I fear no evil complete.., p.98
I Fear No Evil- Complete Series Omnibus, page 98
part #1 of I Fear No Evil Series
Shay slipped on dark sunglasses. Between her wig, contacts, the glasses, and the putty, none of the witnesses stood a chance of identifying her in a line-up. The only thing she needed to do was make sure there were no electronic recordings that could be harvested for facial recognition algorithms.
She hopped out of the van and tapped the silver bracelet on her wrist. The clock was ticking now that she had a broad-spectrum jammer activated. Her long dark unseasonable coat concealed her tactical harness and belt and still had a stylish flair, unlike the awful gray monstrosities James liked to wear.
The killer made her way toward the massage parlor and pulled a short-range EMP device out of her pocket as she approached the back door. It emitted a loud buzz when she pressed the button, and a quick glance to the side confirmed that nearby traffic lights and street lights were dead. Yet another thing starting a timer.
It didn’t matter. Shay would finish and escape long before any cops showed up. It wasn’t like their response times in this part of town were all that fast. She continued up the street. A few people glanced her way but didn’t pay her much notice. They probably thought she was a prostitute.
She walked into an alley behind the massage parlor. A huge gorilla in an ill-fitting suit and four layers of gold chains around his neck looked at her.
“Who the fuck are you?” the man barked. He took a drag off his cigarette.
Shay sighed. “I was looking for the Phoenix Gang.”
“And why the fuck are you doing that?”
“I heard there were looking for girls. You know, working girls.”
A grin split the man’s face and he dropped his cigarette to the ground, stubbing it out with his toe. “Oh, that shit’s different.” He looked her up and down with a frown. “I can’t see nothing with your glasses and that coat. Come over here and show me what you’ve got. Don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”
“You with the Phoenix Gang?”
The gorilla nodded. “Yeah.”
“I heard the Phoenix Gang are made up of people who used to be in other gangs.”
He chuckled. “Why do you care, bitch?” He marched over to her. “I wasn’t in a gang. I worked security for this sweet-ass arms dealer. That shit was the easiest money ever, but then that fucker with the messed-up face, Brownstone, ruined it all. Put me in the hospital and sent my boss to prison.”
Shay stuck out her lip and reached inside her jacket. “Sounds tough.”
“Yeah. It was, but now I got a new crew.” He licked his lips. “And it comes with fringe benefits.”
Shay’s knife was in his throat in a flash. He tried to speak, but only a gurgle and blood came out. She yanked her knife back and kicked him to the ground, the dark alley hiding his body.
She wiped the knife on his suit and sheathed it before pulling out her 9mm and throwing open the back door.
Red emergency lighting provided eerie illumination inside the building. A backup generator, probably. It saved her the trouble of using a wrist light or the light atop her SMG.
“Yo, Phil,” someone called from a nearby hallway. “Where the fuck are you? You were supposed to be done smoking fifteen minutes ago, you lazy fuck.”
Another suited thug stepped into the hallway. Shay put a bullet in his head before he could even register what he was thinking. The gun’s report echoed in the hallway.
She’d thought about bringing the magical silencer she’d acquired recently and going room to room, but had decided against it. She wanted the Phoenix Gang to be spooked and know someone was here to kill them.
Several other doors opened, and a few scantily dressed women peeked out.
“If you’re a woman, get the fuck out,” Shay yelled.
The women darted the other way, some screaming.
Shay kept her gun up, waiting for men to emerge from the rooms. A confused-looking older man emerged from one of the rooms with his pants around his ankles.
“Is she coming back? I already paid!”
Shay narrowed her eyes and waved her guns. “Get the fuck out, asshole.”
He hiked up his pants and hurried after the women.
A few other men emerged and rushed the opposite way once they saw Shay’s guns. All of them looked like disgruntled or frightened customers.
Two suited goons wearing chains rounded the corner. Shay’s gun spat death, and both men went down. She kicked in each door to ensure they were empty. She could barely make out the blood splatter at the end of the hall in the low red emergency lighting.
Shay stopped where the hallway turned and listened. Her experience in England reminded her of the importance of relying on her other senses.
“The bitches said it’s some chick,” someone whispered.
“A chick? Fuck, you think it’s the mother of that one bitch? She said she’d come for us.”
“Nah, them bitches probably just got spooked. It’s probably those triad assholes or the Demon Generals. We’ll show them. We just wait here until they turn the corner, and we’ll fucking fill them with lead.”
Shay grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it.
“What the fuck? Grenade!”
The men managed to scream just before the grenade exploded. Shay turned the corner and frowned. One of them was still alive. She pulled a knife and slit his throat before continuing through the blasted and blood-splattered abattoir that had once been a hallway with three men in it.
Shay holstered her 9mm and reached under her jacket to pull out the submachine gun. She readied the weapon and continued down the hallway, her heart rate steady. No fear. No concern. Just cold-blooded delivery of death.
The hallway led to another hallway with office doors on each side.
Everyone innocent is long gone. This should make shit easy.
Another thug barreled out of one of the doors and squeezed off a round. The bullet zipped by Shay’s head. She put a burst into his chest, and he fell with a yell.
You almost had me there, asshole, but you have to hit me on the first try.
She readied another grenade and tossed it at an angle into the open room. Two men dashed out a second later, only to fall to the hail of bullets from her SMG.
At the next room, Shay didn’t even bother to open the door. She held the trigger down and sprayed bullets from her gun until it clicked empty. A quick mag ejection and reload later, she kicked open the door to find two dead gangsters.
You don’t win battles of attrition by hiding, assholes.
She snorted. They were a gang made up of survivors of defeated gangs. Maybe these were all the men who knew when to run and hide. If that were true, they should have run from LA and hidden as far away as possible.
The hallway ended in a wide lounge, complete with a full bar. The long shadows and red light gave the room a sinister atmosphere. Several tables had been overturned.
Shay didn’t enter. Instead, she stood a few feet back in the hallway and listened. There was heavy breathing and hurried murmurs inside.
She ducked and threw a grenade behind a patch of overturned tables. Men leapt and ran away, shouting. Others popped up from behind the bar, the muzzle flashes of their pistols and shotguns cutting through the crimson darkness.
Shay rushed to the side, spitting bullets out as her grenades exploded. Glass shards, drywall, and wood exploded around her. A bullet slammed into her leg, and she dropped with a hiss.
Gotta finish me, assholes.
She leapt for a table, continuing to hold the trigger down and nailing several of the gang members. Bullets perforated the top and middle of the table, and she took a moment to send her last grenade over it.
Should have brought a flash-bang or two. That’s the problem with not purposely killing people all the time. You get rusty.
Shay ripped a healing potion from her pouch and downed it. She had one more, but so far the Phoenix Gang had mostly proven they were good at dying. No wonder they’d placed a hit on James instead of going after him themselves.
A second later when the grenade exploded, she took advantage of the chaos and rolled behind another table. Her leg had already started to heal.
Shay repaid the shouts of a charging man with a shot between the eyes. She nailed another man through the table, then ducked behind the bar.
Several soft moans, but no more hurried whispering. Shay counted, then popped up, aiming down at the bar. The two surprised gangsters trying to hide there didn’t even get their guns up before she finished them.
The front doors exploded in a shower of glass as four men with assault rifles opened fire. Shay rushed to the side of the room in a zig-zag motion, returning fire. Blood blossomed from the chests of the men as they fell to the ground.
A Japanese man in a finely-tailored suit stepped around the corner, the glass of the shattered door crunching underneath his polished shoes. Unlike almost every other gangster she’d run into he sported no chains, and he wore a scabbard with a wakizashi. The man was obviously ex-Harriken.
The man pulled up a sleeve to reveal a glowing spider tattoo.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Shay asked.
“Do you know who I am?” The man rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. It almost made Shay wish she’d brought the tachi. There would have been some poetry in killing a former Harriken with the enchanted Japanese sword.
“Tsuchigumo, the leader of this pack of trash.” Shay ejected her mag and reloaded. He obviously wasn’t going to try to shoot her for whatever reason. “You’re obviously ex-Harriken.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re very powerful. I could use you.”
“You don’t care that I just slaughtered your men? Kind of an asshole, aren’t you?”
“The weak perish. The strong survive. Such is nature. Such is civilization. The Harriken were weak, and now they are gone.” Tsuchigumo shrugged. “I would ask why you’ve done what you’ve done, though.”
“Because you assholes can’t learn a lesson. All your little bullet sponges are here because Brownstone fucked up their gangs, so what do you do? You try to pick a fight with him again by putting a hit out on him.” Shay shook her head. “I don’t get it. If the strong survive, why hate on Brownstone?”
“Only a fool leaves a sword pointed at his heart. Brownstone must die for that reason alone.”
Two other gangsters stepped around the corner behind their leader. One carried a sword and looked Japanese. Shay assumed he was another ex-Harriken. The other was a huge white man with chains. She couldn’t begin to guess what pissant gang or group he came from.
Both held guns but kept them pointed down. Unlike their leader, barely-contained panic infected their faces as they surveyed the scene before them: mangled corpses and dying men, walls, floors, and ceiling painted with blood.
Shay kept her attention on the men in front of her, near-complete calm settling over her and her heart beating steadily. She was doing what she needed to do to protect her man.
She lifted her gun. “It didn’t have to be this way. All you had to do was leave well enough alone.”
“Leave this bitch to me,” Tsuchigumo ordered. He drew his sword.
Shay sighed and lowered her SMG to her side.
“You recognize the futility of fighting me?”
“I’m guessing your little glowing tattoo is some sort of protective magic.” Shay reached into her jacket and pulled out an adamantine knife. She pulled back her arm. The knives weren’t the best for throwing, but they were balanced well enough.
“You think a knife will work when a gun does—”
Tsuchigumo tumbled to the ground, the knife sticking through his eye.
Shay snapped up her SMG and put a round into the gun arms of the remaining two men. They collapsed to their knees, grimacing in pain. She stepped slowly toward them, stopping to lean over and yank her knife out of the dead leader’s eye. She wiped the blood off on his jacket before sheathing it.
“Oh, fuck,” one of the survivors cried. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.”
One deliberate step followed another. The crunch of the glass marking her every step as she approached the men, her gun at the ready.
“Do you know why you’re not dead yet?” Shay asked, her voice a near-monotone.
The men both shook their heads.
“Because I need you to answer a few questions. First question, assholes, I’m guessing there are more men in your little gang?”
They both nodded.
“About twenty more guys,” the second survivor offered. He gritted his teeth, obviously in pain from his gunshot wound.
“Then I guess I need the two of you alive to spread the word, because someone needs to know what happened here. Congrats. I know James Brownstone likes to send messages, so go tell the world what happened here. Learn the fucking lesson the Harriken and so many other gangs didn’t learn. If you fuck with Brownstone, you die.” Shay leaned forward and offered the men a cold grin. “If you even look at him the wrong way, you die. The only reason anyone is dead today is that you assholes thought you could put a new hit out on Brownstone. You understand?”
The men both nodded. She lifted her gun, and the second one covered his face before wetting himself.
Pathetic. These assholes thought they had what it takes to take down James?
“Get up,” Shay barked. “And get the fuck out of here. If you know what’s good for you, you and the rest of the gang will pack up and run as far from LA as your little legs will carry you, because next time I have to show up—or he has to—every last one of you fuckers dies.”
The men both managed to stand. Their wounds dripped blood on the floor as they turned and ran out of the building.
Shay let out a long sigh. Sirens sounded in the distance. Time to go.
She shrugged, her heart still as calm as if she were watching the Weather Channel. It had to be done. She would always protect her man’s peace.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day, Shay tapped on the keyboard in the Warehouse Two office, her thoughts returning to the slaughter the night before. Guilt was far from her mind. If anything, despite the calmness during the slaughter, the old excitement from a well-executed killing job threatened to bubble up.
I’m not surprised. I was a killer because I was good at it. Even if I can distance myself from what I did and not enjoy it for the sake of the killing, that part of me is still there, even if I told James the old Shay was dead after we killed the cartel.
Was this really so different, just because I killed people who weren’t a direct threat to me? I’m so full of shit.
Peyton knocked lightly on the door. “Everything okay?”
Shay looked up, blinking. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You’re just…really quiet this morning. Way more than usual. It reminds me of the old days right after you first killed me.”
“The old days?” She snorted. “Whatever. Shut the fuck up.”
Peyton swallowed once and took a deep breath. “I was poking around, and there’s chatter on the dark web about how someone slaughtered a new gang in town last night, the Phoenix Gang. About three-quarters of the gang got killed at a massage parlor they were running.”
“And why the fuck do I care about that? Gangs can all go cut each other’s dicks off for all I care. Less scum to worry about.”
“Just…you know. It’s not exactly like you helping and/or killing a large number of criminals is unprecedented in recent history, between you helping with the Harriken, assassins, and the Nuevo Gulf Cartel. And the last one wasn’t all that long ago.” Peyton shrugged. “From what you told me before, the whole cartel thing was supposed to be kind of turning point. Shay 2.0 and all that. You weren’t out taking care of business, were you? Taking out a few more people for old time’s sake?”
Shay gave him a death glare. Some things Peyton didn’t need to know, for both their sakes. He needed to stop pushing.
He withered under her attention. “Never mind. Sorry I asked. I just forgot for a minute that I was riding the scorpion across the river.”
“Never forget people’s true natures,” Shay muttered. “You’ll live longer that way.” She turned back to the computer.
“Um, there was actually something else I needed to talk to you about.” Peyton winced as Shay snapped her head back his way. “It’s work stuff, not personal.”
“What?” Shay barked.
“Just a weird message I got through one of your contact emails. Someone wants to meet with you, Miss Professor.” Peyton frowned. “You are still a tomb raider, right?”
Shay gave him another death glare.
Peyton threw up a hand. “Okay, okay. No need for that kind of look, just checking. Anyway, the thing is, the guy who wants to meet with you? It’s not about a tomb raiding job.”
“Then why do I give a shit?”
“I would have told him to go away, but he claimed it was government-related and sent some confirmation codes that seem to support that, like high-level top-secret-clearance shit.” Peyton shrugged. “And with all this Project Nephilim and Project Ragnarok stuff, and after what you found out about…”
“James?”
Peyton nodded. “Yeah. Well, the thing is, it’s extra-weird because the guy’s specifically asking to meet with Professor Carson, not Aletheia.”
“Huh?” Shay frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, crap. Sorry, I wasn’t clear. You know I’m filtering most stuff for you these days, but yeah, it’s a request to meet with the professor, not the tomb raider. Nothing in his message suggests he even knows about your tomb raiding activities.”
Shay frowned. “That’s weird. Maybe it’s a trap. Just because he’s acting like he doesn’t know doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“It could be, but I don’t know. It’d be a better plan to lure you out to the middle of nowhere overseas and kill you if that is what he wanted.” Peyton shrugged.
The tomb raider sighed. “Guess I need to go see who this is and what he wants. Where does he want to meet?”
“At a diner in Huntington Park.”
