She closed her eyes to the comforting sound of a siren wailing in the distance. As long as there were sirens, it meant people were willing to risk their lives to make the world a better place.
CHAPTER 19
Mykl staggered back and fell against the bed.
“Did you miss me?” Lori asked in a chilling voice as she grabbed his hair and yanked him off his feet. Mykl fought and clawed at her hands as she dragged him through the hall by fistfuls of hair.
“Let go!” he screamed, though he knew the uselessness of his words before they left his mouth. His kicks at her legs missed wildly. What the hell was she up to? If she was in league with the Angel, then Mykl was in serious trouble. If she wasn’t, then his life was about to reach new levels of misery. He twisted violently, attempting to break free, only to be rewarded with searing pain and a ripping sensation under his scalp.
When they reached the living room, Lori retrieved a dark device from the coffee table and pushed it into the back of Mykl’s neck. Sharpened points of cold metal penetrated his soft flesh.
“Good night, shithead.”
Mykl’s tiny body spasmed in waves as she switched on the stun gun. Muscles from his jaw to his diaphragm contracted involuntarily, silencing his screams. His vision narrowed and dimmed to darkness, and he fell unconscious.
***
Mykl blinked himself awake uncounted minutes later to the awful sound of tape being stripped off a roll. Face down and unable to move his limbs, he tried to make sense of his situation. Lori couldn’t be the Angel, but the gag in his mouth and the tape binding his arms and legs were done up almost true to the cipher—except that the Angel was supposed to allow his victim to move their hands and feet for a specific effect, whereas Mykl had been taped so securely he couldn’t move at all.
Lori noticed that he had regained consciousness. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us. Can’t have you wiggling free and hurting yourself. That would be terrible.” Her wicked laugh pierced him like a twisted blade.
As Lori gathered some things into a heavy duffel bag and carried it down the hall, Mykl turned his head to the side and saw the man—his kidnapper—lying prone on a couch, unconscious. His breathing was slow and shallow and his skin was tinged with gray. His future was as bleak as Mykl’s; they would both be dead soon.
Mykl closed his eyes. At least they’ll find my body in a few weeks after the smell causes someone to search the house. If they find my message.
Lori returned and took the man’s keys from his pocket. “He won’t need these anymore.” Dragging Mykl by his feet, she pulled him through the house and onto the filthy floor of the garage. The tape bridging his shoulders and feet provided a perfect purchase for her to toss him into the back of the microvan like a suitcase. She then retrieved a heavy vest from her duffel, draped it over him, and secured it with more tape. It weighed more than he did and severely hampered his ability to breathe.
Finally, to Mykl’s horror, she placed a new Asylum Angel cipher under his chin. “Here’s some reading material while you wait.”
Mykl battled to contain his fear. She knew he commanded at least enough intelligence to recognize it for what it represented. But she didn’t know about his deciphering abilities—so she wasn’t aware that the actual content of the message was what caused Mykl to scream through his gag and begin to cry.
“You really are dumb. It took you until just now to realize I’m taking you to the Angel?” She double-checked his gag and retrieved a fresh pair of rubber gloves. “Got some work left to do. Wait here.” She winked.
Mykl’s falling tears caused the cipher’s ink to run. It would surely cause a media frenzy when they got their hands on it. Even more so if she added a bloodstain. He berated himself for such odd thoughts. It’s not normal for me to think that way.
The words, “You’re not a normal boy, Mykl,” played in his mind. Dawn had told him that. She was right. She was also the Angel’s next intended victim. The cipher spoke of a beautiful blind girl and the horrible things he would do to her.
Lori returned and took the paper from under his face. She examined the tear-smeared cipher with a critical eye. “Nice touch. I’ll have to remember to do that again.” She laughed. “Oh, I guess it won’t have the same effect next time.” She shrugged. “Though I’m sure I can get her to cry somehow… Don’t you think?”
She sliced him with a dissecting gaze for a moment and reached into her bag for the stun gun. Mykl’s jaw clenched on his gag as thousands of volts assaulted his body once again. “This is so much fun!” Lori gave his hair a vicious yank before slamming the van shut.
CHAPTER 20
“We’re approaching Vegas airspace, sir. There are thunderstorms moving in from the south. It’s going to be a rough ride.”
“Fine.” Jack tightened the straps on his seat harness and resumed monitoring his data pad. They had lost the phone trace in the vehicle they were tracking—the low signal strength from a bad battery on a retro phone had rendered their technology useless—and the vehicle had too many probable routes to make an effective decision regarding its destination. To make matters worse, clouds and lightning from a wicked thunderstorm nullified the capabilities of Jack’s available satellites. Their next-gen satellites would take hours to relocate, and his drones were being reconfigured for other duties. All he could do was send orders to his agents to cover the most likely destinations.
To his pilot, he said, “Refuel at the air base. We’ll wait there for further word. Keep the blades hot; I want to be able to leave on a moment’s notice.”
***
Cab drivers and independent transport operators jockeyed in a zippered line of competition to seize another fare. One leaned forward in his seat, mesmerized by a luminous pane of lightning veiling the horizon. A polite tapping on the passenger window drew him back to his dreary reality.
“Hop in. Where you headed?”
The passenger stated a destination.
“Where? You do know that’s going to be expensive.”
The fare ducked into his back seat and reached forward with a closed fist. The driver opened his hand and gasped as several high-denomination casino tokens fell into it.
“I’m not supposed to take these—and I don’t have any change,” the cabbie said.
His fare backhanded an accepting wave and leaned back.
“Wow, thank you!” the cabbie said, and pulled his cab into the stream of traffic.
The prospect of earning a huge tip sat well with the cabbie, but a man eager to spend so much for a ride to the middle of nowhere troubled him. The cost of this trip might have been reasonable decades ago, when a bustling oasis of a resort graced the shoreline—but how times had changed.
The cabbie surreptitiously checked his rearview mirror. The eyes staring back at him possessed the disquieting quality of a lion stalking its prey. This wasn’t the first time he had been hired to drive someone out of the city, but he felt a growing sense of trepidation as he drove toward the developing storm.
CHAPTER 21
Thunder rumbled displeasure at the lightning invading its clouds. Mykl loved watching electrical storms in the desert, but sadness stifled his ability to enjoy this one. Reliving five years of life in a one-hour drive killed his morale.
A day spent in the Box always dragged for an eternity, but now, they echoed like blinks in time. I want to live! he screamed in his mind. Even if that meant existing in the Box.
He rubbed his face on the van’s filthy carpet to scratch a nose itch. His arms and legs had gone past the pain of immobility and had settled into a burning numbness. Maybe I can use that to my advantage. If the Angel keeps true to the cipher, I might have an opening to talk my way out of this.
“We’re here!” Lori said cheerfully as the engine sputtered to silence. Cold, damp wind buffeted Mykl as she opened the van. In stark contrast to his deadly predicament, the air smelled fresh and alive. He winced as she savagely ripped the tape from his mouth. He had expected its re
moval, though—the details of the cipher stated the victim’s gag would be removed. The Angel wanted hungry coyotes to hear his victim’s screams echo off the desolate mountains.
The upper campground of an abandoned lake resort made a perfect location for the Angel’s grisly work. Years ago, the lake had dropped so far in elevation that it had left the resort miles from any water. Its once busy harbor now resembled an empty bowl of rock and sand. But the government continued to supply power to the light poles in the campground—typical government waste.
Lori pulled out Mykl’s gag. “Get out,” she demanded.
Mykl worked his parched tongue around a mouth too dry to articulate words.
“Oh, that’s right. You can’t move. How silly of me. Here, let me help you.” She removed the weighted vest and stuffed it back in her duffel. The removal of the extra weight left Mykl with a floating sensation.
“What? Nothing to say?” Lori slung the duffel over her shoulder. “I tell you what. I’ll go smoke while we wait for the Angel to show up. Give you some time to think about what you’d like to tell him.”
Mykl peered out the side of the van. Sharp fragments of gravel littered the cracked asphalt.
“Don’t fall out,” Lori said. “It’s not a long drop, but it looks like it would hurt!” She cackled as she hastened to the front of the van and disappeared.
CHAPTER 22
“Written in blood? Damn…”
Jack disconnected the call and yelled up to the pilot. “Time to go! Lake Mead, Echo Bay, upper campground!”
One of his agents had just made entry into the house of the man who had abducted the boy. He reported that the man was dead on the couch with his throat slit, and the only sign of the boy having been there was a message written in blood on the back of a bedroom door:
Eko bay
upr cmpgrnd
***
Lawrence Hansen, retired from the Green Berets after twenty years of service to his country, had now been a National Park Service Ranger for almost twenty-five years. His seniority had kept him from losing his job when the government initiated cutbacks in the region, but even so, his salary had taken a hit. Whereas he previously lived in a modest home by the lake, he now resided in a tiny trailer on the outskirts of Vegas near the park entrance.
The nature of his job had changed as well. Back when a lake existed here, his area of responsibility consisted of one resort. Now he was responsible for no less than five, all dry rotted and deserted. Incidents requiring his attention—usually suicides—normally occurred less often than rainy days, which were few. Unfortunately, crazy weather patterns worldwide were increasing those rainy days significantly. Not that the weather had anything to do with the suicides.
Making his rounds for the day had become a boring routine to be completed automatically, in silence, with no more thought than one gives to breathing. But it was his duty, and he still respected the need for it. He had never done anything in his career that could tarnish his honor, and he slept very well at night because of that.
He added another set of initials to his checklist and flipped the page. Two resorts left to go.
In front of him, a flash of lightning revealed the obvious markings of a taxi turning onto the road. Other rangers might ignore the rare spectacle, but a taxi leaving the entrance road to Echo Bay Resort definitely qualified as an unusual incident worth investigating.
Lawrence sparked up his emergency lights and followed the taxi to a stop on the gravel shoulder. He noted the cabbie fidgeting nervously behind the wheel as he approached from the passenger side. The cabbie rolled down his windows just as a few large drops of rain began thumping and plunking in the tranquil desert.
“License and registration, please,” Lawrence said.
The cabbie presented him with the requested documents.
“What brings you out to an abandoned resort in the middle of a thunderstorm?”
“My fare requested it, officer.”
“And where is your fare?”
“He asked to be let off at the cattle guard, right before the first campground.” The driver shrugged. “He already paid me, so I stopped, and he got out. The customer gets what the customer wants, you know? Great tipper, too.”
“What did he look like?”
“Big guy, about two hundred pounds—crazy hair. And a real determined look in his eyes.”
Something about the description tickled the back of Lawrence’s mind, but he couldn’t bring it into focus. “He didn’t ask for you to stay? Or to pick him up later? Or say that he was meeting anyone?”
“No. He said he’d be fine and not to worry about him.”
Lawrence recorded the cabbie’s name and contact information. “Okay,” he handed back the license and registration, “you can be on your way. Thank you.”
“Thank you, officer,” the cabbie said with relief in his voice. He drove off.
Lawrence trotted quickly back to his truck and hopped in to escape the rain. The interior light shone on a newspaper on the passenger seat. He shuddered as though the Angel himself had stuck a knife in his spine. A headline in large block letters solidified in his mind the significance of the cabbie’s passenger description.
***
On a rocky hill overlooking the dark campground stood a lone figure. Rain darkened his light hair and ran in rivulets down his angular face. His body, tall and lean, glistened like a marble sculpture. Once a runaway with an uncertain future, he now had a crystal clear goal to achieve. An abusive family, and a world that shunned his talents, had forced him to be an outcast. He had but one love and one friend; both would be served by his actions tonight.
His lips curled back in a demonic snarl as he sized up his prey below. He ducked as a truck turned the final corner before the campground entrance some half mile away. Lightning, followed by a sharp crack, briefly converted night into day. With the stalking movements of an apex predator, he made his way stealthily down the hill.
CHAPTER 23
“The Angel’s here!” Lori sang out as she stepped back into Mykl’s field of view.
He twisted to see who else was there and found no one. Confused, he glanced back to see Lori, with hands on her hips and a rain-soaked lock of hair sticking to her face, watching him with a frosty smile. She now wore the heavy vest, along with large kneepads and preposterously oversized boots.
Mykl’s head fell back in surrender. The pieces of the puzzle slammed into place with fatal inevitability. This was the psychology of the Angel: to create terror. By delaying her reveal as the Angel, she had prolonged the anticipation and anxiety of her victim. She had wanted his fear to build exponentially to the climax of her announcement. And she had succeeded. As much as he tried to hide his fear, Mykl knew his trembling gave him away.
Lori reveled in it. “You disappoint me, Mykl. No screaming? No begging? No smartass comments? Are you just going to give up and let me have my fun?”
Mykl swallowed a retort that would surely earn him a slap.
“I have a present to show you.” She reached to pull something out of her back pocket.
Mykl’s mind flashed. This was his chance. “An antique T‑handled corkscrew,” he said, before she could reveal it.
Her sharp intake of breath gave him hope. He had surprised her. Now he had to take advantage of it.
“I figured out your cipher last night and sent an email to the police,” he said.
Lori’s face wore a mask of concern. She was buying it. Now to finish the sell.
“No more cats.”
Mykl set his jaw in determination and watched Lori calculate the ramifications—though he knew he still had a long way to go to talk her out of killing him.
Lori stepped back from the van and clasped her hands on top of her head, her eyes closed deep in thought. For a minute, an agonized look warped her features—and then she smiled, lurched toward him, and delivered a spiteful backhanded slap.
“I’m the one who flashed that cipher on your screen, an
d I remotely disabled the computer right after. You couldn’t have sent an email. I would have seen it on my end! So there’s no way you could have notified anyone outside the Asylum.” She laughed. “But cheer up: it was published in the paper this morning, and that retard friend of yours took the paper this afternoon. Maybe he’ll figure it out and come to your rescue!”
Mykl’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
“You didn’t even figure out the Angel was involved until I put my new cipher under your nose,” Lori continued. “You—” She paused. “Ahhh, now I see why it affected you so deeply. You know that Dawn is going to be praying with me next. Perhaps you’re not so stupid after all. It looks like I’m not the only one who had something to hide.” She gave him an appraising look. “Very clever of you to keep your proficiency scores low so no one would want to adopt you. My ciphers aren’t easy. The police have had weeks to work on the first one and you had, what? A minute at most? Not bad. A mind like yours might have done something special for this world. Instead, it’s going to leak out into the sand!”
She brought the corkscrew into the light and examined it. “Maybe I should change things up and crush you the way I did that mangy cat this morning?”
Mykl couldn’t withhold a gasp.
Lori smiled. “Kinda funny, isn’t it? Donzer was right when he said the Angel killed your cat. Don’t worry, I’ll get to him. He was supposed to be the first, but your smart mouth moved you up the list. I have all the time in the world. Although, I’ll have to rethink my ciphers. If a five-year-old can figure it out, then who knows who else might be able to?”
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