by N. P. Martin
I spent the next few hours in my office trying to work, but I could hardly concentrate. I told myself that I couldn’t just sit around in limbo waiting for something to happen. That I had to get on with things as I continued to hope for the best. But it wasn’t easy to do that when I now had the expectation that the body of my missing sister was going to turn up in a mass grave somewhere. I was about to hit the bottle early when I got a phone call from Artemis, almost sighing with relief when I sat down to take the call.
“I hope you’re calling with good news,” I said as I took one of the few remaining cigarettes from out of the packet I had bought that morning, shaking my head at how many I’d smoked.
“Having a bad day?” Artemis asked.
“It hasn’t been fucking great, I’ll tell you that much.” I lit up the cigarette. “What have you got for me, Artemis?”
“Well,” Artemis said. “Good news, I guess!”
“Really? You found something on Phillips?”
“Dude, we found enough to put the guy away for life.”
“Jesus,” I said, sitting up straight in my chair, everything else forgotten about for the moment. “Tell me what you found.”
“Everything. We found everything. We hacked his computer network and copied all his databases—every image, every video, every illegal transaction.”
“But did you link any of it to him?“ I asked, knowing the rest meant shit if nothing could be linked to Phillips personally.
“Well, we’ve spent the last twenty-four hours wading through layers of anonymity, and I mean, fucking layers and layers, dude. We’ve never seen anything like it. This guy Phillips knows his shit. It’s no wonder the Feds couldn’t get him.”
“So you have proof he’s behind all of it?”
“Yep,” Artemis said before sniffing loudly. “It all came down to a single server in Texas, the server at the center of it all, which we can definitively show belongs to Phillips.”
“Yes!” I said, clenching my fist, delighted at the prospect of finally taking Phillips down. “Is it all admissible?”
“We’ve created a path for the Feds to follow,” Artemis said. “No illegal turns. All they have to do is follow it for themselves.”
“You’re a fucking star, Artemis. You both are. I can’t thank you both enough.”
“It’s our pleasure, man. It’s what we do.”
“Fucking A!” Pan Demic shouted in the background.
“Send me everything,” I said. “I’ll get it all to the Feds.”
All the information Artemis sent me, I passed onto Murtagh first. I figured the Feds would be more wiling to look at it all if it came from a more credible source than me. Not that I wasn’t credible, but in the Fed’s eyes, I was no more than an online muckraker. Murtagh, of course, asked me where I got the information from, but I told him I had to protect my sources. He wanted Phillips taken down as bad as I did anyway, so he didn’t argue.
Just as soon as I’d passed the information along, I got straight to work on my story for Deadson Confidential:
TECH TYCOON MARTIN PHILLIPS REVEALED TO BE BEHIND THE BIGGEST DARK WEB CRIMINAL NETWORK IN HISTORY!
Today on Deadson Confidential, we can exclusively reveal that tech billionaire Martin Phillips has been proven to be the man behind Liberty Hosting, the hosting service that provides a platform for a myriad different criminal enterprises, many of which Phillips runs directly himself.
For years, the federal government have been working to find out who runs the infamous Liberty Hosting service, thought to be responsible for billions of dollars in illegal revenue.
For a long time, the Feds were looking for a Mr. X since they couldn’t put a name to the company. Then they discovered that the hosting company was owned by Martin Phillips. However, the Feds, despite all of their resources, could never link Phillips to the company or any of the criminal enterprises using its services.
But today, two talented cybermancers achieved in twenty-four hours what the Feds couldn’t achieve through years of investigations.
These two cybermancers, who shall remain nameless for security reasons, diligently dug their way through layer after layer of anonymity until they could link Martin Phillips’ identity to a single server in Texas.
The server in question is at the very center of the Liberty Hosting network. It provides irrefutable proof that Martin Phillips—and his public company, GeekMind—is behind Liberty Hosting, and therefore facilitates all the illegal activity stemming from it.
Readers may also remember the incubus terrorizing the city was caught and killed yesterday by FPD detectives. Well, we can also reveal right now that the incubus in question was working for none other than Martin Phillips.
It transpires that Martin Phillips was recruiting supernaturals and paying them cash to record their kills. Kills were streamed live to a Dark Web address for the sick amusement of those who paid a high membership fee to view the live footage.
The captured footage was stored on databases owned by Phillips, and included sickening footage of the death of Angela Smith, whom you may remember was killed by the incubus. Found also were hundreds of other videos showing the deaths of many innocent people.
Also found on the databases were a slew of snuff videos, and Phillips’ infamous “Monster Porn” videos as well, showing supernatural creatures having sex with humans, often against the human’s will, and often ending with the human’s death.
At the time of writing, Martin Phillips has not yet been arrested, although it is expected the FBI will arrest him soon.
More news as it comes in.
After writing the story for Deadson Confidential, I also wrote up a different version for the Fairview Gazette, taking out any mention of the supernatural and focusing instead on the common criminal elements of the story. The editor of the Gazette, who I had remained friends with, said he would have the lawyers look over the piece first, but expected it to be front page news given the public profile of Martin Phillips.
Once I published the story on the DC website, I called Murtagh to find out what was happening. He told me the Feds had looked into everything, and thanks to the path Artemis and Pan Demic had set out for them, the Feds were able to establish Phillips’ guilt. “Far as I know,” Murtagh said. “The Feds are on their way to arrest Phillips now.”
The Gazette confirmed the story I had sent them, and published it in a special evening edition of the paper, putting it up on their website as well. As expected, all the other legacy media outlets picked up on the story, including the TV networks. By late evening, the name Martin Phillips was on everyone’s lips.
But there was only one problem. When the FBI went to arrest Phillips at his office, he wasn’t there. The Feds had gone to arrest Phillips before the story broke in the media, so there was no way Phillips could have known what was coming for him.
Unless he had a secret source somewhere in the government, or in the FBI, that had tipped him off.
After the failed arrest, the Feds put out a BOLO on Phillips, and soon, every law enforcement officer in the city was looking for him.
But by the time morning rolled around, Martin Phillips had not been found, and had clearly gone into hiding.
Which is why I was surprised to get a phone call from the man himself. I was pacing my office when the phone rang, a ball of frustration because Phillips hadn’t been found yet, and inevitably I started to think the bastard would end up getting away with everything, probably relocating to a country with no extradition. I didn’t recognize the number, and when I answered and realized it was him, a tight knot formed in my stomach.
“You’re a fucking dead man, Deadson,” Phillips said coldly over the phone, his customary bravado gone now.
“Turn yourself in, Phillips,” I said, knowing full well he wouldn’t. “It’s just a matter of time before you’re found.”
“Fuck you, Deadson! You think I hadn’t planned for this? I planned for this fucking years ago.”
“How did you find out?”
“You’re not the only one with sources, Deadson.”
“You’re not going to get away with this,” I told him. “I’ll find you myself if I have to.”
“Good luck with that, especially after what I’ve set in motion.” He laughed, pleased with himself over whatever he had done.
“What are you talking about, Phillips?”
“I fucking told you, Deadson, didn’t I? I told you if you interfered in my fucking business again, that you’d be a dead man. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“So what? So fucking what? I’ll tell you so what, asshole! I’ve put a fucking bounty on your head! That’s what!”
I stopped dead. “You did what?”
“That’s right,” he said, laughing again at his own fiendishness. “Right now, every fucking monster in this city is getting ready to come after you, Deadson. Human and supernatural. There’s nowhere you can go they won’t find you, and they all have a million reasons to find you and bring me your fucking head.” He paused as if to let the news sink in. “Good luck, Deadson. Next time I see you, I’ll be holding your fucking head up as I look into your cold, dead eyes.”
When Phillips hung up, I stood in shock for a moment before sitting heavily down at my desk and lighting up my last cigarette as I dumbly tried to process what had just happened. Was he bluffing about putting a bounty on my head?
No, I didn’t think so. I knew by the sound of Phillips’ voice, by the cold glee in his tone, that he had been deadly serious.
“That motherfucker put a million dollar bounty on my head,” I said in disbelief.
Stubbing out my cigarette, I got up and quickly went into the living room to find Zee sitting there watching TV.
“Hey, baby,” she said, hardly looking at me. “You still working or—”
“We got a big problem, Zee,” I said as I headed for the window and looked down at the street below, only to see a strange van parked across the road, and as I continued to look down, I saw the van’s side door open and four men with automatic weapons jump out and start running toward my apartment building. “A big fucking problem.”
22
Zee jumped up off the sofa and came to the window. “What’s going on, baby? What are you—” She stopped when she looked down and saw the armed men heading toward the building. “Are they here for—”
“For me,” I said, panicking now. “Yes, they are. That fucker Phillips put a million dollar bounty on my head.”
“A million dollars? Well, at least he knows what you’re worth, baby.”
“Cut it out, Zee. This is no time to joke around. There’s four armed men coming up to here to kill me.”
“I know, baby,” she said, walking away from the window toward the bedroom. “And we’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Just give me a minute.”
“I don’t think we have a minute,” I said as I ran to my office and grabbed my Glock, running back out to the living room again, just in time to see Zee come walking out of the bedroom like a different person. She now had short blond hair and dark Alice Cooper style makeup around her eyes and on her lips. She was also wearing some sort of leather outfit which comprised a halter top, short jacket, hot pants, and knee-high boots. In her hands was a sickle attached to a long chain. “What the fuck, Zee? This is no time to play dress up.”
Zee smiled as she swung the sickle around on its chain. “I like to look good when I kill, baby.”
I barely had time to shake my head at her before the front door was booted open to reveal two men with automatic weapons standing outside. Even though I was expecting them, I was still shocked to see them standing there, and when they raised their weapons to fire, I raised my Glock and started firing at them as I ducked back into my office for cover.
The sound of the automatic weapons was deafening in the confines of the apartment as bullets tore into the wall I was hiding behind. Then I heard a gargled scream and one of the bounty hunters stopped firing, and I figured it was because Zee had killed him. Crouching down, I poked my head around the doorway just in time to see Zee knock the gun from the other bounty hunter’s hand before swinging her sickle at his neck, the sickle slicing through flesh and bone like a knife through butter, decapitating the man in seconds.
“There are two more,” I said, still staying behind the doorway, my eyes going to the two dead bodies lying in my living room leaking blood everywhere, and I thought: This is just the start. I’ll be lucky to survive the night.
When Zee stuck her head out into the hallway outside, she was fired upon by the other two bounty hunters who were waiting down the hallway. “They’re by the stairs,” she said, before picking up an automatic weapon from the floor and aiming it around the doorway, emptying the rest of the magazine as she held down the trigger.
Emerging from my office, I put the Glock in my waistband and grabbed the remaining automatic from the dead bounty hunter. I was no expert on guns, but I’d had some training over the years, mostly with pistols. It had been a while since I’d fired an automatic rifle at the range. Years, in fact. Still, I picked up the rifle and pulled out the magazine to check how much ammo was left in it, seeing it was half full before slamming it back in again. The bounty hunter had spare magazines on him, so I took those as well, shoving them into my suit jacket after grabbing it from my office.
“Now what?” I said to Zee. “They don’t seem to be coming.”
“Stay here,” she said as she ran into the living room.
“What are you—”
I watched as Zee picked up a chair and threw it at the window, the chair crashing through the glass and falling to the street below. Zee then ran and jumped through the broken window herself, disappearing from sight.
“What the fuck, Zee?” I said as I stood with my back against the wall, holding up the rifle for a second before peeking around the door, only to have a bullet whizz past my face, followed by another burst that impacted the doorframe and the wall of my office. “Fuck!”
To buy some time so Zee could do whatever she was going to do, I held the rifle with one hand and aimed it down the hallway while I stayed safely inside the apartment. When I pulled the trigger, however, the gun bucked in my hand, shocking me with its power so much that I ended up dropping it after a couple seconds. “Shit!”
Unwilling to chance leaning out to get the gun, I took my Glock out again and leaned back against the wall, praying the remaining two bounty hunters would maintain their position down the hallway and not advance on me.
As I stood with my heart racing and sweat beading on my forehead, I then heard a loud scream from down the hallway, and I knew Zee must’ve come up behind the two bounty hunters. There was a burst of gunfire and then another scream, and suddenly, everything was quiet, the silence almost deafening after all the noise.
Peeking around the doorway, I saw Zee walking up the hallway, covered in blood. “No more bounties for those guys,” she said.
“Are you hurt?” I asked her.
“I’m fine.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked back into the apartment, still shaking with adrenaline. Through the broken window, I could hear sirens in the distance. “I can’t fucking believe this,” I said as I paced the living room, wondering what to do now.
“Believe it,” Zee said. “It’s happening. Those guys were just the first. More will come. We need to get you out of here.”
I nodded, knowing she was right. “There’s only one place we can go where we might stand a chance.”
“Where?”
“My father’s house.”
“But they’ll find you there as well.”
“I know,” I said. “But at least there, we can defend ourselves. My father has a security team.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I nodded. “Unless you have a better plan. Do you?”
“No.”
“It’s settled then. Let’s go.”
&nb
sp; “Great,” Zee said gleefully as she swung her bloody sickle. “I get to meet Daddy finally. Do you think he’ll like me?”
I stopped and stared at her for a second, thinking she looked like a member of a Satanic metal band, or some B-movie scream queen. “He’s gonna love you.”
Before leaving the apartment, I grabbed my phone and the few sigil cards I had charged up, putting both into my jacket pocket. I lifted the automatic rifle as well, thinking it would be better than just the Glock.
“How are you going to stop this?” Zee asked me as we headed down the stairs. “Once a thing like this has been put in motion, it doesn’t stop until—”
“I’m dead,” I said. “Yeah, I know how it works.”
“The hunters won’t stop. A million dollars is a big payday.”
“I know that as well, Zee.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, don’t. I know the situation. We’ll think about how to resolve it once we get to my father’s house.”
“When’s the last time you were home?”
“It’s been some time,” I said as I pushed the door open and walked out to the street. “Maybe—Jesus Christ!”
I stopped dead when I saw the massive beast in the middle of the street, barely ten feet away. A werewolf, standing on its hind legs, yellow eyes glaring at me, saliva dripping from its enormous jaws as if in anticipation of biting my head off with them.
With shaking hands, I shouldered the rifle I was carrying and fired at the werewolf, hitting it a few times before it leaped away, landing on top of a nearby car and roaring loudly.
“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Zee said as she stared at the massive lycan.
“You think?” I said before opening fire again, and this time the werewolf leaped high into the air, reaching an unbelievable height before landing heavily not three feet in front of me, at which point it took a swipe at me with its enormous paw, its claws narrowly missing my face as I leaned back away from it, almost losing my balance as I did so.
