The boss knew by the steady grasp the intruder had on his gun, there was no room for a quick trick of the hand beneath the cover to his desk. Under which supplied not only a panic switch blended to the shade of the wood but partnered with a .45 magnum, vintage in style, having been acquired by an old contact once a part of the police force. Now it belonged to him, never fired its entire life, with no purpose to do so. It just so happened to be this day that the man needed to use it, if he could even cast his hand far enough to reach the position.
An inhale silenced the boss's plan for retaliation. It was like his brain merely shut off at the level of command sparked in the tone of this person. "Stay still… Absolutely still…
Conjure the image of remaining as a fetus, barely formed, at most five weeks since conception. Imagine that inability of movement, hold it in the forefront of your mind as you stand here. You do not move because you cannot move..."
A sly wisp of breath blew past the boss's left ear uprooting goosebumps while raising the hairs on his forearms. However, he could not respond to this indecent behavior, for he was a fetus. He must remain a fetus or the response could come from the end of that barrel instead of the intruder's lips. Of which, the man blended by black exposing little else except the glare of red death was surmised to be a professional by the boss. Lack of knowledge flooded him to the deepest portions of worry a mind could possess.
Someone had indeed gotten past his safeguards. Someone was ballsy enough to send this fool here disrupting the hierarchy in his operations. Now, someone potentially meant to kill him.
The boss cast his view over the window ledge discovering not a lick of a stairway nor rope. This person climbed the remaining floors with little else besides his hands and feet. Finally, that raw determination set in a nauseous feeling he had not experienced in so long. When confronted by devastating willpower a person could do little else other than confront or kneel before it. The man knelt, just as he did as a child, then a cop, onto a burglar, and now a leader.
Never would he stop kneeling.
Stuttering through his drool, the boss held a plea burgeoning in his throat, "I-I-I-I-
"You!" The hammer on the gun snapped back, readying itself to blast off. "Are not human. You are just some demon…" The intruder spoke harshly yet it was a disturbing tone due to its lack of emotion. If the boss knew better, he would have guessed the intruder to be a spectacularly disguised robot controlled by an operator of intriguing intellect. "However, even demons gain fear at the cocking of a gun. So, I only need you to answer my questions, then your life can be spared."
Without even needing a nudge from him, the boss nodded his head, frantically, as if waving off spirits threatening to consume his soul. It was an offer so gracious that he did not refuse.
'My life in place of some information, well fuck! Why didn't he just say so? Fucker could've just asked.'
"About two months back, you were told by someone, possibly paid, to kidnap a freshman student from Petell Academy. He was an Evolved."
A cringe of confusion rattled the man at the reminder of such a disgraceful deal corroborated between him and another. "This all just has to do with that shitty job, are you fucking kidding me bro?" The boss couldn't help blurting out his thoughts. It was the same deal again and again. Why did this one have to derail everything so perfectly? "Swear all ya fucks care about be them kiddies. Fucking bastards. What? You wanna bone 'em?"
The man felt possessed by the singularity of his one-track mind conjoined to a flabbering mouthpiece. In any given situation he would dare not speak so brashly with his life on the line, yet the boss wasn't a keen individual. Thus, when he felt the tip of the intruder's gun brush aside the hair to his cranium, resting its weighted end in a flap of loose skin to the back of his neck, it was then he realized the burden in his voice.
A putrid taste wound about his frozen body. Thus, a mist coveted around the boss' sight plaguing his view by a perpetual crimson melded by arms and faces skeletal in their looks. He swore the mist clawed at his holes, waiting to enter. They sought to sap the soul from his heart devouring its innards to be digested in a place beneath Hell.
This intruder was an Evolved.
"I-I-I misspoke!" His voice hitched to a higher pitch in its thorough assuasive speech to rectify the prior misdeed. Yet, all he had done was expose the machinations of his fear ever further to the one that dangled his life by a tether. "I-I- We-" he gulped on the buildup of saliva buried deep in his throat hoping against the rising plume to curry favor, "Yes. I made that deal."
The gun maintained its place but did not dig so hard, its message sent. "I don't know who paid us."
"How?"
"Whoever it was, sent a butler, fuck! Some old geezer, along with two armed shits. Looked pretty legit and shit. Even then they wore masks."
"Why'd you take something so suspicious. Armed men show up demanding you to kidnap someone, you just take it?"
"Course not, dick!" The boss's voice rumbled smoothly into a squeak as the glare beyond the intruder's balaclava silenced the protest. "Gonna throw it away, fuck 'em richies, but… that money… holy crap… it was a lot of money." Reminiscing on the cash lit the man's eyes with a fire almost dripping from his sockets.
'Such greed.'
Reaffirming the man to the present, the intruder stabbed his hand deep between the third and fourth ribs on his left side. Not enough pressure which would crack anything, but it was measured to apply the right amount ensuring to provoke a sharp, growing discomfort. The boss yelped out in a mixture of surprise as well as pain. When wishing to protest he was granted a reminder by the aura playing his skin into goosebumps.
"Next, you didn't follow the plan. You never came back with the kid. What happened?"
Pronounced sweat boiled down the bridge of the boss's nose. This might be the end of his life. The next few words would spell his defeat to death leaving little for the vultures to peck off his corpse. Hell, they probably wouldn't give him the honor of having a corpse.
That is…
If he were simply to do nothing.
For the briefest of moments his irises reflected off the digital watch with a rubber band wrapped around his left wrist. Its time stilted at a two second interval creating an unnerving offset ticking which plunged the silence into its tune. Playing the part of a metronome, the boss could warp his actions to a single concisely clear agenda.
Survive. He must survive.
In this rare occurrence of complete control, the boss moved his fingertips, pausing slightly over the face to the watch. It was the briefest of tells to possibly refute the idea. If this intruder noticed, a bullet could likely burrow a home into the back of his skull. But, unbeknownst to the intruder, the boss hid the stroke of his index on the watch's face applying twice a pressure alighting it with an Azul glow. In response, the face then blew into a flurry of green flashes.
Now, there was nothing to hide.
Straightening his back, the boss was back to his old self. One without fear and without worry. He was a god.
"What happened? Hmm… Such a general question. Quite a lot indeed happened." The man waved his hands about bouncing them from one syllable to the next as a pep kicked into his step. "On the day in question, an understanding was made between me and another."
The shouting outside had all but quieted down, leaving a low rumble reverberating off the steel pipes lining the window's ledge. Within this rumble, however, could be spotted the pitter patter belonging to that of the bottom of some pairs of shoes as they accosted the steel steps.
'Why not spoil this bitch a bit?'
"I received an invitation from the Black Queen herself." Hands pressing upon his flabby chest exhilarated them into giving his best showman's puff.
The realization made Kage's lip quiver, "The Black Queen? Wh-what did she want?" The gun relaxed for a brief second, a fact not unnoticed by the boss and wasn't taken advantage of, yet.
"Why yes, I was to harbor a guest to the city with an array of festivities as well as comfort. This guest took that dough making machine away from me, then had to call in some favors to pay that butler folk back." Stepping up to the man from behind, Kage shoved him into the wall, planting the boss' face against a slimy plaster which leaked across it.
'This squalor of disgust.'
He grunted as his leg was pinned against an ill-forgotten drawer that dug deep into the crevice of his knee. Then…
"AUGGGHH!!!" The boss cried as Kage's fingers tore through the fabric of the man's shirt, plunging themselves into the flesh, digging out a fountain of relish. The man continued his seizure induced wails as the tips of Kage's fingers graced the back of his ribs. Eyes crossing then falling away leaving the blood-stricken robe as all that remained. Yet, even in this intense assault, the man did not collapse into unconsciousness, he was very much awake experiencing the event with a single-minded clarity.
"You hear me, don't you?" The fingers scavenged onward.
"YES! YES, I fuCKING HeaR yOU! PLEASE STOP!" The gun had not served as a proper threat to this embarrassment of a human. Pain always did the work, an unimaginable pain which would torment his mind until the end of his miserable life.
How had Kage forgotten?
Hadn't William taught him enough?
The boy's words mimicked the touch of an angel blowing wind to soothe the thoughts of those soon to be dead. "A name, give me a name. Who knows where the boy is?" As the blood marked along the palm of Kage's gloved hand, there was a calming nature to the grip while he came upon carefully stroking the rib to this corpse. It was like a veterinarian analyzing the carcass of a dead dog, giving the pup one last touch before silencing its cries for good. In either situation, it would have to be done with a 'POP'.
Teeth gritted, the boss seethed out a barely audible statement, "I don't know! They threw me away. Told me to get out and not talk about it. It's the truth!" That careful touch now wasn't so careful.
A shriek echoed out the receptacle to this person. So high in its pitch the glass to the window nearly shattered. Kage, ever so smoothly, displaced the position of the man's rib, not snapping it from the tree but bending it slightly to produce a needed response. It did as predicted.
"STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!STOP! STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP!STOP! STOOOOOP!!!" A slight speckle of blood unwound itself as it dribbled out of the man's mouth.
"Did you stop?" The man gave a terrified look. "When those women, those boys, everyone told you to stop, did you? Did you think about the utter pain and despair that reached their essence, tearing away what made them human devolving into beasts bent on survival? You killed their hope, their freedom, their innocence…" Kage dropped the man to the floor. His legs failed him forcing the boss into a kneeling position as the pain wrought havoc across his motor functions.
"You. Are. A. Para-site."
Just as the barrel lifted to end the life of this parasite, a word managed to be squeezed from his lips. "Kandra!" The barrel ceased its rise.
"Kandra Talon! That's 'er name."
"The police chief?" Asked Kage half unconvinced as well as half curious.
"She was one of 'em. I swear on my life. She sat beside the Black Queen and they be gigglin', prolly pussy fucking each other." Contemplating this information, Kage did not release control over his victim. But eventually he decided on the truth of the matter.
"That'll do." He pulled the revolver away walking toward the door. He needed to leave; he was so close to doing something unthinkable. There was a line that he couldn't cross. He had to stay on the other side for as long as possible. He wouldn't be a-
The boss took hold of his desk, raising himself up from the floor. Once at full height he fell back into his leopard patterned seat. Combing a hand through his scattered hair, a greased response fell into the pits of his fingers. Although belabored by great rattling pain, he managed a smile filled with a malicious twist. "Well, it's been a pleasure doing busine-
*BANG!*