IA: Invincible Assassin Read online

  “What’s your name?” I blurt out. I know she’s too old for me, but for the first time, I feel like I’m officially in love.

  “I go by Stripe.”

  We all run out of words, but a connection is made. And I think, for the first time, there’s hope for these streets. There’s hope for the Exclave.

  Stripe advises Naz to give it a few weeks and by then whatever is left of the Incubus Apostles will be confident the streets are safe for them to wreak havoc on again. Naz, Skinny, and I go our separate ways when we leave Major General. My ride back to Coach’s house on the Helix is one in deep thought.

  This time it’s me who contacts Naz. I talk him into meeting me at Patriot’s, at which time I try to convince him it’s over. I get the sense that his frustration will push him over the edge, his frustration that this whole quest has been for naught. He maintains that he understands and that this final stand—this symbolic extermination of the Incubus Apostles—is all he’s looking for. I can only take him at his word, something he’s been true to since I’ve known him.

  We sit at my favorite table next to the window. The sun has set, but it’s still light outside, and the streets are pretty empty. We pick over what’s left of our traditional cheeseburger combos. My fingers wrap around my coffee cup.

  “I’ve been thinking about Stripe,” I say.

  “I bet you have,” he jokes.

  “I’m serious; I’ve been thinking about what she said.”

  He nods. I suspect he’s been thinking, too.

  “You know, the things we want for this city, for Marshal Park, it’s up to us; the calvary isn’t coming.”

  “Meri used to say when she got successful one day and left the Exclave, she would come back and make a difference in a big way.” The streets outside the coffee shop hold Naz’s gaze.

  I mentally grimace at his mention of Meri. It’s something he hasn’t done since this quest started without a shroud of darkness surrounding him. But this time a light emanates from his eyes, and I look to capitalize on his words.

  “When the Incubus Apostles are all gone, it’ll be some other gang to take their place … like the Marshal Parkers or something.”

  He laughs and shakes his head.

  I sip my coffee. “If the good citizens of Marshal Park don’t stand up and take what’s rightfully theirs, then the bad ones will stake their claim here again and lay waste to what we hold sacred.”

  He doesn’t respond. But something I said pulls his attention back inside.

  “You disagree?” I ask.

  “No, it’s not that. I was just thinking about Stripe again.”

  “She was amazing, wasn’t she?”

  “She knew I was lying.”

  “OK. So. You’re the worst liar in Marshal Park. Everybody knows that.”

  “True story. But, it’s more than that.”

  I don’t know what he means, but it looks like another one of those mystical things about him I don’t quite understand. So, I don’t press.

  “Never mind.” He shakes it off. “Anyway, Stripe is too old for you.”

  “I don’t know. How old do you think she is?”

  “Hmmm … at least eighteen, nineteen.”

  “That sounds about right. You didn’t do your mind thing and find out?”

  “I was a little busy.” He laughs.

  A young couple walks by holding hands, clearly in love, and I can tell they catch Naz’s attention. Somewhere down there D is brewing, but he would never admit that. Three unsavory-looking characters pass by. Two of them give each other high fives while the other reaches in his jacket, clearly focused on the couple in front of them. There’s no doubt in my mind they’re up to no good.

  “Did you see that?” I ask.

  He nods, puts a twenty-dollar bill on the table, and says, “Let’s go.”

  We leave Patriot’s and follow the three lowlifes who are apparently in pursuit of the young couple. We keep our distance, not wanting to make any false assumptions or jump the gun. The three punks converge on the lovebirds, and sure enough, one of them calls the young man and asks him if he’d mind sharing his treasure with them. I almost lose it right then and there, hoping it’s just a sick joke. I should be so lucky. Ironically, two of them wear army jackets and boots, and I immediately think of the General and bristle—the nerve!

  The young man stands his ground and asks the punk to apologize to his girlfriend. I like his spunkiness, his courage, but he’s just barked up the wrong tree. The three miscreants immediately laugh and close ranks on the couple. The two in the army jackets grab the man and drag him between two buildings, probably down an alleyway. Naz instinctively sprints in the opposite direction. I’m guessing … hoping he’ll double back around the block so he can surprise them from behind. The lady’s scream is muffled when the third man covers her mouth and drags her in behind her boyfriend. When Naz comes from the other way, this is gonna get ugly.

  When I come around the corner, the third man is already on top of the woman while the two army jackets are holding her boyfriend. They must’ve already hit him a few times because the previous fight in him is gone. He sags between them, crying and cursing as they hold him and all watch. One of them holds a gun, but I can wait no longer for Naz.

  “Get off her,” I demand.

  My presence causes the boyfriend to struggle again, prompting a vicious punch to his stomach by one of the jackets. I forget my orders and engage. Several things happen at the same time. I see Naz in my peripheral vision. The other army jacket raises his gun and fires it just as it flies out of his hand. I flinch/duck. A bee stings my ear. The woman screams. I dash to take out the pervert on top of her. She’s still screaming when I pull the perv off her and break his nose with the heel of my hand. He grabs his face, probably more from the pain that I inflicted than the blood that flows. When I turn around, Naz has already disabled one of the jackets and is wailing away at the other one, the one who had fired the gun. I turn back to the bloody nose and rush him into the Dumpster behind us.

  “Call the police,” I say to the hysterical woman.

  At first, she doesn’t move. I punch the man I’m holding in the stomach and when he drops his hands, I finish him off with a crescent kick to the face. He holds his face and stomach as he rolls around on the ground, moaning in pain.

  “Hey,” I call to the woman again. “Call the police.”

  It’s as if she finally comes to her senses. She locates her purse, opens it and pulls out a phone. Her boyfriend hugs her with a look of both gratitude and shame. I turn back to Naz. One of the jackets is out cold, and the other is writhing on the ground, holding his arm. Naz is shaking, his fists bloodied. He’s beaten the jacket that shot at me pretty good as he did Ham that day in the burning church house. For the first time in a long time, I see satisfaction in his eyes. I calm him down, and we wait for the police. Either I’m in a time warp, or they show up in record time.

  We walk back to Coach’s together. It’s silent for most of the way until,

  “I’m sorry,” Naz blurts out.

  “Sorry for…”

  “For being late,” he says. “You almost got shot back there because I was careless. I lost Artie and Meri because I was careless.”

  What I thought was a bee sting turned out to be a bullet grazing my ear. So much for no scratches, Dad. “Forget about it,” I say, not prepared for the heart to heart. “Careless is sometimes … human.”

  “Still, it won’t happen again.”

  Not knowing what else to say, I concede. “Apology accepted.” We shake hands and walk the rest of the way in silence.

  As the sun sets, heroes and villains arise.

  Down black streets and round dark corners

  There are negotiations, but no compromise.

  You find yourself looking in the mirror

  Chasing your own self-righteous tale.

  But in the end …

  I twirl the pencil between my frigid fingers. It’s a cold Ap
ril afternoon; a lot colder than it was yesterday, which is no surprise for day-to-day weather changes in the Exclave. I literally pat myself on the back for placing that other tracking device on Naz. He wasn’t gonna wear that jacket forever. But those boots, those boots he got from Mr. Tesla, Naz would wear a hole in the bottom of them before he separated himself from them.

  Today was one of the rare days I didn’t have to sneak out of school to trail Naz. He got started late from that hotel in Aquinas Grove. I’m gonna have to thank him later for his laziness.

  I hang a few blocks back, leaning against the wall of Daniel’s Pizzeria. There’s still enough daylight that I can keep a considerable distance between us and not lose him. It’s a moot point. He knows I’m following him. I always am.

  The pizza delivery boy returns. He still has the pizza he left with and sauce on his chin. “It was a prank; nobody was there,” he says in between chewing and swallowing. He offers me a slice.

  I take it and smash it in three or four bites, leaving some evidence of the saucy sustenance on the pages of my notebook. I sign,

  at the end of another unfinished piece and laugh at the nickname, Wordsmith.

  Naz spends about fifteen minutes in a hardware store I’ve never seen before and then exits with a black plastic bag. What is he up to? We’re on the move again.

  A few blocks over, I watch from a second-floor furniture store across the street and two doors down. Naz looks both ways suspiciously and then slips back inside an abandoned Market Merchant store he had been ducking in and out of. I’ve never seen this building either. Just when you think you know Marshal Park. What, er, who is he waiting on? He must’ve gone in through the back door and found a way to open the front door. He probably did his telekinesis thing and jimmied the doors. I would think the building would still be locked, abandoned or not, maybe even chained shut. But that wouldn’t stop him.

  “Young man, we’re about to close.” A balding man with a comb-over in a nondescript gray suit stands near a bedroom set, arms folded and tapping his foot.

  “Sorry.” I slip past the man and to the stairway, where I jump two steps at a time, almost falling down the stairs in the process, cool points lost for sure. It’s darker now than when I went in, and I pull my night-vision goggles from my backpack and put them on. Military-grade night-vision goggles look like sports goggles, so I don’t look too conspicuous.

  Outside, several gang members come from both directions, at least thirteen of them. How lucky is that? They never make it to the entrance. Instead, they go around to the back of the store, the same direction Naz had gone the first time. I’m on it. This is about to get ugly.

  But they don’t make it to the back; they go around to the side instead. There’s a panel on the ground there I must’ve missed the first time. One thug lifts the panel and holds it open while the others go through one at a time. You would think they had come from a party, the fuss they keep up. Well, it won’t compare to the party they’re about to run into now. I stall a bit, pacing back and forth in front of the store until all the thugs have gone through. I take off my goggles and place them back in my pack, giving my eyes a chance to adjust to the darkness. I don’t want anything slowing me down once I get inside.

  When the coast is clear, I make my way down the side of the building. I examine the panel and discover the entry looks shady at best and that it would not be in my best interest to gain access here. Something about going in that way just doesn’t seem safe. There’s a cord coming out of it, and I kneel down to give it the once-over. It’s hard to make out the color, but with the limited light, I can still tell it’s not black but yellow or maybe orange. And it feels like rubber, no doubt a power cable. I follow the cord, noting it leads to the back of the neighboring building. They’re stealing power.

  I continue on to the back of the building, hoping to get access the way Naz had when a dark figure takes me by surprise. Feeling ambushed, I immediate go into my fighting stance. The figure doesn’t move. He just stands there, barring the entrance. My training has taught me to pay attention to my surroundings and always make note of them. I immediately recognize his clothes, even in the moonlight, and he still wears the scarf around his face, concealing everything but his eyes. The wool hat he wears barely contains his hair underneath. He’s the homeless man I tripped over at the cemetery after Meri’s memorial service. When he moves, I quickly readjust my stance and prepare to attack. I’m a bit confused and not sure what to expect next. He slows his movements to accommodate mine. When he unwraps the scarf from around his face, I’m startled but not surprised. I’ve heard about this, the disguises, but never witnessed it.

  “It’s you,” I say.

  He nods. “You need to get lower in your stance, and your hands are all wrong,” he says calmly.

  I look down at myself, realizing I’m still in my fighting stance. I jump up and extend my hand to him. “Sorry, sir.”

  He takes it, and we shake hands.

  “Forget about it … Mr. Young.”

  He uses an accent I’ve only heard one time before: at the hotel downtown with Naz that day: the doorman.

  “It was you,” I say.

  He nods and then gives a slight bow. “How’s your head?”

  I touch my head where the hickey used to be, having tossed the incident aside as a learning experience. “Fine.” I want to ask him a million questions, all starting with the word, ‘why.’ But there’s no time, and it’s as if he knows that when he steps aside and opens the oversized door, a door Naz must’ve left open for the Apostles—or me.

  I’m still looking at him when I enter, and he leaves me with, “Thank you. I’m watching … always watching.”

  When I walk in, I wonder—who else is watching? And then I release the thought. It can’t help me now. The place looks bigger from the inside, as much of it as I can see in the dark. Twilight seeps in through holes and gaps in the ceiling. I resist reaching for my goggles in favor of my stealthy entry. Muffled chatter of the gang grows louder as they emerge from a trapdoor on the side of the wall. I duck behind one of the many shelves leaning against the crumbling walls. The gang moves to the front of the store while someone turns on the lights. Yes! I can see.

  Only a few lights come on, creating a mosaic of dark and light spaces in the deserted building.

  “Huddle up,” someone says.

  He must be the leader.

  “Steve,” he continues. “Ant … collect all the money, and I mean all of it. All I better find is lint in ya’ll pockets. Unless it’s Midget; he’s allowed to bring his Hot Wheels along.”

  Everyone starts laughing and a little boy, smaller than I’ve ever seen with the gangs, shrugs, clearly offended by the jibe.

  “That’s not my name,” the little boy complains, his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his black jeans as he sways from side to side. There’s something familiar about him.

  “Shut up!” says the leader, impatiently.

  They gradually settle down. Only one of the thugs starts collecting money. The other one must be distracted, looking up in the rafters, nervously with a few of the rest of the Apostles.

  “Steve!” the leader calls out again.

  “Huh?” someone responds. “I thought I heard something. They say he can appear out of nowhere.”

  “Would you quit? He’s a myth, I tell ya. You’re making these guys nervous.”

  “That’s not what I heard, Shed. The AG Killers shut him down, killed him, and he rose from the dead like a dark demon. And they’re not even from Marshal Park,” Steve says, collecting money from some of the other gang members.

  “I heard they found every one of the Ravenous hanging by their ankles.” Another one of the thugs points up into the dark rafters.

  “And all their eyes were missing,” chimes another.

  “Ravenous? Who are they?” asks one of the smaller boys, nervously.

  “Shut up, I said. You guys sound like a bunch of girls.”

  “Are w
e gonna split the money or what?” asks another Apostle.

  Shed walks over and stands directly in front of him, their noses almost touching. “You wanna challenge me, Tommy?”

  The rest of the gang members are too engulfed in Tommy’s challenge to notice Naz emerge from the shadows.

  Tommy stands his ground but only for a moment before he lowers his eyes to the floor and backs away.

  “That’s what I thought,” says Shed, nodding. “Anybody else?” He stands with a wad of money in his hand, his eyes daring anyone else to make a move. Then, he turns his attention back to the money he holds.

  “I’ll take that challenge.” Naz had snuck up on the gang like a phantom and now stands within striking distance only several feet away.

  “It’s him,” says one of the boys, pointing to Naz and then one of the walls.

  Apparently, Naz had spray-painted something on it, the reason for the hardware store excursion. He had defaced the gang’s graffiti, Incubus Apostles, by spray-painting the words Invincible Assassin crudely over it. Red paint still runs down the wall giving the impression of dripping blood.

  Naz bends down to tie his shoe, something I’ve seen him do before, signaling he is about to attack. It’s the reverse of telling someone their shoelace is untied to get them to look down as a distraction. I flex my head side to side and loosen my neck, preparing for what is to come. Observe! Discourage! Report!

  Everyone turns around in horror to see Naz kneeling, his head down, tending to his unlaced shoe.

  The leader stands frozen, probably debating what his next move should be, his course of action. He looks around as if someone else might also be here. “H-Hey … you.” He looks at the wall and then back at Naz.

  Naz doesn’t respond. No surprise there. He’s not much on words.

  “Y-You gonna pay for that.” Shed looks over one shoulder and then the other. He stuffs the wad of money in his pocket.

  All but one of the Apostles moves slowly behind Shed. The small boy he had referred to as Midget remains. He hurries over to Naz and says something meant only for Naz’s ears.