by Steve McHugh
Dani nodded and put her stuff back in her bag. She walked over and hugged me. "Thanks for helping today. I'm so sorry for all this."
"Don't worry," I said, trying very hard not to show Phil the error of speaking to Dani in that manner.
"Get your fucking ass back in the flat," Phil shouted.
Dani walked passed me and into the hallway. She glanced up at the larger man and looked away. The man smiled and nodded, satisfied that he still held sway over the young girl.
I started to close the door, but caught a glimpse of Phil shoving her along and re-opened it. Something washed over me, similar to how I'd felt when confronting Lee. It was like barely controlled violence, bubbling just under my skin. "You got a minute?" I called out.
The large man stopped and looked back at me. "You talkin' to me?"
Slam my palm into his throat. With enough pressure, I could rip his voice box out in one go. "I don't think we've properly met."
"I know you're a pedo."
Break his nose with one punch, his ribs and knee after that, before he'd even had time to react. "Say again?" I asked.
"Offering to keep a young girl in your home, so she can do her homework. More like you're trying to get in her pants."
Dani blanched at Phil's words. "No, it's-" she began.
"Shut the fuck up," Phil said. "I know what's happening. And it's fucking sick."
I crossed the hallway toward Dani and Phil. Feint with a left and catch him in the ear with an open palm, rupturing his ear drum and leaving him open for a kick in the stomach, and knee to the face as he falls. "I assure you it's nothing like that."
Phil shoved me, and I allowed myself to be pushed back a few steps. "Yeah, well even if it's not, I don't fucking like it."
He turned to push Dani through the now opened front door. I grabbed his arm. Phil looked down at my hand; anger flared in his eyes. "One last thing," I said. "If I ever see marks on that girl like the ones I've seen on her mum, I will end your ability to walk." I released his arm and he threw a punch with his free hand. Something I'd counted on.
I stepped back as the heavy punch sailed by and hit the wall next to me. Phil grunted with pain. I jabbed the side of my hand into his throat with speed and force that caught him unaware as his windpipe suddenly closed. His hands shot to his neck and I drove my knee into his stomach, forcing him to his knees.
He tried to push me away, but I locked his elbow and spun him round, ramming him, head-first, into the wooden bars at the top of the banister. The wood groaned from the crash. He pushed himself back to an upright position, blood flowing freely from both a nasty gash on his forehead, and his newly broken nose. He threw another punch, wild and powerful. I moved aside, caught his wrist and smashed my forearm into the elbow joint, breaking the limb. Phil dropped to the floor in agony, cradling his arm. One more punch to his jaw ensured there would be no more fight in him.
He slumped to the floor, his breathing laboured from the blow to his throat and broken nose. I looked up to see Dani now accompanied by her mum. "He'll need an ambulance," I said and turned, leaving the two ladies to deal with the unconscious man so that I could wash the blood from my hands.
What the fuck was happening to me?
*****
The sound of rain beating a rhythm against my bedroom window woke me from my slumber. As I probably wasn't going to get back to sleep anytime soon, I decided to get up and jump in the shower.
Once fully awake, I picked out a pair of dark blue jeans and green t-shirt to wear for the day. I was just eating some toast when the phone rang. I picked it up whilst I had a mouthful and tried to say hello. It came out "Murhm."
"Nate, that you?" Holly asked.
I finished chewing and swallowed the toast before attempting again. "Yeah, sorry, I'm just eating breakfast."
"You bored back in the suburbs?"
I smiled. "No, it's peaceful here." I thought about the fight with Phil a week before, and re-addressed my answer. "Most of the time anyway."
"Well your peace is over. You've got a job. That is, if you choose to take it."
I switched the phone over to speaker and replaced the handset. "Why doesn't that sound like I'll want to say yes?" I took another bite of toast.
Holly paused. "You'll need to break into a house to get it."
"No," I said. "No more houses. Too many opportunities for it to fuck up."
"But-" Holly began.
"No, Holly. I said, no more-"
"The offer is seven hundred grand."
I was glad I didn't have toast in my mouth. I'd have choked on it. "As much as it may depress me to say this, still no. It's not worth any amount of money."
"I thought you'd say that, so I asked them for a secondary option. They said the only other place it could be done is his office."
Office jobs are fun, lots of places to hide and sneak about when everyone goes home for the night. "Why did they change from home to work without a fuss?"
"Well apparently this guy used to work for our would-be employees. He joined another company and stole some information when he left. They want you to grab his laptop and bring it to them."
That explained why the job could be done at home or work. "Sounds simple. What's the catch?" There is always a catch, and for that much money it was going to be a good one.
"He'll be in the office. He always works late, most of the time until midnight. You'll have to get the laptop from under his nose."
Yep, that was one hell of a catch. "What's the time scale?
"Within a week. Apparently, they can use the information to make a fortune. Hence the high pay-tag."
"Tell them I'll do it. I'll call you the day I go."
"I'll e-mail you the details. The office is in London, easy access by tube. Should allow you to vanish afterwards with few problems."
"Okay, I'll see you next week when I've finished."
"Take care," Holly said and hung up.
I switched on my laptop, entered my password and left it to load completely, when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Dani's mum standing in the hallway. She looked better than when I'd last seen her. Her eyes no longer held a glimmer of fear in them. "I was hoping we could talk," she said.
I pushed the door open enough for her to walk in and closed it once she started down the hallway. "I'm sorry," she said. I followed her and motioned for her to take a seat on the sofa.
I sat on my armchair and nodded.
"You don't like me very much do you?"
I shrugged. "Not really, no. You're more interested in your relationship with a thuggish bully than you are with your own daughter."
She stared at me for a few seconds. The silence didn't bother me. In fact I preferred it to actually having to talk to her.
"You don't understand," she said meekly.
"Really? Okay, you're a special case then are you? Unlike all the others in abusive relationships, your man really does love you. He's a good man deep down. Tells you he'll change."
"He's an awful man. A thug and a bully. I agree with you wholeheartedly."
I opened my mouth to disagree with her before I realised I didn't need to. "Say that again?"
"He's a cunt and we both know it," she said.
I wasn't really sure how to respond, so I wandered into the kitchen and put the kettle on. "Do you want a cup of tea?"
"You got coffee?"
"No, the stuff is horrible. I wouldn't touch it."
"Tea's fine," she said with a smile. "Milk, one sugar. I can see why Dani likes you."
I made two cups of tea, a normal one for Dani's mum and a green tea for myself. "Look," I paused, trying to remember the woman's name and placed a cup in front of her on my coffee table. "Diane, why are you here?"
Dani's mum went slightly red before regaining her composure. "I just wanted to let you know that Phil won't be pressing charges."
I smiled and blew steam from my cup. "I never thought he would."
"You broke his nose,
arm and several ribs. He was in hospital for two days. Why are you so sure he wouldn't have shopped you to the police?"
"He's what, six-nine?"
She nodded.
"So a foot taller than me, and outweighs me by five stone at least. And he got his ass handed to him like he was an altar boy. He's a bully and proud that those he judges weaker than him are intimidated. He's not going to tell anyone anything. What was it? Did he say he fell down the stairs, or was set upon by half a dozen lads?"
"Half a dozen jumped him on the way home from the pub."
Somewhere inside me, I knew I could have done worse. And the scariest thing was that it didn't scare me at all. "That's it? You came over to tell me about how I wasn't going to be arrested?"
She shook her head. For the first time I noticed the lack of similarities between Diane and her daughter. Diane was nearly six feet tall, and Dani barely reached five and a half. Diane had long, curly, strawberry blonde hair, and her features were hard and angular. She was attractive, and certainly didn't appear old enough to have a sixteen year old daughter, but more than anything, she looked tired and worn out.
Diane took a drink of tea, and a morose seemed to settle over her. "You care for my daughter, for Dani, yes?"
I wasn't entirely sure where she was going. I was beginning to think Diane was going to offer me her daughter's hand in marriage in exchange for a few chickens and a goat. Eventually I decided to go with honesty. "She's a good kid, even for a teenager. She's smart, and opinionated, and argumentative, and in a few years is going to be beating off men with a stick."
"She looks up to you. Thinks a lot of you. I think she may have a crush on you."
"She's sixteen, and I'm..." I didn't know how to finish that sentence. "Older. Too old for any girl that age. I don't think you have a lot to worry about."
Diane shook her head. "That's not why I mentioned it. I just wanted to see your reaction."
I drank the rest of my tea. "Why?"
"I have a favour to ask." She raised her hand to stop my objections. "I know we've barely ever spoken. And I know you hate that Phil comes over, but you do care for my daughter. And she's who matters."
I motioned for her to continue.
"If anything should happen, anything that leaves me unable to care for my daughter, I want you to look after her."
I sat, mouth agape, like an idiot for an indeterminable amount of time. "Is this to do with Phil?"
Diane shook her head. "Phil is a moron. Unfortunately he's a moron I have to deal with on a monthly basis."
"Why are you paying him off? What does he have on you?"
"Let's both hope that you never have to find out, Mr Garrett... Nate." Diane drained her tea and placed the cup back on the coffee table. "So will you do it? Will you take care of Dani if anything happens to me?"
I still wasn't sure how to respond. How would I look after a sixteen-year-old girl? How would I maintain my life, a criminal life at that? And more importantly, how in the world would I be able to keep the fact that I'm not human from her? All of these questions rattled around my brain. Every piece of common sense told me to say no and then shove Diane out of my penthouse as fast as possible. As much as I liked Dani, I was pretty certain that my life didn't need the added complication of a teenager. "Yes," I said. "If you're unable to look after her, she will always find a place here until she is ready to go out on her own."
Diane stood and kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you."
"No need to thank me." I felt slightly conflicted about whether I was still meant to despise her, as we walked to my front door. "I'm sure nothing will happen to you. Just get rid of that asshole."
Diane smiled sadly. "If only it were that easy." And then she left.
Chapter 8
True to her word, Holly sent me all the information I needed to do the job. I spent the next few days pouring over building blueprints alongside the previous few months’ timesheets for everyone who worked there.
Patterns formed pretty quickly. Every Thursday and Friday my target worked from midday to midnight. The majority of the staff left between five and six, with a few stragglers going up to nine or ten. But for those last few hours the entire population of the building consisted of half a dozen cleaners and Daniel Hayes.
The big problem would be acquiring the laptop without him knowing, or at least without him trying to stop me. With too many things that could change during the op, I decided it would be best to come up with a plan on the fly for getting the computer.
All I knew was that I wasn't going to take it by force. I don't like to do violence when on a job. I’ve always thought it sloppy and unprofessional to hurt people just to make your life a little easier. If you can't finish the job without hurting anyone, then you're not good enough to be doing it in the first place. Although, yes, it does help that I can use magic to incapacitate without causing permanent damage.
Dani's mum's request still hung in my mind. I wondered if she'd told her daughter what we'd spoken about. Probably not, Dani would have said something if she had. Or more accurately, yelled something at her mum and I'd have heard.
I'd seen Dani a few times in the hallway, and each time she'd nodded hello and kept walking. Maybe what I'd done to Phil had frightened her. If that was the case I would be sorry, but it had needed doing. I was disturbed by how I'd felt during the fighting. Or at least I felt like I should have been disturbed. My concern was that it didn't really bother me at all.
The day before the job was due to take place, I caught a train to Waterloo station in London. I called on the way to book a hotel room near Canary Wharf, where the target worked.
I got out of the subway at Canary Wharf and a freezing cold wind was blowing through the area, coming off the nearby river with a vengeance. It made me immediately glad I'd worn a thick hooded top, as well as my black jacket that covered down to my thighs. It wasn't exactly executive dress. But even amongst the throng of people all wearing expensive suits and coats, I didn't stand out too badly, mostly, thanks to the nearby shopping centre, Jubilee Place, which was always busy with families and people off work for the day.
I'd been to Canary Wharf a few times, usually on business. The mass of glass and metal sky scrapers along with One Canada Square, the tallest building in the UK, looming over them all as it touches the sky, never ceased to amaze, especially at night, when the lights from the buildings illuminate everything around them.
I walked into the lobby of the hotel I'd used to reserve my room for the night. After getting my room's cardkey, and making a point of stating that I would carry my own bag, I made my way up in the lift.
My room was everything I'd paid for and more. It was massive, with an enormous king size bed, large bathroom and lounge area with flat screen TV. A balcony overlooked the nearby park, and the huge windows spread down one side of the room turned a nice view into an unforgettable one.
My backpack contained my outfit for the job, so I hid it under the bed. I'd rather not have some random cleaner finding it and discovering dark clothes and a balaclava. When ready, I left the hotel, making my way into the heart of Canary Wharf toward the forty-two-story monstrosity containing my target.
Daniel Hayes was forty-nine and a success in everything he'd done. He'd graduated with a first in economics from Leeds University, his home town, and immediately moved down to London. He'd never married, but had an eleven-year-old daughter, although I had no information on her mother. My employers for the current job were Lionshead Pharmaceuticals, a company I’d never worked for before. They’d employed Daniel six years ago, and he swiftly rose in the ranks.
All of which made me wonder why he would leave. He'd made six figures plus a bonus at Lionshead. Although, as I'd learnt time and time again, people always want more. It was also strange that Daniel left a pharmaceutical company to work for Mars Warfare, a military weapons designer.
After taking a seat on a bench outside the massive structure, I removed a book from my backpack and feigne
d reading as I watched through the windows surrounding the entire ground floor. I made mental notes of the number of guards inside. I was going to bring a note pad and pen, but that would have been far too obvious. The guards moved in twos. Four pairs in all, each guard carried a submachine gun and a holstered pistol. Employees and visitors moved around them with little fuss or concern, apparently accustomed to their armed protectors.
Two women sat behind a large reception desk opposite the three massive turnstile doors, and across an expansive lobby. They were probably mild-mannered receptionists, but they appeared more akin to someone you'd meet in the dead of night with a large knife.
Pictures of weapons—ranging from rifles and knives, to tanks, adorned every cream coloured wall. And the company's logo, the planet Mars with a sword and shield in front of it, had been painted onto the white tiled floor directly in front of the reception area.
After a few minutes of covertly scanning the building and its inhabitants, it became apparent that the bruiser-like receptionists had taken to watching me a little more intently than I'd have liked.
I glanced around, as if looking for someone I was waiting for, and spotted a beautiful, curly-haired redhead nearby. She wore a dark trouser suit and tiny-rimmed glasses on her button nose. I'd noticed her watching me with interest and wondered whether someone had sent her to keep an eye on me.
I put my book away, keeping one eye on the receptionists who had called over one of the armed guards, and waved at the redhead. She looked confused for a moment, but tentatively waved back.
I walked over and offered her my hand. After a brief pause she shook it. "My name's Nate," I said with a smile.
"Jenny," she replied. "I was going to come over and say hi."
"I thought I'd beat you to it." I hoped our conversation would make it look like I'd been waiting for her and not trying to scope out the building. Besides, learning more about a stunning redhead is always more interesting than recon work.
