Talon held no illusions about what he would find. He didn’t think he would magically stumble upon some piece of evidence the cops had missed, but maybe there was some detail about the crime scene that would mean more to people like him and Casca than the law. The police were scoping for forensic clues; Talon was snooping for signs of the occult. He checked the surroundings…and finally spotted a pentagram and an inverted cross carved into the trunks of a few nearby trees. There was another sign too. The Greek letters Alpha and Omega. Beginning and End.
Talon frowned. What did it signify?
He snapped pictures of the symbols and kept combing the park. Further inspection proved fruitless, and he decided to return to his hotel. As he left the park grounds, he felt one of the moms staring at him again. He winked at her, and she quickly averted her gaze.
A moment later he was gone.
Talon resumed his investigation the next day.
He showered, dressed, and knocked back some boiling coffee, his tongue desensitized to the point where his cup of joe needed to be volcano hot to work its magic. The Reaper and his followers had been skaters before they had added murder and Satanism to their resume. Maybe the new cult had a similar background.
Talon decided to start his investigation in the East End, a wasteland dominated by empty tenements and industrial lots. According to his research, it was the place where the most radical and dangerous dudes shredded. The kids out there were mostly runaways, druggies and burnouts. Odds were good that the copycat cult might be drawing from the same talent pool.
Talon wore an old pair of sneakers, green khakis, and a hoodie. His Delta training had taught him the art of blending in with his surroundings. He hadn’t shaved since Mexico and needed a haircut, which helped sell the look. No one would mistake him for some teen punk, but neither did he look like a square. He picked up a used board at Switchfoot, a skate shop he came across on his way to the East End, and parked the BMW about a quarter of a mile from his destination.
He got out of the rental and skated the rest of the way. He’d been an avid skater when he was young and could still pull off a few moves. Being the son of a diplomat, Talon had lived all across the world when he was a teen. Every year seemed to bring a new city in a different country. Exploring a new place on his deck was a rite of passage, a way of making his ever changing surroundings feel like home. Shooting down the winding road of the industrial wasteland on his board brought it all back. For a brief moment he was able to forget the real reason why he was here.
Fifteen minutes later, Talon reached his destination. The East End skate park lay tucked under a bridge, cars and trucks rattling by overhead. He descended a rusty staircase and walked along a chainlink fence. Before him the whole East End spread out. The place looked trashed, the skate rink scrawled with graffiti. Skaters abounded, sporting tats, piercings, and a ton of attitude. Talon’s skin prickled with a palpable aura of danger.
A skater shot up a bowl nearby and finished off with a 360-degree kickflip. The wheels snapped against the cement. His appearance was ragged and dirty, oozing a predatory quality. Borderline gutter punk.
Talon approached some of the other skaters lounging around the bowls. It was an older, more hardened crowd. He offered one of the dudes a cigarette and struck up a conversation. Soon he steered their chat toward the Reaper. His spiel was simple. He’d seen the stories on the news and wanted in. Unfortunately, the line of questioning proved to be a dead end. The kid eyed him blankly when the subject came up, almost as if he was addressing him in a foreign language, and then their chat was over.
Talon continued to search for someone who might be more talkative if properly motivated. He secretly hoped that his questions might draw out a member of the copycat gang. If someone began following him or tried to start something, they’d be in for a surprise. Maybe he was being too cocky, but after dealing with Al Queda, a group of skater rats didn’t faze him. He wanted the bad guys to know he was looking for them. The question was who would blink first. After a few more failed attempts and some suspicious stares here and there, he found someone who was willing to help out. For a price.
“You sure you’re ready to be part of this?” Carl, a twenty-something shredder with long greasy hair, said.
“I spent four years risking my life for Uncle Sam and for what? To come home to a country where a bunch of pussy-assed, over-privileged hipster assholes have all the power?”
“Seek out the Lightwalker. He’ll know if you’re ready.”
“The Lightwalker?”
“That’s what people call him,” Carl said. “I dunno, man, maybe if I had a couple more smokes I could remember why.”
Talon regarded the kid with growing curiosity. The punk flashed him a knowing grin. He might be a drop-out druggie, but what he lacked in school smarts he made up for in animal cunning. He knew he possessed information that Talon wanted and was ready to negotiate. Talon offered him a whole pack of cigarettes and his lighter. As soon as the skater pocketed the spoils, he resumed his explanation.
“Lightwalker walked into the light,” he elaborated, revealing a row of yellow, nicotine-stained teeth.
Talon still stared at the skater with incomprehension.
“He wiped out, hit his head. Died on the spot. Walked down the tunnel and into the light,” Carl continued. “But they managed to bring him back. That’s why he skates without fear now. Skates like he doesn’t care about living or dying.”
Talon didn’t quite know what to make of this. Was the punk telling the truth?
“Lightwalker saw the light and now speaks to the dead,” Carl said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
Talon blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Like that kid in The Sixth Sense. He can see ghosts. Speaks with dead people. You don’t want to fuck with the dude is what I’m saying.”
Talon decided to risk it and said, “How do I find him?”
“Maybe he’ll find you.” The punk shot him a grin. Talon felt his patience running dry. He was almost ready to snatch the asshole by the collar and rub that smirk right off his face when the kid added. “Word is he stays at the old mall.”
Talon frowned. The kid had to be talking about the Regional National Mall where the final showdown between the Reaper and the police had taken place. The mall had closed shortly after the shooting and had stood abandoned ever since. It had been scheduled for demolition at one point, but the developers ran out of money. Just another victim of the recession.
“Be careful. If he doesn’t like you, he won’t let you walk out of that place.”
Talon waited for the kid to add something more, but apparently the conversation was now officially over, the kid preoccupied with filling his lungs with carcinogens.
Talon shrugged and left the park, sensing this was as much as he would get today. The hostile glares of the other skaters trailed him, but no one actually followed.
As he climbed into his rental car and drove off, Talon kept reviewing what the skater had shared with him. This Lightwalker character apparently was a near death survivor. The weird detail sounded too crazy to just be a story the punk had made up.
Lightwalker saw the light and now speaks to the dead. Something about the punk’s words sent a shiver down Talon’s spine.
He drove back to his hotel and hit his computer. He Googled the mall, and a number of photographs flashed onscreen. A series of monolithic, weathered structures grew from a vast vacant parking lot. A fading JC Penney sign with two letters missing loomed forebodingly over a graffiti-besmirched exterior. This was an urban explorer’s wet dream. It would be Mecca to any freak who thought the Reaper had been some sort of hero fighting a corrupt system.
Talon inspected the images of the dead mall more closely. The desolate shopping center had a post-apocalyptic quality. The large, empty parking lots coupled with the many signs of nature reclaiming the area—trees and vegetation bursting from the stretches of asphalt—stirred an uneasy feeling inside Talon.
The place sure seemed like the perfect place for a nomadic band of killers to set up shop.
What might be waiting for him inside the Reaper’s old stomping grounds?
He planned to find out.
Chapter Six
Officer Robert Benson and his partner, Glenn Durham, were the first officers to receive the call about the shooting at the Regional National mall.
Benson swallowed the last bite of his tuna sandwich, drained his cup of Diet Coke, and surged toward their cruiser. Less than a minute later, their police car screamed down the road, sirens flashing. Within fifteen minutes, he was making his way through the deadly still mall, Glenn on his side, burning up with adrenaline as he tried to maintain a steady grip on his firearm.
The moment he spotted the first bodies, his heart sank.
We are too late, he thought.
Victim after victim, legs and arms akimbo like broken marionettes, resting in widening pools of scarlet. Their empty, accusatory eyes fixed on him, blaming him for not showing up on time and failing to protect them, to keep them safe from the madmen in the mall. The acrid smell of gunpowder wafted through the air. Benson flinched as the pitiful screams from the wounded mixed with staccato bursts of gunfire. And then, finally, the band of murderers grew visible. Hooded skater-kids, bony hands clutching guns and knives.
Benson lost it. There was zero hesitation as he squeezed the trigger. The punks went down, joining their victims on the floor.
Benson rushed past their broken forms, blocking out the sight while following the desperate cries of a woman. The dead were gone but there was still a chance to save the living. The woman’s shrill voice was laced with mortal fear.
He rounded the corner of the concourse and came face to face with the monster at the heart of the massacre. Schiller, AKA the Reaper, stood in the center of the food court, which had become ground zero of the mass shooting. His bony fingers clawed the hair of his female hostage. The Reaper was bald and skeletally thin with bulging eyes. He wore a ratty hoodie and baggy cargo pants that gave his bony, unnaturally tall frame a scarecrow-like appearance. The bloody sickle in his hand, combined with his death skull appearance and the pile of lifeless bodies at his feet, made Benson think he was looking at the Grim Reaper himself.
Time stretched as Benson locked eyes with the mass murderer. He heard gunshots, saw his partner go down beside him. He squeezed the trigger and bullets roared from the muzzle of his firearm. Later, he’d tell reporters that he got lucky, but none of the papers would print the quote. The public needed a hero after the bloodbath.
The bullets from his pistol found the Reaper, and the skeletal figure crumpled.
It was done.
He’d slain the beast.
A sudden croaking sound made Benson look down.
His partner peered up at him, his cratered head framed by a halo of red, his eyes questioning as if he wanted to know why Benson had let him die.
Benson’s eyes snapped open and he fought back a scream. For a long beat, he just stared at the ceiling, breathing heavily. He turned, looking almost longingly at the empty half of the king-sized bed. Ashley had left him a year after the shooting. Poor woman had tried to salvage their marriage, but he’d given her little to work with. Eventually he shut her out to a point where there was no other choice but to make a break.
Why had he pushed her away? Maybe he felt it was the only way to keep her safe, to spare her future hurt. Her side of the bed had remained empty ever since, except for a one-nightstand here or there.
Benson grunted, letting go of the painful memories, and got up. Stumbling into the bathroom, he wiped the thick beads of perspiration off his face and stared at his graying stubble. He was nearing his fortieth birthday and the signs of aging were everywhere. From the wrinkles crinkling his eyes to the paunch forming around his middle, time was marching on—and he’d better just hang on tight for the ride.
And now the nightmares were back.
It had taken him five long years to put the mall shooting behind him. Three cops had been killed that day, another six injured, but Benson had walked away from the carnage without a scratch. No, that wasn’t quite true. His wounds were the kind that one couldn’t see at first but that would manifest themselves in the weeks, months, and years to come. The incident might’ve led to his promotion as detective but also cost him a partner, his marriage, and countless sleepless nights.
Now the past had caught up with him as he always dreaded it would. Reports of the first kidnapping had given him a bad feeling. The vandalism, the graffiti, and the choice of victim—a high-earning investment banker—made Benson immediately think of the Reaper. Benson’s bullets had struck down Ralf Schiller that day, but the legends surrounding the cult leader lived on. The Reaper sold newspapers and books and made people tune in to their local broadcasts. Ironic that a war against hyper-capitalism would give rise to a cottage industry designed to cash in on his notoriety. Benson was surprised they hadn’t turned his story into a goddamn TV movie yet. Maybe there were too many freaks vying for the public’s attention.
With the help of a dark charisma and a hate-filled ideology borne from economic inequality, the Reaper had gathered skaters, runaways, and taggers around himself like some urban Pied Piper. He’d weaponized them with poisonous philosophy directed at anyone who supported capitalist America. A modern Manson. The attack on the mall had been the group’s final statement, the last in a string of violent crimes. At least Benson thought it was the last.
Benson showered, dressed and headed for the precinct. He was relieved to discover that no new kidnappings had been reported. He decided to catch up on the paperwork that was piling up. He wasn’t actively investigating the new crimes, and his attention was needed elsewhere. Nevertheless, for the rest of the day, Benson’s mind kept returning to his nightmare. He hadn’t been back to the old mall in years. He wondered if his subconscious had dredged up the memory for a reason. If a copycat gang roamed the city, what better place to hole up than the old mall?
The mere idea made Benson crave a drink. Almost as if his colleagues could read his thoughts, they invited him to join them at a local watering hole after work. Benson generally avoided bars when he could and tried to stay away from the bottle. Shit was bad enough without booze in his life. Once he started, it would be too hard to stop. Better to just head home and watch some TV before calling it an early night. Betraying his intentions, he turned on Grand Avenue instead of going straight home.
As he drove toward the mall, he navigated a number of vacant parking lots and rows of tract homes. The cookie-cutter buildings appeared deserted, the windows dark and boarded up. Foreclosure signs alternated with garages tagged with graffiti. The area was a ghost town.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the abandoned parking lot of the Regional National Mall. The fading sunlight played over the surface of the decrepit structure, a sprawling monument to suburban decay. It made Benson think of a shipwreck rotting away at the bottom of the ocean floor. Forgotten by most, only living on in the nightmares of the shooting’s survivors.
What are you doing here?
There had been a time when the mall and its parking lot attracted runaways, prostitutes, and drug dealers. But soon word spread that the mall was haunted, that the Reaper’s victims still lingered within its labyrinthine walls. These weren’t merely tall tales. People who’d ventured into the mall to get high or engage in other shady activities disappeared. One year the department combed the place and found the bodies of fifteen people who’d sought refuge inside the shopping center during the bitter winter months. The official story was they froze to death, but word on the street was that the restless ghost of the Reaper had snatched them. Nowadays no one came here except a few teens on occasion, and they were smart enough to not venture beyond the relative safety of the sprawling parking lot.
Benson hadn’t been here since that fateful day, but the mall had lived on in his memories. Seeing it with his own eyes after all this time made hi
m feel numb. He opened his car door and threw up his lunch. Steaming piles of half-digested food hit the overgrown lot.
The shadows lengthened and for a wild moment he thought he spotted the hooded outline of the Reaper in the near distance. The wind outside was bitter, and it was getting late. Tomorrow, he might return with some men and search the area.But Benson would make sure not to be among the detectives entering the cursed place.
He closed the car door and took off. The tires screamed and left tread marks in the deserted lot. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that the mall terrified him.
He drove twenty miles above the speed limit all the way to his home. Stealing nervous glances around the dark neighborhood, he entered his two-bedroom house. As soon as he was inside, he made sure to double-bolt and lock the door. He couldn’t shake the irrational sensation that an invisible stalker had followed him all the way from the mall.
He headed for the kitchen, located the bottle of bourbon he kept stashed in a cupboard behind the fridge, and poured himself a double. He drained the drink and let out a cough. Hard liquor wasn’t his poison of choice anymore. When had he bought the bottle? Must’ve been around New Year’s Eve—eleven months earlier.
He turned up the TV, suddenly needing to hear human voices, and soon the effects of the alcohol washed over him. Fear still held him in its grip, but the booze was taking the edge off his emotions, dulling them somewhat. Feeling a bit dizzy, he headed into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. When he looked up…a hooded skater punk stared back at him.
Before he could scream or turn on the intruder, the Taser’s 50,000 volts rippled through his body. Benson hit the floor in a twitching mass.
Chapter Seven
Occult Assassin: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) Page 36
