The Art of Madness

by A. J. Mayall

  One FogDrive, unlike the rest of them, had a blinking red light on top. It was being actively used.

  Phoenix held his hands out in front of him and pulled one back over his head, as if pulling a fishing rod back before casting. The information flickered in his vision and when he cast it into the viewing window, a wave of dread came over him.

  It was a live broadcast of the safe house he had been in, the chair he sat in empty, a dead body with the back of its head blown out the front nearby.

  “Gypsy, do you know what this is? Is Suzette there?!”

  He did his best to rewind the still-streaming video catching only small snippets. Suzette stood, as if unbound suddenly; Maxwell, executed with the shooter out of frame; MacKenzie beating Suzette.

  “Oh, God.”

  The last thing he saw before he opened the window and flew was Dorian Franklin snarling and laughing behind her as he secured her.

  “I’ll kill him.”

  Suzette smiled wickedly as MacKenzie came for her, starting to shift up. It had been far too long since she was really able to cut loose.

  “How the fuck did you get out of the chains?!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  Suzette punched him square in the nose, bones crunching. She pulled back her fist, crimson dripping off the metal wrapped around her knuckles.

  “Is that…”

  “Yup!” she gleefully said as she sidestepped his lunge, landing a kick to his lower abdomen with enough force to bruise his liver. She followed up with a few blows to his ribcage; the searing sound of a steak hitting a grill was heard for a moment. She grabbed him by the back of his scalp and held the now-spiked knuckles within an inch of his right eye. “Sit. Down. Hands behind your back.”

  He groaned as he did as he was told, feeling the cuffs and chains being drawn tight around him.

  “Now, you little fucking two-bit bridge troll, I’m going to show you a few things about interrogative sadism. It’s a hobby.”

  He went wide-eyed as she picked up the hammer and threw it aside, walking to the worktable and grabbing a crowbar.

  “Lesson one: always select the right tool for the job.” She reared it back and swung the hooked end at his right kneecap, causing the man to scream as it went under the patella. She made a wrenching motion and twisted her weight, staring him in the eyes as there was a meaty pop and the sound not unlike a gelatin dessert falling to the floor.

  Suzette gave the crowbar an underhand swing up, catching him under the jaw, piercing straight through, the hook end popping out next to his tongue. Her gaze was uncaring, meticulous, and hateful.

  “Lesson two: someone who can write a message doesn’t need to be able to speak.” She punctuated this by pulling all of her weight down on the crowbar and pulling back until there were two loud meaty pops, MacKenzie howling and gurgling as blood covered his chest.

  She dropped the crowbar, grabbing one of the fingers on his left hand and punching it, using the improved knuckle dusters on the outermost joint. Suzette twisted until she felt it separate before moving on to the other fingers.

  “Lesson three: a prisoner only needs one hand to write.” She took her time, breaking him slowly, ensuring the most pain could be felt before stepping back in front. The small man cringed, on the verge of unconsciousness. His garbled words were nonsense and his whimpering pleas fell on deaf ears. They were answered only by a punch to the broken and dislocated jaw with a right hook, and then a left. She was running on rage and adrenaline; she was fury itself.

  “You little abusive shit. Getting your jollies from beating up those you think can’t defend themselves. I’ve been unlocked since you picked up that mallet. I took everything you had to give and I’m not impressed, you sick fuck. I’ve been threatened by experts.”

  MacKenzie blinked; it was the only action his body could do that didn’t involve pure agony. The wounds, especially those aggravated by the silver on her knuckle dusters would take so long to heal, and she only looked like she was getting started. He was receiving a lesson in cruelty, and it was simple. Hell hath no fury like a woman who knows no fear and is not afraid to show that she is no victim to be used.

  “I survived Basseri. I survived Empty,” she said, punching him on the forehead, making his head snap back. “Now do me a favor, Frenzy…smile for the camera. We’re streaming live,” she said, pointing to her purse, the small inlay design that he assumed was there for aesthetics being revealed for what it was.

  Suzette grabbed him under the jaw and collected the crowbar again. “Now tell the audience. Does it hurt more if I hit you on the ribs?” She swung and hooked him between two of the middle ribs, and then pulled back, flesh and blood dripping on the hooked end. “Or does it hurt more when I make sure you don’t reproduce for a while?” She slammed the blunt end down between his legs, not stopping until the fabric was soaked through with blood. MacKenzie tried over and over to shift up, but the silver-laced wounds prevented him as she continued her work.

  Lee, Cortez, and the others paid no attention as they heard the door open, focusing on the chips in a pile between them.

  Lee called out, “Gave her the works, eh? Jack told us he had to put down Maxwell. Fucking shame; I liked him.”

  MacKenzie’s jaw fell in a bloody mess on the table and proceeded to knock over a few stacks of chips. The smell of blood stung their noses as in unison they turned and saw the battered and bruised woman, hands covered in blood and a smile on her face.

  “Holy shit,” Cortez said as he got up, and charged her, shifting up in the process. As he swiped down, she blocked, letting her training take over, fighting with all her hate and rage and righteous anger.

  She fought dirty. As kicks and claws came at her, doing their best to strike, she weaved between them, a mix of ballerina and wrecking ball. Flesh and fur rushed in all directions and her blows on the group found purchase, cracking bone and bruising muscle. She fought, the world seeming in slow motion. For a second, she wondered if Phoenix was helping her, but she knew when she was in the zone, nothing could stop her. She knew help wasn’t coming any time soon.

  She didn’t need a hero to save her. She needed a hero to save them.

  Phoenix flew through the skies toward the safe house, a blur of beige fabric and denim streaking like a comet below the stars. He looked off in the distance at the AGI building, narrowing his gaze, knowing things were going to be happening there soon. His friend was in danger, and no one would stop him, no threat could dissuade him from coming to her aid.

  Suzette was a bit worse for wear. Bruises lined her arms, and her right eye was swollen shut when Jack came in through the door, seeing his packmates broken and bruised at her feet. Not a single bite had pierced flesh, no claw had maimed her. The woman he had been toying with for these past weeks finally showed her true nature to the werewolf.

  “I have to thank you for the jewelry….” she said in a ragged breath as she stepped forward, kicking a now-human male in the ribs in passing. “To think you actually bought me silver, for the irony of it.”

  Everything was sore, but this would be worth the pain ten times over.

  “Suze, what the hell is going on? What did you do to them?!” he snarled, shifting into his wolven form, towering as the primal instincts and rage filled him.

  “You think a fur coat, a manicure from Hell and some bad dentistry is gonna stop me from breaking you?”

  She laughed as she advanced, exposing her brass knuckles, the ones she had shown him on her first date. They had undergone a transformation of their own. Spikes, and large metal slabs had been inset into them. “Had that stuff you gave me melted down, guy at the shop had a kick out of it. Best custom order he ever got to do, he said.”

  She chuckled as Jack lunged at her. She was tired, but nowhere near beaten. She sidestepped the attack and swung with all her strength. The werewolf crumpled upon the impact. The silver. She had inlaid her damn brass knuckles with silver. It burned on his flesh and that’s when he saw what she
had done with his gifts.

  Suzette smiled and kicked him across the face, blood dripping off the knuckles, one having the word “LOVE” across her knuckles, the other “HATE”.

  “Such a fine line between the two.” She reared back and pummeled him over and over, his yelps echoing.

  Five minutes later, she opened the door, cracked her neck and pocketed the knuckles. Her left side ached, and she’d need to have her hands looked at. Jack crawled after her, reverting to his human form. He held out a hand, asking for forgiveness. Suzette slammed the door on his fingers.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two to let you dogs out.”

  As she walked out, she gave herself a moment to catch her breath. She needed to come down off the rush of the fight, and although she knew giving that up meant her injuries would lose their numbness, the crash she was overdue would be far worse. There was the sound of an approaching engine, and a glint in the sky. She looked down the alleyway, seeing a black hatchback approach, Dorian nodding to her before speeding up toward her.

  Phoenix crashed into the hood of it, almost flattening the engine, causing the cab and the rear to fold up and flip over, McGee rolling out of the way. Anger unseen by Suzette filled his eyes as he held out a hand.

  “No one hurts my friends, you son of a bitch!” he screamed, as he brought gravity down on the car, deforming the frame. Dorian stared at the detective in a panic then at Suzette, who limped toward him as she realized how badly her leg was injured.

  “He’s on our side, dummy!” she yelled, standing between Phoenix and the crushing car, Dorian unable to get free.

  “After everything he’s done?”

  “Phoenix, he’s IA, in deep cover!” she said, grabbing him by the cheeks. “He gave me the key to get free. He taped it under the chair. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him.” Phoenix blinked and looked to Dorian.

  Suzette shook him once more. “I gave him all the information on Jack, I agreed to set him off so I could record him, and he’s got backup coming. He had to be a bastard and a son of a bitch to not tip them off. Phoenix, please!”

  He looked at her. “Everything points to him. What’s this about Jack?”

  “Jack’s AGI. I tried to drop you hints, I couldn’t be out in the open because you can’t keep a poker face to save your life, or anyone else’s.”

  Phoenix let his hands drop to the side, then slowly concentrated on the broken machine before him, disassembling it bit by bit, until Dorian could escape safe and sound, save for being rattled from the impact.

  “I’m sorry I had to get on your case, McGee. She’s right. Department knew criminal ties were in The Pack. It took me four years to rise to Beta; never thought that little weasel could manipulate it to do the same in a few weeks.”

  “Are you seriously trying to tell me that every fucking thing you did to me was part of your cover?! You were just doing what you had to to take down Basseri and weed out the department?”

  Dorian looked down and nodded. “Pack’s pretty much decimated, none of these guys are going to be getting the Blue Shield after what Suzette gave me. Maxwell’s going away for a long time.”

  “He’s dead.” Suzette said, looking at the door to the safe house. She could hear Jack scrabble to open it off of his crushed fingers. “Jack shot him point blank in the back of the head.”

  “He was off camera, I thought it was Dorian,” Phoenix muttered.

  Dorian stammered when he heard Sam had died. “He’s dead? Oh shit…Sam.”

  “He was one of Basseri’s men; you were trying to take him down.”

  “I know, but he was still a friend! He trusted me,” Dorian said as he walked to the door, hearing Jack cry out. “That little son of a bitch, I’ll rend him nuts to neck.”

  “No, you won’t. This isn’t what we talked about. I got you enough evidence to put The Pack away.”

  “Can we prove AGI’s involvement?” Phoenix asked.

  Dorian shook his head. “I don’t think so. If we prove they were bad news, and it got out we were requesting their help, it’d be back on us.” He approached Suzette. “We should get you to the hospital. I’ll take you.” He paused and looked at Phoenix. “Or I would, except some asshole folded my car like origami.”

  Suzette pulled a set of keys from her pocket. “I lifted these from Jack when he was begging me not to crush his…something or other.”

  Phoenix shuddered, and he knew he’d have to deal with the police on his own. “At least tell me Linville is coming.”

  Suzette chuckled and elbowed him in the ribs. “Here’s that rain check. Sure, come on. You can’t have me watching this big bad wolf too, can you?”

  McGee shrugged and gave that cocky grin. “I suppose not.”

  Dorian guided Suzette into the truck, where she insisted on driving, but he gave her a determined look. “No. Less injured drives, them’s the rules.”

  They peeled out as Phoenix stood there, wishing he had an exit strategy. He hated being in the middle of these things, especially when Dorian was missing and he was there with a freshly flattened hatchback. He rubbed his temples, and waited it out.

  Ambulances were called soon after the officers arrived, and Phoenix found himself detained for an hour before Dorian showed back up, and told Linville he didn’t plan to press charges against McGee for the damage.

  “Stygus Law states an Alpha can claim property as next of kin if a packmate dies, goes missing, abandons it, or goes to jail. It’s not used much, but…Jack was still my Beta. I like the truck; I think I’ll keep it.”

  Phoenix looked at him, from boots to the top of his bald head and extended a hand. “It’s been an honor being your punching bag, if it got your job done.”

  Dorian hesitated and took the hand, gripping it in his own and shaking it. “I think I was your punching bag just as much.”

  “Book ’em, partner.”

  Phoenix flew home, called up Francesca, and informed her of the situation. Although he had to hold the phone away from his ear for a few moments, he did inform her that this was an independent ass-kicking she received from her boyfriend, and for another man. He was just the messenger this time.

  He stopped and looked over the FogDrives, going over the various bits of information. In scenario after scenario, he realized Gemini, someone he respected and trusted, would get off scot-free. Then again, there were ways to strike back that didn’t involve the court system. He could play dirty, too.

  He grabbed the FogDrive with the information on the various projects and focused on the data streams going through the air around him. The pattern was all around him. A connection here, a firewall there. The brain hacker was triumphant as he lowered himself into a lotus position, grabbing Bouncer and holding him close to his chest. After a few moments, he reached out toward his phone.

  His smartphone whipped toward his outstretched hand, as he kept his focus on the data, pulling and pooling it around him. “Keep the pattern strong, keep the pattern pure” is all the detective thought as the images and text he had pulled floated about him, written in light.

  Focus was never his strong suit. He groaned as the wind blowing in through the window sent a chill down the back of his neck, distracting him for the briefest of moments. He regathered his will as the phone hovered before him. As his eyes opened, they were backlit with the same bluish-white energy that the information floating and rotating around him was composed of. The room illuminated as he flicked his right wrist, the various windows opening in quick succession. A finger, sparking, flicked out and the screen shifted from the address book to showing in a call.

  “Ben. It’s Phoenix.”

  There a grunt in the distance and a thud. “I was asleep. Somehow my phone has turned itself on, and the speaker is broadcasting louder than it should. This had better be important.”

  “I’m sending you some information. I need you to put it on HiveMind. I need you to guarantee it will go viral.”

  “Phoenix, you know part of my contract is
that I can’t pick and choose…”

  “I need it to go viral, and I need it to be anonymous. You do this, and we’re square, after you get a lifetime VIP membership to me for Enedium.”

  “Phoenix, c’mon, this isn’t…”

  “Ben, you are one of a handful of people who encountered Empty and lived to tell the tale. Stop fucking with me. The files. Two days. Viral. VIP lifetime.”

  “Fuck, fine man, but we’re even after that.” Ben murmured as the sound of typing was heard. Then he groaned, the rustle of picking up the phone heard by the detective. He toned down the speaker output. “Phoenix, this is AGI. HiveMind is owned by AGI. You’re asking me risk my job for you, man.”

  “Let’s talk about the risk I went through when I pulled you safely out of that slaughterhouse. Would you like to talk about that, Ben?”

  There was a pause, then a sigh. “I think I can cover my tracks, especially if I’m the person they have look over the problem. You’ll have the pass within the next few days.”

  “Thank you, Ben. You’re a good man.”

  “We square then?”

  “Yeah.” Phoenix muttered. He smiled as the information faded around him. Soon, there was a growing darkness as his eyes returned to normal. He held out a hand, the phone falling into it as he mentally ended the connection. He looked out his window, into the dark distance, and he knew where this was going to end.

  In two days’ time.

  In the days following the capture of The Pack, and their subsequent arrest, the media had been abuzz with a new story. Dorian Franklin, the one good cop in the RMPD’s Pack, brought down a coup created by deceased kidnapper, torturer, and Mafia war instigator Dominic Basseri and the late Sam Maxwell, disgraced Alpha. The two crime lords, Douglas O’Halloran and Donatello Bellacino, had been cleared of all charges, with the evidence discovered on his computers.

  They currently sat in the office of Reginald Gemini, facing the small, nervous-looking man. The metallic blinds behind him closed, keeping the room in a half darkened state.