by Barry Smith
It was Dax coming down the hallway.
“There appears to be a meeting about the attack,” replies Jett.
“Damn right, there should!“ responds Dax, “There seems to be a lot of shit going down here. When I was leaving Quade’s office the other day, I overheard Sage talking about four performers who have gone missing. This shit is getting scary, I mean, how safe are we?”
“I’m not too worried,” replies Chloe, “Quade has the best bad-ass assassins to keep us safe.”
“I hope you are right,” shrugs Dax, “Nevertheless, this shit is a downer, you guys want to go get stoned on bliss?”
“I could really use a distraction right now,” says Phoenix, as they all follow Dax to his celebrity dressing room.
***
After the boardroom meeting has ended, the sky kill assassins disperse to execute the orders Quade has issued, but one of four lead female assassins, Night Sparrow, goes out the back door to finish her night watch. She is walking along a dark alley when someone calls out to her:
“Psst! Sparrow! Over here!”
It is Sage, standing in the dark and calling to her.
“Sparrow, I see another meeting called that I wasn’t invited to. There have been a lot of strange happenings here in A Wicked Haven. Twist is keeping me in the dark lately and now I’ve been on the outside looking in. You’re my girl, I need you to keep it real with me. What’s really going on?”
“Sage,” begins Night Sparrow, “The most I can tell you is that the Renly guy you serviced was actually a cop, and that’s why Christian is dead. And I know we are good friends, but you must remember that my loyalty to Twist runs deeper than mine to you, and I am positive you are aware of that; that man killed his father to rescue us; four young girls who were kidnapped, raped and kept as love slaves for his father’s crime buddies. Quade made us who we are today: he taught us how to protect ourselves and kill in the blink of an eye; he enlisted us in Delta Force training, and made us the first subjects of his Cybionics Technology, super-human prosthetic legs that he created for the military, but kept for himself. It gave us omnipotent speed and leaps that allowed us to attack our enemies from the sky, that’s why he calls us his ‘Sky Kill’ assassins. And of course with his enthrallment with birds, he named us in commemoration of our journey from scared little girls to strong women, and today, we have the code names: Night Sparrow, Raven’s Claw, Shadow lark, and Dovine. And for this, we are eternally grateful to him. I truly am sorry, but I cannot divulge any more information you have asked of me. Good night my friend.” She then turns and disappears into the night.
Chapter 5
{“Don’t tell me what to do. I control my own universe, I control my own destiny. Here I stand without you. If I could turn back the hands of time, I would do things differently, so that when I return, I’ll be free from the memory of you. I look up at the stars for inspiration and guidance for a better way of life. But then, you take my world and spin it around, and around, and around, until I’m lost and can’t find my way.”}
{“Don’t tell me what to do. If I had the power to fly, I would live amongst the stars forever, but I know I must come back to earth and face my problems like a man. The best way to rid my life of you is to rid everything that reminds me of you; this Jacket you bought me for our anniversary, I must rid myself of. This shirt you sewed the buttons back on, I must rid myself of. Once I rid myself of all reminders of you, time will stand still for a brief moment….for me to finally breathe again.”}
{“Don’t tell me what to do. You disgust me. The sight of you, the smell of you makes me feel dirty. I must cleanse myself of you. I must dive headlong, into the water and stay under its surface, until I wash away the stain of you. You’re on my arms; you’re on my face. And once I’m clean, I will rise and become a new man.”}
He jumps into the water, and remains there for a while, being brush gently by the currents. But when he made to rise, hands from the surface reach down and hold his head underwater. Struggling to ascend, he kicks furiously, with air bubbles escaping from his mouth and floating upwards.
{“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. I see the light up above, but I’m powerless and can’t breathe. I realize my fate now, as everything starts to dim and I descend into darkness, the light of hope no longer shines upon me. But in my darkest hour, a hand reaches out to me. I am almost close enough to reach their hand. Give me strength, lift me up, pull me through, let me feel the light on my face again.”}
As he is pulled to the surface, a tomahawk stabs through the water, turning it blood red.
*
Ryan wakes from his dream with a jolt. His head, which is on the desk, flies backward and is stopped by the wall behind him. In his panic, he knocks a stack of ‘Missing Person’ case files on to the floor, sending sheets of paper flying everywhere. Bryce, who is asleep on a couch they took from another office, wakes from the commotion, and asked with heavy eyes,
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah,” replies Ryan,
“What’s all the commotion?” asks Gloria, waking up from her sleep mode.
“Just had a bad dream. I think it was mostly about my ex-wife. The bitch has now infiltrated my dreams.”
As Bryce’s apartment is labeled a crime scene, Ryan and Bryce have resorted to sleeping in Ryan’s office back at the police station. Both men, being mentally and physically exhausted, are beginning to shrink in size.
“Look at all these!” says Ryan, as he picks the sheets of paper from the floor, “I need to solve these cases quickly; I can’t have all these souls on my conscience.”
“Just within the last month, my stack of Missing Person cases has grown to 569 missing, twice as much, and I strongly believe it’s connected to room , but of course, I have no proof. And to worsen things, our cover has been completely blown, especially if Doug’s last assignment was following the Enforcer and his dead body wound up back at your place; that means they know where you live, and probably me too. How that came to be, I still don’t know.”
Then dumping the case files on his desk, he says,
“We got a serious situation on our hands.”
Suddenly there is a tap on the office door. Bryce and Ryan, already being on edge, immediately reach for their guns. Through the frosted glass of the door, they could discern the figure of a female.
“Who is it?” asks Ryan, while turning the safety of his gun off.
The female replies, not with a name, but with a sentence, in a sultry voice:
“I clench, and I arch and I scream out your name.”
Ryan tilted his head in confusion and recognition, the phrase was a line from one of his poems. He steps forward, opens the door and standing in the doorway, is a beautiful blonde with a sun hat and sunglasses, poured into a tight-fitting seductive purple dress.
“Can I come in? I have something important to share with you.”
He steps out of the way to let her in and as he closes the door behind her, he notices the officers in the background gawking at her and making obscene gestures. Ryan smiles at their jokes as the door clicked shut.
Once inside, the lady takes her hat, glasses off, but then also her blonde wig off to reveal none other than Sage. Ryan immediately draws his gun on her but she responds by saying,
“I’m not here to harm you, but to warn you. You both have large bounties on your heads.”
Bryce cut up rough, “I think we figured that out last night when we found a dead man in my apartment, the bigger question is ‘What in God’s name is going on in that nightclub of yours?’”
“Well that’s what I’ve come to tell you,” replies Sage, as she begins her tale, “I’m not exactly sure as to what’s going on, the club has been open for more than two years now, and business has been fantastic. Nothing unusual ever happened until about two months ago, when our in-house physician and good friend of the Bossman, Doctor Eto, ran out of our medical facility, missing his right hand and screaming in horror.”
&
nbsp; “Woah!” Gloria exclaims.
“Indeed,” Sage continues, “wait a minute, who said that?”
“Nothing, just a talking wall. Please, continue,” replies Ryan.
“Well, to this day, the only thing Doctor Eto claims to remember, was a man with a weird leather chain mask, sneaking up on him and rendering him unconscious; when he came to, he had no right hand. Doctor Eto was our nightclub’s private medical physician who tended to our staff’s injuries and ailments, and often for our girls who needed abortions.”
She clears her throat before proceeding, “He was a great doctor who was unfortunately and wrongly accused of malpractice several years ago. With the mounting lawsuits, he was banned from ever practicing again. On top of that, his wife left him and took their children along with her, leaving him in the arms of despair, that’s when the Bossman decided to hire him. To remain under the radar, Eto worked from behind an unlabeled utility closet door at Quist that led down to a basement where he set up his medical practice. But oddly, the same night of his maiming, someone had spray painted the number ‘’ on the closet door.”
“A week after Doctor Eto’s leave of absence, his replacement, Doctor Whitfield took over his duties. During this time, things got more mysterious and scary: four of my performers went missing without as much as a trace, each a week apart from the other. Their disappearances are still yet to be explained. Then to add to the mounting suspicions, that used to be a Walk-in Clinic for us, was placed under lock and key and seeing the doctor became ‘by appointment only. Everything started becoming very secretive with that basement, and the only people who had access to the closet was Doctor Whitfield, his nurse, Deborah and Bossman’s top male assassin, Falcon, which, by the way, was very odd because he had no business there; not even the janitor had access to the closet and the rooms it led to, only Doctor Whitfield had the keys to all the medical rooms down below. The few times I was down there on appointment, I noticed a room that stuck out like a sore thumb: it was soundproof medical room with a window that was always closed off by black curtains.”
“As if things weren’t strange enough, one day, we received a new policy memo from the Bossman that stated that any patron who requested to see ‘The Playground’ must be escorted by security to room”. All of Quist’s staff has been kept in the dark about what’s truly happening in that room, but whatever it is; it’s obviously worth killing for since I had a dead male dancer, thanks to your snooping around that night.”
Ryan winces in guilt.
“We usually keep our security matters to ourselves. But if the “The Playground” is the possible sexual abuse of children, I couldn’t bear to live with myself if I sat around and did nothing. I feel it’s high time somebody investigates this shit.”
“Thank you, Sage for sharing this with us,” replied Ryan, “But without other witnesses coming forward; we will still be hard pressed to get a search warrant. We still need more evidence. And lest I forget, who’s the big guy with the eye patch and long hair?”
“That’s Falcon,” Sage answers.
“Do you know his real name?” asks Ryan to which she replies,
“No, I don’t.”
“What about those four strong crazy bitches that destroyed our car?” chimed Gloria.
“I’m not sure who you are referring to” answers Sage, not willing to involve her friend Night Sparrow.
“And this Bossman,” joins in Bryce, “It wouldn’t happen to be the infamous Quade Twist, would it?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, it is,” affirms Sage, “And I must give you both fair warning that this bounty on your heads is not to be taken lightly, I don’t think it’s safe for either of you to go back to your homes or be here at work. I’m taking a big risk coming here myself, but I don’t know what else to do. If there are kids down there being abused, I rather we find out sooner than later.”
“Do you have a strong stomach, Sage?” Ryan asks suddenly changing the topic.
“I should,” answers Sage, puzzled at the unusual question, “Why do yo ask?”
“I need you take a look at these pictures and tell me if you recognize any of them,” replies Ryan.
“Gloria, please pull up the numerical slasher case.”
“Yes sir,” replies Gloria.
On seeing the pictures, Sage covers her mouth in horror and begins crying,
“Noo.”
“I assume these are your missing performers?”
Lost for words, Sage simply nods her head in the positive.
After venting her sadness, she manages to ask:
“Who could’ve done this and why?”
Ryan replies, “We have a strong suspicion that it’s your Falcon, but with the light you’ve just shed, it could be this Doctor Whitfield. But we cannot go on mere speculations alone, we need hard proof. Are you sure you don’t have any other evidence that could end these killings?”
Breaking down again, Sage shakes her head vigorously, from side to side.
Ryan, becoming more sensitive, moves in closer, places his hands around her and consoles her while telling her,
“It’s going to be ok. You are safe here. You have an entire building of cops to protect you.” As he stares longingly into her eyes, he slowly goes for a kiss when the door to his office burst open.
A police officer rushes in screaming, his body engulfed in flames from head to toe.
“They’re throwing Molotov cocktails!” yells several voices in the chaotic background.
Another officer runs from behind the burning cop and throws a blanket over him, in order to suffocate the fire. Seconds later, when he lifts the blanket, all that can be seen is a badly burned dead man with multiple third-degree burns.
“Stay here!” booms Ryan to Sage as he, Bryce, Captain McCormack, and a few officers, run out the front entrance. As they reach there, they see a car drift out of sight, but in the middle of the street, right in the front of the station, the ground is set ablaze with a series of numbers,
McCormack then faces Ryan, “Swett! What is this?”
Ryan replies, “I’m sorry, Cap, Bryce and I were the targets, and I think I know who’s behind this attack, but I just don’t have any hard evidence to nail these sons-of-bitches.”
“Ryan, over here!” It is Bryce calling out from the other side of the street “Right Now!”
“Pardon me, Cap!” Ryan and McCormack soon jog around the flames, over to Bryce, who is standing with his mouth wide open, staring in disbelief at the fire. When Ryan and the Captain come to his side, he points at the flame,
“Does that say what I think it says?”
“I think it does,” replies Bryce.
The burning ember of numbers, that had emblazoned on the asphalt, read a four-letter word; .
“That spells “Hell” acknowledges McCormack, “What the fuck? This Serial Killer needs to be taken down right now. I’ll acquire some of our best snipers to take out this son-of-a-bitch!”
“Captain, I’m afraid even our best won’t be good enough. This is not just a lone Serial Killer, it’s killers with an ‘s’ We’ve seen these people in action. They possess a dark evil that I’ve never seen before. A superhuman strength that is unimaginable. It leaves me greatly concerned for our citizens of Corbindale Bay.”
“Well, I pray that you’re exaggerating some,” replies the Captain.
“I wish I was Captain?!” explains Ryan“ But if you want to pray for something, pray that this is all just a dream”
“Pray, for every damn soul in this city.”
“Pray, for light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Pray, for the strength to endure.”
“But most of all…. Pray that you make it out alive.”
After hearing such a frightening head of warning, McCormack’s awareness of the situation’s severity is completely awakened. He calls everyone inside for an impromptu meeting, as he begins speaking angrily,
”Such a blatant attack on our brothers and our poli
ce station is considered an act of war. These assassins need to be brought to justice. But until such a time, I want this precinct closed down until further notice. I will give everyone their temporary assignments and locations tomorrow at O-Eight-Hundred Hours; I’m going to work on some local and federal support, and see if Commissioner Munson can call an emergency council meeting.”
Then turning to where Ryan is seated, he hollers,
“Swett!! I need you to get us what we need to bring these ass-holes down no matter what it takes, and I will be there with backup when the time calls.”
“Roger that, Captain,” replies Ryan, as he stands to his feet and sees Sage over the Captain’s shoulder, sneaking out the back door re-established in her full disguise.
***
Sage stealthily exits the station, and takes a route that leads through a back alley. At the entrance to the alley, she sees InfliXion thugs, warming themselves at a fire made in a steel drum barrel.
One let out a loud whistle as she passes by.
She continues walking, fully aware they are now following her and heckling her in ‘Spanglish’, a vernacular combination of both Spanish and English.
One, who seems to in charged, thinks it to be charming to rap a derogatorily serenade about Sage’s body, and as he reaches for her hand, Sage turns and pulls out two knives.
“Aww, sweet thing!” comments another, “Bringing a knife to gun fight will do you no good here.”
Then unholstering his Glock, he says, “So put down your knives and let’s have a little fun, let my boys get a taste of that sweet ‘Coño’.”
A black blur of leather and blonde hair flashes from the rooftops, and lands in between Sage and the InfliXion members. Standing up in a pool of light, a gust of wind blows her hair backwards, to reveal Night Sparrow.
Pulling out two fat 500 Magnum Smith and Wesson revolvers, she says, “I’ll give you something to taste Vato! Just let me know what language you want me to fuck you up in!”