The Devil's Dream: Book One (20 page)

Not
now. Soon.

It was the sheer
disgusting nature of the woman that made him feel so strongly about
her death. Her unbelievable denial about her life, her husband, and
everything in between. He could probably tell her he was the police
and the bitch would climb in whatever car he told her and then ride
with him all the way back to Florida.

She needed to die and
the only pity was that Matthew couldn't let her until Hilman was
born.

"That's a tough
lady, isn't it?" The cop in the driver’s seat, Manning, asked.

"Tough lady might
be right, but stubborn and stupid bitch might be better. You guys are
only out here doing this because she refused to go into hiding.
Otherwise, you'd have your normal beat and be home to whoever loves
you each night. We've tried to turn her refusal into something that
could be good for everyone involved."

"Why wouldn't she
go into protective custody?" Matthew asked, not turning around.
The beard he wore itched his face, but he kept his hands on his lap.
He wasn't wearing any of the delicate disguises he'd been known for
years ago, but sprayed on a heavy tan and a shaggy wig that covered
up his ears, forehead, and eyes partially. The F.B.I. wasn’t
studying the men in blue, they were the good guys. A cop works his
four on and then takes his three off, no one looks when a new guy
shows up.

"Said she wasn't
leaving her house. Told me she would like to talk to Brand if she got
the chance, so not to worry too much about her. She's old and angry
is all I can tell. Hard to blame her with everything that's
happened."

Matthew didn't say
anything in response, and the rest of the ride to work was silent.

* * *

He watched her all day.
At her office, in the lunchroom, followed behind as she went to the
restroom. She walked with a different air than the woman he'd known a
decade ago. His meeting with her had been short, an encounter she
didn't even know existed, but he learned all he needed to know about
Linda Lucent. This woman was different than the one he wanted to take
though, or at least looked different in her gait, in her interactions
with the people around her.

Matthew took his place
next to the elevator. People greeted him and went on with their day,
a cop in the office having become a part of their life. No one felt
nervous, no one having any idea that the creature they were all so
scared of stared at them. Watched them. Judged them. To be fair, he
didn't truly care about anyone else in the building, only the woman
occupying the cubicle fifty feet from him. He could see the top of
her head from where he sat, moving up and down in irregular patterns
as she attended the work before her. Who
was
the woman he looked at now? Not the one he knew. Not the housewife
that allowed her husband to become such a vile beast.

Or maybe Matthew was
being tricked. Maybe the things Moore said in the car were deceptions
to spread amongst the ranks of those involved. To make this woman
seem stronger than she was in case Brand
did
show up.

He watched her the
entire day, the hate in him not subsiding at all, but a growing
realization that perhaps the woman he came here to meet might not be
the same woman that actually lived here. That didn't change anything.
She was still coming with him, and he actually looked forward to it a
bit more because of this. He would find out which woman lived here.
The one the F.B.I. agent described in the car or the one that had
allowed the abomination of Garret Lucent to grow unchecked. He would
find out, and in the end, it would be the same for her. He'd come too
far, one man already lay dead in a great pool of drying blood, and
Matthew wouldn't change his mind just because this woman might have
changed hers.

At the end of the day,
when she came to the elevator, Matthew stood waiting on her. He took
a step to the side as she stepped on the elevator and then followed
her.

"How are you,
ma'am?" He asked, looking down at the shorter woman.

"Fine, thank you,"
she said, not bothering to look up at him.

"My condolences
for everything that's happening."

"Thank you, but
they're unnecessary. Worst things have happened to a lot better
people."

The rest of the ride
down was in silence as Matthew scanned her out of the corner of his
eye. Nothing remarkable, except her age. He'd seen her twelve years
ago and she had been beautiful, but not radiant. Somehow that seemed
to have changed. Her beauty faded, paled, but the non-existent
radiance had bloomed. What she radiated, he wasn't sure, but
something came off this woman as sure as heat from the sun.

She exited the elevator
and, again, he followed.

He rode to Lucent's
house with Manning, silent as they went. Moore had left sometime
during the afternoon, and Matthew didn't think he would see much more
of her during his time here.

Worst
things have happened to a lot better people.
She didn't
know what was coming. An endless forever of nothing. Consciousness
without true form. A world of blackness yet full of thoughts that
could never be spoken. Insanity was coming for Linda Lucent. No
sight, no sound, no senses at all. Just the great ever-after of
nothing.

Better people? He could
agree with that part.

If the woman wasn't
different, she was faking it well. That was fine. Everything was
fine. He had another twelve hours before anyone discovered Horner's
body, stiffening now. He made a call from Horner's cell phone to
Manning earlier this morning, saying he was sick and he would have to
call in today. Said hopefully they would get someone over to patrol
with him, and Manning had said "they would or they'd answer to
the F.B.Fucking.I." If Manning noticed anything different in his
voice, his concerns were dissipated by the phone number calling him.
Horner's name was on the caller I.D., who else could it be? When
someone that Manning didn't know showed up, Matthew told him he was
called in from the neighboring precinct. As Agent Moore said, no
harm, no foul. They would notice tomorrow. They would send people out
to Horner's apartment and find a cold body that once held his soul.
For now, everything was fine.

He and Manning watched
the house and the sun go down behind it, no one coming or going.

At 7:55 PM, Matthew
pulled the blade from his breast pocket as casually as he might a
pack of cigarettes and brought it across Manning's windpipe just as
he had his partner's earlier that morning. Blood shot forward,
hitting the steering wheel but not quite making it to the windshield.
The man reached for his throat briefly, trying to stem the blood
flow, but no to avail. His hands dropped to his lap and Manning's
life was over. Matthew reached over and sat the man up right, doing
his best to keep the blood off himself. That would not work for what
he had planned.

A few minutes later the
next police car rolled in, containing two cops ready to switch
shifts.

Here came the hard
part. Everything depended on how fast Matthew could move.

He stepped from his own
car and waved a friendly hand as the cruiser came to a stop behind
him. He looked around the neighborhood, the sun down but plenty of
lights still on inside houses. No one on the street though, no one
taking the trash out this late. The people were getting ready for
bed, watching television, not concerned with a single thing that went
on outside of their homes. The window to the police car rolled down
as Matthew came to it and the man inside had a brief moment of
surprise as he realized it wasn't Horner walking to the door, but
Matthew's smile relieved him of the worry—saying,
it's
okay, I'm a friend. You see this uniform? We're on the same side.

Matthew leaned into the
window, still smiling.

"Been pretty quiet
all day. Not sure if you guys heard, but there will be a new car
following you tomorrow when she goes to work and comes home. F.B.I.
ordered it."

"Seriously?"
The cop in the passenger seat looked to his partner, smiling.

Matthew's hand flashed
in and the blade caught the man right on his Adam's Apple. He pulled
it out again just as quick, and jumped headfirst through the window,
so that his feet were the only things hanging out as he stretched
across the front seat. The cop in the driver's seat was reaching over
to Matthew, gun in hand. Matthew's right hand just poked forward, the
blade finding any tissues it could and slicing straight through them.
He caught the man in the cheek, the right arm, the chest, and finally
directly through his temple.

The cop stiffened, his
arms shooting straight out in front of him. He held them there and
Matthew tried to turn the blade inside the man's skull, wanting to
scramble whatever brains he was touching. The man's hands dropped and
blood coughed out of his mouth and down his chin.

Matthew pulled the
blade away, allowing dark red fluids to drain from his face. There
wasn't much fight left in the man, if any, but Matthew went ahead and
drew the blade across the man's throat.

He pulled himself out
of the car, blood covering every part of his uniform but his shoes.
He looked back inside, his own breathing heavy and the blade now an
inanimate object in his hand. Blood still dripped from the driver's
neck, and the passenger sat slumped with his chin touching the front
of his collarbone.

Checking the
neighborhood again, he saw nothing. The world was still, quiet.

He looked to Linda
Lucent's house. Nothing he could do about the blood covering him, but
not much she could do about him either.

Blood was spattered on
his face and his wig sat nearly sideways on top of his head.

He held a gun in his
right hand, the blade that had done so much damage having been
replaced.

Matthew reached forward
with his left hand and pressed the doorbell. He heard it chime
through the house. Waiting, his breath finally calming down, he heard
footsteps. Mrs. Lucent coming to the door, coming to answer whoever
had called on her.

He watched her face
peek through the side windows. She saw a cop, a dirty, bloody cop
holding a gun. There are better sights than that, but there are
certainly worse ones too. He heard the deadbolt move inside the door
and it cracked open.

"Hi, Mrs. Lucent.
I need to come in, there's been a horrible disaster out here and—"

"There's no need
to lie. I know who you are."

They both looked at
each other, neither dropping their eyes but neither moving.

"That blood
coverin' you, that mean the cops out there are all dead?"

Matthew nodded and, as
he did, Lucent shook her own head.

"They should have
just left me alone. I told them I didn't want them and I didn't need
them, and now they're dead because of it."

The porch light
remained off, Lucent appeared more as a shadow to Matthew than a
person, the light from the kitchen outlining her. He didn't point the
gun at her, but left his arm hanging and the barrel looking at the
floor.

"There are more
out back. I could scream and they'd come, but there's no reason for
more people to die. They didn't think you'd get this far, so I can't
be sure that you wouldn't take me even if they could get in here,"
She was rambling, talking to herself more than Matthew, reasoning
this out in her own head. Matthew kept quiet, only listening. "Come
on in, I guess."

She turned around and
walked back into the house, leaving him standing alone on the porch.
He followed, pushing open the door and closing it behind him.

"I'm glad you're
here because I'm tired of waiting for you to show up. Ever since you
got out, I hoped you'd show."

She was headed towards
the kitchen, towards the stove where a teapot looked to be heating
up. She stood in front of it, her back to him. Matthew didn't enter
the kitchen, but stayed in the hallway leading to it, not wanting to
be within reach of the water gaining in temperature.

"The truth is, I'm
tired of being here. I'm tired of living as the widow of Garret
Lucent, with everyone knowing what he really was."

She paused, looking at
the red teapot below her.

"You taking me
doesn't mean anything, you know that. There's no one to hurt here.
Not me, certainly not Garret. Maybe I've lived alone this long for
that exact reason. If you ever showed up again you'd have the power
to take me but that was it. You wouldn't have the power to make me
wish to live or the power to hurt anyone else with your cruelty.
You'd be just like anyone else, wandering around in this world trying
to find happiness through other people, but unable to. You won't find
happiness here, that's for sure."

Matthew cocked his head
slightly to the left as he took in the information. He realized the
person he had come for no longer existed. No one would beg him to
stop. No one would cry. There was him and this woman in the kitchen,
neither of them resembling anything like the human race.

"You ruined my
life and that allowed me to have a new one." The teapot started
to whistle and she reached to the right, grabbing a mug with a bag of
tea sitting in the bottom. She poured, steam coming up from the water
as it transferred from one holder to the next. She placed the teapot
on a dead eye and reached to turn the live one off. Setting the mug
down on the stove, Linda turned around. "If your boy comes back,
I hope he hates you worse than AIDS. I hope he hates you so much that
you break with grief. I don't know if you'll be able to do what
you're trying to do, but if you can, I hope it's all ruined when your
kid sees all this. I hope he kills himself over it. That would fit
this awful tale. His death to come full circle again so that you have
to watch it."