Serial

by Tim Marquitz

Isaac cursed under his breath, but there was nothing he could now but see things through. “You didn’t think you were going to get away with it, did you, Mendes?”

  The detective’s hand trembled, but he kept his pistol leveled. “What are you talking about, man? I know we got off to a rough start, but put your gun down.”

  “The killing, Mendes…I’m talking about the killing. Or should I call you Bane?” Isaac watched the detective’s hand and smiled. He was scared. He could only imagine it wasn’t easy having the tables turned on you.

  “You are fucking crazy, you know that? I’m no killer.” Mendes’s eyes glistened in the dim light and Isaac thought he saw him tearing up. “Put your weapon away, man, you’re freaking me out.”

  Isaac shook his head. “There’s no talking your way out of this one. I can see the toothpicks in the body from here.”

  Mendes raised his other hand, palm up and fingers spread. “I received a call…a tip…telling me she was here. That’s all it is, man, I swear.” His voice quavered.

  “Out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, someone just conveniently calls you about a body there’s no way they could have seen or stumbled across, and you just run out here without backup or telling anyone?” Isaac chuckled. He knew better. Mendes was a veteran. While Isaac had believed the detective to be a glory hound, looking to cash in on a prestigious crime, all that went out the window once he made the connection between the bodies and Mendes’s tattoo. “What about the demon image cut into the bodies, Mendes? Recognize it? Los Demonios Pequeños.”

  The detective’s eyes widened and Isaac was certain he saw tears now. The shaking of his gun hand increased. “No, man, no…I mean, yeah. I thought I saw the little demon in the pictures on your desk, on the girl, you know, but there ain’t no way. I didn’t do that shit.” He pointed at the body behind him, but his eyes never left Isaac’s. “Put the gun away and we can go back to the station and clear all this up, man.”

  The plaintive whine in the man’s voice made Isaac grin. He nodded. “All right, let’s do that.” Isaac started to lower his pistol.

  Mendes blew out a heavy sigh and dropped his. “Damn, man. You scared the fu—”

  Isaac squeezed off a round. The muffled thump of the gunshot sounded loud in the desert’s stillness. The bullet caught Mendes in the hip and sent him stumbling. He tripped over the body in the bag and fell to his back with a grunt. Isaac closed on him, firing again as the detective squirmed to get up. The shot hit him dead center of the chest. Blood spewed from Mendes’s mouth as he gasped and collapsed onto the sand.

  Isaac stalked forward, peering through the shadows that obscured Mendes’s head so he could end it. A muzzle flash brightened the darkness. Isaac felt something punch him in the chest, the impact spinning him around. He fell to his knees as a searing heat screamed to life, blurring his vision. Isaac tasted blood, gurgling sounds rising from his throat. His chest rattled as he breathed, and he could feel fluid filling his lung.

  The heat spread from his chest to his cheeks as he realized Bane had shot him. Fury replaced agony. He raised his gun and fired once more at the killer, another flash going off at the same time. A gargled screech sounded from the shadows just as Isaac was hit in the stomach. The bullet crumpled him. His face struck the ground, dust and sand filling his nose and mouth as he struggled to draw breath. Isaac fought to raise his head, managing only to turn it slightly so he could see the soles of Bane’s shoes as they hung lifeless over the body bag that propped his legs up.

  A cold numbness replaced the pain as Isaac stared, blackness eating away at the edges of his vision. He could no longer feel his legs as he willed his body to crawl, his arms limply thumping the dirt and raising tiny clouds of dust. He was going nowhere, so he gave up trying. His dimming gaze drifted once more to Bane. At least he died first.

  Night closed around him and the world eased into silence. Isaac wondered what the morning news would say.

  It was his last thought.

  Chapter Seventeen

  This is Jessica Rodriguez reporting from Far East El Paso County. We’ve little to go on at this time, but this isolated patch of land you can see behind me is where two El Paso police detectives met their end in what appears to be a tragic case of mistaken identity.

  Sources tell News 7 that homicide detectives Isaac Grant and Javier Mendes were working the cases of Bane, the Toothpick Killer, and the Desert Ripper, respectively, when they were both led to this deserted strip of land by an anonymous tip.

  The two detectives apparently stumbled across each other in the darkness, each believing the other to be the killer they searched for, and opened fire. Their bodies were found early this morning by a military convoy passing through the area.

  El Paso Police Department spokesman, Adrian Sifuentes, called the two detectives heroes in the fight to rid El Paso of the…

  Captain Garcia muted the television and leaned back in his seat. He watched as pictures of the detectives flashed across the screen, remembering both. Grant had no family, so Garcia volunteered to arrange his funerals and finalize the detective’s affairs, the department springing to cover the costs from his budget.

  It was a small price to pay.

  Internal Affairs would take care of Mendes. His department suspected someone in Garcia’s squad of committing the Ripper murders and had made arrangements months before to provide a detective. They’d sent Mendes in to investigate. A smile stretched Garcia’s cheeks at the serendipity of IA’s choice.

  Mendes had been an officer under Garcia about a year before Isaac had come to the force. The then street patrolman had a habit of bringing his work home with him, fraternizing with the local gangs more than he arrested them. Garcia and he had butted heads often, the brash officer secure in his defiance because of his uncle’s position on the city council. That relationship had nearly screwed Garcia out of his captainship Politics at their finest.

  The officer had been a thorn in Garcia’s side, but there’d been nothing he could do procedurally to get him out without a prolonged and uncomfortable fight. Instead, Garcia convinced Mendes it would be a good idea to move on, offering to clear his record and set him up with promotion and a transfer to LA. It had worked.

  Garcia leaned forward and ran his hand across the folded leather case that lay on his desk. He pulled the case open and looked at the knives stored inside. He sighed at the memory of stumbling across Isaac as he picked up the young girl in Las Cruces. For all Garcia’s plans to draw the Ripper out, using Mendes as bait and dropping the first two bodies off after he’d arrived, Garcia never suspected Isaac, but the following morning laid it bare. He knew then what he had to do.

  He opened his desk drawer, closed the case and slid it inside, pushing it to the back. He sifted past the bottle of Pepto that blocked the way and pulled a toothpick from the drawer. He stuck it between his teeth and smiled.

  The people would never know the sacrifices made to free the city from the worst serial killer ever to stalk its streets. But that was okay. It was enough to know he’d been the one who ended Isaac’s reign. That he was able to protect the department from Mendes’s snooping was another plus. IA’s investigation would wither and Bane and the Desert Ripper would disappear forever. Only their memories would haunt El Paso.

  Garcia ran his fingers over the cold steel of Isaac's knives, a knot unraveling in his guts as he slipped one loose of its sheath. He admired the blade, pressing the edge against the tip of his thumb. Blood welled, and Garcia smiled.

  The city was safe…for now.

  About the Author

  Raised on a diet of Heavy Metal and bad intentions, Tim Marquitz writes a mix of the dark perverse, the horrific, and the tragic, tinged with sarcasm and biting humor.

  A former grave digger, bouncer, and dedicated metalhead, Tim is a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts and fighting in general.

  He lives in Texas with his beautiful wife and daughter.

  You can find out more about Tim and
his work by following him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/tim.marquitz) or by checking out his web page at www.tmarquitz.com .

  Six-guns vs. werewolves in the Old West!

  The Guns of Santa Sangre

  © 2013 Eric Red

  They’re hired guns. The best at what they do. They’ve left bodies in their wake across the West. But this job is different. It’ll take all their skill and courage. And very special bullets. Because their targets this time won’t be shooting back. They’ll fight back with ripping claws, tearing fangs and animal cunning. They’re werewolves. A pack of bloodthirsty wolfmen has taken over a small Mexican village, and the gunmen are the villagers’ last hope. The light of the full moon will reveal the deadliest showdown the West has ever seen—three men with six-shooters facing off against snarling, inhuman monsters.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for The Guns of Santa Sangre:

  John Whistler reckoned he was within thirty miles of the wanted men when they lost the wheel. Now the stagecoach was out of commission, the bounty hunter stranded to hell in the bowels of the Mexican desert, with nobody but two damn do-nothing stage drivers and the Sonoma rental wench. It was the gloaming, the sky getting dark, but the edge was off the terrible heat, so he figured they’d picked a good time to break down as any.

  The big mustached man in duster and ten gallon hat stood impatiently rotating and clicking the cylinder of his Colt Dragoon pistol about two hundred feet from the disabled wagon. Whistler stared out at the forbidding, craggy Durango canyon country and vast canopy of turquoise and purple and rose-streaked late evening sky. He listened to the two Wells Fargo men arguing and cussing and the sounds of banging and creaking as the men finished the repairs on the broken slats of the right rear wheel they were fitting back into place. The weathered brown carriage was tilted at an obtuse angle. The team of four horses stood bored in their harness at the front of the chassis, tails flitting at flies.

  Whistler looked over the where the sweat-soaked 15 year old prostitute in the black velvet corset and petticoat stood fanning herself. She winked at him. Eyes of violet, red hair spilling down her shoulders, she smelt sweetly of rose water and sex. Her name she’d told him was Daisy and she had herself a going concern riding the stage line back and forth, servicing passengers and kicking back a few bucks to the driver. A sweet little set up. The whore had been knee to knee with him the whole trip from Sonoma in the cramped and jouncing stage, bouncing pale freckled breasts spilling out of her corset a few feet from his face on the opposite seat.

  The bounty hunter took out his silver pocket watch on the chain from his vest and snapped it open. His name “John Whistler” was engraved in elegant lettering inside the lid. The hands of the clock read, “7:53.” Annoyed at being behind schedule, the man gruffly closed the watch and pocketed it.

  The stagecoach junction was supposed to be just twenty miles from here, the old driver told him. Damn bit of luck. Whistler would have been there already, should have made it by dusk but for the stage mishap. Hell, he had those bad men he hunted dead to rights. They might not be there tomorrow morning. No matter, he was right on their ass and would catch up with them soon enough. The bounty hunter took out the folded wanted poster in his pocket and regarded it. The crudely sketched faces of the three outlaws stared back at him from the crumpled paper in the red hue of twilight.

  Samuel Tucker.

  John Fix.

  Lars Bodie.

  Notorious names in bold block type lettering just above the $1,000.00 reward notice on each of their heads. Gunfighters and killers with lots of bodies strewn in their wake. These men were good, but he was better. The bounty hunter had gotten his lead on their current whereabouts from a Mexican ramrod who had seen them just the evening before in a small outpost thirty miles east from where Whistler now stood. The trail was coming to an end. Their bodies would be slung over saddles. Or his would.

  He’d be out of Mexico one way or the other. He drew and admired his Smith & Wesson Scoffield 45. It had no trigger guard. Made it faster to draw and fire unimpeded by such inconveniences. A saguaro cactus sat like an upright fork a few hundred yards away, the tines poking black spokes against the glowing rust of the end of the day. He contemplated a little target practice on the plant to kill the time, but reckoned he better save his bullets. The formidable men he was hunting knew how to place theirs.

  Mostly, he just wanted the hell out of Mexico.

  From the sound of things behind him, they were getting that wheel fixed, and it was about time. He turned around to see the fat, bearded stage driver and his young Mexican shotgunner in the scarf and vest tightening the bolts on the displaced wagon wheel and using wrenches to adjust the torque on the axle. Any time now they’d be back on the road. But he’d lost a day.

  “How you boys doing on that wheel?” Whistler called over.

  “It’s repaired, but you best settle in mister,” the old stage driver grumbled. “Because we’re here for the night and pulling out at dawn.”

  “That does not suit me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re not driving this stage in the dark, not through this kind of terrain.”

  “But—”

  “There be cliffs and ruts and ravines everywhere along the trail ‘twixt here and the junction and stage could take a plunge with one wrong turn.”

  The four people grouped by the carriage in the failing light.

  A huge full moon hung in the sky, clouded with haze.

  They heard the wolves.

  Not like any Whistler heard before. A keening, yipping lupine chorus came from all sides out in the canyons. The howls began low but rose in strident pitch and timber until they became a high shrieking bay. It was a sound to freeze your blood. The bounty hunter looked at the stage driver, who was looking at the Mexican guard with the shotgun, who looked like he was about to soil himself.

  “Coyotes?” Whistler asked, staring out into the near total darkness that began about three hundred feet from where they stood. The desert spaces that in daylight spread so vast were now claustrophobic and invisible beyond. The full moon was high and bright, obstructed by clouds and oddly cast no light. A tiny trickle of moonlight showed a crag of mountain peak in the gloom.

  “Sure,” said the old Wells Fargo guy.

  “Niente,” whispered the guard.

  “What then?”

  The guard didn’t answer.

  The big wolves, or whatever they were, roared in unison, a sonic garrote of cacophonic sound tightening around them. Closing in. The hooker was shivering in fear, her eyes huge as her dainty hands covered her ears against the bellowing growls. “Something’s out there. We got to get out of here,” she whimpered.

  “I’m with her,” Whistler confronted the driver. “We best be on our way directly.”

  The old timer threw down, yelling in the bounty hunter’s face, spattering saliva. “I told you tain’t driving this rig at night on this trail or the stagecoach will crash because I cain’t see!”

  By now the four horses were starting to panic, pawing the ground with their hooves, long snouts whipping back and forth in their bridles and bits, eyes marbles and ears pinned back at the horrific music in the hills.

  The monstrous roaring echoing around the canyons continued unabated and drew nearer and nearer. The guard, pale and face pouring with sweat, started babbling to the driver in Spanish, and the old man yelled back at him in the local tongue that Whistler barely understood. One thing was obvious. The Mexican knew what those sounds belonged to and wanted out of there. The argument became a shoving match, and the younger man won, clambering desperately up into the driver’s bench by the luggage roof rack, grabbing the reins and gesturing madly for the bounty hunter and the hooker to get into the stagecoach and hurry it up.

  “After you, ma’am,” quipped Whistler to the tart. He opened the door and eased her into the carriage with a helpful hand up her skirt on her firm rear end. Then he put his boot on the metal step and climbed in across from her.
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  The old Wells Fargo driver climbed up onto the driver’s seat, cursing the whole way. He shoved the guard aside, grabbing the reigns. “I’m drivin’,” he shouted, “you’ll put us in a damn ditch. YYEEEE—AHHH!” He cracked the reins and the team surged forwards, the stagecoach pulling out.

  The carriage picked up speed, scared horses hauling the rig at a full gallop. The wagon rocked back and forth on the uneven terrain as it plunged into the desert nocturne. Whistler could still hear the howling, but they seemed to be moving away from it. All he heard were the sounds of the wooden wheels on the rocks, the squeaking of the chassis suspension and the loud pounding of the hooves. He looked across from him in the tight, trembling quarters to see the hooker frozen in the leather seat a few feet away, pale fragile face staring out the open window of the stagecoach, eyes bugging out.

  “Hurry, hurry…” she murmured.

  The big wolves bayed.

  And gave chase.

  The bounty hunter drew both pistols and gripped them in his fists, looking out the other window. The moon was waxen. Vague jagged landscape and blurred rock formations rushed past in near total darkness. The wagon was picking up speed, hurtling recklessly now, shuddering carriage violently jarred by the broken trail. It hit a big rock and rose off its wheels, slamming down on its suspension so hard it tossed him and the woman to and fro. She screamed again and held onto the leather hand straps for dear life. The bounty hunter leaned up against the window, pistols at ready and looked out, thinking he caught glimpses of big, bounding black forms keeping pace with the speeding stagecoach.

  The loud dull report of a shotgun blast sounded from the roof.

  Then another.

  Something hit the other side of the stagecoach like a boulder, knocking the wagon into a veering fishtail.

  The old man released a horrible high-pitched scream of agony as his body was dragged off the roof seat and smashed against the door in a blur of cloth and red flesh with a bone-snapping thud bang crack.