The Animal: The Luke Titan Chronicles #5 Read online

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to the states.”

  “Why aren’t we flying?”

  “Sometimes I like to drive,” Luke said.

  “Are we going to Christian?”

  “Yes.”

  Veronica had barely thought about everything happening around her; there hadn’t been time. And now, the whirlwind continued, whipping her back down to America to go save someone that Luke wanted dead. It made no sense.

  “Why don’t you leave him to die? Wouldn’t that create ripples to help your little plan?”

  “Christian’s death would not create as many ripples as it once would have, though even then, they would have been small. He’s been insulated his whole life, and is even more so now. No, Christian’s fate is much grander than that.”

  “And what if he dies before we get there? Have you calculated that, too?”

  “There’s a chance it happens,” Luke said, “but I think it’s small. The man holding them really wants me, and he knows if Christian isn’t there, I will come when he isn’t expecting me.”

  “So you’re hoping this man’s hate for you keeps Christian alive?”

  “Precisely.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Luke smiled. “Well, I’ve wasted a lot of time on Christian, then.”

  Waverly stepped into the empty parking deck and eyed his car immediately. The hour was late, stretching almost to midnight, and he was beyond beat. He had thought a lot about the call he made yesterday, wondering if it was the right thing to do. He knew wondering about it was silly, especially now. Whatever decision he might come to, it was too late to do anything.

  He had cast the dice, and now could only wait and see what fate decided.

  It wasn’t a decision he had made lightly or without great thought. True, he hadn’t spent months on it, but he began considering it the moment he understood Christian and Tommy’s fate. If Luke was to disappear, then he would pay no price for his crimes. And Luke could disappear if he wanted; he had the resources and intelligence to do it.

  Waverly’s decision was based on that: Luke must pay. The man he hired would never stop. That’s why Waverly went to him. He would keep going, year in and year out if that’s what it took, until Luke paid for his sins. Waverly would lose his job and possibly end up in jail if discovered, but Luke would pay.

  Waverly moved across the lot without much thought as to what he was actually doing. His body was on autopilot while his mind considered the implications of his choice. He unlocked the door and stepped into his car, not seeing the man in the back.

  It was only as he was about to start the engine that he sensed him.

  “Don’t turn around,” a voice said.

  “Okay.”

  Waverly kept both hands on the steering wheel, though the pistol holstered underneath his jacket suddenly felt as heavy as an anvil. He kept his eyes forward, not wanting to look in the rearview and see whoever sat behind him. That could mean the end of Waverly’s life.

  “I’m the man you hired, or rather, the man you had someone else hire. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  There was always the chance that this was some kind of ruse, some political operation to bust Waverly for what he’d just done, so admission could be a disaster. Waverly didn’t think that was the case, though. The man’s voice sounded as though he had never cared about politics on any stage whatsoever.

  “Yes,” Waverly said.

  “Good. I like to meet my clients in person, though only once. You’ll never see me again, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “Okay.” Waverly didn’t know what else to say, and so silence fell over the car. It was an awkward quiet, and Waverly felt like the man was casting judgment on him. He didn’t know what he was being judged for, only that a weight seemed to lay across the car’s interior.

  Waverly refused to break the silence.

  “Do you hear it?” the man asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “His screams.”

  “Whose?” Though Waverly knew the moment he asked that the question was stupid.

  “The person you’re sending me after. I can hear them already. They’re loud and they’re echoing off walls. I think he’s going to scream a lot before this is all over … Do you want him to scream? And don’t lie, I’ll be able to tell.”

  “Yes,” Waverly said without hesitation.

  “Good. You told the truth. It’s always best to be honest in these type of situations. Lying in business is never good.”

  Waverly remained silent, realizing that whoever was behind him—at the very least—was operating on a different plane. More likely, the man was mentally deranged.

  And this is who you hired, Alan. This is what you’ve gotten yourself into.

  “It’s okay, Director. I’m going to make sure everything is okay. I just wanted to meet you. I’ll be on my way now. You won’t hear from me again, but I’ll send you a tape of his screams when it’s over.”

  Waverly nodded once and continued staring out the front window.

  The car’s back door opened and he listened as the man stepped from the car, his eyes not flashing to the rearview once.

  The door shut and finally Waverly looked behind him. He saw the man’s back as he walked across the empty deck. Waverly didn’t step from his car nor draw his weapon. He remained still and watched as the killer slowly withdrew from sight.

  I think he’s going to scream a lot before this is all over.

  Good, Waverly thought, even as he knew that he’d sent a psychopath to kill a psychopath.

  Chapter 7

  “I’d rather you not die, Veronica, so I’m going to have to insist upon you remaining here, in the trunk.”

  Luke didn’t look over at her as he spoke. He was staring at a warehouse in great disrepair and wondering how many hands Charles Twaller had to grease in order to keep it from being demolished.

  “I’m not getting in there,” Veronica said.

  “Let’s not be obtuse. You will be getting in the trunk one way or another, and if you’d prefer to not wake up with a massive headache, I’d suggest you do it voluntarily.” He still didn’t look over, having anticipated her token protest. She would protest anything he said from now until her death, and while slightly annoying, Luke wouldn’t let it bother him.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked after a few minutes.

  Luke had lost himself in the silence, the binoculars held to his eyes. His mind was busy with the plan unfolding before him. Luke understood the danger he was about to place himself in, and that it would be the greatest he’d ever experienced. There were instances in the past—the preacher man as well as others—that could have ended in Luke’s death, but none like this. He was walking into hostile territory alone, a place ruled by a ruthless killer intent on murdering him.

  Luke wasn’t fearful for his life, but rather his purpose.

  And as the plan to free Christian developed, he asked himself if this was worth it.

  The chance of death—perhaps even the probability of death—if he continued down this path with Christian Windsor.

  The answer wasn’t immediate, but as Veronica’s question hung in the air, Luke’s mind slowly found the truth. No startling leap of insight. No whirl of genius. Just truth, heavy and burdensome.

  Yes, Christian’s life was worth death. It was odd for Luke to feel this way, especially after so many years in which no one’s life had been worth the possibility of his own death. His brother had been the last.

  “Do you even know what you’re going to do?”

  “Yes,” Luke said, pulling the binoculars from his eyes. “I’m going to go get Christian. Now, in the trunk you go.”

  Charles was tired of the warehouse. He wasn’t one to grow restless easily, but he’d moved from a log cabin to this broken down heap and been in hiding for nearly a month. He was ready to be done with this.

  Did he have to kill Titan now?

 
; Was it necessary?

  The FBI was still hunting both of them, no doubt about it. The FBI might be in disarray, but that didn’t mean they had stopped. Sooner or later, they would find Charles if he stayed in country.

  He had his ‘fuck you’ money now, the type of funds that would allow him to ignore anyone and everything. Waiting here wasn’t smart, not anymore—if it ever had been.

  Or maybe Charles was simply putting logic behind his desire to get the hell out of this warehouse. The reasoning was solid, though.

  Charles struggled up from his own cot, his large stomach making it difficult for him. One of his bodyguards had hung a rope from the ceiling, and once he sat up, he used it to pull himself to his feet. Maybe he would lose some weight once this was done. The rope thing … well, needing that had been a bit of a surprise for him.

  Charles got to his feet and let the rope swing back to its place above his cot.

  “Goddamnit,” he said, realizing he’d left his pistol on the floor next to it.

  He bent over, his stomach bulging out like some massive dinosaur’s egg. He threw his hand at the ground and snagged the pistol, then stood back up.

  Charles’s clothes were disheveled and his hair a mess, but he didn’t care about any of that. He only wanted out of this damned place.

  And that’s what he was going to do. Get out of here.

  He waddled across the warehouse until he reached the mental freak and invalid’s room. One hung like Jesus from the cross and the other lay like a pharaoh in a pyramid.

  “Go get the men ready. We’re leaving,” Charles said to the two bodyguards as he entered. “I want to be gone in an hour.”

  “Them?” one of the guards asked.

  “They’re not coming.”

  The two said nothing as they left the room.

  The freak’s chains rattled as he turned to look at Charles. Charles wasn’t easily shocked, but seeing Windsor like this, with lights shining down on his gaunt figure … it was almost frightening. He looked harrowing, his body thin from lack of nutrition, and yet his face was swollen and fat as if he’d eaten nothing but sugar his entire life. His lips were purple hotdogs and his nose like some bloated pancake smacked down on his face.

  “No worries, Windsor. No more suffering for you or your crippled friend over there. We’re going to put a stop to all that right now and go our separate ways. I’ll still be on Earth. You get to go to whatever afterlife there is. I hope you’ll write, if you can. I’ve always wanted to know what’s on the other side.”

  Charles raised the gun and pointed it directly at Windsor’s head.

  He felt the giggle rising in him, ready to come out as soon as he blew the man’s face off.

  The lights went black just as his finger started squeezing, cutting Charles vision off and killing the laughter in his throat. He stopped pulling the trigger.

  Charles turned around and saw a bit of moonlight making its way in through the windows, but it did little to illuminate the rest of the floor.

  Laughter.

  Right in front of him.

  Sick and loud. Insane laughter, sounding nothing like the slight giggle he’d hoped to make moments before.

  It was the fucking freak.

  He was laughing.

  “What the fuck is so funny?” Charles said. He stepped forward, and grabbed blindly, taking the freak by his hair and then bringing the gun’s barrel up to what he guessed was his face.

  “He’s here,” Windsor bellowed into the empty warehouse. “HEEEE’SSSSS HEEERREEEE!”

  Luke was, indeed, there.

  The vehicle was parked safely three miles away; He’d carefully walked the distance to the warehouse, taking about an hour.

  A man lay dead at his feet, Luke having slit his throat from ear to ear. Blood spilled everywhere, drenching both him and the floor. He hadn’t had this much blood on him since killing those two cops in front of Hinson’s house.

  Luke stood in front of one of the warehouse’s circuit breakers. Five large levers were in front of him, and he’d pulled each one, killing the power to different sections of the building. The man who now lay at his feet had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wasn’t guarding the circuit breaker, just walking by them.

  Now the building was cast in darkness, at least Luke’s part. The warehouse was large and Luke knew he might not be in the correct area, but he’d have to clear it out section by section until he found who he wanted.

  Luke put the knife in his left hand, then reached down with his right and pulled a Glock from the dead man’s waist.

  He stood and silently moved into the darkness like a wraith.

  “He’s here, Charles. He finally came, just like you wanted.”

  Christian said the words though he hardly recognized them. A wild—perhaps manic—glee ran through him, and the words pouring from his mouth weren’t his. They weren’t what he would think or do in normal circumstances, and at least some part of him recognized that. Still, he couldn’t stop them.

  “Charles, you wanted him. Go meet him. Go see Luke!” he shouted, swinging against the chains, causing them to clang out into the darkness.

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

  Christian swung so that he could see Tommy. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness as much as they could, allowing him to just make out his friend on the cot. He was lying still, staring upwards—but his eyes were open. And that was good. Christian didn’t know why, but it was good.

  Because maybe Tommy hadn’t given up.

  The fat man waddled to the edge of the room, opened the door, and then shouted, “SOMEBODY GET UP HERE AND TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!”

  “Where’s your radio, Chaarrrllleesss?” Christian sang across the empty room.

  The fat man didn’t turn around, but kept staring out into the dark hallway.

  A shot rang out, sounding hollow and haunting. Two more followed right after.

  “If theeeeeey stooooop, Charles, that means you got him. If they don’t … heeeee’ssss still coming!”

  The words flew from Christian’s lips, sounding insane as they filled the room. He felt insane. A combination of giddy and bloodthirsty. Christian wanted blood, more than he’d ever wanted it in his life. He wanted to watch Charles Twaller roast like a pig on a spit, turning slowly so that each side grew to just the right temperature.

  Another shot, and then two more quickly behind it.

  “Oh, he’s here, Charles. He’s here and he’s coming for you.”

  Luke’s eyes allowed him to see better than the people hunting him. He didn’t know if word had spread about who they were looking for, but the noise his gun gave off certainly told them much of what they needed to know. There was an intruder, and he was armed.

  Luke stood against the wall, his back and head flush against it. There were no windows in this hallway, only doors to rooms, which meant darkness reigned. Even Luke found it hard to see here, but all of his senses were alert. He’d killed five men already, but had no idea how many more were actually in the building.

  He stood completely still and waited.

  Minutes passed but Luke never wavered, even as the silence stretched, the hallway feeling like a dead crypt—where he might forever wait on enemies who wouldn’t show.

  Eventually he heard two people moving down the hallway, their entrance telling him the direction he needed to go. He saw their flashlight next, watching it hit the far wall as they walked down a perpendicular hallway. He moved toward them, timing his pace with the swing of the light. He stopped just as he and they arrived at the turning point.

  Luke flattened himself against the wall and watched as the two men came into view. Their flashlight bounced off the opposite side, and although their weapons were up and ready, it was too late. Luke’s pistol fired twice and the men dropped to the ground, their heads obliterated. The flashlight rolled further down the hallway, finally coming to a stop against the wall and having turned to illuminate the two dead men.
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  Luke glanced at them momentarily, and as he did, he thought briefly about Veronica’s question: did the agent’s death not matter to him? No more than these two men’s deaths would matter to her. He doubted she would understand that, though. To her, these two men were bad guys, thus they deserved their demise. The FBI agent had been ‘good’ and his death was unjust. She would never see it as Luke did. No matter, she would die as these two did.

  Luke walked to the flashlight, squatted, and turned it off, casting the world into dark once again.

  Tommy heard Christian practically shrieking, and he didn’t like it one bit. He sounded insane, and not simply like some of the criminals they had chased. He sounded like he should be housed in an asylum, a straightjacket wrapped around his body, and perhaps drool falling from his mouth most of the day.

  He sounded like something inside him had broken.

  “CHAARRLLIEEE, LUUUKEEE’SS HEEERREE!”

  Tommy could just make out the fat man’s movement as he stepped inside the room’s doorway. He watched as Twaller moved further into the room, the darkness surrounding him shrouding his intentions.

  “You,” Charles said, walking up to the cot. “Your freak partner has lost his goddamn mind, so you and I are in this together. Get up.”

  The fat man reached down and tried picking Tommy up, but even with lifting underneath Tommy’s arms, Twaller couldn’t move him higher than about a foot off the bed, his lower body still lying on the cot.

  The fat man dropped him, breathing heavy. “God-fucking-damn it.”

  Twaller turned and looked at Christian. Tommy could see the man was scared now, and it was a fear he wasn’t used to, something he didn’t understand. It was causing him to lose focus, and soon he’d start making poor decisions, if he hadn’t already. Twaller was used to being in control, and the entire time he did this, he thought he would be in control when Luke showed up. The lights, though—that had been all it took to unnerve the squat, fat man. He hadn’t expected Luke to do something that simple, and now he didn’t have his radio and couldn’t see.