“These aren’t people, Hunter. They’re monsters,” Max explained as he took a knee beside the trembling man. “Like you, only not quite as bad. They’re going to kill you.” He looked at Raquel. “They’re going to kill you both.”
Dwayne chuckled. “Eventually!” Kearny let out a high-pitched laugh and intercepted a high five from Dwayne. He passed it on to the female vampire.
Hunter’s eyes filled with tears. “Why are you doing this to us?”
Max winced. “I can’t believe you’d actually ask me that.”
He screamed again. This time Max punched him in the gut. It hurt his hand, but it stopped the screaming. Hunter resolved to a fit of bawling and let his head fall against the ground. His hair was streaked with blood. Between sobs he begged. It was indecipherable, but pathetic.
A pang of guilt tickled Max’s chest. He took a breath and stood. The image of Eileen alive filled his mind. When he closed his eyes, he saw her cut open and dead. That took care of the guilt. When he opened his eyes, Kearny was about to cover Hunter’s head.
Max stopped him with a wave of his hand.
“You want to know why I’m doing this?” He sucked on his cigar and blew a cloud of smoke in Hunter’s face. “Because this city… it has its faults. Yeah, it’s a backwards little redneck city. Yeah, the bars all close at one thirty, which is total bullshit, and I’ve seen some pretty awful shit here working with children. Things I probably wouldn’t see anywhere else in the country.”
He leaned forward and got in Hunter’s face. “But for all their faults, the people here, they love their kids. They love their families. I’ve seen a lot of that, too. I saw a man abandon a successful building company and almost go bankrupt just to take care of his quadriplegic son after he was in an auto accident. I saw a woman jump in front of a car to stop her child-molesting ex-husband from kidnapping her children.”
Max looked at Raquel. She didn’t look back.
“Because, despite everything else, the people of this city love their kids. They love their neighbor’s kids. They love the kids down the street, and the kids they see in the mall… they love children because they care about families.”
“They’ll find out,” Hunter said through tears. “They’ll catch you—”
“Who?” Max spread his arms. “Who will catch me? Who will care? This whole city knows what you did. The cops know what you did. Everyone knows what you did!” He looked at Raquel, still avoiding eye contact with him. “And what you didn’t do.” He looked back at Hunter. “And you know what? They don’t care what happens to you. Because you hurt a child. No one is going to miss you. They’ll just figure someone took care of you, and leave it at that. And, they’ll be right.”
Max glanced at Raquel and put the cigar back in his mouth. She was still, crying like a bleeding statue in an old church. He stepped closer so that his presence was unavoidable. Only then did she look up. He thought maybe he saw a smile.
He was tempted to ask Dwayne to finish her fast. He was too soft, and it was easy to see her as another victim. She was anything but. Max slipped the cigar from his lips and blew a stream of gray smoke into the night air.
Hunter wasn’t done. “Who gave you the right to do this? What gives you the right to play God?”
“Someone has to.”
Hunter sobbed louder and screamed.
“Shut the hell up,” Kearny groaned. He rolled Hunter into the van and swatted him on the back of the head. Hunter yelped. “How long do you gotta beg before you figure out it ain’t gonna help you? Christ, have some dignity you worthless piece of shit!”
Max didn’t take his eyes away from Raquel’s until they yanked the pillowcase over her head. She didn’t fight or plead, just let them toss her in next to her husband.
“’Till death do they part,” Max muttered. He looked at Dwayne. “Tell Moonshadow this is enough. As long as she stays out of the kiddie trade, she won’t have any more problems from me.”
Dwayne nodded. “I’ll tell her, but…” He shrugged. “She gonna do what she gonna do.”
“I know. She’ll keep her word for a while, at least.”
Dwayne took a second. “We cool now, brother?”
Max looked back at the bodies in the van, one trembling and crying, the other silent and still. “Yeah, we’re cool. Just stop following me around.”
“A’ight.” He held out his hand. Max looked at it for a second before shaking it. “You know I got a camera, I could record what we do… you could watch it over and over again while you eat ice cream.”
“No thanks,” Max said with a grin. “Tempting, but it’s better I can’t be linked to it.”
“I hear that.” He patted him on the shoulder and climbed into the van. “Well, it’s been real, brother.”
“Yeah. What do you have in store for them?”
“Oh, you know…” Kearny grinned. “Little of this, little of that…little something-something with a baseball bat.”
“Be careful, eh?” Dwayne threw him some kind of gang hand sign or something. “You and me, we blood now. You my brotha’!” He laughed and tapped his hand to his chest.
Max grinned and nodded as the door slid shut. He watched the van leave before taking out his phone and texting Sadie that he was on his way home.
Chapter Forty-Five
She awaited him at the top of the stairs. Max admired her from the bottom.
“Am I too late?” he asked.
She shook her head. His pinstriped white shirt covered her hips and hid whatever panties she had on, if any. The top two buttons were open and the line of her cleavage poked out. Max almost didn’t want to go up the stairs. She looked so delicate there, it seemed wrong to violate her.
When he reached the top, she took his hand and led him to the bedroom. She stopped in the middle of the room. Max dropped her hand and circled her, stopping in front of her. She closed her eyes as he undid each little white button until the shirt fell off her shoulders.
She had on little pink panties, not a typical color choice for her. Sadie opened her eyes and tilted her head to the side as Max circled again. This time he stopped behind her. She moaned when his lips pressed to the back of her neck.
Her panties came off easily. They were barely even on in the first place. Once she was naked, he turned her around and pressed his mouth to hers. It hurt to kiss her. His mouth still wasn’t healed, but he wasn’t going to stop. He ran his hands over the long thorn-stem tattoo along her spine. It ended in a black rose between her shoulders. When he curled his fingers through her short black hair, she moaned into his mouth and crushed her breasts against him.
He took her to the bed gently. Not that she needed it. She was into being rough. Max needed it though. He was sore all over and still had some stitches to worry about. He wouldn’t be able to play rough tonight, but she didn’t look like she would mind.
Max kissed her breasts one at a time, licking her nipples and toying with the little metal rings. She moaned and opened her legs under him while playing with his hair. He went down on his knees at the end of the bed. It hurt, one of his knees was very swollen, but he didn’t let it show. She had a tattoo under her right breast of a thorny curl. It followed the line of her body down over her belly and thigh. Max followed it with his mouth until his face was between her legs.
Her sex was warm and smooth. She tasted slightly metallic, almost like blood. Max had tasted a lot of blood lately, so that might have been all in his head. The tiny silver stud was like a guidepost for her pussy, because every time he pressed the tip of his tongue under it she gasped and squeezed his face with her thighs.
She never spoke, though she was anything but silent. When Max finished, he climbed onto the bed next to her. After catching her breath, she got up on her hands and knees and started undressing him.
Sadie loved being on top. With Max’s body being the disaster area that it was right now, it was the only way she was going to get him inside her. Once she had his clothes off, she cl
imbed on him. They made love gently in the dim glow of his bedside lamp. When he came, she closed her eyes and held her hips still, as though savoring the flow passing from his body into hers.
Their bodies passed under the sheets with a soft hiss of fabric on flesh. She curled into his arms and pressed her face to his bruised chest. She fell asleep first, and he went out soon after, with her soft breath warming his skin.
He was awoken a few minutes later by a beep from his pants. Sadie stirred but did not rouse as he shuffled off the bed and got dressed. Grabbing his phone, Max tapped the screen and read it. He was expecting this, just not so soon.
Max closed the door and stepped on to his porch. He thought of grabbing a pistol on is way out, but decided against it. He wouldn’t need it. He lit his half-finished cigar and shook out the match.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said to the shadows beside his home. A few seconds later, a familiar chuckle came from the darkness.
“How’d you know I was here, Razor?” An ivory smile emerged, followed by white flesh that seemed to melt from the blackness.
He puffed his cigar and looked Boone in the eye. “You really want to know?”
The vamp laughed. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” He sniffed the air as he walked, stopping at the edge of the porch. He wore a heavy black duster, stained with blood over a bare white chest. The hilt of the dagger poking from his belt made Max’s stab-wound ache. He looked away from it. Boone laughed.
“You didn’t bring a gun?”
“Not this time.”
Boone chuckled. “You look like shit, Razor! Face all busted up…”
“Yeah, but my girl thinks it’s kind of hot.”
He popped his knuckles and wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his dagger. “I’m gonna to kill you both, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. You know that, right?”
Max shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
Boone’s grin vanished. “What makes you say that?”
Max tapped ashes from the end of his cigar. “You sure you don’t want to know how I knew you were here?” He glanced over Boone’s head at a black van parked a half-block up in a dark area between two dim street lamps. “So long, Danny-boy.”
Boone started to turn just as a small flash of light sparked from the side of the vehicle. He stopped with a soft crack, followed by a burst of blood from the side of his skull. His eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to his knees. Another shot hit the base of his neck and threw him to the ground, trembling.
A black Suburban seemed to appear from nowhere, pulling up to the curb and disgorging four men and one woman in dark suits and tactical gear. Max recognized three of them, Agents Donner, Pierce, and the one he knew as Skyler. The other two hog-tied Boone’s corpse and had him shoved in a leather zipper-sack within seconds.
“Big plans for him?” Max asked as the two agents tossed him in the back of the SUV.
“It’s better if you don’t know,” said Donner. Pierce muttered a few commands into a communicator in his wrist, and the snipers up the road packed up and drove away. “But, yeah… it’s not going to be pleasant, that’s for sure.”
Max nodded and looked at Skyler. “Sorry about spraying you with pepper-spray,” he said with a grin.
“Sorry about throwing you into a wall,” he replied, holding out his hand. Max shook it.
“I’ve survived worse.”
Skyler looked down. “I’m sorry about Michelle—”
“She’ll be fine.” He looked at Pierce. “Thanks for the text message.”
“It was the only way to get him out in the open,” Pierce replied. “If you hadn’t come outside, he might have climbed up the side of the house or something.”
“Oh… and see, here I thought you were just trying to save my life.”
Pierce grinned. “Well, that too.”
Max looked at the SUV as the engine started. “How’d he not know you were there?”
Pierce patted the side of the vehicle. “The finish is alchemically treated to mask the scent. Unless he was looking directly at it, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed we were here.”
“Nice. What about your sniper?” Max looked across the block to the dark van. “Is he in one of those, too?”
Pierce shook his head. “That’s not one of ours.”
Max winced and tilted his head. “Then how did he avoid...?”
“I am hard man to find when I want to be.”
Max turned to the source. Another figure had emerged, this one without Max noticing. He was a big man with silver hair wearing dark red sunglasses that hid his eyes. His accent was difficult to place, but seemed Russian. Max got an unsettling feeling from him, despite the amiable smile on his big face. Seeing someone in sunglasses at night usually meant vampire or douchebag. This guy didn’t seem to be either, but Max couldn’t quite place what he was.
“Max, this is Colonel Vitaly Koldrun. He’s on loan to SORD from the Russian Federation.”
“No kidding?”
Koldrun took off his hat and nodded. “Is pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hollingsworth. When I heard my old friend Boone was here, I insisted I be involved. We have history, you see.” He chuckled. “I found your rapport with Mr. Boone quite stimulating, before I shot him.”
“You heard us all the way over there?” Max threw a thumb to the vehicle across the block. Unless he’d been wearing high-tech listening equipment, there had to be something unnatural about this guy. Max wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that was.
“I did. I also hear you and pretty misfit girl making love. You are very romantic lover, Mr. Hollingswo—”
“All right, that’s…” Max waved and looked away. Pierce grinned. “That’s… whatever. Thanks for shooting him. What did you use?” Max didn’t see a rifle. Koldrun opened his brown coat over the black grip of a pistol. The rest was buried in the holster. “You did that with a pistol?” Koldrun grinned. “Damn…”
Koldrun walked to the back of the SUV and looked inside. “It has been long time, little Fascist friend.” He laughed. “I should have maybe killed you when I had chance, yes?”
“He can’t hear you,” Max heard Donner say from behind the vehicle.
Koldrun laughed an almost metallic rumble from deep within his chest. “I know. But, I will be there when he wakes up. We have much catching up to do!”
A SORD agent walked to Pierce with Boone’s Luftwaffe dagger, tucked in a silver-plated sheath. “What do you want to do with this, sir?” Pierce took it from his hands and held it at arm’s length.
Max said, “Give it to Skyler. I mean, if that’s your real name….”
“It isn’t. It’s better if you don’t know; and I don’t want it.”
“You’re not sticking around as the head of the Aryans?”
“Oh, I am, but if I have Boone’s dagger, it’ll raise a lot of questions. Our ultimate goal is to bring down Maulthaus, and he knows Boone well enough to recognize his dagger.” He looked at Max. “You keep it.”
Pierce handed him the dagger. Max looked at the worn grip and the little silver eagle emblem that made up the hilt. He remembered having the blade inside him, but holding it now made the shivers go away. He was in control of it now, and that made him powerful.
“If you need anything,” said Skyler as Pierce backed away, “You know where I’ll be.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Just don’t start selling kids, got it?”
Skyler patted Max’s shoulder and followed the other agents to their vehicle. The big Russian gave him a nod then climbed into the back of the Suburban with Boone’s shackled body. The rear of the vehicle sunk a bit with his weight. Max felt an uncomfortable sting in his chest as possibilities ran through his mind about the husky sharpshooter.
They left as they’d come, fast and almost silent. Max stood under a pale street lamp until his teeth started chattering. Taking a deep breath that strained his stitches, he turned and walked back to his house.
He p
ut the dagger in his desk downstairs, next to one of his pistols. Sadie was sound asleep when he returned to her side, but she curled up to him as if by reflex. Max put his arm over her and kissed the top of her head before closing his eyes. In the darkness, with her face against his chest, he felt her lips curl into a smile.
Chapter Forty-Six
“What is it?”
Moonshadow ignored Paul. She was too intrigued by the contents of the envelope to answer any questions from her lackeys. She caught a glimpse of Dwayne silencing him with a head shake when it seemed as though he might ask again.
“Who delivered this?” she asked as she dumped the contents. A little wad of plastic wrap around a small flat object landed in her lap. She checked the envelope for more, but finding nothing tossed it aside.
Dwayne answered, “That fat bastard Max works for. Dumb son of a bitch came right up to the door and asked to see you. He lucky I didn’t rip his head off.”
“He’s useful.” Moonshadow slowly peeled back the plastic. “Did he say it was from Max?” Her eyes widened when she saw what it was. Dwayne nodded. “Good.”
“What is it?” Paul asked again, this time squinting at the tiny object. She lifted it between two fingers to her face. “It looks like… a razor? Is that blood?”
“It is.” Her nostrils twitched at the sight. “It’s a message,” she said as she closed her eyes and brought the blade to her tongue. Slowly, she licked the blade clean. The taste made her eyelids flutter. Below the stump of her waist the phantom of a lost sex organ trembled. She remembered when she had Max between her legs, and regretted not doing what she wanted then.
“Why’d he send that?” asked the little female vamp, Geea. Moonshadow waited until she’d taken the last of the blood from the razor before answering.
“It’s a message.” She opened her eyes and handed the razor to Dwayne without looking at him. “It’s Max’s way of telling us to leave him alone.” She clasped her fingers over her waist. “His way of saying we’re even.”
The Shadow Box: Paranormal Suspense and Dark Fantasy Thriller Novels Page 58