My Angels Have Demons (Users #1) (6 page)

Carter closed his eyes and let a much needed sleep take him. It was an uneasy sleep, the kind of sleep a soldier got on the front lines when he knew he was surrounded by enemies, the kind of sleep where you left one eye open, when you should have left two.

Chapter Four

Part 3

Part 3

Prologue 3

"So how did that make you feel?" she asked, pulling me from my contemplation.

"How did what make me feel?" She was constantly hitting me with the open ended questions.

"Being back in your old apartment with your druggie friend? Having nowhere else to turn?" She was trying to break me down in some misguided effort to build me back up. What an exercise in futility.

"It didn't feel good, if that's what you're asking." I answered.

My face must have been shown a grim mug, because she backed off the subject. The clock kept ticking. It was running its way past the half hour mark, but we still had time. Time to hit all my fiery nerves. I tapped my foot on the hardwood floor repeatedly, almost uncontrollably, my knee bounced up and down with the nervous beat.

"You know you put yourself in this situation right?" She asked. "If you hadn't gone to buy drugs, you never would have been in the drug den, and you wouldn't have been in a position where you needed to lie to the police."

"I did what I had to do." I told myself more than her, my attempts to justify my actions were falling flat.

I knew it was my fault. I just didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to take responsibility. Same shit, different day.

"You let your compulsion get the better of you. When you're on the drugs your mind is hijacked, but when you're sober you have to make better decisions. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything for you; you really got yourself into a jam on this one, and you need to be personally accountable for the consequences of your poor decision making. Own you mistakes, as well as your victories" she said.

"The worst is yet to come," I said.

Unfortunately for me, we were just getting to the good part, or bad depending on how you look at it.

"I had a feeling you were going to say something like that." She flipped to the next page in her green steno pad and began jotting down some notes; and it drove me crazy to not know what it was.

It always bugged the hell out of me when she wrote something down about me. My obsessive compulsive disorder would not allow for anything less. I wanted to rip the notebook out of her hand, lift it in front of her face, and set it aflame with my powers. But of course that would lead to an immediate removal, and probably a permanent ban, from her office, and I needed my meds. So, I sat there in a fume, and allowed her to keep scribbling her secret evaluations of my psyche.

"It does get worse, and I regret it. I have a lot of regrets. Regret is one of the overriding feelings in my life, more than sadness, more than happiness, there's always regret."

It ate at me. It always did. It was a feeling akin to what prisoners must feel like after having spent years behind bars, their life wasted. There was an almost constant overriding sensation that I needed to make up for lost time. That I had spent nearly a decade of my life in a coma. Now freed from that coma, I was hurrying to live my life in fast forward, constantly playing catch up. It hurt just to think about it.

"Tell me what happened next."

"Next? Well I knew the cartel would be looking for me, and I didn't want Darnell to get dragged into my problems, so instead I dragged someone else into it; someone more competent. Looking back on it, I can see that was a shitty thing to do, but what choice did I have? I was in deep, and if the All Americans wouldn't offer their help maybe I could persuade them."

"And how did you do that?"

"Well it didn't exactly go as planned," I said. It never does.

#

Chapter 5

Carter awoke to the stank of a dirty bong and the half empty beer cans that littered the room. Strewn about the tops of the coffee table, window sills, and even the floor were empty food wrappers, cigarette butts, and old boxes of pizza. He didn't want to spend even a minute longer than he had to in the filthy apartment. His place had been a shabby dump, but this place was an absolute hell hole.

He made his way into the bedroom, climbed over a mountain of dirty laundry, and over to the dresser along the far wall. Inside he found a baggy pair of jeans with a hole in the knees and a striped black and green sweater that he promptly traded out for his dirty sweats. He snatched a black ball cap off a hook behind the door as he moved back to the living room. Carter looked around at the place one last time before he turned for the front door.

Anxiety hit him hard as he reached for the door's handle and remembered that he had left all his meds back in his apartment. It was going to make for an interesting day to say the least, especially with the cartel looking for him. He knew they would be waiting for him out beyond the safety of the front door, but the way he saw it, he had two choices, run or fight. But where would he go if he decided to run. He had never lived anywhere else and didn't know anyone outside the city, nowhere that wasn't within the cartels reach anyway.

That left only to fight, but he couldn't fight them alone, and he couldn't count on Darnell and whatever other junkies he could muster to defend him. There was really only one person who could help him, and he had a plan on just how he might get her involved. He doubled back to the living room and searched for the phone amongst the sea of garbage. He found it underneath a crumpled up newspaper. Lifting the receiver, he stared at the numbers for a moment, took a deep breath as he contemplated hanging up the phone, before finally deciding there was no other way. He punched in the numbers and waited as the phone rang on the other end. After a few rings he heard someone pick up.

"Hello," she said.

"Fox? Is that you?" he asked, "I need to ask you a favor."

*****

She crept along the dark wall. Dressed in all black, she was a shadow against a pitch colored wall, unseen and undetectable. Her padded foot falls were silent. The only reason he knew she was there was he had invited her. More like begged, but he had to get her here somehow.

Carter stepped out from behind a column and called out to her.

"Fox," he said.

She emerged from the shadows, stepping into the light that shown through a nearby broken window. Fox was wearing a skin tight black jumpsuit that formed to her every movement as she approached. Slung loosely around her waist was a belt that favored one hip. Straps ran across her chest, up, and over her shoulders to a dual pair of swords hanging from her back. It was the kind of getup that would make a fan boy cry with boner inducing joy.

"Now what was so important you couldn't tell me over the phone? Why did you bring me to this place?" she asked.

She leaned heavily to one side, her posture was one of annoyance more than anger, but she shot down into a crouch as shattering glass echoed throughout the abandoned warehouse.

"That's why," Carter said.

Canisters filled with some type of gas clanked off the floor all around them as they were thrown through the broken windows. White clouds billowed from within the cans, filling the room with a thick haze.

"You bastard," she said, but she had a hint of a smile on her face as she handed him a tiny respirator before popping one in her mouth as well. Right behind the gas, men in all black military covert ops style jumpsuits, crashed through what was left of the broken windows and rolled onto the floor. Without Fox there, the gas would have been a good idea, but she was always prepared with gadgets for any situation. Worse still for the would be assassins, it clouded the room, providing cover for the supreme hunter.

She disappeared into the smoke, leaving Carter standing out in the open. A bullet whizzed past his face, and he dove back behind the stone column and ducked down to his knees. As he did two more bullets hit the pillar, sending chunks of concrete splattering in all directions. A yell to the side followed by a thump alerted him to Fox's presence as she took down one of the assassins. He caught a glimpse of her flipping through the air, landing on her hands, somersaulting back into the cloud of smoke, and disappearing from view. Shots rang out behind her, but she was too fast. Her movements seemed beyond that of a mere mortal.

More bullets, closer to his side of the column, hit home, and Carter flinched as concrete exploded next to his head. It looked like his brilliant idea was going to get him killed.

"Woah!" he yelled with no need to hide his location.

He looked left and right, there was nowhere to go, no chance to run. They knew where he was, and they were closing in on him. His heart was pounding. A half a day without his medication and the pain was already welling up inside him. He needed to release it, and he knew right where to put it.

A pair of shadows were cast on the wall in front of him, the two assassins were right on the other side of the column, and would soon have their sights aimed at his head. He slid up the column with his back flat against the cracked and broken stone. Then he rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, put his face against the column, and shot both hands straight out. Fire erupted from his palms, unleashing twin infernos of flames, and hitting both men square in the face. With the column obscuring his view, Carter couldn't see the effect of his fire on the men, but he could hear their screams, as the plastic and rubber of their gas masks were melted to their faces.

The loud crack of splintering wood drew the attention of all those left standing. Carter, Fox, and the assassins turned in unison as the door was kicked right off its hinges. Standing in the open portal was an eccentric looking man, tall and thin, with wispy blond hair, and a dark tailored Italian suit; a man Carter recognized well.

"Eric," he said hardly surprised.

Fox was not so accepting of Eric's presence.

"What are you doing here you son of a bitch?"

"Oh baby, don't be like that. You know someone's going to collect, might as well be me," Eric said with a wry smile.

"How much?" she asked. "How much is the bounty on his head?"

"You really want to know?" Eric asked peering down at them from behind a pair of dark sunglasses.

"Yes, how much are they paying you? I know we've never been friends, but neither have we been at odds. Please tell us, what's your price to assassinate an acquaintance?" Carter asked.

Eric strode into the room, his fancy dress shoes clapping across the hard floor. He got within a few feet of Carter before he stopped.

"One million dollars," Eric said accentuating the million just so they were all on the same page. Carters nuts nearly shrank up inside him.

"A million dollars?"

"That's right buddy boy. A cool million." Eric removed his sunglasses, folded them up, and put them into his shirt pocket. "Now what do you say? Should we get down to business?"

"Might as well," Fox said.

She pulled one of the swords from its sheath over her shoulder, and raised it protectively in front of her.

"You and your toys," Eric said. "You really think a blade is going to stop a screamer?"

"Depends on how far up your ass I stick it!" She charged, but Eric need only stretch his mouth wide, and with the power of a thousand unified trumpets, he screamed.

An ungodly chorus of high pitched squealing erupted from within Eric and his super powered lungs. The man's screech would put a banshee to shame. His scream was so powerful the gas in the room was blown back away from Eric like a swift gust of wind had hit it.

Carter was dropped instantly, gripping his ears. He rolled around on the floor in agony. The inside of his skull vibrated and he jabbed his fingers into his ears in a desperate attempt to keep his ear drums from bursting. Fox was rolling around on the floor next to him with blood running out of her ears. Carter reached out to her, but he was just short to grabbing her wrist.

He struggled to focus amid the pain. He worried that the pressure building in his vibrating head may cause his skull to pop like a grape. Through blurred vision, Carter tried to get a bead on Eric's position. Taking a near blind shot, he threw forth a fireball, but Eric's scream was like an invisible shield. The flames hit a wall a few feet from Eric's wide open mouth, and fanned out to the sides, spreading in all directions.

Having spent the last of his energy, Carter collapsed face down on the cold dusty floor.

"Uh oh, don't pass out on me yet buddy," Eric said when he finally stopped screaming. "I've got someone who wants to see you."

From his spot on the floor, all Carter saw was a scuzzy pair of sneakers enter through the door, walk over, and flip him onto his back using the top of his shoe. Carter stared up at the ceiling before Eric appeared over him, followed by a smug faced Darnell.

"Darnell?" he asked, and he could barely hear his own voice.

"How did you think they found you so fast?" Darnell shouted, but it came across to Carter as no more than a whisper.

"Why?"

"Why? Money that's why. I get a nice big fat finders fee. That and you show up on my door after five years and act like nothing happened. You just walk out on me and your friends for some floozy and then expect us to just take you back when she dumps your ass," Darnell said with a smile. "It was so simple. The cartel already contacted me the day before you showed up. All I had to do was get out of the house for a few and the cartel provided the muscle."

"That's where I came in," Eric said.

From the corner of his eye, Carter caught a glimpse of Fox. She was moving again. Her hand was creeping slowly to her fallen sword.

"You're a real piece of work too. You drag Fox into this for, god knows why. Some friend you are," Darnell said.