by Riley Mason
There was something unnatural about her heart being pulled from the scene of the crime. It wasn’t totally out of the ordinary for a serial killer to decide that it wanted to take a souvenir but most of the time it was some hair a piece of clothing. Most of them weren’t idiotic enough to waste time carving a whole in a chest just to pull something like that. It takes skill to pull a heart out of a chest whether the person donating it is alive or dead.
I get up and pace my apartment, I hate this part of my job. I hate the demonic and I hate the supernatural, but I hate it more than anything when someone innocent has to die for one of them.
One of my headaches comes back on. This happens from time to time, usually when the work gets stressful. I had a round of doctors look at me a few years ago, most of them said that it was some sort of amnesia, that was the reason for the memory outages, it was also the reason that they put the headaches on. I never fully indulge them, a lot of head nodding and a lot of prescriptions filled later, nothing has changed except the fact that I don’t go to those doctors anymore.
I look out my window, careful of the drapes that are covering them. Most of the armada of police and ambulances are gone for now. I can see the caution tape flapping in the wind, some of it must’ve come undone. There is one patrol car in front of the building I assume they’re there for some procedural purpose. The words from the newspaper stained the ink from the page into my head. Despite all the damage the occult can do, few target the heart especially in the heat of their own personal hunts. It reminds me of the memories that I still have, the ones that I wished long ago would be the ones that would up and disappear.
There is someone that I know that could shed some more light on it, someone that was there with me, when you’re a Chaser it’s instinctive to build a network of people that have such diversified areas of expertise. Jesse is one of those. I’ve known him a long time, but it’s been years since we’ve spoken and I know he hasn’t hung up his guns just yet even though he had more than enough reason to do so. I decide that it’s time to acquaint.
I put on a pair of olive cargo pants, a black mid-drift T-shirt and slid the Desert Eagle to the compartment in the jacket I throw over me. I also tuck a small tool kit in one of the other pockets on the inside of my jacket for a small pouch with lock picks inside of them. Another staple of a mischievous youth.
As I left I caught sight of myself in the mirror, the same mirror that I had used to tie my hair back into something functional. I could see something that I hadn’t noticed before. Tender bags were hanging low on my eyes, the lack of sleep was catching up to me. I was surprised, usually I didn’t sleep more than an hour or two a night and suddenly I felt exhausted.
I ignored it, how much more it would listen to me I wasn’t sure, but I left the apartment all the same.
Chapter 9
When the orange in the sky still buried well into the horizon hit me, it pulled some of the fatigue out of me. For that I was very grateful. The last thing that I needed was to be fighting off the sleep that I hadn’t had.
Most of the time I preferred the solitude my life afforded me in those moments that some part of me didn’t crave normalcy. It was better like that. People didn’t really come to understand my line of work and it kept me so busy that I’d rather not bother. Only once since I moved to New York did I think that I could juggle a relationship, it took a year before I realized that it was never going to work and let it go. When I did, it was because there was about to be a ring on my finger and I had built a web of lies to handle both him and my life that was about to crumble with all the weight that I piled on top of it.
It’s not that I hadn’t loved him, I did but solitude was the way to do this type of work. Attractions, bonds, those are the things that get you killed, those were the chinks in the armor that these things can exploit and use to control you. I didn’t love it, I hated that part about the life, but it was the sacrifice that I had to make to make sure that I could keep doing this. How do you defend a profession when some people can’t even see what your hunting or believe the supernatural is actually grounded in some reality. All that does it burden the trust that you try to build, I couldn’t just let it all rip itself apart and I broke it off before my profession or a target had the chance to do that for me.
The morning pressure on the sidewalks was starting to build even though there was still ink colored black in the sky above, for one reason or another people generally moved out of my way. Maybe it was because I was never dressed in the professional uniforms that all of them wore but I had long ago mastered that devoted stare as if you could see the light at the end of your personal tunnel as you walked, and you would never break concentration until you got there.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone and waiting at the edge of the subway tunnel stairwell before I went down. It rang three times before someone answered.
“Hey, it’s Arinna,” I said to the line, but I didn't’ hear anything come back.
I waited about thirty seconds before I figured it was safe to speak again. “If you getting this meet me at the South Street Seaport Pier 19 in an hour. I need to speak to you.”
If there was a response, some version of an acknowledgement, I didn't get it. I hung up as soon as I finished my own sentence and went down into the Subway terminal, slid my MetroCard through the swiper, and waited for my subway.
Chapter 10
I hated straying too far from Hell’s Kitchen. There was something about it that I liked, something about it that kept me attached to New York even when I thought that I was going to leave the city.
I had given my life in the service of something that I never fully understood before I feel like I had full control over my life. I know that doesn’t make all that much sense, but I suppose it will give the right amount of time.
As I sit on the subway I look around, I never like to stand. If I stand it's hard to hold balance which is crazy to me because I used to have to learn how to fight on a beam and could manage that well enough. That and the people on the subway never made it that easy. A lot of hands reach around you during those rides and I have something fairly illegal in my possession as well as in my waist, it makes more sense to fight for a seat then to stay compliant and stand.
The subway screeches to its halt and seconds before the electronic voice indicates that my stop was next. I join a small crowd that funnels out of the sliding doors and move up towards the surface, away from the heat and the thick smells of sour waste that thrive underground.
The Seaport is fairly dead. I know that at four in the morning, this place looks like Times Square with all the trucks and the fisherman and the men and women who come to buy fish that's fresh off the boats. Now, I know is their twilight, it’s why I chose this spot for the meeting. The small ships in the water, the classical ones from time's forgotten stationed in fairly calm water don’t mind what I'm doing.
It’s not long before I know I’m being watched. I feel one but I’m almost certain there are two sets of eyes on me. I know they’re not cops either. I keep my trail so cold that there isn’t a reason in the world a cop would come looking for me or actually know my name. This is my contact and I can see that he’s as paranoid as I remember him to becoming in the end, after the war had eaten that part of all of us.
I sit down on a bench that's overlooking the water and I wait. I enjoy the salted breeze coming at me, it reminds me how tired I am but it also grabs a bit of my energy reserves. I need some sleep I know that. I’m going on nearly thirty hours maybe more at this point, but I need direction, I know this man that I’ve come to meet has something for me whether he knows it or not.
Someone comes up to the seat next to me. Long black hair, Asian with tattoos all over his arm, he’s thinner than the last time I saw him, he was already thin before then. When he looks at me I can see the paleness strung all over his face. I can see the horrific scars that dress his face now, the white eye that’s left over from where he lost his natural
left one. “Why didn’t you tell me Arinna,” he says to me. He’s angry but his words are coming out through strained breaths.
“Tell you what?” I ask back.
“That’s he’s back,” Jesse says like he’s nervous to say those words in that order. “That Gabriel’s back.”
“Gabriel?” I ask him, the name doesn’t sound familiar.
Now his face goes pure white. “How do you not remember that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say to him and I don't know what’s worse, the fact that the shock on his face is telling me that I should have every idea about that name or the fact that I don’t.
“Gabriel took you from us,” Jesse says, his face heavy his breathing nearly frantic to the point I think that he’s going lose control, Chaser’s aren’t exactly known for their temper control. “Took you from the Chasers after the war was over. He made you kill for him, both demons and people. It took us two years to figure out how to get you back.”
It’s almost as if I can’t hear what he’s saying or that I don't want too. It doesn’t make any sense. “Jesse, I don't know a Gabriel,” I tell him.
I see tears building up in his eyes, the only outlet when the anger can’t properly vent. I’m not used to seeing people like this, not ones who hunt at least. Civilians I expect this from, not from the people that’ve seen what I’ve seen. “He came to me told me he needed me. Took me to my parents’ house,” he trails off and the tears are pouring down his face now. “He gave me the gun and told me to kill them, he told me to empty the fucking clip into my goddamn parents,” this last part was a scream, it was enough to chase some gulls away.
I see him pull out his sidearm, Colt, stainless steel and put it to his temple. Tears are free-falling from his face now. “I thought I knew how to keep him out. That we knew enough about him after you to keep him out of my head, but I didn’t.”
“Jesse,” I say trying to collect my own thoughts, I’m almost speechless. “You told me your parents died,” I tell him, struggling to find some truth in his chaos.
“You hide bloodlines, I hid them from all of you, he found them and brought me to them.” He slammed the muzzle hard enough on his temple that I could see blood rolling around his forehead before casually sliding down his brow.
My hand touches his back and he flinches. I’m terrible at this and I know its showing in a time where I wish I had more practice.
“He said he has his eye out for you. That he misses you but it's not time to take you back yet. You have too much to remember but he said if you don't stay out of his way, he’s going to do what she should’ve done two years ago.” The anger was tears now and his lower lip was shaking so bad it was hard to understand him
I see him crying as he slides back the hammer, that curl of his lip as spit starts to trail out of his mouth. “He told me I can’t live with myself.”
“Jesse, stop, listen to me.” My voice is low, I can’t bring it higher because in my head I’ve already seen what happens.
“He said that I never should’ve survived. That I had to get this message to you.”
“Jesse,” I say again trying to pull him back to reality. I can’t. I struggle to get the gun away from him, but he pushes me back, stands and faces me, his eyes straighten, his mouth tightens, his hand is stuck to the grip of the gun so hard I can see muscles swelling in his forearm.
“Now you know.” There isn’t a single minute of hesitation, no pleading, the task was done, the trigger was pulled, and I turn as the bullet spits out what doesn’t fit in its path out of the other end of Jesse’s skull. A scream cuts through the air, a woman on the corner then a second one, a man walking towards a subway station, then the whine of a patrol car and the screech of the tires as they burn themselves to get to the scene. I have to get out of here.
Chapter 11
I’m out of there before the second patrol car pulls up to the scene of the suicide. I can’t be there. I know how cops work and I know how investigations are structured. They’re going to ask a lot of questions that I want nothing to do with and the fact that I’m armed with more than one weapon does me no help.
I start walking east away from it, I turn back once but that’s the last time that I’ll allow myself to turn back. I don’t mind the sight of blood I really don’t, I don’t mind guns or the sound of them going off, what I do mind is a cop turning to scope around him the same time that I’m moving my head towards the accident. It won’t take long before they realize that there were two people on that bench.
I’m not more than two blocks away and three more cop cars and an ambulance screech around corners and slam their breaks in line with the other cars. I can hear all the car doors slamming and the sound of the gurney stretching its legs.
Turning the corner, I’m glad that I’m out of eyeshot of any wandering eyes. I have three blocks before I get back to the subway. I don’t know where I want to go but I feel like for the time being, I have to get home. I need to make sure that once this hits the news and news outlets that I know what they’re going on and what they’re investigating.
There was something I noticed in Jesse and I couldn’t stop from analyzing and replaying the situation as I walked. That wasn’t the Jesse that I knew, paranoid yes, a good Chaser, but to kill humans wasn’t part of any Chaser code let alone his parents. I would never argue stability in our breed of people but we all have that code that we’ve held sacred, the only thing that I can think is Gabriel has to be a demon and I haven’t encountered one in a very long time.
Another block and a little girl stops in front of me. It's a small girl, no more than eight or ten years ago, wearing a blue jacket with wild frizzy hair. “He means it you know,” she says to me.
“Means what?” I ask her.
“For you to stay the fuck out of this. He doesn’t want you in it, not now at least. He said your time is coming though.” The little girl smiles.
“Where is he?” I ask her.
“Just watch to stay out of his fucking business,” she says and then she smiles and turns and runs back to someone. I have no idea who it's too but it is a man that she runs back too. I can’t help myself, I have to know what’s happening.
I run up to the man that the little girl found and pull out my blade and touch it to his neck and slam him hard against the building wall that’s he’s next too. The little girl starts crying. “What did you have her say to me?”
The man tries to speak but nothing manages to come out of his mouth.
“Tell me?” I say through grit teeth and touch the blade through the first layer of skin, it’s enough to produce blood.
Again, he barely can speak. The little girl tugs on my jacket. “Do you want him dead like Jesse died.”
I look down at her and pull the blade back. I can’t, I take off and I run to the subway, down the into the tunnel and onto the platform, into the heat as I wait for the subway to come.
I don't know who Gabriel is, I don't know what connection that Jesse said that him and I have. Two years of my life, I know about the gaps in my memory but months maybe, it’s never been years. I need to find out who and what Gabriel is, I need to know what Jesse was talking about and all I can see in the faces of those that pass me moving up the subway stairwell as I’m descending is red eyes looking at me through scarred faces.
Chapter 12
By the time I’m back in the Kitchen, my head in spinning, the headache is back I can’t help but try and put together something that I know I don’t have all the pieces for. Even with all the time that I had spent apart from Jesse, apart from most of the Chasers after the war had ended, I knew them, I fought with them, that wasn’t the person that I remembered, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much of those memories were blacked out.
It’s hard to believe he’s dead. Knowing how skilled he was, knowing what he had done fighting with him and knowing how it all could come to an end. There was a running joke amongst Chasers and it took full form when th
e war was ongoing that violent was the only way a Chaser knew how to die, to me, this took on an entirely different meaning. It was thing to die during a chase, it was another thing to turn your gun on yourself.
Still the idea that he killed himself is unsettling inside of me. I move to my computer and start to run research on Gabriel. I need to know who he is, I need to know what he is. The more that I’m searching, the more that I realize that those gaps in my memory, those stretches of time that I have nothing to account for go back wider then years now. If I had to guess, I’m missing close to a decade if not more.
Jesse told me once that I was one of the most well-trained Chaser’s that he had seen. That few people had the intelligence and the combative training that I’ve had. It never really hit me that I have no idea how I really put them together. Training was really the only memory I have but I have no idea who's responsible for it aside from the age ranges where I started to develop.
I know a good friend of mine is dead and I don’t know what’s responsible for it. It’s not often that humans become casualties, that’s what separates Chaser’s from civilians. Often times it's the nature of the beast. When a demon occupies a living body, if the demon is killed while in the vessel, the human doesn’t make it out.
It's the gentle shudder that runs through the building that wakes me and puts the gun in my hand. I’ve lived in an apartment that sat just above a very active subway tunnel, I know those rattles, this wasn’t it.
After the second one happens I’m already out of bed and on my way to the drapes that are covering my view of the outside world. I must’ve fallen asleep before I even realized that I went to lay down.
I slide them open and can see that the dark has finally come back out, I slept through most of the day. I can see something though, even though the dark, on top of one of the buildings.
I strain my eyes to get a better look and as the shadow moving turns, I can see brilliant red eyes looking back at me.