by Karin Harlow
And he would be caught.
Marcus curbed a sneer. Since his change seven years ago as he lay dying in the hills of Afghanistan, his natural predatory senses had become so acute, so fine tuned, so accurate, his vision rivaled that of a hawk, his sense of smell was as keen as a wolf’ s, and his reflexes and strength were that of a cobra. No living thing could stop him. He was a vampire of the highest order.
His kryptonite was his thrill of the chase, then his lust for the blood. Fresh, warm, human blood. It was what sustained him.
He raised his head toward the sliver of moon, and inhaled the heavy air. It stank of squalor and hopelessness. The people who lived here in the bowels of the nation’s capital, had long ago given up on themselves, as had the people who ran the world’s most powerful government, less than two miles away. The cops didn’t bother coming down here, and neither did the social workers or the charities. There wasn’t a church for blocks in any direction.
Senator William Rowland’s press secretary was seriously slumming, but it was Wednesday night, after all. Even if it meant walking among the dredges of the nation’s capital, Blalock never missed his Wednesday night boxing sessions: roughing up D.C.’s endless supply of prostitutes before he returned to the swank Chevy Chase town house he shared with his trust fund trophy wife.
Blalock probably considered himself lucky that the streets were so dark and deserted. Usually the pushers hung out with the hypes and the street whores who couldn’t turn a trick that night. But not tonight. It was as if they knew Marcus was there and they had to stay away if they wanted to live another day.
They were right.
Marcus smiled tightly. Tonight, Blalock would come to an end, and his demise would send a strong message.
He pulled out a pair of black neoprene gloves and slowly put them on, never once breaking his stare from the building. A moment later, a shiny black Escalade skidded to a stop in front of the building. Marcus watched Don “Mageek Wan” Jackson, Blalock’s oversized and over-ornate pimp, drag two girls from the backseat. Like those before them, they were scared and they were young. Marcus’s temper spiked. Nothing pissed him off more than the exploitation of innocence. And they were innocent. Once. Quickly he leashed his anger. No sense getting heated over something he had no control over.
Life was a bitch. And then? He smiled tightly and watched Mageek shove the hesitating girls through the doors. And then Blalock dies.
Marcus watched, and waited. Two ghostlike shadows rose eerily from behind the Dumpster. Marcus knew why they were there. He’d smelled the stench of death clinging to their unwashed bodies like rotten trash the moment he’d taken his position over an hour ago. They were career criminals, and the stench of their many kills still clung to them long after the deeds were done. And, like him, they were patient. And it was only because he knew they were there for Mageek and not Blalock that he allowed them to live.
Several moments later, the pimp returned empty-handed. Marcus watched the two shadows that had been lurking behind the Dumpster leap from their spot and pounce.
Mageek cursed.
Twap-twap-twap. Twap-twap.
In less then thirty seconds, the shadowed thugs pumped the pimp with lead and took off with his ride. Marcus stood for a long minute watching the motionless heap on the street.
How was that for poetic justice?
A slight impediment to his plans, but one that would play out in his favor. With Mageek now fresh roadkill, Marcus would have to accelerate his game plan. He’d missed his window of opportunity last week when a bunch of dopers had taken over the stairwell leading to the tenth floor, forcing Blalock to change his plans and preventing Marcus from doing his job. He never made his hits look like hits unless he wanted to send a message. And while tonight’s mark was a message to be sent, he was simply going to cap the guy as he walked out of the apartment and lift his wallet, making it look like a simple mugging and setting D.C.’s tongues speculating over what a high-profile senator’s press secretary was doing in the slums of southeast D.C. He still could, but not if someone discovered Mageek first.
Improvise, adapt and overcome. Marcus lived for this kind of shit.
He glanced up at the dimly lit windows of the tenement, watching for looky-loos, but no one had the balls to look out the window. Out of sight . . . out of mind. That was good for him tonight.
Slowly, he pulled the black neoprene mask down over his face. He gave the street one more sweep. Then, with a stealth and grace that came as naturally to him as his black hair and blue eyes, Marcus moved across the street to the man on the ground. Beneath the sputtering glow of the streetlight, the asphalt glittered with slow rivulets of blood. The coppery scent hung heavy in the air. Marcus’s nostrils twitched at the blood scent. His adrenaline surged, but he kept his focus on what he was there to do. He grabbed the thug by his four-hundred-dollar Nikes and dragged the lifeless form to the curb. Then tossed him into the Dumpster.
Silently, he walked around to the back of the building and took the stairwell up to the tenth floor.
He had already familiarized himself with the other apartments, all of them empty. Blalock had made sure there would be no witnesses to what he did here every Wednesday night. Another plus for Marcus.
Even before he opened the heavy metal door leading from the stairwell to Blalock’s floor, he heard the shrill screams. Noiselessly he moved down the hall, stopping several feet from Blalock’s apartment door. When the screams escalated in volume, Marcus remained motionless.
He’d watched and listened to Blalock for almost a month. He knew the creep paid a pretty price to rough up the girls. As the minutes dragged on, Marcus continued to stand silent outside the door, the screams only white noise. He’d learned a long time ago to tune out the peripheral shit of his job. It had seeped into his everyday existence as well. Autopilot was safe, no room for emotions to cloud his judgment. In his line of work, there was no room for error, not even a fraction. If he failed, more lives were lost. And failure was never an option.
But tonight the screams set his nerves and ultraheightened senses on edge. The scent of fear blasting from the apartment was so thick that it clogged his nostrils. The hard, fast staccato of heartbeats and the thick swish of blood as the heart pumped at capacity reverberated against his chest. Yes, he felt the fear, smelled it as if it had been something tangible. But he did not allow it to sway him from his course. He moved closer to the door, itching to get in and get out. His plan had been to wait for Blalock to come out after the girls had been collected, but Mageek wasn’t coming back for his girls, and if his body was discovered, someone might call the cops.
He glanced at his Swiss-made chronometer. The screams coming from the apartment changed.
A little girl’s scream for her life. Her life force cried out for help, then, like a candle being snuffed, it was gone.
He felt a pull to the apartment that had nothing to do with his mark. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, shutting out the fragmented images of a girl, naked and dirty, being pulled off her dead mother, who had just been raped by soldiers. American soldiers. As the images flashed in his brain like a slideshow on fast forward, he continued toward the stairwell. This was not his battle, damn it! His war was with the boss of the man inside the apartment. A long wail made the hair on his arms stand straight up.
“Fuck!” He whirled around. As he strode to the door he grabbed the doorknob and twisted it so hard that the tumblers snapped. He pushed open the door and stepped in. The dim apartment smelled of sweat, sex and fear. The wailing had turned to a low whimper.
“You killed her!” a girl’s voice gasped. “You killed Amy!”
A sharp slap followed by a low moan of pain prefaced Blalock’s denial. “That wasn’t supposed to happen! She didn’t do what I told her.”
“B-but she’s dead,” the girl whimpered.
“Shut up and let me think!” Blalock’s voice edged on hysteria.
“If you let me go, I won’t tell
anyone. I swear!” the girl pleaded.
“I said, shut up!” Blalock hissed.
Marcus cleared the rusty and mold-infested bathroom to his immediate left, then proceeded to the end of the short hall to the only other room in the closet-sized flat. And there the entire ugly scene played out before him. In the right corner, beneath a broken lamp and on a stained threadbare mattress, lay the limp, naked body of a girl not more than twelve or thirteen. Marcus knew from the unnatural angle of her head that her neck was broken. Her life finished.
To the left, near the cutout kitchen and the sliding glass door, there was another girl, about the same age, half dressed. A very naked Blalock towered over her with his hands wrapped around her neck.
Marcus’s gaze narrowed on Blalock. His instinct was to take the piece of shit out at that precise moment and let the girl live, but another part of him knew that to do so would expose him.
“Plu—eezz,” the girl begged, barely able to breathe. Her small hands clutched her attacker’ s. Blalock laughed and shoved her down to her knees. He grabbed the cord from the floor lamp next to him, yanked it from the socket, then wound it around her neck.
Anger galvanized in Marcus’s heart. His own heart rate escalated, he could hear his blood swish hot and harsh through his veins. His body warmed, his neck corded, his teeth . . . He forced himself to focus.
“No—” the girl gasped. Blalock grasped the cord with both hands, then twisted and pulled. He watched her eyes close and her body still, then lose consciousness.
Something inside Marcus snapped. He roared furiously. In two long strides, he moved into the room and grabbed Blalock around the neck from behind, catching him in a carotid choke hold. He applied pressure—not enough to choke Blalock out, but enough for it to hurt. Marcus wanted the prick fully conscious. He wanted him to feel the same terror he’d exacted on the girls. Marcus hauled him off the girl, who crumpled to the floor.
“What the hell?” Blalock choked, taking a swing at Marcus.
Marcus did not break the cadence of his step. He shoved open the sliding glass door, dragging Blalock with him onto the small patio. The chill of the night air hit him like a glass wall.
“What the hell?” Blalock cried again, continuing to try to wrestle free. Marcus didn’t stop. One step away from the edge of the balcony, he shoved the pedophile over it, his pasty white ass up in the air, his eyes staring straight down to the concrete alley ten floors below.
Marcus dug his elbow into Blalock’s back and kept his right arm locked around his neck. He could feel the thick cord of his jugular. The hot stream of blood as it flowed to his brain. Marcus fought the urge to show Blalock the monster he was. Maybe after he had the information he needed, he would. Though he sometimes hated what he was, there were times when he enjoyed the shock value of it just before he killed. It was the little things.
He leaned closer, and in the press secretary’s ear softly asked, “Does Senator Rowland know what you do here every Wednesday night, you sick fuck?”
Vehemently, Blalock shook his head. Though Marcus could not out and out read a person’s thoughts, he was highly intuitive. He knew when someone was lying, when they were telling the truth, and with the ladies? He could smell their lust before they even realized they wanted him.
Marcus ground his elbow into Blalock’s kidney. “Don’t lie to me! Does he look the other way?”
“No!” Blalock screamed. “No one knows except me and my pimp.”
Marcus growled. “I guess the dead girl won’t be telling anyone.”
“That was an accident, I didn’t mean to . . . I—it wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“Bullshit. Word on the street has it that isn’t the first girl to fall victim to your rough play.” Marcus dug his elbow in harder. “Now, before I toss your sick ass over this railing, tell me where Senator Rowland keeps the file with The Solution’s intel.”
“The S-Solution? I don’t know what you’ re talking about!”
Marcus tipped him forward. Blalock flayed and tried to grasp at the concrete patio wall to keep from falling.
“Yes, you do. Tell me now, or I’m tossing you.”
“Senator Rowland is tight-lipped when it comes to The Solution. He doesn’t tell me anything!”
“Then how do you know it exists?”
“I—I just do the necessary paperwork to keep it on the preferred contractor list. But he instructed me three weeks ago to remove it. He said The Solution went belly up.”
Marcus laughed. “My dear Mr. Blalock, I assure you The Solution is alive and well. Who do you think sent me?”
When Blalock shoved back, Marcus dug his elbow deeper into his back and tightened his choke hold. Blalock gagged and Marcus felt his body go limp. Like a pressure valve, he let up on his choke hold, and Blalock immediately revived. He coughed but hung limply over the railing. He gasped several breaths before he said, “The senator said The Solution went rogue. He was adamant we shut it down.”
Marcus kept a firm hold on the naked man. “There you are very wrong. We still clean up what the CIA can’ t. It’s your boy Rowland who has gone rogue.” He dug his elbow deeper. “Now, tell me where I can find the file.”
There was a long hesitation before Blalock said, “His district office. But—”
“Where in his district office?”
“If you let me go, I’ ll get it for you,” Blalock mewled.
Marcus slowly shook his head. “I work alone. Now tell me exactly where the file is.”
“Please! Let me go, I’ ll get it for you!” Blalock screamed as he struggled to free himself.
“Last chance, Blalock.” Marcus tipped him forward so that he had to stretch his long arms to keep him from falling completely over the rail.
“Fuck you and that crazy bastard you work for!” Blalock screeched.
Marcus smiled and pulled the black mask from his head before standing back, bringing Blalock with him.
He turned the naked press secretary around and with one hand clamped around his neck, lifted him a foot off the patio floor. Blalock screamed harshly as he looked at Marcus. “What are you?”
“Your worst nightmare.”
With one harsh shove, he sent Blalock flying over the rail, the press secretary’s fading screams just more white noise. Marcus didn’t bother to see where he landed. He was dead. Mission accomplished.
He pulled his mask back over his head, strode back into the apartment, and quickly took stock of the situation. There was nothing anyone could do for the girl in the corner. On the plus side, there was one less witness. He scowled, not liking the benefits tonight. He bent over the other girl, but as he did, she gasped, then coughed, fighting for air. Her eyes flew open and she hoarsely screamed.
Marcus slammed his hand over her mouth and shook his head. With his free hand, he put his finger to his lips, hidden behind the mask. Immediately, the terrorized girl quieted.
“I won’t hurt you,” Marcus roughly whispered and cursed himself for the words. Despite his personal code not to 86 children, he was a ghost, and if he was to remain a ghost, there could be no witnesses to his existence.
Wide-eyed, she stared up at him. Her fear tugged at his gut. When the cops questioned her, the only detail she’d be able to give was an estimate of his six-foot-four-inch height and his two-hundred-and-forty-five-pound body. He was dressed completely in black, his skin was completely obscured by gloves and mask, and his unusual blue eyes were camouflaged behind brown contacts. He was sure she hadn’t heard anything that had been said on the balcony, or even that Blalock was splatter. Hell, until this moment she hadn’t known of his existence in the apartment.
Marcus carefully unwound the cord from around her neck, then grabbed her shirt from the floor and placed what little there was of it over her bare chest. He growled when he picked her up. She didn’t weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet. He stepped into the bathroom on the way out, grabbed a grimy towel, then wrapped her in it. Once she was secured, he yanked
open the door and headed for the stairwell.
She shivered hard in his arms. He didn’t want to look down at her, but he couldn’t help himself. Wide-eyed, blinking back tears, she stared at him. He felt like someone had kicked him in the balls.
“Wh-where are you taking me?” she croaked.
“Someplace safe,” he said, knowing he would regret it.
EIGHT
Thirty minutes later
Senator Rowland.”
At the deep, arrogant voice, the senator stopped in his tracks. The colonel stood behind him, so close that he could feel the warmth of the man’s breath and smell the rich tobacco on it. Rowland’s skin chilled, and every hair on his body stood straight up.
“That’s it,” the colonel murmured. “Keep still and keep quiet. What I have to say will take only a moment of your valuable time.”
Rowland slid his hands into his trouser pockets and fisted them. His gaze darted around the lightly populated private dining room in the ultraexclusive D.C. gentleman’s club, Partisan.
“How did you get in here?” Rowland quietly demanded as he made to turn.
The hard nose of a pistol pressed against his back. “Ah, ah, follow orders, soldier, or pay the price.”
Rowland stiffened but remained still.
“Now, listen to me very carefully. I’m guessing that in the not-too-distant future, you’ re going to get a call from DCPD informing you that your press secretary jumped out of a ghetto apartment building because he couldn’t live with himself after he killed the twelve-year-old prostitute he had delivered earlier tonight.”
Icy foreboding dug into the senator’s gut. “You bastard!”
The barrel of the gun dug deeper into his back. “Ah, ah.” When Rowland stilled, the colonel continued. “The reality is, Blalock was thrown from the window. And the girl?” The colonel tsked tsked. “Unfortunate collateral damage.”
