Incubus Hitman

by Jack Porter

  “Option two is that you come after me and your women with everything you have, and I kill all three of you.”

  I paused to consider, but it wasn’t much of a choice. I already knew what I was going to do.

  “I’ve got a third option,” I said. “Since you intend to murder Rachel and Sandy in any event, I figure there’s nothing stopping me from setting my apartment on fire. Kill everyone within it. What do I care, if I rid myself of you? You’ve watched my progress over the last few days. You know I like to burn things. How does that option grab you?”

  To my immense disappointment, Tim barked a laugh.

  “You could try that,” he said. “It’s what I would probably do. But you don’t really think we’re still there, do you? I was waiting for you, but when these two lovelies turned up, I changed my plans.”

  He wasn’t there. That was disappointing. Yet the way he said it triggered a question.

  “Why didn’t you just wait for me at Daniels’ place?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that have been easier?”

  “It would’ve been. No doubt about it. But if I’d done that, you would already be dead, robbing me of the best entertainment I’ve had in years.”

  I’d threatened him, made him angry more than once, and done my best to raise doubt in his mind. And he saw it all as just entertainment?

  Tim was a formidable opponent, no doubt about it. There was a damn good chance all my efforts would be in vain, and I was going to die. But perhaps this certainty he had, this overconfidence, could be a weakness. Perhaps, if I could be stronger or smarter, or perhaps a little luckier than he expected, I might have a chance.

  With a certain grim fatalism, I grated one last question. “Tell me where you are, where you have taken the girls, and I’ll fucking show you entertainment.”

  Again, in complete control, Tim laughed. Yet he told me what I needed to know, giving the address of an abandoned industrial plant in one of the suburbs that was close enough to my apartment that I didn’t think he was lying.

  “You’ve got an hour to get here, or Rachel and Sandy are dead. Come alone, and try to stay alive as long as you can. I’ve brought a few friends, but I’d very much like to kill you myself.”

  With that, Megadeath#4, otherwise known as Tim, hung up.

  I sat in Big Bob’s beast of a car for some time, gripping the steering wheel to keep my hands from shaking. Whether that shaking was due to fear or anger, I couldn’t say.

  I took a deep breath, then shot a question at Azrael. “You got any ideas?”

  “Option one,” came the demon’s reply. “If I was stronger, then maybe you would have a chance. As it is, you’re probably going to die. So run. Start again somewhere else. Maybe it will take a bit longer to build up, but at least you will still be alive.”

  I thought about the demon’s response for only a fraction of a second. “Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen,” I said.

  With that, I put the car back in gear, waved my foot at the gas, and enjoyed the sensation of power as I was pushed back into the seat.

  Chapter 35

  I had never been in the military. With my lack of height, weak-ass muscles and bones, allergies, and a bunch of other things, I would never have made the cut. But first-person shooters were among my favorite types of games, and I liked to think they’d taught me a few tactics for staying alive against multiple enemies.

  Or perhaps I’d just honed my natural sneakiness.

  Combining that with Azrael’s attribute enhancements, particularly strength, endurance and stealth, and I figured I was in better shape than I ought to have been. As an added advantage, more than one of the games I played included abandoned industrial plants as a setting, so Tim’s choice of location for this final showdown between us had a familiar feel.

  I’d taken a few moments to check the place out on Google Earth before leaving my phone behind (I didn’t want to risk Tim calling me just to have my ringtone announce where I was), and had a rudimentary map in my head.

  I arrived at the plant with twenty minutes to spare, courtesy of my violent beast of a car. My nighttime hurtling through city streets hadn’t gone unnoticed, but if there was any pursuit, I’d successfully left the pursuers behind before they could even latch onto my tail.

  I’d chosen what I hoped was an unexpected point of entry and parked my car far enough away to give myself decent odds of not being observed. Then I made my way on foot, moving as quietly as I could through the shadows with a knife drawn and ready.

  Tim’s comment about “a few friends” made me nervous. I didn’t know how many he’d brought with him, or where they might be stationed. Or what their training might be, or how they were armed. Or in fact, anything at all. All I could do was expect the worst and keep my eyes open.

  Tim could have taken the girls anywhere within the abandoned plant. But with this, I could hazard an educated guess. If it were me, they would be as close to the center as they could be, in a well-lit area. They were the bait, and I was Tim’s target. He wanted to use them to draw me out.

  Which meant I had to figure out how best to approach them without getting killed.

  Many of the games I played came with an enemy finder, a map where the bad guys showed up as red dots on the screen. I would have given much for a real-life version of that, just to even the odds a little. But of course, I had nothing of the sort on me, and had to rely on just my senses.

  It was nothing but sheer luck that kept me from being killed within the first couple of minutes. Somehow, even though he was using the same ears and eyes that I was, Azrael noticed a hint of movement at the base of one of the huge storage silos near the outer edge of the plant. At Azrael’s word, I froze in place, knowing I’d found my first target. One of Tim’s men, dressed in black and loosely holding a compact assault rifle, ready to bring it to bear in a moment.

  Fortunately for me, he was scanning the wrong section of the plant, and it was just light enough for me to see that he wore some kind of night vision gear on his head.

  If this was a game, I’d do a stealth check, then either creep or rush to him and take him out. But this wasn’t a game. This was real life, and the distance was too great to risk either option. So I watched from afar as the man wandered away from where I was hiding.

  I could have easily slipped past him but didn’t want him behind me, especially with that night vision gear giving him an advantage.

  So, I waited, hunkering down in the shadow of the stairwell that circled another silo. When the man reached an arbitrary point on his walk, he turned around and came straight back toward me.

  The man wandered closer.

  And closer still.

  Soon, he was nearly right on top of me. As if he’d reached the edge of his territory, he turned around and began to head off again.

  I couldn’t help but grin. The man hadn’t seen me despite his night vision goggles, and his retreating back made an excellent target.

  With the adrenaline pumping through me in anticipation of a kill, I surged up out of my hiding place, took two quick strides toward him, and jammed my blade into his left armpit over the top of his protective vest.

  At the same time, I clamped my right hand over his mouth to prevent him from calling out, and felt him stiffen in shock. He began struggling, but it was already too late. I was stronger than he was, and my blade was long and sharp. With brutal efficiency, I forced it further in and wiggled it about, making mincemeat of the flesh in its way, most notably the man’s left lung and his heart.

  He was dead within seconds, and the only noise he’d made was a reflexive cough that spat blood into my hand. I made a face of disgust as he sank to the ground, then wiped my hand and blade on his clothing.

  At this point, I was breathing heavily, but that had more to do with the excitement than the lack of fitness. Azrael’s improvements had really done the job, but my work was far from complete.

  I took the time I needed to figure out how to use the man’s night vision equipment, and
stared in wonder at how clear everything became when I scanned the area. Turning back to my hiding spot, I couldn’t believe the guard had failed to spot me. If I’d been in his shoes, I would have seen me easily enough, even if it was in shades of green.

  But all that mattered was that I was alive, and my first opponent was not. I left him where he lay and made my way further into the plant.

  Three more times I saw an opponent before they saw me. Three times I found a way to get close enough to use my knives. Three times, they died before they could raise the alarm.

  But the fourth wasn’t so clean. When it was done, I stood over another corpse, but the peace of the night had been shattered. My latest victim hadn’t managed to shout, but as he died, he pulled the trigger on his automatic rifle, letting off a burst of rapid-fire shots into the air.

  I cursed out loud and stabbed him again for good measure, but the damage was done. I could sense movement from different parts of the industrial plant, and shouting from the distance as a large spotlight started to play over the area I was in.

  From that point, I had to be more careful. But at the same time, I’d managed to catch a glimpse of my targets.

  Rachel and Sandy, bound to chairs that looked as if they’d been taken from Chad’s dining room. They were in an open space, well lit, just as I had predicted.

  All that I needed to do now was get to them, clearing the way as best I could, and try not to die in the process.

  Chapter 36

  Fuck.

  How many men had Tim brought with him? As I sank into the shadows, I knew there were at least three more. One manning the searchlight and two who’d been calling out to each other.

  There wasn’t much time left. Tim knew I was there, and it wouldn’t take long for him to act. So I swore under my breath and used my anger as motivation.

  The searchlight was a problem. Fixed to the top of one of the low buildings, I couldn’t see a way to get to the man controlling it. My only option was to use the rifle I’d taken from the last man I killed.

  I’d used a similar weapon in hundreds of games, but this was real. I’d never fired one in real life before.

  It looked simple enough. Place the stock against your shoulder, aim, and pull the trigger. How hard could it be?

  From a spot between two large, rusty pipes leading upward, I took aim and did exactly that. The kick was much stronger than I’d expected, and no video game on Earth could have prepared me for either the noise of the gun close up or the sharp, unfamiliar odor–was it burnt metal and ozone?–that filled my senses.

  Because of the unexpected pressure, my first burst missed the mark. But I gritted my teeth, cursed some more as I realized the muzzle flash had pinpointed my position, and took aim again as the searchlight oriented on me.

  It was too bright for my night vision goggles to handle. I was blinded, and had no choice but to fire with my eyes shut, hoping that my aim had been true and I hadn’t inadvertently shifted it.

  I was in luck. I could sense the searchlight go out through my eyelids. My very first bullet must have caught it because the light went right away.

  I opened my eyes to a world made green by the goggles once again, blinked a couple of times, and drew a bead on the man standing in full sight beside the broken searchlight.

  Another quick burst and he was down. But that seemed to be it for my rifle. It was out of ammo, and I didn’t have any more.

  Which was a real shame, because in the brief time since I started to use it, I had gone from uncertain to thrilled. My knives and garrote were one thing, but killing from afar with a gun was another thing entirely. It was a buzz like no other, holding the power of life and death in your hands, and even though the danger had not abated, I couldn’t keep the grin from my face.

  It was like driving Big Bob’s car. An adrenaline rush that spoke to me on a deep, deep level. If I needed some form of manhood ritual to clearly delineate the difference between the low status loser I was and the killer I had become, then that was it.

  I knew in my heart, in my very soul, that there was no going back to what I had been. Even if I couldn’t complete my task and the girls and I paid the ultimate price, then at least I knew I would go out on my own terms.

  As a capable, functional adult, an Ascendant human being, perhaps not yet at the top of the status listings, but with everything I needed to get there.

  No longer would I be the target of sneers and derision. No longer would people like Chad, like my clients, like virtually everyone I’d ever met be able to look down on me.

  For one thing, my status was climbing. For another, if they tried it, I knew I could slip a knife between their ribs, or send a bullet their way, and end their condescension for good.

  With Azrael beaming with pride in the back of my brain, I dropped the rifle to the ground and thought about retracing my steps to pick up another from one of my earlier victims.

  But before I had a chance to put that thought into action, Tim’s voice called out through the darkness.

  Chapter 37

  “I am impressed!” came the killer’s voice echoing throughout the plant. I couldn’t see where he was, couldn’t even get a good fix on where he might be. But at least I knew he was there.

  “I thought you were nothing, a nobody trying to make a name for himself. But you have taken out five, no, six of my men, without breaking a sweat! That’s some sort of achievement!” Then his voice hardened. “But it ends now! You are done! Come out or I will kill your women. You have thirty seconds!”

  I quietly fumed at the man. He was right. I was just a nobody looking to make a name for himself. I had done much better than I had expected. And I knew that if Azrael hadn’t given me the strength, speed, and stealth that he had, I would likely already be dead.

  But at the same time, it wasn’t enough. Rachel and Sandy were both still in danger, and Tim was still somewhere hidden nearby. At least two of his men still survived, and I needed to somehow get all of them if this was to count.

  I was already moving, slipping through the darkness as best I could, when I shouted my reply.

  “What does it matter? You’re planning to kill them anyway!”

  At the sound of my words, I noticed movement from near the bottom of a large piece of machinery. One of Tim’s men had marked my position and was trying to approach.

  Unfortunately for him, I was no longer there. I’d moved quickly and quietly, covering significant ground in a matter of moments, shifting and putting in a burst of effort and speed to come at him from an unexpected angle.

  He didn’t have the time to cry out. My blade took him across the throat from behind, then for good measure, I jammed it deep into his ear.

  He was dead before he hit the ground, and I took his assault rifle from him and kept moving.

  “Perhaps you are right,” Tim responded. “Perhaps I was a little hasty. Tell you what. Show yourself, and I will let them go. Your life for theirs. How does that sound?”

  I flattened myself against a wall and peeked around the corner. From there, I could once more see Rachel and Sandy bound to the chairs, Rachel struggling against her bonds but Sandy just sitting with her head hanging, looking despondent.

  I was reminded of when she and I had met. Big Bob had chained her in his basement. To him, she was little more than an hors d’oeuvre, or maybe a dessert, caught fresh and kept alive for when he’d finished with his earlier victim.

  The poor woman had been scared out of her mind at the time but had shown remarkable resilience when I rescued her. But now, just a few days later, she found herself in a very similar position.

  Bound, her life in mortal danger.

  I felt a moment of empathy for her followed swiftly by a huge helping of rage toward the man who’d put her in this position again. Tim was going to die if I had anything to say about the matter. Preferably, at my hands.

  All I needed to do was survive long enough to kill him.

  As I studied the scene, I thought I sa
w someone hidden in the shadows behind the girls.

  “No good!” I shouted. “If I’m dead, how will I know you’ll do as you say?”

  Now I was sure. As I’d spoken, the shadow in the darkness moved just a little.

  “I give you my word,” Tim replied, and there was something in his tone that led me to believe he meant what he said. “Your women will survive this day if you do what I ask. But not if you try my patience any longer. You have ten seconds–”

  “Okay! Okay!” I shouted. “I’m coming out!”

  At the same time, I scurried around the edges of the clearing, choosing my angle of approach as carefully as I could. I knew there was still at least one more of Tim’s men hiding nearby, and probably more. But I’d figured that if I killed their boss, they would have no reason to hang around.

  Well, beyond simple revenge, of course. And I could make them pay dearly for that, if I survived the next couple of minutes.

  I’d chosen my angle so the shadow in the distance wouldn’t be able to see me approach. Yet I made it obvious I was coming, walking without any attempt to do so with stealth. At the same time, I had my hands on my head to signal my defeat, and hoped no one would notice I held my newly acquired rifle dangling down behind my back.

  As I drew closer, I could see Rachel and Sandy more clearly. As well as being tied, both women were gagged. They couldn’t speak, but their expressions spoke volumes.

  They looked at me in the darkness with an expression that mixed hope with horror. They’d heard Tim’s pronouncements as clearly as I had. They knew he had promised their freedom, but the price was one they weren’t happy to know.

  I was walking into the den of a lion, and he was hungry. Perhaps I could exchange myself for the meat he’d already captured, but even that was far from a favorable outcome.

  Neither the girls nor Tim had any idea I was risking it all on a gamble.

  I was waiting for the man in the shadows to move. I knew it could have been just one of Tim’s men, but I was betting on it being the killer himself.