Dark Prophecy (2 page)

Maybe this was an acolyte, trying to follow in his master’s creepy footsteps.

But after Dark and his Special Circs team returned to the U.S., there were no more incidents. No forensic-proof suits left behind, no puzzles, no taunts. No unsolved murders that came even close to Sqweegel’s MO.

No more bodies.

No threats.

Nothing even close to the horrors that Sqweegel had perpetrated.

Until . . .

five years later

I

the hanged man

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and
enter the code: hanged.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

 

 

About five minutes into the torture session, Martin Green realized he was going to die.

Green’s body was hanging upside down—one end of a rope tied tight around his right ankle, the other end secured to a light fixture in the ceiling of his own basement. At least, he presumed it was a light fixture. He had his basement finished a few years ago, and there was nothing else up there to secure a rope. And since his assailant had knotted a dirty, oily rag across his eyes, he had no way of visually confirming this.

A light fixture would be good. Maybe his weight would be too much. Maybe he’d snap free. Maybe then he could figure out how to get out of this insane predicament.

At first Green thought it was just a home invasion. Admittedly, he was an ideal target. Single guy, living in a large house. All they had to do was pick up his pattern, then strike. Friends told him he should think about security, considering who Green was and what he did. Green had shrugged it off. He was a behind-the-scenes guy. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the country didn’t even know he existed, and even those who
did
know him had no real understanding of his work. Why would he need a security team? Now that need was abundantly clear.

Green had read enough to know what to do in this situation:

Give the invader what he wants.

“The safe’s in my bedroom,” Green said. “Behind the Chagall. I can give you the combin—”

A rough hand forced open his jaws, shoved a rag in his mouth. A leather belt cut across Green’s cheeks. Little hairs were ripped from the back of his neck as the belt was buckled, then fastened tight. Too tight.

Goddamn it
, Green tried to yell.
I can’t give you what you want if I can’t talk.

All that came out of his mouth was an angry muffle.

As he snorted mucus and cold sweat up his nose, Green realized that maybe whoever was down here with him didn’t want the combination to his safe, or even the fake Chagall that hung in front of it. So what the hell did he want?

Then he heard the
snip-snip-
snipping of scissors—his pant legs being shorn from his body.

And then felt the first cut from the razor, up along the inside of Green’s naked thigh, a hot river of blood trickling down to his crotch.

 

 

Not more than thirty minutes ago, Green had been savoring his last sip of single malt, slapping the American Express Black on the bar top, fishing around in his pocket for the valet stub. Green was proud of himself for pulling the plug now. He had a morning think-tank session in D.C., and he would be opening his eyes at an obscene hour to catch a plane. Better to cut it short now, clock in a few hours of good rest.

The valet pulled up with the Bentley. Green eased himself behind the wheel and gunned it down the street, feeling a pleasant alcoholic blur. Not too much, not too little, either. Just right.

By the time he pulled up to the driveway of his $3.5 million, eight-bedroom house, Green was feeling adequately sleepy. Which was good. He liked having his days unfold just right—the perfect blend of exercise, work, play, food, and drink. Tonight, Green was looking forward to sliding into his thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets and enjoying the pleasant sensation of his mind simply clicking off. Not passing out from exhaustion or booze. Not staying awake because he was too wired from the day’s events, either.

Then Green opened his front door and flicked the light switch . . . and nothing happened. He cursed, then flicked the switch again and again. Still nothing. The power was out. Green took a few steps into his vestibule then froze. Even in the dim light, he could see that someone had yanked open drawers, knocked paintings off the walls, pushed furniture aside.

Green was instantly queasy. Someone—some
stranger
—had been inside his house.

He fought the urge to turn around and flee the premises immediately. He couldn’t be a chickenshit about this—he had to see what had happened, what these sons of bitches had stolen from him.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Just last year Green had installed a wildly expensive security system to prevent just this sort of thing.

He walked over to the wall-mounted security panel. The unit appeared dead—even though it had a dedicated power line. Had the backup battery had been disabled, or malfunctioned? He pressed ENGAGE. Nothing.

Okay, you idiot. Get out.

Get out
now
.

Then Green heard a noise, coming from his kitchen—something like a cabinet door
snicking
shut. There was only one thing worse than being burglarized, Green realized. And that was coming home in the
middle
of a burglary.

Green quickly fished the cell phone out of his jacket pocket and pressed nine with his thumb, taking slow, careful steps back toward the front door when . . .

He froze.

His muscles felt as if they wanted to snap free from his tendons. His joints locked in place. Green opened his mouth to scream, but couldn’t. Even if he were able to make his vocal cords work, his nearest neighbor would be too far away to hear. His eyesight blurred. The entire house seemed to tilt on its axis. Part of his mind screamed
Stop it! Stop it already!
but the thought stayed frozen in his mind, no louder than a whisper.

Green felt himself being pulled to the ground, dragged across the floor toward the cellar door. The world went upside down.

And then he woke up, hanging from his basement ceiling.

 

 

Again, he must have passed out. The last thing he remembered . . . the scissors?

His leg.

Oh God, his leg.

What worried him most was the fact that he couldn’t feel his legs. Either of them. Not the rope cutting into his right ankle, not the fabric of his pants. Nothing.

Something tugged at the belt on his face. The wet rag popped out of his mouth. Green choked for a second, gathered up double lungfuls of oxygen, then screamed. The sound blasting out of his mouth wasn’t so much meant to communicate as it was to sonically assault his torturer. With his limbs bound, what else could he do?

Green screamed again before something flat and hard chopped him in his Adam’s apple. His cry turned into a pained choke.

“Shhh,” a voice said.

Even though he was shivering and couldn’t feel his damn legs, the removal of the ball gag gave Green a ray of hope. Maybe this was just a robber who wanted to put a scare into him.
Well, you know what? It’s working, buddy. I’m absolutely petrified. And even though you cut the living shit out of my leg, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. Take my money. Take whatever you want. Just go.

After he coughed a few times, Green recovered his voice.

“You win—please just let me go. I swear. I won’t tell anybody.”

He tried to sense the location of his assailant. Was he behind him? Green thought he heard the wrinkling of material behind him. But his senses were telling him that someone was standing right in front of him, too. Face to face. He could almost feel hot, strong breath on his face.

“Look, I know important people. I don’t say that as a threat—I mean I can get you what you want.
Whatever
you want. Just talk to me.”

There—movement—behind him. Green tried to twist himself around. Not that he could see anything, but it gave him the smallest glimmer of control of the situation. He may be dangling from his basement ceiling, but at least he could rotate to sort of face his attacker.

Still, he tried to plead his way out of the situation.

“Please. Tell me what I can do to make you happy.”

Instead of a reply, his assailant sprayed something on Green’s face. Instantly, it felt like his face was on fire, ravaging his skin one layer at a time. Green had never felt anything like it, couldn’t even catch his breath to scream.

Then a crinkly bag slipped over his head.

Someone spoke to him. Through the bag it was little more than a whisper, but Green could have sworn he heard the word—
this

—right before he inhaled, and the burning sensation spread to his lungs, which was when Martin Green knew for sure he was about to die.

chapter 1

West Hollywood, California

 

 

Steve Dark snapped awake, rolled out of bed, dropped to the floor.

Landing silently on his fingertips and toes, he stayed frozen in place and listened. Traffic hummed on nearby Sunset. Someone laughed, drunkenly. There was the faint
click-clack
of high heels on concrete. A car horn, muted and distant. Normal L.A. night sounds. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But still . . .

Supporting himself on fingertips and toes, Dark slowly crept through the house, keeping to the shadows, listening intently. The only sounds he could discern were the soft popping of his joints as he moved. Dark recovered his fifteen-round Glock 22 from its concealed space beneath the floorboards, then stood up on the balls of his feet. He slipped off the safety. He always kept a bullet chambered. The initial sweep took about ten minutes and revealed nothing. He checked the windows and doors, one by one. The front door—secured. Window locks—in place. Security system—on. Invisible window and door tape—unbroken. Not a single entry point had been disturbed.

Dark put himself through this routine so often it was almost becoming rote. Which was a problem. He couldn’t let himself become complacent. He should devise another routine. Maybe think up another safeguard.

After slipping on the safety on his Glock, Dark placed it on the couch next to him. Then he opened his laptop and accessed the remote site that stored his video surveillance. Every square foot of his home was covered by pinhole-size, motion-activated cameras. The quality was low-res, but then again, Dark wasn’t shooting precious family moments. He merely wanted to detect movement. Dark tapped the ENTER key, and the remote site began to download video from the past six hours that showed any movement whatsoever. When it finished loading, though, it only showed Dark’s own movements through the house. Nothing else.

So what had he heard?

Just some stray noise from a nightmare?

Dark checked his watch. 3:21 A.M. Early, even for him. He didn’t sleep much, and the loss of two more hours was disappointing. But at least the house was secure.

Wasn’t it?

Dark had thought the same thing five years ago, and a monster had still managed to squirm his way into his living space. It had been a different house, with a much cruder security system, but it shouldn’t have been so easy. Dark had learned the painful lesson: You could never be too careful. Dark had destroyed the monster with his own hands. Hacked away at his adversary until he resembled a pile on a butcher’s table. Watched the pieces burn. Spread the ashes with a metal rake.

Still, the lesson remained: You could never be too careful.

 

 

Dark padded his way to the kitchen and flicked on his electric carafe that heated water in about sixty seconds. A coffee would be good. After that . . . he didn’t know what. Ever since leaving Special Circs, his days had seemed both shapeless and endless. Four months of limbo.

When he left, he told Riggins he had a lot of unfinished business. Namely, reconnecting with his daughter—who almost didn’t recognize her father’s voice on the phone.

But Dark had spent most of the summer installing security in his new home, telling himself he couldn’t possibly bring his daughter here to visit without it being locked down tight, 100 percent secure. That process felt like battling a hydra. Chop off the head of one potential problem, six more seemed to spring up in its place. Dark did nothing but work on the house, check the Internet for murder stories, and try to sleep.

Five years ago he’d killed a monster. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the feeling that another monster was coming after him . . .

So now it was three thirty A.M. and his instant coffee sat cooling in a mug and the sounds of L.A. murmured and there was nothing left to do.

chapter 2