Times of Peace: Volume 1 of the side adventures to The Mercenary's Salvation

by Anthony M. Johnson

Chapter 10: López de Santa Anna

  May 24, 2001

  4:19 P.m.

  Near La mecánica Baja, Los Angeles, California

  “Well Boss. Where do we go from here?”

  “Take a right at the light.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  The ride back to the mechanic’s shop was mostly silent, the two still trying to recuperate from the ghastly battle they had fought as their nerves and cells tried to regain their normal metabolism. With so many close calls, their bodies were practically left shaking when they initially began the drive back into the sea, that typical combat high dying down as they tried to regain their composures.

  Time, for as much as it took, gave just as much in return. Now as they made the final few miles to Bibiana’s work place, they could finally settle the affair that had been plaguing the girl’s mind, the fear that had been clutching at her undead heart.

  “That wasn’t a normal FTM. He had a sponsor, someone who gave him more power that some level six mutants couldn’t possess. Is he going to come after me?”

  “Volgin? No… Volgin hates three people, neither of which are you… Unless you find a someone named Garland or Saren, you’ll be fine.”

  “But he’s going after you, isn’t he?” The woman asked, taking a turn as the light finally turned Green. “He’s going to send more monsters like Oli after you?”

  “Maybe. I doubt it… Oli was just a test, to see if I was still capable of taking down vampires. A year or two, maybe even ten years will past before he makes his next play… he has all the time he could want in the Hell I sent him to. He’ll take it slow if it means besting me.”

  “Can he?”

  Jack Wallace scratched his neck, his new wool shirt matching the shade of his car itchy and uncomfortable. It was the only spare he found; he typically traveled to colder climates and needed the extra protection.

  “That depends on how you look at winning. God exists, meaning I’ll succeed in my ascension eventually based upon Schrodinger’s laws of reality… but if that’s a victory, it’s a pyrrhic one. Volgin will kill the innocent and any one of my allies I linger around with for too long just to spite me… and as my legions grow, so too does his hate.

  “I am wholly confident you will meet my grandson Saren within ten years. Unless you want a quick death, deny every offer he has to give… at this point, the best thing for FTM vampiric kind to do is lay low and try to avoid the crossfire. Things are only going to get uglier from here.”

  Max the mutt whined in agreement, though it may have been just because they passed a KFC. With the sight of the fast food chain, it meant they had nearly arrived; only two more lights and they’d be able to depart, the two going their separate ways.

  Would it be for good. “Will I see you again, Boss?”

  “Maybe. If my work brings me west, I’ll stop by to say hello… but like I said, I don’t want you to get involved in this if you don’t want to. Nothing but war lies in my future.”

  “And if I do? If I grow bored of being a mechanic?”

  “Then when Saren comes recruiting, say yes… just know if I were in your position, I’d tell him to leave.”

  The two rolled to a stop, their visit prolonged as Jack racked his brain for anything he might have forgotten to mention. Intentional or not, the break was just what he needed; he began to speak again when their tries rolled once more, the car moving slowly ahead as the one eyed passenger explained

  “Speaking of the future, there’s going to be a power vacuum with Oliver gone. I’m not concerned about the track… but rather that you just became the strongest FTM in LA. Congratulations.”

  The girl with yellow eyes blinked. “Not sure if that’s a good thing.”

  “It can be. Very soon a group calling themselves The Robber Barons will come calling… they’ll make you an offer to put you on salary in exchange for occasional assignments around the city. When they do, say yes.”

  Not quite what Bibiana was expecting. “Really? I heard bits and pieces about them. Aren’t they the bad guys?”

  “Secret organizations have never really been good, even if they work for the betterment of all… you just have Gray and Black in the world of espionage. The Barons are closer to the Dark… but they won’t be a issue in a few years.

  “Take their money and enjoy it. A gift to you… they’ll be out of commission before they make you do anything serious. Besides, those who do reject them are killed by Adrian Van-”

  The dog barked, his hatred for the name apparent as Jack caught himself.

  “-Are killed by AV. Unless you think you can stand up to him, try not to piss the Barons off for me.”

  “No, I’ll play it safe. Thanks for the warning; if I knew they had him working for them, I would have said yes from the start.”

  “Good… Then it’s time for me to say goodbye.”

  The car rolled into the parking lot of the slow mechanical garage, work slowing as the night approached. Though the sun still hung high in the sky, people were simply less desirous of being trapped at the rumbling workshop that was Bibiana’s establishment, especially given the lack of so called commodities like TVs and popcorn machines. Only two automobiles were being repaired within as the establishment approached its closing hour, cutting costs where it could.

  The woman in overalls wasn’t going to just let the man go free though. Pulling into an empty stall closest to her office, she took the key herself and explained “Your Falcon took a few bad hits. Give me a half hour and I’ll at least have it buffered out, enough to get you going without attracting too much attention.”

  The soldier shrugged at that. “No need. Car’s yours.”

  Bibiana blinked. “What? But you’ve had this since the day I’ve met you.”

  “Yeah… about that. This isn’t the same Ford Falcon. I got a guy who can clone physical objects as long as they aren’t alive… Just look outside.”

  So it was. The woman turned to see a crippled Blond, missing an arm and a leg though the latter had been replaced with a metal prosthetic, standing outside the establishment and sitting on the roof of a Turquois 73 Ford Falcon, a perfect replica in every way save that it hadn’t occurred the damage they had received at the racing track.

  Meaning she just received a new car. Shaking the bosses’ hand, she gleefully flashed a wide smile as she said her final goodbye.

  “If you ever need anything, let me know.”

  “I always do.”

  So they parted, the driver heading deeper into her store as she took care of a few final matters while Jack and Max went out, departing the stink of motor oil and instead being greeted by the smell of… body lotion?

  Trevor seemed different, his skin slightly shiny and reeking of what could have been the entire catalog of Bed, Bath and Beyond.

  “What happened to you?”

  “One of the dog fighters you sent me after let me know of a fight going on today in a skin sanitizer plant. I accidentally blew a few of the pipes during the fight; I nearly drowned in the gunk.”

  “Dogs alright?”

  “Course they were. Got them out before I started the fight.”

  Jack laughed at that. “Then it would have been a clean death if you had perished.”

  The man with aviators sneered, his good eye rolling from behind the lens of this thick glasses. Jerking his head to his own Ford Falcon, he motioned for the man with two arms to drive as he himself opened a door for Max, letting the mutt get in before the two took their seats.

  The bearded soldier spoke once more when he turned the key. “You check in with Fred and Fabio?”

  “Yeah. Fred finished dealing with the dealers about twenty minutes ago. I had him take out one last dog fighter for me before sending him to help with Fabio; they’ll finish dropping off those sex slaves you found in a couple hours.”

  “Bit longer than it took for you to fin
ish with your job.”

  The former model snickered. “Well, that’s what you get when you send a human. Thank you Vampire powers.”

  “Speaking of which, you have a little blood on your tank top. Eat well?”

  “Absolutely famished.”

  Their phone rang simultaneously as they pulled out of the parking lot, Trevor checking his own as the driver guessed

  “Is it Richard?”

  “Yeah. He has the address for Rodrigo Morales. Running things from a bar called Azotar El Mono. Doesn’t that mean monkey spanker?”

  The one eyed man nodded. “We’re dealing with a sadistic a-hole who chops up Latino officers. You expecting anything brilliant?”

  “I’m expecting something that makes sense. 34th Street Saints; a clear reference to a miracle on 34th street. What does monkey spankers have to do with drinking?”

  “Maybe he’s saying that Mexicans are monkeys?”

  Trevor nearly crushed his glasses as he slapped him, his face resting in his palm. “I don’t know if it’s a West Coast thing or a 21st century thing. Criminals used to have class; we weren’t closest racists, leeches and hoodlums running around with baggy pants. I miss the Mafia.”

  “Work was easier… Mafia could be paid off to be normal; can’t do that with these gangs now. All of them just want to load up on drugs and get away with as much sex and violence as they can… not so much about profit as it is pleasure now, isn’t it.”

  “Sounds like the whole world, Boss.”

  They were heading into a more violent sector of the city, one that had degraded its neighborhoods and inhabitants to a more base form. Or perhaps it was the other way around, that the poor and the uneducated among them brought along the destruction, the wooden boards nailed into missing glass windows, and the trash cans burning brightly even though the heat was more than enough to comfort the crowds.

  The cause and the effect were interlocked, and as to which was the origin I cannot say. Merely that the two frowned as they looked at the urban wasteland they found themselves in, Jack Wallace scratching his shirt than beard as he sought the words to say.

  Trevor found them first. “Depressing, isn’t it? Christ teaches the world what to do to get rid of crap holes like these, yet even two thousand years later they’ve only grown more and more prevalent. Read an article on the paper the other day; America is now has the greatest inequality of wealth in the world. How long do you think before they outdo the Egyptians and Romans?”

  “Ten, twenty years… if we got rid of the Robber Barons early, let the market decide for itself… do you think this would still be here?”

  The Blond nodded, waving the joint of his missing arm as the shoulder bounced. “We models have to wait around a lot. We usually end up talking about everything and anything; Marx, communism, liberalism and everything else related to the left was a common topic given how we’re slaves to mega corporations and magazines pushing products.

  “Marx would say that capitalism was the evil, that all of the world’s history was a struggle between the classes. To me, that’s bull. A free mark doesn’t encourage bad behavior, though it can grow quite nicely in it.

  “It always goes back to the natural nature of man. We’ve been bred and engineered to be self, cruel, prideful beings… there’s nothing we could have done to prevented this, Jack. Only a God can sort this out.”

  The two came to a stop sign, looking to the right and finding the tell tell signs of a dealer fidgeting on the corner of the crosswalk, looking around and about as he kept his heavy coat buttoned up on that blazing day. Any cop could have made him out on the spot; that is, if he had the courage to venture to this rough neighborhood.

  Only reason they weren’t accosted yet is because their car looked as old as the Stone Age, even if it was inspired by a movie. Looking both ways, Trevor turned first to his master before the driver pressed the pedal as he asked “Want to do something about Scarface here?”

  “It wouldn’t help…the people I sent you to kill were in richer neighborhoods. People will spread the message, thinking that the wealthy paid off the cops or someone else to fix their problems… the criminal element will back off, knowing they’ll be next if they keep it here.

  “This kind of lower class barrio? Any kind of story will spread… a competitor, a debtor, even a kid who got his hands on a gun and blew away the man by accident… you can’t administer justice to a land that doesn’t have a law.

  “You can’t invoke God where Romans live... all I see here is another Rome, just by another language.”

  Enough to satisfy the Blond, giving his boss the okay sign. Pushing on the pedal, the car lurched forward as the dealer lived for yet another day, whatever that meant in this polluted and dirty neighborhood where only the poor and the corrupt resided. Somethings even Jack couldn’t change yet, no matter how much he wanted to; for all the things he did right, there were simply battles he knew he couldn’t win.

  Volgin’s legacy. As the homes to his right continued to flow together, he turned his attention away from the destitute and commented “I spoke with Volgin for the first time since Artemis died back in in the Eighties.”

  The man with aviators betrayed his emotions, his eye brows escaping from behind the glasses. “That so? What’d he have to say?”

  “He’s getting ready… another war is about to begin, right when this world approaches the second coming… never seen him wait so long before. Should be interesting.”

  “That he isn’t simply delegating to this world’s Satan is enough to concern me. What else?”

  “Mentioned how we’re changing… not so much about good and evil, revenge and justice anymore. Simply the thrill of the fight… that this war of ours is for the sake of violence and nothing else.”

  “You agree with that?”

  The soldier groaned, scratching the back of his head as he shifted about his seat uncomfortably. The mutt in the back noticed his master’s discomfort; he began to whine and tried to divert his attention, helping Jack cope somewhat as he sadly smiled and scratched Max from behind the ear, speaking as he did.

  “I was actually forced to use some ancient magic in a duel with a level four FTM today… the fight was dangerous and came close to killing me several times. It was glorious, that same rush that makes me remember why I joined the army in the first place.

  “I want to deny that I’m not doing this for the act of killing alone… but it helps. When I’ve lived for thousands of years, searching and searching in multiple timelines and have so far amounted to only four of the twelve apostles I need to finish the instrumentality project… it gets depressing.”

  “Sounds like you need a wife again.”

  That was shocking, especially from the loner that was Trevor. Looking to him to continue, the Blond let a bit of his old humor slip through as he began to smile, thinking of happier days.

  “When I started off modeling, I was so stressed out by every minute that I wasn’t in front of a camera. How did I look? Was I getting flabby? Did I need to work out more? Eat less? Change the way I smiled, work on showing less teeth when I did? So many things to fret about.

  “Then I met this hot southern bell by the name of Stella Carson. Dumb as bricks, but fun to be around. Before I knew it I found myself almost like a parent, making sure that she was alright and that she was getting a fair deal in the industry. Went so far to punch a guy who starred to long at her ass.”

  “Punched a man for rude behavior? Not you.”

  Trevor grinned, watching as his boss slowed down as he made another turn. Even the neighborhood seemed to brighten as they spoke, though it could have just been a change in paint.

  “Only did that a million times. Point is, being in that relationship was more than I thought I could handle, and it helped me as a result. My agent didn’t know why, but he said all the tiny quirks that plague most models seemed to disappear overnight; that was when I was at the top of my career. All thanks to Stella.”

 
“Which is when your parents got cancer.”

  The Blond nodded, the world going dark again. “Yeah… then I did a favor my agent and got wrapped up with the 34th. Looking back, I should have just stuck with her. Could have figured something out.”

  “You wouldn’t be here if you did.”

  “Which wouldn’t be so bad. Heard what you told that mechanic. Any reason why you never gave me that chance?”

  Jack ventured a glance, moving slow enough to permit taking his view away from the road for a moment. “Because this work is meant to make you whole… she already is. No need to heal the healthy.”

  “Just the dead.”

  “Yeah… just the dead.”

  The dead were just about to have another addition to their numbers. Pulling into a parking lot, they found themselves starring at a rundown bar, inconspicuous and no different than a dozen other joints they had passed on their trip over, save that this parking lot was already mostly full. Twenty or so cars were there, meaning a probable count of thirty men inside with a few women, many of which were probably on Morales’ payroll given the unlikelihood of mass drinking so early on the otherwise normal day.

  Another bloody fight than. Pulling into a spot closest to the exit, a quick getaway if they had to, Jack yawned as he retrieved his eyepatch and slid it on, becoming Big Boss once again as he commented

  “Max, the Remington.”

  The dog obeyed and dragged it out, Damned Boss finding the drum already filled with standard shells. More than enough to take out anyone he found within, assuming Rodrigo didn’t bring a few FTMs along with him from his days in El Salvador.

  If it weren’t for the exercise, he wouldn’t have even brought Max. Telling him first to grab a knife, a blade the dog was more than familiar with using, the veteran looked to his passenger and asked “You want to come in?”

  “I already ate. No rush for me if I do; I’d simply be making things quicker.”

  “Hm… then wait out here and cover the exits. Anyone come out that isn’t me, you know what to do.”

  “Sure thing Boss, though can I make a suggestion?”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  Taking a lighter from the glovebox in front of him, he handed it to the armed soldier as Trevor explained

  “Cops are going to have a hell of day explaining what happened at these schools and with the dog fighters. Make their job easier and light some beer when you’re done; an accidental fire is an easy way to explain away this stint, besides burning the corpses.”

  “Good point. What would I do without you.”

  “Get posted on the FBI’s most wanted. Good luck; blow his balls off for me.”

  Violent, but the message was clear. Stepping out from the Turquois vehicle, Big Boss took one big breath of air as his dog quickly followed, snout huffing as he gripped the sharp edged knife from between his teeth. A mutt and his master, two killers enjoying their usual game as they both stretched a few muscles and prepared to enter in as the sun continued its arch across the sky.

  Early to conduct an assassination, but good news in that he’d be getting home quicker. With a whistle the two began to walk, the past on the mind as they prepared for the present, finally ready to put the fallout of their actions to rest.

  So the final conflict begins.