The Predator and The Prey

by K. C. Sivils

  I moved toward her with my left hand out for the chip, turning to slip by her to unlock my door. To my surprise, she didn't run. She took my left hand and pressed the message chip into it, a surprised look crossing her countenance. I didn’t stop but took the chip and unlocked my door, leaving it ajar for her to follow if she wanted to.

  I went straight to the bathroom and heard the door close softly behind me. I glanced back and saw the girl looking in bewilderment at the assortment of locks on the door.

  “If you want, we can sleep with just one lock tonight. That way, you can leave if you want.”

  I went into the bathroom and relieved myself. I set out what I had that a girl could use to clean herself and opened the door, half expecting her to be gone. She was sitting on the couch in my living room.

  “I’ll sleep here. It’s better than what I’ve been sleeping on.”

  “There’s food in the kitchen. Help yourself. You can even take some with you. I’ve set out what I think you’ll need in the bathroom.” I paused to gather myself. “I’m going to bed. Let me show you how to unlock the door.”

  I locked the primary lock and one other. I demonstrated how to open the locks, locked them again and let her unlock them once herself. Satisfied, she vanished into the bathroom, bolting the door behind her. Exhausted, I stared at the bathroom door for a moment and headed into my room. I shut the door and locked it behind me.

  After setting the message chip by my computer, I followed my nighttime ritual for getting ready to sleep. For once it worked. In minutes I was sound asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I HEARD THE GIRL MOVING around in my small living room. I was pretty sure she planned on leaving before I got up. I know I’d said she could leave if she wanted, take some of my food even, but I wanted, no needed, to talk to her before she left. Not about the Cowboy.

  About other things.

  I heard the two locks release and the door open and quickly shut. I got up and dressed quickly, pulled on my boots, holstered my .50 cal. revolver and grabbed my greatcoat. She had a start on me, so I went out on my balcony and looked around.

  It was plenty dark, but the snow had stopped falling. I tossed a rope over the railing and repelled to the alley below. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her run across the street in the direction of Joe’s. I ran after her as quickly as I could.

  She glanced back in my direction once before passing Joe’s and vanishing into the whirling fog. I ran faster, gliding a long above the hard sidewalk below me, passing over the patches of black ice. Sudden screams in the fog made me redouble my pace. I turned the corner and stumbled into an alleyway filled with trash. The screams were even louder, and I felt myself break into a heavy sweat.

  The fog parted and there the girl lay, covered in blood. I couldn't see any wounds, but blood seemed to be oozing from her skin. Her big brown eyes stared at me, pleading for me to save her as her lifeblood drained away.

  “You promised me,” she gasped. “You promised you’d not make me go back, that I wouldn’t have to go back to the monster. But you broke your promise to me, just like you did to her.”

  A sudden, piercing pain shot through the center of my chest. Agonizing pain like I’d never felt before, a burning, searing pain emanating from my very core. I watched as she took her last breath and surrendered to the inevitable.

  From behind the dead beauty, the fog whirled angrily, reaching out its tentacles as if to snatch the dead girl's body to whisk away. A tiny, childlike voice floated from the fog as it began to part, revealing Lucy, dressed in her tattered clothes. They were clean, devoid of dirt and blood. Her wounds looked fresh and open.

  “It’s your fault Inspector,” Lucy pronounced in a childlike singsong voice. “You promised! You promised! But the monster came for her! Just like the monster came for me!”

  I watched in helpless horror as Lucy floated away in the fog, her childlike voice blaming me first for the girl’s death and then her own. Desperate to save the girl, I got down on my knees to check her for signs of life only to find she was gone. I crawled about on my hands and knees searching desperately for her. I stopped to look around and saw a pair of small boots standing in front of my hands.

  I looked up to see Anna looking down on me. Her expression was sad as if I had disappointed her in some horrible way.

  "Why didn't you find me, Inspector? Why didn't you come and save me from the monster?"

  I blinked, and she was gone.

  As fast as Anna left, the girl was back, looking down on me with concern on her face. She shook me hard with both hands and stepped back, shaking her head.

  “Very well Inspector. I’ve got to go now.”

  I blinked again and watched as her slender frame slipped through my bedroom door and silently shut it behind her. Somehow she was still alive! I leaped from my bed and rushed into the living room, startling her. Before she could scream, I placed my right hand over her mouth while I hugged her close with my left arm. She squirmed for a moment before holding still.

  I held her at arm's length with both arms and examined her, looking her up and down.

  “Inspector, you’re scaring me! Let me go!”

  “Are you okay,” I gasped, my pulse racing.

  "I think so," she whispered, backing away from me as I released her. "I didn't mean to startle you, but you were making sounds in your sleep, and I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

  "It's all right," I said as reassuringly as I could, not sure myself if things were fine. I felt the pain in my chest again and rubbed the still tender scar tissue. "It was just a bad dream, that's all. I have them sometimes."

  “You said I could go when I wanted,” she reminded me. “I’d like to go now.”

  “Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Have you eaten?”

  She shook her head no as she slipped her coat on.

  “You’ve done enough for me Inspector. It was nice to be warm while I slept.”

  Before I could stop her or offer a hot breakfast, she'd released the two locks, opened the door and vanished through it.

  I'd found her and just as quickly lost her. I realized I'd forgotten even to ask what her name was.

  CHIEF O’BRIAN FROWNED as he entered his office, feeling a headache coming on before he’d even sat down in his chair. His desk comm was buzzing with an insistence he could not ignore. He tossed his coat on the couch and sat down, punching the comm as he did so.

  He listened in silence as he received his orders for the day, resenting every word that traveled through the link and out of the speaker. Before he could reply, the caller broke the link. O'Brien sat and considered the situation he found himself in. He saw no real way out of it. Markeson had told him Sullivan was trouble and would need to go. His Chief of Detectives had also informed him if they played their cards right, they could pin a lot of their troubles on the wayward Inspector.

  Orders were orders O'Brian reminded himself, especially when they came from the Governor's office. He started his computer and began the process of initiating a hearing for Sullivan's shooting of a drug dealer upon arrival his first day on Beta Prime. He'd hoped to avoid the entire mess and let the Internal Affairs people deal with the shooting.

  Instead, he had to conduct a show trial.

  Irritated, he punched his comm.

  "Get me I.A.," he shouted into his comm, hitting it again to silence the link.

  "We have a serial killer on the loose, and the politicians are worried about covering their rear ends over a stunt they pulled," he grumbled.

  MARKESON PULLED AWAY slowly in his borrowed hover car. He'd been careful and cleaned everything. In the distance, he could see the lights of the squalid square buildings, made of stacks of the original containers from the first settlement supply ships. It was the oldest and most rundown part of Capital City, located on the western outskirts of the city.

  It would be days before somebody stumbled across the bodies. Even then, the odds were good the bodies wouldn't be reported. Mark
eson had thought about disposing of the bodies permanently by dumping them at one of the recycling plants or incinerators at a processing plant. Doing so would have exposed him as the killer, and that was a chance, no matter how slim, Markeson was not willing to take.

  He had faith things would work out. Sullivan would take the fall. The initial report for the dead mining foreman had crossed his desk. He was delighted to see the Cowboy had done his part of the cleanup. Two missing guards from the same mine would be easy to pin on the Cowboy.

  It was Sullivan’s case.

  Why not pin it all on him? Not just the shooting of their connection at the spaceport, but all of it. It would give their operation a little breathing room. A chance to slip back under the cover it should never have pulled back.

  Killing didn’t bother Markeson, especially when it was necessary. But he’d come too far, risen too high up to have to get his hands dirty anymore and it angered him. When things calmed down, he was going to make it clear. Changes had to be made, starting with the Cowboy.

  Markeson smiled as he merged into the flow of traffic on the hoverway in the dimly lit part of town, gaining speed to move on to the free way. The Cowboy was one dirty job he’d volunteer for.

  He set the hover car on cruise and entered the destination into the car's computer. A slight jolt told him the car's navigation system had taken control, and he relaxed, leaning back in his seat as he let go of the steering wheel. A quick glance in the vanity mirror told Markeson his hair was still perfectly groomed. He smiled, giving his teeth a quick once over before reaching into his pocket for a small spray dispenser. A quick misting of his teeth and his breath was fresh again.

  With a flick of his wrist, he turned on the craft’s sound system and closed his eyes to relax while he listened to music.

  “Computer,” he ordered, “wake me five minutes before arrival at the precinct house.”

  IT WAS GOING TO STOP. The lack of respect for his accomplishments, his skill and the risks he’d taken that had benefitted everyone in their enterprise. Once this troublesome patch was dealt with, changes would be made. Starting with interrupting him when he didn’t want to be disturbed.

  Anna, he’d learned that was the prey’s name, was meant to be an enjoyable practice time. Time to be used to prepare for when he hunted the Special One, for when he captured the Special One. Now he would have to hunt again.

  Finishing prey in public was one thing. Capturing prey and returning with it to his lair was altogether another matter. It was a more challenging task in many ways. The possible complications were significantly greater.

  Feeling his dignity had been purposefully injured, the Cowboy considered who of his disrespectful peers, so-called peers, would serve as the best possible example of what would happen in the future should his dignity be slighted again.

  A quick glance around the alleyway assured the Cowboy nobody was looking. With a deft slice, he removed Anna’s right ear, placed it in a special pouch and pocketed it. He wiped what little blood there was on the knife on her dress before making the knife vanish from sight.

  He twisted the grip of his cane while pressing the gold plated decorative ring just below the end of the hand carved grip. Within seconds the oddly shaped star on the end of the handle of his cane appeared, a faint red light the only hint of the temperature of the metal that composed the star.

  With a quick motion, the Cowboy leaned over Anna’s still body and pressed the branding iron portion of his cane against her forehead. The smell of burnt flesh and the hissing of the branding process delighted his senses. He knew he would never grow tired of marking his kills.

  Standing up straight, he twisted the grip and pressed the gold plated ring a second time. Within seconds the metal star had cooled and vanished from sight, once again hidden in the end of his cane.

  The Cowboy returned to his hover car, shut the trunk, tossed his cane into the passenger's seat and eased himself into the comfortable driver's seat. Within seconds the hover car was floating the required two decimeters off the surface. Lowering his voice a half octave to sound more confident, more authoritarian, the Cowboy ordered the car's nav computer to deliver him at his office. He relaxed as the computer responded, easing the craft out of the alley and onto the street.

  TOBY WAS TIRED FROM walking from one end of the neighborhoods surrounding Father Nathan’s parish to the other. He’d spent the entire night searching, for what he wasn’t sure, but he’d not seen anyone or anything out of the ordinary. Shivering from the intense cold of a Beta Prime night, he was glad to see the morning sky rising, bringing with it a slight increase in temperature.

  He hadn’t picked a pocket or lifted a watch in nearly two days and knew he had to make up for lost productivity or the boss would beat him almost senseless. He'd have to answer for the fact Anna and Lucy were missing too.

  Toby decided to head down to the subway station. It was always good pickings there if he was careful and avoided the CCTV cameras. It would be shift change soon, and the trains would be filled with workers coming and going, crowding the underground platforms.

  Picking up his pace to try to warm himself, Toby noticed an expensive, clean Hovertron X-1100 hover car zip out of an alleyway. His pulse quickened as he broke into a run. Nobody drove a hover car like that in this part of town unless they were lost or looking to pick up a working girl.

  The working girls had given up and gotten out of the cold long ago.

  Breaking into a run, Toby was at the entrance of the alleyway in seconds. He stopped to steel his nerves before entering the dense fog that still haunted the narrow alley. His teeth chattered incessantly, whether from the cold or fear, Toby didn’t know.

  Step by step he moved deeper into the dark, foggy alley. Silence filled the space as Toby noticed the horrible smells of garbage and urine mixing in the scattered trash strewn about. He was about to abandon his tentative search when his toe struck something hard, yet soft, yielding. Looking down, he had to squint to even make out the vague outline of his boot. Bending over to get a better view, Toby waved his arm back and forth in an effort to clear the fog enough for him to see what he had discovered.

  Horrified, Toby stood straight and screamed in raw terror, paused to gather his breath and then howled like a wild animal howling at the moon. Without thinking he ran from the alley directly into the street, screaming in despair.

  With an eerie silence, the dark hover car accelerated, emerging from the whirling fog. Toby never saw what hit him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I HATE THE FEELING of being out of control, events whirling past me, people getting hurt that I should have saved, protected. Tim Johnson’s death was needless. I should have known it was not safe for him to be on his own. The pickpocket was another. She had to be part of the group of youths Father Nathan was trying to influence and help leave behind a life of crime.

  Despite the fact I knew the two guards Josephson and I had locked up were on the take, I didn’t have the right to give them a death sentence simply by locking them up. If they knew too much, they would be dead. Dead simply because I locked ‘em up.

  I slipped into the precinct through a delivery entrance I’d seen Markeson use and made my way to the holding area. The two mine guards were gone. In my gut I knew they were already dead, it was just a simple matter of time before someone found their bodies.

  I managed to make it to my desk without being noticed. I turned on my computer and waited while it booted up. While the computer ran its startup program, I found and inserted a USB drive. In seconds I had access to the digital video of the two prisoners in the cell Josephson had locked them up in.

  A quick watch only revealed the two liked to complain. Sergeant Bland yelled at them a few times which only made matters worse. Bland reappeared and talked with the pair for a moment, and they suddenly shut up and sat down. One of them even took a nap. The video ended with the cell door opening and the two prisoners slipping out, but the camera never captured who let the
m out.

  My gut told me Bland was in on it, whatever it was. The pair had become cooperative after he had talked to them through the bars of the cell. I watched the video again and learned nothing more. It angered me to watch the two guards, corrupt as they might have been, leave with someone they trusted only to be led to their death.

  I took the time to download my file of the shooting at the space station from my CPU. With this hearing coming up, I would need to get my ducks in a row. I smelled not one dead rat but about ten. I ran a search on the perp I’d shot and downloaded the files on him, pulled the drive and cut off my computer.

  My luck held as I managed to slip out the way I’d slipped in, without anyone seeing me.

  FATHER NATHAN WATCHED the children devour the hot breakfast he’d cooked for them. They had all slept in, a fact he attributed to being warm, showered and cleaned up. It was a good start in building the first bridge in his effort to get these kids off the street.

  A loud knock on the door of the dormitory shook Father Nathan from his thoughts. He quickly made his way to the entrance and opened the door to find Alice standing in the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. She’d been crying.

  “Alice, is Ralph okay?”

  She nodded and looked away.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Father, there’s been an accident.”

  “I see,” the priest replied, uncertain of how to respond.

  “You need to come.”

  Father Nathan turned and looked at the children eating.

  “Somebody has to stay with the kids until they’re done eating.”

  Alice still wouldn’t look at the priest.