Merc sighed. He was so much worse than that. If they only knew—even Maritsa would shun him.
He went to the jungle via a trail that led off the east side of town. He’d been avoiding the death pits ever since his return. While he hadn’t been back in years, he’d kept up with the town’s reclamation of them following the lengthy peace negotiations the Colombian government had conducted with area cartels, rebels, and guerrillas. Seven years ago, he’d reported the existence of the mass graves just a mile out of town, but the government hadn’t been able to deal with them until the peace settlements were finalized. It was late last year before experts had gotten in to clear out the big trenches. They’d even had to build a road to bring in the big equipment needed to do the job.
The path he was on widened. A sickly sweet smell teased his nose. The breeze stilled, intensifying the stink. This wasn’t the scent of decaying vegetation, a natural by-product of the jungle’s life cycles. No, he was near the death pits. And though the bodies were long gone, the stink could still be detected by a nose as sensitive as his.
He stepped out of the bush into a wide area devoid of plant growth that framed three deep trenches—the mass graves of Valle de Lágrimas. At least victims of the area’s violence, possibly hundreds of them from this location alone, had been exhumed. The remains taken from these and other mass graves in the region were being studied at various crime labs and universities in Colombia and elsewhere, fueling entire forensic careers as thousands of families waited to learn the fate of their loved ones lost in the decades-long conflict.
Merc shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at the cavernous pits. While the veneer of civility once again reigned in the area, all the same illegal activity continued unabated—cocaine was still being processed in the jungle, gold was still being mined illegally, and females were still being sex-trafficked.
The peace agreements had been good for business.
At least, they had for Omni business.
After a while, he headed back to town. As he returned to his small rented room, he noticed another of those gang murals and paused to look at it. While he stood there, a girl and her kid brother passed him. The girl looked to be in her mid-teens, maybe the same age as Pablo’s friend Daniela was. Maybe she was the same age Pablo’s mother had been when she left town all those years ago.
This girl looked scared. Following on her heels was a man in his early twenties, taunting her, offering to give her what she really wanted.
Merc could feel the mounting tension that filled her as other men followed her into the alley. Maybe her home was near, and the alley was a shortcut to it. He hoped she’d make her way there before the storm broke.
Or maybe this was the day her luck ran out.
Liege’s constant admonishments to not interfere with the regulars, to not mess with their free will, whether of good or ill intent, to keep a low profile…all of that went from Merc’s mind as the men laughed and surrounded the girl. They ripped the bag of groceries she was carrying, spilling its contents across the dirt road. The girl shoved the little boy out of arm’s reach. He ducked his way around some of the men, who tried to catch him, as others pushed the girl into a nearby hovel.
Merc heard one scream from her. Only one. He followed the energy of that scream to its source, traveling astrally. The girl was being held on the filthy floor as the men tore at her clothes. The man who’d started the whole confrontation was kneeling between her legs, his jeans halfway down his thighs. His friends were urging him to hurry up so they’d all get their turns before they had to kill her father, who surely was coming for her.
Merc pulled his energy back into himself. He went to the house where the girl was held and stood in the doorway, feeling no emotion whatsoever for what he was about to do, though it violated the tenets of the Legion. What good was being a mutant if you couldn’t protect those who needed it?
Focusing on the guy crawling over the girl, Merc sent a kinetic wave of energy between his legs. The guy screamed and rolled off her. The others jumped back, startled and frightened. Merc froze them in place so that he could get the girl out of there.
Holding his hand out, he mentally urged the girl to come to him. She scrambled free, trying to hold her tattered clothes to her body. Merc was too loaded up with weapons to give her his shirt, so he ordered one of her would-be rapists to give up his. Merc pulled it over her, then sent her out. Her father was storming toward them.
“Gather your groceries,” Merc said. “Tell your father to leave this to me.”
Merc stepped outside as the girl ran to her father and spoke to him in an animated way, pointing toward Merc. Her dad ignored the warning and kept coming. A simple compulsion stopped him. Merc exchanged a long look with him before sending him to follow his daughter home.
Inside the hovel, the first guy was still screaming and clutching his balls. Merc focused on the rest of his crew. The mental freeze he’d put on the group was still in place. Some had their hands on their dicks; some had their hands up in the air, as they had when they’d urged their leader on. Even their faces were locked in the last expression they’d worn before Merc’s freeze took them over. Their eyes, though, were unrestricted and watched Merc with confusion and terror.
Their leader was now writhing on the floor in excruciating pain. His balls were red and swollen. Merc considered what to do with him and his men. He could compel them to attack each other. He could reach into their hearts and end them, quietly, one by one. He could issue an electromagnetic pulse that would fry their brains. The odd thing was—and it was a strange time to have this realization—Merc was tired of violence. Violence only made more violence. In a place as hostile as this, it was the one thing in great supply.
So what should he do? The man on the floor looked like he was about to go into shock. His face had gone white, but still he fought the pain. Merc glanced around at his group.
“Do you see the pain he’s in?” he asked them. Of course they did. “His balls are being twisted. It won’t be long before they pop right off. This is because he tried to rape that girl. This is what will happen to him—and to you—should you ever again attempt to rape someone. Do you understand?” Merc laughed. “I forgot. You can’t move. Just blink if you understand.”
The entire group blinked fast and furiously.
“Good.” Merc walked out of the hovel. He didn’t release the men until he stepped into his rented room. Too late, he realized he’d unhidden himself as soon as he helped the girl.
Maybe that was for the best. Flynn had to already know Merc was fucking with his sweet operations there.
Merc walked through the market that was set up in the center of the town plaza the next morning, armed, but with his weapons hidden. Women wouldn’t meet his eyes. Nor would the old men. It was the gangbangers who watched him with hostile, challenging glares.
Merc thought of the mass graves just outside of town that had been cleaned out. He wondered if the hundreds of souls who had met their death there still roamed the jungle. Had they cursed the ground where they died? Or had they forgiven what was done to them? Had they been innocent villagers? Or thugs like the ones everywhere in this little village?
Where did hatred end and healing begin?
He bought a salpicón juice, then went to the bodega. Beyond groceries, it also sold household goods. The aisles were narrow, probably a fire hazard, but that let the owner pack the space with goods. Leaving his natural appearance in place, Merc went in to the tight space. His freakish height and size made him stand out among the residents here. They usually pegged him as American, but he was an Aussie through and through.
He hadn’t shielded himself for a single purpose: he wanted the Omnis to come looking for him. No one else should take the heat for what he’d done…and what he was yet to do.
He wandered up and down the aisles, trying to decide if he should do a good thing for the village or a bad thing for the gangs. Either one would draw his enemies to him.
> He stopped in the paint section. It was there—the paint the gangs used to claim their territories, like animals pissing on trees. He knew what he would do.
Most of the black and brown paint was gone. Someone had over-ordered pink. Several cans had been there long enough for their labels to become discolored and start to peel. Seven in total. He took them all, several brushes, stirrers, a couple of paint trays and rollers, and a bucket to wash them in, then checked out, dropping American dollars on the counter.
The clerk looked at him, then at his U.S. dollars, which he quickly slid off the counter. Merc asked the shopkeeper to deliver his purchase to the room he was renting. He wrote down the address on a paint can.
The shopkeeper eyed him warily. “I know where you are staying,” he said in Spanish. “Everyone here does.”
Righto. Merc nodded and walked out without waiting for change. Who knew what the conversion rate was, anyhow? Ordinarily, such carelessness would be dangerous, broadcasting to anyone watching that he was an easy target, rich and careless.
But he wasn’t an easy target.
Maybe he was throwing money around to tempt them into trying. Maybe one of them would catch him unaware, but that was highly unlikely. Not with the training Liege had put them all through.
Still, it could happen, since he was about to start stirring the pot.
Hell, his arrival in town had already done that.
Three boys delivered the things he’d purchased. He gave them a tip and sent them off.
He took two paint cans, several brushes, and the bucket, then crossed the small square and entered an alley, heading to the first of several murals he wanted to paint over. At the end of the alley, the side of a building met with a high concrete garden wall. Weeds and tree shoots grew thick along the whole thing, proving that if humans were ever to vacate the town, the jungle would reclaim it in just weeks.
A bunch of guys from the local gang were sitting around the outside of one of the houses he passed. They stopped and stared, cigarettes halted halfway to their mouths. A couple of them called out to him, but he ignored them.
They scrambled from their chairs and followed him, taunting him, but he didn’t stop until he got to the wall he wanted to paint first.
A mural memorializing lost gang members with black grave markers covered the wall. The graves had men standing guard over them with automatic rifles.
Merc set the two gallons of paint down on the dirt road. Pablo came over to watch him, his gaze bouncing from Merc to the town’s thugs. Merc smiled at him. “Have you come to help?”
“You can’t do this, señor. Please, don’t do this,” the boy whispered urgently.
Merc stared into Pablo’s brown eyes. I will prevent harm from coming to you and your family, he communicated mentally.
“It is not me I’m worried about,” Pablo responded without questioning Merc’s silent promise.
The boy had the makings of a great warrior, being more concerned for Merc than himself. Merc gave him a nod. “I understand. And thank you for that.”
Merc studied the wall, trying to decide where to begin. The mural had weathered poorly. Old scenes were bleeding through newer ones, documenting various waves of gang ownership of the block or the town.
Merc knelt and used a tool on his utility knife to pop the lid off the first can of paint. It was a pale pink, like a creamy strawberry smoothie. Not a color he cared for, but it was the only color the village store had in abundance. And it was one that would send a powerful message.
He poured half the can into two pans. Pablo still lingered. “Take this pan and start here in the middle, next to me. We’ll work our way out to the end of the wall.”
Pablo didn’t like what he was asked to do. “They’ll be here long after you’ve left town. Doing this will only fire them up.”
Fear filled the boy. Merc understood. What they were about to do was a direct insult to the gang and meant trouble for the boy, his family, his friends, the whole town. The gang would exact revenge and reinforce its ownership of the area. Any slight against them had far-reaching ripples, as this boy’s extended family, living anywhere outside of this village, were potentially at risk too.
Paint, Merc ordered Pablo, putting a compulsion on the boy.
The girl Merc had saved last night came down the street, followed by several more children. Some lingered in the shadows, afraid of him and what he was doing.
The girl showed no fear. Her eyes sparkled with suppressed rage. Merc said nothing to her as he handed her the long-poled paint roller he’d been using. She stepped up to the wall next to Pablo and slapped chaotic pink strokes over the worn images, spreading color over the leering caricatures that had threatened so many lives for so long.
Some of the other kids came forward to help. He handed them paintbrushes. When he ran out of brushes, he set the other kids to clearing the vegetation blocking the wall.
A man came out of the house, accompanied by two gangbangers, looking terrified. He shouted, “Madre de Dios, what are you doing? You cannot touch that mural! They will kill you. They’ll kill me. I have a wife. Please, I beg you, stop! Keep these children safe.”
Merc sent him a calming wave of energy. “They will not harm anyone anymore.” He looked over at the thugs who had gathered behind him. Their faces were twisted with shock, anger, and hatred. He looked at the homeowner again. “Do you have a spare chair? Preferably one with a high back?”
“No.”
“Then go find one and bring it here.”
The man frowned and looked from Merc to the men he’d have to walk through to run that errand. The thugs separated, clearing the way for him. With a last worried look, the man went on his way.
Merc resumed painting, his back to the men bristling behind him. Mothers called their children home, but Pablo and the girl continued their work. No one besides thugs came out on the street, but Merc could feel the locals watching furtively from their windows and doorways.
He looked up at the wall, which rose some twelve feet from the street. He was going to need a ladder. He turned to the gang watching him in a state of stasis. Pointing at one of the men, he sent him for a ladder.
His passive behavior enraged the gang members. They charged toward him, only to stop when they encountered the shield he’d placed around himself and the kids. Merc continued his work, unconcerned. Someone threw a rock toward them, but Merc mentally reversed its trajectory, throwing it back where it originated. Following that, a hail of rocks pelted toward him, only to fly back to hit the guys who threw them. They cried out in fear and pain. Villagers timidly gathered at street corners, peeking over each other’s shoulders to watch the unusual happenings. They began to whisper among themselves.
A few gang members came forward, boldly raising their fists as they neared him, but instead of hitting Merc, they pounded down on each other. Enraged, they doubled their furious attacks on each other until one of the other men broke them apart. “Why are we fighting ourselves? It’s him we have to strike.”
Merc faced the large group of angry fighters. “You cannot fight me.”
“We can fight any man,” the leader said.
Merc locked eyes with him. “I’m not a man.”
A gasp whispered through the onlookers. From the corner of his eye, Merc saw a few make the sign of the cross over their chests. The gang leader sent a narrow-eyed glare around at them, silencing them.
The homeowner came back with an old ladder-backed chair. Merc had him set it against the opposite wall in the alley, then looked over the group of men, his gaze settling on their leader. Pointing to the chair, Merc said, “Please, have a seat.”
The leader complied, moving stiffly, as if he wasn’t in control of his own body, which he wasn’t. Merc shifted his gaze to the rest of his men. “The rest of you can finish painting this wall. You with the machete, clear away the weeds so that the whole wall can be covered.”
Merc handed over his paintbrush to one of the gangbangers, then
went over to stand next to their leader. “Do you know why I chose pink?”
“I don’t care. As soon as it dries, we will paint over it. We will honor the men we’ve lost.”
“What about the children you’ve abandoned or forced to serve you? What about the women—the ones you and your men have raped? Don’t they deserve to be memorialized?”
“They’re women. They were made to be used by men.”
Merc watched the pink paint cover up the ugly gravestones. “I chose pink for them.” The gang leader didn’t need to know it had been his only choice. “You have a good vantage point from your chair here. Perhaps one day, an artist will come and cover the pink with a mural full of color and hope.” He smiled at the man sitting next to him. “And you will get to see it happen.”
“I will not be here.”
“No? Where you will go?”
“Back into the jungle. Until you leave. I don’t know how you’re doing what you’re doing, but we will figure it out. You will regret the games you’re playing.”
“Perhaps. But one thing I do know—you won’t be going anywhere. You’ll die in that chair. You’ll sit there until the flesh falls from your bones and feeds hungry dogs. It’ll be a peaceful death, yeah. Slow, but peaceful. I’m tired of violence. When the village has peace again, they can decide what to do with your body.”
Merc felt the burst of energy the man summoned as he tried to jump up from his seat, but he couldn’t move, not to lift a hand or even to scream. He could only make strange grunts from his now-clamped jaw.
When that wall was fully painted, Merc took the gangbangers to the next wall that needed painting. He parked another of the lead gangbangers in a new chair facing the wall they were about to paint. He sent Pablo to fetch the rest of his paint from his room so the work could continue unabated.
At the third and last wall they went to, they ran out of pink paint. Merc sent Pablo and the girl for more paint. They came back with an orange color, which they used to finish covering the wall. A third man was given a chair and sat to watch over the wall.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 3
