Contract Killer Get a Clue

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As if on cue, a mask crept into the back of the hallway. Cynthia fired. She had a dead aim. The man went down with half a head. I bent over and de-masked the other one, the one I had killed. I didn't recognize him. He was a fresh face like the guys who shot at me last night. Where were these guys coming from, and why didn't they know who I was?

Lady-fucking-Dread. Veronica was the only one bold enough to attempt something like this. Simeon was too cautious, the Ghost too classy. Veronica had hired me to kill her husband while hiring outside goons to kill me? What was she hoping to accomplish?

"Well?" Cynthia asked as she reloaded. With wet, sweaty strands of red hair glued to her forehead, she looked ridiculously hot. I couldn't help but pause, pull her to me with my free hand, and kiss her. She returned it, the shotgun awkwardly pinned between us. I broke the kiss, realizing Cynthia might accidentally pull the trigger and blow my knees to shreds.

"Keep moving," I said, stood up, and followed my own advice. In the main room, I saw Kross huddled behind the bar and two goons lying by the door. Kross had a short-barreled shotgun of his own, and he'd been itching to use it since I'd known him. The fools had no idea what had been waiting for them with a guy like Kross behind the bar.

He saw me and called, "This room's clear. Don't know about the lot out front."

I replied, "Going for it."

Kross said, "Right behind you."

He fell into line behind us as we made our way through the room. At the door, I paused and peered through the glass. Blood pooled around the corpses, and we had no choice but to stand in it. Kross had hit one in the head, Cynthia-style, and the other in the neck, nearly decapitating him. I caught it all with a glance; Cynthia made a point to avert her eyes, I noticed. Maybe Girl Scouts could teach you how to own a punk with a shotgun, but they forgot the part about dealing with the body.

The lot looked clear, but there was only one way to be sure. I turned to the others and said, "I'll go for my car and bring it to the door. Come out and get in as fast as you can."

"Shouldn't we wait for the police?" Cynthia asked. Her eyes had gone to the size of lakes again.

"She's kidding, right?" Kross grumbled with a snort.

I nodded. "Yeah, she's kidding." Then I pulled the door open and dashed through the lot. An engine gunned, and I turned towards the sound. Around the corner of The Deep End, a black limo peeled out, then headed straight for me. I knew who was inside. I stood and waited for it.

Cynthia voice came from the front door, "What are you doing! Get down!" It was sweet that she was so worried about me, but I didn't want her or Kross firing a weapon and catching me in the crossfire.

"Don't shoot!" I called back. "I've got this!"

The limo didn't run me down. I knew it wouldn't. Instead, it screeched to a stop in front of me, the smell of burnt rubber heavy in the air, and the back door opened. A gorgeous, voluptuous, raven-haired demoness peered out. Veronica Dread was sin incarnate, and she reveled in her own corruption. She waved me towards the seat next to her with one red-nailed hand: a devil's invitation.

"Get in, lover," she crooned. A better man would know to not give in to her temptation. Needless to say, I followed her order, and the door swung shut behind me. With a lurch, the engine roared, and we were moving. I didn't mind leaving Kross behind with Cynthia. He was a good man despite literally having a block-head, and he knew what to do. She'd be safe, and Kross was more than capable when it came to dealing with the authorities. I was sure that I'd have to answer questions, but at the end of the day, we'd write it off as a failed robbery. It helped that my Dad had helped clean up this part of town, partially by supplementing most police officers' normally-meagre incomes.

I stayed silent and waited while Veronica Dread appraised me and devoured me with her eyes. The last time I'd been in the limo with her had been brutal, violent, and probably one of the meanest fucks I'd ever experienced in my life, and Mrs. Dread was probably replaying the whole fiasco in her mind's eye. Last time she had worn a breathtakingly tight navy blue dress and a pearl necklace. Today she wore a breathtakingly tight white dress and diamonds.

"You're taking too long," she said. Her dark eyes met mine and demanded their attention.

"To kill your husband? We never discussed a timeline. If you want it done, it has to be done right," I said. I still wasn't sure if I actually intended to kill Simeon on her behalf. I wanted to buy as much time as possible, in case of the very real possibility this was nothing more than elaborate trap. If there was one thing I knew about Veronica Dread, it was that she could not be trusted. "Is that why you sent those clumsy gorillas to my bar? I've inconvenienced your schedule?"

"You're still with the blonde," Dread replied. Her eyes hadn't left mine. Her look was serious, intense. Yet could she be serious? She had mentioned Sheila before. Leaving her was part of the deal that Veronica had proposed, but the request was ludicrous.

"Don't tell me you're so overly dramatic that you'd have me killed because I'm with Sh... the blonde? The whole 'If I can't have him, no one can' thing? That's way too daytime soap-ish for you," I said. Veronica Dread smiled, and the effect was chilling. I'd never met a person who could look so evil and yet so compelling. She placed a hand on my leg and began to rub my thigh.

"Let's just say, if I were to have you killed..." Veronica scooted closer to me. She leaned into me; her breasts pressed against my arm. Her hand rubbed higher up my thigh, nearing my crotch. "...which I would NEVER..." She found my penis and squeezed. Already half-hard due to her proximity, it turned to iron in her grasp. "... do, the best way would be to come at you indirectly. Let's say, if I were to hire... oh, I don't know, the Black Ghost, for instance..." As she said the words, my blood turned to ice, but my cock remained hard as Veronica massaged it through my pants. Her tongue came out and tickled the lob of my ear. Then she whispered,"... coming at you directly would be suicide. At the very least, the chance for success would be far less than if one could find a way to make you less than one-hundred percent. If there was a way to take you off your A-Game, to have you reeling a little, to dull that sharp mind of yours by taking away something or someONE you care about... your little blonde, perhaps... then, maybe, just maybe, someone like the Ghost would have a good chance to ridding your Daddy of his favorite toy."

She was right. At dinner the night before, Pops had likened his duel with Simeon Dread as a game of chess. I was his favorite piece. If I were to be eliminated then the game would be tipped in Dread's favor. However, the best way to get to me would be to lure me into a trap. The best way to lure me into a trap would be to take away my greatest weapons: my senses. To strip me off my senses, you'd not only have to find something I care about but to rip it away from me. The only thing I cared about was Sheila.

"But why the men at The Deep End? They weren't after Sheila, they were after..." But I couldn't finish the thought because I knew I was wrong. The men at the bar weren't assassins. If they had been, they were the worst assassins on the face of the planet. They hadn't been sent there to kill anyone. They had been sent there to draw me to the bar, to distract me, to keep me away for Sheila, so she could be alone long enough for them (but who was them? Did it matter?) to kill her. If I hadn't had my head so far up Cynthia Skye's pussy, I would have seen right through it.

The real target was Sheila, and here I was in a limo, getting an over-the-pants hand job from Veronica Dread.

"Let her go. If you can do that, you can't be beaten. She's dead already, lover. Let them kill her, and fuck me over her corpse. The way you fucked me over the body of my dead brother," Veronica cooed, her voice like silk, but my mind was made. I just wasn't that dead inside. I couldn't let them kill Sheila. I couldn't celebrate the rottenness in me the way that Veronica did.

"You're soft," Veronica said in disgust, and I didn't know if she was talking about me or my penis.

"No thanks to you," I said, and I could have been talking about either one, too. "Take me to--" and I gave her the address of Sheila's grocery store. Veronica flung me aside and leaned back in her seat, her cheeks flushed and her jaw clenched. Hell hath no fury... well, you know the rest.

Her ebony eyes narrowed. She said, "You're making a mistake."

I said, "Not yet."

Veronica pressed a button, hissed my directions to her driver, and then we sped towards Sheila.

***

By the time I got there, the place was already in flames.

"I told you," Veronica muttered like a pouting child. Somehow, she still looked alluring. She peered out the window with her arms crossed over her breasts. Diamonds gleamed from the depths of her cleavage. I knew that if I changed my mind, she'd probably fuck me then and there, with the smoking ruins of Sheila's family's store smoldering beside the limo. Mrs. Dread was evil and dangerous, made all the worse by her beauty.

"She's not dead yet. She'd not dead until I see her and say so," I said, and my voice was so icy that Veronica had no choice but to look at me. Despite her reptilian blood, she shivered when she saw the expression on my face. Deep in her heart, despite her money, despite her power, she still feared me.

"I want you so bad," she croaked, her voice desperate and quaking.

I got out of the limo and didn't look back as it peeled away from the gathering crowd of onlookers. The fire was raging, but it couldn't have been for long. No firetrucks were at the scene, and the gawkers were not in full force. I grabbed the nearest person, a geeky-looking teenager who had pimples dotting his face in angry red mounds and who was wearing a Marvel T-Shirt with some newfangled superhero I'd never seen before. God, I miss Ant-Man.

"Anyone inside?" I yelled in his face.

"Dunno! Nobody's come out though," he squeaked. "An' I been standing outside since it started."

I pushed him away and headed into the inferno. A couple of people yelled at me, but no one tried to stop me. I pushed the doors open, and smoke came out. I stepped in, and it was the inside of hell. Flame and smoke and not much else. I bent down, covered my mouth with my shirt, and made my way through the store. I had been there enough times to know my way around without the benefit of my eyes which were useless because of the smoke, anyway.

"Sheila!" I yelled, and smoke got in my throat. Even as I yelled her name, I knew it was pointless. They'd got her, taken her, and burned the store in their wake. I could only pray they'd left...

Then I saw her Uncle David's shoes on the floor, toes-up, sticking out from behind an aisle. I'd almost stumbled over them; I got on my knees and took a look around the aisle. I saw that his throat had been cut. He'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but how could he know that? He owned the store, and the poor bastard was always here. The store was his second home. It was my fault the guy was dead. To whomever was after me, he was collateral damage. I kept moving. I could do nothing else but cough and gag until I stumbled through the backdoor. I gulped air and yelled again, "Sheila!"

It was like they had stuck around, waiting for me, just so that I would see them. Thinking back, that's exactly what they were doing. One of them popped off a couple of shots at me, and I ducked behind a dumpster. The bullets clanged against metal, adding a few more pock-marks to the dented dinosaur. I gave it a moment and peeked around the corner to see the men climbing into a black SUV and driving away. The back was missing its license plate, you will not be surprised to learn.Through the rear windshield, I caught a glimpse of long blonde hair: Sheila.

Then the car turned a corner, and she was gone.

***

I went to Pops, but he was no help. He couldn't act on guesswork and baseless hunches, and I begrudgingly admitted he was right. After all, I only had a nondescript black SUV to go on. The guys who kidnapped Sheila, cut her uncle's throat, and shot at me could have been anyone. Anyone who was a professional murderer and kidnapper, that is.

The investigation into the "attempted robbery" at The Deep End had also hit a dead end. The ski-masked men had not been recognized by anyone. No one could even guess at who they were or who hired them. They weren't Dread's men, that much was certain. Dread didn't believe in hiring amateurs and avoided outside help except when totally necessary. The dead men appeared to be out-of-towners, farmed in by who-knows-who.

I was pacing, ranting, out of my mind. I was as belligerent with the police as I could be without getting my ass tossed in jail. Kross tried to put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and I screamed at him to "Fuck off!" Who knew where Cynthia was, probably earning her headline for tomorrow by blowing Simeon again.

I had never felt so helpless. I couldn't go to the police; they'd been bought and paid for so many times, they didn't know who to answer to. I couldn't go to the press without compromising Cynthia. I couldn't go to Dread; I had been hired to kill him. I couldn't go to Veronica; she all but encouraged Sheila's murder.

The cherry on the cake had been when Dad said, "All you can do for now is get some rest," and I wanted to get pissed but couldn't. Because again, he was right.

At some point, I made my way to my apartment and started trying to drown myself in liquor. I'm not a liquor guy; I'm a beer guy. It hit me hard. At some point, I slid out of my chair, lay on the floor, and cursed the ceiling. My legs were rubber. I had to pee and thought, fuck it, piss yourself. The world spun, shattered, and went dark.

***

I woke up tied to the bed. At the window, silhouetted by moonlight, stood The Black Ghost. My head was pounding. Was I dreaming? Was this real? Was I dead? Or was I about to be?

"You're not dreaming," The Ghost said, her voice dark but musical. She had an accent which I couldn't quite place, perhaps Arabic with a hint of British. My eyes began to adjust. Her jet-black hair flowed just past her shoulders and matched the skin-tight spandex outfit she wore. Her hair and outfit-- along with her predisposition to lurk in the shadows, strike without a sound, and disappear without a trace-- had led to her supernatural moniker. Around her waist, she wore a utility belt of sorts with pistols holstered against each hip as if she were Lara Croft's evil doppleganger. I think the Ghost is why those games always gave me a boner.

She was speaking: "You are, however, sedated. Your muscles will be useless, so no point in putting up a fight. Along with the sedative, I mixed a lovely combination of muscle relaxer. Right now, you're just a quivering bowl of jelly that misses its girlfriend. You might not even remember this conversation in the morning. That actually might be to our mutual benefit."

The Ghost stepped away from the window and leaned over me. Her eyes were dark pools, sparkling with silver in the moonlight. She was beautiful, shapely, muscular, every aspect of her sculpted like a Michelangelo masterpiece, the Venus given life. She was also the deadliest woman on Earth and the only person who had ever fought me to draw. I couldn't help but compare her to Veronica Dread, another dark demon of death (pardon the alliteration). However, where Veronica seemed a corrupt force bent on the decay and rot of everything around her, the Ghost had a sense of nobility, of honor. Although the Ghost was an assassin, I sensed a camaraderie with her that I could only guess she felt, too.

Unless she were about to slit my throat and piss all over my corpse. Or smother me with a pillow and then piss all over my corpse. Or pull the guns out her hip holsters, shoot me in the face, and then piss all over my corpse. I could only assume if she was going to kill me then and there, she would definitely desecrate my body with her urine. Then I wouldn't be feeling much camaraderie with her at all.

"I'm not here to kill you," she said, and I figured that proved she was a dream. The last time I'd actually spoken with the Ghost, she'd promised to kill me the next time she saw me. The Ghost continued, "I'm just here to talk."

She found a chair near the foot of the bed and took a seat, wiggling a bit to get comfortable. I'd never wanted to be a chair more in my life.

"We're being played," she said. She propped her feet on the edge of the bed, near mine, and crossed her legs. The Ghost said, "Simeon Dread hired me to kill you, then to keep an eye on you. Someone or something changed his mind about wanting you dead. Either that, or he changed his strategy."

My mind, though dulled by drugs, remembered Mrs. Dread's theory in the limousine. Maybe Veronica was right, and this was the change of strategy to which the Ghost referred.

The Ghost seemed antsy. She stood out of the chair and slowly walked around the bed. She ran her fingers thoughtfully across the line of her chin as she spoke. "I killed the men outside of Johnny Knox's... favorite rendezvous location, for lack of a better description. Made it nice and easy for you. Mrs. Dread wanted Knox dead and wanted you to do it. I was just to assist. I'm sure you saw the bodies."

I had and tried to say thanks, but I couldn't move my lips. The Ghost moved her hand from her face to the bed, then to my torso. She ran her hand across my chest. I couldn't move, but I could feel her fingers. Electric tingles coursed through me wherever she touched.

"I get the feeling they're wanting us to kill each other. Three times now we've been set up to happen upon one another; well, three times if you count Knox's hideout. I was there the entire time, of course, and to kill Knox if he killed you. You never saw me."

But I knew you were there, I wanted to say. Obviously, I didn't due to the whole "jelly-bowl" drug thing.

"Also, I hate to be the bearer of broken hearts, but the blonde, your girlfriend, she's not who you think she is. I'm almost entirely sure that she's one of Dread's. He set up your 'meet-cute', and now he's using her to weaken you. And it's working, you fucking pup," she said, smiled, and ruffled my hair.

Her words had nearly shocked me out of my stupor. Could it be true? Or were these just more lies? Was the Ghost attempting to confuse me more? To muddy the waters in the hopes that I'd be more vulnerable then ever? If so, why not just kill me now?

It made a kind of sense. I had met Sheila by leaving my wallet at her store. But if Dread knew I frequented that store, Sheila could have been a plant, and she could have stolen or moved my wallet when I wasn't looking while I checked out at her register. Coincidentally, I had met Sheila the very same day I'd been contracted to hit Veronica Dread's brother/lover.

No, she loved me. I could see it in Sheila's eyes. Or maybe she was just a great actress, and she'd given the performance of a lifetime and fooled me into thinking it was true. Or maybe, I'd been goaded into feeling the kind of feelings that encouraged people to make stupid decisions. The kind of stupid decisions that could only be attributed to love.

I thought about Dad and Dread and chess. Those fuckers. For the stakes to be so high, they treated life as a game. If it was true, if Sheila was a fake, then a lot of people were going to die. Slowly.

It seemed like an overly elaborate scheme to just kill me. I mean, I think I'm good, but was I good enough to go to all this trouble? I had a hard time believing so. There had to be something more here, but what? However, what the Ghost was saying seemed to be clicking with my own thoughts after what Veronica Dread and told me earlier in the day. Then again, maybe I was just too drugged to be thinking clearly.