The Origin (18 page)

With a heavy heart, Daniel located the house phone and dialed 911. “We need help at Klein Lane in Palos Hills, yellow house. Hurry, the child is still alive…” he said, unable to tear his eyes away from the child’s. “I… I’m sorry, kid,” he said to the boy and took off.

The snow began to fall once more as Daniel walked down 14
^th
Street, his black balaclava rolled on top of his head. Hours had passed since Olivia had been taken and his worry had taken on a new grim form as thoughts of finding her stiff, mangled body ran through his head.

He had searched every alleyway, every dark street, in hopes of finding a criminal who would know of the drug lord’s whereabouts, but of the several he’d grilled, none were willing to give up the information. Not even the ones he’d held by the ankle from atop a great height, and surprisingly, not even the guy whose fingers Daniel had accidentally broken. He hadn’t meant to break the pinky finger, had only meant to pull it back far enough to incite great fear and pain, but when the guy had said, “If
he
has your girl, then she’s a goner,” Daniel had lost his cool and a crunch was heard a moment later.

The guy had screamed some choice words, but nothing that could be of any help. And so he’d broken three more fingers before the man had passed out. Daniel had stuffed his unconscious body in a dumpster before resuming his search for the ponytailed drug lord, finding it curious to feel only a hint of remorse.

As he walked by a pub called The Wheat, he saw a tall, slim figure leaning against the window, smoking a cigarette. As Daniel passed by, something about the man’s leather jacket caught his attention… the dark red color just seemed so familiar. He turned back and their eyes locked, unearthing a hazy memory in the back of Daniel’s head.

“You!” he said, unable to believe his luck.

The guy’s eyes widened with recognition and, before Daniel could lunge, disappeared with a pop.

“Dammit!” he said, closing his hands around air.

A moment later, Daniel saw him reappear inside the almost empty bar, in front of the bartender, who didn’t look at all surprised to see a teleporting man. They exchanged a few words and a second later, the guy popped out of sight again.

Daniel entered the establishment and ran to the bar. “Who was that guy?” he said, looking around for any indication of where Slim had gone.

The bartender continued wiping down shot glasses with a rag as if he hadn’t heard the question. “What’ll you have?”

“Who was that guy?” Daniel repeated, losing patience. Suddenly, he heard the telltale pop once more, behind a door labeled
Private
.

Daniel headed for the door, his muscles tense with anticipation.

“Stay outta there!” the bartender barked. One hand reached behind the bar but he made no other movement. “You’ll be sorry.”

“We’ll see,” Daniel said under his breath as he pushed the door open and found himself in a dimly lit commercial kitchen. Every surface was surprisingly clean and shiny, as if the grimy appearance of the pub outside was nothing but a façade, a design concept.

Daniel walked further into the kitchen and froze as he heard voices coming from a hallway at the far end of the room.

“Who?” asked a cold voice that sounded all-too familiar.

“That guy we offed a week ago.”

“That’s not possible…”

Suddenly, the ponytailed man from the docks turned the corner, stopping dead in his tracks as he laid eyes on Daniel. He pulled a handgun from his back and held it at his side stiffly.

“Can I help you?” he said, eyeing Daniel through narrowed lids.

At the sight of the man, Daniel’s ears began to ring and his vision began to swim with memories of the night he’d been shot to death and still managed to survive. His fists clenched and unclenched, as his mind was flooded with thoughts of revenge. Here was the guy who had murdered him in cold blood and had dumped his body in the river to be fish grub. No force in the universe could help him now if he also hurt Olivia…

“Where is she?” Daniel said through gritted teeth. “She’d better not be hurt, or else you’re a dead man.”

The guy stepped out of the shadows and Daniel saw him clearly for the first time. The slick dark ponytail and the mustache were still there, but Daniel noticed the shifty green eyes, the bulbous nose, the pockmarked skin. With a sinking feeling, he realized that this man was Caucasian in appearance, not the Pacific Islander that Olivia had described.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Ponytail lifted the gun and scratched his jaw with it. “My brain seems to be failing me right now so correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we kill you?” He turned to the
teleporter
beside him. “We killed him, did we not?”

“Yes, we did! We tied him up, threw him in, waited an hour to see if he’d resurface. Nada.” Slim said. “Maybe he’s a twin?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh no, it’s me.” Daniel’s blood began to boil and his neck muscles tensed. He was beginning to worry about the amount of venom flowing through his body, concerned that if he let it continue, he wouldn’t be able to stop the rampage that would inevitably follow. As it was, he was teetering on that thin edge of control, his muscles straining to pounce.

“I don’t know how the hell you survived that, but you’re more persistent than I initially thought.” Ponytail raised the gun. “So let me guess: you came back here because you’ve reconsidered my initial offer?”

“No.” Daniel closed his eyes and, as his last resort, imagined the fear-filled eyes of that dying little boy, like he’d done many times to keep a firm grasp on his humanity. But the image, no matter how compelling, had suddenly lost its power over his conscience.

Ponytail cocked the gun. “Well then, let’s try this again, shall we?”

The gunshot was loud, echoing in the tomb-like kitchen. Daniel’s face remained stony as he felt the crimson warmth spreading on his upper stomach, the pain that normally accompanied a hole in one’s torso curiously absent. His entire body, it seemed, had become numb, and in that one stunning moment, Daniel decided to fuck it all and unleash the berserker within.

Ponytail didn’t see it coming. He only had enough time to flare his nose in surprise before his own gun was turned on him and his index finger pressed two bullets into his own brain.

Daniel released Ponytail’s hand as he fell to the ground and turned his murderous attention to Slim. But the wily man disappeared, only to materialize behind Daniel, punching him in the small of his back. Daniel turned on his heel, his fists swinging, but not before the man vanished from view once more. Several times, Slim came and went with a pop and a punch, making Daniel bellow in frustration.

Daniel spotted the cookware hanging from the ceiling and grabbed a large iron skillet, shaking with the desire to kill the infuriating man. He felt another punch, this one to the side of the neck, and shouted, “Enough!”

Like a hammer thrower in the Olympics, he swung the iron skillet around and around, gathering momentum, knowing that it was only a matter of time until it made contact with something solid.

And finally, with a heavy
thunk
, it did.

Daniel stopped, his breathing erratic and shallow, and looked down at the man with the skillet face laying a few feet from his boots.

“Try to teleport from this,” Daniel said and slammed
Slim’s
head with the pan once more, sending blood and brains shooting out like a grisly halo.

He turned around and surveyed the dead, his mind a hurricane of rage that refused to die down, and he found himself wishing he had more bodies to mangle, more bad guys to kill.

Suddenly, the door behind him opened and the bartender came running in, an aluminum baseball bat in his hands.

“Hey! Stop right there!” The portly man came racing towards him and swung.

Daniel caught the bat midair and pulled it from the man’s grasp, and with a roar in his chest, swung the bat over his head twice then laid a crunching blow on the bartender’s balding cranium. He watched, unmoved by the coppery stench of blood filling his nostrils, as the man fell to the ground, eyes wide with confusion, only a few feet from where his accomplices lay.

After a long while, the feeling returned to Daniel’s body and he clutched his stomach as he sped around the building, breaking down doors and checking the premises for any signs of Olivia. When he came up empty, he lit all of the burners in the kitchen and threw anything that looked flammable on top.

The torn flesh on his stomach was already fusing together by the time the room was aflame.

And moments later, as he stood across the street from the pub while the three bodies burned inside, the maelstrom of his thoughts finally receded and he began to grasp the enormity of what he’d done.

He had killed. He had taken not one, but three lives. And he had done so without hesitation.

They may not have kidnapped Olivia, but they had been morally bankrupt men regardless and had still been responsible for destroying countless lives with the drugs they’d circulated. They had chosen their eternal damnation; Daniel had only sent them there prematurely.

And still, as the rationalizations flew through his head, he knew that, where those men were headed, he was sooner or later destined to follow.

“Okay, so now what?” Lisa said, hunching further down into her coat. “I don’t mean to be a nag but I’m starting to get really cold. I can’t believe we left our food back there.”

The snow was coming down around them in tiny flakes that dissolved on Coral’s glasses. She looked around, trying to find a sign that her premonition to come had been right. They were definitely at the right place – the Eagle’s Movies blue and red sign had appeared to her in a vision on the way down from Brooklyn – she just didn’t know if they were at the right time.

“Let’s go in here,” she said and headed towards the small coffee shop next door. “We can sit by the window.”

“Why are we here, exactly?”

Coral glanced up and down the relatively quiet street. “I’m not sure.”

“Then what are we doing here when we could have been eating our food instead?“

“I already told you…”

“No. You didn’t. You said you would, but you never–“

“Lisa, please!” Coral said, trying to contain the vitriol that was threatening to overflow from her mouth. More than anything, she needed some stillness in order to decipher destiny’s clues. “Do you want to go then? I need to stay here for now, but you’re welcome to leave.”

Lisa’s brown eyes narrowed and her lips began to quiver.
I shouldn’t have come,
she thought.
Even the person who saved me doesn’t want me around. Rodrigo was right, I am just a useless waste of space.

Coral sighed impatiently. She didn’t have time for this right now. “That’s so not true!” she said, stamping her foot. “Rodrigo was a low-life piece of shit who thought he could control you by breaking your confidence down.”

“I didn’t say anything about Rodrigo?” Lisa’s face went white. “What… what are you talking about?”

Oops.
“Nothing. I’m going to order a cappuccino. What would you like?”

Neither woman said a word as they waited for their coffee, but Coral heard every unstable, self-destructive thought in Lisa’s head. Her ex-boyfriend had definitely ripped her self-esteem to shreds, had broken her down until she believed she was nothing without him. And then the beatings had begun.

Unfortunately, Coral could relate to this oft-told tale. She was just glad to have found a way out.

Coral was opening her mouth to tell Lisa something she herself had been told by a trusted friend, when something outside the café window caught her attention.

“Oh my God! The building across the street is on fire! Call 911!” she shouted to the startled coffee shop employee and raced outside.

She was about to cross the street when she froze at the curb, the tiny hairs on her neck rising. Slowly, her head turned and she saw a tall, black-clad figure standing eerily still underneath the video store’s neon sign.

“Daniel.”

His eyes were glued to the burning building and she had to call his name a few times before she was able to break his trance. When he turned his head to look at her, the oncoming flashing lights illuminated his face and she saw his frightening blank stare. She poked around in his mind, trying to determine his connection with the fire.

Coral gasped at the same moment that Daniel whispered, “I’m going to hell.”

She had a fleeting feeling that the normal reaction, when faced with a murderer, was to run away screaming, or at the very least, be frightened. But she was not an ordinary woman and Daniel was no ordinary killer.

“Come inside, Daniel,” she said, motioning towards the coffee shop where Lisa still stood and stared at the burning building. “We have to get you out of view.”

As he turned, she noticed an odd hole on the front of his shirt. “You’ve been shot?” she asked under her breath and pulled him into the warm coffee shop. Seemingly in shock, he allowed Coral to lead him to the bathroom at the back of the store.