Chapter 16 (Adam Novus Chronicles - Book 1)

A few uneventful weeks later, I was browsing some occult sites on the Internet. It is fair to say that I was blown away when Nina showed me that there was an entire supernatural part of the Darknet. A cloak-and-dagger area of the web that I had used previously, before my long sleep, when I had a different life and occupation.

Moreover, similar to becoming a customer of the Cleaners, one couldn’t so much as take a peek inside without a referral from someone in the community. Hackers didn't fare well in this part of the net, not unless they knew how to break through magical defenses. One quick call from Marcus and I had full access. As it is with everything else in life—it’s who you know.

They even had a witches' market of sorts. This one was nothing like its human counterpart which mostly sold iffy Chinese products, but items like bat wings, newts’ eyes, angel feathers, and whatnots. The kind of site where one can find unique merchandise; for example… a stolen demon’s Grimoire.

That missing book still bothered me, and with the death of the thief, all clues about its whereabouts were severed. Not that I had any high expectations that it would suddenly pop up on some seller’s page as if by magic, but that bag of diamonds Julius gave me meant that I was still on retainer, and… I couldn't let it go. Besides, business was getting slow lately and I was getting bored.

“Mr. Novus, Mrs. Barkin is here to see you,” Nina told me over the intercom.

That’s strange; it was late afternoon, and I saw her this morning when I went to her bakery for my morning fix.

“Show her in.”

A few seconds later, Nina came with a very distraught old lady. Her emotions were in turmoil; fear and panic intertwined with hopelessness.

“Mrs. Barkin, what happened?” I asked while getting up from my desk and helping her to the chair. It seemed as if she could faint at any moment.

“I… I need your help, Mr. Novus, and… people say you can help people…” She said with a note of desperation, holding one hand in another like in prayer; I had a flashback of Nina coming here in a very similar way.

“Please tell me what happened, Mrs. Barkin.”

“It is my granddaughter, Mary… someone …someone took her,” she said in a quivering voice and immediately burst into tears. Judging by her red puffy eyes, this was not the first time she cried today.

I managed to get the whole story from her, and it was not easy. Have you ever tried to talk to a distraught crying woman? It takes considerable effort.

A few hours ago, she was cleaning the shop, ready to close up and waiting for her seventeen-year-old granddaughter to return from school. She was her guardian since her son and his wife died in a car accident a few years back. Through the shop's window, she saw Mary crossing the street, and just before coming to the shop, a car stopped in front of her and the girl was dragged inside by two men.

Mrs. Barkin immediately called the police, and they made her go to the police station for a statement. They helpfully wrote a report and said they would call her if any new information becomes available. Trust in law enforcement was never very high in this part of the city, the cops did not help the situation by only coming when they needed to make an arrest.

I gathered all the relevant information she could recall. The model and make of the car (or as she explained it—dark blue and big), and the description of the kidnappers. Then I went out to ask some questions. Nina was still trying to comfort Mrs. Barkin; all those tears made me uncomfortable as hell.

Hector was the man I needed to see; after all, it happened in his territory. He had the entire building a few blocks away; his gang was into real estate. What is the world coming to?

Two young, strong-looking gang members were guarding the entrance. The moment they saw me they stood straighter; I sensed apprehension and a strong desire to show their worth. I couldn’t figure out why they felt so uneasy? Maybe Hector told them something about me? I'm harmless… really.

“Tell Hector that Adam Novus is here to see him,” I said. They looked at me for a moment, and then one went inside. The other one was fidgeting and a sigh of relief escaped his mouth when his buddy returned some two minutes later. These people need to toughen up.

“He will talk to you, follow me.”

Hector had an honest to God office, a nice one too. There were leather chairs and a big executive desk. I said it before—this was a strange gang.

“Adam, what can I do for you?” he began immediately.

“Information,” I replied and told him everything that happened. His reaction was a little bit unexpected; a glass paperweight ended up slamming the opposite wall, breaking into a thousand pieces. That was accompanied by a few minutes of Hector swearing like a drunken sailor before he calmed down with a visible effort.

“I apologize for losing my temper there for a second,” Hector said, still visibly agitated. “I was out of town and only returned half an hour ago. Still, I should have been informed about this immediately after it happened, but it seems some of my guys were sleeping on the job. Damn… this could have been prevented.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling from him both rage and guilt, intermingled.

“Yesterday, I saw a guy I recognized talking to little Mary; he is a member of this gang from Brooklyn, a long way from his territory. A few of my boys and I walked towards him, to have a word, but he split as soon as he noticed us. Interestingly enough, in a dark blue Ford Explorer. It was suspicious as hell, especially…”

“What?”

“That gang has a very bad reputation; they call themselves The Alphas, and are involved in some serious shit. There are talks they make snuff films, real rapes, and murders, but that’s just a rumor, nothing concrete. What I know is that when one other crew went to war against them… they died… every single one of them. They must have some serious connections; the police didn’t investigate too thoroughly and the whole thing was covered up in a few days. That’s why nobody wants to mess with them.”

He rubbed his face with his right hand.

“Adam, I can’t go against them, I worked for so long to keep the kids from the neighborhood on a straight line, to make something of their lives. And if I start a war—all of that will be lost.” Hector's voice lost its strength at the end; he was a man between a rock and a hard place.

“Do you know where they are, the location?”

“Not exactly. They lay claim to a large territory, but move their headquarters all the time. I had that creep in a blue Ford followed, just in case…”

He opened the drawer and pulled out a piece of paper, “Tell me you can handle this.” he said, looking at me.

“Hey, I only want to have a friendly conversation with them, you know— tea and cucumber sandwiches kind of a thing. Don’t worry about it.” I showed him a thin smile that didn't reach my eyes.

He gave me the paper with an address and said, “Good luck.”

I left Hector, who was still struggling with his feelings of guilt. I get it; his territory was some sort of a safe haven for the youth of the neighborhood. Without him and his rather benign gang, some creep would take over and make their lives far worse. Mary was just one individual and in a pragmatic way of thinking, not worth it for him to jeopardize the rest. That reminded me of Spock's last words to Captain Kirk in one of the Star Trek movies where he says, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few… or the one.” It is a brutal outlook on life, but nonetheless true.

I jumped in my car and followed the instructions on the map gizmo. It had this feature where it would accept voice commands, but the damned thing had a problem with my voice. Every single time it misunderstood what I was saying, so I typed in the address manually.

By the time I arrived, it was already late at night, my favorite part of the day when I want to do something... covert. In my book, someone hurting little girls (and particularly the ones closely connected to my morning fix of coffee), deserves every evil thing I can do to them.

An old house in Brooklyn, with a yard filled with junk, actually somewhat depressing. It wouldn’t take much to clean the place up, so the idiot living here was a slob. I hate slobs; they ruin the esthetically pleasing view of the world for the rest of us. But the most important thing was the dark blue Ford Explorer crookedly parked in front of the house, confirming that I was at the right place.

I walked casually to the front door and knocked on the hollow-sounding wood, as the doorbell was not present. Just two bare wires where it used to be. It took two minutes of that (with increasing intensity), until someone opened the front doors, cursing up a storm the whole time.

“What the hell do you want?” A big-looking slob demanded. Bald shaved head with a big Nazi swastika tattooed on his chest. Why would anyone do that to himself? It was like asking to be beaten into a pulp. I mean, there are plenty of individuals in this world who would kick someone’s ass, just on general principles of what that sign symbolized. His misfortune was that I was one of them.

Most people don’t expect to be hit in the face at that moment, even more so in the middle of the night. There should be some dialog first, exchange of words—usual rituals of letting the tension build up. A long time ago, one of my instructors had beaten that kind of thinking out of me, a rather painful lesson. That was a perfect time for an assault, the element of surprise was at its peak.

I didn’t hold much back, which resulted in a distinctive sound of squashed cartilage in his nose, and loss of consciousness. He went flying inside his house and hit the floor with a thud. So far so good. I looked outside to see if any neighbors were alarmed. Everything was quiet and fine; I love the night—everybody is asleep.

I closed the doors behind me and went to check out the house, maybe there was someone else inside.

The name on his driver’s license said he was Derek, twenty-eight years old, and had more drug paraphernalia than I could believe. A few minutes of a house tour ensured me that I was in the right place and that Derek was alone.

I saw a scene in a movie, not long after I came back from the Amazon, that I really wanted to try out. The situation couldn’t be more perfect, especially when I saw that the house basement was dug in deep, and was practically soundproof.

It took twenty minutes to set everything up, which included dragging Derek down the steps and securing him to a heavy wooden chair in the basement. I followed the instructions precisely; even played the scene on my phone again to make sure.

Derek woke up, the moment I stabbed two big nails into his upper thighs.

His muffled scream was interrupted by me slapping him in the face and saying, “Derek, I need you to be focused.”

He didn’t stop screaming so I slapped him a few times more, he was already going off the script.

“Focus Derek!” I may have slapped him a little more than necessary because he passed out again. One of his teeth flew out of his mouth… oops.

When he came to his senses, I was adjusting alligator clips to the nails; they were in turn connected to the wire I pulled from the ceiling light. The problem was that we were in the dark now, and that was not the ideal atmosphere to conduct the interrogation. However, my phone had a flashlight activated by an app, so I used that to enable us to see each other.

“Derek, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you’ll cooperate,” I said to the man tied to the chair.

He was giving me the evil eye and made a few muffled noises.

“OK, if that’s how it’s going to be, don’t say I didn’t give you a choice.”

I walked to the wall and turned on the light… nothing happened, the fuse turned the power off… this was embarrassing. I stood there looking like a schmuck with my hand clicking the light switch a few times. Even Derek stopped his muffled screaming, looking at me in confusion. This is turning out to be quite awkward.

“Sorry, I’ll be right back,” I said to him, not that Derek was appreciative of my politeness. I had to go and find a fuse box, and then push the tripped switch in the ON position.

When I returned, Derek was still making faces at me, how disrespectful of him. It was the damn shoddy wiring of his house that was making all the problems right now.

We tried again, two more times to be exact, and the damned fuse tripped every time. I fixed the problem by using a piece of wood to jam the freaking thing to stay always ON. I wonder what MythBusters would think of this? The concept kinda worked, but definitely not as advertised.

“OK… let’s try again,” I said and turned on the light again. Derek shook for a few seconds and then stopped as I flipped the switch off. The problem was that he didn’t move… at all. He was out, and I hoped the electricity didn’t kill him. A quick check of the pulse over the carotid artery on his neck confirmed that his heart had stopped beating.

What to do now? I had no intention of giving him mouth to mouth. If he was a hot chick—sure, no problem; him—no chance in hell. This was not in the movie, I felt cheated and profoundly let down. In a moment of inspiration, I zapped him again with the light switch, and… it worked, he was alive. I must admit that I felt a little like Dr. Frankenstein and wanted to scream it’s alive! But figured it was way too nerdish.

“Are you ready to talk?” I asked him again, pretending as if nothing had happened.

He was disoriented and in a sort of a daze for a few seconds (not that I could blame him, considering that he was kind of clinically dead a few moments ago), but then Derek started nodding like a heavy metal headbanger when he saw my hand getting close to the light switch again. I guess he was ready to talk.

I pulled a few old socks I stuffed in his mouth while he was still unconscious from that original blow to the head. No wonder he was incomprehensibly mumbling the whole time. (In my defense—I so wanted to try the light switch scenario.)

“Please stop, I’ll tell you everything,” Derek cried, with tears leaking from his eyes.

“You took the girl from the Bronx earlier today, where is she?”

“I didn’t—” He tried to say but his emotions betrayed him. I also pulled out Mary’s driver’s license I found in her backpack, tossed away in the living room. Derek was a pig that was living in a pigsty; a plethora of discarded moldy takeaway containers everywhere and don’t get me started on the nauseating condition of the bathroom. It’s beyond me how people can live in such horrid, and entirely self-inflicted conditions.

“How about this, every time you lie, I will turn on the lights, OK?” I asked the sniveling punk.

Derek started to talk as if his life depended on it, which it did, at least its length expectancy. He was a member of The Alphas, working on bringing in the new girls, for the little business they had going on. This gang raped and killed the girls, filming everything. Then sold the videos to private buyers for a great deal of money. It seems there was a very lucrative market for original and unique snuff films. Their leader got an idea a year ago, and business was booming. The gang leader, Zain, was a werewolf and the others were regular humans like Derek. Apparently, Zain had promised that one day he would turn all of them, and then they would rule this entire city.

I didn’t want to burst Derek’s bubble with some facts Marcus told me. The werewolf’s bite will not turn another into a Were; it will not do anything except cause a very nasty infection that was usually followed by a painful death. Weres were all born to at least one Were parent, preferably two. In fact, the high fertility of Weres was likely one of the main reasons for the subtle animosity between them and the vampires. Considering how hard it was for a female vampire to conceive, it was a constant reminder of their failure as a species or something. Marcus was all psychological in his explanation and I tuned most of it out.

This Zain sold these idiots a bill of goods, using them as his foot soldiers.

The gang owned an old abandoned factory building by the docks in Brooklyn that they made into their headquarters, and an improvised movie studio. Private, secluded, and far away from prying neighbors. Derek gave me very precise directions and a detailed description of the property. I must say this method of interrogation worked; I will have to try it again. Who said you couldn’t learn life skills from the movies?

Finally, he was done, and in all likelihood going into a shock; his body endured some rough things lately.

“OK Derek, that is all I wanted to know,” I said and started putting my jacket on. “I would like to say I didn’t enjoy our little talk, but that would be a lie. I guess I am not a good person. This is where we part ways.”

“You are letting me go?” He whined in such a hopeful voice, it almost moved me. It is hard to believe that he beat a million other sperm during his conception.

“Well… in a sense… yes, let’s go with that.”

You see, Derek confessed that he was the star in some of those movies, every gang member was. After the rapes, they brutally killed the girls, every single time. That was the whole point of the snuff films. I must say, there are some very sick people in this world, and anyone connected with these movies didn’t deserve to see another day.

“Bye Derek, I hope you burn in hell for all eternity.” The slightest pressure on the light switch was enough to light him up. Who needs an electric chair when two nails are so much cheaper? I waited until he began to smell like a barbecue and killed the juice. It would be so much cooler if I just walked out, but that would be stupid. What if he survived? You never know.

After a few minutes, I checked on him again, to make sure. Derek was dead as a doornail—serves him right.

I pulled out my phone and called the Cleaners, they agreed to come to the scene, and sanitize the place. However, our conversation did not end there.

“Since I am going to have a busy night, I would like to reserve at least two additional cleaning crews.”

“Mr. Novus, you are quickly becoming one of our most valued customers; they will be waiting for your call.” The pleasant telephone operator said. The amount of politeness in her voice said that she probably worked on commission.

“I was wondering; do you give any quantity discounts?” I asked, hoping for a deal.

For some reason that made her laugh out loud, breaking that professional manner for a few seconds. And no, there was no discount; you pay per body and the size of the premises that need to be cleaned. But she was happy for extra work; it would seem business was getting slow for them too, and I always paid my bills on time.

The problem was that I felt… that barely controlled rage rising to the surface. I managed to suppress it somehow lately, but that didn’t mean that it was gone. An ocean of it was stirring up inside me and the only way it would be sated were great quantities of my enemies’ blood. That would be a good description of my feelings, even if the most bloodthirsty parts felt a bit alien to me. Still, the things Derek disclosed managed to activate most of my violence triggers, and that was not a good thing.

Zain and The Alphas were monsters, in every sense of that word; and I was in a mood to kill some monsters tonight.

Pity about the discount; what I planned to do before the morning would cost me a pretty penny.