I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2)

by Tony Monchinski

  “This is some good shit here, yo.”

  “Damn I’m hungry,” Ronald said some time later, sounding like he was fighting off sleep and losing the battle. The boys huddled together for warmth.

  “Yo, ain’t that your mom’s friend?” Marquis asked and it took Terry a few beats to catch his meaning. A homeless man was walking past on the quad, pushing a shopping cart loaded down with his personal belongings, giving the boys their distance in the night. “Wendell or something, right?”

  It took Terry a few more moments to remember the man’s name and by then the man had disappeared in the dark. “Barry.”

  “Hungry, yo.”

  “His name is Barry.”

  “Wonder what kind of shit that nigga seen livin’ out here,” Marquis said philosophically.

  “Werd,” Terry agreed.

  Terry thought he was dreaming when the next form materialized out of the night. The man wore some kind of black robe over a dark suit with a white shirt and a big-assed fur hat, looked like a tire on his head. Bearded with side-locks, he had something looked like a space gun strapped over his back.

  Terry rubbed his eyes. When he opened them, the man was approaching them.

  Looked like one of them niggas from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, some kind of Jewish.

  Terry rubbed his eyes again and this time when he opened them the man was standing right there, looking him and his friends over. The man wore black-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, gave him a look like his eyes were swimming in his head.

  Fred was giggling to himself, giggling and pointing one hand lazily.

  Ronald’s head was slumped on his chest and he was snoring, a line of drool hanging from his lip.

  The man peered into each of their faces, searching for something there.

  Terry couldn’t see the space gun on the man’s back, not with the way the man was standing, but he saw the big-assed pistol holstered under the man ‘s jacket and the submachine gun hanging by a strap under the man’s robe just fine.

  Marquis spoke: “You ain’t in Kansas, Dorothy.”

  Nodding, the man said something neither boy understood and walked off, slipping into the shadows of the quad.

  “I just seen that?”

  “I seen what you seen,” Terry told Marquis, “but I don’t know what I seen.” His fingers felt warm, and when he looked he saw he was holding the bone, the joint burnt down to little more than a roach between his thumb and index finger. “What’s in this shit?” Terry flicked it away, watching the glow arc off in the night.

  Fred giggled.

  Friday

  23 October 1998

  41.

  9:45 A.M.

  Dickie assured Maryann he was fine once more before hanging up. He saw how they were looking at him, trying to act like they weren’t, the other men at the pay phones. A few of them greeted him, even the brothers, seemed sincere about it.

  “Boss,” Bianchi fell in beside him, the two traversing the cell block. Bianchi with his elbow in a compression bandage, one hand kept going to it, touching at it.

  “How’s your elbow?”

  “I look like fuckin’ Popeye. These fuckin’ doctors. What’s a guy gotta do to get some proper medical attention around here?”

  “What’s the word on Cheeks?”

  “He’s gonna be laid up in the infirmary for awhile, but he’ll be okay. They don’t come tougher than Cheeks Carlucci.”

  “No they don’t. And Scal?”

  “The Scal’s an old man. He’s resting.”

  Dickie smiled, thinking of Jimmy Scal holding his own in the scuffle, the Scal pinning the fat guy’s legs while Cheeks finished him. The Scal probably lying back on his bunk now, Dickie picturing him in his tinted glasses with the gold frames.

  “The fuck…?” Bianchi’s voice trailing off, cries sounding up ahead, men excited, convicts rushing past them in the hall.

  Dickie gave Bianchi a look and Bianchi shrugged.

  “Probably a coupla the spics made a move on one another.”

  A crowd of prisoners were pressed together ahead in the corridor, hooting and gawking. Heat pulsated at the t-junction where they gathered, a cell at the end of the hall engulfed in fire, the flames licking out between the bars. C.O.s with fire extinguishers were trying to get through the press of bodies, screws with batons yelling at prisoners to move!, get back to their cells. Above it all a preternatural shrieking, sounded like an animal being tortured, something locked inside that cell burning.

  Dickie and Bianchi paused to look over the heads of the others, smoke billowing along the top of the cell block.

  Werner was standing there, back behind everyone else, watching Dickie and Bianchi, the hack shaking his head.

  “Come on, boss.” Bianchi took his hand off his elbow, hustling Dickie away from the scene, the shrieks diminishing behind them.

  Dickie looked over his shoulder once, saw Werner still looking at them. “That was us?”

  Bianchi shrugged, but it was the way he shrugged and the amused look on his face. “Guess someone needed to talk to someone,” he said, “‘bout somethin’,” he suppressed a laugh. “Guess it wasn’t a good time, huh?”

  “If it was,” Dickie looked back again but Werner was lost to them, “it ain’t now.”

  42.

  11:45 P.M.

  He got into town and decided he’d head over to the Social Club and get that out of the way. Two old men were sitting outside in lawn chairs, looked like they’d always been there. The one had a cane, his age-spotted hand squeezing it as Cassidy walked up to them on the street.

  Buonasera, speaking to them in their own language, the old man with the cane shaking and Cassidy couldn’t place it: Parkinsons or anger? A chance he knew him, though Cassidy didn’t recognize the guy.

  Through a nondescript screen door into a small vestibule and out into a vast room with a pool table and a bar, a couple of fans spinning slowly overhead. Cigarette and cigar smoke heavy in the room. A bunch of wiseguys standing around, stopping whatever they were doing to look at him, none of them too happy to see him, some almost immediately looking away.

  “Johnny Spasso.” Cassidy spying the man at the bar.

  Cassidy walked towards Spasso, passing men he knew or knew of, cataloging them in his head, thinking who had to go down first if things got hot.

  Joe Deuce, standing there with a pool stick in his hand. Had a brother they called Frankie Nickles before Cassidy took him out in—what was that? Back in ’88 maybe? Joe Deuce’s hand red on the pool stick, shaking he was holding it so tight like the old man with the cane outside. Next to him, Benny Aulisi, better known as Benny the Bum. The Bum had a cousin used to go by Fast Ronnie. Fast Ronnie got in the car and went for a drive with Cassidy one night, never come back. In the moment of truth Fast Ronnie hadn’t lived up to his name, Cassidy beating him to the draw.

  Pete “Yabo” DelaRosa laying his pool stick on the table. Yabo had a couple cousins weren’t around anymore thanks to the Genesse family, Cassidy’s employers.

  Seated at a table with take-out in front of him, Amerigo “Skinny Boy” Petacci. Nothing skinny about him, so fat he looked Asian in the face, the buttons of his sauce-stained shirt straining against his flesh. His brother Vito had been the exact opposite, thin as a rail, they used to call him Fat Vic as a joke. Called him that until Anthony Genesse popped him in Jersey, disposed of Fat Vic’s skinny body in a Staten Island landfill. Cassidy had been in on that.

  The Mick, Canahan, standing there at the pool table, one of the few to smile at Cassidy, say hi, say “I didn’t think they let your kind in here,” Cassidy saying “Well, if they’re serving the Irish now…” saying it with a straight face, walking past.

  Clutching a cigar, Anthony Vella stared at Cassidy like Jesus Christ or someone a whole lot worse had just entered the premises. Ant Vella, known as Sausage, rumor had it because of his preferred method of disposing of bodies. That or the fact that his family owned a meat market. There were som
e more cats Cassidy recognized—Peter Gooch and Joey Fab, Dave Pasquale and Mike Vicario—and some he didn’t. The ones he didn’t were younger guys, quicker to look away, out of respect or fear.

  Cassidy close to the bar now, entering the Dickie Nicolie inner circle. Nunz the Wop, imported Stateside years ago for some wet work, never went back to Cambria or wherever he was from. Gaetano, another shooter come over from the old country a decade ago and stayed. They called him Guy. Sully with his toothpick in his mouth, Sully one of the ones definitely not happy to see Cassidy here. Next to him, Carmine in his slacks and collared shirt, business casual, his face giving nothing away.

  Bartender behind the bar, guy in his sixties maybe, wiping his bar down with a rag, ignoring Cassidy.

  “Cassidy.” Sully chewed on his toothpick, working his jaw.

  “Sully.”

  “Sul.” Johnny Spasso gestured as he exhaled a plume of smoke, dismissing the soldier. Sully had a way of saying things that pissed people off, better to place him out of the immediate vicinity. Spasso leaned with his back against the bar, rain coat open, not trying to hide the nines under each arm. Spasso wearing a Fu-Manchu as only he could.

  The younger guy next to him, facing the bar, hadn’t turned. Kid was thin, wore a button down rayon shirt, some kind of tattoo on one arm, enough mousse or gel in his hair to spike it up and give him a few extra inches. Chewing gum.

  “Dooles,” Johnny saying to the bar keep. “Get our friend a Glenlivet. It’s still Scotch, right?”

  “It is.”

  “One thing you got, Cassidy,” the kid with the spiked hair hadn’t turned yet, “you got balls.”

  “Don’t think I know you.”

  “Name’s Katonah.” The kid took a drink of whatever he had, cool as ice or trying to seem to be. “Tony Katonah.”

  Cassidy nodded. Never heard of him.

  “Tone’s got a point. Maybe you should have called before you stopped by?”

  “Hey, Johnny, I got a question about the old man outside.” Cassidy thanked the bartender when the man finished pouring his Scotch, the bartender not acknowledging him.

  “Which one?”

  “Guy with the cane.”

  “Tommy Sanelli.”

  Tommy Sanelli. It took Cassidy a few seconds at the bar, the glass of Scotch in his hand. Tomasino Sanelli. Greg “Butch” Sanelli’s father. Had to be. Cassidy and Anthony Genesse had taken the son out must have been a dozen years ago, maybe more. Done some work on him for awhile first. Cassidy shook his glass, watching the ice cubes circle. No wonder the old man was shaking looking at him.

  “You killed his son,” Tony Katonah told Cassidy what he already knew, and then he told him something he didn’t: “Was my second cousin.”

  “Yeah.” Cassidy sipped his Scotch, and placed the glass back on the bar. “You know what,” he turned his body away from the bar, facing Katonah. “I think I remember hearing something about that.” If the kid was going to spin around and draw on him, Cassidy didn’t want his body blocked by the bar, wanted to get his .45s out fast as possible. Because once the shooting started in this place, Cassidy didn’t think it was going to end with this one Italian.

  And Johnny Spasso’d be the first guy he’d have to hit, even before he addressed the kid.

  “Tony,” Spasso was still leaning back on the bar, reminded the hot head, “Cassidy’s here to work with us.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “Hey Tony,” Carmine spoke up. “Whyn’t you take a walk with me, uh? Come on kid.”

  Cassidy waited for them to walk away before saying to Johnny, “I’m sorry to hear Dickie went away,” meaning it as he said it, Johnny knowing he meant it, Johnny saying “Yeah.”

  Cassidy took another sip of his Scotch, put it down. “I don’t think that young man likes me.”

  “Ah. There’s a few of them in here.” Johnny took a drag of his cigarette, tapped out the ash. “Never thought I would have seen the day,” he remarked, meaning him and Cassidy together at the bar like this, working together again.

  “Yeah. Funny how things work.”

  “Funny but you’re not laughing.”

  “Not that kind of funny.”

  “So you ready to talk?”

  “Finish your drink, Johnny. We got time.”

  43.

  4:15 A.M. (CEST)

  “Wake up, fool.”

  Boone opened his eyes. Big Mike stood over him in the cargo plane’s fuselage, a menacing shadow against the muted glow of the interior lights. His fangs glistened plainly in his mouth.

  “Feelin’ randy?” Boone asked him.

  “Time to jump,” the vampire yelled over the thrum of the plane’s engines in the enclosed space. Around them movement as men readied themselves, last minute equipment checks, making certain everything was where it should be.

  Boone rose off the bench, straightening his legs under his jump suit and the various gear strapped to his body. His parachute container was in place, thick shoulder and leg straps. He pulled his helmet over his head and secured it.

  They were queuing up, six of them. Boone was third in line, behind Colson and Kane. Big Mike was directly behind him and Boone could live with that. What was the vamp going to do? Push him out of the plane? The jump master—a vampire Boone had never seen before this flight—opened the fuselage door and the noise in the plane kicked up a few more notches. Boone pulled his goggles down.

  They waited, Colson standing in the door over thousands of feet of open space. The jump master stood beside him and waited for the light above the door to go from red to green.

  Kane turned around and gave Boone a thumbs up, a ghastly smile beneath his goggles and helmet. In addition to the submachine guns, pistols and other weapons they all carried, the Wrath had two swords scabbarded and tied down to his body. He really is looking forward to this, Boone thought, nodding back at the man. Damian too.

  He’d love to see them all jump before him, preferably without their chutes.

  Whatever they were jumping into on the ground, it wasn’t going to be pretty and no way it would be easy.

  Red became green and the jump master slapped Colson on the back. Colson launched himself from the fuselage, Kane stepping into the door and following suit. Boone stepped up to the lip of the door, watching the two plummet out of sight into the night. He couldn’t see shit at this height. What looked like clouds—

  A shove from the next in line behind him and Boone was propelled from the plane, looking up and back in time to see Big Mike laughing at him in the doorway before he followed, the rudder and horizontal stabilizers of the plane streaking past them.

  Boone fell, his arms and legs outstretched, the wind flapping his jump suit. He looked over his body, finding the lighted altimeter, the numbers descending. The idea to free fall, deploy his chute at—Boone felt something on his back—not so much a physical weight as a presence—and craned his neck for a better look, wondering what the f—

  Stash.

  Stash was clinging to his back, falling with him. Nice of him to show up now, thought Boone. And then he had another idea: Stash only seemed to show up when his life was in danger. That knowledge, plummeting through the firmament to an unseen earth below, did nothing to reassure Boone.

  A ghostly arm reached around Boone to the rip cord on his jump rig and before Boone fully understood where this was going his pilot-chute had deployed and was catching air, pulling out the main parachute and the change in acceleration was so abrupt he momentarily felt like he’d come to a standstill in mid-air. The ghost had disappeared and Boone was left wondering why Stash had deployed his chute.

  A dark shadow streaked past him, falling through the night. Big Mike?

  Boone wore a flashlight and he searched his person until he found it. He switched it on and shone it up at the canopy. Everything looked like he thought it should. The clouds came up fast and before he knew it he was in them, wisps of condensation about him, the flashlight beam reflecting back
at him. There was a rumble from somewhere far off below and looking down Boone couldn’t see anything. He could barely make out his feet in the cloud.

  An image flashed before his eyes, a figure covered in blood rising from a pool of red. Boone blinked and shook his head, opening his eyes to tens of thousands of men rushing across a beach towards one another, their roars drowning out the surf—

  Not now!

  He reached up and pulled his goggle away from his face, scrunched his eyes shut and when he opened them an otherworldly beast covered in scales rose into the sky, its fiery breath incinerating men where they stood, melting flesh from bone, skeletons left standing in place—

  Boone came out of the clouds and the images were gone, replaced with explosions from below, muzzle flashes winking on the battlements, within the bailey. Boone watched it all from his vantage point, in greater and growing detail as he neared the earth. The night rocked with each detonation, lightning-like flashes that illuminated sections of the castle.

  The fuck was wrong with him. Boone looked back up to the cloud but it was just a cloud. Usually the dreams only came to him in his sleep.

  Boone turned his attention back to his chute, finding the control cord.

  An enormous blast—the largest yet—boiled up from the ground, one of the buildings in the bailey leveled. Tracers from machine guns criss-crossed, men in the air below Boone firing down on the castle, men on the ground enmeshed in combat. Rocket trails were followed by detonations, the eruptions lighting sections of the bailey.

  He felt incredibly vulnerable hanging in the air. Anyone turned and looked up, they’d see him, and he’d be an easy target. Nowhere to hide. Muzzle flashes lit the dark and Boone heard them clearly now, men screaming as they died. Sounded like they were too busy on the ground to notice him.