by Ethan Cross
Marcus wanted to pound Demon’s face into ground chuck, see if that wiped the smug grin away. Instead of striking, he said, “Did you have a good time?”
In his thick Scottish brogue, Demon replied, “I certainly enjoyed myself. You?”
“We figured out how you did it. It was no magic trick. We’re going to work our way back to whoever modified that transport.”
Demon shrugged. “You are detectives of a sort. I would expect no less, and you certainly have a lot of investigating to do. You see, I want to help you. I want to sing for you like a good little jailbird.”
“We’re not cutting any kind of deal.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then what do you want?”
“As you’re well aware, my former apprentice betrayed me. He couldn’t have pulled all of that off without help. And there was only one person in the world who Judas may have considered to be a reasonable facsimile of a friend. His name is Gladiator. I want you to kill him for me.”
Marcus cracked his neck. “We don’t work for you, and we don’t kill for anyone.”
“That’s not what I hear about your Shepherd Organization and its checkered past. I hear you’re a regular pack of dragon slayers. Taking on Gladiator will be right up your alley. We can argue about semantics later.”
Marcus popped his knuckles and was thankful that, for once, Ackerman was keeping his mouth shut. “Fine. Tell us about the Gladiator. Where do we find him?”
Demon laughed. “I’m not going to serve him up for you like a roast pig. Make no mistake, gentlemen, you’re here to work for me while I take a little vacation. I’m not here to do your job for you. One clue, that’s all you get. You work on that one, and maybe, if you get stuck, I’ll throw you boys a bone.”
“So what’s our clue?”
“Two words … Mister … King.”
Marcus reached up and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Is that Martin Luther or Stephen?”
Demon chuckled and rattled his chains. “This would technically be a second clue, but it’s neither of those fine fellows. I don’t know exactly where Gladiator hangs his hat. That’s why I need some good trackers. But the first step on your path to finding Gladiator is through Mr. King.”
“And where do we find him?” Marcus asked, but Demon didn’t respond. The madman simply closed his eyes and refused to say another word.
13
Marcus paced a hole in the floor of the prison conference room. The place had a strange odor, like that of a zoo. Finally, the door opened and Maggie entered with a laptop procured from the warden’s office. It was the only computer they could find that was allowed Internet access. Maggie typed a few keys and then sat the laptop down on the imitation wood laminate of the conference table.
Through the laptop speakers, the team’s technical director said, “You are a go for Stan. What do you need, boss?”
Marcus leaned over into view of the MacBook’s webcam and said, “I need to know everything you can find about ‘Mr. King.’ Maybe it’s the name that some news anchor gave the Gladiator or … who knows? We can’t say anything for sure. How long will it take for you to do a full search?”
Marcus watched Stan’s eyes fluttering back and forth as the tech genius did his thing. The tick-tick of Stan’s fingers flying over his keyboard reverberated out of the laptop’s speakers.
Within a couple of seconds, Stan replied, “Already done, boss man. That’s why you pay me the big bucks. I found two interesting entries for the search string of Mr. King—of course, filtering by a lot of other parameters to remove any obvious false positives. The first possibility is a crime lord in San Francisco who has taken gangland brutality to a whole new level. We’re talking reclusive millionaire living in a fortress on a hill kind of thing. The second—”
Marcus interrupted. “Is this first Mr. King believed to be responsible for the wave of flayings and decapitations in San Francisco? I heard about that on the news.”
The case had piqued Marcus’s interest one night as he lay awake and listened to a news broadcast in the neighboring room of a hotel with extremely thin walls. The brutal nature of the murders and the presentation of the bodies had made an impression. Using his eidetic memory, he tried to recall the details of the broadcast and his feelings at the time …
The newscaster had taken a moment to warn about the content of the next segment and then said, “Two boys in Golden Gate Park discovered another victim today in a series of gruesome killings, which investigators believe to be gang related. The two boys had planned to throw away the remnants of their lunches in one of the park’s trash receptacles. Instead, they found a mutilated corpse.”
A skinned torso had been all that remained of each of several victims dumped inside a garbage can, just like the one the two boys had discovered. The perpetrator or perpetrators in the series of murders would often leave the garbage can with the lid open in the middle of a spot buzzing with civilians—places like playgrounds, parks, shopping centers, and school buildings.
A female investigator’s voice had taken over the sound of the muffled broadcast, and Marcus recalled her saying, “We believe the victims were left in specific locations to send messages to rival criminal organizations. We have no indication that this is the work of a single serial murderer, but we …”
He remembered thinking that it was the kind of message routinely carried out in places like Juarez, but this was one of the first incarnations of such organized brutality to pop up in the United States. Still, it wasn’t his type of case, and so he hadn’t dug any further.
Stan replied, “Yep, that’s the one. The investigators think it’s all gang warfare. King’s group has its hands in most of northern California’s illegal businesses—everything from drugs and guns to human trafficking. King and his crews hit San Francisco like a storm of blood and bullets a few years ago. They took power quickly and ruthlessly, following the examples of the cartels. King has a reputation for brutality and for publicly executing anyone who gets in his way. The second possibility I found on my search is an alleged serial killer who they just captured in Oklahoma City.”
Maggie said, “That sounds promising. Tell us more about him.”
“Harvey King is the guy’s name. He’s charged with the torture and murder of twelve prostitutes.”
Ackerman shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right to me. I get the sense, based on the name of his alter ego, that our Gladiator wants worthy opponents to battle.”
“Sorry, I forgot to mention that they were male prostitutes,” Stan said.
“Ah, I stand corrected, Computer Man. Perhaps Harvey King could be Gladiator’s true identity.”
Maggie said, “I found that little exchange to be pretty offensive and sexist.”
Ackerman cocked an eyebrow. “Apologies, little sister. I was merely considering the fitness levels of the average male and female prostitute, not judging superiority of the genders as a whole. I think it’s safe to assume who would come out on top if we dropped groups of male and female prostitutes into a large pit together and had them fight to the death.”
She merely scowled back in response.
Marcus said, “What about the name Gladiator? Any connection to either the gang leader or serial killer on that.”
After a brief pause, Stan said, “Sorry, boss. No connection with the term Gladiator or anything directly related to fighting or arenas or anything like that in either case.”
Rubbing his eyelids, which felt as if they were made of sandpaper, Marcus said, “Of course not. It couldn’t be that easy. It never is.” Turning to Maggie, he asked, “Where’s Andrew? I’d like to get his opinion on this.”
Still scowling, she said, “He’s updating the Director on everything that’s happened. Not that you care about my opinion, but I think it’s pretty clear that we head to Oklahoma City and pay a visit to the serial killer they have in custody. This turf war case isn’t our kind of thing.”
Ackerman said, “
Our expertise is not a valid consideration. The question is whether or not it’s Demon’s ‘kind of thing.’ Ultimately, little brother, it’s your call. Personally, I’ve always wanted to visit San Francisco.”
14
Two weeks later…
~~Saturday~~
FBI Special Agent Jerrell Fuller woke in a state of panic. He didn’t know what had happened, where he was, or how he had arrived there. All he knew was that he couldn’t see. The world had become an impenetrable darkness, and it took him a moment to find his bearings and get his breathing under control. He reached out into the darkness but felt nothing. He sat there on the cold concrete floor for a moment while he waited for his eyes to adjust, but after the moment passed, he realized that not a single ray of light penetrated this prison.
He was naked—except for a pair of lightweight sweat pants. They weren’t his own. He had been wearing a suit, last he could remember, at one of Oban’s gatherings.
Jerrell searched his memory for any clues, but his mind was a fog. He felt sluggish. Had he been drugged?
Or was it something worse? Had he been killed somehow? Was this hell?
He hesitated to search out the boundaries of the room, for fear that it would have no end. Just darkness eternal, stretching as far as human eyes could never see.
Jerrell shook his head and slapped his own face. What was he thinking? The drugs must have still been affecting him. He was an FBI agent, undercover in a brutal syndicate built on blood and fear and lorded over by the infamous Mr. King. This being some hitman’s basement was a more likely scenario than darkness eternal.
Still, a memory floated up from the back of his mind. A former foster parent, a kind, elderly lady, who maybe enjoyed showing off her “Afro-American” foster child a bit too much to her group of white friends. But he had been in homes that were much worse. The memory was of her reciting a Bible verse. “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Searching for his last tangible memory, a vision of something terrifying floated up from the ether of his hazy recollection. The face of a monster, something that must have sprung forth from a nightmare rather than reality. The image in his mind was that of a metal skull, only the metal looked as though it had been melted and elongated, giving the impression that it was the skull of some kind of demon, rather than that of what had once been human. The image of the thing’s teeth assaulted his dizzy faculties. The fangs had been long, jagged shards, broken and misshapen and curled up into what was almost a sadistic smile.
Pushing the memory aside and telling himself it had merely been a twisted dream, he concentrated on repairing his memory. But whatever drug he had been given was still clouding his thoughts, and the last several days seemed a jumbled blur of feelings and images.
Jerrell felt around on the floor, which seemed to be swaying back and forth as if he was on a boat. In the blackness, he didn’t know which way was up or down. All directions seemed to become one spinning vortex of darkness and memory.
He took a deep and calming breath, telling himself he was an undercover FBI agent. He had been trained for this. He had once been forced to take LSD to keep from blowing his cover. If he could fight his way through that strange trip, he could fight his way through a dizzying darkness.
Hands searching and straining, he felt something. A small deviation in the smoothness of the cold concrete. The floor dipped downward toward a small impression, and his fingers felt the metal cover of what seemed to be a small floor drain. He knew what it was for. He had seen rooms where men were tortured and bled out into drains just like this one.
Jerrell was only twenty-nine years old. The thought that he wouldn’t live to see thirty had never occurred to him, despite the dangers inherent in his line of work. He was a good agent. He didn’t take unnecessary risks, and he never tried to push himself deeper than was necessary. It was all about finesse and gaining trust. It took time and patience. And he had done everything right. There was no reason they should have suspected him. Unless there was a leak in the Bureau. He couldn’t imagine one of his fellow agents ratting him out for money, but it had happened before. He had seen firsthand the power of greed and how easily the promise of riches could corrupt a righteous person’s soul.
And in this day and age, his betrayer needn’t be an actual person. Mr. King had the resources to crack FBI encryption and infiltrate the Bureau’s databases. Whether by greed or technology, the fact remained that his cover must have been compromised.
He tried to remember their security protocols. How long would it be before his handlers came looking for him? Dropping out of contact for a few days wasn’t uncommon during such a deep-cover assignment, and so he figured he would be long dead before help arrived. His survival depended solely on his own initiative.
But what could he do to help himself in an environment that spun like an amusement park ride and was so pitch black he couldn’t see his own hands a foot in front of his face?
One small step at a time, he told himself. Explore the environment, discover your boundaries. He felt his way along the concrete until he reached an outer wall of concrete blocks. He followed that around to gauge the dimensions of the room, which was about twelve by twelve. Then he explored every inch of the walls themselves. In one wall, he found a four-foot-by-four-foot square of glass inset in the blocks. He pounded his fists and shoulder against the barrier as hard as he could, but in his confused state, he had no idea whether his blows held enough power to break a car window, let alone what he suspected to be reinforced glass or even bulletproof polycarbonate.
As he slowly regained his faculties, a disturbing thought bobbed to the surface. He had heard the rumors about the Gladiator, who acted as Mr. King’s hatchet man. He had heard the horror stories of the Gladiator eliminating the crime lord’s enemies over days of torture and physical abuse and ultimately skinning them alive after defeating them in a sort of bloody combat reminiscent of what slaves endured in the Roman Coliseum.
Was that to be his fate? Was he at the mercy of the Gladiator?
Special Agent Jerrell Fuller didn’t have to wait long to find out. As he was exploring his small prison cell and searching for cracks in the defenses, light bombarded the room. Through squinting eyelids, he recognized that the source of the illumination came from beyond the glass partition. After a few seconds, his eyes adjusted, but what he saw caused him to stumble and fall backward away from the glass.
It was the face of the monster from his nightmares, the shining skull of an otherworldly beast.
His foggy brain recognized in that moment that he hadn’t felt a door to the room, and he wondered how the nightmare figure had placed him inside the claustrophobic concrete prison. Had he been dropped through the ceiling? Had the door been walled up after he had been deposited on the concrete floor?
A disembodied voice, which was deep and electronically distorted, said, “Hello, Agent Fuller. That’s right. We know that you are a traitor, a Judas in our midst, and Mr. King pays me a substantial amount of money to deal with such unwelcome interlopers. His payments serve to finance my own pursuits, and your blood, if you are worthy, will further the same purpose.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” Jerrell screamed. “I was running one of Mr. King’s distribution centers. I didn’t do anything wrong. I would never steal from Mr. King. I would never betray him. Tell him that. I’m a loyal soldier. I’m thankful for all the opportunities he’s given me, and I would never betray that trust.”
“We’re way beyond all that, Agent Fuller. Your mask has been removed. Your true identity and your insidious machinations have been exposed. Now is not the time to plead for your life or further taint yourself with more lies. Now is the time to prove yourself. To prove that you are worthy of survival. Worthy of being a member of a species which rules this planet in both mind and body. You will be tested, and if found worthy, you will face me in the Diamond Room.”
One of the blocks near the floor f
ell inward, revealing a small panel of light. A paper plate containing a bloody steak, a baked potato, and a bottle of water dropped through the opening before it clamped shut.
Jerrell rushed forward on shaking legs, trying to catch the panel before it closed, but he only succeeded in kicking his meal onto the concrete.
The Gladiator said, “Eat. You’ll need your strength for the trials ahead.”
Then Special Agent Jerrell Fuller’s world plunged back into darkness eternal.
15
Special Agent Marcus Williams lay atop the motel room sheets with his eyes closed. His alarm would be going off soon. His girlfriend and fellow SO agent, Maggie Carlisle, slept peacefully beside him, but that kind of serene slumber had always eluded Marcus.
He had fought insomnia for years, unable to turn down the volume on his brain long enough to sleep. Attempting to thwart the condition, which he hated to admit had affected his job performance, Marcus had tried music and reading, but neither seemed to work. If he listened to music, he would simply analyze the different instruments and tones for hours on end. If he read, he would simply finish the book. The only technique that seemed to work for him was something that the Shepherd Organization’s counselor, Emily Morgan, had suggested: a sensory deprivation chamber known as an isolation tank.
The unit, which resided back at their base of operations in Rose Hill, VA, looked like an old iron lung. The chamber was a lightless, soundproof monstrosity filled with Epsom salts and water heated to skin temperature. It created a natural buoyancy where he achieved a sense of weightlessness coupled with total isolation from the typical waves of overwhelming input.
Now, lying in this motel-room bed, he heard the noise of cars outside, analyzed the sizes of their engines as well as the possible makes and models based upon the unique growls and hums. He could hear the neon lights of the motel sign buzzing like a thousand wasps in his brain. He analyzed Maggie’s breathing to see if he could determine the nature of her dreams. Someone had a television running in an adjoining room. He couldn’t make out the details of the broadcast, but he guessed that it was a news program, a conjecture founded upon the beats and pauses of the muffled words and sounds pumping from the TV speakers.