‘This is John’s place alright, but I shouldn’t be here. Can I get my money now?’ Razz asked nervous of an altercation.
‘You’ll get paid once we have him. I suggest you get in the car and wait like a good boy.’ Nico advised while two of his colleagues searched the ground floor.
‘He’s not here, boss.’ One reported back.
‘John? Are you down there?’ Grace called from upstairs, arousing the group’s attention. Nico looked to the stairs like a child in a sweet shop.
‘Find him. He’s down here somewhere.’ He whispered before heading upstairs, excited to greet whoever awaited. Razz meanwhile wasted little time silently re-tracing his steps back out of the house.
The two goons scattered. Searching each of the downstairs rooms, studying every corner of every wall. In one of the man’s hands a crowbar, in his compatriot’s grip, a knife.
‘He’s not here Ray.’ The first announced.
‘Keep looking, that’s the last room, double team it Kev.’ The second advised as they reached a narrow passage to an unfinished extension. Approaching it in single file, they reviewed a small bathroom ahead.
‘Did you check this bathroom?’ the Kev asked. ‘Doesn’t even look fully built.’
‘It’s not...’ Ray mumbled to himself, noticing the door open wide enough to hide a coward. Nodding to one another, the two men approached it with their weapons raised.
‘I’ll rush the door, if he gets up, stick him in the back.’ Kev instructed.
‘Got it.’ The knife-armed Ray replied.
Kev wasted little time. Stampeding towards the door while his colleague paced behind him, awaiting John’s reprise.
Hanging above the two plotters. A naked assassin, with his testicles dangling, silently dropped down behind them from the ceiling. Noticing the goon’s knife raised and unintentionally pointed towards his compatriot. John ran into the Ray’s back, grasping it with one hand and his knife-wielding arm with the other. Together they rushed down the passageway, landing into the Kev’s rear. The crowbarred-armed thug squealed as the knife slid through his skin and into his kidney. In excruciating pain, he turned swinging the crowbar in a frenzy. In mid-swing, the sharp tip of the bar caught John’s forehead, causing blood to gush down across his face. Focused, he didn’t flinch. Instead, lifting his hand from Ray’s torso up to meet his neck. Continuing to prod and pierce Kev’s stomach until he ceased all motion.
Ray, now a co-stabber, threw both himself and John back into an adjacent wall. Indenting it on impact. The blood from John’s forehead leaked down into his eye, half-blinding him. As they grappled, the fluid sprayed over both of them as well as any furnishings within proximity.
Maddened by the home invasion and the potential threat to Grace. John’s strength grew and grew as he grabbed the man’s chin with one hand, a shoulder with the other, and pulled them viciously in opposing directions. The man’s neck clicked a horrific sound before his body plummeted to the ground.
John caught his breath before realising there could be further invaders in the home.
Upstairs, Grace picked up her underwear from the floor and began to dress. Reaching for her top, she noticed a figure in the doorway. A passive and happy Nico watched her clothe, praising the process.
‘Don’t mind me.’ He suggested. Shocked and scared, she took a step back before grabbing the duvet and wrapping it around herself.
‘Who are you? Get out.’ she said with a raised voice, hoping to trigger her missing-in-action partner.
‘My name is Nico Kane.’
‘John!’ She yelled out, again to no response. ‘My fiancé downstairs, you don’t want him to find you up here.’ she warned.
‘It’s your fiancé I’m looking for.’ He explained, giving her a once over, ‘That little visual was a bonus though.’ He commented, stepping into the bedroom.
‘Don’t take another step.’ she warned a second time, ripping her bedside lamp out of the power outlet.
‘Jesus, what are you going to do? Lamp me, with a lamp?’ he asked, now just a few yards of her.
‘I’m not going to ask you again.’
‘That’s good. Makes it a whole lot sweeter.’ He insisted, moving closer. His eager, shifting body unmasked Grace’s visual of the door frame behind him. Standing beneath it, bloody, naked and panting. Stood an almost diabolic looking John, covered in blood. Following her astonished reaction towards the door, Nico turned to see his former adversary. His skin stained in a terror that had no doubt befallen his associates. Nico’s confident smirk transitioned into a gaping face that wanted to turn back time. ‘Wait, hold on’ he muttered as John rampaged through the room towards his next victim. Like a terrified child, Nico almost crouched down, his arms in the air remorseful. John gripped hold of him and with Herculean rage, threw Nico across the room. It was the second time in a week, Nico had taken flight via John’s wrath. Crashing into Grace’s wardrobe that then tumbled and collapsed on top of him. Nico tried to pick himself up and run for the door.
But John wasn’t done.
For all manner of consciousness. All manner of morality or rational thinking had now escaped him. The audacity of those he defied coming after those he loved, fuelled his wrath. Dabbling in the criminal world came with a high price. He knew that. But coming after family was against every code. He marched to Nico’s resting venue, grabbing him once more. This time tossing him towards the rear window.
‘John!’ Grace cried out as Nico’s semi-conscious mass shattered through single-glazed glass.
With his pupils dilated, his fists locked in a clinch, John left the bedroom and raced to the patio outside. ‘John, oh my god. What have you done!’ She worried, reaching for the phone. John couldn’t hear a word. Grace was his life, his addiction. To threaten her was to declare war on everything he had, and he would bleed every one of them dry if only to send a warning.
Passing the lukewarm kettle and out through the back door. He approached a barely alive Nico. Grace from above called down, pleading for him to refrain. But his psychosis muted everything. Her pleas went unheard. Nico now drenched in blood with a catalogue of broken bones, tried to crawl away, only to be subdued. A naked lunatic mounted him, punching his face brutally into the concrete patio beneath.
‘Please, sto...’ he pleaded once more as the beating continued. John’s eroded knuckles began to bleed from the effort.
‘I showed you mercy, and you came after her!’ he screamed an inch from Nico’s battered face. Throwing punch after punch till it was unrecognisable.
Grace reached the dining area where she looked on in horror. John was now a monster she could not recognise. His relentless swings didn’t cease even with Nico unconscious for some time. ‘You damn people and your goddamn pride!’ he bellowed, now reaching the bare bone of Nico’s skull. His own knuckles bloody, bruised and possibly broken.
The pain of the thrashing surged to his brain, departing him from his frenzy. Like awakening from a dream, he looked around himself, trying to gather his senses. He looked down to see what he had mounted. Nico’s almost mummified state.
Such a sight caused John to retch, his vomit spewing a few inches to the side of the dead man’s corpse. Regathering, he leapt off of the body. Hearing Grace’s screams from inside the house. He spun in her direction worried and alarmed, realising what she was afraid of. Him.
‘G, it’s okay.’ He insisted, raising his bloodied hand in an encouraging gesture. She retreated further into the house, tripping over a dining chair behind her.
‘Get away from me!’ she screamed, searching for the phone she had previously dropped.
‘What? G, it’s me, calm down, it’s me.’ he reiterated.
‘Police, I need police.’ She cried down the phone, forgetting she had already rung them as she descended the stairs to stop him.
‘Grace, look at me...’ he begged. She stood still for a moment and looked into his eyes. The John she knew, was not the man in front of her.
‘Who are you?’ She questioned, causing him to look back at her in a defeated silence.
The sound of sirens grew in volume as she darted out of the house to meet them.
Devastated, John began to weep. She was gone. He had lost her. He looked down again to see Isaac Kane’s son dead on the summer patio. Discerning that he was now destined for a life of vagrancy and pain. Unsure how to proceed, he looped hopelessly on the spot for a moment, before running into the kitchen. He grabbed his mobile and dialled a number he had memorised. Hearing the police approach the front door. He sprinted back out into the garden, tripping over Nico’s corpse in the process. As the phone rang, his naked-self hurdled a fence and fled the scene.
‘It’s me. I need your help.’
✽
The train hit the brakes as it neared the next station. John awoke from his cruel trance, a tear in one eye. He conceded that Grace was right, that he didn’t deserve to be near any of them, especially her. Even Indy had felt rather blunt consequences following John’s return.
It was time to leave. He was to see this train to its last stop, board the next one, and then the next one after that. His name, his infamy would slowly erode away, and his family would be free of it and him.
He arrived at this judgement just as the train pitched up at Heming station. The first of many Kingsland suburbs. To his dread and surprise. The platform was littered from beginning to end with Molar’s most aggressive hoodlums. Like a legion of mindless zombies, waiting patiently for his arrival.
Still a fighter at heart, he exited his seat and proceeded down the carriages as they each slowly ground to a halt. With the train reaching a full stop, he halted realising the inevitable. As countless men boarded from every door and made their way towards him. He stood still and awaited them, closing his eyes. The thugs marched through the single-lane pathway as onlookers ducked down in their seats. The first man to reach him wrapped his arms around John’s body and limbs, restraining the surrendering fighter. John opened his eyes as another man threw a crushing jab to his face, sending him off his feet and onto the ground. He stared at the carriage roof before catching a glimpse of a sharp, splintering piece of wire. It moved across his face toward his neck. Feeling it press and grate against his throat. The serrated surface of the wiring cut through his skin as the suffocation quickly set in. John’s body flailed in resistance, even with his mind at a forfeiture.
‘Hold him still!’ The garrotting man yelled as onlookers screamed nearby. John’s responsiveness drifted and drowned as everything faded to black.
‘He’s done, let him ride back to his sanctuary.’ Molar announced, easily bored once a body stopped trembling.
CHAPTER NINE
‘They won’t stop.’ Indy whispered to himself.
‘Get him on to the table, quickly. Red get some bandages.’ Abi ordered.
‘Jesus, look at what they did to him.’ Indy continued.
‘Indy focus. This is a get out of jail free card boy, make no mistake.’ Red insisted as John awakened upon a pitch black visual, his eyes still unable to open. He could hear the sound of friends nervously discussing his predicament.
His throat bloody and burning. He tried desperately to open his eyes, eventually succeeding to see a chain of erratic blurs. A small blonde woman stood beside him, holding what looked to be a small first aid kit. He could feel her soft hands trembling as she pressed gently onto his neck.
‘This is only temporary. We need a proper physician.’ Abi, the Old Market’s tenacious barmaid and aspiring nurse explained. Carefully dabbing the large wound around his neck with an antiseptic fluid before dressing it with gauzes.
‘He’s waking up.’ Red announced.
‘A dri...’ John whispered, halting as the speech caused his slashed throat to sting further.
‘Don’t speak John, okay. He’s going to need stitches, I can do it, but I need him to be completely still. And he probably won’t be.’
‘He wants a drink.’ Indy replied, grabbing a nearby bottle of water, bringing it to his brother. John quickly whacked the bottle out of his hand, pointing instead to the kitchen side. Red ever present deduced his intentions.
‘He’s pointing at the vodka.’ Red explained. Abi looked at the bottle, and then back to the make-shift apparatus she had for the medical operation.
‘That might not be a bad idea.’ She replied, realising a stiff drink may make him more tolerable. Indy brought the bottle forth, only for Abi to snatch it out of his hand in a style similar to John previously.
‘Okay, from now on, everyone gets their own bottles.’ Indy remarked as Abi herself took a quick swig. John took the bottle and drunk a long, relentless gulp. Coughing violently with splashes of the spirit propelling out of his mouth. He rested his head back against the coffee table, gripping it with his hands.
‘Do it.’ he mumbled.
Abi composed herself and proceeded to operate. As John sneered at the pain, Indy turned away and headed to his bedroom, unable to watch on.
Choosing to call Frank instead, only to be left hanging a third time. Red waddled behind him, surveying Indy’s room.
‘Can’t get hold of Frank.’ Indy said before looking at the patient, ‘He needs to go to a hospital.’
‘He can’t go to a hospital. He goes even a mile of a public place. Game over.’ Red stated.
John kept his hands like talons, clinging to the coffee table, his forearms quivering as the pain sunk in.
‘Look at him, Red. That wound isn’t cosmetic, and Abi knows it.’ Indy uttered with a distressed almost whimpering tone. He was scared. It was John.
Abi finished up and rested her fingers on John’s forehead. Both to comfort and to gauge his temperature. Indy and Red returned to his side, unsure of next steps.
Exhausted from the repairs, John slipped back out of consciousness. Grabbing Indy’s wrist as he passed out, squeezing it slightly. A thousand emotions in a single squeeze. Indy unable to look at the wound underneath his brother’s chin. Looked up and out to the blackish blue horizon.
Once more, the dark figure returned solidified, elusive against the clouds. Spectating Indy and his family’s turmoil.
Indy’s growing anger exaggerated a face upon the figure. He saw the face of Isaac Kane. The demon that once stood over his beaten father. Now gazing at him, mocking his powerlessness in yet another dire situation.
Indy had always believed that notion. That the figure was a fabrication of the mind whose cruel and simple purpose was to haunt him. To plague his dreams and memories with the fact he was unable or unwilling to help his father that night.
But what if he was wrong? What if it was the reverse?
A symbol. A sign to do the opposite.
The demon continued to gaze at Indy and yet, for the first time in a long time. Indy didn’t feel fear, he didn’t dread the manifestation.
He welcomed it.
Suddenly feeling an extreme purpose. Indy felt a defiance pulse through him as an idea struck. A concept of such lunacy, it moronically began to make sense.
Indy marched passed Red towards his bedroom once more. The big man clocked the pacing of Indy’s movement, delivering a curious frown. Again entering the bedroom, he puzzlingly watched Indy burrow into his wardrobe. Hurling boxes behind him as he dug further and further.
✽
Frank climbed into a large, black SUV. Heracles, already inside, munched on a packet of crisp, tapping the glass partition for the driver to set-off. Frank’s phone continued to persist. Labelling it a business trip, he didn’t want to be disturbed. Switching the device off inside his pocket.
‘A man in demand.’ Heracles remarked.
‘Popularity pays the bills.’ Frank replied.
‘The Vinyar name has been ringing through the streets since John returned.’ Heracles said, causing Frank to flinch at the premise.
‘Or maybe I’m making a name for myself?’
‘Who knows. I’m grateful to all of you though. With Kane and hi
s mutts distracted by your family, we’ve never been so un-deterred.’
‘I know. I get my bonus each week.’ Frank reminded. ‘We should be investing that money.’ He insisted only for Heracles to palm it off.
‘I love you white-boy criminals. You lot always want to invest, diversify, short the stock. And all we want is to own a bit of turf in South London.’
‘You have, it’s called Brixton.’
‘Don’t be naive Frank. London is evolving into a colony of white-faced, white collar suits. And these people need their little minimalistic condos. The cost of the city is far greater than the real families of London can afford. That’s why we do this. Our goal is to segregate ourselves from the so-called future of London. To buy property, to buy land so our families can own it till the polar bears drown.’
‘I’ve underestimated you Heracles. The ambition. I can relate. For instance, what we’ve done in little time with Que Pasa. It’s astonishing, but it isn’t enough. We could own half the city’s industry in a year. That money goes into all our hands. We should be expanding, and dare I repeat it, investing.’
‘Okay Frank, sell it. Investing in what?’
‘New product lines.’ Frank pressed eagerly, wanting Heracles to get on board with any plan or decision he may have already reached.
‘New drugs? No. The Serbians own most of the other headliners. All that’s left is legal highs and the B-celebrities.’
‘Exactly.’ Frank responded excitably. ‘The kind that goes unnoticed by the law and unrivalled by competitors. We change the game.’
‘While we support you Frank in regards to weed and real estate ventures. I’ll ask that you tone down your narcotic ambitions for now. Enjoy sitting by the river, waiting for the bodies.’ Heracles instructed, dismissing the weak sales pitch.
He felt assured in his capacity to out-alpha Frank. An ambitious millennial with more friends than bullets. ‘I’m hearing about a new dog traipsing into our yard. One of your brother’s old associates. Toby Razz. You know anything about that?’ Heracles asked, ironing out his empty crisp packet.
Persona Non Grata Page 10
