Eventually, Erik’s probing gaze locked on Talon. “So what’s going on between you and that reporter broad? Hope you know the girl is crazy about you.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“So what are you waiting for? A girl like Michelle comes around once in a lifetime. You don’t want to let her get away. Step up to the plate and make an honest woman out of her.”
“I just did, a few hours before you called.”
“Oh shit, no way. Oh man, I’m so sorry. Fuck, the day you propose you end spending the evening up with a loser like me.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m proud of you, kid. You two will be great together.”
I think so too, Talon thought.
“So what happens next? Might be tougher risking your ass every day knowing there’s someone back home waiting for you. A whole family, maybe…”
Talon was impressed by how Erik had redirected the focus from himself. No wonder the man had once earned a reputation as a master interrogator.
“I think it’s time for a change.” Talon’s voice grew dead serious. Erik understood.
“You thinking of leaving the unit?”
“The thought has crossed my mind. I don’t want to turn Michelle into just another military wife.”
Talon knew this would be the most challenging part of settling down. He loved what he did and took pride in the function his unit served. But he was getting older. Turning his back on the military life would be hard, but he would find a way to serve his country in another capacity. Perhaps he would apply for a job at the CIA or do some teaching.
Despite all his training and lethal skill, Talon harbored no illusions about his mortality. As a soldier at the tip of the spear, the specter of death was his constant companion. Talon had found a way to live with it but he doubted if Michelle could, especially if they decided to start a family.
Erik polished off his beer. “I won’t sleep as soundly knowing you’re not out there keeping the country safe. But it’ll be nice having you around.”
Talon hoped that once he settled down in San Francisco, he might become a positive influence on Erik. Would their friendship be enough to conquer the damaged vet’s demons? Only time would tell.
Talon finished his beer and checked his watch. It was now past ten. “Alright, I should get going.”
Talon walked to the door and paused. “You’ll be good, right? You’re not going to do anything stupid?”
“If your idea of stupid is ordering a pizza from Joey’s and knocking it back with a couple shots of bourbon, then the answer is yes.”
The bravado in Erik’s voice made Talon want to believe him. ”I expect you to be the best man at my wedding.”
“Sounds like I don’t have long to get my shit together. I think that calls for one more round.”
He grinned at Talon and cracked open another beer.
***
Michelle Rossi basked in the happy afterglow of her passionate reunion with Mark Talon and the promise of their shared future. Letting him leave her apartment had not been easy, but she knew his friend needed him. She’d seen Erik a few times since being embedded with the unit and it was clear that the man’s psychological scars were far worse than his physical ones. The battlefield could take a heavy toll on the minds and bodies of the brave men and women serving their country.
No one remained unscathed by the experience, not even Mark, but he had found a way to channel every negative thought in a constructive direction and make it work to his advantage. When they first started dating, she wondered what differentiated Mark from other soldiers who succumbed to the stress of their dangerous profession. She’d interviewed many veterans who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and feared Mark could be next in line.
One key element separated Mark from those other warriors. Instead of dwelling on the horrors of combat, he allowed them to fuel the urgency of his mission. Mark never forgot the greater purpose behind the mayhem. Freedom and civilization weren’t given to us; they were hard earned over the course of centuries dominated by cruelty and injustice. The battles might be terrible, but the war was worth winning.
Michelle yawned and her eyes grew heavy. It had been a long day. She decided to brew a pot of coffee so she would be awake when Mark returned.
As the stimulating scent of Java beans filled her apartment, her mind turned to the enigmatic man who had so unexpectedly popped back into her life. She was still reeling from the surprising turn her day had taken. When they first met she’d welcomed the idea of a long-distance relationship. She was fiercely independent and didn’t want to be beholden to the demands of a full-blown relationship. But each time she saw Mark, it became harder to say goodbye. She was surprised to discover that she wanted him to be part of her life. Not in a let’s-see-each-other-when–we-can way, but full-time.
She eyed her engagement ring and stifled a delighted giggle. Her wish was on its way to becoming reality. Did Mark plan to resign from his military duties? The proposal suggested the possibility and the idea of having him around all the time made her grin with happiness.
Her thoughts shifted from Mark to the story she was tackling at the moment. She hadn’t offered up any details when Mark asked her about it, but if her source was telling the truth, this piece could rattle Silicon Valley and the entire Bay Area. She needed to proceed with caution.
Michelle was about to take a seat with her laptop when she heard the knock on her door. Could it be Mark? She ruled out that possibility — he had both her car and house keys. Gripped by foreboding, she paused near the door.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Michelle backed away from the door. She’d found herself in some shady places over the course of her journalistic career and didn’t scare easily. Nevertheless, the growing sense that someone threatening lurked behind the door filled her with dread.
Fighting back her fear, she made a go for the couch, where she kept her purse. It contained a can of pepper spray. She was still rummaging in the handbag when a heavy blow rattled the front door. Two more cracks followed in quick succession and after the third sharp crack, the lock snapped.
As the destroyed door swung open, four intruders stood revealed. They all wore baggy black hoodies, their features cloaked in shadow. One carried the kind of battering ram used by police officers.
Michelle’s panicked fingers closed around her pepper spray just as the home invaders swarmed her living room. The intruders wore silver-gray robotic skull-masks under their hoods, and this inhuman presence froze Michelle for a moment. By the time she depressed the nozzle, a gloved hand was already headed for her face. The canister hissed as the intruder’s fist connected.
Both Michelle and the pepper spray went flying. Stunned, she tried to regain her bearings. Too late! One of the attackers grabbed her hair.
Many people would have gone rigid with fear at this point, dazed and outnumbered. But Michelle was well versed in martial arts from jujitsu to Krav Maga. Mark had taught her a few tricks, too. Her work took her to some dangerous places and she had to be able to handle herself.
Without hesitation, her elbow fired back and hammered her assailant’s collarbone. He let out a cry that was muffled by his robotic mask and backed away.
Michelle spun around and surveyed the living room. Keeping her cool, she searched her environment for everyday objects that could serve as a makeshift weapon. She snatched up the steaming coffee mug from the end table and thrust it into her second attacker’s face. The man cursed as the cup exploded in a burst of scalding caffeine and fragmented porcelain.
Suddenly the monstrous quartet before her seemed a little less intimidating. Masks served one function in battle — to instill fear in the enemy. Underneath the armor were flesh-and-blood people who could be hurt. Or killed. Confidence growing, Michelle turned toward her third attacker but this man was prepared. In his gloved hand he held out a Taser.
No!
Compres
sed nitrogen projected twin probes at 180 feet per second. The projectiles instantly made contact and her body went slack, 50,000 volts overriding her nervous system. As her muscles contracted involuntarily, she hit the floor in a fetal position.
The cold irony was that Michelle now gasped, paralyzed, in the same spot where minutes earlier she’d shared a lover’s embrace with Mark.
The intruders gathered around her twitching body, forming a ring of hooded evil. One of the masked men pointed his cellphone camera at Michelle, recording her suffering.
Fucking bastard…
Her will to fight was still there, but her limbs refused to obey her commands. Recognizing her own helpless state, mortal fear set in.
Noooo… Not now. Not like this.
While one masked man recorded Michelle’s suffering, the other three produced knives from the pockets of their baggy hoodies. The four figures began to utter foreign words that filled Michelle with atavistic terror.
Oh my God, what’s happening here?
At around six-foot-four and the size of a middle linebacker, one man towered over the others. He appeared to be the leader of the group. He sank to his haunches beside Michelle’s paralyzed form and produced a canister of spray-paint. There was an explosive hiss as he began to draw an inverted star around her prone form. The paint’s nauseating fumes assaulted her nostrils and nearly made her gag.
This can’t be happening… Someone, please, help me…
Only one man could stop these monsters, and he wasn’t at her side when she needed him the most.
The third assailant placed candles at the points of the floor pentagram and Michelle’s dread deepened. The large man leaned over her and whispered in her ear, his voice bereft of all emotion. “I pledge your soul to my master.”
With these chilling words, he drove a knife into Michelle’s sternum until only the hilt protruded. There had been no hesitation, no dramatic pause, just a robotic precision. Her still-paralyzed body jerked as the blade eased through skin, muscle and bone. The notion that six inches of steel could so easily vanish inside her body seemed surreal, a nightmare beyond her imagining. It couldn’t be true… but it was.
To her surprise, she experienced no pain at first. Adrenaline actually masked the damage. Then the big man withdrew his knife and blood streamed from the terrible wound. The first waves of agony washed over her.
Michelle understood that any help would come too late. At the rate she was losing blood, she’d be dead in minutes. In various war zones she’d seen enough people perish, both military and civilians, to know that her fate was sealed.
Mark’s face filled her mind as adrenaline surged through her body and her pulse quickened, the increase in blood pressure only hastening her demise.
Her dear Mark. She knew her death would devastate him and for a moment she was more concerned about the man she loved than her own safety.
But the horror was far from over.
It was merely beginning.
Like a school of piranhas descending on live prey, the other knife-wielding monsters plunged their daggers into Michelle with psychotic fury.
In and out, again and again.
Michelle exhaled blood and let out a guttural cry that seemed to intensify her killer’s frenzy. The indifferent electronic eyes of their cellphone-cams continued to capture every detail of the bloodbath.
***
Robert Zagan, CEO of Omicron Technologies, entered a sleek, 300-seat auditorium. It was a cavernous chamber appointed in warm woods and brushed steel. Zagan headed for the stage. The company normally used the assembly room to make announcements or even hold press conferences, but today’s secret gathering served a far darker agenda.
About eighty seats were filled at the moment. Zagan’s audience consisted exclusively of computer engineers, the best and brightest this Silicon Valley tech upstart had produced in the last two years. Their open laptops glowed in the dimly lit chamber like electronic fireflies, the sickly phosphorescent light of their LCD screens bathing their faces in an eerie spectral green. With their hoodies, the programmers seemed like cyber monks tapping away at the secrets of a digital universe. It was an apt analogy, considering what they were working on.
Zagan stepped up to the podium and faced the assembled computer-engineering talent before him. Unlike the coders who favored jeans, Converse and flannel, Zagan was clad in a stylish black suit. His sleek, ascetic features were complemented by a lean, almost gaunt physique — the product of a strict vegan diet and rigid exercise regimen. He’d prematurely gone bald in his mid-twenties and began shaving his head. This only added to his severe presence.
Omicron, like many tech companies that revolutionized the industry and then the world, had come from humble beginnings. Just a few years earlier, the company had consisted of a staff of six. Spurred by rapid growth, Omicron now counted nearly one 500 employees on its 15 acre campus. Its tablets and phones had leveled the playing field and given its competitors a run for their money.
To Zagan’s mind, that was just the beginning. The best was yet to come.
Zagan spoke into his mic, uttering esoteric words in the ancient Egyptian liturgical language. The giant screen ignited with quick shots of the hooded figures inside Michelle’s apartment. They formed a circle around the helpless woman sprawled on the spray-painted carpet.
The frightening tableau live-streamed in crisp HD through the auditorium on the coders’ networked laptop screens. They pounded the keyboards harder.
“I pledge your soul to my master,” Zagan proclaimed and the powerfully built killer at Michelle’s side repeated the CEO’s ominous words. His gleaming blade encompassed the length of the auditorium’s mammoth screen, Michelle’s terrified features reflected in the broad expanse of steel. When his gloved hand drove the knife into the hapless woman’s chest, her scream shredded the silence of the auditorium.
The faces of the employees registered no emotion. Their eyes did glitter with feverish exhilaration as Michelle’s final moments flickered on their screens. Fingers flew over the keys, coding in syncopated rhythm with the thrusting blades onscreen as the grisly murder fueled their work. It was as if their workflow kept adjusting to match the speed and intensity of the stabbing knives.
Zagan surveyed his audience with growing satisfaction. He glanced at the big screen, where Michelle’s bloodied features loomed. Her eyes were glazing over. As death claimed her, a smile split Zagan’s face.
Soon the world would experience the terrible power of Omicron.
***
Talon reached Michelle’s neighborhood around 11 p.m and found a parking spot right outside her door. Talon’s good mood changed the moment he approached the townhome. The door was wide open, its surface splintered. A wave of dread sucked the air from his lungs. Unarmed, he knew he should call the cops first, but Talon wasn’t the type to wait around for the cavalry to show up.
He barged into the apartment with quick strides, heart hammering against his ribcage. He was prepared to fight off an army with his bare hands.
When he saw Michelle, an icy hand seemed to tighten around his heart. His mind went blank, his world reduced to the horror before him. The woman he loved was lying in a broken, bloody heap.
Talon had encountered death often enough to know Michelle was gone, but logic took a backseat to emotion. He surged toward the body and cradled her scarlet-streaked head. Blood flowed through his fingers… so much blood… Its coppery tang mixed with her subtle perfume.
He held Michelle in his trembling arms, brushing a sheaf of crimson-caked hair from her face.
God, this can’t be happening!
Talon was beyond words and so was the dead woman in his arms.
He was still cradling Michelle when sirens cut through the night and cops exploded into the apartment, guns pointing at him.
“Step away from the body!”
They were shouting at him, but he didn’t hear their words. “I said, step back!”
One of the officers
grabbed Talon’s arm and something snapped inside of him. Years of training kicked in and he roughly shoved the cop aside. Wrong move. Immediately, three guns were cocked and laser-lights danced over his chest.
Talon slowly raised his hands, his face turning into a dead mask.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE EVENTS FOLLOWING his arrest became a dark blur. Talon remembered the cops slamming him against the wall at gunpoint and slapping cuffs on him. At first he’d refused to back away from Michelle, unwilling to release her body, to let go of her. As long as he clung to her, death wouldn’t become permanent and irreversible. His thinking stood in the face of logic but he now found himself in a place where his darkest emotions held reign.
As the police officers kept barking orders at him to back away, his 1000-yard stare fixed on the boys in blue. He was daring them to shoot him, part of him wishing they would put him out of his misery. Another thought prevailed and brought him back to his senses. Michelle was gone but her killer or killers were still out there. This realization tore through his mind and became his reason to go on living. Whoever had done this to his girlfriend would pay for their crimes.
He would make sure of it.
After the cops cuffed Talon, they led him to a waiting cruiser. The red-blue light of the sirens washed over his expressionless features. The long drive to the precinct felt like an endless journey down a dark tunnel, a fragmented, hallucinatory trip into his personal hell. He fixated on his cuffed hands — they were still caked with Michelle’s blood — and blocked out the world.
Talon knew he was shutting down. The next thing he remembered was sitting in a bare, gray room facing down two homicide detectives. They were running his prints and soon enough the computer would spit out his service record.
As the detectives launched into their questions, Talon offered up clipped answers. He’d received a call from an old Army buddy. The timing of the texts on his phone would back up his story and they should contact Erik. Not the best alibi in the world, but his old friend would certainly vouch for him.
Occult Assassin: Damnation Code (Book 1) Page 3