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Post By anonymous Tue Jul 20, 2004 at 06:01:27 am EDT |
Subject Re: The Case of the Gold Coin Killer - Chapter Nine Originally Re: The Case of the Gold Coin Killer - Chapter Nine |
In Reply To Messenger Mon Jul 19, 2004 at 06:31:27 pm EDT |
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> Note: I feel bad about complaining earlier. Screw it. We shouldn't take it too seriously. Let's just have the same amount of fun we were having with this earlier.
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> > The Case of the Gold Coin Killer - Chapter Nine
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> > "Yes, I knew you'd survive the blast at Chessington's place," Agnew's kidnapper told Michael McKinley. "Just like I knew you'd come here next. The blast wasn't meant to kill you." He pointed to the scorched and pitted black body armour McKinley wore. "Just to muss up your pretty suit enough so that psionic supressions system of yours was compromised.
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> > McKinley tried to move a suit that could crush steel but found his mind wouldn't let him.
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> > Styx shimmed out of the shadows, his famine-gaunt naked black flesh glistening with sweat. "That's right, McKinley. You're one of those people I had to involve in this. Without getting you near again I could never have got past those formidable defences, that iron will."
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> > McKinley strained but he was caught. Too late he realised where and how he'd been manipulated, practically and psionically, despite all his precautions.
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> > "Nearly all the Circle of Charon have crossed over now. As they vowed when they first accepted their gifts, as they signed the pact of blood. Of course, we never mentioned the murder part, but there's always some loophole, isn't there?"
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> > It had all seemed like an eccentric game at the time, McKinley remembered, and he'd been so desperate to find another of the web-strands of his father's criminal empire that he'd never counted the cost.
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> > "What none of you knew," Styx explained, "not you, not Agnew, not nosey Jenson or occult-mad Chessington, was that my wonderful secretions don't only awaken temporary psionic gifts. They're addictive. And they give me a back door into your minds. Take enough, let me in often enough, and I can live there. Die while I'm visiting, and your psionic gift transfers to me."
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> > McKinley would have spat if he could use his muscles.
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> > "I wasn't quite ready for the harvest of Charon," Styx admitted. "I was still hiding, preparing. It takes a long while for my secretions to gestate inside the brains of my acolytes. Those who never used my sovereigns much, like you and Agnew, are very hard to reach. But when Mariel Jenson used her talents to discover superhero identities she put herself under the spotlight. Others noticed. Others who were interested in the information she held for more than a news article."
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> > So you killed her, McKinley concluded. Or you had one of your brain-pawns do it for you.
> >
> > "Prentiss killed Jenson and tried to kill Agnew. Vanity framed Trickshot and messed up Messenger and Dancer's memories. Partisi poisoned Makowski when the prophet saw too much, never even knew that he'd killed his lover. Chessington is out there covering my tracks with the footprints of the dead." Styx looked up at McKinley and his gaze was like the hunger of the damned. "Now all those gifts live in me, and I'm collecting the set."
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> Chessington lowered himself to street-level using his telekinesis.
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> "Messenger..." He rasped in a dark voice. The very face of this monster, sent a shiver down the postman's spine as he struggled to mantain consciousness. Chessington flipped his long, silver hair back. His eyes were a burning, searing shade of red. Each pupil was like a pool of blood. "You are a talented fighter. It's a shame it had to come to this..."
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> He raised a hand and a white light enveloped it. Gusts of wind and leaves started whipping past Messenger, gathering around Chessington's hand. Branches snapped off the oak tree that the vigilante was resting against.
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> He gathered all the TK energy into one big ball around his fist, complete with broken branches, leaves and clumps of dirt and pavement. He then hurled it in the postman's direction with the force of a cannonball, so powerful it created a crater in the grass and snapped the tree that was shielding Messenger right off its roots.
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> The tree tumbled to the grass. The postman sat there, struggling to get to his feet. His left arm felt like dead weight.
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> "You see what I can do?" Chessington's eyes glowed. "The next one is aimed at you."
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(note: this takes place about a half hour to 45 minutes after your last entry, Andrew--just in case you want to work more within this time frame--and even that 30-45 minute time frame isn't something I need to have set in stone, necessarily, so feel free to do whatever.)
He grinned to himself, as his agents called in from their various locations. He grinned even more, upon hearing from the Lair Legion’s leader. Alliances were made today, that weren’t possible under normal circumstances—especially when it came to the dragon. He knew full well the consequences of teasing a being with more power than a nuclear warhead, but it gave him a thrill—he got to know first hand the joy, and the danger, of dancing with the devil. He stared extinction in the face, and chuckled.
==================================
For his part, Blackbird was enjoying the brief respite in freedom. Years in The Safe had made him nearly claustrophobic, and he was alternating his time between teleportation and intangibility as much as possible, in that it made him feel immortal—his prey not only couldn’t kill him, they couldn’t see or touch him. And it was especially important that he remain invisible to this certain prey, as failure meant everything that his employer had worked so hard for for years would dissipate like morning dew.
His intangible surveillance took on another meaning in the split of an eye, though, as he noticed Messenger and Dancer being led to a medical lab by gunpoint by someone so bizarre looking that they were undoubtedly his prey. Underneath his mask, Blackbird grinned, and reached for a pistol. “Splendid.” Killing people who were short-sighted enough to think that punching or shooting others would actually make a positive difference in the world was almost reason enough to damage his prospects at a potential normal life.
He thought things through, a split second later, only because he felt more confident in his ability to protect himself than in The Safe’s ability to protect him. Strangely, his treatment over the years at that establishment had left him paranoid. Forced consumption of 50 Cent compact disks would probably be considered cruel and unusual punishment if ever considered in a court of law. Or sharing a cell next to Onslaughter on Mexican Cuisine Evening.
Nor did he especially fear the dragon, as he had his own method of controlling the man-beast who’d ensured that the government would be giving him free room and board for a few more years, yet. It was what they’d called The Superman Protocols, at the time—a method of dealing with adversaries that were both too physically strong, and mentally capable, to strike in any meaningful way. But, in light of the fact he was stalking a telepath, he felt it was best to end this train of thought on its current station, and switch tactics.
He did so, to the tune of unloading a clip into the fleeing Styx’s leg, and warning shots around Dancer. Strangely, she was unarmed, but the unshaven man to her right took a couple errant shots in the shoulder.
On any other day, Blackbird would have stopped, and ceased Messenger’s misery, as anyone with that much scar tissue was obviously too stupid to stop pursuing the kind of life he was involved in and actively improve his social/financial setting, but bigger things were in motion, today. Today, Blackbird was to help reshape the world, at least partially in his own image.
Before he’d even finished falling to the ground, Styx was instinctively reaching out with his psionic talents, trying to overcome his attacker—but his variation of psionics worked best if he could see his intended target, and his focus was shattered by his broken knee. Well, that’s not entirely accurate—the acute blood loss he was suffering played a part as well.
“Wha—what the fuck do you want from me?”
“Want? I want you to listen. I want you to do something productive, for the first time in your misbegotten existence. I want you to not spread your poison into my precious gene pool. I want you to confess to the murder of Mariel Jenson, and to provide the investigating authorities with whatever evidence you have that will help to convict you.”
“You—you can’t—“
Blackbird materialized, then, with his Ruger pointed directly at Styx’s head. “I have. And you will. Or I’ll leave a crater in your forehead the size of a cantaloupe, and do it for you.” After that, it was a matter of cocking the gun, and Styx’s bravado evaporated.
Don Graham stared at the mayhem in his office in disgust.
“You know this is a set-up, right? That prick only did this because I wouldn’t accept his bribery.”
“Bribery. That’s a good one, comin’ from the guy who’s a stooge for the Lynchpin. Don’t worry, man. We’ll take your vulture of a boss down soon enough.”
“You can’t take me down—I’m the only thing standing between this precinct and—“
The Internal Affairs agent whirled on his heels, and glared into Graham’s eyes.
“And what? Honesty? Respectfulness? Get this waste of skin out of my eyes and into orange, like he belongs.”
As Graham was led out of the precinct, he caught a glance of Marlowe looking at his arrest with a smug approval in his eyes. And something else. Regret?
The Marlowe he’d come to know in the past 12 hours would never show regret…
Unfortunately, that was the last thing he ever thought, as the top of his head was blown off by a sniper hidden atop police headquarters.
It was a moot point, really, as his fellow policemen had held in built-up frustration for 12 hours, and were looking to unleash it somehow.
There wasn’t enough left of the sniper, once they’d ceased firing, to make an afghan out of, let alone run DNA or dental tests.
Marlowe, watching in approval, made another call on his cell. “Your problem has been taken care of. I’ve almost made my final adjustment… so when can I expect my payment?”
In answer, the line on the other end went dead. His eyes narrowed, and the Superintendent went back to his desk, somewhat chagrined.
He’d’ve been more chagrined had he known that this call had been traced by the one man he’d failed to account for…
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