An Angel of A Different Order: Dr Peter VonNetzer, the bloodletter (Danger Angel Book 1)

by S. R. Rashad

  The axe Peter used, entered the the back of his skull and neck with such force, it completely severed his spinal cord, from his neck down, crushing the base of his skull and lodging itself into his lower brain stem and upper cervical vertebrae, shattering the C1 and C2, just missing his medulla oblongata, but forcing dozens of tiny bone fragments into his spine, causing his spinal to leak fluid. He may or may not bleed out, had it been any deeper, he would have for certain been killed. But instead, he is alive and paralyzed from the neck down. Peter turns him over, leaving the axe lodged in the base of his skull, but removes his beloved night vision goggles so the two can be better acquainted, getting a better look at one another. He wants to move, but can't. His body is now motionless, permanently frozen. He can't feel a thing, well physically, anyhow. His emotions and feels though, are having a life of their own, running wild, thoughts are entering his head at high speeds, in rapid fire succession. His fear and anxiety are paramount, overwhelming, causing him to hyperventilate, as he sucks in air in the most awkward rhythmic, heavy shallow pants. Peter looks over the fear-ridden man curiously. He knows this face. He has seen him many times over the course of the years, but never really gave it much thought.

  “Who are you?” Peter says, searching his eyes for signs. For no one knows as much as Peter when it comes to the secrets hidden behind the eyes, the windows to the soul, as they hold nothing back when confronted by a most terror inducing predator.

  “Why have you been around these many years?” Peter asks with a deep quest for answers.

  “Why have you followed me, stalked me?” And the answers begin to come to Peter.

  “You must know one of them, don't you. How? Relative? Yes.” He doesn't say a word. His eyes are telling Peter all he needs to know.

  “Father? No, too young? Husband, maybe? Brother?” Peter sees his eyes begin to water.

  “Yes, brother. Whose brother?” This will be fun for Peter. He gets to relive each kill, each glorious slaughter, through the eyes of another. What joy! “Whose brother, should I name them. I can you know. I remember them all. They are all with me, every one, here with me, with us.” Peter smiles.

  “Pamela Stahl, maybe?” There is no movement in his eyes. He doesn't connect to the name.

  “Loren Mills, no. Wait, I should go further back, yes. Let's start at the beginning. Jill Hornsby?”…his eyes become electric, the truth they reveal is overwhelming. “Yes! Yes! That's it! Isn't it!” Peter watches as streams of tears roll down his face, as he is flooded with raw emotion. He hadn't heard another mention his sister’s name in years, let alone her killer. He’s finding a strange relief in this as he can't stop crying. No one believed she was killed by Peter. The police kept coming up with the wrong suspect after wrong suspect, till they just gave up and the case went cold, but he knew. He was certain who the killer was. So, he investigated on his own, till he found Peter’s trail, and he never gave up on her. He never stopped trying to right the wrong. He wouldn’t rest till justice was done. Now, hearing the monster acknowledge her and acknowledge him, he knows it was all worth it. Though he may die and Peter live, he still feels vindicated somehow, in his pursuits.

  “Yes, she was my first. I was so young, new to myself. I was raw. I was clay. She helped me, mr Hornsby.” Peter says with a weird sense of gratitude.

  He also hadn't heard his own name spoken by another in a long, long time. He disguised himself for so long, pretending to be so many others, while in pursuit of Peter, he’d nearly forgotten his own name, who he really is. Yes, I am Jonathan Hornsby. Jill Hornsby was my sweet sweet sister and a quarter century ago, you killed her. This is what he is thinking as he looks into the eyes of the monster, whose terrifying face, cold, feelingless eyes are less than a foot away from his.

  Peter grabs the sides of Jonathan's face with either hand, bringing it so close to his, he can see his irises, as their eyes are now just a few inches apart. “You and I are kindred spirits, brother.” Peter says mournfully. Then pauses and looks to the moonlit night sky, breathing deeply and heavily for a few seconds before he speaks again. “She helped me, in her offering herself to me. She freed me, at a time when I didn't know I was imprisoned. The world had been made clearer, more real from that moment till now. She gave me the bloodlust. She taught me what hunger, thirst, and passion really is. And I see it in you. You have hungered. Haven't you. You have craved, you have been obsessed, these many years, just as I have. Her death created you, too. We are kindred, thanks to her. I shall not take your life.” Peter ends his moment with his kindred soul as he decides to not end him. His existence in the world will remind Peter he is not alone in maddening obsession, crippling desire and his deep connection to his first. Jonathan shall live. He shall obsess about Peter and be his perverted admirer, from a distance. His mad drive and blinding obsession caused his life treating injury, and now here he is, and the paralyzed can do Peter no harm.

  Peter's thoughts return back to the present, to her, his wandering delight, who is attempting to flee.

  “Laura, what was that?”

  “Not sure. Let's go see. Stay close, ok.”

  “Ok.”

  Laura pulls out her gun and points it in the direction of the falling branch. Jen sees Laura’s bleeding arm and is concerned.

  “How’s the arm, Laura?”

  “You mean the one that's been shot.. Shit, I don't know.”

  “Here, let me take a quick look”

  Laura takes off her jacket and rolls up her shirt sleeve.

  “Well, it doesn't look that bad, I guess. The bullet went straight through. It appears and there isn't much blood.”

  “Great. Here.” Laura takes off her shirt and tears off a sleeve, handing it to Jen, having her tie it around the wound.

  “Look at that, Jen. Perfect. Now, stay with me. Let's keep going.”

  “Ok. But if you keep getting shot, you’ll be like one of those tough gansta rappers. I'll have to give you a street name, like the indestructible Laura D.” Jen says, laughing at her cleverness.

  “Ok, Jen. I can live with that, silly…come on… we need our game-faces now. We don't know what is ahead of us, ok.”

  “Sure, Laura.”

  Laura will come to find in the most sobering way, what they really need to worry about is not what is in front of them, but the who or the what that roams behind them, moving silently and swiftly in the shadows.

  It was clandestine as the doc crept up on the totally oblivious, reposed sniper, as he easily lays hold to his unattended axe, viciously ramming it into the back of his neck and head. Now, with an incapacitated Jonathan, he goes through more of his weapons as he finds a delightful set of throwing knives, he is very very pleased as he has always wanted the occasion to use them, as he has trained so thoroughly with them since he was a kid, practicing for hours as a boy in the woods, possibly in training just for this moment as the Fates would have it. There is also the perfect 8 inch hunting and skinning knife which excites him beyond words, being that he has yet to skin a human being. He feels this may be a good occasion to, and he may indeed be exceptional at it. At least he hopes.

  You never think about what's it like to be dead, until you are about to be dead. And why would you really. When every time you breathe, you are filling your lungs with the promise of more life. Well, officer John Russo is contemplating his death right now, lying on his back, feeling heavy, pinned to the earth, while warm life giving fluid leaves his dying body, in heavy flows, turning cold almost instantly as it hits the cool night air, pouring down to the equally cold ground, pooling beneath him, in the full frosty chill of the moment. Oddly enough, the only thing keeping him alive, for these next few minutes, is pain. Funny thing is, when a high powered hollow tip bullet hits you, if it doesn't kill you instantly, you’ll wish to bloody hell it did. You feel every bit of the extreme velocity projectile. As it travels at 2500 feet per second, all the force crammed into this scalding piece of metal becomes a powerful sledgehammer, slamming into you, kno
cking you to the ground. The area around the entry point throbs and burns to such an extent, all your focus, your entire being and mental energy is driven to this single area. It is as if the mind is saying, if you focus hard enough, you can make the pain go away, you can rid yourself of this burning intrusion. But you can't and that's the curse. Then you wish for it. You welcome the pain ending sweetness of death.

  John tries to reach for the rifle by his side as the two women approach.

  “Jen, stay behind me, please.” I say as I see him on the ground bleeding profusely, but still trying to reach for his gun.

  “Don't.” I say sharply. But, I'm still extremely shocked at who I see lying on the ground. I liked this guy too. I thought he was one of the good guys, your typical officer friendly, just amazing.

  “John, don't, ok.” I bark at him. Unlike Susie, he stops reaching. I would like to think it’s because he knows I mean business. But I think it just might be because of the huge painful gunshot wound in his chest, requiring all his focus as it zaps energy from him.

  Still, John fuckin’ Russo shot me, hell, tried to fuckin’ kill me and Jen. Is everyone in these mountains a fucking psycho, a fucking inbred fuck wad. Is there something in the damn water. Shit! maybe, it's all the fresh air up here. Hell, this isn't natural.

  “John, why? What the hell is going on?”

  “Family, Laura, family comes first.” The VonNetzer credo, He says with a mixed sense of pride and shame as his body is succumbing to the massive gunshot wound.

  Jen chimes in, “Yeah, Laura. John, Susie, Nancy and that maniac all cut from the same cloth!”

  “This is just still so crazy to me, hon.”

  “Me too, Laura, me too.”

  “John, to be honest, I don't think you're gonna survive that shot by the looks of it, and being that you shot me, there's no way I'm gonna even begin to help you. Hell, in fact, I'm still debating on whether I should just shoot you in the fuckin’ face. Just so you know.”

  I know this isn't the best thing to say to a man who’s about to die, but I'm so upset with being shot again, I can find no other words for him. In truth, it no longer even looks like what I'm saying is registering with him anyhow. As he has that far off look, the look of a man about to make that leap from this world to the next. Now I feel confused, sad and angry. This is exactly how my dad looked those last hours in his death bed. To watch a strong man like my dad die so harshly, ripped apart from the inside, from early onset Alzheimer's, just so fuckin’ painful. I've tried to cover up that pain these last few years, with work, achievements, things and money but I need to feel it. I guess. I need to process it. Maybe that's why I'm still so afraid of therapy. Cause I know it will force me to look too intimately at this deep deep hurt.

  I need to stop talking to this dead man. It's putting me in a bad place. I need to be here now. There is something eerie in the air. Something has changed. There goes those heightened senses again. There's imminent danger. My quiet primal ancestral brain is becoming louder, the one that warned us millennia ago of lurking saber tooth tigers ready to pounce, is vibrating, signaling a shift in safety. I need to focus my attentions else where, it screams out, turn! My tiniest hairs are standing on end. Look behind you! Look behind you! I decide to listen, but by this time, it is already too late. A part of me already knows, but there's still a tenth of a hope, I may still have a few seconds, and that can make all the difference in the world, but the only difference it makes now is that I get to see his face and feel my helplessness. Turning, I see the knife as it is hurled at me from eighty feet, on a perfect trajectory, seemingly gliding through the air, in forced flight, straight for my chest. There will be no escaping the lethal flying blade of this madman. I know it, but I'm not ready to die.

  Chapter 34

  Mother may I

  The dwarf, the cheerful little deformed Russo/VonNetzer, apparently the last of the lineage, mostly unaware of all the death happening around him, as he roams the attic, a part of the house where none were ever permitted to venture, none but the blood queen herself is to go up here, to the place where she hides her family’s perversions, generations of the less than sane, less than tasteful behaviors of the clan, all tucked away in crates, chests, boxes and in her private journals. He’s taking immense pleasure in rummaging through everything, taking his time, thumbing through her dozens of note books and journals, finally getting to know some of the hidden truths, some of the darker, more twisted and bizarre acts of those familiar and less familiar relatives.

  Peter loves the feel and grip of these perfectly balanced Gil Hibben stainless steel throwing knives. The release is smooth. The flight is sure and true. The first of the two blades to leave his hand, is bound for Laura, his immediate threat to securing Jen. Having turned around abruptly though, Laura ruins his chance for a well planned surprise attack and for her easy death.

  It seems Laura does have an opportunity to save her life, feeling something deep in her, calling out, reminding her of her years of training, of her disciplined and honed fighting abilities, of the promise she made to herself not to die today. Then, with an evasion technique she’s used countless times while sparring to avoid opponents’ jabs or direct attacks, she twists her torso while simultaneously taking a step back, all in one beautifully swift motion. Here, her instinctual moves are like those of a mongoose whose lightning quick retraction avoids the quick attack of a springing snake, making the snake seem almost tortoise like while in a life or death battle with it. And like that, the blade no longer has her heart, or major organs as a target. But instead, it plunges itself deep into the bicep of her shooting arm. Being that she couldn’t avoid the blade altogether, she choose to protect her vitals instead.

  Peter, one can see, is noticeably angry, put off by her fighting spirit and quick reactions. He thought for sure she would be out of the picture. Now, more furious, he winds up like a pitcher who needs to get this next one straight across home plate. Peter leans in deep for this next throw.

  I see him about to toss another, there’s no way I can shoot or even gather enough strength to avoid the next one, but then Jen, that silly silly, beautiful Jen. Lovely lovely, wonderful Jen, rather than think about her own safety, seeing the blade enter my arm, she comes quickly, without hesitation, to my aid. And as the gun lay near falling from my now useless right hand, since I could barely grip it, she takes the gun, turning to face down the doctor, the beast who hurt her and me. And it is all happening so quick, so incredibly fast, but the seconds feel like minutes. The doc's blade screams through the air, ending its flight not in me, as it was intended, but in her. All I could do is watch as the blade rips into her neck with such force, before she could even turn fully around, forcing her now limp body straight into me.

  Nancy’s earliest journals, from her youth, he spends most his time in these ones. He finds them the most disturbing, the most twisted, so much so, he is in shock, in awe, and begins to weep while reading...

  “Our father was not like the traditional VonNetzer men. He didn't believe in punishment, let alone torture. So it was up to us, Peter and I, to torture ourselves and we were never easy on one another.” What twelve year old thinks like this, is all he could think of when coming across these words.

  “Dad told us of how hard his father was on him and how he hurt him, and how he would never do it to Peter and me, but Peter and I wanted to experience real pain, so we began on each other. And we were sure to keep it a secret, for father would never condone such wicked behavior.”

  As she falls to me, I see her face. I look to her eyes, her beautiful doe like, clear green eyes, and there's nothing there. Nothing that makes up her spark, her silly humor, her zeal, her innocence, her friendly open loving ways, nothing. Nothing is reflexed back at me. Like that, she’s gone. And I want to go with her. I want to go with her, with my father, with my mother, with my favorite aunt, with my first amazing grammar school teacher Mrs Neil who was taken way, way too young. I want to go be with all of them. Why have
they all left? And I'm here. In a world where men like this monster roam free, still lurking in shadows, still killing, still feeling as though they have the right to take the lives of the innocent, to do as they please, to make victims of us all, to have us forever running, afraid of our own shadows. No! This can't be! I can’t join you all just yet. Not while these fuckers are still here, and there is still fight in me, and damn it, there still is. Immense anger floods my being. My entire self is ready to respond.

  He has no more throwing knives. Nothing deadly to hurl at the still standing Laura Danger, the woman who got in his way, the testy bitch. He wants to rip her apart, to obliterate her. The joy of the up close kill, of seeing Jen’s life drained from her, of her green eyes searching his for mercy, of her last moments of fear all taken from him by Laura. He is beyond angry as he moves in for Laura, clutching his flaying blade. There may still be a chance for some joy as he will peel the skin from her body, in small painful strips, exposing her nerves, tendons and muscles to the world as he collects her skin inch by painful inch.

  I see him moving in toward me. He looks confident. I can see it in his eyes and in his sure footed movement. He believes he can take me. He thinks I'm like them. He thinks I will be a piece of cake. He thinks he will find pleasure and sport here. He is terribly mistaken. There is none of that here. Mama’s a badass bitch who is about to lay into his ass.

  He charges at me. I step aside quickly and give him a forceful kick to the back. His first wake up call. He looks at me dumbfound but he's still confident. He still has no idea. He comes at me again, seeming almost robotic as I recall all my father and my fighting instructors taught me. He seems so very predictable and slow. He won't get the better of me. I will give him no chance. I move too quickly for him as he tries to slash at me. I kick the blade from his hand. Now, he is catching on. Now he sees me for who I am. I am my father’s daughter. I am a warrior. I am not easy. Before he can even think about retrieving the knife, I kick him hard again. He falls back knocking into a tree. He looks a little shocked and winded. He is now aware of his fate as I can see that look in his eyes. I am full of adrenaline. I pull at the knife still in my bicep, yanking it out quickly and though the pain is off the charters, I don't care. I just want him dead. I take the knife and ram it into his hand, pinning him to the tree. He reaches over with his other hand to remove the blade. I step in, grabbing his arm before he can pull the knife out. I twist and pull at his arm with all my might till it snaps in two places. Oddly enough he doesn't scream much or whimper, or show much emotion though I know the pain must be great. He smiles that annoying smile. I am not sure why he is smiling and I don't care. Then I see him look over to Jen’s lifeless body and I lose it. As I want her back and this nightmare to be over. I want him dead with all my being. He looks into my eyes. I know he sees my fury, my anger but somehow l can still feel his smugness, his unfeeling cold being trying to break me, to bring me into his world, to make me afraid, to make me doubt myself. I won't have it.