Killer of Killers (17 page)

The man again politely declined. As he
stepped away from the users, the tall and burly Nick Martin grabbed
him by the shoulders and forced him back to his seat. “Hold him
down,” he said to his cronies.

With the man’s arm held steady, the rock star
pierced his vein. “Don’t worry,” he told the man. “You’ll thank me
in a minute.”

Trent noticed many of Martin’s people
exchanging guilty glances, as if silently acknowledging their
leader had crossed the line. Meanwhile, the man’s wife, speechless
during the struggle, sided with the singer. “It’s my turn, baby,”
she slurred, “and I’m ready.”

Martin smiled. “Now there’s a real woman.
Hook ’er up, fellas.”

Longhaired sycophants did as they were told,
and within minutes the man and his wife were succumbing to the
heroin high. The hard drug made its way to Trent, and he stepped
away as did the man before, but likewise, his attempt to leave was
not unnoticed. Martin said to him, “Come on, dude, don’t be a
chicken-shit. It’s all right.”

“I’m no chicken-shit,” Trent replied. “And
it’s not all right.”

The remaining attendees were mostly losing
consciousness by now, and even the bodyguards were all but passed
out. Trent hoped to retain the low profile he had established and
showed his back to the star. As he started to walk away, Martin
leaped forward and snared his arm, but Trent braced himself and
wouldn’t be moved. The surprised rocker looked at his grip and
remarked, “Dude, what the hell are you made of?”

Trent also looked at the grip on his arm. He
turned around slowly and raised his gaze to Martin who stood much
taller than he. Then he turned his head and observed the other
celebrants. They were no longer lucid.

Martin crumpled his brow and asked, “Who
are
you?”

Trent answered, “I’m your Reaper.”

In the next second, he fired a nerve
shattering hatchet chop to the base of Martin’s neck. Martin had no
chance to realize he was attacked. The brachial plexus nerves above
his trapezium muscle, now crushed, shut down the vital organs
within the left side of his chest. He was dead before he hit the
floor.

Trent viewed the people in the room. Not one
of the few still conscious saw what happened. A drug-fueled
fantasia veiled their eyes. His gaze lowered to the lifeless rocker
at his feet. There rested the medallion next to the nerve-twitching
body. Trent looked up again. He counted himself lucky and quietly
excused himself through the rear of the massive stage.

The night was eerily still when Trent
approached his rented car, one of several vehicles scattered across
the lot. As he prepared to unlock it, he heard a deep voice: “Mr.
Soriah gave you this one, but leave the senator alone.”

Trent whirled around and saw a man amongst a
row of cars, a short distance away, very tall, and dressed in a
dark suit and tie. The lighting was insufficient, but he appeared
to be a black man with an athletic build proportionate to his
extreme height. Trent squared off with the elevated suit. “What are
you,” he asked, “another Soriah Special?”

“Doesn’t matter what I am,” the stranger
remarked. “What
does
matter is that you leave the senator
alone.”

“Who says I won’t?”

Saying nothing more, the tall man turned and
walked away. He passed the next row of cars and entered a
limousine, which slowly drove off in the opposite direction.

Trent wasn’t intimidated. He had found the
old adage to be true—the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Even so, he preferred not coming to blows with this individual.
There was a noble presence about him. Nevertheless, a fight seemed
inevitable, and Trent guessed it would be very soon. He had no
intention of leaving the senator alone.

* * * *

Two days later, motor vehicles chugged along
the streets of downtown St. Paul, and the sidewalks pulsed with
countless pedestrians. It was early in the evening, and Minnesota’s
capital city enjoyed pleasant summer weather. Trent had arrived the
day before, and Buddy Robinson, the state senator, was paramount in
his mind. He had long ago cataloged the womanizer’s tendencies, and
was well aware of his daily routine.

Trent decided the best time to bring justice
to the sixty-year-old murderer was when he called on his
prostitutes. There were three of them. Each went about her business
in her own high-rise apartment in the downtown area. Two bodyguards
accompanied him at all times, but they had to wait outside the
residence of whichever lady he happened to visit.

It was Wednesday, so Trent knew today’s tart
would be the redheaded beauty Sophia in her twenty-story apartment
building. Every hump day she had the honor of servicing the
statesman. This week was no exception, and Trent made up his mind
to crash that party.

Despite the focus on his self-imposed
mission, something else brewed in Trent’s head. It was the tall
man’s warning, which he couldn’t stop thinking about since the
night of the concert:
‘Leave the senator alone.’

Why did Soriah send a messenger? Why didn’t
he send assassins instead? Could Samantha have been wrong about
him? Was he really the evil man she made him out to be? Why was it
okay to kill the rocker but not the state senator? Did Soriah need
him for some kind of legal arrangement? Obviously, Eternity had
something to do with it, otherwise, Soriah wouldn’t be looking out
for him regardless of his political position.

Warning or not, nothing was going to stop
Trent from teaching the law-breaking lawmaker what happens to those
who brutally murder the innocent. Four women were bludgeoned to
death that day years ago. Who looked out for them? They were gone
now, but justice was not forgotten. Justice would never be
forgotten as far as Trent was concerned.

The lobby of the upscale apartment building
fluttered with people, but Trent sat alone with a newspaper in
front of his face. While reading about the latest overdose of
another reckless rock star, he propped his sneakered feet on top of
the adjacent coffee table.

It was dusk, and Trent knew the senator and
his pair of protectors would come strolling through the lobby any
time. He was also aware the senator used the elevator reserved for
VIPs. It was located on the reverse side of the central shaft. When
he arrived, Trent planned on preceding him to the prostitute’s
floor and killing him there after dispatching his companions.

“You’re taking a big risk,” a feminine voice
said from behind.

Trent turned around. A strikingly beautiful
blond woman was standing within arm’s reach, smiling at him. It
wasn’t Detective Jones. She had returned to California long before.
Trent figured this was a resident of the building, and he wondered
if she was yet another woman using the miracle drug based on her
perfect complexion and voluptuous curves. “So who are
you
?”
he asked.

“I’m Carla,” the woman replied.

“Okay, Carla, suppose you tell me why I’m
taking a big risk?”

“Because I happen to know why you’re here.”
She raised her gaze to the ceiling while adding, “And so do a lot
of other people.”

“Really. So what are you and all these other
people going to do about it?”

“I would like to ask you exactly what are
you
going to do about it?” Her blue eyes sparkled and,
coupled with that smile, exuded a charm that reminded Trent of
Samantha.

“That depends on whether you’re here to help
me or to stop me,” Trent responded. “Which is it?”

A pause in the conversation allowed for a
moment of mutual admiration, and Trent decided Carla was quite a
looker. She wore a short skirt of pink and a matching low-cut
top.

The smile on Carla’s face devolved to a
smirk. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of stopping someone as hot as you,”
she answered. “In fact, you’re someone I would keep on
doing
all night.”

Carla winked at Trent and then walked in
front of his sofa. She sat in the seat opposite him. Crossing her
legs, she maintained eye contact and continued. “So what do you
say? Wouldn’t you like to be with
me
right now? I promise
you the time of your life. No charge, even.”

Trent re-examined the woman and marveled at
the excellence of her face and figure. Long golden hair curled
about her shoulders and rested over a tanned bosom. It was an
enticing image, but Trent moved his gaze from hers and peered
through the glass of the lobby. A limousine was parked at the curb.
Two tall, muscular men exited the rear door and took their places
on either side of it. Then Buddy Robinson emerged, and the three of
them walked toward the entrance to the building. Not surprisingly,
Robinson was even taller than his bodyguards, and despite his age,
he sported a notably fit physique.

Trent rose from his seat and eyed again the
yellow-haired beauty. “It’s been nice talking to you,” he said.
“But I have to go now.”

He strolled into the elevator, pressed button
number twenty, and relaxed against the rail. While waiting out the
ascent, Trent thought about the senator’s dual bodyguards and hoped
he wouldn’t have to kill them. He observed the flashing numbers
over the doors—15, 16, 17—at 18 the cab’s transit slowed to a stop.
But it wasn’t the twentieth floor.

* * * *

It was the nineteenth floor, and outside the
elevator shaft, three hulking well-dressed men stood at the ready.
The man in the middle was the fair-haired titan whose onyx ring
featured the inset of an eternity symbol molded in gold. The two
men astride him were Asian professionals he hired from outside
Soriah’s organization. Paid to inflict pain, their cruel
expressions, bulging muscles, and tightened fists suggested they
were eager to begin.

* * * *

The elevator sounded
ding
, and the
doors slid apart. Wedged in the front corner, Trent discerned three
men reflected on the elevator’s back wall and waited for them to
move forward. When they did, Trent recognized the blond man and
with blurring speed delivered a roundhouse finger strike deep into
his throat. The well-aimed strike shattered his hyoid bone and also
burst the larynx and trachea. He fell back, writhing in pain, with
both of his hands clenched over his neck. Instantly, the two others
jumped into the cubicle. They stood together and stared at Trent,
even as the sliding doors sealed behind them.

The man on the right struck first with rapid
blows to Trent’s head. It was
Tae Kwon Do,
and Trent had no
time to mount a defense. To make matters worse, the confined space
hindered his ability to counter the attack. The other man darted
his arm forward and clamped the levator scapulae muscles on the
left side of Trent’s neck. The man used his other hand to throw
punches into Trent’s midsection. Trent parried most of the blows,
but several connected, and each time they did, crooked smiles on
the Asian fighters divulged a perverted pleasure of inflicting
pain.

The elevator stopped at the twentieth floor
where parting doors revealed two senior couples staring in
disbelief. One of the women remarked, “Honestly, in my day you
would take that outside.”

As the cab descended, hard-driving punches
flew unabated, and unyielding fingers still clamped the nerves at
the base of Trent’s neck. He spun around, dropping to a squat, and
wrenched himself free. Before his assailants could resume their
barrage, he delivered a double strike to the nearer body, targeting
the lumbar nerves above the hipbone. The recipient winced in pain
and collapsed with both of his legs temporarily useless.

The other man planked on Trent’s back and
worked a chokehold around his head. Hunched over, Trent struggled
to keep the pressure off his jugular veins and maintain an
unblocked airway. Although he was an expert at
Senriyu
Tomoe
—striking nerves to escape chokes—the awkward position
compromised any possible retaliation.

The doors sprang open again, and this time
Trent glimpsed a group of young men who were about to enter.
Instead, they shifted into quick reverse. As they gawked, Trent
struggled upright, raising his foe at the same time. In response,
the Asian fighter jerked an increase in pressure. One of the
astonished onlookers asked, “Why are you guys fighting in the
elevator?”

His question drew a poke from his friend who
said, “Shit dude, when’s the last time
you
took the
stairs?”

Just as the doors bounded shut, Trent
attempted to slam his assailant against the wall, but the man
tucked his head and took the impact on his shoulder. Another
attempt to dislodge him saw the same result—a steel grip held fast
until the floored man stuck his arm out and tripped them. In
mid-fall, Trent bashed the strangler’s head into the aluminum
paneling with such force it tore him from his back and split a
three-foot rift in the wall. Damaged circuits erupted in a dazzling
shower of sparks and plumes of billowing smoke.

Coughing and gasping for air, Trent had
barely regained his feet when the Asian fighters resumed their
assault. The doors yawned again, and through swinging fists,
brilliant sparklers, and swirling fumes, Trent saw an elderly
Chinese couple agape in amazement. As the doors snapped shut, the
woman turned to her husband and remarked, “Good God, they’re
Koreans.”

The smoky pall forced shallow breaths. Trent
was pinched between one man’s chest and the other man’s shoulder,
and the frantic scuffle increased the entanglement. Again buffeted
with punches, he knew the entrapment meant his imminent doom. With
both legs, he kicked off the back wall and launched the tangled
bodies into the clamped doors. Bounced onto the floor, Trent still
couldn’t extricate himself from the writhing mass, which now pinned
his face beneath a sweating ear. Biting not a part of his
repertoire, he focused instead on freeing an arm from the
interlocked extremities. Once accomplished, he dug his fingers deep
into the stylohyoid muscle under the jaw next to his own. Twisting
them into the mandibular nerve forced his opponent to release him,
and when the man shifted his weight to escape the attack, Trent
leaped free.