Chapter One

September 13th

The kind professor came to visit me today and he showed me his tricks again. It was just as bizarre as always to see him bend my equations and change my variables. But he doesn’t seem to change anything on the opposite side of the problem; only fixing what he considers wrong in the answer. I have yet to explain this behaviour; it is profound, the work of a complete idiot, nothing short of stupidity; genius. Maybe one day I’ll realize just how he did it, and maybe then I will be able to explain it once and for all.
It has just occurred to me that the professor is kind for a reason and if there’s one illness I suffer from on this earth, it’s Stockholm syndrome by every letter in the word. It’s not really a prison as the dictionary would define it; it is censor.
It’s ironic – amusing even – how humanity will dream of what it dreads the most. Humanity is such a perverted kind to desire what it detests for no reasons other than curiosity and punishing vanity. It is then your dreams come visiting you during the night, dragging you kicking and screaming from your bed while repeating the phrase “you’re welcomed” until you take the hint; until you understand that you brought this upon yourself; you wanted this! I suppose I should thank them, and the dear professor for realizing my dream. I’ll thank them for pulling me from suspense and into life, even if it was against my will.

Karma

Sometimes you’re brought to question the intelligence of mankind. Like when Dean Varthonai’s partner bumped his head against the dashboard and then loudly complained about the pain; a cry that hardly fit the man’s physique. It was a giant of a man in comparison to the slim Christian lad, sitting in the driver’s seat with a stoic kind of frustration upon his lips; a man who looked frail enough to lose a fight against a blind man. The beast however was wide and tall but not what you’d call a modern Frankenstein. No, just a gorilla; a roman champion in a fancy suit and slanted sun glasses. A scar had formed a trench under the man’s right eye, possibly serving as a ditch if that ‘thing’ had ever cried.
Served his right for falling asleep on the job, let alone a stakeout when you had to stay alert; had to keep watching. Maybe it was Karma, a punishment for slacking on the task he had so gluttonously accepted, mad for the rewards like it would save his life. The suit was proof enough that money had never been a problem for him, nor should it be. A man who looked like the son of Atlas was probably the modern definition of useful when violence was the new legal tender. Picture it as a post-apocalyptic lawyer; not that the old fashioned ones didn’t still exist. Different kinds of evil, if you wish.
It was a miracle the town was still standing. Murder was more like routine than eating breakfast and the legal system was only as effective as the amount of digits on their bribe. Still, it seemed that nothing was ever out of place. He could well relate that to Karma as well; a neat form of chaos.
He knew well enough that Christianity didn’t include any larger mention of Karma; not like the Hindus did, or the Buddhists for that matter. Every religion has their balance, someone had said, with Christianity mostly focusing on the bad parts, warning of sin. Maybe it was a good thing, you could see what you weren’t supposed to do; avoiding choice; making a hard life a bit easier. Still, it wasn’t to say you could avoid sin, not at all. There was more to it than that, obviously, but with all the hours he had spent debating his own opinion with himself, it was somehow refreshing to stray a bit in thought.
Dean wasn’t entirely sure on his own Karma. Judging from the clues he could gather from a quick turn of the neck, his karma had to be the very definition of the phrase ‘you’re fucked’. Perhaps God was tired of waiting; tired of watching Dean dodge the bullets he fired and the assassins he hired to kill him. If Dean wouldn’t go to Hell, Hell would go to him; simple yet effective.
Karma.
Any sane man would take Dean for a fool and that was probably the only evidence he had to support his own sanity. While he could question his thoughts and theories, he couldn’t question what had accompanied him into the car; what had joined him on his assignment and patiently watched that lonely window on the building across the street and the light from inside the room that had never turned off.
A cold feeling pounded harshly in his chest, once, before returning to its normal eerie presence; a feeling that had struck him first when he first met that man in the backseat. It wasn’t painful, it was worse; like dying rapidly, over and over, without noticing. No, question it as he might, the truth – if there ever was such a thing – was that the blonde pretty-boy in his backseat was nothing short of a demon.
A beautifully crafted face, blonde curly hair in the perfect hair style, a pair of emerald green, piercing eyes and slender, yet toned physique; he could tell from his perfect posture and broader than average shoulders. Any normal person would look at the man and see an angel, but Dean saw through that illusion; he saw what was nothing short of evil.
That cold feeling in his chest tightened, squeezed harder as his gut cramped up inside when he continued thinking; a bad habit of his. Was this demon here to collect the target inside the house who they had studied so ambitiously all night, or was those perfect eyes fixed on Dean’s life, just waiting; tormenting him with the uncertainty; waiting for him to snap? He didn’t know which was worse, the thought or the feeling it caused on him.
He felt like he was going to throw up.
“You okay?”
The voice came like a gun shot from the silence; it was smooth and charming and had just the right ring to it. For a second he found himself relaxed by the sound, dictated by the devil’s strings. He gathered himself and swallowed sharply. He only let a sound escape his throat, a vague formless question, provoking further elucidation.
“You’re breathing pretty heavy there; are you okay?”
I’m fucking fine; he thought of saying it but he didn’t. His focus was fixed on those watchful eyes that glimmered in the rear-view mirror; those perfect, beautiful eyes with the perfect, sincere intent. Disgusting.
“Yeah”, Dean replied after a while with a fake chuckle; a polite laugh that he had perfected as a child. If there was one thing you didn’t want to do as a kid, it was laugh at the wrong place or not to laugh at all, “I’m just bored and impatient. Can’t wait to get out of this car!”
“That’s too bad”, Pretty-boy said from the backseat, “My guess is that we’re looking on another hour or so. But don’t worry; you’ll have plenty of time to stretch your legs after that. Flick on the radio if you want something to do; I suppose you already solved the puzzles in the newspaper.”
Good idea. Just what he needed. He turned on the radio and was greeted by what was considered modern art; a gathering of synthesizer emulators playing a repeating tune while the ‘artist’ barfed his lyrics without any emotion except an obvious greed for money and young girls who didn’t know better. He changed the channel; tuning in some rock music with a singer who was way too psyched; garbage. The search continued until he found a channel with classical music. Just right to calm his nerves, even though his robust friend didn’t seem to share his appreciation for it.
“What?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question; he really didn’t care what the giant thought.
“Nothing”, the beast mumbled, fixing his posture in the seat, “Hell, I think my ass has fallen asleep.”
“Now why the hell would I want to know that?”
“Just saying. I’m so sick of sitting down; how long have we been sitting here anyway?”
“Just over seven hours”, Pretty-boy informed a bit too quickly; like he had been counting the seconds all along.
“Seven hours!” the giant said and looked at Dean before repeating the exact same phrase, “Now, that’s fucked up.”
“Well, next time I’ll bring a hearse and we can all take turns lying down in the trunk”, Dean proposed sarcastically.
“You know, that’s smart, though a van would be sufficient” The giant exulted.
“Not very discrete, though.”
“No, but how discrete is a waiting car in general?”
Point taken.
“Speaking of which, what are we waiting for, anyway?” Dean asked aloud to no one in particular. Or rather everyone in the car.
“We’re waiting for my cue”, Pretty-boy said and fixed his bangs.
“And when is that?”
“You’ll notice when it happens.”
“Who is this guy anyway?”
“You don’t need to know that. Frankly, you don’t want to know that.”
Again with the feeling, the cold jolt in his chest; the knot in his gut; the spark of insanity that set off a chain reaction, causing what could only be called an emotional cluster fuck. Regardless, the talking calmed his nerves; saved him from thinking; brought him from the murderous impulses the monster inside urged to realize. He had to keep talking. Even if it was with the Devil.
“Then what am I allowed to know?”
“Nothing.”
It was like having a bat swung sharply at your face.
“Oh come on, can you at least tell me what I’m supposed to be doing here? I was told I would receive further instructions after picking you up and you haven’t told us jack!”
The silence was suffocating, giving his mind time to flaunt its content. Pretty-boy kept looking out the window, staring at the room behind glass that was barely visible in the morning rays; just slightly distinguishable from the rest where the light was off.
“You wait until I say otherwise.”
Fuck you. He wanted to say it.

Climax

Her gut twisted that way it always did when a girl wakes up with a hangover, a man’s arm resting over her and a snoring caressing her neck with a tickle. She couldn’t tell the shock from the hangover; it overlapped perfectly and merged with the nausea she already had, and the headache that was already busy with destroying her mind, and strangling her thoughts.
The more the merrier, right?
It stank something fiercely in there; like something had entered the room and died soon afterwards. Sweat and alcohol mixed; forming a second layer of the intoxicating odour of sex that had been the main course; a twisted dinner for two. Her gut cramped even further as she took her first deep breath, wishing she had not done so. She gagged; she had to have been stone drunk not to notice that stench last night, or too horny to care.
Suddenly the memories came back to her; it wasn’t as bad as she had feared. No, it wasn’t bad at all; she should be proud of herself, even. Not many had achieved what she achieved yesterday, and not many would after her. In fact, no one would.
She looked at her prey, her catch, and smirked. The knot in her gut loosened up when she saw that wavy brown hair and that sexy slight stubble. He had long eyelashes for a man, and a face worth dying for; worth killing for.
He was beautiful.
He had a scar on his shoulder, a mark left by a heavy rifle; she remembered it from last night when it had served as a prefect trench to dig any of her fingers into as he put her world to a spin. Of course, his profession only enhanced his good looks. He wasn’t a doctor, a lawyer or a bank clerk; he packed a gun and managed his schedule for the murders he was hired to commit each day. To say that he was an assassin was too weak; too short of what he deserved and what she needed to feel good about her conquest.
He was a God.
The floor felt ice cold. Either she was burning up or it really was cold. Either way, the freezing spread up her legs as she walked over to his clothes; sneaking on her toes as silently as she could. It was like a cold shower, calming her nerves, gathering her senses once again. Sex makes you stupid, she told herself and looked through his pockets. She glanced behind her shoulder every five seconds to ensure he wasn’t awake and pissed enough to redecorate this inn room with her brain. Assassins: they always have a gun somewhere, whether you realize or not.
Bingo.
The black list; the assassin archives. A vile looking gathering of documents, wrapped in the blackest of soft leather covers. No ordinary assassin carried a copy but she already knew that he was nothing out of the ordinary. He was the executioner and the book was his verdict. Why he would carry something like that around was beyond her, perhaps he was just naturally reckless.
Perhaps.
Possessing such a book was like walking through a cage of hyenas while covered in blood; it made the carrier a juicy target. Unless, of course, you were a Sighter; no one was stupid enough to mess with them.
Well, almost.
The words scribbled inside were impossible to read, a random line of letters, broken into segments to two characters each. Was it a code? She couldn’t tell for sure but she knew someone who could and the thought developed in her mind like the taste of sour milk and tequila. She had skilfully avoided him for six months and now she couldn’t help but feel somewhat defeated. Luckily, she had other things to do before paying him a visit. It should help her process the turn of events.
She packed the book into the pocket of her own jacket before pulling out the hidden gun she always carried, along with a silencer strapped beside it, tucked away in the sleeve. A silenced pistol with about as much fire power as was needed to guarantee a perfect kill. It was a thing of beauty. A silenced Ruger MK II – the assassin’s choice.
Click!
Her emotions went dead as she flicked the safety off. She loved guns; it was a genuine remote control for her body; every button had a different result, from dictating her emotions to changing her personality. Her favourite one was the trigger; it was a truly orgasmic experience every time she pulled it and she tried to do so as often as possible.
The perfect climax to wild sex; murder.

Sixth Sense

Ivan couldn’t help but smirk as the media flaunted his trail of breadcrumbs in the papers, calling it the biggest serial murder in the city’s history. It was a shame that they had no pictures published; he would’ve loved to see his work through the perspective of a camera.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?”
The clerk had somehow assumed that Ivan was the kind of guy who would spout about the weather at any given moment. The kind of person who bought the paper for any reason other than to catch up on the latest news; someone in need of a burst of social experience.
The clerk was a good judge of character.
Still, Ivan didn’t have time for pleasantries. It took several seconds of ice cold silence before the clerk took the hint and looked elsewhere but Ivan felt that rumbling trace of humility dwell in his chest. Nonsense, but it was there. It was nothing short of being human, if that could be counted as a positive side of it. When you’re unnatural, you’re immortal; bullets bounce right off.
“Yes”, Ivan muttered as he put the magazine back into the stands and walked away.
So, back to boring every day routines. His first stop on his list today was taking care of him and his own. That collection of people started and consisted almost entirely of Matthew Botteri; a second grade weapons dealer and one of Ivan’s only friends whose most prominent skill was keeping invisible and that made him one of the most dangerous men in the world. The Office had been tracking him for years and so far all they had been able to find was a blurry photo of him in public; like a snapshot of Big Foot. He did have quite the beard back then so Ivan figured it was a fitting analogy.
Ivan dropped by from time to time to give him what he needed, which wasn’t as silly as it sounded. It wasn’t babysitting. It was cutting a profit.
He was pulled out of his thoughts with a quick vital step to the side as a leather clad babe ran into his shoulder – escaping a sleazy inn she had likely been staying at – knocking him off balance while she turned tail and ran. She was young, a bit too fresh to be a street girl but you never know; she had a professional stride, fast but controlled. Curves like a racetrack, that one. Someone got lucky way over his ears last night.
Ivan could barely keep himself from laughing as he heard the screams from inside the inn. Someone screamed bloody murder and it was that type you recognize. Guess the guy wasn’t good for it or gave a lousy tip. Either way, it sent little Miss Dashing packing and in a hurry. Guess she must’ve been discovered. Caught in the act.

It smelled like burnt plastic and alcohol when he strode into the apartment, Matthew’s apartment, uninvited and unexpected. Already he heard busy feet running around the room just outside the hallway. It took a while for it to stop and a subtle clicking graced the silence. Ivan’s heightened reflexes kicked in; a state of mind he had come to call his sixth sense; a sort of logical clairvoyance Lorenz taught him.
“If you value your life, you’ll go back the way you came.”
Matthew’s voice was oddly sharp; he was sober. Ivan closed his eyes, as if he was about to bend time and space. Pretty soon a picture of Matthew formed inside his eyelids, hidden behind his armchair with a loaded two barrelled shotgun pointing into the hallway, ready to release all kinds of death if anything stepped in front of it.
“You always were a ruthless alcoholic, Matt, What happened?” Ivan asked as he dug through his pockets and picked out that bottle he bought earlier. He shook it, letting the pills inside rattle in the rhythm. Say what you want of Mathew, he was predictable.
“Vic?”
Ivan’s gut twisted and cramped when he heard the name; his old name. A certain feeling of unease washed over him; one that forced him to grunt. Bad omen.
“Put the barrels away, would you?” Ivan replied softly.
That silence. The How-did-you-know kind of silence that always followed whenever he didn’t hold back and hid his talents. Not long ago that silence had disgusted him but it had come to amuse him, being something he looked forward to. Time can change a man.
“Come on in.”
“You look like shit”, Ivan said without looking at his friend as he opened and put the bottle down on the living room table. “Bon appetite!”
“You’re an angel, Vic.”
Again with the name and the same feeling yanked at his guts. Ivan didn’t say anything; he just shook it off and sat down in a nearby seat. As usual Ivan noticed Matthew’s uneven anatomy. As usual he found himself starring at Matthew’s missing right arm as the crippled man took the bottle and complied to Ivan’s plead, turning the bottle upside down and swallowing at least four pills at once. Aspirin, it wouldn’t kill him; not unless he stopped taking them. Last time he tried to quit he got some pretty nasty seizures. The idiot got himself hooked on the stuff as a kid and Ivan had long since given up on getting him to quit. Well, almost.
“The place looks great.”
The sarcasm was thick enough to choke on.
“It’s a dump! Haven’t felt like cleaning since Charlotte left.”
“She’ll be back, pal.”
“I don’t know.” Matthew’s voice turned dry and hoarse and every sigh rattled in his throat like the pills were still in there. Just clear your throat for God’s sake, Ivan meant to say but he didn’t. “She was right.”
“I’m not even going there again!”
“She was right, Vic!”
Double the frustration. He was talking back and using that name.
“Why does our every conversation circle around this?”
“Because she’s my world…”
“Oh you smarmy dick!”
Matthew didn’t answer. He had seen better days, especially since the only woman that had ever stuck by him for any longer period of time had just decided to take a break, just so she had times to think about certain enigmatic details. For a guy, that was the end to a relationship. For a girl, that was the point when she had to run away.
“You need to get out some more, Matt.”
“Yeah, well that’s not my fault. I’ve been seeing hit men everywhere lately. I think The Office is onto me this time.”
“I know. I took care of it.”
“Yeah? Really? So, what was the problem?”
“They had an informant, someone who had heard enough to realize his knowledge was worth gold. They used it to trace some of your living habits and they’re trying to fish you out. It kind of threw me off guard, though. You’ve never had a witness before.”
“I know…”
“Perhaps you should wait with your business until you get a handle of the situation.”
“Did you take care of the informant?”
Ivan knew he should sigh, insist on talking this through but instead he laughed.
“Did you read the news?”
“So he’s dead”, Matthew sighed relieved.
“Yup!”
Now Matthew laughed. It was a nice reprieve.
“What about the Office?” Matt continued.
“What about them?”
“Well, you still work for them, for one.”
“I inspired the kid to do something stupid to get on the naughty list. The hit was authorized by the big man himself so that’s all well taken care of.”
“So, I’m in the clear?”
“Sort of. I’m still trying to bait them away from here by planting some evidence elsewhere. I don’t think you should start working again, though. You might attract their attention now that you’re visible again.”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
“Fine? Look at you! You couldn’t even spell fine right now.”
“Sure I can.”
Matthew picked up a pen and scribbles the word fine on a piece of paper while Ivan rolled his eyes. The whole business with Charlotte has gotten Matt out of sync; he could end up ruining his whole life over this. He sure had gotten off to a good start.
“There! Happy now?” He exulted and flashed the note.
It was a pretty attractive looking word. Matthew’s handwriting was ideal when he was sober so most people wouldn’t know. Quite a feat for someone with only one hand.
“Yeah, you want a cookie now?” Ivan snorted.
“I’d love one. I still haven’t had breakfast…”
Matthew let the sentence die and Ivan recognized the silence so well. It was puppy eyes in sound, a silent, desperate and lazy plead. Ivan sighed. It was no use to fight it.
“Fine. I’ll make you some eggs if you pull yourself together. Clean this shit up, take a shower and get some new clothes on.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Oh, you watch it! You don’t want to see me in an apron anytime soon.”
“No, mother.”
“Do you want your damn eggs or not?”
Matthew laughed as he got up from the sofa, putting the Aspirin bottle into his pocket and grabbing three empty beer bottles from the table – Three out of eight.
Ivan was pretty proud of himself; he had gotten Mathew in a better mood, if only slightly. It was enough for now.

Relationships

The first drop of rain always strikes like a hammer against her cheek. In an instant she stiffed up, cursed and acknowledged Irony’s cruel sense of humour, all because of that small peck on her skin, that little tease. She shouldn’t have said anything about the rain earlier, she should’ve kept quite. She jinxed it; she jinxed the weather.
How does a day go so wrong? A second ago she was steaming about the news, or so she had convinced herself because the real reason she was so angry was a promising emotional riot she would much rather avoid.
Some asshole had killed an entire group of kids not even old enough to be in college; they were probably making their way through high school. Past tense, that is. How sick do you have to be to waste a whole group of kids? The paper mentioned something about drugs, alcohol and organised crime but she failed to see the reason to kill them for something as trivial as rolling a joint. She failed to see the reason in killing in general.
Fucking prick.
She raised the magazine over her head as the rain continued and ran for the nearest shelter. Already the rain had picked up considerably; fists of water smashed into the ground, picking up speed and amount.
She turned into an alley. The roof of the two opposing buildings served as a cover for the rain, as long as she stayed more or less close to the walls. The headlines from the paper had smeared all over the pages and the pictures looked like a kid’s finger painting experiment.
She threw it aside.
This is just fucking perfect, Jalene. Her thoughts echoed in her skull as she buried her face in her hands. Her mascara felt wet and sticky in her palms and she took a dull note not to rub it in her eyes. She wished it was because of the rain, but it wasn’t, and she felt the sobs returning in her throat.
“Just perfect.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say anything else. She had no need to either but from all that reading and after all those drama movies you’d think you could catch onto something dignifying to say when it really mattered.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. It had done so for the last hour or so. Someone had called, and her phone would periodically nag about it, like a sibling nudging you for the hell of it and just like with the sibling, she gave up and pulled the phone out.
It was Ryan, he had called her.
The tears burst forward instantly and she fell down on the ground, pressing her hand against her mouth to smother that sob that had escaped her throat. Her finger lingered anxiously above the buttons, waiting for her head to decide whether or not she wanted to call him.
No, she could see it right now in front of her. His disappointed sigh, those dreary eyes rolling in disdain of the situation. He wouldn’t understand, he never understood anything.
Ryan was a good lover, an excellent lover, but that was the extent of their relationship, now that she thought of it. It would never work. As much as he deserved to know, it could never work.
She pulled up the speed-dial list on her phone and pressed the number three. Almost instantly the call was connected to a secretary with a phoney enthusiasm. You could hear the fatigue in her voice.
“Hi, this is Jalene Morgan; I need to speak with Dr. Newport. It’s important”
She could barely say it with a steady voice.
“I’m sorry; Dr. Newport is not available at this time. He will be back in a few hours. Would you like to set an appointment?”
Like a programmed answering machine. She could barely tell the difference.
“I have an appointment already.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I just wanted to talk to him.”
“Well, like I told you…”
“Yes… Thank you.”
Jalene hung up the phone right when the receptionist was wishing her a good day. She didn’t feel like wasting time today, even though that was all that remained of her day. Dr. Newport would see her in three hours. Three hours worth of waiting in the rain.
Just fucking perfect