by R. L. King
Pleasure.
Satisfaction.
Stone took a deep breath. Whoever had killed the man had enjoyed it. This was no crime of passion. This had been fun for whoever had done it.
His mind travelled back to when he’d first come to the Bay Area, a few years ago. He’d seen killings similar to this before, but those killers had been dealt with a long time ago. Were more of them back?
Shifting back to normal sight, he pondered what he’d discovered. There wasn’t anything else he could gather from this area, and he didn’t think he’d be able to talk to anyone who’d seen the actual murder. No doubt if there had been such a person, the police had already questioned him. He didn’t think there was, though.
Something caught his eye as he prepared to go back through the bar to his car. The strip mall’s entire back wall, as well as the fence along the other side of the alley, were scrawled with colorful graffiti of the type typically produced by gangs and other youthful taggers. But over top of that, on both the fence and the wall, were a series of symbols in white paint, small and close to the ground. All of them looked the same:
Stone moved closer to the ones on the fence, crouching again. The symbols didn’t look like normal graffiti, nor any language he’d ever seen before—especially since they were all the same. He pulled out his notebook again and jotted it down. He thought it odd that he should see them here: they weren’t by any means the first such symbols he’d seen. In fact, he had a notebook at home containing numerous others of the same general type that he’d noticed and marked down over the course of the last two or three years. This particular one wasn’t common, but he’d seen it before in his travels. He’d have to add this sighting to his list when he got home. He stowed the notebook in his overcoat pocket and started to rise.
Something slammed hard into him from behind, propelling him forward into the fence with a crash.
What the hell?
He didn’t have time to get his shield up before he hit, but he barely managed to twist sideways so he smashed into the rickety fence with his shoulder and his arm instead of his head. Still, the impact unbalanced him and he landed hard in a pile of trash. He flung himself around to get a look at what had hit him.
The two smokers stood where he’d left them, but they were watching him now. They wore identical predatory grins. They also wore black leather jackets with identical round, red-and-black symbols. Stone wasn’t that familiar with area gangs, but everybody had heard of Dead Men Walking. The DMW were all over the Bay Area, and they were bad news.
Stone tried to scramble to his feet, but the taller of the two gangers waved a hand at him, still grinning.
The kid’s grin soon faded, though: Stone was prepared this time. With a flick of his mind he pulled up a glowing shield an instant before the spell hit him. The bright ball of energy fizzled against the barrier and dissipated. “Not so good when it’s not an ambush, then, are you?” Stone muttered, breathing hard. His heart thudded fast, and his shoulder flared with pain where he’d hit the fence. If they were both mages—or if they had friends lurking nearby—he could still be in trouble if he wasn’t careful. But he wasn’t planning on letting them know that.
“What the fuck—?” One of them stared, wide-eyed, at Stone’s shield.
Stone grinned, trying to project a confidence he didn’t fully feel, and got the rest of the way back to his feet. “You picked the wrong target, gentlemen.”
“Get him!” yelled the other one, and raised his hands to fling another bolt of energy at Stone. The other one ran forward, pulling a knife from his pocket.
Only one of them was a mage, then. Good.
Stone’s shield flared pink where the bolt hit. The kid had some power, but no discipline. Stone waved a negligent hand, sending the one with the knife flying across the alley to land neatly in the dumpster they’d been smoking next to. He turned to the other one. “I can do this all day,” he said, trying not to breathe hard and ruin the effect. “Your call.”
Scrabbling sounds emerged from the dumpster as the second ganger fought his way out. The first one roared and pointed at Stone with glowing hands. “Die, motherfucker!” he screamed. He didn’t even sound close to sane.
This time, nothing hit the shield directly. Instead, Stone felt both the shield and the bubble of air it protected beginning to heat up.
Okay, enough playtime.
“I warned you,” Stone growled. “Damned wild talents.” He concentrated, forming a pattern in his mind, and raised both hands, spread as if he were conducting an orchestra. He pointed one at the ganger in the dumpster, and the other at the mage. Both of them lifted off the ground, flew toward each other, and slammed together about six feet off the ground. When Stone let them go, they crashed to the pavement in a scramble of arms and legs and lay there, stunned.
“They didn’t teach you a shield yet, I see,” he said with contempt.
Tires squealed, and headlights appeared at the end of the alleyway. Stone risked a quick glance sideways, in time to see a car bearing down on them fast. “Time to go, then,” he said, and levitated himself upward. The car roared by the spot where he’d been standing, clearly intending to hit him. Its brakes screeched and it barely missed the sprawled gangers. The driver flung open the door and screamed something at Stone, but he was already up and over the top of the bar and didn’t hear the specifics. He did hear more squealing tires, though, and after a moment the car erupted out of the other end of the alley and disappeared into the night.
When he walked back into the bar—through the front door this time—a few minutes later, his heart was still pounding, his body still thrumming with adrenaline, his shoulder still throbbing. The bartender looked up, then glanced toward the back door, clearly surprised that Stone had come in from the front. “You find what you were looking for?”
“Yes. Thank you for your help.”
When he drove off in his car a few minutes later, hands shaking on the steering wheel, eyes alert for any sign of the DMW gangers returning in their car, he knew that wasn’t entirely true. He’d arrived with a mystery, and now he was leaving with at least three. This whole situation was getting more and more interesting—and potentially more dangerous. He wasn’t yet convinced that something supernatural was involved with either this or the murder of Madison McClain’s mother—or even if the two were connected—despite the presence of a wild-talent DMW mage. He’d heard there were a few in the area, but the DMW were bullies, nothing more. It could easily have been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But then again, maybe not.
Right now, there was still no definitive evidence of supernatural involvement. But he had to admit that the clues were starting to move in that direction.
CHAPTER FOUR
Stone wasn’t able to pursue his investigation further until the weekend due to work commitments. He had two more murder sites to check out: the train death and the place where the homeless people had been discovered. He left the latter for last, trying to convince himself that it was because there were more victims there, so he’d likely have to spend more time analyzing any vestiges of energy that might remain.
The real reason was because he felt utterly unprepared to visit a homeless camp. Not because he was afraid: he doubted that any of the people there were any threat to him, and even if anyone bothered him he was sure he could deal with them. No, it was just a stronger version of the way he’d felt at the bar in East San Jose: like he was an interloper in a place he didn’t understand and didn’t belong.
Still, it had to be done if he wanted to get anywhere. He dressed in old clothes and his most battered Doc Martens, stuck a notebook and pen in his overcoat pocket along with a few five – and ten-dollar bills to use as bribes if necessary, and set off early Saturday morning. At least his minimal healing skill had been able to sort out his shoulder the other night, so he didn’t have to deal with that.
His first stop, the platform in Mountain View where the man had
inexplicably pushed a woman he’d never met in front of a commuter train, didn’t yield much information. There wasn’t anyone there he could talk to, only a few early-morning tourists probably on their way up to San Francisco for the day. He sat on a bench and reached out with his magical senses, trying to pick up any traces. It took him a while to find them: the woman had probably died much faster than the man at the bar, and thus any psychic energy her terror might have generated would be less intense by nature. That, and the sheer volume of people who had passed across the platform since the murder occurred, would dilute even the most potent traces of strong emotion over time. He was able to sense something after a few minutes’ worth of trying, but it was inconclusive.
He also glanced around, hoping he might spot some of the odd graffiti he’d seen in the alley behind the bar; he saw nothing but the standard scrawls furtive teenagers made while waiting for trains. Finally, he got up and headed back to his car.
No more stalling.
The papers hadn’t listed the exact location of the homeless people’s murders; in fact, the story had warranted only a few paragraphs on a back page, where the other two murders had been front-page news. However, one of the early articles mentioned a large vacant area near the intersection of two streets not far from the San Jose airport. Stone had obtained a map of the vicinity, and thought he had a reasonable idea of where he was going.
Despite his reluctance, Stone had to admit that this group of murders did represent his best chance at getting some decent data. He’d found out a bit more information: six men found dead around a spent campfire, their bodies arranged in a wheel-spoke pattern, with their feet pointing toward the center. The papers hadn’t included any specific details about how they were killed, but to arrange them in that configuration suggested a lot of things to Stone: that there was some thought behind the murders; that an occult connection wasn’t an outside possibility; and, most strongly, that the killer (or killers) hadn’t been concerned about being caught. There was a certain arrogance to arranging bodies like that.
As he approached the location on the map, Stone pictured a shadowy figure carefully placing the bodies like a demented artist trying to make a statement. If he could only figure out what that statement was, he might be closer to figuring out whether the murders were all connected, and if so, how.
He parked his black Jaguar near the main drag, weaving a quick spell around it to make it blend into its surroundings. The spell wouldn’t last long, but he figured he had at least an hour or so before it faded. Taking the map with him, he started in the direction of the intersection.
He quickly realized that he was in the right place, or at least that the tangled, trash-strewn vacant lot had been occupied by a fair number of homeless people in the past. The ground was muddy, with what little vegetation remained stomped flat by hundreds of feet. As he ventured farther in, he could see the remains of campfires, along with bunkers formed of old shopping carts, bags of trash, and cast-off building materials. Refuse, mostly fast-food wrappers and empty liquor bottles and beer cans, littered the area. The smell of human waste wasn’t strong, but it was definitely present.
What he didn’t see were people, at least not nearby. He stopped a moment, reaching out with his magical senses. He wondered if perhaps the police hadn’t come through and rousted the temporary residents out, sending them off in search of other squatting locations after the murders had occurred. Or possibly they had left on their own, voluntarily, as word spread of what had befallen some of their own. The area’s aura was full of despair, hopelessness, and fear. Clearly most of the people who had lived here hadn’t wanted to, and Stone got the impression that life in the camp was neither safe nor pleasant.
What he didn’t get, though, was the telltale aura that so many murders would leave behind. He stood, turning slowly in place as he focused on making his senses more directional. For a while he got nothing, but then there it was: a faint trace of the same terror he’d gotten at the train station. It was farther in, over a rise. He started heading that direction.
He’d gone only a quarter-mile or so when he began to see evidence of more recent inhabitation. The camps looked a bit more orderly, the fire pits more tended. Occasionally he would catch a glimpse of a head poking out from behind the flap of a tent. And the feeling of dread and terror was getting stronger. He shifted direction a bit and continued, moving carefully to avoid tripping or being cut by the bits of corrugated siding poking up from the muddy ground.
When he reached ground zero, he knew it. It came on fast, the area’s aura fairly pulsing with energy. These murders had been more recent than the others, only a couple weeks ago. Stone stopped as a solid wall of pain and fear hit him full-on. For a moment, gray flashes appeared in his vision and he thought he might faint, but he got hold of himself and looked around.
There was nothing remarkable about the site, with the exception of how clean it was. In contrast to the rest of the trash-scattered lot, this part looked like someone had swept through and picked up all the litter and anything else that might have been left behind. Even the remains of the fire pit were gone. If Stone hadn’t known what he was looking for and was specifically searching for it, likely he would have simply walked on past it in the direction of the inhabited areas in the distance.
He remained there for perhaps ten minutes, carefully examining the energy and making notes in his notebook. The feelings were much stronger here than they had been at the train station, but essentially the same: fear and pain. He sensed no trace of magic, nor any sort of presence in the area. Nothing, in other words, that would lead him to assume that anything supernatural was connected to these murders.
He didn’t believe it, though. Even in the absence of evidence, his experience and a gut feeling that was stronger than a mere hunch told him that there was something strange about both this murder and the one in Mountain View. A deranged killer didn’t simply show up and start hacking up homeless people. Something else was going on here.
He decided he needed to speak with someone who lived in the area. Maybe they could tell him more. If they’d even talk to him, of course. He doubted the area’s homeless population would be in a hurry to give any sort of information to some random stranger who showed up asking odd questions.
“Well,” he said under his breath, “I won’t find out if I don’t try, will I?” With a last glance around, he started off in the direction where he’d seen smoke rising and signs of movement.
“You don’t live here,” said a voice from off to his right, followed by a harsh “Shh!”
He turned to see the tops of two small, tousled heads—one blonde, one dark—and two pairs of bright eyes watching him from behind an ancient refrigerator. “Hello,” he called, staying where he was so he didn’t spook the children. “You’re right—I don’t live here. But you needn’t worry—I won’t hurt you.”
They rose up hesitantly: a white girl and a Hispanic boy, maybe seven or eight years old, both dirt-streaked and skinny. “Are you a p’leeceman?” the boy asked.
About the same age as Madison McClain, Stone thought. He didn’t miss the wary fear in both children’s eyes. For these kids, he was sure that policemen didn’t represent a source of help and kindness. They’d probably watched the police coming through and evicting their parents from their last home. “No. Nothing like that. I’m just—visiting. Are your parents around?”
“Are we in trouble?” the girl asked. She looked a little younger than the boy, and ducked behind him, suddenly shy. “I told you we shouldn’t have tooken that stuff, Pedro…”
Stone shook his head. “No, no. You’re not in trouble at all.” He indicated the refrigerator. “You shouldn’t play in that, you know. The old ones are dangerous when they have the doors on them. You can get stuck inside.”
The two children exchanged glances. They looked back at him, then both their gazes shifted abruptly to something behind him and their eyes widened with fear. “What is it?” he asked quickly, turn
ing.
A man was approaching, still some distance away. “It’s Dario,” the little girl said in a small voice. “He yells at us sometimes, when he’s drunk.”
“Sometimes he tries to hit us,” the boy, Pedro, added.
Stone’s expression hardened. “You just hide,” he told them. “I’ll get rid of him.”
“Careful, mister,” the girl said. “Dario’s mean. He’ll beat you up.”
“Don’t you worry,” Stone assured her. “I’m tougher than I look. Just stay out of sight.”
The two kids ducked back behind the refrigerator, and Stone turned to face Dario. As the man drew closer, Stone took in his hitching gait; stained, wife-beater tank top and ripped jeans; and belligerent, not-quite-there expression. He wasn’t as tall as Stone, but wider. It was hard to tell how old he was.
“Morning,” Stone said, standing his ground.
Dario glared at him as if trying to lock in focus. “Who the hell’re you?” he asked in a slurred voice. It was obvious he was either drunk, high, or both.
“Just a visitor,” Stone said. “Something I can do for you?” Even from where he was standing, the fumes issuing from the man’s mouth were eye-watering.
“Get th’hell outta my way,” he said, taking a step forward. “Where’s them fuckin’ kids?”
“What kids?” Stone still didn’t move.
“I said get the fuck outta my way.” Dario took a clumsy swing at Stone, who sidestepped easily. He was no fighter, but unlike the drunken Dario, he was quick and in possession of all his faculties. It would have been enough, but a quick application of magical power in the form of a hard shove sealed the deal. Dario staggered forward, lost his balance, and nearly fell on his face. “Fuckin’ kids took my stash.”
“Look,” Stone said, keeping his tone reasonable. “There aren’t any children here. Just me. Do I look like a child?”
“You look like a fag,” Dario growled, trying to reorient himself for another swing.