Cutting edge
( Stonecoat -Sanger - 1 )
Robert W. Walker
Robert W. Walker
Cutting edge
PROLOGUE
STEUBENVILLEJ CALIFORNIA NOVEMBER 11, 1986
Helsinger tugged back on the taut wire, his face pinched and perspiring as he strained to place the bow in its locked position with the safety catch on, intent on using the high-powered, scoped, crossbow-styled weapon carefully and efficiently. From the tree line where he'd been in what now seemed an unceasingly long vigil for his prey, he stared across the expanse of ground between himself and his objective.
In his head, the steady tap-tap-tap of his orders persisted like an anthem, when suddenly the moment he lived for arrived at last-a slight movement at the big bay window, as the less than respectably attired Daniel O. E. Mercer himself stepped into the light from the dark of a master bedroom where he'd left the she-bitch, Marlena Nolan. Mercer had seduced her from the secretarial pool at OE's most recently opened-for-business Mercer Continental Bank of America. By now, the demonic, supernatural infusion of his blood into her veins had turned her, too, into the spawn of Satan. Mercer liked to make beautiful young women into the ugly thing that he was. Her body was now tainted, corrupted beyond redemption; her body was Mercer's to do with as he liked for as long as he walked the earth.
Tap-tap-tap… tap-tap-tap… No doubt, no fear now. Mercer wouldn't be walking long, and his undead, unclean spirit would be cast into the bowels of Helsinger's Pit. As for the woman, she'd already become a sacrificial lamb. Nothing Helsinger might do could save her body from the evil of Mercer's touch; far worse than this, there was nothing he could do to save her lost soul from Mercer's power, or the depths of depravity into which she had sunk. She would by now be completely turned over to the corruption and malfeasance of her new master.
Yet another soul taken from the sight of God, Helsinger 2051 thought now. Mercer would now withhold her soul, as he did his own, from God's eye as long as he wished, or as long as he existed on this plane, within this realm of reality that gave to him more power than the angels, for as long as his reanimated body mocked holy life, which meant forever unless someone like Helsinger-with the staunch support of the tap-tap-tap commands from beyond-stopped the diabolical bastard…
Now the tall, even regal man's silhouette formed a solid wall, missing only the concentric circles of a perfectly ordered black paper target here against the soft glow of candles illuminating the entire dining room alcove. A perfect target. But Helsinger feared the distance might be too much against him: too close and the animal thing he'd hunted nearly a year now might easily detect Helsinger 2051 's movement, his odor, the sound of death coming on a silver shaft-fee, fie, foe, fum, and all that, for the creature's senses were beyond those of mortal men-too great the distance and the arrow misses its mark. Either way, a slip could be fatal for Helsinger, and Helsinger's master must begin the quest all over again.
Tap (softly now)… tap (cautiously now)… tap (confidently now)…
A miss and Mercer would flee like a witch, spiraling up a chimney, or worse yet, he might turn into a rabid hellhound to counterattack Helsinger-a god-awful result, disastrous for both Helsinger and so many others, for with Helsinger dead and Mercer alive, the monster's feeding frenzy, its appetite for the kill and for blood, would go undetected and unchecked. So many others would become carrion for Mercer's disgusting and filthy habits, while the work of the Helsingers the world over might be snuffed out before it'd begun, gone the way of Doom. Helsinger raised his crossbow-
“Supper's on now, Randy Oglesby! And now means NOW!”
“Goddamn supper,” young Randy cursed, his eyes held by the scenario created for him by his 286X IBM-compatible Pionex and the Super VGA screen. He had to know if Helsinger 2051 would succeed or die in the effort of tracking the monster vampire disguised as a multimillionaire banking tycoon. “Five minutes! Be right there, Ma! Give me five minutes!”
There would be no one left to stop Mercer if Randy's carefully constructed Helsinger, armored with the coolest character traits Randy could compile, happened to fail.
Still, for Anatole Francis Helsinger, whose steady recruitment of followers meant he must put his life on the line, the moment of truth had come: Followers only follow those who are successful. He'd learn one way or another if God was on his side or the side of the smoking demon in red silk pajama bottoms just the other side of the bay window.
Got to do it now or Mercer's shadow'll disappear, he silently fretted, his finger inching along the bow for the safety catch.
But what if that's all there is on the other side of the glass-just his shadow, an image, a decoy? a voice inside him continued to worry.
“Fire, damn you, Helsinger; the likes of Satan don't have shadows. It's him!” screamed Randy at his end, now sending the message over his modem to the player who'd initiated the game an hour before, a guy with the interesting handle of Razor Oreo Teeth. Randy was known in the cyberspace world as Mr. Squeegee, a moniker he'd once felt was proudly imaginative; but now he knew he'd have to work on being far more imaginative to keep up with this guy. The game was coming to a head. “Do it. Do it now,” Randy called for blood, his anticipation overwhelming.
He pulled the safety catch, and in a sudden gasp of crisp black computer Net night air, Helsinger settled his shaking hands over the weapon. A silent word of prayer for the strength and straight flight of his slim, hungry stake, and it shot away with the speed of light, splintering the window so neatly that it left only a small incision in the glass, a deadly little computer whump striking Randy's ear from the three-inch speakers, the deadly arrow tip, dripping with poison, striking not Mercer but the woman-one of his minions-as she stepped from nowhere.
“Damn!” groaned Randy. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Razor Oreo Teeth fired a snide, laughing message over the modem. “Dumb ass! You waited too long.”
The force sent the now-dead secretary against a wall, where she slumped but did not fall, the arrow going clean through and pinning her like an insect. The instant the barbed arrow sliced through the bastard thing, blood splattered over the windowpane, the chandelier and the dining room table, setting off a musical shower of alarms and demon blood.
Randy and Helsinger simultaneously cursed their show of stupidity. Why hadn't he fired one second before? Was it Randy's fault? His mother's interruption from downstairs? And why hadn't he and Helsinger thought of the alarm?
Helsinger was in grave danger now. He raced away in a panic, crossing a black, moonless landscape that pressed in on his back, fearing some unholy, giant monster breathing fire at his neck. But he made it into the trees, his bow and additional arrows now a cumbersome problem that he dare not relieve himself of. Mercer was yet alive and no doubt prowling the Internet night for him at this very moment.
Mercer must not find him. No one must find him. The game of seek and destroy was now a game of cut and run, survive to fight another day.
Everything had gone wrong. The best-laid plans… gone astray. But they were not at all the best. Razor Oreo Teeth might mock Mr. Squeegee now, but he was foolish to think that he could do this alone as his next message suggested. ROT, as he signed off, told Randy that he'd acted incompetently, as if Randy didn't know. Next time… if there was a next time… he'd be smarter; he had to be smarter than Mercer, or the thing Mercer had become.
Exactly what Mercer, the son of Cain, was defied explanation, logic, nature, or science; Mercer was death itself… a creature of the night… a kind of living death stalking the holy, the good and pure, defiling all that was positive in life. Foolish, easily misled and misbegotten people, like those at Mercer's many banks, would mourn Mercer's passing; idiots that t
hey were, they'd have no clue as to the satanic filth upon which they wasted their tears. None of them knew Mercer as Helsinger knew him.
“Randall Oglesby, get your ass down these stairs this minute, or I'm going to shotgun that damned computer of yours myself.” This time it was his dad's voice, half-kidding as usual.
And if Helsinger 2051, the single pure point of light, the only armed warrior left to defend against the darkness, were to die under Mercer's talons and fangs tonight, no one would shed a tear for him, for Randy or for ROT out there in the ether of Netland. Nor would any river of remorse flow for Helsinger if the so-called authorities who'd turned a deaf ear to him were to catch him here tonight. They would imprison him for killing the monster's bitch who'd served Mercer's contemptible and banal needs tonight. No one would come to his cell or argue against the State's right to destroy Helsinger, who would endure yet another execution.
So Helsinger ran to the beat and command of Randy's fingers.
He ran without regard to direction or circumstance, the running and the whipping of branches and cold air across his face making him feel alive and strong and in control. But soon he found himself faced with having to ford a stream-no way around it, no footbridge or stones to skip over.
The black and icy liquid instantly filled his shoes, immediately numbing his toes. He raced on for the darkness of a deeper wood, a smile of triumph curling about his lips until it became a full-blown laugh.
“Killed your whore, you son of a bitch! Killed and gone!”
Still Helsinger's exaltation was tempered with his disappointment. He'd wanted to see the beast itself killed, see Mercer squirm under the metal arrow where it should have impaled him against that wall. He'd wanted to follow up Mercer's instant demise with an assault on the vile nest where this bastard thing slept, to destroy anything that moved in the large house that Master Mercer had come to own through the foul means of his true profession.
Helsinger had also wanted to rob Mercer's lifeless body of its head, to bury the damnable, disgusting thing somewhere out here below a cross of stones so that there would be no way Mercer's reanimated body could touch it or dig it up to replace it and start over again…
But everything was ruined now. Helsinger was caught and returned to his pit. Placed in chains in an asylum, thumping his head against an unforgiving, unyielding stone wall, wondering how he might escape again.
The screen erupted with the colorful game logo: a dungeon with several people of each sex chained to walls, an ancient, blood-weeping medieval rack in the center of the room, a little computer-imaged male squirming up and down under the pressure of a stake being driven into his chest. In bold red lettering blinked the words HELSINGER's PIT. Below this came the name of its creator, copyright junk, and the software company's name and logo. Randy waved good-bye on the modem to Razor Oreo Teeth, knowing full well that ROT was long gone, signed off, and finally remembered to breathe, and that his parents were anxiously waiting for him downstairs for supper.
“Damn! All's in ruins now! Off with Mr. Squeegee's head!” the thirteen-year-old shouted as he raced from his room and down the stairs to a chorus of ignored shouts from his parents and sister. “'Stead of carvin' the ham, Dad’ll carve me up, punishment for letting Helsinger down and letting the greens get cold!”
TEN YEARS LATER
7b4LTl: C42111Category 42… Topic 49LOG… Message 388… Mon… July 8 1996… 12:10:01
Questor 1… Helsinger's Pit…
Ql: There is a problem. Cain has risen anew and has flown from the 13th Kingdom. The demon must not be allowed to escape. Take all necessary precautions and take as much help as you require. Good luck. Questor 1. END TRANSMISSION Category 42…Topic 49LOG… 12:12:06
Category 42…. Topic 49LOG…. Message 389… -Mon-July 8, 1996
…. 2:51:00
Questor 2…. from the Pit…
Q2: Agreed. Taking all resources necessary. Will locate alien being in Star Kingdom 49th realm. The creature was nurtured there. Will seek and destroy. Reply this board at 0100 tomorrow.
END TRANSMISSION, Category 42, Topic 49LOG… 2:52:01
Category 42…. Topic 49LOG — Mon… July 8, 1996…. 9:13:07
Questor 3…. Out of the Pit….
Q3: Count me in Q2-Close to your destination. Can rendezvous midnight usual place. Q1's communication and your message clear. In numbers we have strength. We go now to return with the head of the beast to place at the altar. Q3 is your dedicated servant-Look for us tomorrow in a new realm, sage one.
END TRANSMISSION….Category 42… Topic 49LOG…Mon July 8-1996…9:15:02
ONE
HOUSTON, TEXAS, THIRTY-FIRST PRECINCT JULY 12, 1996
A reality check for most people meant a closer look at their social or economic situation, but for Lucas Stonecoat, reality was a demon god capable of inflicting great and lasting pain; for him and for most cops, reality was the prism through which violence shone. Reality also spoke to Lucas Stonecoat in her unfriendly, unsettling, judgmental tone, lecturing him, telling him what he was physically capable of and what he was physically incapable of. True to character, Lucas had chosen to ignore the bitching reality and her advice, going ahead with his life and his plans as best he could, from crutches to standing on his own two feet and learning to walk again, and now this triumph.
To some it didn't seem like much, but for him, stepping from the Houston Police Academy and into real police work for the second time in one life meant something, a rebirth of sorts. Regaining some semblance of control over his life again, getting it back on track after the high-speed chase and accident resulting from a shoot-out in downtown Dallas, might've been reward enough, but returning to active police duty? This might be considered a miracle by some, and for him it meant true accomplishment and closure. And he'd done it despite reality, despite the fact that at one time everything-including his own body-was adamantly against his ever even walking again, much less finishing the grueling training he'd endured these past months in Houston's top-flight police academy.
Still, reality just sat there atop his head, and it began to seep into his brain, to stain his mind with an ugly gray truth: Lucas “Cherokee” Stonecoat was no different from the other 999 new recruits hired by the city-just another rookie in training with the Houston Police Department, which meant a long ladder of rungs to climb to regain detective status. But at least he had a dream, even now at his age, to regain what had been his before the accident, before the mangled and brutalized body ever existed.
Still, such minor things as God Reality remained his enemy, along with God-awful Pain, and his own body, which daily conspired with the other two against him. As a result, the tiresome phrase “I am my own worst enemy” held special meaning for Lucas.
Nowadays when someone called him Redskin, it referred less to his Texas Cherokee heritage than to the burn that snaked along much of his neck and cheek on the right side of his otherwise handsome face.
The accident had even taken him down a peg or two in stature. A tall man at six feet four, he rose now to perhaps six feet two, thanks to the condition of his spine. “Lucky to be alive; unusual, startling case; one for the books,” the doctors had chorused.
A cursory glance at his own medical records, collected up at the request of his lawyer when he went after the city in the ill-conceived suit that had put him on the defensive ever since, had turned his stomach. The same records had convinced at least one young medical resident to change his career path. The records showed a man near death when he was raced to the ER in the back of a police squad car that he'd bled all over. The records showed a man not expected to live, much less recover. The records also showed that he was partially to blame. The records showed in cold black Anglo lettering what had happened to a once proud and arrogant man.
The records showed:
DALLAS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Dallas, Texas
Date of admission: July 12, 1991
Date of discharge: June 2, 1992
Patient History: A twenty-seven-year-old American Indian male involved in automobile accident, also had alcohol in blood, admitted with multiple trauma-compound fracture of tibia and fibula, ruptured bladder, and multi focal cerebral contusions, assorted abrasions, gunshot wound to upper left quadrant of chest.
In hospital for eleven months, initially comatose and encephalopathic. At time of leaving hospital, patient was fully conscious, alert, quite full of complaints. Further, patient understood that a device was in place on his left leg, and that he must be careful in this regard to not place any undo weight on this area. He was to be given primary care by his aunt, uncle, and grandparents, all of whom seemed most concerned for his well-being, each being attentive to doctor's directives. Arrangements were made with in-home health-care providers to help with the supra pubic cystostomy as well as the pin care of the Hoffman device.
Dr. Rhymer, operating orthopedic surgeon, made plans for all follow-up care to be provided by Dallas Memorial. Arrangements were made for Mr. Stonecoat to be seen by Dr. Karl Wilkerson, urology, who performed the bladder operation and left the suprapubic cystostomy in place.
During Mr. Stonecoat's eleven-month stay, he underwent a tracheostomy as well as a hip replacement (left), a debridement of the compound infected leg, and many consultations with Dr. Sanders, on loan from the Veteran's Administration Hospital. Dr. Sanders was also involved in his rehabilitation efforts.
Final Diagnosis:
1. Severe chest injury- gunshot wound left upper q.
2. Severe closed-head injury.
3. Compound tibia-fibula fracture- left.
4. Wound infection, tibia-fibula.
5. Crushed hip; replacement-left.
6. Partial paralysis, right arm, hand.
7. Acute respiratory distress syndrome.
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