“Last chance,” he told me. His voice seemingly more sure of itself. “Last chance to forget about Ravens and the money you’ve been paid. It’s your final opportunity to ignore what you’ve been brought here to do.”
“Algernon Swafford belongs to no man!” I growled.
“Look, forget about it all. Put it from your mind that you ever came to Monterey. Return the money, or send it to a home for wounded veterans, for all I care. Walk away, Mr Swafford. It’s the sensible choice. Don’t run pell-mell into the machine guns. Walk away.”
I took a step closer and raised the trusty pistol so that this time it was pointed right between his bright green eyes. “I know what happens next for your friend Ravens, and I’m pretty sure what’s going to happen next for you too. You have drained away all vestiges of my patience.”
The man sighed and his shoulders slumped, before his entire posture seemed to alter. He rose up straight and was in an instant a taller and more determined-looking man. It was there in the eyes. That jovial fuzziness was gone, what took its place was an unyielding hardness. Christ! In a second it was clear this wasn’t a milksop, this was a man who destroyed other people’s lives for sport.
“Fine.” His voice had altered, it was deeper and more gravelly. “I gave you every opportunity to quit your ridiculous quest.”
I realised his deception in a heartbeat and tried to tighten my finger on the trigger, but I was frozen. A chill seemed to spread from the moonlight itself, sheening my skin and paralysing me. For the first time in my five plus decades of life, I was genuinely and utterly terrified.
Six
Fear was a sensation almost completely unknown to me. I’d never been scared. Not when I put my gun in the face of dangerous men, not when I moved to America, not in the trenches, or before that in Ireland. Not even when, as a child, my parents first left me alone at boarding school. Every time I had dared the world to do its worst to me and then felt triumphant. Now, all of a sudden I was a pathetic coward, gawping and squirming on the spot.
He had so much power over me: this Jacob Ravens, who had played to my prejudices and fooled me so dreadfully. The man stood at the snout of the barrel of my gun, but he just smiled at it. He knew I couldn’t do anything. My hand was frozen and the weapon was starting to tremble in my fingers, becoming heavier and unwieldy.
In school I had railed against the pompous pastor, then at the Somme I had lost all belief in a Christian God who would let something like that appalling war happen. Nearly all my life I had been a disbeliever. However, this man was surely The Devil. And if The Devil existed, then God had to exist too. I swallowed. That meant I had been mistaken my entire existence. I’d doomed myself to this moment in time. This Lucifer in a tan suit stood in front of me. His smile was crueller than mine had ever been and I saw a thousand deaths in his eyes.
My gun lowered to my side and then dropped to the ground. I went with it. Not letting go of the firearm, instead crumpling down as if we were one. I felt old – a stupid codger lying on cold paving stones a long way from home with no way of getting myself up again. There was no help coming. Only this man who stood above me with a sardonic grin and his hands behind his back. A man who was surely evil incarnate.
His voice didn’t sound human. It was harsher than before. The sands of Death Valley given the power to speak.
“They talk about mankind’s generosity of spirit, but frankly I don’t see it. Not only is man frequently unwilling to show kindness to others, but when he himself is shown kindness, he more often than not spits on it before hurling it back.
“That’s why I relish these instances of charity, Mr Swafford. As on nearly every occasion, when I offer benevolence, it is thrown into my face. It is utterly rejected. After all these years, I expect it to be refused, but it never fails to give me pleasure when it is. As it always makes what I do next seem all the crueller. As I know the poor bastard in front of me is not only enduring whatever pain I can inflict, but regretting with all of their heart what they have so rudely refused.”
I was folded on the floor, my bones seeming to have shrunk into my skin so that I was loose and baggy flesh. Still I held onto the gun, but I had no strength to do anything else. My eyes couldn’t raise to look at Ravens. I was conscious, however, that the moon was seemingly changing colour, that the silver was fading and it was becoming blood red.
Ravens stepped forward, so that his shoes were an easy kicking distance from my skull. I knew he wasn’t going to make it that easy though.
He said: “I first heard of you about three weeks ago. You really did pop up from nowhere, didn’t you? Asking all kinds of questions and so tremendously eager to find me. Well, I suppose, it is nice to feel wanted.
“When I enquired about you – as you’d enquired about me – the story I heard was that you were relentless. You didn’t quit. Others, more in the know, told me of the ruthlessness which separated you from other gumshoes. That you were prepared, for a cash payment, to provide extra with your services. Don’t be surprised, I move in both low and high circles. And in those high circles, in whispered voices, they all talk about you and what you can do for them.” I think I heard him crack a smile. “You’re not just a killer, you’re a tremendously good killer, aren’t you? Someone who knows his way around death and is not ashamed to put his skills to a profitable purpose.
“As you can imagine, with the kind of life I’ve lived, I have more than one enemy. Not only is there your silly client – who, believe me, will have a biblical plague visited upon his head – but there are others. More than one who might employ their own bravos; another skilled individual able to track me down and – if I don’t take action – surely kill me. And that’s why I could use a man with your skills. One who understands these hunters in pinstripe suits and who can act to cut them off before they reach yours truly. Protect me while I get on with the more pleasurable aspects of my life.”
He bent down and stroked a hand through my hair. It seemed so stringy now that no doubt a few strands came away in his grip. Even with the cold consuming every part of me, I felt like I was being touched by a cadaver.
“So, that’s where we are, Mr Swafford. I tried to be generous with you and let you walk away, but you chose not to. As a result, we have a decision to make. I am prepared to release you tonight. To not allow the creatures I keep forever at my shoulder to suck your soul and all the life right out of you. I am prepared to let you stand again, to make you a strong man once more. But when I do, you will be mine. You will do my bidding. You will hurt who I want you to hurt and kill who I want you to kill. From now on, you will be my tool to stop any threat foolish enough to approach me.”
Trying to turn my head, I saw that he was glowing. That hellish light wasn’t coming from a transformed moon at all, but from him.
Ravens clutched those terrible chill fingers around my jaw and raised my face to look at his. To stare into the visage of The Devil himself. His grin so cruelly confident.
“What do you say, Algernon Swafford, esquire? Tonight your life will be spared, but it will be mine.”
Staring at him, I realised that I could move the gun in my hand. It was slow and painful, but I could pull it from under me.
That bastard grinned as I did. There was no flinch or sign of fear as I raised it up.
“No, no,” he murmured. “You won’t be able to kill me. That’s obviously one of the conditions.”
Of course he was right. When I tried to push the gun in his direction, my nerves went into a spasm and I could barely cling onto it. My grip was only strong when I aimed away.
“Come,” the glowing man smirked. “It’s a simple enough choice, do my bidding or die.”
It physically hurt me to utter the words, but I meant every syllable, “Algernon Swafford belongs to no man.”
Then I swung the Remington to my own temple and before he could stop me, squeezed the trigger.
There was bang – deafening my right ear – and the requisite flash, but no
thing else. My blood and brains did not splatter over the dockside. Instead, intense heat coursed down from the barrel and into the grip, so that – finally – I could hold the weapon no more. Giving a woman-like shriek of pain, I stared down at the scarlet, blistering skin of my hand.
As my Remington bounced once, I heard the bullet slide out and clink harmlessly to the ground.
He had stopped it! The bastard had halted that projectile of my salvation before it even left the gun!
Jacob Ravens crouched down next to me, an expression of utter satisfaction on his glowing red face. “No, I’m afraid you don’t die so easily. We have come too far for that. You will do as I command now, whether you like it or not. Truly, I admire your persistence, your coldness. But know this, if you do find some way to not comply with my wishes, I will make sure you die excruciatingly slowly. Over many months, or even years. For however long it amuses me to watch you suffer. You will live to serve me from this moment on. As, let’s be honest, Algernon Swafford may belong to no man, but I am not merely a man anymore, am I?”
And then he smiled the coldest smile I have ever seen. A grin which took great pleasure in my pathetic whimpering.
A plea from the author
If you enjoyed Algernon Swafford: Private Investigator, could you please take the time to leave a short review of it on Amazon?
Reviews are the lifeblood of an indie author. They make the difference between scrabbling along and actually making a living out of our writing. So, if you’re able to find the time to leave your thoughts on Algernon Swafford: Private Investigator (the title is a bit of a mouthful, I know) – or any of my other Ghostly Shadows tales, long or short – then I would be tremendously grateful.
Kind regards,
FRJ.
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