The third wallet belonged to Jack Washington, a black man dressed in a sharp vest.
Why do you have these, Otto?
She opened them all, dropping them into the sink as she examined the insides. No wallet held cash—only credit cards, driver’s licenses, forklift certifications, loyalty cards to sandwich shops. At the bottom of the pile was a small wooden box. When she opened it, Sarah was momentarily dazzled by the light reflecting off the gold and gems within. Wedding rings, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. She dropped the box onto the pile of wallets and stood before the filled sink as the obvious conclusion stared Sarah in the face like a dog caught rooting through the garbage.
“It was you.” Her mouth went dry. The room seemed to grow small.
Otto is the thief Captain Anderson told us about, she reasoned, but that doesn’t make him the officer who possessed that woman’s husband. That was Mark. She caught Mark outside of his rig, guilty of something. Sweaty and nervous, running like a man with something to hide.
Otto had been on a call in that moment.
She had rushed into his room for help to find him busy in his rig.
But it would have been easy for him to abandon the man she fought, then jump right into a new call. Or to access the system through his helmet and encrypt the metadata, like Anderson said.
Sarah hadn’t suspected him for a moment. How could a mild-mannered, nice guy like Otto do something like that?
Only that wasn’t him anymore. That old Otto had fallen away like a molted shell as the new, evolved Otto broke through with the help of a bench press and a few bottles of cologne.
Sarah grabbed a handful of wallets and jewelry from the sink and stormed out. Something in her head told her to document the evidence and call in for backup, but for once she wanted to resolve something on her own. If she couldn’t protect people herself, if she couldn’t even get a date without the help of her sister, then at least she could confront someone she once considered a friend.
She retraced her steps to the kitchen but stopped short when she saw him.
“Sarah.” Otto faced her, his back against the food he had been preparing, arms held stiffly out to his side, and his knees locked straight. Vegetable oil sizzled in a skillet to his side.
Sarah dropped the wallets. They fell to the floor with a collective fwap.
“Otto?”
Light-blue rings shone out of the sunken pits that were Otto’s eyes.
“No. It’s Mark.”
“Mark? What are you doing?” How was he possessing him? Did Otto even own a Summoner?
“You won’t want to hear this. Otto’s the one who’s been taking advantage of his position. He’s been hiding valuables during assignments, putting them in places where he can find them after his shift.”
“How are you controlling him?”
“I’m using his rig. They’re synced to us, and I always had my suspicions they could be used in different ways, but Sarah, I managed to get the visual logs from his last call.”
“Anderson said they couldn’t do that, the connection was—”
“Since when did those in charge have a better understanding of the machines used by those who actually operate them? The data from that call was scrambled, but not erased. Unless you knew how to operate the rig, how to really operate it, you couldn’t access it.” Otto’s fingers twitched, curling briefly into a fist before straightening out again. “Sarah, he’s dangerous. This woman, after he put out a fire, he—”
“I know.” Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes. She wanted to wipe them away, to blink them into nonexistence, but she held back, and they spilled over, cutting hot tracks down her cheeks. “I saw him.”
“Their son?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, nodding.
“Sarah . . . I’m so sorry . . . you need to restrain him. Now.”
Her eyes shot open, and she stared at the man before her. Otto was big, much bigger than her. Soft, flabby flesh had been replaced by hard muscle, capable of strength she often witnessed in their training sessions. The adrenaline of her discovery had blinded her to the danger, but now—
“I—Why can’t you do it yourself?”
“He’s fighting me.” Otto’s body trembled all over, micro-movements rippling through his muscles. The rings in his eyes flickered like a loose light bulb. “I only have limited control. He knows the system.”
“Okay . . .” Sarah rushed to the cupboards, flung them open and started pulling out cans of vegetables, boxes of pasta, and protein powders before finding a roll of butcher's twine. She turned back to him, twine in hand, but stopped.
Otto’s hands were moving, raising slowly, shaking as if they weighed an incredible amount.
“Mark?”
His hands cupped his ears. His mouth pulled downward into a painful grimace, and his eyes squeezed shut as his own tears began to flow.
“Run,” Mark grunted through Otto’s gritted teeth.
Sarah stumbled backwards, dropping the twine.
“Run!” he screamed. Somehow, the two men’s voices came from one throat, erupting through one set of vocal cords.
She spun on her heels and darted out of the kitchen, her foot catching the edge of the wall, sending her stumbling. The sounds of a struggle—animal snarls, a scrape as the hot pan was shoved off the stove—came from behind, but Sarah was running down the narrow hall where the nerdy army of figurines loomed over her, shrinking the already claustrophobic area until she felt like she was breathing thick liquid.
When she reached the door, she began throwing open the locks. The chain lock slid out of its track.
A fist slammed against a wall.
She turned the deadlocks, retracting bolts with solid, metal thuds.
Footfalls pounded along the hardwood towards her.
Sarah turned the knob and pulled, but nothing happened. The door shuddered in its frame but remained closed.
Her head jerked back. Electricity shot along her scalp as she was pulled off her feet by her hair. It became fire, burning up every thought but one:
The other women in the unit were right to cut their hair.
She screamed, kicking wildly, but the sound only lasted a moment. Otto’s hand, diminutive but strong, clapped over her mouth as he dragged her back into the apartment. The door shrank smaller and smaller as she was pulled away.
There was her mistake: the bar slid into the floor at the base of the door—the lock usually found in cafes. One of her kicks had knocked it open. The door was unlocked but too late.
Otto was big. Much bigger than her.
* * *
8
* * *
He hurled her through the bathroom door.
Sarah flew past the sink and into the bathtub, tearing down the shower curtain as she toppled over the ceramic edge. She fell forward, slamming her forehead on the tile wall and landing in a crumpled heap with her legs sticking out of the tub at an awkward angle. A door slammed.
Sarah lost her bearings. On weak legs, she stood, but the curtain tangled around her. She unravelled herself so she wouldn’t trip over the cheap plastic. Finally freed, head clearer, she ran to the door with no plan of what she would do when she got it open. It didn’t budge.
“You piece of shit!”
She slammed her weight against the door. The impact shook blood from her forehead into her eye, and Sarah squinted hard against the sting. She lifted a palm to the cut and winced. There was a crack in the tile where her forehead smashed the wall. Good, she thought, at least he won’t get his damage deposit back.
She quickly examined her cut in the mirror. Shallow, but the forehead always bled more than it needed to. Sarah dabbed at it with a hand towel that needed washing. Red blossoms bloomed on the white fabric.
Good, Sarah thought, I’ll stain everything you have. I’ll leave enough evidence here for any jury to put you away. When the bleeding slowed, she threw the towel into the sink where it covered the heap of wallets like a sheet ov
er a mass grave. Blood still welled up on her forehead, but she couldn’t stand the smell of mildew in the towel any longer.
“Sarah, you need to calm down,” Otto shouted through the door.
“Fuck you,” she muttered under her breath, looking for a way to escape. There were no windows, nothing she could use to bust through the door, but she remembered the noise that had bled through from the hallway into Otto’s apartment.
Sarah stepped over the shower curtain, over the lip of the tub, and put her ear against the tile wall. Loud music played on the other side. Her mouth almost tasting-distance from the wall, she yelled.
“Help!” she screamed, “I’m being attacked! Help!”
The music blared on, in fact, even seemed to grow louder. “Help,” she continued, but the sound washed away in the heavy bass.
“Sarah.” His voice came through the door clear as a bell. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.” The bass in his voice reached her as easily as if he were at her side.
He wanted her to catch him. Why else put all the evidence where a visitor could easily find it?
Then again, Otto didn’t have many visitors. Otto didn’t have many friends. Only Sarah.
“You’re a monster.” She slid down the wall, ending up perched on the edge of the tub, shoulders hunched. “We trusted you. We served with you.”
“Oh please, don’t give me any of that shit. Nobody in the ACU serves together. When you’re out there, it’s every man for himself. I don’t get any backup in the field. Any failure is mine. Any success is mine.”
“Your crimes are yours, too.”
“Do you know how many lives I save, Sarah? I’m out there every goddamn day, most nights, putting in the work. Do you think I don’t suffer? I feel the pain those people feel, I feel it for them. I feel the fear in a hold-up, though I know I won’t die. I feel the heat in a blaze, though I know it won’t be my burnt body they find. I feel the—”
“The lust when you save a family from a scorched kitchen? You get so worked up in the moment, you have to fuck the woman standing next to you. What, did she hug you? Give you a little kiss on the cheek? I bet she deserved it, didn’t she? She wanted it. Wanted the stranger possessing her husband's body to take her into the next room and give it to her the way only an officer could. Never mind her son in the next fucking room.” Sarah stood now, had stalked up to the door in her rage, not even remembering doing it.
When Otto spoke, it was further from the door. “It wasn’t like that,” he said, his voice small.
“What was it like?”
“She . . . she did want it. She went to the room. The kid wasn’t even there. She did want it at first.”
“Wanted it so bad she cried?”
“Stop. It wasn’t like that. I was her husband. I was her—”
“You weren’t, Otto. You were not. Don’t pull that shit with me. Don’t try to justify it. I know you. You were weak. You felt like a hero. You felt powerful, and that’s not something you’re used to, is it?”
He sniffled on the other side of the door. He had moved closer while she was talking.
“I did, Sarah. I was weak. I’ve been weak. You know how it feels, don’t you? You’re what, five-three, five-four, a hundred and twenty pounds? I’ve seen you in a crisis, face to face with a jumped-up tweaker. I’ve seen the fear in your eyes before you joined the ACU. You try to hide it—we all do—but the eyes give it away if you know what to look for.” He breathed heavy. His hands rasped against the door. “You know how it feels to be weak.”
He was right in a way. Hadn’t she joined so she could shed the small body that held her back? Emotions always welled up when faced with confrontation. No matter how strong she tried to be, there were always tears dancing behind shaky eyelids. Sarah’s weakness compelled her to join the Assumed Control Unit, but her reasons had to be more altruistic than Otto’s. She wanted the strength so she could make a difference, not lord her power over others smaller than herself.
“You’re a coward.” She slammed a fist against the door. “Let me out of here. Let’s see how strong you really are.” If she could just get him to open the door, she could slip past and get out of there.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Sarah. I’ll figure out what to do with you. Just let me think.”
“How does it feel to have power over someone in your very own body? I bet it’s a lot better. Knowing it was your muscles that grabbed me, your strength that carried me here. I bet you feel real powerful.”
“Just let me think.”
Outside, someone’s souped-up car pulled into the parking lot, the muffler announcing the driver’s arrival.
Of course. That cut through the noise. The partygoers probably had no trouble hearing that.
“You did it, Otto. You got yourself a woman. All you had to do was lock her in your fucking bathroom. Bravo, my friend, this success is yours, revel in it you—”
A door banged open, deeper inside the condo.
She put her ear to the door. There was a struggle, grunts from Otto and another man. The crunching of a fist driven into someone’s nose, shattering bone. Soft body shots and accompanying grunts. Furniture scraping the ground, overturning with a clatter. Another cracking sound, much louder than the nose, followed by a yell.
Heavy EDM seeped through the shared wall in the shower like soft background noise with a low beat. The music became the only sound in the room. The only sound in the apartment.
No.
Here was heavy breathing. Footsteps, coming closer and closer. Sarah backed away from the door, lifting her hands to defend herself. The doorknob jiggled, and something wooden, a chair maybe, slid along the ground. Then the door opened.
Mark Taylor stood on the other side. A thin trickle of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth, but other than that he looked unscathed. Unscathed, but pale.
“Otto?”
Mark shook his head. “Down and out.”
Sarah breathed heavily for a moment before dropping her guard.
“You’re going to get a fat lip, pretty boy.”
“It won’t look as bad as that goose egg growing on your forehead, Forrester.”
She lifted a hand to her cut and probed the swollen lump. “Fuck,” she swore. “No more dates for a while.”
“But they’ve been going so well.”
She brushed past him. “Come on, Taylor. Let’s get out of here.” They walked through the living room. Otto was there, unconscious on his stomach. “What do we do with him?”
“The cops are on the way. I’ll watch him until then.” He was walking Sarah to the door. “You go down to the car. I’ll stay here.”
“No, Mark, come on. You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine, just a little nauseous. I think your friend over there put some eye drops in my protein shake when he gave it back to me. Must’ve been jealous of our tremendous rapport.”
“You all right?”
“I might shit my pants again, but that would work in my favour. Nobody wants to tussle with a man in soiled drawers.”
“That’s attractive.”
“I’m still attractive with a clothespin over your nose.” He smiled a bloody smile.
Behind him, a drawer scraped open. His smile faded.
Before Mark could turn around, three gunshots exploded from the living room, shoving his body towards Sarah. He fell into her, grunting. Three red spots grew on his shirt, inches above his pelvis. She held him for a moment but couldn’t carry his weight.
“No no no,” she begged, lowering him to the ground.
Mark fell the last six inches, landing face down. A puddle of blood expanded around him, running over Sarah’s hands and soaking her sleeves. “No,” she whimpered as she began to turn him over.
“Don’t,” warned the cold voice in the living room.
Sarah raised her head.
Otto was on one knee in a shooter’s stance, the drawer to his side table open beside him. In his small hands was
a Glock 19, little more than a shadow. An aberration in Sarah’s vision.
“Don’t move,” Otto said, getting to his feet. His leg buckled beneath him, and he shifted his weight onto the other. “Don’t. Move.”
She got to her feet.
“What did I say?” he asked, raising the gun so that he was aiming at her head.
She lifted her fists. There was nothing else to be done.
“Come on, Otto. One last sparring session between friends. What do you say?”
“I’m not stupid, Sarah.”
“No, stupidity was never your flaw. You’re a coward. Always have been.” She needed to make him mad. Needed to throw him off his game. “You’re a self-entitled little shit who will always be a pockmarked, greasy-haired, fat boy no matter how many weights you lift. No matter how many times you get that unibrow waxed, no matter how much you change. There’s no amount of showering that can wash the stink off you, Otto.”
“Shut up.”
“I can smell you now.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Smells like weakness. Smells like shit.”
Otto ran at her in an injured loping gait, gun dropped. Forgotten.
Anger wasn’t expressed with bullets. Bullets flew on fear. Anger ripped and tore and strangled. Anger had claws.
Sarah ducked under Otto’s outstretched arms, kicking at the leg he favoured.
With a roar, Otto stumbled, dropped.
The momentum of Sarah’s kick brought her down as well. Scrambling away, she reached for the gun, but he jumped over her and smacked it clumsily into the bathroom.
Sarah rose to run after it, but Otto grabbed her by the shirt and fell onto his back, throwing her clear over himself. She soared through the air and into the kitchen, landing and sliding along the linoleum until the fridge stopped her. The gun, she thought, he’s closer to it now.
But Otto didn’t go after the gun. He stumbled toward her, his face a mask of hatred. Though he didn’t share any features with the man he had possessed, the look was the same. The fury controlled him, the self-entitlement, the rage at events not unfolding as planned.
Howls From Hell Page 17