Strumming his guitar gently, crooning a sweet melody, the man sat on the stool. Washed in the glow of the single stage light on him, he serenaded the audience. He was a trim man in tight fitting pants and a yellow turtleneck. The Latino singer jumped from his seat as the song took a lively turn, swaying and bouncing to the music his caramel-skinned hands produced on the strings.

Adrian Martinez looked out into the crowd of nameless faces in the small coffee house. He panned his handsome face, with gleaming teeth and styled black hair, across the audience of mostly females; women whose husbands couldn’t stand the shit. As he sang the chorus to his song, "My Dancing Lady", each one in attendance heard their own name.

He ended with a bow. “Thank you. Thank You.” He looked at his instrument briefly as he changed the tuning. “This next song is for anyone who has every been lonely.”

Looking up at his adoring fans in the small concert area of the Java Bean Coffee House, sent a dark chill humming down Adrian’s back like a rancid note in the reaper’s song. At the back of the room he saw two faces he hadn’t seen in years. He knew they hadn’t come for the entertainment. Malton’s boys only showed up when trouble was afoot.

The minstrel began his next song, then his next and his next until the clock on the wall read 3:30. Realizing his set was up made the singer afraid. Soon the audience would be gone leaving him with his demons from the past.

Adrian leaned his guitar against his stool and walked down the stage steps. He signed a few autographs and posed for pictures with adoring fans, all the while trying to keep his fear in check. Gradually, the fans funneled out the door. Adrian stumbled through a little small talk with the wait staff cleaning up the tables around him. He couldn’t get his mind off the men staring holes in his back. Glancing over his shoulder, he almost choked on his own horror. They were moving toward him. Hamilton gave the universal sign for you better not try and fucking run; he slid his hand inside his suit.

The stage lighting went out and the regular room lighting came on. A waitress nearby looked up and smiled at the blonde with his long hair slicked back into a ponytail. His face was peppered with a few days growth.

“Miss, can we speak to Mr. Martinez alone? My associate and I are from Capricorn Records and we want to offer him a deal.”

“Oh, sure,” she said with genuine excitement for the coffee house’s regular performer. “I’ll finish up when you guys are done.” Leaving her dish bin on the table, she hurried through the kitchen door in the far side of the room.

Adrian didn’t move any closer. He feigned a smile. “Ole Hamilton, always a believable story.”

“People believe what sounds right to ‘em,” he crossed his arms, proud of his quick thinking, “and it makes sense that somebody would give you a record deal.”

“I’ve been working pretty hard.” Adrian said calmly. “Now that I finally put my old life behind me, I’ve been able to focus on my music.”

“That’s why we’ve been looking for you all night, Martinez.” JD was an ordinary looking man in olive pants and a white button down shirt. Adrian knew he was packing heat in his brown sports coat. If these guys were still anything like they had been when he was working for Malton, he knew he had to be cool. They were mean dudes.

“What part?” The Latino asked.

“Your old life.” Hamilton pulled out a chair and signaled for Adrian to sit. Then Malton’s men joined him. “The boss had some trouble with some guy tonight. Apparently he’s some martial arts freak, jumping around, the whole bit. Malton wants you to take him out.”

Adrian shook his head. “I’m done guys. I put my guns down five years ago, and I haven’t thought about them since.”

JD shook his head as he reached in his sports coat pocket and pulled out a tube of toothpicks, popped one in his mouth. “You’re done once you finish this job.”

In a cool voice, Adrian addressed Hamilton. He was the one in charge if things were still the same. “You’re going to have to kill me, amigos. I’m not using my guns again.”

“How about instead of killing you, Adrian, we go help the cops solve the two unsolved murders you’re connected to. I think they’d appreciate it, don’t you.” Hamilton got up from his chair, ponytail bouncing on his back. “We’ll be expecting a call from you tomorrow.”

Using another bit of street sign language, JD snapped his toothpick in half and dropped the pieces on the floor. “Don’t make us come find you either.”

When the two men were gone Adrian’s face fell into his hands.


* * *


All resistance against the leather cords fastened tight at wrist and ankles was quiet. Screams of pain, incomprehensible, begging for mercy behind the gag, were no more than an echo in Madame Freeta’s mind. Looking upon her grizzly work, dangling limp from the ceiling, aroused a slight uneasy feeling within her, but she quickly shoved it into the corner of her subconscious. If someone had to die, so be it. She was not going to lose the idol.

The hanging man’s torso was striped with blistery trails of blood and pus from the trails of scalding water that had slowly taken his life. Deep cuts creased his arms and legs where he was fastened by the leather straps; fighting had been useless. Cooked human mixed with the smell of urine and feces from his body’s final thundering convulsion before expelling his soul into oblivion gave the quiet basement an offensive odor.

“Very nice, Mistress,” the demon’s voice from the old man broke the mausoleum silence around him, “I commend your excellent work.”

There was nothing to be said. Madame Freeta had no choice. The sooner she retrieved her precious dragon the sooner she would be rid of this horrid creature. With practiced hands she untied the bonds, and the body fell to the floor.

The animated form of the old man at her back stepped closer, peering down onto the still corpse. “Take off the mask. Let’s see his eyes.” He gave the woman a hideous grin, further wrinkling his skin and nearly raising his eyebrows off his face. “You want to see the eyes don’t you, Mistress?”

When she pulled off the leather face covering, a chilling gasp sprang from her as if she had been punched in the stomach. The man’s mouth was smeared with spittle and blood from his violent spasms. But what had chilled Freeta to the bone were the eyes, wide with terror. There was no mistaking that this man had died in horrible anguish. She had to look away from the dull accusing glint.

“Look at him!” the possessed man roared, “Look at him now, bitch!”

Freeta wanted to be away from this death, this unnatural force she had aligned herself with, have her idol and be gone for another hundred years. The trembling in the spirit’s voice warned her that he was in no mood for her shame. Brushing her dyed locks from her face, Madame Freeta turned once more to face the man she had prepared for another tortured spirit.

She felt cold lips nibble on her ear. Dead breath raised goose bumps on the nape of her neck. The thought of how close the vile fiend was to her was unnerving. She kept her eyes glued to the body on the floor. “Call for the restless damned.” The grim whisper was her cue.

She leaned over her former client, now burned, soulless, and shoved her finger far back into her throat. At first she coughed as her invading finger brought forth a gurgling protest from her throat. Tears streamed from beneath her tightly closed eyes and she pressed her finger deeper. On the heels of her next gag a soppy spray of vomit spewed from between her red lips, covering the man’s face and blistered chest. Her lips were around the knuckle of her long slender digit when she heaved a second time. Thick chunks floated in a soupy green fluid.

With the finger she used to gag herself, the woman drew a cryptic symbol on the dead man’s chest in her vomit. “From the pit of my being, great darkness, I bring forth the bile of rage, anger, and of hate that I give in glory of your wickedness! In return I ask for the service of one of the damned!” Glaring into her victim’s lifeless eyes, her voice was filled with passion. “Spit forth from your black heart. . .” Her voice shook with intensity. “...the restless damned!”

Then she saw one of the eyes blink. The frothed lips curled into a sneer.

As the zombie of boiled flesh sat on the excrement-stained floor, he laughed, disconnected, insane. His loud laughter frightened Freeta. She tried to conceal it, but these things, her servants, they knew.

The fresh beast skulked over to the woman on hands and knees, stopping inches from her face. With a jab at it's face, it pointed toward one of it's eyes. “Take it out for me, witch!” She didn’t move. Her fright held her prisoner. There was absolutely no way of knowing what this abomination was planning. “Take it out now!” It shrieked. Her hands instinctively flew to her mouth to keep her fear trapped within her.

With a shaky finger she dug her black nail into the soft sclera, eye juices squirting down the dead face. The whole time the zombie cackled hysterically at the obvious disgust on her face. “As long as we know who’s working for who!”

The old man’s laughter joined in, two voices in a twisted harmony.


* * *


The night was clear. It had lost its ebony hue and was moving closer to the deep blue of predawn twilight and the moon was a crescent of sliver. The lone figure draped in a long coat and the shadows of the dark alleyway walked down the refuse-stained concrete, leather shoes grinding the grit of the city under foot. Straight ahead the edges of the buildings forming the alley framed a small section of the busy street.

Sabian could make out the blur of cars racing by in the night. Passersby hurried to and fro. They laughed and talked, some walked hand in hand. He tried to think back to the days before his turning; it seemed more a dream to him now than anything. In those days he had the good fortune of ignorance. He knew very little of the pain that could exist in the world. He had been so certain of his own greatness, like a soldier drunk on too much ale. The world had hinged on the most insignificant details much like it probably did for the mortals before him. A flickering feeling of jealousy trickled down through his mind. That innocence was what he longed to recapture. Sabian knew all too well that his doom could come in the form of sunlight, a stake through the heart, decapitation, or being injured to the point that he was unable to feed. These things never left his mind. He knew that he had to kill to live; prisoner to a fate he would not have chosen on his own. He knew death all too well. And he had been utterly alone since that fateful night more than twelve hundred years ago. Chained to his undead existence by blood he was the slave that could slay any king. The world was the way it was, and he knew he could leave or stay. Immortality had its price.

Turning left at the end of the alley he walked down the busy street. His journey was set to the thumping sound of a car stereo. A carload of teenagers raced by screaming with youthful bliss. “Love the coat, dude!’ One of them howled.

A smile came over his pale face. I’d give my soul back for that. His dark mood passed as quick as it had come upon him. He had what these pitiful mortals would give anything for.

The glow of a streetlight washed over a crowd. Most were young people partaking of the downtown delights; bars, restaurants, pool halls. But on the periphery of the light, pressed back against the wall of a t-shirt shop, was one of the unfortunate ones. A dirty soul that God had apparently forgotten stood with sorrowful eyes begging for a hand out. As Sabian passed the longhaired man, he turned when he heard the forlorn voice. “Twenty bucks, I’ll give you a blowjob.”

The vampire stopped and looked at the man. There was a burning hate in his eyes for all the people that had more than him. He said what he said not because he wanted to, but because it had worked before. There was still pride in him, but it was faint. Reaching into his coat, Sabian saw the man’s jaw clench, rage at what he had become for green paper with numbers. The creature of the night was careful not to reveal his weapons. Sabian didn’t want to present a temptation for the desperate man. In his present state of poverty he might not be able to resist.

Rubbing his chin, the man looked around. “We can step over into that parking lot if you want.”

Sabian withdrew a brown envelope and slowly extended it to the man. He looked down, took it. “What’s this?’

Again Sabian slid his hand into the fold of his black coat. This time he retrieved a single bill, a thousand, and tore it in half. He outstretched half to the dirty man. Nicotine stained fingers hesitantly reached for the bill fragment. By the tint of his skin, Sabian guessed the man hadn’t washed in weeks. Guessing the vagrant’s age was a difficult task. The dirt seemed to add years to the man’s tired looking body, but the hit man put him at thirty. Straw-like hair swung in his unshaven face, and his eyes shown with the astonishment of a native laying eyes on the modern world for the very first time.

He snatched the bill from Sabian’s fingers and crumpled it into his pocket.

“I want you to deliver this package,” Sabian said, looking around to see that they weren’t being watched, “and the other half is yours.”

The man smiled licking his upper lip. “Where does it go?”

“The Royal Oak, to the Malton penthouse. Tell the doorman you need to personally deliver this to Steven Malton. I’ll be here, and don’t keep me waiting.”

Panic and excitement surged through the man of the street, and his hands signaled for Sabian to wait. “Gi’me thirty minutes, I’ll be back.” The man turned and started to run off on his mission, but turned back. He didn’t want to take his eyes off the tall figure in the black coat. The strange man held the other half of his future. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Then he ran down the street as if he were being chased by the devil himself.

Sabian had stood in those pitiful shoes himself for nearly a decade before he was brought into the company of the damned. He had been on one of the first long ships that landed on the shores of Iceland. His uncle Ottar had taken his family from Norway to find riches in the new land. For four years they scratched on the hard soil and endured the jaws of winter. Thinking back, Sabian could remember a time when he lived off little more than a meal a week. He shook his head knowing full well that poverty will make man go to unusual ends. In early 793, he left his uncle’s house to return to Norway, and later that year he was involved in a raid on a monastery that changed the course of his existence.

He turned and continued down the street, making his way through the people. The homeless man would not return. Malton would see to that.

Sabian tossed the other half of the bill to the ground. The sun would be up soon. He needed to return to the earth. Tomorrow night he would call on Steven Malton.


* * *


The ring of the phone couldn’t have come at a better time. The three men had been sitting in the penthouse living room for over an hour doing nothing, nothing that is, except listening to the ranting of a frightened man. Steven Malton lounged deep in the cushion of the leather couch. Two empty scotch bottles lay at his feet, and with haggard expression and bloodshot eyes, the man looked every bit like he’d finished them both. Clumsily he slurped a sip out of a green beer bottle. Paranoia kicked in when the sound of the cordless phone sounded again, and the bottle dropped from his hand, splashing onto the carpet.

He yanked the uzi from its resting place on his lap. The barrel waving in the air made all three of his henchmen nervous, but no one was going to say anything. When the boss was worked up, there was no telling what he'd do.

“What the fuck is zat?’ He slurred drunkenly, his southern drawl almost comical in his inebriated state.

“Phone, boss.” Ted was happy to do something besides sit. He’d rather be fucking one of those whores, but Malton had thrown them out. By the time they had arrived, the two bottles had kicked in and he was afraid they might be working for the guy that bit out Ozzy’s brain.

“Yeah,” the big man spoke into the phone. “You know him.” Malton didn’t notice the look Ted shot to JD and Hamilton. It was a call to arms from the narrow eyes under his monobrow. “Ok, send him up.”

“Who is it?! Who is it?!” Steven staggered to his feet nearly tripping as one of the bottles rolled out from under his foot. “Who the fuck was that?!”

Dropping the phone in his chair, Ted stood and pulled the .45 from the waistband of his slacks. Looking at the other two men, the large bodyguard spoke excitedly. “Some dude’s on his way up.” Ted directed his words at the boss. “He’s bringing up a package for you.”

Malton blinked his eyes. He couldn’t quite focus them the way he wanted. The man was swaying like a skyscraper in the wind. “What is it,” he asked hurriedly. Fear was the dominant emotion in his voice.

The boss was in no shape to handle the stress of the situation and Ted didn’t want anyone getting hurt, least of all himself, if the drunken bastard took a notion to start shooting. His Neanderthal head nodded, forehead crinkled, and JD and Hamilton got the message. Both men moved in the direction of the foyer withdrawing their firearms as they walked.

Ted had worked for the boss for eleven years or so. He never would have called Malton a friend. It was pretty much a business arrangement, but he had the best chance of getting the boss to step back for a minute and let them handle the situation. What he really wanted to do was tell the drunken mother fucker to go sleep it off, but that wasn’t going to happen, so he played it cool instead.

“Boss, why don’t you go relax in your office, and when the guy comes up, we’ll get him in to see ya?” Even that would make sense to a drunk, he hoped.

At first the nod was slow, then it built into an emphatic gesture. Gritting his teeth, Malton pushed out his angry words. “That’s right.” The slurring was pathetic. “I wanna meet the fugger. He’s got some splaining to do.”

Malton was a lucky man, and he didn’t even know it. If Ted was power-hungry, this was that one in a million chance. He could have killed the boss before he even knew it.

“Let me hold the gun, boss,” Ted asked putting out an open hand, “we got it all under control.”

He handed over the gun. “Don’t let those bastards kill him. That fucker is mine.” Malton turned and walked down the long carpeted hall coming off the large den. For a minute Ted watched him until he heard the boss' feet pounding on the stairs once he rounded the corner.

Ted gave a sigh of relief and headed in the direction of the foyer. Sometimes he really earned his money working for Malton. Once he heard the doorbell ring, he picked up his pace.


* * *


Steven kicked back in his leather chair, feet up on the wooden desktop. The room was tremendous. The majority of it was covered in marble tile, but up a set of stairs to the left as one entered the room was a cubbyhole floored with ivory carpet. Malton liked the little area and its panoramic window looking out over the city, particularly the Space Needle. He had sealed many a deal from the comfortable spot. The man cared little for the pool table behind him, and he tended not to drink in this room, but the bar got its use from the guests at his meetings. As for the books lining the walls; mostly decoration. The events of the night had left him on edge. He wasn’t in the mood for watching the flat screen TV or listening to the stereo.

Outside his window, the city sky had lost all sign of night and along the horizon of skyscrapers was a soft yellow glow. The man brought his eyes from the beautiful scene back to the object in his lap. His fingers glided over the surface of the little silver dragon like a blind man.

“I know there must be some secret to this thing,” he mumbled.

With his shirttail, he polished the purple gemstone eyes. Their hue was as deep as wine, almost black in the natural lighting. Each scale, claw, ridge along its back, and the spread wings were carved with marvelous detail. Turning it over and over in his hand revealed nothing.

“Too many people have told me you are the source of the whore’s youth,” he spoke softly to the idol. “You now have a new master.”

A knock at the door reminded Malton of the business at hand. Setting the tiny statue on the desk, he pulled himself up in the chair. Snatching a remote control form the top drawer, he turned on the lights in the room. Then, his chair spun with ease so he could face his soon to be audience.

“Come in.”

The door swung wide and Ted led a filthy looking man into the room at gunpoint. Malton thought it was a joke. The guy looked more like he made a wrong turn looking for the soup kitchen. But his mind walked back to several hours earlier, the guy in the white shirt that had bit out Ozzy’s brains was nothing to brag about either.

“Boss, this guy say he’s got a message for you.”

First his expression said it, then Malton followed up with words. “What is it? I’m not in the mood for any games.”

Fright clutched the man so tightly he tripped over his words as he spoke. “Man, I’m not in on anything, ok. Some guy on the street paid me to deliver a note to you. That’s it.”

“Sit on the floor and grab your ankles. Move, and I’ll shoot you.” Ted spoke like a drill instructor at boot camp. The man responded in kind as Ted walked up to Malton and handed him an envelope from his coat pocket. Immediately after, his attention refocused on the filth-covered man on the floor. “That’s all he had on him.”

Malton ripped the envelope open and pulled out the note.

Without seeing his boss, Ted felt the paranoia return as it had been in the height of the boss’ drunken stupor. He couldn’t miss the shaking in his voice. “Who the fuck gave you this?!” Ted heard his boss wad up the paper.

“Some guy in a black coat, tall, foreign accent.” The man’s voice broke and tears streaked his face. “I never saw him in my life. He didn’t give a name or nothing, just told me where I could find you.”

“I’m only going to ask you one time. Where is he? You tell me, and he puts a bullet in the back of your head.” Spinning his chair around, Malton reached under his desk. Once facing the man again he slapped a baseball bat in his hands. “If I have to get it out of you, you’re not going to like me.”

“I’m not lying. I never met the guy before. You gotta believe me. I was just trying to make a few bucks.” His shoulders sank, and his head drooped. “I swear that’s it,” he pleaded. A sudden horror ran down the man’s spine when he heard the leather chair sigh and footsteps coming down the stairs.

The voice that dripped over him was seething, acidic with anger. “I don’t believe you! I guess I’m going to have to take the other approach!”

From his seat on the floor the man looked up at the exact moment Malton raised the bat; face snarled like a barbarian at the gates of Rome. He managed to raise his arm hoping to keep the bat away from his head. A sharp stab of pain at impact ran up the man’s forearm and clawed its way into his brain. As if out of his control he balled up on the floor clutching his arm, rocking as he howled.

Speaking through gritted teeth, Steven brought the bat down a second time. “Hell comes after dark, huh.” He quoted the note. The blow to the man’s leg made a loud crack, and the man shrieked like a child.

“Where is he?!” The bat slammed into the man’s side twice. The sound of ribs cracking was audible. Blood began pooling on the floor from the incredible damage to the man’s leg.

Malton halted the rain of blunt death for a moment giving the man a chance to answer. Gradually, the screams quieted, but moist breaths sloshed from the man as he forced himself to reply. “I. . .don’t know him. . .”

A growl drowned out the faint words. Steven was back on the warpath and the bat fell mercilessly. Dark stains seeped through the man’s clothes, and his body was limp; not even screams anymore. The bat slammed into the man’s head. Ash against skull sent a wave of force through the still body and it shuddered as if a mild electric shock had been applied. Bone sank into a bloody face with the next blow and dark matter oozed through the cracks.

A final double-handed swing broke the skull apart allowing a wave of gore to explode unimpeded across the tile. With rage drained from him, Malton tossed the bat to the floor. “Get that piece of shit out of my sight,” he growled through heavy breaths.

Ted knew now was no time for questions. Quickly he slipped his gun into his coat and started dragging the corpse by the arms to the door. The broken head leaving a wide brush stroke of death’s favorite shade of red. As he watched his man back out the open door and the dead man soon follow, Malton still wore a mask of anger. But his thoughts were of fear. He had seen the mystery man in action, survive bullets and back flip thirty feet. There was reason to be afraid.

Before the door closed, he bellowed his final order. “Nobody disturbs me, period!” He stepped to the door and slammed it.

On his desk he could see the silver dragon shining from the first rays of sunlight peeking over the tops of the city’s gods. It’s gemstone eyes sparkled alluringly. He walked across the fresh coat of death on the floor, up the steps, and dropped into his chair. The figurine was beautiful with the sun’s accents. Malton picked it up to resume his investigation and he felt a strange sensation on his right hand. There was a dot of blood on the back of his hand. It’s heat grew until there was an intense burning. Smoke came from the frying skin. He panicked, flailing his hand wildly trying to get the blood off. Then he wiped the back of his hand on his tux; nothing.

The dragon’s purple eyes glowed brightly. He forgot all about the pain from his hand. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” He smiled, pleased with his good fortune. “Come on, that’s it,” he coaxed. A strange swirling light like tiny clouds spiraled from the gemstone eyes. Slowly it ebbed up the man’s arm. The air grew chilly, unexplainably, and Malton’s heart raced. Purplish energy wound slowly around him. He felt a strange sense of relaxation wash over him. The dragon’s power had been tapped. * * * Adrian woke up to the sensation of his penis engorging with blood, warm electric pleasure surged through him and curled up in his mind. Soft fingertips touched his chest, and he heard a woman’s satisfied moans. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he looked up into a vaguely familiar face, ringlets of blonde hair falling around her face. As she ground her hips in to him, he grabbed hold of her buttocks and thrust himself deeper into her. He could see her red lips round and give birth to a sound of ecstasy. Dark nipples hardened has her firm breasts bounced against her chest.

He wasn’t about to stop her, but Adrian was at a loss as to who she was. He searched deep in the reaches of his hazy, alcoho- fatigued mind for a clue, but nothing came. There was no question he had spent at least part of the previous night in the bottle. His head throbbed and his mouth was like cotton.

“Baby,” she moaned, “when you get that contract, you’re gonna get this sweet pussy any time you want it.” Her hips rocked on his crotch shooting bursts of pleasure through him. She slung her hair out of her face and started riding harder. That was the clue he needed. Adrian was fucking the waitress from the coffee house. The whole chain of events quickly came back to him. After Hamilton and JD left, she came back to finish cleaning the table. He remembered the obvious stars in her eyes. They had fed her that bullshit line about being from a record company to get rid of her, and she bought it hook, line, and sinker. When she asked if he needed someone to celebrate with, he took her up on the offer. He needed to get his mind off Hamilton’s bad news. She was as good a distraction as any.

Her moaning intensified as he thrust deeper into her, and she mashed herself onto him. At the moment he spent himself, she let out a wild cry of pleasure and collapsed onto his chest, licking his nipple playfully.

“I got things to do, baby. I hate to be this way, but I’ll catch up with you next time I’m at the coffee house.” He didn’t want to be rude about getting her out of his apartment. That definitely was not his thing. Under other circumstances, he would have shown her a good time all day, but he had to get ready to go visit Malton.

She rolled her eyes up at him and grinned lustily. “Come on, just one more time.”

“I promise you we’ll get together again. I’ve really got some stuff to do.” Then it hit him. He could get rid of her the same way he had gotten her into bed in the first place. “I’ve got to work some business things out with the guys from last night.”

Leaning forward, she kissed him on the forehead. “I’ll see you later.”

She climbed off him and walked toward the bathroom. Adrian watched her as she went. The sound of the water running helped lull him into thought. If he had just gotten out of the Java Bean twenty minutes earlier, he never would have laid eyes on his former companions. He wouldn’t have been dragged back into the scene. That was a load of crap and he knew it, but he was reaching for answers. Malton would have found him sooner or later. The water stopped, and a few minutes later, the waitress came out of the bathroom, dressed . He couldn’t even remember her name, didn’t even know if he ever knew.

By the sunshine coming through the window across from his bed, he figured it had to be close to noon. Looking to his left confirmed his suspicion. The red numbers on the alarm clock read, 11:49. Based on the speed at which she gave him a peck on the cheek and dashed off, Adrian assumed she was expected at work soon; if she wasn’t already late.

He didn’t know if he was going to be able to do it again; kill, that is. Since the last time he pulled the trigger, a lot of things had happened. He was now right with the Catholic Church which he had only had an affiliation with through his mother’ s constant praying out loud and talking to Mary when he was a boy. Music was going well, and he had finally arrived at being able to pay the bills using his guitar. Killing was the last thing on his mind, but he was all too aware of what happened to people that told Steven Malton no. He used to handle them personally, in fact.

The trim Latino man got up from the bed and kneeled down beside it. He reached into the black space beneath his boxsprings and pulled out an iron box with a combination lock. Once he slid it out onto the wood floor where he could see it, the man tried to recall the last time he’d seen the box, but he couldn’t; 3,7,9, and the box opened.

Two single action Colt. 45s with pearl handles rested on a velvet pillow. He couldn’t help but bask in their beauty. Like an addict who always had the potential to go back to the needle, Adrian Martinez knew the gun was his Achilles heel. With the same gentleness he touched his rosary or the tender body of a lover, he lifted one of the guns. The hammer came back with ease. He gently disarmed it and admired how the light played on the shining steel.

He knew exactly when the last time he had held his weapons was. That cold November night he had waited in the parking lot four hours before the guy, Jack Shannon, or something like that, finally showed up. Three quick shots in the head and the man was dead. Adrian tried to think back to why he killed the man, but the reason for the slaughter had left him.

The gun fit nicely back in it's place on the pillow. There was no way he was going to be able to do this. He’d have to call Malton and tell him that his guns were no longer for hire. If it meant time in jail for murder, so be it. He had spent the last five years of his life trying to put his past behind him and move on with his music. There was no way he was going to throw all that away for some Goddamn thug.

Adrian placed the gun box on the bed and looked down at his weapons. There was a part of him glad to see them, a part of him tired of struggling for a music dream that might not ever happen. That shadow in his mind told him to pick up the guns again and feel how well the pearl grips fit into his hand. Then it occurred to him that he had no choice, the last thing JD said to him summed it all up. If he didn’t do this job for Malton, he was worm food. Tthey wouldn’t go to the cops.

Then, he picked up the guns. Bathed in sunshine the naked Latino rock star pulled back both hammers and spun the pistols on his fingers. It looked like somebody was going to die one last time, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.

Less than an hour later, he wiped the fog from the mirror in the bathroom. A black t-shirt clung to his dark-skinned body, and his black hair hung in his face. Slow strokes from his comb brought the dark locks off his forehead. A handful of gel held the slicked back due in place. He wiped Obsession into his skin filling the muggy bathroom with a sensuous smell. From the back of the sink, Adrian lifted his rosary and placed it over his head; a silent prayer to Mary that she would help guide him from the darkness.

The man stepped into the bedroom tucking his t-shirt into his fitted black jeans. Reaching into his closet, he pushed garments aside until he found a hand-sewn black vest. On the hanger with it were two shoulder holsters. A sequence he had not used in years came to him as if he had done it yesterday, and he buckled the holsters on. Both guns slid into place perfectly. The black vest covered all signs of his deadly intent.

Before he went to Malton’s, he had one stop to make. On his way out the front door, he grabbed his keys from the coffee table. By four o’clock he was into his first gin and tonic at Rico’s. On the night of his first kill, over fourteen years ago, at the age sixteen, he had spent the afternoon drinking gin and tonic. The number two was crystal clear in his mind, and the hit had gone down without a hitch. The second time he went out was the same way. Two of his lucky drink ensured no troubles. Adrian never used the word superstition. His lucky gin and tonics were more than that. They brought him luck when he needed it most. On the last hit of his career, he wasn’t going to tempt fate.

“How long’s it been since I saw you in here, Adrian, what four, five years? I thought you finally took on some gringo that was more than you could handle.”

Martinez looked up at the old man behind the bar. Even after all these years Rico remembered him. The man’s skin was like sun scorched leather. Heavy bags were slung below cloudy blue eyes. In the years since his absence, the beloved bartender had picked up quite a gut. His stained white v-neck t-shirt no longer covered the tremendous belly and he had had to add suspenders to his attire to keep his pants up.

“Five years,” Adrian said taking a hefty slug of his drink.

The large man was polishing beer glasses. “Are you, uh...,” he looked around the bar. No one was within hearing, “...going out tonight?”

“Yeah. But this is it, Rico. This is the last one.”

The old man didn’t say anything. He had heard the comment a thousand times in all the languages of the street. “I’m going clean after I do this last eighth. I’m through selling, man. I’m getting off the streets and getting a place of my own.” Now he had a new one, and he figured it, like all the rest, was just talk. Putting the last glass down, the old man looked up. “The next one is on me with hopes that you’re right.”

“Thanks, Rico.” Adrian lifted his glass. “To good friends.” The old bartender nodded and walked to the other end of the bar leaving the killer brought out of retirement alone with his thoughts.

“If that fucker would just get to Malton before I did,” he mumbled taking a sip of his lucky drink, “I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Adrian was concerned far less with Malton’s safety than being able to get out of this life of crime. Malton did have the information that could pin several murders on him. As long as the bastard lived, Malton would hold that over his head. Tthere was no way for him to get out of the killing life with Malton around.

Then, Adrian’s mind took a detour down a dark road of thinking. If he decided not to show and Malton lived, he was dead, and he knew it. Killing the guy he was supposed to, this mystery man in black, would do nothing, either. Malton would just force him to do his dirty work again. The other drawback of doing the job was he might not survive.

His brain went one step further and the delicious idea that came to him would solve his problem. If Malton were killed, the life of murder would be cut off at the source so to speak. What could be easier? Steven was expecting him; show up and put a bullet in his head... perfect. Only then could Adrian put his guns away for good.

Rico walked down the bar holding a phone. “You got a call, Adrian.”

He looked surprised. No one knew where he was. “Thanks Rico.”

He took phone. “Yeah.”

“We’ve been trying to call you all day.” He recognized Hamilton’s voice. “Get your ass over here.” There was a laugh. “Don’t be surprised I found ya, kid. What else would you be doing before a job?”

“Ok, I’m on my way. Any trouble?”

“We got word last night saying he wouldn’t be here ‘til tonight. He’s either a ballsy motherfucker or stupid announcing himself like that.”

Adrian replied. “He might be trying to throw you off, too.”

“We can talk about that shit when you get over here.”

Adrian handed the phone back to Rico. He had plenty of time to get over there, kill Malton, and get out.




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