Chapter 8
The shade had been hiding in the sewers for quite some time and it is happy, well as happy as a shade could be, which is not very. Happy is usually not a word you would associate with a shade anyway. To them if they have enough victims to satiate their innate desire kill torture and maim then one might use the term happy very loosely. This shade is no different from any other shade. It found itself in a sewer full of darkness and shadows with enough weak humans to kill torture and maim so one could say very loosely that it is happy for the present. The wounds it had suffered under the relentless hail of bullets from the two detectives and hurt it, healed it felt as strong as ever and ready to leave these sewers and do what its masters wished.
The creature moved through the shadows like a ghost toward the unsuspecting human dressed as a maintenance worker wearing coveralls sitting on the stairs eating his lunch. Enjoying his lunch the maintenance worker is blissfully unaware of the danger he is in. Silently in the darkness, the shade crept closer, and before the human could put another bite of his sandwich in his mouth, it struck. This time the shade wanted a clean kill, no torture or maiming the victim first, which in this case made the shade very unhappy. Within seconds, the blackness that is the shade slid over the victim killing him like all the others the shade transforming in the process. Quickly removing the victim’s clothes and shoes, the shade effortlessly picked up the naked shriveled body of a once vibrant human being now part of the shade as much as the shade is itself. Making its way hurriedly down the catwalk running along the canal to a giant bladed fan that chopped and mixed the sewage the shade quickly threw the body into the blades enjoying the grinding and ripping noises that ensued watching the blood foaming in the water. Quickly putting on Robert’s clothes, it headed out into the streets above no one the wiser.
Robert was not a big man and to any that might notice him he was average looking with long black hair pulled tightly into a ponytail, with a neatly trimmed black beard to match. The maintenance clothes the shade is wearing were still clean enough for it to walk casually down the sidewalk among people without getting ugly stairs and wrinkled noses from the stench of the sewers. Shortly, it would be at Robert’s house where it would change from the clothes it is wearing into something business casual. Robert lived alone so there would not be a need of disposing of another body but on the other hand the shade would not get the enjoyment of maiming and killing somebody either. The shade had learned very quickly that it had to control its baser instincts to kill if it is to succeed at what his masters wished of it.
Placing his hand on the hand recognition panel to Robert's house it went directly to Roberts’s bedroom to change into a black shirt, pants and shoes. Walking into Robert's den it placed its hand on the hand recognition panel for an older style holographic communication system. Images and menus began appearing a few inches away from the vertical glass screen giving it a holographic appearance. Using Roberts’s memory, the shade reserved a flight to Chicago summoning a cab in the process to pick it up and take it to the airport. The cab would be there in twenty minutes the reply said so its baser instants nearly took over tempting it to go next door for the pleasure of maiming and killing whoever happened to be there. At the last second, it decided it would be better if it refrained from doing so it would only mean more bodies to dispose of.
Games of the Powerful Page 41
