Slaves to Evil - 11 (2 page)

“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“I was mugged,” Matt repeated.

“When did this happen?” The cop was in his midthirties, although his paunch and receding hairline gave a preview of middle age.

“Just now, at the bus station,” he answered. “He got my wallet. And my phone.”

“Did you get a good look at the guy?” As Sheridan spoke, Matt caught a whiff of something sour. Not the smell of rot, which he’d come to know all too well. It was whiskey on the cop’s breath.

“Not really. It happened so fast.” He certainly didn’t want to get someone arrested on the basis of his fake description.

Sheridan nodded absently. “Are you hurt?”

Behind the cop, Matt saw the two rotted officers walk across the bullpen to a break area.

“Sir,” said Sheridan again. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Jean!” the man with no nose shouted. Jean, the receptionist, and Sheridan both flinched. “There’s no coffee.”

“I’ll make some right away.” She scurried toward the break area. She was scared. They both were. Even if they couldn’t see the rot, the decaying cops obviously had them on edge. Maybe that’s why Sheridan was half in the bag.

The sergeant pushed the form on the counter closer to Matt. “Here. Start by filling out this report.”

Matt wrote down some fake info, keeping an eye on the two cops. No Nose leered at Jean. He made a comment to Ross and they both laughed. The receptionist flushed but said nothing.

As he left, Matt looked at the photos on the wall again. One of the officers, Sheridan, seemed normal. Chief Lennox and Jessica Ross were definitely not. Neither was the man Ross came in with. There was one more cop Matt hadn’t seen yet. Which side would he be on? Matt had to assume the worst.

Outside the police station, he hesitated. He needed to find a cheap motel, if there was such a thing in this prosperous little suburb. The side door of the police station opened. Sheridan emerged and lit a cigarette. Matt watched him for a moment. This man could be his only potential ally. He strolled up to Sheridan.

“Bum a smoke?” he asked. He didn’t smoke but had noticed that sharing this particular vice seemed to create a rapport. The cop tapped a cigarette out of his pack, handed it over, and lit it for him.

“Thanks,” said Matt. “Rough morning.”

“Getting robbed, sure.” Sheridan nodded. “We’ll do our best to find the perpetrator.”

Matt knew the company line when he heard it. “But the chances aren’t very good, are they?”

The officer hesitated, then went with the honest answer. “Not really, no. Sorry.” He offered a wry smile. They were quiet for a moment, smoking and pretending to.

“You probably don’t get a lot of crime around here,” Matt said. “Compared to the city.”

“No,” the other man agreed. “Last year Breckenridge was named the safest place to live in the Duluth metro area.”

There was a definite note of irony in his voice. He knew something wasn’t right here, thought Matt, but it was too soon to push the topic. He noticed the wedding band on Sheridan’s finger and took a guess. “You moved out here with your family?”

“Yeah.”

“Kids?” asked Matt.

“Two girls. Three and five.” Sheridan smiled broadly, all tension vanishing. He pulled out his wallet and showed the obligatory pictures.

Matt looked them over. “Beautiful,” he said.

“Yeah.” He gazed at them fondly. “You have any?”

“No.” He and Janey had decided to wait a few years after getting married, not knowing that was all the time they had.

“You’re missing out. They really give your life meaning.”
Must be nice,
thought Matt. He wondered if Sheridan’s love for his family helped him resist the dark influence consuming his colleagues.

When he finished his smoke, Sheridan went back inside. He seemed like a decent guy, thought Matt, working in a nest of vipers. Matt suspected that Breckenridge was no longer the safest place to live in the Duluth metro area. He was surprised to discover that he was wrong.

Some research at an Internet café revealed that the crime rate in town had actually dropped since Tom Lennox was promoted to chief a year and a half ago. He was a popular public figure, judging from the photos of him and his lovely wife, Kathy, at a variety of occasions. According to a calendar of local events, they were attending the opening of a new elementary school library tomorrow.

There were also several pictures of Lennox with other local bigwigs. Here he was shaking hands with a city councilman, striking a heroic pose with the Breckenridge fire chief, getting an actual pat on the back from Mayor Perkins. Lennox seemed like a model public servant. If he and his officers were doing evil, they were leaving no trace of it, at least nothing Matt could find on the net.

The most disturbing incident in the local paper was the murder of a suspected drug dealer a few months back. His decapitated body was found at a construction site, just before it would have been buried in concrete. The citizens of Breckenridge voiced their strong concern in letters to the editor. Neighborhood watch groups were mobilized. Chief Lennox promised a vigorous investigation and kept a visible police presence on the streets. After a quiet month, people generally assumed that the drug dealer had been killed by a rival who had gone back to the urban jungle. Tranquility was restored.

Matt looked up a relatively cheap hotel in the area, which would still wipe out his current funds. He really could have used that job in Duluth. Oh well, he thought as he left the café, he’d just have to find something here.

He heard a gunshot and then felt the searing pain as a bullet hit him high on the back of his right shoulder and came out the front. Matt stumbled, smacking his knee against the sidewalk, before he was on the move again, scrambling for cover, trying to reach a nearby alley before the gunman took another shot.

Could it be the decayed cops? Had he given himself away somehow?

He ducked between the buildings, hugging the wall. He sprinted for a Dumpster down the alley and dove behind it, ignoring the howl of pain from his shoulder. Carefully he peered back toward the street.

It was a girl. Not the female cop, not any cop. Just a girl with curly dark hair, wearing jeans, a gray hoodie, and a long black coat who might or might not be legally able to drink. She showed no signs of decay. She stepped forward cautiously, clutching a revolver too big for her hand, looking for him. She made no effort to take cover herself. This girl obviously wasn’t a pro. She didn’t appear to be on Mr. Dark’s team. So why the hell was she shooting at him?

Matt stayed still. She would look behind the Dumpster pretty soon. She’d probably lead with the gun, the way people in the movies always did. He silently tensed, ready to spring. Slow footsteps approached. Blood oozed from his shoulder.
Please,
he thought,
let her be a movie fan.

The barrel appeared first. Matt lunged forward, twisting the gun out of her grip. She stumbled back in surprise but didn’t fall. He showed her the revolver, now in his hand, but kept it pointed away. “Don’t move,” he said. “Let’s stay calm.”

The girl didn’t look calm, but she wasn’t scared either. She was pissed.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Elena Donatti. Peter was my brother.” She announced it defiantly. Clearly the name was supposed to mean something to him. He searched his memory. The searing pain in his shoulder made it hard to think.

She saw him drawing a blank. “What? You kill so many people you lose track?”

That hurt. In the nightmare of his postresurrection life, Matt had been forced to kill people who were under the Dark Man’s influence. Only with no other option. Only to save a life.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“You impaled him with a fucking tire iron, that’s what happened,” she spat.

The image brought back a painful flood of memories from the parking garage in North Carolina. He remembered whom Elena was talking about, a tattooed young guy who had taken significant damage and just wouldn’t go down. He’d lost an eye but still came at Matt with a broken bottle. Matt had only a tire iron for defense. He doubted whether yet another strike to the head would accomplish much. He raised it, then drove the sharp end into the man’s chest. It pierced his rib cage with a sickening wet crack. The guy…Peter, his name was Peter…looked down at himself with genuine surprise. He had looked so young.

Matt closed his eyes for a second, trying to block it out. He faced Elena. “I’m sorry.”

She blew out a snort of air. “Well, that makes it OK.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Right.” Her dark eyes were full of hate.

What else could he tell her? The truth?
Your brother was touched by the embodiment of evil, and his soul, for lack of a better term, started rotting. Which only I can see, by the way.
He’d seem even crazier. Matt was very conscious of how he looked right now, like he was robbing this woman, or worse. The sound of her shot had probably attracted attention. Not to mention that he had a fresh gunshot wound to attend to. He had to get moving.

The real problem was Elena herself. If he left her here, he doubted she’d give up and go home. She might get another gun and come after him again. Or worse, enlist the help of the local police. Matt needed to stash her somewhere she’d be safe but unable to do any harm, and before the decaying cops showed up responding to the gunshot.

A hotel room? No, too many people around.

He remembered the boarded-up building he’d seen from the bus. That might work. Of course, it was all the way across town.

He pointed the gun at Elena. “We’re going to start walking. If you try anything, or say anything to anybody, I’ll shoot.”

This was a total bluff, but she didn’t know that. He hoped. Matt took her arm with his left hand. His right still held the revolver. He couldn’t carry it out in the open like that. Sticking it in his pants seemed like an accident waiting to happen. He painfully maneuvered his hand with the gun into his jacket pocket. He still wasn’t comfortable with guns, despite being forced into a better acquaintance with them.

He nudged Elena and they walked. He led her out of the alley, stopping to pick up his duffel. Matt moved them along the street. He felt extremely conspicuous, as if everyone would know instantly that he was kidnapping this woman. How the hell had it come to this?

Good question,
he thought. He turned to Elena. “How did you know?”

“Know what?” she asked, cautious.

“Who killed your brother.” Everyone who could have seen him there that day was dead.

“You made a mistake. You didn’t finish him off right away. He lived long enough to tell the paramedics who you were.” She seemed proud of it. So there was probably an arrest warrant out for Matt in North Carolina. He wondered how many he’d accumulated by now.

A male pedestrian approached from the other direction. Matt tensed up, tightening his grip on Elena’s arm. He felt sure that she’d signal to the man somehow. But the man only gave them a pleasant smile as he passed. Matt could exhale. Until the next pedestrian.

He focused back on the conversation. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“We did. They’re ‘looking into it.’” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“So you checked me out on the web,” he guessed.

“You were a big story for about a minute and a half. A miracle.” She shot him a glare. “People have been posting these sightings, like you were Bigfoot or something. I kept missing you by days, just a few hours once. But this time, I got you.”

He glanced down at his hand on her arm, silently questioning that statement. Of course, the searing pain of the gunshot wound in his shoulder supported her point.

After a nerve-jangling walk through town, they reached the building he remembered. It was set decently apart from the nearest occupied business. He led Elena to the back of the building and released her arm. “Stay there.”

He dropped his duffel and unzipped it. He pulled out his ax. Elena drew in a sharp, involuntary breath. Matt saw her staring at the weapon with horror.

“No, it’s not… Never mind.” Great, he thought. Now he was an ax murderer. With his good arm, he swung the blade toward the thin plywood covering a window. It splintered easily. A couple more blows and there was an opening big enough for a person. He put down the ax and took the gun from his pocket. He gestured toward the window with it.

“Climb in.”

She did. Matt followed more awkwardly, since he had to keep her in sight and hold the gun while not straining his wounded shoulder too much.

They were in a bare room, maybe twenty by twenty feet, with sickly green carpet and off-white walls. Matt nodded to the corner. “Sit down.”

Elena sat. Matt sank down against the wall opposite her, setting down the revolver beside him. He took off his jacket painfully. The right side of his shirt was one big bloodstain. He peeled the shirt away from the front and back wounds. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he didn’t think any major blood vessels were damaged. If he was going to bleed to death, he would have done it already.

“Sorry,” he said to Elena. “I think I’m going to live.”

He needed antiseptic and bandages, not to mention a lot of painkillers. Of course, he didn’t have much cash or any way to earn more. Between his original mission to stop an evil police chief, the added complication of more rotting cops, and his new hobby of kidnapping, his schedule was pretty full.

He turned back to his captive. “I don’t suppose it would make a difference if I told you I was here to keep some bad people from hurting anyone?”

She looked back at him, impassive. “Say whatever you want.”

Matt nodded. “Yeah. If somebody killed a person I loved, I’d feel the same way. But I need you to know that I didn’t kill your brother out of anger or greed. He was involved with some people who were planning to blow up a mosque…”

Elena was already shaking her head. “Bullshit. Pete would never do something like that.”

“He wasn’t thinking straight. Somebody got to him,” said Matt.