by J. D. Oliva
She took the seat next to him. "Yes, please."
"Sir," Jericho said, trying to get the bartender's attention. Shockingly, they don't spend much time attending to the needs of the guy drinking fancy Sprite. "One more," he pointed to her glass.
"What brings you here?" She asked, playfully flicking a dangling earring.
"Work."
"Me too. I travel often, but St. Louis feels like home."
Katie was pretty and probably in her mid-thirties. She wasn't too different from Anne Casten's in the appearance department. As he looked down at her little purse, he couldn't help but wonder if she had a knife inside that wanted to make its way into his kidney.
"I'm from Chicago."
Ethan Jericho fashioned himself a jack-of-most-trades. Whatever he didn't know how to do, he usually figured it out reasonably quick. This was not true when it came to flirting. The job required him to have zero relationships. But making small talk with women is something he struggled, even when he was teenager on the South Side. He could tell she expected him to direct the conversation, but he couldn't. His eyes wandered back to Alyse, who was in conversation with an athletic-looking twenty-something with blond hair. Interesting timing.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just got out of a really long relationship, and it's been a long time since I've been out. I've almost forgotten how to talk to a beautiful woman."
She smiled again and took a sip from her freshly refilled glass.
"What do you do for a living?" He added.
"I-I travel." Now it was she who struggled to find the right words.
"You said that. Do you travel for business or pleasure?"
She laughed. "I suppose a little of both. And you?"
"I was in the service for a bit, but now I run a business."
Jericho's eyes traveled back over to Alyse again. Those two were already lock-step in conversation. They smiled and shared googley-eyes. He hoped this is actually a put on from her and not something real. Real was the enemy of the job.
"What kind of business?"
"I'm a personal consultant."
Her smile started to fade. She clearly needed some engagement, and even regular Ethan wasn't good at this kind of stuff. Fake Eric may have been worse. Maybe this was better if she left. Keeping an eye on Alyse would be easier.
"I'm sorry. It seems you would rather be alone," Katie said.
She's right.
"Like I said, long-term relationship issues."
Eric and Katie shared a brief, uncomfortable smile, and she left. Jericho was back, and he turned his attention back to his partner and her new friend.
The cat wore a pink button-down shirt with dark pants and gym shoes. Not even nice gym shoes like Jordan's. This dude was wearing some regular old Asics. Jericho should whoop his ass on pure principle for such fashion crimes. Of course, he owned fifty long-sleeve Under Armour t-shirts, so who was he to talk about anyone's style.
The guy reached for Alyse's hand. He leaned in, and they shared a kiss. Jericho's fist tightened. It's go time. Either this cat had bad intentions, or Alyse forgot the mission. Either way, nothing's happening tonight.
"Can I get a check?" He motioned to the bartender without breaking his view of the two of them.
"On the house, partner," the bartender said back. "I hate seeing a guy leave alone."
Jericho nodded in approval and got up to follow the new young lovers. He may have been solo tonight, but he wasn't leaving alone. He had two silver-plated Desert Eagles with him.
XIII
Alyse and the young man walked out of the Preston and headed toward the main building, where the hotel of the Chase Plaza resided. Mr. Giancarlo kept a distance just far enough to make sure Pretty Boy didn't realize they were being followed. Hand in hand, the couple wandered onto the marble-floored lobby.
Alyse smiled at her new friend but peered over her shoulder, making sure her business partner is still in sight. In a fraction of a second, Mr. Giancarlo saw her eyes widen before turning back to the man holding her hand. Jericho got it. He's a professional, this is part of his job. She was never supposed to be in this business.
Alyse Casten is a college kid who thought her mom got a raw deal. As she headed toward the elevator banks, her fingers intertwined with a man she didn't know. Alyse got that she's part of the business now. Pretty Boy pressed the down button. Alyse realized she'd be trapped inside that elevator with either an inexplicable serial killer who'd chosen its next victim, or some schlub who thought she's slutty enough to put out after less than a half an hour of bar flirting. Neither is a good option. She turned twice more to check that Mr. Giancarlo was still there. Her poker face broke. Those wide eyes told a different story.
As Pretty Boy repeatedly pushed the button, she tried to play along, reaching up and playfully grabbed his finger.
"I don't know if this such a good idea."
"Come on, Ally. There's nothing to be afraid of," he said, leaning in and gently kissing her. "We don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
"That's good. I think I wanna go back home."
The elevator opened, and Pretty Boy stepped inside, pulling her wrist hard enough to move her with him.
"No worries, I'll take you home right after."
Her wide eyes ripped back to Mr. Giancarlo, who's too far away to make it before those doors shut. She was going to be trapped in there with him.
"I don't think I'm ready to go up to the ninth floor!" She yelled as the golden doors closed.
Smart girl. Jericho tore off the gray Armani jacket, revealing a shoulder strap gun holster that housed his prized silver-plated Desert Eagle. He whipped his head to the left, to the orange exit sign. He pushed the door open and found a set of concrete stairs. Without pause, he sprinted up the steps with long hurdler strides.
Jericho fucked up. He should have given her a weapon. A knife or a stun gun, something. Anything would have been better than nothing. Jericho pumped his legs, clearing three to four steps each stride, sharply turning with each numbered corner. At 4, he wondered if he could possibly keep pace with the elevator. By 6, Jericho prayed Alyse would still be alive by the time he made it up there. When he turned the final corner and found entrance number 9, Jericho lowered his shoulder and drove it through the door.
He exploded out the other side and found Pretty Boy with one hand clutched around Alyse's wrist. The other clutched around her mouth, dragging her into room 912. Jericho didn't think twice, he pulled out the Desert Eagle and fired a singled shot that hit the door jam. Both of them hit the ground. Jericho stopped and aimed the weapon at Pretty Boy.
"Time to go home, Alyse."
Pretty Boy looked up at the assassin, showing his own colorless eyes. Jericho couldn't believe what he saw. It looked like the corneas had swallowed up pupils, leaving nothing but a milky void.
"What the fuck?" Jericho said, lowering his weapon.
Pretty Boy grumbled with an unintelligible murmur and took off.
"He's going to the other exit!" Alyse shouted.
"What?" Jericho asked, almost entranced by those bizarre eyes.
"It's him! It's the Nightcrawler! He's running away!"
"Shit!"
She's right. Time to finish business.
"Stay right here!" Jericho said as he sprinted toward the back stairs at the other side of the ninth floor hallway.
Pretty Boy's fast, but Jericho is a trained machine. He wanted to open up the Desert Eagle in that hallway, but firing the first shot in that five-star hotel was a bad idea, even if it was his only choice. Pretty Boy had only one option, run as far away from the Chase as possible. That's perfect, once they hit the streets, those were Jericho's domain. He could finish business and be out of St. Louis in twenty minutes before the local 5 knew there was ever a problem. He just had to keep pace.
XIV
Alyse watched her paid assassin chase after the man she was sure killed her father, even if all logic and reason pointed to the woman behind bars. Sh
e saw those strange, white eyes, convinced more than ever that the Nightcrawler is something unholy and very real.
"Excuse me," a voice said from behind. "Are you okay?"
Alyse turned as a woman stepped out of the elevator. She was pretty, with short blonde hair and sparkling green eyes. She recognized her as the woman with her friend, the man she still only knew as Mr. Giancarlo.
"I'm fine," Alyse said with her arms wrapped across her chest.
"That's good. I saw what happened. We should call the police," the woman said calmly.
Alyse didn't know how to say, I can't. I don't want my private assassin to get in trouble.
"I think I'll be okay," Alyse said, heading back toward the elevator.
The woman reached out and grabbed Alyse's wrist.
"I think you should come with me," the woman said as her eyes glazed over with a white sheen.
XV
As Jericho and Pretty Boy, the target, tore down the stairs, Jericho needed to push this conflict into the streets and away from the lobby. The last thing he wanted is to get arrested tonight. Not that it would be a problem, but the fewer eyes on them, the better. Though, Pretty Boy, or whatever the hell he really is, probably didn't have any intention of getting caught either. Why else would he run?
Pretty Boy didn't rush out of the first-floor exit. Instead, he took another sharp turn and pushed his way down into what Jericho assumed was a basement exit. Wrong. This is a street exit. Specifically, the exit onto Lindell Boulevard.
10:45 on Thursday evening. The streets weren't as crowded as New York City or anything, but there's enough people that might see Pretty Boy's eventual murder. A world-class assassin doesn't execute people in the middle of an even semi-busy street. Without breaking stride, Jericho re-holstered his gun. He needed to keep following as Pretty Boy dashed across Lindall, dodging cars and cabs like this wasn't the first time he was caught in the act. If Alyse is right, Nightcrawler, or some version of him, had been doing this for fifty years. To Jericho's surprise, he made a beeline straight for a row of trees across the from Chase. He headed for Forest Park.
In the daytime, Forest Park was home to museums, amphitheaters, even a zoo. On a weeknight evening, it's just an empty park. Just empty enough for the target to lose himself in the woods. Jericho had to act. A hail of bullets, even silenced, in the metro area is a bad idea. This had to be done a little more delicate and in close quarters.
Jericho's legs tightened, and his lungs burned, but this is what he trained for. This is the hunt. Somehow, Jericho found second gear and closed the gap with him. As he lept into the air, he felt something pop in his hamstring. Hopefully, only a pull and not a full tear, either way, he's done running tonight. He reached out, extending his fingers so that they caught the target’s dress pants, dragging him down to the ground. The target turned back and smashed Jericho's nose with the heel of his palm. That stung.
Jericho wrapped his right hand inside Pretty Boy's collar and drove his left forearm into that perfect little nose, which exploded on impact. Blood ran down his pretty little face, but his milky white eyes caught the sight of something under Jericho's armpit. The target stuck his thumb in Jericho's eye and made for the gun. The assassin closed his eyes, but felt his rival reach for the Eagle. Jericho acted on instinct.
The target’s hand slid under his arm. Jericho tried to catch his wrist, but instead felt the almost unsheathed cold steel. The Nightcrawler's MO was knives, not guns. Good thing. They tussled on the cool grass of Forest Park, fumbling for the weapon before—
SHHHUUUPP
A single, silenced shot rang out. Hollywood, as usual, had it wrong. Silencers didn't make a pthewww sound. Jericho always thought those sounded more like an angry cat or a loud spit take. In real life, a silencer sounds more like a brief pop of compressed air, though it is nearly silent.
With the vision returning to his already damaged eye, he looked down at the tears in his $400 shirt. Damn. But rips are much better than blood. His hands, however, were washed in crimson. Pretty Boy's milky eyes faded, and the familiar blue had returned. Jericho pushed away from the struggling body.
"What happened?" he asked, looking at the fresh wound in his stomach.
Pretty Boy looked back up to his killer with a puzzled gaze. He didn't say anything else, but Jericho was very familiar with the look. How could you do this to me? Why did you do this to me?
Usually, he'd quip back a line, something like "too bad, so sad," but something about this is different. Pretty Boy started to cry, realizing he had very little time left. Jericho should have put another round in him, just to end it, but he didn't. Again, something about this is different. Pretty Boy closed his eyes and bled out on the moist, green grass. Jericho needed to run before someone saw them, but he couldn't pull himself away. Something felt unfinished.
Jericho took a lot of jobs over the years, and most of them ended a lot like this. Never once did he feel guilt over pulling the trigger, but tonight as he watched a young man who couldn't have been older than twenty-five die, he felt guilty. He knew what Pretty Boy would do to his client. This is literally the job he was hired to do. The job that he was the best in the world at and yet—
Pretty Boy's neck and head convulsed wildly. Jericho jumped back and aimed the Desert Eagle but didn't shoot. This didn't usually happen. A twitching body wasn't out of the ordinary, but it often started after the initial strike, not minutes after. Something about the way the head and neck trembled legitimately scared him. Almost like something tried pushing its way out.
Blood poured out from Pretty Boy's left ear canal. A small white obstruction peeked its way out from behind the folds in Pretty Boy's ear. Jericho should have opened fire again, or he should have run away. He chose neither. Instead, he stood there slack-jawed, watching what looked like a four-inch-wide white maggot crawl out of UnPretty Boy's ear.
Is the Nightcrawler actually some kind of worm? The creature slinked its way free from the dead man's head. Covered in blood, the creature's fat midsection expanded and contracted. Pretty Boy was dead, but whatever lived inside his head kept breathing. The worm turned, what Jericho figured was its head, toward him.
"What the fuck are you?"
The creature answered with an ear-splitting shriek that almost buckled the assassin to his knees. It didn't take a genius to figure out what is gonna happen if he fell to the ground. Jericho aimed the Eagle and squeezed.
SHHHUUUPP
The white worm popped like a hotdog that overstayed its time in the microwave. The little monster disintegrated. Good.
With that horrible sound gone, Jericho's ears filled with the sound of police sirens in the distance. Time to go. He needed to change. Good thing there was an extra set of clothes inside the Humvee. The job was done, and he could catch up with Alyse on the road. That's how he normally did it. But nothing about this job was normal. As Jericho walked out of the woods, he grabbed his phone and dialed.
"This is Alyse. I can't answer your phone right now, so please leave a message. Thanks!"
"This is Mr. Giancarlo. The pizza has been delivered. We'll talk later."
Wearing only his undershirt and the Armani pants, Jericho ditched the torn dress shirt and the holster in the trash. Everyone on the street had their attention turned to the Chase, which now had ten squad cars in front. Ten squads? Isn't that a little much?
He should have headed into the parking garage next to the Chase, but he didn't. Instead, he walked back to the front entrance. No one's looking for him. They are all too focused on whatever is going on inside.
"Stay back, sir," said a uniformed STL beat cop.
"What's going on?" Jericho asked.
"Can't talk about that, I'm afraid."
Jericho looked beyond the beat cop to the front entrance, where he saw four officers. Two plainclothes detectives, and two more beat cops exited the door. Between them was a woman with short, blonde hair and a silver dress in handcuffs. It's her. Katie, the girl from the bar. What di
d she do?
As the cops led the housewife from St. Charles into the back of the squad car, she seemed loopy. Almost like she was only half-there. Like she stood outside of herself, watching what happened. The black and white squad pulled away from the front of the famed St. Louis institution. Inside the squad, Katie Bischoff looked directly at Ethan Jericho and smiled, before slipping back into her hazy state.
"Alyse...."
XVI
Anne Casten got the news from Nocenti. The guard usually enjoyed taunting the prisoners with news from the outside, but not this time.
"I'm sorry, Anne. Your daughter is gone. They said she was on a date, and some jealous woman stabbed her in the back."
"Was her throat cut too?"
"I'm sorry, Anne."
That is the last thing Nocenti said before leaving Anne alone in that cell. Anne didn't cry. At least not in front of the guard. She didn't know if Nocenti would enjoy watching her scream for her baby girl. Instead, Anne sat in her bed, nearly catatonic. She knew what happened. Mr. Quatermane, the man the two of them hired, was involved. The killer was caught at the scene and confessed, but they were confused and foggy. She knew the story because it's hers. Jim is gone, and now so is Alyse.
And it's all her fault.
Anne waited until 3:00 am. That's when things inside were at their most quiet. In the morning, someone would want to come by and talk. Since no one had already been by, there's a good chance Nocenti disobeyed orders and told her before the authorities were ready. Of course, Nocenti knew what she would do with that information. What other choice did she have?
Anne pulled the sheet off her bed and wrapped it around the bars keeping her inside that cell. Anne still didn't know if she was doing it right. It's not like she had the time to research the proper techniques, but she's sure she could figure the rest out on her own. Anne fashioned a loop at the bottom of the sheet and slid her head through. The hardest part is making sure there's not too much slack in the middle. If there is, this whole thing could go wrong. She still didn't know if it would be taught enough, but there's only one way to find out.