(originally published in Dirty Magick: Los Angeles)
An Eye For An Eye
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Shylock – William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act 3, scene 1
And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Deuteronomy 19:21 – King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Justice is a poor man’s revenge. Never let someone else settle your scores.
Al Blake, blood mage assassin
Al Blake tugged his light coat closer against the wind and shouldered his way through the crowd toward the courthouse steps. The afternoon would warm up, but the morning chill still had a bite. He’d need the umbrella, though. L.A. might not have real winters, but it did rain a bit.
He checked his pocket watch. He had a few minutes before the target put in an appearance, but being early never hurt. The client wanted to send a message. Killing the district attorney on the courthouse steps in the middle of a speech about cracking down on organized crime would do just that.
The specific requirements of the job had intrigued him. Blood magic required getting close to his target for the kill—no more than a few dozen feet—despite how the dime store novels made it seem. Yes, a less invasive spell to track someone might work from all the way across the city for a powerful mage, but Al couldn’t drop someone from his living room.
Nor would he want to. Al was a professional, an independent contractor. Not some mob thug. He insisted his jobs be done right, and that meant he had to be there to tweak the spell, if necessary. Or abort if something went south.
The press, predictably enough, covered the lower steps. Several photographers stood up front to catch Marcus Parker’s good side for the afternoon edition. With all the hoopla surrounding the most recent bootlegging crackdown, his farts got a headline above the fold.
Al could pretty much guarantee he’d get a picture with a full page spread today.
He pulled out a press pass and stuck it in his hatband. The cops probably wouldn’t even look at it. He’d attended the last press conference just to be sure. Once the D.A. dropped dead, Al would have a minute or two to make his getaway before they locked down the plaza. He had a ”borrowed” car parked at the curb to speed his getaway.
He wondered who wanted the man dead with such public spectacle. If it were the mob, they’d stir up a hornet’s nest. If it wasn’t, then perhaps the client wanted it to look like the mob was behind the killing.
Someone close to the target had to be in on it, or they couldn’t have gotten the blood-stained handkerchief he’d received with his money. People who made enemies like Parker had were careful about leaving their blood, hair, and fingernail clippings lying about. For obvious reasons.
He gave a mental shrug. He didn’t need to know the backstory. Too much curiosity made for a fatal character flaw in a contract killer.
Parker finally came out of the building with his staff at his heels. He looked like a shark with his hair slicked back, his eyes cold as he scanned the reporters from the podium. A well-dressed shark, since that subdued charcoal grey suit had to have cost a pretty penny.
Al ignored the man’s opening statement. Blah, blah, blah. Crime, arrests, booze. He’d heard it all before. The jerk probably had his fingers in all the pies up to his elbow.
Instead, Al took a few minutes to admire the well-endowed blonde to the DA’s left. She had a sexy little mole over her upper lip that gave her face a lot of character. She also wore a peach sweater that did absolutely nothing to hide her generous figure.
Neither did the skirt she wore. Hemlines had inched upwards for most of the ‘20s and if they kept going, the decade would go out with a loud whistle, a trend Al heartily approved of.
With more than a hint of genuine regret at getting back to business, he reached into his pocket and found the handkerchief he’d brought. He’d taken the precaution of wrapping it in raw silk to be sure the blood spots on it weren’t contaminated. He didn’t want mistakes.
He closed his eyes for a moment and invoked his talent. Immediately, he felt the tenuous connection with his target. He allowed his senses to sink into a meditative state. It sped the process and made failure unlikely. No mage ever courted a botched spell if he could help it.
When the mental jigsaw snapped into place, he opened his eyes and invoked the spell. The man kept jabbering along, unaware of his impending demise. Al knew the man’s blood pressure would spike in a few seconds and keep going until he had a stroke. Without immediate intervention from a gifted healing mage, he’d die on the steps.
The woman sneezed and stared at her hand. Al saw the blood on it and more on her upper lip. It streamed down her face and onto the peach sweater. The lurid red shocked him.
He killed the spell.
The backlash staggered him. Pain blossomed between his eyes and his vision wavered. He heard more than saw the woman collapse. The crowd came to life with cries of alarm and shouted questions, mixed in with the pop of flash bulbs.
Well, this certainly would make the headlines, but for all the wrong reasons.
He used the confused jostling of the crowd to make his escape. Once away from the press of people, he slid into his getaway car, a sleek A-Model Ford. Black, of course. His vision had returned enough for him to drive. The police hadn’t even begun to spread out before he pulled away from the scene.
His thoughts raced as he put distance between him and the debacle. That kind of spell didn’t miss. Someone had double-crossed him. He’d almost certainly killed the spell in time to allow the woman to live, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d blown it. He needed some aspirin, and then he had to figure out who to hunt down.
He breathed easier once he switched back to his own car. The sharp pain behind his eyes had faded to a dull ache, though his fury had grown to towering proportions. Time to go see the intermediary that had serviced the contract.
The trip to the weasel’s office took almost an hour in the heavy traffic. An hour that allowed the hot rage to turn into cold and calculating fury.
The weasel’s place occupied a corner of the third floor of a dilapidated office building on Bunker Hill. The grime on the outside hinted at the mess inside. Trash littered the lobby and someone had broken the desk into firewood. The stairwell was, if anything, worse. No wonder the man had wanted to meet at a diner.
The lettering on the scarred wooden door reminded him of the weasel’s name: Lenny Craft, Private Investigator. He probably fit the hard drinking and womanizing stereotype, but the man certainly didn’t have a heart of gold under his gruff exterior.
The man himself sat at a desk in the front room when Al went in. No secretary for him. That said a lot about his character, too.
Craft looked up from a newspaper with bloodshot eyes. His wardrobe matched the decor: dirty, old, and soaked in booze. Al made a note never to use him again, if he allowed him to survive more than the next few minutes. He’d also have a word with the man who met the clients for him. He should’ve known better than to make a deal with this loser.
The man put on what he probably thought of as a friendly smile. “What can I do for you, sir? Pull up a chair and tell me your problem. Cheating wife? Lying business partner? I can get to the bottom of it.”
Al closed the door behind him and sat in the wooden chair after brushing off the crumbs of someone’s lunch. “I hope you can help me get to the bottom of a bad business deal. You see, I took some money to do something and the job wasn’t as advertised. Now I need to find out who screwed me.”
“I can help. Who set up the deal?”
“You did.”
Craft blinked at him stupidly for a moment before he frowned. “Excuse me?”
Al smiled amiably. “You met with an associate of mine yesterday and gave him a substantial sum of money to kill a man.” He pulled the handkerchief out of his pocket and tossed it on the desk. “Does that spark your memory?”
The P.I. blanched. “Hold on, now! I didn’t double-cross nobody! I did exactly what the client told me.”
“And who was this client? A man in his thirties with dark hair?”
“I don’t have to tell you squat. You got paid, so get moving before–”
Al casually drew his automatic and leveled it at the P.I. Sometimes even a blood mage assassin needed a more conventional threat. “Normally I’m a big fan of client confidentiality, but not when someone wants to have me kill a woman. Call it a quirk, but that’s not my flavor of evil. Someone knew that when they hired you and you’re going to tell me, one way or another.”
The P.I. started sweating, virtually pouring down his face. “Look, you got it all wrong. Hell, a woman hired me!”
Al considered that. He pulled a pocketknife from his vest and tossed it down beside the bloody handkerchief, which he retrieved and put away. “Cut your thumb and put the blood on something.”
“For a blood mage assassin? Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Yes. The question now is how stupid are you? If I don’t get my answers, I’ll shoot you somewhere painful and take your blood that way. You’ll answer my questions before you bleed out.” He could do it, but he’d rather conserve his energy. Hopefully, the threat would be enough to get the man to talking.
Craft licked his lips. “You won’t kill me if I’m telling the truth?”
“Regretfully, no. If you tell me the truth and haven’t double-crossed me, I’ll walk out that door and leave you unharmed.”
The P.I. hesitantly picked up the knife and pulled a faded handkerchief from his pocket. It looked like he’d blown his nose on it. Many times. Well, it wasn’t any skin off Al’s nose if the man got an infection. Craft made a shallow cut on his thumb and winced. A few drops of blood beaded up.
Al tried not to sneer as the man wiped the blood on the handkerchief and sucked on his thumb. So much for the hardboiled gumshoe act. This guy was over easy. He took the tattered cloth and held the blood between his thumb and forefinger.
Truth telling was one of the simplest spells in a blood mage’s repertoire. He didn’t even have to focus to feel the link to the P.I. “Who hired you to retain my services?”
“A real pretty blonde with curves in all the right places, if you know what I mean.”
The magic response surprised Al. Craft had told the truth. “She specifically told you she wanted to have District Attorney Parker killed in the manner you passed on to me? Did she give you her name?”
“She wanted it done exactly like I told your guy. She never gave me her name and I didn’t ask.”
Another truth. “Did you change anything that you passed on to me? Could someone have replaced the handkerchief?”
“No, everything was just as I said.”
A lie. “Bull.” Al cocked the hammer on his Colt 1911.
Craft held up his hands. “Okay! I kept some of the money! I’ll give it to you!”
“You robbed an assassin? If it weren’t self-evident, I’d tell you exactly what kind of idiot that made you. Were there any other changes to our deal between when she hired you and when you briefed my guy?”
“No,” the sweating man said, the whites of his eyes gleaming. “Nothing else.”
True.
“Did the woman have any identifying features? Moles, freckles, birthmarks?”
“She had a little mole over her upper lip. Just a tiny thing. Very hot.”
So the woman who’d collapsed this morning was his client–an odd and unexpected turn of events. Al put his pistol away. “You’ve been mostly honest, so I’ll take the money you owe me and leave you alive. Hand it over. All of it.”
The man pulled out his wallet and counted out a number of bills. Al picked them up off the desk and tucked them in his pocket with the man’s handkerchief. “I’ll just hang onto your handkerchief for now. I suggest you carefully consider who you rob in the future.”
No one disturbed him on the way out. Thankfully, his car was still in one piece, though some local toughs were eyeing it. They backed off when he gave them a cold look.
He stopped at the corner once he made it to a better neighborhood and passed over a couple of pennies for the afternoon edition of the Herald Examiner. He read the article on the events at the press conference, which didn’t make the front page. The police didn’t consider it an attack at all. That was a lucky break.
Instead, the news reported that the woman—Darla White—had an unknown medical condition. District Attorney Parker pontificated about how tragic the event was, and how glad he was that his secretary seemed to be recovering well. The hospital they took her to was close to the courthouse.
He found a space in the hospital parking lot and walked around the side of the building. As expected, he found a couple of interns outside smoking. He gave them a nod and headed in through the employee’s door they’d so thoughtfully propped open.
It only took him a few minutes to liberate a white coat, clipboard, and stethoscope from someone’s office. With his suit, he looked like every other doctor walking the halls. With the aura of authority he’d appropriated, none of the nurses hesitated in helping him locate the room where Darla White recuperated.
He closed the door most of the way behind him and examined the woman in the bed. Her face was significantly paler now, but her breathing seemed regular enough. He’d stopped the spell in time. She’d make a full recovery.
That made him feel better. Not only would killing her have violated his code, killing one’s employer—even by accident—wasn’t something to put on a resume.
She opened her eyes when he cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m sorry, Doctor. I didn’t hear you come in.”
He walked over to her bed. “You’re looking better than when I last saw you. I’m pleased to tell you that you’re going to make a full recovery.”
Some of the worry left her eyes. “That’s reassuring. Thank you.”
“I do, however, have some delicate questions for you. First, I need to know why you wanted to kill your boss.”
Her eyes widened and her body stiffened. “What?”
Al smiled. “No need to worry. You see, I’m not your doctor. I’m the man you hired to kill Parker. A job that almost went spectacularly wrong this morning.”
Her eyes flicked toward the door.
He nudged it closed. “There, now no one can overhear you. I assure you, I’m not with the police. I know you hired that private dick, Craft. He hired me and provided me with the handkerchief. You see? If I were with the police, I wouldn’t need to trick you. I’d just arrest you.”
“Perhaps…” She cleared her throat. “Perhaps I’m more concerned that I’m in a room alone with a paid killer.”
Al pulled the wooden chair over to the bed and sat. “The key word is paid. You’ve paid me to complete a job. You have nothing to fear from me. Someone double-crossed both of us.”
The woman slumped a little in the bed. “It had to have been Marcus. I don’t know how or when, but it had to have been. He’s always been tricky like that.”
“I normally don’t ask, but why do you want him dead? And why so publicly?”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know. He and I…well, we had a thing for a while. He made the move, but I didn’t resist very much. Anyway, I’m pregnant.”
Al’s stomach did a slow roll. “I hope the baby is okay.”
“The doctor—the real one—said he could still hear a heartbeat. He seemed confident that the baby would be okay. I’ll find out in a few months.”
A slow rage built inside Al. Parker had almost made him kill a woman and her unborn child. Oh, the man would pay big time.
He kept his face calm only with the strongest effort. She didn’t need to see how he felt. It wouldn’t be helpful. “Getting pregnant is serious, but not usually enough to warrant killing the man.”
She smiled. “No, I suppose not. I told him I was going to have a baby. He demanded I get an abortion. Even if I didn’t want to have a child, I wasn’t going to do that to a baby. It’s illegal and terribly dangerous for me, as well.”
Since she hired a hit man, the law wasn’t the primary driver in her refusal. “And how did he take your response?”
“Poorly. He told me that if I ever named him as the father, he’d be sure I didn’t live to see the next dawn. Then a man almost ran me over outside my apartment.”
“Not an accident?”
“He chased me back over the curb. No, the guy wanted me dead. Then someone broke into my apartment while I was out. I’m pretty sure the cut up mattress was a message.”
Al nodded. “How long ago was that?”
“Two days. I looked in some of the files to get the names of some men who might know how to hire an assassin. When they referred me to Craft, I paid him enough to get it done fast. After that, I never let Marcus corner me. I stayed at a friend’s house last night.”
“Why go back to work? Why not call in sick?”
She raised her chin defiantly. “Because I needed to see it happen. He tried to kill my baby and me. I figured that if I’m going to have someone killed, I should see it in all the ugly detail. I just didn’t figure I’d get attacked instead.”
“And that’s why I’m here. The handkerchief had your blood on it, not his.”
Her jaw dropped. “That’s not possible.”
“I assure you it’s a certainty. How did you get his blood?”
“He has nosebleeds sometimes. I filched the handkerchief after I found out I was pregnant. I needed to have a blood mage check to be sure he was the father.”
If Al wasn’t going to judge people for hiring him to kill for them, he wasn’t going to judge the woman for sleeping around. “He must’ve known you’d taken it. Or figured it out later. Would he be aware of your research into hiring me?”
“I told the records clerk the files were for a case, but it’s possible Marcus found out.”
“You have any ideas how he got your blood?”
She nodded. “He punched me when I slapped him. That had to be it. I took the handkerchief home to wash, but he must’ve swapped the two somehow.”
“He may try again now that he’s failed. Can your friend come and stay with you? Or someone else?”
“I’m pretty sure she’ll come if I call her.”
“Do it. And forget we ever met.” He rose to his feet.
“You’re going to finish this?” She sounded surprised.
He allowed her a small smile. “You paid for results, so you’ll have them. When the police come calling about it, be shocked. Your alibi will be iron clad. Good luck, Miss White.”
Al slipped out of the room. The clock was ticking and he needed a new angle. Without the man’s blood, this job had become a lot more challenging. In a way, he approved. If everything went right every time, the job might become boring.
He thought about other angles as he drove away from the hospital. Parker would be on his guard now. Even with the police thinking Miss White’s episode was a natural consequence of her condition, Parker knew exactly what had happened. What he didn’t know was if Al would try again. Smart money said he’d prepare for a follow up attack, at least until he succeeded in eliminating his inconvenient lover. And possibly her paid assassin.
It took a couple of hours to track down where Parker lived, up in the Los Feliz hills just west of Downtown. The man wouldn’t want any riff-raff finding him. Or getting to him. The walled estate made that more difficult. Al figured there were armed guards on the other side of the dark stone. He didn’t hear any dogs, but that wouldn’t surprise him either.
Al parked up the road and discarded various ideas. A distraction was bad because it would tip Parker off that someone wanted in. He’d undoubtedly warned the guards to look at anyone making a delivery. More likely, they knew all the people that made them. A new face would set off alarms.
There were ways, but they took time. Time that he didn’t have to spare.
Actually, he knew one car that would be coming here tonight. Getting into it would be a challenge, though. Still, it made for an exciting evening.
Parker’s driver came out the gates just before dark. He was alone, with no other cars following him. Any guards must already be at the courthouse. That made this plan feel right.
He pulled out into traffic and matched the man’s pace with a few cars between them. That became easier once he was sure the man was indeed heading for the courthouse.
Hopefully Parker wouldn’t be waiting in the lobby. He didn’t seem the type to wait around on a lackey, but you never saw all the curve balls.
The driver stopped at the curb almost exactly where Al had parked at this morning. Karma, perhaps? A second chance, certainly.
He parked behind the man, walked calmly up to the passenger door, and slid into the front seat. His pistol came out to cover the driver. “Don’t make a peep and you get to live. Understand?”
The old man gave a terrified moan. “Please, don’t hurt me. I have some money.”
“Drive.”
The trembling man started the car and pulled into traffic. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Yes, you will. Turn left.”
He directed the man to the commercial district. There were several empty warehouses off Los Angeles Street near Olympic he’d used in the past that would make a good place to stash the man for now.
They pulled up to a wide set of doors and he forced the man out while he opened the lock with his pick. He’d done it enough that he ought to have a key made. He rode the running board inside and pulled the driver out of the car again while he closed the doors.
The man was undoubtedly certain he’d die here. Al put away his gun and shooed him toward the old office. “I said you’d live and you will. I need your car and have to keep you tied up while I do it.”
He already had some rope on hand, as well as a handy chair. The last guy he’d brought here hadn’t walked out under his own power, but the driver was an innocent. Being a bad guy didn’t mean Al had to be an evil son of a bitch. He took the man’s coat and hat, then tied him up.
Once Al had secured the driver, he walked behind him and took out his knife. He found a fleshy part of the man’s arm when he rolled up his sleeve. A shallow nick brought out a little blood and a lot of screaming.
Al touched the blood and reached through it to the man. “Calm down and hear the truth of my words. I’m not going to harm you. I swear it.” His prisoner sighed and stopped making any noise. The bond that bound them together showed him the truth. He would know on an almost instinctual level if Al lied.
“Your employer offended a very dangerous man. I’m going to kill him tonight, but you will be released unharmed.”
Al took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and soaked up the old man’s blood. What he intended to do wasn’t easy magic. In fact, it was extremely difficult and draining, always a last resort for a blood mage. The single plus this method had was no one would expect it, since it was one of the powers that never seemed to make it into the public consciousness because people like him had good reason to keep the spell secret.
First, though, he needed to deal with the driver. Leaving him tied up was cruel. Leaving him with a good description of the man who kidnapped him was dangerous. Neither of those choices were acceptable to Al. Frankly, the ropes were just there to keep the man still while the blood mage performed the ritual.
He popped a handkerchief into the man’s mouth to keep him quiet, too. Better safe than sorry.
Al opened the locked cabinet at the back of the office. He touched the quartz stone beside the door and deactivated the booby trap. If someone else broke in, the contents of the cabinet would burst into flames. And so would the would-be thief.
He took the roll of leather to the desk and laid it out. Multicolored stones worth a small fortune gleamed and winked in the light streaming through the window.
Most blood magic was simple enough to perform on the fly, but the most powerful workings required concentration and focus. They also required speed the stones allowed. When activated, each stone released a powerful spell segment that could be loaded in advance. That allowed him to cast a spell that would normally knock a mage out from exertion.
Al arranged the stones in the proper order and began the spell, the bloody handkerchief clutched in his hand.
Ten minutes later, he sat back in the chair, covered in sweat. He felt the same, but he knew how to test the efficacy of the spell. He walked on shaky legs to stand in front of the driver, gently pulling the gag from his mouth.
The old man stared up at him in shock and fear. “What have you done? You look like…me.”
Al smiled and touched the man’s forehead with his bloody handkerchief. “Sleep. Wake when I snap my fingers.” He forced his will on the man, who slumped in his chair. That drained him a little, but he’d gladly pay the price to avoid killing the man.
He untied the man and laid him gently down on the beat up couch in the corner. He’d sleep until woken, or wake up in about six without intervention. If things went as planned, Al would plant some false memories to match the events yet to come when he woke him. With everything that had happened, the man would want to remember anything else.
If the man awoke on his own, Al wouldn’t be in a position to care.
Al took his workbag out of the cabinet and secured his magical gear. He shrugged into the old man’s coat. It was a little tight, but workable. With the glamour in place, Parker shouldn’t be able to tell anything was wrong. The hat fit perfectly.
The bag went into the trunk. The return trip to the courthouse took longer than he’d have liked, but that couldn’t be helped. He swung around so he would come in from the appropriate direction.
A visibly irritated Parker stood near the curb with two men that screamed bodyguard. He allowed one of them to open the rear door for him and slid inside. The guard followed him while his companion sat up front.
Parker glared at Al. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting ten minutes.”
Al put on a contrite expression. “My apologies, sir. The car stalled and it took me a few minutes to get it running again.” That kind of thing was all too common, even with the newer models like this one.
The District Attorney grudgingly nodded. “Fine. Take me home, then. Dinner will be waiting.”
Al said nothing else. The more he spoke or drew attention to himself, the greater the chances the glamour would fail. He drove straight back to Parker’s home and let everyone out at the front door. They didn’t give him a second glance as they went in.
He parked the car in the garage, got his bag, and went into the kitchen through the back door. An older black woman gave him the stink eye. Perhaps the chauffeur wasn’t allowed in the house. Or the man was an ass. On the other hand, she might just be that kind of person. No matter.
The assassin smiled, nodded his head, and kept going. Parker might be downstairs, but Al put his money the man of the house was upstairs changing into something else. He found a good corner to watch the stairs.
“Jacob?”
Al turned to find an improbably tall man dressed in a butler’s formal clothing behind him. He made a curious noise, since he had no idea of the man’s name or even if Jacob used it.
The butler frowned. “Can I do something for you?”
Ah, so the driver wasn’t usually in the house. Al gave him the same smile he’d given the cook. “Mister Parker said he might need the car at a moment’s notice. I’m to wait for him until dinner.”
“Wait in the parlor, then. It’s unseemly to have you lurking about.” The man walked past Al with a sniff of distain.
Al had no idea where the parlor was, so he just moved to a different room with a view of the stairs. If the man came back, he could shoo Al to another one.
Parker came down the stairs only a few minutes later, much to Al’s relief. He waited a few minutes and then headed up the stairs.
The master bedroom wasn’t hard to find. Expensive-looking carved oak furnishings filled the space. Dozens of expensive suits filled the closet and pictures of Parker glad-handing various celebrities and politicians hung on the walls. Since Al knew Parker wasn’t married, it was his room and unlikely to have anyone else come in at this hour.
He slipped into the bathroom to wait. And snoop, of course. The bath was even more ostentatious then the bedroom. Marble floors, a huge claw foot tube, and an enormous gold plated cheval mirror. The towels looked thick enough to sleep on. He made a mental note of the maker. One could never have enough good towels.
The next thing he looked for was the man’s hair brush. Hair wasn’t as good as blood, but it might work. Instead, he found a toothbrush. It used a strip of cloth rather than bristles, which still hadn’t caught on yet since they tended to tear up a man’s mouth. Many people didn’t brush because of that. Apparently, Parker wanted his teeth to shine.
Excellent. He could use it much more readily than hair.
He settled into the closet across from the tub and waited. Killing people required patience and Al could wait for hours with only his thoughts to keep him company.
Good thing, since Parker took his sweet time coming to the bedroom, and then he listened to the radio for an hour. Al waited for an extra hour after the radio went off for the man to fall asleep. That would make his task much simpler.
When he finally allowed himself to move back into the bedroom, Parker lay under the covers snoring softly. Al held the toothbrush cloth in his hand and focused on the target. He felt the link and smiled. Got you, you son of a bitch.
He focused his will and sent Parker deeper into sleep. When Al was certain he wouldn’t wake, he set the bag on the bed and touched the sleeping man on the cheek.
Parker didn’t even twitch.
Al opened the bag and pulled out a bottle of gin. The stuff was awful. It had obviously been made in a bathtub. He’d never touch it himself. It could kill a man.
Next, he brought out a coil of rubber hose and a funnel. The hose went down the man’s throat. He wiggled when it triggered his gag reflect, but Al suppressed the feeling in him. Then he poured almost the entire bottle down his throat.
If this had been a dime-store novel, he’d have woken him to explain why he had to die. Luckily, Al was too pragmatic for that stupidity. He poured a little on the man’s chin and set the bottle on the nightstand.
Parker’s breathing slowed and eventually stopped. Al held a finger to his throat to be sure. Then he pinched the man’s nostrils closed. He didn’t react at all to having his air supply closed off. He was dead.
Al put the hose into the bag and slipped out of the bedroom. He moved extra cautiously and froze when he heard voices at the foot of the stairs. Two women spoke in hushed tones and started up.
He retreated to the hall closet and slipped inside before they made it to the second floor. He calmed his racing heart and waited for them to go by. After a few minutes of quiet, he slipped out and down the stairs. The kitchen was quiet now, so no one bothered him on his way back to the car.
The only hitch on the way out was a guard at the gate who waved him down. “Where you going?”
“Mister Parker gave me the night off and let me use the car.”
The man didn’t look convinced, but he let Al drive away. That was good enough.
A feeling of elation filled Al as he drove back to the warehouse. He’d carried it off. The irony of a district attorney known for cracking down on booze being found dead of drink would get all the right kind of attention. The press would love it and wouldn’t be looking for holes.
The police might be suspicious, but their mages wouldn’t be able to find a magical cause of death, no matter how hard they looked. The spell he’d used wouldn’t be detectable by morning. The client was in the clear.
He loaded the sleeping driver into the car and drove him to the courthouse. He put his coat back on him and put him into the front seat. He stood outside the driver’s door with the handkerchief stained in the man’s blood in his fist. He snapped his fingers and made the link to the man.
Jacob woke, but still looked glassy eyed. Al focused his will into the man. “You’ve been on a drive. Mister Parker gave you the night off and let you use his car. Go do something fun and forget you ever saw me. Be back at Parker’s house in the morning. Understand?”
The man nodded and started the car. Al watched him drive away without a backwards glance.
Al would lay low tomorrow and keep tuned to what the radio had to say. This job had tickled his fancy. It felt good to walk on the side of the angels. Well, as close as his kind ever got.
What really made him smile was getting his own revenge for the setup. No one crossed Al Blake and lived to tell of it. An eye for an eye, indeed.
