But when I looked at her through the glasses, there was no bright aura. She wasn’t a monster. My hand moved away from the vial.
Maya Hayes was human.
“Cool glasses, man,” she said, reaching for them.
“It’s bright outside,” I said, pulling away.
She glanced out the window. The sky was overcast. “Future’s so bright, you gotta wear shades.”
I reached into my wallet and grabbed my card. “If you remember anything, please call me.” I handed her a blank white card with only a phone number on it.
“That’s bizarre,” she said, staring at the card. “There’s only a number. I don’t even know your name.”
“People call me Ivy.”
She reached for a handshake. “People call me Maya.” I shook her hand.
As I turned away, she blurted something out. “Blackwell.”
I spun around. “What did you say?”
“The one in charge, the black man. I heard him say something to one of his henchmen. He said the name Blackwell.”
Blake said the name of Poe’s partner was Mr. B. Did that stand for Blackwell? “Are you sure?”
“Definitely. You can’t forget a name like that. It’s fucking creepy.”
“Thank you, Maya.”
As I turned to exit the door, she spoke again. “I should be thanking you.”
“For what?”
“It’s a funny thing about floorboards. Sometimes they have knots with holes you can see out of if you’re standing on your tippy toes. Hypothetically, if one was deathly curious, he or she might peek out and see a man with gray hair, a man who looks like a pastor he or she knows, fighting all those evil bitch bastards. He or she might want to thank that man for saving her life. Hypothetically.”
“That’s quite a hypothetical.”
“What can I say? I’m a hypothetical kind of gal.”
“And are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Deathly curious?”
“I don’t have a curious bone in my body, Father Ivy.”
I grinned and walked out of the room with a newfound sense of hope. She was a tough kid. A spirit made of spit and vinegar. I understood why the house fire didn’t take her. Some people were too stubborn to die.
Just like me.
I didn’t know what her future held, but I knew there was something different about her. She came off as sharp, collected, and a tad clueless about her life. She was tough, no doubt. But underneath that, there was something darker. Something dangerous.
I took off my glasses when I left the room and strolled down the hall. As I folded the specs, a shimmer reflected off the surface as a man passed by carrying flowers. Generally, I can tell who’s human and who’s not just by looking at them.
Call it gut instinct.
As I passed the stranger, I could tell he was off. Off in a way that only a monster can be. He had a cold stare. Emotionless. Like John Doe from the movie Seven.
I stopped, put on the glasses, and stared into him.
With flowers in hand, he turned into Maya’s room. The aura around him shined webs of vibrating light. He wasn’t human.
He was Forever.
Chapter 34
Stranger Danger
Was John Doe at the hospital to consult with Maya because she was part of Poe’s team? Or was he here to kill her to cover Poe’s tracks?
I followed the stranger into Maya’s room. By the time I got there, she was flailing and shaking violently as he was both strangling her and draining her life force at the same time.
I withdrew the vial of Black Death and uncapped it. Before I could take out the syringe, he backhanded me, sending me flying across the room.
I was not expecting that.
He turned his focus on me and forgot about Maya. “Two-for-one,” he said. He whipped out a black twelve-inch survival knife. The kind you cut down trees with in your spare time.
I needed to end this fast before the hospital staff saw us fighting and called security. He lunged at me with the blade. I blocked, sidestepped, and grabbed his wrist. Before he knew what happened, the blade was in his gut. He didn’t know who I was or he wouldn’t have been so sloppy.
But he was tough. And wouldn’t go down that easy.
He teleported. The blade dropped to the floor.
Well, that was new.
Before I could pick it up, he was behind me. He threw his arms around my body, locking my arms under him. I head-butted him with the back of my skull. It took three solid hits to the nose before he dropped me.
I rolled and grabbed the knife as I fell.
Maya was on the bed, white as a sheet and half unconscious. On my hands and knees, my gaze fell under the bed. The vial. I slid close and snatched it.
But there was no syringe.
John Doe tore me from under the bed, planting his knuckles into my cheekbone.
Forevers are generally stronger than humans. Anywhere from two to ten times our strength.
His was closer to ten.
The punch felt like I knocked my head against a block of iron. He spun me in the air and slammed me to the floor, knocking the wind out of me. He jumped on me, wrapping his iron grip around my neck.
I pulled my legs around the front of him, catching him by surprise. I pinned his shoulders back to the floor. With the knife in hand, I sliced down on him. He blocked. It lodged in his forearm, the serrated teeth ripping into the bone. I tried to yank it out.
It was stuck.
Still on the floor, I wrenched the blade forward and him along with it, throwing them off balance. I dove behind him and threw my arm around his neck. I wrapped my legs around his and held him to the floor.
I had him from behind in an unbreakable choke hold. I locked my forearm around his neck and dug into his windpipe.
If I could suppress his windpipe long enough, he’d pass out.
That was a big if.
Technically, Forevers didn’t need to breathe. If he knew how to control his breath, he could hold it for hours or days. In which case this would be useless.
I was hoping he didn’t know that.
I locked my arm underneath his chin and pulled with all my strength against his Adam’s apple. It was a vicious choke hold. He was turning red, gasping for air. It was working. But not quick enough.
He swung backwards at me with bloodthirsty punches of steel. One connected with my brow. Another on the crown of my head. I think he cracked my skull.
I gritted my teeth and tightened my grip. If I let go, Maya was dead.
She moaned on the bed. Fully awake. Pale but alive. At the edge of the bed on the floor was the syringe.
Grappling John Doe on the ground, it took all my strength to keep him restrained. Between his savage punches, I managed to get out a few breaths.
“The syringe,” I muttered.
“What?” Her speech was slurred.
John Doe gripped my forearm and was pulling me away from his throat. I was losing the advantage.
“Get the syringe and stab him,” I said.
I shifted my body weight and twisted his neck.
He lost his grip.
My right forearm snapped back under his chin. With my left hand, I grabbed the handle of the knife in his forearm and forced the blade all the way through, driving it into his sternum and nailing his arm to his chest.
He was gasping for air but not passing out.
It was quite the conundrum. I couldn’t move or I’d lose.
Maya looked over the edge of the bed. She jumped down and grabbed the syringe. “What do I do?”
“Stab him!”
“Where?”
“Anywhere!” John Doe grabbed the knife handle and pulled it out.
Maya jumped forward and stabbed the needle into his abdomen.
“You have to push it in,” I said.
John Doe’s legs broke free from mine and kicked her in the stomach. She tumbled over the hospital bed. With my left hand, I punch
ed the needle. The toxin filled his veins with a death sentence.
He got weak and stopped struggling. After thirty seconds, his body grew limp. Black veins pulsed under his skin. His eyes went black. I let go and rolled him over.
John Doe was dead.
I got to my feet, huffing and puffing for air. I turned to Maya as she used the bed to steady herself up. Her face was still pale from the drain, but her color was returning quickly.
“Did he just try to kill me?” she asked.
“I think that’s safe to say.”
“Why would someone want me dead?”
“You’re a witness,” I said. I was going to leave him on the bed until I scanned the room.
There. In the corner.
A wheelchair.
I crouched down and grabbed the assassin’s arm. “Get the chair.” She pulled it over and I flung John Doe’s body into it. I grabbed a blanket from the cabinet and covered his lap. “Poe must want you dead pretty bad.”
“I don’t know why,” she said. “I don’t know anything.”
I set John Doe straight up and wheeled him to the door. I looked back. “You coming?”
“Wh-what?”
“Unless you want to fight the next guy alone.”
“You think they’ll send someone else after me?”
“I would.”
“I can’t go back to the garage, can I?”
“Not if you like breathing.”
“I’m kind of attached,” she said, following me down the hall.
“Then as your spiritual counselor, I’d advise against it.”
“I can stay at a hostel tonight.”
I didn’t need a helpless victim to keep an eye on. But I had the feeling she was anything but helpless. Her memory may eventually return. And with it, details about Poe or this Blackwell person. If Blackwell was Poe’s employer or contact, he could be the key to ending the human trafficking racket. If they want her dead, she must have information worth killing for.
Information I could use.
I pushed the button to the elevator. “I have a better idea.”
Chapter 35
Fresh Soil
I drove up the coast of Lake Michigan for quite a while before settling on a park off Sheridan Road. It was a scenic and peaceful ride if I do say so myself. There’s nothing quite like knowing one of your problems is dead and lying in the back to calm a hunter’s nerves.
Lloyd Park had enough tree cover from satellite and coverage from surrounding eyes to be able to bury a body in broad daylight. Not that I would leave it here forever, mind you. I didn’t know Maya.
And I still didn’t trust her.
If she ever came back here and tried to use the location of the body against me, as evidence or blackmail, it would be missing. I’ll have to set a reminder to myself to move it in a week or so. But it was a good temporary spot.
This wasn’t an official rule, but you should know it anyway. Be careful who you bury bodies with. You don’t want it to bite you in the ass later. Only bury bodies with hunters.
Truth is, this body won’t last long in the dirt. Within a couple months, it would be completely rotted away. Forevers don’t decay the same way normal people do. Their bodies degrade much faster. And after awhile, dogs can’t even pick up the scent.
It’s like giving a dog an artificial chunk of meat you created in a synthesizer in the lab. They’ll always go to the fresh meat first. Their noses won’t even recognize the lab meat as food.
Kind of like McDonald’s.
And in a month or two, this body would be completely gone. No trace at all.
Not that it mattered. Like I said, I was planning on moving it later anyway.
I hit some roots that slowed me down a bit. Luckily, I had an ax to chop through them. Digging graves had become something of a meditation for me. It reminded me of my own mortality. I could die at any moment and this could be me lying in the bottom of that ditch. And you know what?
I was okay with that.
But not before I did what I needed to do and clean up my mess. I had to find Jason and end his life. Then I could rest comfortably in the bottom of a hole and let the wildlife piss on it for all I care.
I would’ve had Maya help dig the hole, but I only had one shovel, and while the ground was soft, the roots were a pain in the ass. Only an experienced gravedigger could bury a body here.
It was almost 8 p.m. and the sun was already set. But the hole was almost done.
I left Maya in the truck and gave her an iPad to play with. As I finally reached the bottom, I threw the shovel on the ground and jumped up. I had John Doe covered with a green tarp. With the Black Death in his system, he should disintegrate even faster than a normal Forever. His cells will lose cohesion and he’ll fall apart, literally dissolving into the earth. That’s as close to Mother Nature as these monsters will ever get.
As I was about to throw the body in, a twig snapped behind me.
In less than a second, I had my Beretta pointed at Maya. She stood there gawking at the body, shivering.
“I could have shot you,” I said, holstering the gun. “I told you to stay in the truck.”
“I was bored.”
“You have an iPad.”
“I’ve been on it for hours. I watched, like, two movies, including Last Action Hero for the fifth time. That movie never gets old.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I have to pee.”
I pointed to the darkness. “There’s the woods. Grab a leaf.”
She looked at the woods and back to the body. “Are you almost done?”
“Just need to bury him.”
“Can I do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Throw the bastard in.”
Maybe she wanted some kind of closure or resolution to her ordeal. It was depraved, a little sad, but completely sane.
I removed the tarp. “Do your worst.”
She took a few small steps toward the corpse and sneered at it. “Fucking asshole.” She pressed her heel against the body and shoved him. He rolled perfectly into the six-foot ditch.
“You’re a pro,” I said, beginning to fill the hole.
“Does it always feel like this?”
“Feel like what?” I said, shoveling in the dirt.
She had her hands wrapped around herself, rubbing her arms. “Empty.” Her teeth rattled as she shivered.
“Always.”
“I thought I’d feel something. Satisfaction, maybe. But if there’s more of them, will I ever be safe?”
“The only thing that will make you safe is knowing how to protect yourself.” The loose dirt covered the body within minutes. “If you’re looking for satisfaction, killing monsters won’t get you that. There’s always more monsters.”
“If killing these freaks of nature won’t satisfy me, what will?”
“That’s what you gotta figure out, girl. But if it’s satisfaction you’re looking for, killing is a lonely road.”
“What should I be looking for?”
“Engagement with something you love. Involvement.”
“I get pretty involved in my cars,” she said, kicking dirt from the pile into the hole. “And I write. Sometimes.”
“Then go do that,” I said. The hole was filling up fast. The dirt was rich and soft. I lucked out. It could have been clay.
“I was,” she said. “And I was kidnapped from my garage, tortured, and set on fire.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes that’s how things turn out.”
“How do you do it? How do you kill these things and not go dead inside? Knowing there are so many more out there. It seems so meaningless.”
“Once, there was a boy on a beach. He saw the beach was covered with starfish. He walked to the first one and threw it back into the ocean. He then moved to the second and threw it back as well. When his father came out, he asked him, What are you doing? The boy replied, I’m saving the starfish. The father wa
s confused and asked, But there are so many of them. You can’t save them all. It doesn’t make a difference. The boy smiled and said, But to that one, it makes all the difference.”
“So you make it through knowing that you’ve helped people? Knowing that you helped that one makes all the difference for you?”
“Hell no,” I said. “Knowing that I killed one more of those sons of bitches is proof that God’s fuckups don’t have the last word. I do.”
“That’s how you deal with it? Vengeance?”
“Justice,” I said, dropping on another shovel of dirt. “It’s not vengeance to destroy creatures that aren’t meant to exist.”
“What do you mean?”
“If little Susie was picked on in the playground by other kids, is it justice to protect her, even if it means beating up the bully? Or is it vengeance?”
“Justice. But I don’t know why.”
“Vengeance is getting back at someone because they wronged you. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, assholes need to get what’s coming to them. But justice? Justice is Susie being able to live in a world where she isn’t bullied in the first place.”
“So you’re saying that it’s justice to kill monsters.”
“I’m saying if there was justice in the world, there wouldn’t be any monsters to begin with.”
“I like the way you think, pastor man.”
I almost forgot I still had on the robe. What a sight I was. A pastor burying a body in the woods. When I thought about it, it was actually very appropriate. A pastor should be a warrior for God, not a one-dimensional goody-goody two-shoes. How can you save lives if you’re not willing to take them?
Being a man of God doesn’t mean living a clean, boring, sinless life. Being a man of God means doing what it takes to bring God through you. Sometimes that meant preaching at a pulpit. Sometimes it meant healing the sick. And sometimes it meant burying the body of a goddamn monster in a public park with the woman you just saved.
I had that thought over thirty years ago when I first became a pastor. I haven’t thought about it since. I didn’t miss preaching. I suppose it fed some kind of ego to have a crowd of parishioners listen to your every word on Sunday morning, but when I saw a man beating his wife, I didn’t want to pray with him. I wanted to beat his ass so hard he knew what pain felt like.
Memoirs of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 1 Page 19
