of work, and it satisfied all my current needs. The only issue was that Megadeath#4 seemed to be greedy, snapping up all the contracts on offer before anyone else had a moment to think…
“Rachel,” I said, an idea forming in my mind. “Just how much control do you have over this app? What are you able to do with it?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, this Megadeath guy put his name forward on nearly all the contracts listed. It was just chance that let me snag the one I got from under his nose. Is there any way you could put a delay on when the contracts show up? Just for him, I mean? So I get to choose the ones I want, rather than having to accept whatever I can get?”
Rachel’s eyes brightened with interest. “Sure. I can do that,” she said.
“Excellent!” I said. Then I thought about the fee I’d earned for completing my contract. “But right now, it’s time to celebrate. I’m not keen on heading out, just in case someone did take my picture. But there’s plenty of places that offer delivery. What’s your celebratory meal of choice? And your favorite poison? I’m in the mood to party!”
Chapter 22
We ended up ordering all the luxuries either of us could imagine. Lobster, caviar, champagne, you name it. We even had one of those pretentious deserts, the thing that looked for all the world like an orange dipped in a pale sauce, but was instead a multilayered confectionery made with all manner of delicious somethings that I couldn’t possibly name, but which was just as amazing to taste as it was to look at.
Rachel ate and drank as much as I did, and by the time we were done, she was more than a little tipsy as well. She started telling stories of the weird shit she’d seen in the Syndicate, and I quickly learned she had a greater understanding of how it all worked as a business than I would have expected.
She even knew, by digging into the financial reports, how much the business was w
orth.
It was a mind-blowing figure, with more zeros on the end than I knew how to name.
“Wait,” I slurred at her. “Hang on. Why have financial records when the whole business is illegal? It’s not like the Syndicate pays taxes, does it?”
She held up a half-empty glass of champagne and shook her head extravagantly. “No, it’s not for taxes. But they still need to know how much they’re making, and how they’re making it. They need to know if they can afford all the bribes from one week to the next, and if they can pay everyone on their payroll. So, yeah, they still need financial accounting, just like everyone else.”
It was eye-opening, but the nature of the syndicate’s business wasn’t the only topic of conversation.
I started talking about me, and my sad history, and for the first time, I felt safe doing so. I wasn’t going to chase Rachel away, and besides, I wasn’t the same loser I’d been before I’d met her anyway.
She listened as I inexpertly tried to spin some of my past as humorous, but stopped me when I spoke about the lack of women in my life.
“Wait, so you’re telling me you’ve never slept with the same woman twice?” she asked.
Feeling vaguely embarrassed despite the warm feeling of my victory combined with the drink, I shook my head.
“Well, we can fix that at least, can’t we?” she asked, and her wings arched seductively.
Even my alcohol-sodden brain understood what she meant. “I sure hope so,” I replied.
And that was enough. For the second time in two days, I ended up naked, hammering away as best I could within Rachel’s embrace. This time, I didn’t think of anything other than enjoying myself, forgetting all about Azrael, forgetting about everything except the wonderful, voluptuous woman beneath me on the bed, and trying my hardest not to let it all end too soon.
At some point, I realized Rachel had folded her spiritual demon wings around me as well, wrapping both of us up like a bat or burrito. Maybe I should have had some concerns about the direction my life had taken at that point, because I was a long way away from living the ideal as far as my local church group might see it. But I didn’t care. I just thrust into Rachel again and again, enjoying every moment, until she cried out in her pleasure and dug her nails into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood.