Shrouds of Darkness
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Authors: Brock Deskins
Shrouds of Darkness
By
Brock E. Deskins
Copyright ©2011 by Brock E. Deskins
ISBN: 978-1-4657-0431-3
Cover Illustration Copyright © 2011
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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
To my readers
Thank you for your outstanding support.
CHAPTER
ONE
Martin Goldstein, accountant to several of New York’s less savory inhabitants, exits his Brooklyn office. Marty hesitates in the shadowy doorway of the old brick building before shrugging his narrow shoulders and stepping out into the dark, nearly abandoned street.
A light spring rain is falling, quickly wetting his beige trench coat and misting his round, wire-framed glasses. The mousey, fortyish-looking accountant looks left and right, hoping to spy a cab but is not surprised when none enters his view.
This was not a neighborhood where the cabs willingly run at night. It is late, well past normal business hours, but tax time is nearing and he has several important and dangerous clients that will not look kindly upon a late return or any errors that might gain the attention of the IRS.
His wife is waiting patiently at home, keeping dinner warm for his eventual return. It is not a far walk and it will likely be much quicker than waiting for a cab. Even if he called for one, the driver will likely find any excuse to delay picking up the fare. There are many other fares in the city in far better locations than this.
The nondescript accountant wipes his spectacles on a clean handkerchief and peers into the darkness through squinted eyes. He scans the area around the few working lamp poles and sees only an occasional vagrant.
Marty has lived here all his life and most people that are willing to cause another harm know that Marty is a protected man. Dropping the name of one of his clients is a powerful deterrent for all but the most ignorant or desperate of criminals. Marty is a naturally nervous man however, and even this knowledge does little to take the edge from his anxiety.
With a final sigh of resignation, Marty steps off the curb and strides briskly into the night-shrouded canyon of multi-storied buildings.
He knows it is foolish for any but the most apathetic homeless with nothing to steal or the most hardened of gutter scum to traverse the dark streets of this neighborhood. Nevertheless, he takes a measure of confidence in his position as accountant to the mob and his own knowledge of the streets to see him home safely where his wife actually waits for his return with eagerness.
His mind drifts to his wife, Beverley. Tall and fair-haired, he thinks of how she is far too smart and beautiful for him. Women of that quality rarely see the kind and gentle man that lay beneath the pathetically scrawny, intellectual exterior of men like Marty. Nevertheless, she does and has given him two wonderful children, grown now, and twenty-nine years of absolutely blissful marriage.
Marty’s street sense snaps him out of his reverie. A furtive glance over his shoulder reveals two men shadowing his movements. They are walking swiftly towards him, rapidly closing the distance that separates them. The accountant’s heart rate doubles in an instant.
Marty knows this bodes ill for him. The thugs have marked him and his wallet—and more importantly—life may be in dire jeopardy if these miscreants are very stupid or poorly informed. He immediately breaks into a run, skirting the debris that litters the sidewalks with a grace that belies his apparent lack of physical prowess.
All he needs to do is make it another block and a half without being caught and he will exit the concealing confines of the concrete chasms and emerge onto the busier streets of the city.
Marty redoubles his efforts as he spies what he prays will offer some measure of sanctuary in the glow of the streetlight only a hundred feet ahead.
His oxford shoes slide on the rain-slicked asphalt as another figure suddenly steps out of the shadows and into the light directly ahead of him. Marty whips his head about, searching for another path of egress. His pursuers are nearly upon him and the new figure is now advancing with malicious intent.
His voice cracks as he shouts in desperation, “I am a protected man! Very dangerous and powerful men will come after you if you hurt me!”
The man that is quickly advancing from the end of the street begins to laugh. “Oh we know who you are, Marty.”
Oh God! This isn’t a mugging, it’s a hit!
Martin realizes as a fresh wave of terror courses through his body.
His options are extremely limited. He darts down the only path available. Unfortunately, it takes him down an even narrower and darker alley. Having lived in this very neighborhood for nearly fifty years, Marty knows the layout of the streets and alleys as well as anyone. This alley empties out onto a wider avenue that he can then take to the busier street that the new assailant denied him.
Unfortunately, Marty is unaware of the construction on one of the towering buildings near the end of the alley. A ten-foot chain link fence blocks his only route of escape. Martin spins around as pounding footsteps close in on him from behind.
The footsteps slow as they near and the men begin to laugh as they stalk towards the feeble accountant now hunched down in a squat with his face buried in his hands, pathetically whimpering for divine intervention.
“Oh, God, no! Please, God, no, don’t let this happen,” Martin chants a desperate mantra.
His pleading amuses the assassins immensely. They take great pleasure in his stark terror, laughing as if they share the greatest of jokes as they leisurely advance on the cowering man.
Had the petty thugs-turned–killers known the true reason for Marty’s desperate pleas they would have found absolute terror instead of malicious joy. Marty is not praying for his own safety and survival. He is praying for theirs.
A loud popping, as if someone were wringing bubble-wrap in their hands, sounds out over the chorus of laughter as the frail-looking accountant’s body begins to twist and contort. His pleas for salvation change to pain-induced grunts before becoming an ominously deep rumble of uncontrolled fury and power.
The transformation is so swift that the lead thug barely has time to recognize the change that has come over what is supposed to be their helpless prey. The gang-banger’s death is so swift that the source of his demise never has time to register in his brain.
A lunge and single swipe of the incredibly powerful, fur-covered paw that just a moment ago had been the dexterous digits of a seemingly innocuous accountant, takes the head from the attempted murderer’s shoulders. The power of the blow hits with such force that the decapitated cranium strikes the brick wall of the building with enough force to shatter most of the bones that encase the pathetically weak brain.
The second man has just enough time to register the four-legged monster that stands before him and recognize the death promised in the creature’s eyes before the powerful, extending jaws of the werewolf tears out his throat. The only sound that manages to escape the doomed man is the wet gurgling of blood-inundated air that leaves his lungs for the final time.
The third assailant has long been known as a man fleet of foot and actions by those that know him. Rarely caught by surprise, he turns and runs back down the alley in the direction from which he came the instant he sees the inhuman creature leap onto the leader of what had been their small gang. He does not even see his other friend die as he races towards what he prays will be the safety of the populated streets that lay only a few hundred feet away.
Though the alley is less than a hundred feet long, he fails to reach even the midway point before something swift and heavy strikes him in the back with the force of a speeding automobile and bears him to the ground.
The long canines that sprout from the inhumanly powerful jaws of the werewolf sink deeply into the flesh of his neck and crush the bones of the thug. A quick whipping of the beast’s powerful jaws removes the dead man’s head with no more effort than a child popping off the top of an immature dandelion.
The werewolf is furious with the men that have forced it to kill and takes out all of its rage upon their corpses. The creature that had once been Martin the accountant raises its muzzle to the dreary, drizzling sky and releases a howl of rage, sorrow, and uncontrolled primal instincts.
Like a fierce but patient jaguar, I crouch on my chosen ambush point, scanning the city around and below me with eyes that have no problem piercing even the deepest shadows. I patiently wait for my prey to present itself.
My perch is no tree limb or towering rock but the ledge of a building so narrow even the pigeons choose better spots to roost. Couple the incredibly narrow outcrop with the constant, drizzling rain, and the twelve-story drop to the unyielding concrete below, one might think me suicidal.