occupants, the building stood as the neighborhood’s monument both to the fact that there was no accounting
for some peoples tastes, and the fact that its very hard to file a zoning complaint against the city’s regulator
of building practices. The people who lived in the surrounding area had always assumed that the inhabitants
of the house were rather out of the loop, and the gathering of shotgun wielding men who had gathered by
the door seemed to be a testament to that fact. No one was entirely sure whether those men had been invited
or not, but even if they hadn’t, it didn’t do much to deter the evidence.
“On three!” One of the men in the front whispered, holding up that number of fingers in case any of his
colleagues were too stupid to understand English- he swore to God that he wouldn’t be surprised. Make one
pass at the bosses daughter and you get paired with some of the most idiotic human beings on the planet, it
never failed. He counted down, lowering one finger at a time accordingly, and when he hit zero the two men
in the front lashed out, landing a kick squarely in the center of the door and sending it splintering off its
hinges.
The group of men charged into the house, guns at the ready, eyes wide. They crept, quickly but stealthily,
down the hall- knocking open every door on the way and looking inside, the barrels of their weapons leading
the way. They swept through the entire bottom floor quickly and efficiently, opening every door and
securing every room with its door opened. They found nothing. All was barren and silent, until suddenly, it
was neither.
A sudden sound exploded out from above them, piercing and almost painfully loud. An anguished,
indescribable cry that seemed to change and morph in mid air, until none of the six invaders of the house
could tell whether someone was laughing, crying, or simply screaming. With no further doubts about where
they were heading, they charged up the houses winding stair case and burst into the first room on their right,
weapons leveled, and trained on...
...a boy of what seemed to be eighteen sitting in the middle of the room on his knees, his head buried in his
hands as he cried out sobbing screams, the look in his eyes both wild and frightening. The body that lay in
front of him seemed to be all the indication that was needed of what he was crying over, and the blood trail
that connected his body and the boy’s hands was all that was needed to link the teenager to the crime.
Taken aback by shock, it took the leader of the group a split second longer than he would have preferred to
issue his order. “Take him!” he cried, waving two of his men forward. They grabbed the boy and threw him
down to the ground without resistance, incapacitating him as the rest of the men gathered around the fallen
body and turned it over, searching for any sign of life.
“Oh my god....” one of the men managed to get out in a garbled moan of horror, before dropping backwards
and covering his mouth as he gagged wretchedly. The group leader didn’t follow suit, but for one of the few
times he could forgive the incompetence of the man- whoever the victim was, they had been absolutely
butchered, at least three dozen sickenly deep gashes carved all over him. The man stared from the body to
the inert form of the hand cuffed boy, and then back again, and shook his head, possibly more affected by the
killing than even his wretching recruit. He knew something that they didn’t. He knew the mans name.
And somewhere, deep in a dark part of his brain he didn’t like to admit existed, he wondered if Reeve
Lucia’s old job would be open, now that its current occupant would be unable to fill any sort of position
besides a casket stuffer.
Chapter 2